Aztec Sun

by Judith Arnold

  “Russo got a bunch of stuff at the hospital yesterday,” Flannagan said. “Do yourself a favor and go over it with him. The hospital says she had to have taken the dope just minutes before she collapsed. Which means she took it while she was at the studio.”

  Sandra shrugged. “She must have smuggled it in with her. She couldn’t have gotten it on the premises. Rafael Perez runs a clean ship.”

  “What about the clocker in Chino? What’s his connection to all this?”

  “No connection.” Where were these falsehoods coming from? Could love really possess a person so completely she was no longer able to control her words? “He’s Rafael Perez’s brother, but they have nothing to do with each other. He’s just a two-bit street pusher who got caught. Rafael is as anti-drug as they come.”

  “They’re saying the cocaine Melanie took might have been laced with heroin. That might be what killed her. Anyway, that’s their theory, pending the final autopsy results.”

  “Meaning what? Someone gave her bad cocaine deliberately? Someone wanted her dead?”

  “Now you’re using your head.” Flannagan gave her a patronizing grin. “The police are looking for her supplier. There’s likely to be a murder indictment in it. Go talk it over with Russo. You can share the byline.”

  Sandra nodded. She should have been infuriated that Flannagan was making her share her story with Russo, but she was too distraught to raise even a token protest. Flannagan gave her a friendly sock in the arm, then ambled away, evidently satisfied that she wasn’t going to kick up a fuss.

  She remained at her computer, staring at the blinking cursor and stewing. What was wrong with her? How could she have tossed aside her professional ethics? Why hadn’t she told Flannagan the truth?

  Well, she hadn’t really lied, she console herself. All she’d done was chosen sides—and the side she’d chosen happened not to be the Post. She’d chosen to give Rafael the benefit of the doubt.

  Diego’s public-relations puffery was true. Rafael was a role model, a leader in his community. A priest had rescued him from the ravages of his impoverished youth, and Rafael now kept fifteen churches afloat. If he had a brother he preferred not to think about, Sandra couldn’t blame him. She wouldn’t want to have a brother like Ricardo, either.

  Rafael was living an honorable life, providing jobs, creating cheap entertainment, hurting no one. Just because Melanie Greer had abused drugs didn’t mean Sandra should take aim at Rafael.

  On the other hand, the news that the cocaine Melanie had taken was tainted disturbed Sandra. But she shook off her distress. Just because the cocaine was bad didn’t mean someone had actually been out to murder Melanie. The world of illegal drugs could be summed up with the warning: let the buyer beware. Who knew where Melanie had bought the poison that had killed her? Why assume Rafael had anything to do with it? Or, for that matter, his brother, who was safely locked away sixty miles away from the city.

  But...

  All her rationalizations couldn’t deny one basic truth—that for the first time since she’d set her sights on a career in journalism, Sandra had retreated from a story. She’d forgotten the adversarial nature of her work. She’d stopped caring about the byline.

  And that was as frightening as admitting she was in love with Rafael Perez.

  ***

  SHE SPEND SEVERAL HOURS huddled with Russo, reviewing everything he had and everything she was willing to go public with. He had written the article about Melanie’s death for that morning’s edition. It hadn’t said much, only the information released by the hospital and a mention that she’d been working on her first theatrical film at the time of her death, an Aztec Sun production called White Angel. Diego was quoted as expressing the studio’s deep sorrow at the loss of a fine actress.

  It was the usual boiler-plate, and if Russo got his own byline for it Sandra didn’t care. This was hardly the stuff that Pulitzers were made of.

  She told Russo about the no-drugs policy at the studio, about how Rafael had been worried about his star’s apparent instability but hopeful that she’d be all right for the duration of the shoot. Sandra stressed the comments she’d gotten from Rafael’s employees about how strict their boss was, about how he’d once fired a couple of new workers when they’d come to work stoned. She talked about how much his people admired him.

  “Can he feed the multitudes with a single loaf of bread, too?” Russo asked.

