CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The green pastel walls of Joey’s office were decorated with old photos from Mazatlán, where our father had grown up, and a poster Uncle Bart had sent of the Amalfi coast. A gentle wind rustled through the Venetian blinds of the tall west windows. Directly opposite, a glass bookshelf gave the room an illusion of space. Joey sat behind a sleek designer desk with a cherry wood top and black legs. Behind his head, a meter-long corkboard listed things to do.
After a frenzy of phone calls and secretarial interruptions, we were finally alone. Joey’s shoulders drooped—he’d worked all week to bring closure to a contract—but when I offered to leave and return later, he demanded to hear the story in every detail.
“Again,” I said when I was done, “I’m sorry about standing you up for lunch.”
“I’m sure you had a much better time pretending to be a high heel.”
“Thank God Rolando didn’t catch me. How could I have ever explained myself? It’s bad enough Yiolanda spent the night at my place.”
“Don’t be so sure Rolando would be upset about you and Yiolanda. He may have been shortsighted enough to marry her, but I doubt he has illusions about their relationship anymore. How has he reacted to her incarceration?”
“Like a zombie. Like he’s too stunned to think.”
The phone rang, but Joey ignored it. He turned down the volume so that he wouldn’t be distracted by the message. “You said you had a plan. Tell me about it.”
“It involves you.”
Joey scooted his chair back so he could stretch his long legs over the desk. “Since you wouldn’t tell me over the phone, I suspected that it did.”
“Play for me tonight.”
“That’s no problem. Let me call Christina. We’re supposed to have dinner together, but maybe she’d like to bring the kids down to the restaurant and—”
“No. Play for me as me. I don’t want anyone to know I’m not there.”
His eyebrows rose as they always did when something surprised him. One of the few discernible physical differences between us was that mine didn’t rise in the same way.
“You want me to pretend to be you? Why?”
“So I can go back to Rolando’s and find that memory card.”
Joey wiggled his fingers in the motion of playing an imaginary violin. “Sergio and Pablo and Hernando put up with my playing, but I could never pass for you.”
“Who would notice?”
“Those three would. Maybe Rolando.”
“They wouldn’t notice if you were drunk.”
“Drunk? I can’t even play well sober.” His eyebrows rose again. “I get it. Pretend I’m you, and pretend I can’t play because I’m drunk. That’s pretty good.”
“I brought you my traje. Mine’s more beat up than yours is.” I opened a plastic bag and unrolled my mariachi pants. We’d bought our suits at the same time, but mine showed wear in the knees and was a grayer shade of black.
“You think I could pull off that act all night long?”
While I was on my way to Joey’s office, the plan seemed foolproof. Suddenly my request seemed unreasonable. “How about if you go to Rolando’s?” I patted my pants pocket. “I’ve got the key right here.”
“Nah. I’ll leave the breaking and entering to you even if you have permission of half the occupants.”
“What if you and Christina come in as customers, stay until close, and then keep talking to Rolando as long as possible? In the meantime, I could run to his place. It’ll only take me a second to grab the fancy box she was talking about.”
Joey re-crossed his legs. “If you’re going to go to the trouble of getting into their condo again, you might as well stay a while and find out everything you can.” Joey flashed a smile I remembered from childhood. “We haven’t tried this for ages.”
“Dad’s 70th. Remember? He caught us right away.”
“No, the last time was at my stag party. You were so scared pretending to be the groom that you were green.”
“But no one believed I was pretending to be you even after we told them.”
Joey put his finger to his temple. “What if we switched places during the course of the evening? You play the first sets, and then—”
“And then we switch.”
“Yes. I’ll wait outside. It’ll be dark enough that we can switch clothes in the car without being obvious. Until then, you can set it up by pretending to drink a lot. Better yet, pour a little brandy on your shirt. How’s that?”
“Excellent. I’ll be so disgusting no one will want to be around me anyway, and then when I get to Rolando’s place I’ll have plenty of time to snoop around. Meet around ten?”
“I’ll be waiting. And if anyone catches on, we can always say we were running a test to see if we could still get away with it.”
I stood to leave. “Joey, you know I appreciate this, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I’m doing the right thing by trying to help Yiolanda?”
He blew air out of his mouth. “I’m not sure there is a right thing.”
“If you were me ... ”
“Thank God I’m not. Being you for a couple of hours at a time is about all I can take.”
He came around the desk so we could embrace.
“Andy?”
I paused at the door.
“Make sure you don’t sweat.”
***
When I reached the restaurant, I hadn’t decided whether to be a happy drunk or an angry one, but as I came in through the kitchen, Corinna stopped me.
“I whipped up some lovely fish puffs today,” she said, stuffing one in my mouth. She’d made them perfectly—not too much onion, the right amount of salt, the fish cooked tenderly, the breading soft but not clammy.
