Anybody can find an extra two inches in their reach if they stretch hard enough.
He gripped the nail head between his fingers and tried to turn it. He’d have more chance picking up the picnic table and walking with it to the nearest hospital than moving the nail. Even with the pliers it would be a long, excruciating job prying it free from the wood. If he wanted to get through this, he needed to hold onto his anger, his hatred, tell himself over and over that somebody was going to pay.
He picked up the cotton rag that they’d stuffed in his mouth, wadded it up into a solid lump, then bit down on it and stretched.
Chapter 10
EVAN WALKED SLOWLY UP and down the sidewalk, his cell phone clamped to his ear, and talked to himself, nodding along as he listened to what nobody on the other end said. He passed the gated entrance to the apartment complex where Jesús Narvaez lived for the second time. Out the corner of his eye, he saw a man approach from the other side, also talking on his phone, maybe even to a real person.
Evan turned again, timing it just right and stopped in front of the gate. He almost let the phone slip out of his hand as he pretended to dig his keys out of his pocket and talk at the same time.
‘Hang on a sec, Kate, I’m going to drop my phone in a minute if I’m not careful.’
The guy on the inside pushed the gate open without a second glance and turned left, holding it open for the briefest moment before going on his way. Evan mouthed his thanks, caught it with his foot and slipped through.
‘Sorry Kate, it’s no use begging. You want a dinner date, you stand in line with everybody else.’
A woman coming out her apartment gave him a strange look, like if he was her boyfriend, she’d give him a well-deserved slap. He smiled at her and put the phone away, wishing he had the balls to speak to Guillory like that in real life.
He followed the path until he found the apartment he wanted, and knocked. The door was answered by a solidly-built Hispanic man of about the right age, his hair still full and dark for the most part. He wore a pair of heavily-tinted glasses even though the room behind him was in semi-darkness, as if he suffered from photophobia.
‘Jesús Narvaez?’
Narvaez nodded, looked down at Evan’s hands to see what he was selling. He looked vaguely surprised when he didn’t see anything. Evan capitalized on that positive outcome and got right to the point.
‘My name’s Evan Buckley. I’m a private investigator. I’d like to ask you a few questions?’
‘About what?’
The tone was a nice mix of aggressive and suspicious. It wasn’t about to improve in the next few minutes.
‘Your sister, Margarita.’
Narvaez flinched as if Evan had slapped him, his lips parted. He swallowed drily and tried to say something, couldn’t find the words. Evan was sure now he had the right man.
‘Sorry it’s such a shock, just coming out with it like that. I was worried you wouldn’t speak to me otherwise.’
Narvaez gave a short, sharp laugh.
‘I don’t know what makes you think I will now.’
Evan was finding out just what an impediment it was, not being able to say something along the lines of because my client would like to give her or her children a couple hundred million dollars.
Narvaez’ lips were set in a line, hard and unforgiving. Evan got the impression he was already putting things together himself. And that the memories surfacing as a result were not all good.
Suddenly Narvaez stepped aside, a decision made, and invited him in. They went through to a large, comfortable sitting room, not so dark once you got into it. Narvaez went straight to a well-stocked drinks cabinet.
‘Drink?’
It wasn’t surprising really, it wasn’t every day somebody turns up at your door with a name from fifty years ago. He was jumping to conclusions—it was fifty years for Frank Hanna, but for all he knew Margarita might be in the kitchen cooking her brother’s dinner at this very moment. He shook his head. Narvaez poured himself a generous shot and they both sat down.
‘I’m right in thinking Margarita Narvaez is your twin sister?’
Narvaez sipped his drink and nodded at him over the lip of the glass. Something about not being able to see his eyes made Evan wish he’d accepted the offer of a drink, to put himself on an equal footing. He wasn’t sure if he licked his lips or some other giveaway. Whatever it was Narvaez inclined his head towards the drinks cabinet.
‘Why don’t you get yourself one, to stop you from staring at mine.’
Evan hopped up and got himself a small whisky, sat back down again.
‘I appreciate this is out of the blue—’
‘Not at all.’
‘And I’m afraid I can’t ... did you say not at all?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Frank Hanna’s words immediately went through his mind, the warnings about the need for secrecy, about the sort of people who also had a vested interest in finding—or not finding—a valid heir. It was inconceivable they were two steps ahead of him, had tracked down Narvaez already.
He needn’t have worried, it wasn’t that at all.
Jesús Narvaez pulled off the dark glasses and stared at him. Evan couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath as he looked back into Narvaez’ eyes.
‘I’ve been waiting fifty years.’
***
‘I ALWAYS PUT THEM on when I answer the door,’ Narvaez said, waving the glasses in the air. ‘Don’t want to scare the pizza delivery boy.’
Evan concentrated on the point between Narvaez’ eyebrows so as not to stare too obviously at his glass eye or the network of faded scars that surrounded it. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed the largest scar, the one that ran all the way up through the eyebrow. It would be visible even when he was wearing his dark glasses.
‘You don’t mind if I don’t put them back on?’
Evan gave a not at all wave of the hand, it was his house. He took another sip of his drink.
‘Bet you’re glad you changed your mind about the drink, ey?’
