When she didn’t, I finally stood up.
“You’ve been helpful,” I said. “If you remember anything else, please contact me using this text address.”
I handed her a plain white card with a number on it.
“Again, strictest confidence,” I assured her.
She took the card and put her sunglasses back on.
“Mister Rodriguez,” she said.
“Yes?”
“If you ever do find out what happened, please let me know?”
“I promise,” I said. And meant it.
***
Josefina’s apartment was even messier than the last time.
“Antonio and Elvira never argued,” she said as she handed me a cup of hot, lightly-sugared coffee. It was early morning, and she was just going to bed, while I was just getting ready to head back to the Aerie.
“The woman said they did,” I told her. “And you told me that you thought there was no telling how much the family might hate you after Elvira came out and went Special.”
“Yes, but I expected them to hate me, not her.”
“Would they have hated either one of you enough to kill?”
“I could never think that…”
“But?”
“But the last time Papa and I spoke, he said I was dead to him.”
“What about your brother?”
“Antonio and Papa always got along. Like father, like son.”
“Where is Antonio now?”
“He left home to find work on the farms.”
“Do you have an address?”
“No, but I’m sure my parents do.”
“Then it’s time for me to talk to your parents.”
“No!”
“Their daughter is dead. The city has already sent the official notification. If my daughter had died like that, I’d sure as hell want someone to tell me why, or who had done it.”
“No,” she insisted.
“Josefina, do you really want to find out who killed your little sister?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then let me finish this.”
***
The barrios of East L.A. weren’t a hell of a lot different from the barrios of Oakland. Row upon row of mid-20th century cheap housing that had slowly been churning through the hands of the poor over the last hundred years. The little bungalow I stopped at was a near carbon copy of the house where I’d grown up, and though they were older, the Aguilars were about what my mom and dad would have been—had my father not died young and left Mama to struggle in solitude.
Taking me for a city official—I neither confirmed nor denied that identity—the Aguilars welcomed me into the front room and offered me a cold glass of water.
“Never should have let her go,” said Papa Aguilar, when I brought up the subject of Elvira. “It was bad enough when her older sister turned on the family.”
“You had a falling out with Elvira’s older sister?” I said innocently.
“She is a pervert!” Papa Aguilar said. “Ran off and turned herself into an animal who screws rich gringos. Disgusting!”
I swirled the icy water around in the scratched acrylic tumbler they’d given me.
“I’m sorry that things didn’t turn out better for you and your daughters.”
“You make it sound so neat and clean,” he snorted.
Mama Aguilar placed a firm hand on his bicep, gave him a knowing look.
“We have lost both our daughters,” Mama said. “Please forgive us if we are not as polite about it as we should be.”
“Understandable,” I said, and then took a swallow.
“At least we still have Antonio,” Mama said.
“Your son?”
“Yes, he’s been home from Santa Clara for a few months now. He’s earned some money, now we’re going to help him go back to school.”
“What was he doing in Santa Clara?”
Mama led me into the kitchen, where she pulled a mason jar off the top of the refrigerator. It was filled with a viscous, golden substance. “Bee-keeping.”
It took all my effort not to do a double-take.
Mama handed me the jar of honey, and I hefted it experimentally, choosing my next words very, very carefully.
“Did the coroner tell you exactly what caused Elvira’s death?”
“Does it matter?” said Papa. “I got the notice. I crumpled it up and burned it without needing to read the fine print. Elvira was gone the moment she chose to follow her sister.”
I carefully replaced the mason jar on top of the fridge.
“Mister Aguilar,” I said, “did Antonio ever go visit either of his sisters after he came home?”
“No,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes…Well, I can’t imagine that he did.” Papa’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?”
“If you had read the full text of the coroner’s findings, you’d know that Elvira died because she’d been injected with bee venom.”
Both of them froze in place, eyes narrowing at me, then slowly widening in comprehension.
“La policía…” Papa Aguilar breathed.
There was a slam as the back door opened and closed. Clomping footsteps came up the stairs, and a trim young man appeared at the other doorway to the kitchen.
Mama and Papa stared at me for an instant longer, then looked at their son, then back at me. Antonio’s smile dropped, and he stared at me too.
“What’s going on?” he said. “Who is this?”
“Rodriguez,” I said. “I’m from the city. I need to talk to you about Elvira.”
Maybe it was the way I’d said it. Maybe it was the fact that I still had the military-cropped haircut I’d kept since my Army days. Maybe he’d noticed the bulge of the stun gun I had in a holster tucked into the pit of my arm, under my suit jacket. Whatever it was, I never had a chance to get in another word before three things happened simultaneously:
Antonio, spinning and running back down the steps.
Mama screaming, “Antonio, no!”
Papa screaming, “La policía!”
I flew past the Aguilars and down the stairs, pleased that I could still be quick when I had to be. He never bothered to close the door as he sprinted across the patio, around the detached garage, and down the filthy, narrow street beyond. I skidded around the corner—my loafers were not quite as good on concrete as his athletic shoes—then shouted his name at the back of his head as he raced for the nearest intersection. I followed, sweating and cursing, but managing to keep an eye on him as I went around the corner. I saw him dodge two cars crossing to the other side, and kept running for the next intersection further south. I pulled the stunner out and kept pumping arms and legs, feeling the muscle memory exhilaration of pursuit. Just like old times. I wasn’t the police, but I wasn’t going to let Elvira’s killer go, brother or no brother.
