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Shifting feet, I raise my hands.
Geraldo comes out, carrying a screwdriver and a lightbulb.
I stagger, then put a hand to my heart. “Mate, you gave me a start. Why’re you lurking in corners?”
With a frown that cast doubt on my powers of observation, Geraldo holds up his lightbulb. “Light’s out.”
I give him a pass for the heart attack. “Glad you’re out here. Was going to knock, but hated to bother your mum during her telenovela.”
Geraldo’s mouth twitches. “It’s not wise.”
“Exactly my thinking.”Andthat I didn’t want to upset Sylvia with talk of her son’s missing fiancée. Sylvia had been there the night Geraldo first told me of his fiancée. She’d helped her son fill in a lot of the details. It had been a heartbreaking evening. “I’m on my way out. Walk me to my car?”
Surprise on his face, Geraldo looks at the dark corner and then at the lightbulb, obviously worried about leaving it dim in here
“It’s important.”
With a nod, he puts bulb and screwdriver into a toolkit, then shoves his hands into the pockets of his coveralls. “Sí. Rápido.”
Man takes his job seriously. Has since I met him on the day I arrived in Oaxaca. Me, literally a homeless person. Despite his speech issues, Geraldo struck up a conversation with me. Finding a room to rent and a friend had been that easy.
Outside, the streets are dark and moderately busy. Geraldo keeps pace with me easily enough, but I can feel his tension. Or maybe he can feel my tension and that’s fueling his.
Ach. Like a bat to the Devil, best be fast. “I was talking to Sister Dee today.”
Geraldo’s brown skin turns russet, and he lowers his head as we swing around the building to where I’d parked on the street.
“Doesn’t look like a nun.”
“Glad I’m not the only one who thinks so, but, trust me, don’t say it out loud. Hugely offensive.”
Geraldo’s eyes go wide. “You didn’t.”
“Ach, she was so lush I couldn’t help it. The words slipped past my lips before I could retrieve them.”
Not the only thing to slip past my lips when it comes to her.
Grinning, Geraldo nods. Feels good to be understood. And he does understand me. We get along easily, work out regularly in the basement—I’d been thrilled to find he had a bag setup. Sure, communication isn’t in his Strengths column, but running full out is no longer in mine.
It’s best to be direct with him; cuts down on the back-and-forth. “Sister Dee told me a refugee woman has been taken from her room.”
Geraldo hisses through his teeth, a sound a man recently punched in the gut might make.
My own stomach tightens. “Sorry, mate. Can’t be easy on you. I know you don’t remember much about your investigation into your fiancée…”
Geraldo’s ham fist comes up to knock on his own head. “Not in there.”
Poor bloke. “Anything you can remember about her disappearance, even something before the”—accidentisn’t the right word to describe what happened to him—“incident could help.”
I take out my key as we stand beside my lime-green Cadillac, a smuggling vehicle I got for next to nothing. Like everything in my life these days, it walks back and forth over the line between legal and illegal.
Squeezing his eyes closed, Geraldo goes still for a long moment. A single tear trails down his cheek.
I reach out and pat his shoulder.
His eyes pop open and pin me. He remembers something.
He gropes the pocket on his coveralls, then takes out the small pen and notepad he carries. Helps with communication.