  “Only when he’s in the mood,” she retorted. “He’s a decent guy, all right?”

  “With a brother who deals drugs.”

  “And a sister who’s a nun.”

  Russo rolled his eyes. “This isn’t much of a story. Why did you spend so long on it?”

  “Flannagan wanted it to be a human interest piece on a leader of the Chicano community.”

  “Publisher politics,” Russo muttered. “I guess if it weren’t for assignments like this, you’d be back at Lifestyles.”

  “If it weren’t for assignments like this,” she shot back, “I’d be doing your stories.” She gathered her notes and stuffed them into her tote. “I’m heading back to the studio. Maybe I’ll dig up something new.”

  By ten thirty she was on the freeway. Clicking on her radio, she was serenaded by Eric Clapton once again, this time wailing about how cocaine didn’t lie. Sandra snapped the radio off.

  She felt edgy. Excited in the way a woman felt when she was on her way to see her lover, but anxious, too. Angry with herself for having pulled her punches in the news room, and afraid of discovering that the Rafael she’d known through a long, wondrous night was not the same Rafael she would find at the studio today.

  He would likely be in a wretched mood. He would have heard by now that the police had labeled Melanie’s death a possible murder. A homicide investigation would tear his privacy to shreds. Even if he had nothing to do with her death, the fact that it had occurred at his studio would obligate him to open his life to the police.

  They would know about Ricardo. They would entertain the same suspicions she had. But he was tough. He’d survived a knife blade in the back. Surely he could survive a police investigation.

  The usual Aztec Sun guard stood at the gate when she drove up to the compound. Recognizing her, he smiled and waved her through. It occurred to her she had more than just Rafael to worry about. What if word had leaked that she had spent the night with him?

  Hell, she was tough, too. She and Rafael would ride the storm together, and when the final gale blew past, they would dust themselves off and see what they were left with.

  Each other, she hoped. Each other and their love.

  She counted at least three police cruisers in the visitor’s lot as she searched for a parking space. She found one, entered the office building, and identified herself to the receptionist, who telephoned upstairs. “You can go up,” she reported with a smile.

  In the elevator, Sandra felt her heart begin to beat faster. The closer she got to Rafael, the less significant the rest of her life seemed. That she’d hedged and fudged with her boss, that she wasn’t going to get a banner headline out of this story, that she might have compromised her ethics just a teeny-tiny bit... None of it was as important as the fact that she was about to see Rafael again, and feel his arms around her, and taste his lips against hers.

  When she’d left the studio office an hour before dawn that morning, it had been eerily silent. Now it was bustling with activity—people scurrying about, phones jingling, voices murmuring, a photocopy machine whining. If death had draped a somber veil over the place yesterday, today it seemed more alive than ever.

  She entered the front room, where Rafael’s secretary was engrossed in a phone conversation. She acknowledged Sandra with a nod and excused herself from her caller. Covering the phone mouthpiece, she glanced skyward and shook her head. “It’s crazy in here. Rafael is in a meeting, if you want to wait.”

  “Fine,” Sandra said, beginning to relax. She was used to this sort of craziness, and reliev
ed that she was being treated like a friend rather than a reporter.

  The inner door opened and Diego emerged from Rafael’s office. As usual, he was dressed in a designer suit. His shoes were buffed, his hair impeccably groomed, his smile beaming high wattage. “Ah, hello, senorita bonita,” he said, extending his hands in welcome.

  She let him kiss her cheek. “I’m so sorry about Melanie,” she said, recalling that Diego had seemed more devoted to the actress than anyone else at the studio. He’d been the one to comfort her, to calm her down when she was jittery, to sing her praises to the press. Certainly he must be feeling her death personally.

  His brilliant smile vanished and he sighed dolefully. “Yes. It is a tragedy. Are you here representing the Post? I’ve set up a press room downstairs.”

  “No, I—I came to see Rafael.” She wondered whether Rafael had told Diego about her having spent the night with him.