We crossed an alleyway, then crossed another street headed for a larger thoroughfare. People stopped or stepped out of our way as I ran, still shouting his name.
He stopped and turned once, just long enough to glare at me—the whites of his eyes large. Then he started running again, head still turned.
Across the thoroughfare, against traffic.
Cars skidded and honked as he slipped between two lanes.
The tow truck never saw him.
But I did, and it was too late.
***
Antonio Aguilar lived just long enough to give a full confession in the hospital, before he passed. I stayed well clear of the Aguilars, figuring they’d be incited to murder if they spotted me. Police at the hospital knew me, and let me loiter around out of respect for the old days.
I was shocked when I saw Josefina arrive. Eyes darted to her, and stayed on her as she walked carefully through the hospital hallway, hands pensively clutching a purse in front of her as she padded along in canvas flats and a sensible, modest dress, holes cut in the back for her wings. She saw me, but didn’
t stop to say anything. I kept an eye on her as she approached her brother’s room, spoke to the cops at the door, then passed inside.
Ten minutes later both she and her parents slowly walked out. All three of them appeared to be crying heavily. Josefina tried to hug her father. His arms just hung limply at his sides. When she tried to hug her mother, the older woman shakily reached her arms around her daughter, then squeezed with tentative enthusiasm.
The Aguilars went back into their son’s room, and Josefina came back in my direction.
This time she did stop.
I stared up at her face, damp green fathers and all.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“We are all sorry,” she said.
“I didn’t mean for him to get hit.”
“I know.”
“I should have just let him run away.”
“I do not think there was anywhere far enough for him to get away from the shame he felt, at Mama and Papa knowing what he had done for them.”
“For them?”
“Papa said that Antonio said he did it for the honor of the family.”
“So why didn’t he try to kill both of you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe after he saw what he’d done to his little sister, he lost his nerve. Papa is sick with himself. After I left home and joined the Aerie, Papa railed endlessly about what a disgrace I was, and then when Elvira left to join me...he railed against us both—how we had forever shamed the family. I think he didn’t realize that Antonio would take it as much to heart as he did. Papa almost feels like he’s the one who killed her. And Antonio now too.”
I looked past Josefina’s shoulder, to the shrinking old couple slumped against each other as they walked painfully down the opposite end of the corridor.
“What will they do now?”
“Bury Antonio and Elvira.”
“And what will you do now?”
She stared at the purse in her hands, her fists balled around the straps.
“I will go back to work,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow.
“What else can I do?” she said. “I cannot go home, and I don’t have the money yet that I need to move on.”
I cleared my throat uncomfortably, and scratched at my scalp.
“There are other things—”
“No, Señor Soto,” she said firmly. “It was my choice to become Special, and it is my choice to finish my plan. My sister would have wanted that, even if my family did not.”
“Will you be speaking with them again?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
“Give it time,” I said. “Give your Papa time. He will need you.”
“He still partially blames me for all of this.”
“Yes, and when he’s a couple of years older and closer to his own grave, he will look at his pictures of you when you were a little girl, and he will wonder why he let himself come to hate you. Please, don’t lock that door again.”
She stared down at me, this time raising one of her own eyebrows.
“Fraternal compassion, Señor Soto?”
“More like one poor, stupid father apologizing for another poor, stupid father.”
She regarded me for many quiet seconds, then she reached down to take up one of my hands in her marvelously soft one.
“Por favor?” she said.
“Por favor,” I said, squeezing her hand.
She let me escort her out of the hospital, and together we drove back to the Aerie.
Original (First) Publication
Copyright © 2013 by Brad R. Torgersen
COMING SOON FROM PHOENIX PICK
A NEW STELLAR GUILD BOOK
by
BRAD R. TORGERSEN
M. J. HARRINGTON
&
LARRY NIVEN
On sale November 30th, 2013
David Gerrold is a Hugo and Nebula winner, a bestselling novelist, and a television and movie writer. His Star Trek episode, “The Trouble With Tribbles,” was voted the most popular episode of that series.
--------------
Wouldn’t you love a pet dinosaur? I would. A dinosaur would make a great pet. Soft, cuddly, useful….
REX
by David Gerrold
“Daddy! The tyrannosaur is loose again! He jumped the fence.”
Jonathan Filltree replied with a single word, one which he didn’t want his eight-year-old daughter to hear. He punched the save key on his keyboard, kicked back his chair and headed toward the basement stairs with obvious annoyance. He resented these constant interruptions in the flow of his work.
“Hurry, Daddy!” Jill shouted again from the basement door. “He’s chasing the stegosaurs! He’s gonna get Steggy!”
“I warned you this was going to happen—” Filltree said angrily, grabbing the long-handled net off the wall. “No! Wait here,” he snapped.
“That’s not fair!” cried Jill, following him down the bare wooden stairs. “I didn’t know he was going to get this big!”
