AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It was a silver Jaguar XJ8.
“Nice wheels, Abuela,” Charley said. “New, huh?”
“Fernando sent a Mercedes out here,” she said. “A twelve-cylinder one. Black. I made him take it back. I felt like a Mafia gangster. This one I can drive myself.”
“Ah, the truth about how Maria came into her Mafia mobile!”
“Well, it just made sense to let Maria have it. Otherwise, he would have lost a lot of money. You just can’t turn a new car back in.”
“And Maria doesn’t mind feeling like a Mafia gangster?”
“I’m glad this didn’t come up while she was here,” Abuela said. “Darling, do you
really have to tease her all the time?”
“Hey, I saw you smiling when the boys started to speak the punctuation.”
“They are clever, aren’t they? They remind me so much of you and Fernando.”
“That should be a frightening prospect.”
She didn’t respond to that.
“That’s what you need, Carlos. Boys of your own. A nice family.”
“I have a nice family. I just don’t have a wife.”
“And there have been no developments along that line that you’d like to tell me about?”
“Has Fernando been running off at the mouth again?”
“How is the lady Secret Service agent?”
“She has her jaws wired shut. If I can get her to agree to leave the wires in, maybe something could be worked out.”
“I don’t think that’s funny, Carlos.”
He looked down at his feet.
“The wires in her jaw aren’t,” he said. “I’m sorry I said that.”
“You should be.”
He looked Abuela in the eyes.
“I’m going to have to go to Europe for a couple of days. I’ll go from New York and stop off in Philadelphia to see her.”
“Fernando said she’s very nice.”
“She is.”
She nodded at him, then leaned up and kissed him.
“Via con Dios, mi amor,” she said.
He got in the front seat with the driver.
As the car rolled away from the sprawling, red-tile-roofed Spanish-style big house, he turned in the seat and looked out the back window. Abuela was standing where he had left her.