Evan shrugged as if to say of course not, he met horribly disfigured people every day of the week.
‘Mr Narvaez—’
‘Call me Jesús.’
A small smile crept onto his lips. Evan got the impression he was playing with him.
‘Jesús—’
Narvaez held up his hand.
‘Call me what you like. I shouldn’t play with you, I know how funny you Anglos think it is to call a person Jesús.’
Evan took a second, couldn’t decide what to call him now. How would ornery old bastard go down?
‘Mr Narvaez—’
‘Before you waste any more time or breath, I should tell you now I will not help you in any way as far as my sister is concerned.’
An awkward silence filled the gap between them like a third person in the room.
‘You don’t even know—’
‘Frank Hanna.’
They stared at each other a long while, the smile back on Narvaez’ lips, smug now.
‘Don’t look so surprised. Private investigators’—he put a mocking emphasis on the words—‘aren’t the only ones who can work something out. A private investigator comes knocking on my door asking about my sister for the first time in fifty years ...’
For a second, Evan thought he’d spit on the floor. Now that he noticed, the carpet looked like it wouldn’t have been the first time.
‘That tells me everything I need to know. A man who was a coward fifty years ago is still a coward today, sends his boy to do his errands.’
Evan let the boy slide, there was clearly a lot of pent-up anger inside the old man.
‘He can rot in hell for all I care.’
Narvaez threw the rest of his drink down his neck, stared at Evan, challenging him to contradict him, give him any good reason why he was wrong. Evan wasn’t sure there would ever be a time when Narvaez might relent and help him. This certainly wasn’t it. Time to go. H
e pushed himself up out of his chair.
‘Sit.’
Evan sat.
‘I meant what I said. I won’t tell you a thing about Margarita. But I’ll tell you something else, something about the sort of people you work for. Get me another drink.’
Evan got up again, wishing the old man would make his mind up, and took the empty glass thrust at him.
‘Get yourself another one while you’re at it.’
It wasn’t what you’d call an offer, more of a command.
‘In fact, bring the bottle. No ice.’
Evan did as he was told, lowered himself slowly into his chair, ready to jump out again if Narvaez suddenly decided he wanted some pretzels, potato chips, whatever.
‘You’ve met Frank Hanna. I won’t ask you what you think of him, I don’t care. You’ve met the successful businessman he’s become.’
Evan’s face must have given him away again.
‘Is it so strange I’ve followed the career of the man who might have been my brother-in-law if he had done the right thing?’
Evan shook his head and Narvaez gave an angry wave of his hand.
‘None of this matters, beyond the fact that he’s a coward. What matters, what you have no idea about, is the kind of man his father, George Hanna, was. And the people who worked for him.’
‘Hanna told me—’
‘I don’t care what Frank Hanna told you. He doesn’t know what happened.’
Would he ever be allowed to get a complete sentence out? But he was here to listen, after all. He settled back into the chair and let Jesús Narvaez tell the story that had festered inside him for fifty years.
***
‘IT WAS SOMETIME IN June 1965 when two men came to our house. They worked for George Hanna. One of them was called Thompson, the other one’s name I never knew. I was never sure what George Hanna’s business really was. I found out later that his father had been a bootlegger during prohibition and Thompson’s father had worked for him. That should give you some idea about the sort of people Thompson came from.
‘They came to our house one night when my father was out. After he learned about Margarita’s pregnancy he spent very little time at home. When he wasn’t working he was either on his knees in the front pew at St. Thomas’s, praying for Margarita’s eternal soul, or in any one of a dozen bars trying to forget he had a daughter at all.’
Narvaez paused and sipped at his drink, his one good eye as unseeing as the glass one, as fifty years faded to nothing. Evan stared at the hand that held the glass, the knuckles white, tendons standing out against his liver-spotted skin. He hoped the glass was a strong one.
‘I was sixteen at the time, as was Margarita. We were at home with our mother, in the kitchen, dreading the time when our father would return home drunk. At around seven somebody knocked on the door as if they were trying to break it down. I remember the time because we all looked at each other, thinking it was early for our father to be home, hoping it meant he would be less drunk than usual. He never hit Margarita, but I didn’t have to do or say much to get a slap around the head. We thought he’d forgotten his key.
‘My mother told Margarita to go to her room—the sight of her swollen belly always set my father off. Then she opened the door and there they were, filling the doorway, most of the hallway too. She tried to close the door, knowing instinctively that no good was going to come from their visit. She might as well have tried to shoo them out with her apron. They walked straight in, knocking her to the floor.’
Where’s the filthy whore?
‘It was Thompson, he did all the talking—and everything else. He kicked my mother. I’ll never forget the way she cried out. Then he saw me. I can still feel the way my bowels turned to water as he looked at me. I was sixteen years old, skinny, like you’d expect when you’re always hungry. He must have been almost as old as I am now, but he was big and grizzled, his hair tied back in a greasy ponytail. He looked like you couldn’t do anything to him that hadn’t been done a hundred times before.
‘He grabbed me by the neck and lifted me until my toes were almost off the floor, slammed me into the wall. He pushed his face into mine, the smell of cigarettes and whisky making me retch.’