“He’s a meat-eater. The stegosaurs and the apatosaurs and all the others look like lunch to him. Get back upstairs, Jill!”
Filltree stopped at the bottom and looked slowly around the basement that his wife had demanded he convert into a miniature dinosaur kingdom for their spoiled daughter. Hot yellow lights bathed the cellar in a prehistoric ambience. A carboniferous smell permeated everything. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. For some reason, it was worse than usual.
The immediate problem was obvious. Most of the six-inch stegosaurs had retreated to the high slopes that butted up against the north wall, where they milled about nervously. Their bright yellow and orange colors made them easy to see. Quickly, he counted. All three of the calves and their mother were okay; so were the other two females; but they were all cheeping in distress. He spotted Fred and Cyril, but Steggy was not with the others. The two remaining males were emitting rasping peeps of agitation; and they kept making angry charging motions downslope.
Filltree followed the direction of their agitation. “Damn!” he said, spotting the two-foot-high tyrannosaur. Rex was ripping long strips of flesh off the side of the fallen Steggy and gulping them hungrily down. Already he was streaked with blood. His long tail lashed furiously in the air, acting as a counterweight as he bent to his kill. He ripped and tore, then rose up on his haunches, glancing around quickly and checking for danger with sharp bird-like motions. He jerked his head upward to gulp the latest bloody gobbet deeper into his mouth, then gulped a second time to swallow it. He grunted and roared, then lowered his whole body forward to again bury his muzzle deep in gore.
“Oh, Daddy! He’s killed Steggy!”
“I told you to wait upstairs! A tyrannosaur can be dangerous when he’s feeding!”
“But he’s killed Steggy—!”
“Well, I’m sorry. There’s nothing to do now but wait until he finishes and goes torpid.” Filltree put the net down, leaning it against the edge of the table. The entire room was filled with an elaborate waist-high miniature landscape, through which an improbable mix of Cretaceous and Jurassic creatures prowled. The glass fences at the edges of the tables were all at least 36 inches high, and mildly electrified to keep the various creatures safely enclosed. Until they’d added Rex to the huge terrarium, they’d had one of the finest collections in Westchester, with over a hundred dinos prowling through the miniature forests. And every spring, the new births among the various herbivores usually added five to ten adorable little calves to their herds.
Now, the ranks of their menagerie had been reduced to only a few light-footed stegosaurs, some lumbering apatosaurs, two armored ankylosaurs, the belligerent triceratops herd, and the chirruping hadrosaurs. Most of those had survived only because their favorite grazing grounds were at one end of the huge U-shaped environment, and Rex’s corral was all the way around at the opposite end. Rex wandered around the herbivore grounds only until he found something to attack. Like most of the mini-d
inos, Rex didn’t have a lot of gray matter to work with; he almost always attacked the first moving object he saw. In the six months since his installation in what Filltree had once believed was a secure corral, Rex had more than decimated the population of the Pleasant Avenue Dinosaur Zoo. He was now escaping regularly once or twice a week.
Slowly, Filltree worked his way around the table to the corral, examining all the fences carefully to see where and how the tyrannosaur might have broken through the barriers. He had thought for sure that the 30-inch-high rock-surfaced polyfoam bricks he had installed last week would finally keep the carnivore from escaping again to terrorize the more placid herbivores. Obviously, he had been wrong.
Filltree frowned as he studied the thick blockade. It had not been broken through in any place, nor had the tyrant-lizard dug a hole underneath it. The rocks were not chewed, but they were badly scratched in several places. Filltree leaned across the table for a closer look. “Mm,” he said.
“What is it, Daddy? Tell me!” Jill demanded impatiently.
He pointed. The sides and tops of the bricks were sharply gouged. Rex had leapt up onto the top of the wall, surveyed the opposite side, and leapt down to feed. Judging from the numerous marks carved into the surface, today’s outing was clearly not the first. “See. Rex can leap the fence. And that probably explains the mysterious disappearance of the last coelophysis too. This is getting ridiculous, Jill. I can’t afford this anymore. We’re going to have to find a new home for Rex.”
“Daddy, no!” Jill became immediately belligerent. “Rexy is part of our family!”
“Rexy is eating up all the other dinosaurs, Jill. That’s not very family-like.”
“We can buy new ones.”
“No, we can’t. Dinosaurs cost money, and I’m not buying any new animals until we get rid of him. I’m sorry, kiddo; but I told you this wasn’t going to work.”
“Daddy, pleeeaase—! Rexy is my favorite!”
Jonathan Filltree took his daughter by the hand and led her back around to where Rexy was still gorging himself on the now unrecognizable remains of the much smaller stegosaur. “Look, Jill. This is going to keep happening, sweetheart. Rexy is getting too big for us to keep. It’s all that fresh beef that you and Mommy keep feeding him. Remember what the dinosaur-doctor said? It accelerates his growth. But you didn’t listen. Now, none of the other dinosaurs can escape him or even fight back. It isn’t fair to them. And it isn’t fair to Rexy either to keep him in a place where he won’t be happy.”
Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 2: May 2013 Page 7