  If Diego knew, he tactfully didn’t let on. “I told the receptionist downstairs to let you come up. Rafael is meeting with his insurance people. He should be done any minute, if you’d like to wait inside for him.”

  Sandra glanced at Rafael’s secretary, who was immersed in her phone conversation, with two other lines flashing as callers were placed on hold. The poor woman would be juggling calls all day. Perhaps it would be better if Sandra did wait inside, away from the frenzy.

  “Thanks,” she said as Diego pushed the inner door wider for her. She stepped into the room. With a wave, Diego departed, closing the door and leaving her in solitude.

  For a moment she was stunned. Every trace of last night was gone. The sofa was once again a sofa, the coffee table in place in front of it. The blanket and the pillows he’d taken from the credenza and tucked around Sandra and himself sometime during the night were put away. Near Rafael’s desk, the sculptures rested on their shelves, nothing more than decoration.

  Except for the Aztec sun. It seemed to radiate its own light, brighter than the mid-morning sun pouring through the windows. Seeing it made her think of Rafael’s tattoo, his skin, his body. She felt the heat of a blush blooming in her cheeks.

  Turning away from the sculpture, she noticed that one of the credenza’s doors was open. She smiled, imagining Rafael rushing to turn the room back into an office that morning. He’d tossed the bedding into its storage place and nudged the door shut, but the latch hadn’t caught. Like her, he’d been drowsy and dazed from the night’s passion. He hadn’t been functioning at full speed.

  She hoped he was up to speed now, if he was stuck in an important meeting. Setting down her tote on the coffee table, she crossed to the cabinet to shut the door. The sight that greeted her froze the blood in her veins.

  There, on the shelf, partially hidden by the pillows upon which she and Rafael had made love, and slept, and awakened together, sat a small plastic bag full of white powder. Cocaine. The drug Rafael didn’t allow in his studio, the drug his brother had traded in. The drug that had killed Melanie.

  She was too shocked to hear the door open, too shocked to hear the jangle of the secretary’s phone, the babble of her voice. Too shocked to hear those outside noises suddenly smothered as the door swung shut. Almost too shocked to hear Rafael’s deep, sensuous voice murmur, “Hello, Sandra.”

  Chapter Twelve

  HIS SMILE WANED as he stared at her, reading her terror in her face, in her fisted hands. She wanted to scream, hit him—or close her eyes and then open them to discover that the incriminating bag of white powder had only been a figment of her imagination.

  Okay, she told herself, forcing air in and out of her lungs in a steady tempo. The bag was real. But maybe the powder inside it was flour.

  Sure. Didn’t everyone store self-sealing plastic bags of flour in their linen cabinets, right beside the pillows?

  Stay calm, she commanded herself, even as her nails bit into her palms and her throat ached with unspoken accusations. Here was a man who made noble proclamations about the evil of drugs, who went to church to pray for the soul of a woman who’d died because of drugs. A man who had spent the night loving Sandra, making her fall in love with him. a man for whom she’d jeopardized her career—maybe destroyed it.

  And all along, he had a bag of white powder sitting on a shelf in his office.

  His gaze journeyed past her to the open cabinet. When he spotted the bag he went ominously still. He looked at her, then at the bag, then at her. A muscle in his jaw twitched with tension. His eyes darkened with rage.

  What the hell did he have to be angry about? she thought, her own anger bubbling to the surface. If he was careless enough to leave his cabinet door open, he couldn’t blame her for seeing what was inside. If she hadn’t seen it, would he have continued to present himself as a righteous man who had triumphed over his past? He’d lied about his brother. Why not lie about himself?

  Without a word, he stalked across the room and lifted the bag. He opened the seal, dipped a finger into the powder, and licked it off. The obscenity he uttered told her the powder was exactly what she’d feared it was.

  He lifted his dark gaze to her. “Where did this come from?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Someone left it here.”

  “Obviously.” Who else but Rafael himself could have left it there? Rafael was the boss, the man who controlled everything at Aztec Sun. Who could have—who would have—stashed drugs in his office cabinets?