Looks like somebody fucked your sister before you got to her, eh?
‘He banged my head into the wall again, then saw the closed door to Margarita’s room. He threw me aside like I was a rag doll. My mother was still on the floor, crying, the other man standing over her. Thompson went into Margarita’s room and dragged her out. I’ll always remember the dignity in her face, the way she didn’t cry or scream, allowed herself to be pulled into the kitchen.
‘He bent her backwards over the kitchen table, raised his massive fist over her stomach, still she didn’t make a sound. My mother was going crazy, I don’t know why her screams didn’t bring the neighbors running. I couldn’t move. Margarita was looking straight at me. I knew what she was thinking: please Jesús, don’t do anything stupid. I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to. Then Thompson was talking to her, his voice low, the voice of evil.’
I could do it now. One punch and your bastard’s dead. Then where’s your clever little plan?
‘He reached into his pocket. I didn’t know if he was going for a knife or a gun. Margarita was crying. Then he came out with a handful of money.’
But I’m not going to dirty my hands. You take this money and go back to the slum you came from, and you get your fucking witch doctor to get rid of it.
‘He pulled up her dress. I saw her white cotton panties and I knew then what he was going to do. He was going to stick the roll of money inside her. I looked around and saw a bottle of olive oil on the counter. Thompson had his back to me now, he was struggling with Margarita, she also knew what he wanted to do. My mother was on her knees and the other man had turned to knock her down again. I picked up the bottle and hit Thompson on the back of the head with every ounce of strength I had ...’
Narvaez stopped and downed his drink, picked up the bottle. Evan breathed again, his heart pumping as if he was back in Narvaez’s kitchen in 1965. Narvaez smiled.
‘Real life’s not like the movies you know. Thompson didn’t even yelp, just stood up straight and let go of Margarita. He turned towards me, touched the back of his head and smiled. I still see that smile sometimes. I stood there, not knowing what to do, knowing I’d had my chance and I wouldn’t get another one.’
If you’re going to hit somebody, sonny, you better make sure you hit ‘em good and proper, so they don’t get up again.
‘He snatched the bottle out of my hand, grabbed it by the neck and smashed it against the edge of the kitchen counter. Then he clamped his massive fingers around my neck again, held my head against the wall ...’
Evan closed his eyes, wishing he could stop the images that flooded his mind.
‘Now you know why I answer the door wearing a pair of dark glasses.’
***
‘WHAT DO YOU THINK of the people you’re working for now?’
It wasn’t a valid question, a fair question. Narvaez was waiting for an answer.
‘It had nothing to do with Frank Hanna—’
‘Like father, like son.’
Evan shook his head, aware that he had no idea what kind of man Frank Hanna really was, whether he had simply been a young man terrified of the prospect of Vietnam, or whether he had some idea of what his father had put in motion. One thing was for sure, he needed to find an answer to that question before he could continue working for him.
That didn’t mean he had to agree with Narvaez.
‘He didn’t know what his father did.’
Narvaez gave him a disbelieving look.
‘You know that do you? You know what happened twenty years before you were born.’
‘You must know what it was like to have the threat of Vietnam hanging over you every minute.’
Narvaez shook his head.
‘No. We were illegals back then’—he p
ut seventy years’ worth of bitterness into the word—‘and not even the U.S. Government, not even LBJ himself, could send people who didn’t exist to Vietnam.’
There was no point arguing the past. The only chance Evan had of getting Narvaez to help him was to concentrate on the present, the future.
‘He wants to put things right.’
It was a poor choice of words. Too late, Narvaez was on it in a flash.
‘Put things right?’ He pointed at his eye. ‘How will he put this right? Put right how I felt as a young man when I saw pretty girls turn away from me, a look of horror on their faces. Or worse, pity. Can you imagine what that feels like?’
Evan held up his hands.
‘I meant he wants to make amends.’
Narvaez’ lip curled, his nose twisted, his whole face a picture of disgust.
‘Make amends? You mean a rich old man with more money than he knows what to do with wants to spend some of it easing his conscience. What is he, terminally ill? Hopes to buy absolution, to wash his soul clean before he meets his maker?’
‘I have no idea—’
‘I know, I know, you’re just the messenger boy. Well, you can give him this message ...’
Something passed behind his eyes, put a sparkle in the good one.
‘Wait there.’
The old man left the room and went upstairs. Evan heard him rooting around in the bedroom above his head, drawers being pulled out, the contents dumped on the floor. Whatever it was he was looking for, he hadn’t had it any time recently.
He got the feeling it wasn’t going to be anything that would help. There was something else nagging at the back of his mind. Everything Narvaez said had been to do with himself, with his disfigurement.
His thoughts were interrupted as Narvaez came back down, his breath ragged, looking triumphant, his good eye shining. He tossed something into Evan’s lap.
‘Tell Hanna we didn’t want his money back then, we don’t want it now.’
Evan looked down at the roll of banknotes and felt a small surge of hope at Narvaez’ words. Was the way he said we don’t want it significant? Or was he attaching too much significance to the emphasis on the word we, spoken by a man whose first language was not English.
The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets) Page 61