  Only Rafael. The man whose brother was a convicted drug dealer. The man who had won the devotion of a cocaine-using actress, who had succeeded in getting her to work for him cheap because, apparently, there had been other rewards. The man who had already proven himself a liar, even when Sandra had managed to pretend he wasn’t.

  He was still holding the bag, the plastic pinched between tense fingers. “Someone wants me blamed for Melanie’s death,” he said, his voice low, tight with suppressed fury.

  “If you’re responsible for it—if you supplied her with that stuff, then you should be blamed.”

  “Is that what you think? That I’m responsible for her death?”

  It wasn’t what she wanted to think. She wanted to think Rafael was a hero. She wanted to know that risking her job—and her heart—on him hadn’t been a mistake. She wanted to know that he was every good thing she’d believed him to be.

  But how could she think the best of him? Her own research had told her not to trust him. She shouldn’t have let her heart overrule her head.

  She had, though, and she wasn’t sure how she would ever recover.

  “Okay,” she said, groping for an explanation she could live with. “Maybe...maybe that isn’t yours.”

  “Maybe?” His smile was scornful, bitter. “You think it is mine.”

  “What am I supposed to think?” she argued. “It’s here, in your office. You’re standing there, holding it, taking such nice care of it. What is that amount of cocaine worth, Rafael? Hundreds of dollars? Thousands?”

  “It’s worth nothing,” he snapped, then spun away from her and stalked into the kitchenette adjacent to his office. Through the open doorway, Sandra watched as he emptied the snow-white substance into the sink, rinsed the residue down the drain, filled the bag with water and shook it out. He discarded the bag in a trash can under the counter, then turned and stared at her. “There. That’s what it’s worth.”

  “Why did you do that?” she asked, longing to believe he’d flushed the drugs simply because he hated them—but unable to, unable to believe anything about Rafael at that moment. “Destroying evidence is a felony.”

  “It’s gone. Thousands of dollars, I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I care about is that it won’t kill anyone else. That’s all that matters.” His eyes were opaque.

  “That’s not all that matters. If that cocaine wasn’t yours, why didn’t you hold onto it until you could find out who it belonged to?”

  “I don’t like drugs, Sandra. I don’t want them around.”

  “But to just get rid
of it that way... Why didn’t you bring it to the police? The bag might have had someone’s fingerprints on it. The police might have been able to—”

  “I’m a Chicano, Sandra. A greaser. They’re after my ass for that alone. If they found that shit in here, they wouldn’t stop to take fingerprints. They’d run me in.”

  “For God’s sake—it’s not like you’re a victim here. It’s not like you the target of all kinds of racism.”

  “The police suspect me. They have no reason, but they do.”

  “No reason? Come on, Rafael. You’re a gang member.”

  His eyes grew impossibly darker. “What do you know about the gang?” he asked, his voice so quiet she had to strain to hear him.

  She refused to let him frighten her. She had truth on her side, after all. “I’ve met your brother.”

  She had never before seen a living human being so still, so cold. Yet his quiet stance didn’t fool her. She knew he was like a volcano—placid on the outside, volatile on the inside. Beneath his impassive exterior he was a mass of boiling, blinding fury. “You’ve met my brother,” he finally said, the words as dry as the ash that signaled an imminent volcanic eruption.

  “I’m a reporter, Rafael. It was my job—”

  “It’s your job to get a big story, right?” He waved toward the cabinet where the bag had been stored. “So. There’s your big story.”

  “Do you think I shouldn’t write about this?”

  “I think you could do great damage if you write it.”

  Tears threatened, but she swallowed them down. The man she loved—the man she had thought she loved—was asking her to disregard the canons of her profession. What he was implying was worse than her decision to withhold some information at the news room that morning. It was worse than her desire to choose sides.

  This was Rafael telling her to put away her pen, to silence her voice, to cover his hypocrisy, to let his illegal behavior go unpunished.