I decided to be a happy drunk. “Corinna, you’re wonderful!” I bent to give her a hug, my mouth full of fish.
She could smell the brandy on my shirt—I’d accidentally overdone it—and I could see her struggling to avoid an overt reaction. “You’ve been having fun this evening.”
“Yes! And I’m sure the night will only get better.”
I waltzed from the kitchen. Before I was out the door, she was whispering to Tomás. Good. I needed their inadvertent help. I joined my companions, who were setting up on stage. After greeting them as if I hadn’t seen them for days, I pressed my violin to my chest and kissed it. My companions watched, deciding how worried to be.
“Do you realize I’ve had this instrument for over twenty years? In fact, twenty-five. Every once in a while I forget to appreciate it. I was thinking of my first violin teacher today. If he hadn’t been so patient—”
“How much did you drink?” Sergio asked.
“Only two or three.”
“Where were you?” he asked. He sometimes got tipsy before the end of the night, but not until it was so late that it wasn’t noticeable because by then the customers were tipsy too.
“At home! For drinking it’s the best place.” I tuned my strings meticulously, noticing that Rolando was busy with customers at the far end of the restaurant.
Pablo leaned closer. “You had a fight with Stefani?”
“No! She broke up with me, remember! I’m a free man. I don’t have to feel guilty for not going to see her or for forgetting her birthday. It’s a fine feeling. I need some time off from romance.” I threw my arm around Sergio’s shoulder. “And when I’m ready to meet someone, Sergio will help me. Surely he doesn’t want all the women for himself! They’d wear him out.”
An elderly white woman sitting at a table close to the stage approached. “Do you happen to know Guadalajara?” she asked.
Usually the implication that we couldn’t perform the theme song from the cradle of mariachi infuriated me, but I smeared a smile across my face. “We’d be delighted to play it.” I launched into the first two measures, leaving Pablo and Hernando scrambling to catch up with me on rhythm. I immediately followed with Guantaname
ra, a Cuban tune that was maddeningly popular with the tourist crowd, and pretended I was delighted to play it.
I continued in the same vein, drawing the customers into extended small talk whenever possible to avoid talking to Pablo and dashing into songs without warning. Soon after ten, I slipped outside. Joey was already waiting, and if anyone saw us changing clothes, not an easy feat in his small car, at least no one stopped to stare.
“How’d it go?” Joey asked.
“Great. They think I’m upset over Stefani though I claimed to be thrilled to be rid of her. There aren’t many customers, so you shouldn’t have to play late.”
“Does Rolando ever leave before you guys?”
“He stays to close up.”
“Do you have your cell phone in case tonight’s the one night he doesn’t?”
I checked my pockets. “I forgot. Just call his house. 363-2487. Let it ring twice and then hang up. I’ll know Rolando is on his way and get the hell out.”
“When you’re done, meet me back at my place,” Joey said, handing me his car keys. “And that scooter of yours damned well better start.”
“It will.”
“Christina will leave the door open for you.”
“Wonderful.”
“And be careful.”
“I will. But actually, you’re the one who’ll be doing the real work.”
Joey nodded with his eyes shut. “You don’t have to tell me that.”
***
Inner guilt shook my hand as I opened the Díaz’s door. I wished I’d thought of a less deceitful plan. I wished I were back on stage.
Rolando had left the hall light on, giving the place a dim gray cast. I tiptoed through to the living room, not convinced I was alone, nervous a neighbor might have spotted me entering the building, known I wasn’t a resident, and called the police. I’d had quite enough contact with the police.
The condo’s housekeeping was on a steady decline. Another couple of days and Rolando’s living room would be a copy of mine with more expensive furniture. By now dirty plates and an empty pack of crackers marked the coffee table, and crumbs ruled the floor. Around the corner, a powerful refrigerator generated a low “grrr.”
I continued to the master bedroom. There were no treatments on the windows, and I couldn’t decide whether it would be worse for the neighbors to see streaks of light from a flashlight or a regular light turned on unusually early.
I didn’t have extra time. I flipped on the switch.
In the bedroom too, the bachelor style had taken over. Sheets from the unmade bed skirted the floor, while the doorknob harbored a shaving towel.
The closet that I knew so intimately was wide open. The clothes hamper had been pulled halfway out and gotten stranded in the door jamb. In the bathroom the toilet seat lid was up, and toothpaste dotted the sink. Rolando needed a maid as much as I did, but at least he could afford one.
Again I probed Yiolanda’s jewelry tower, but when I didn’t find the key right away, I gave up. As Yiolanda had promised, her nightstand contained the Spanish box. I pried off the lock with a kitchen paring knife. The memory card had slipped down to the side. The rest of the box contained pictures, letters, cinema ticket stubs, and small pieces of jewelry. I was conscious of the time, so I stuffed the photos and letters in a plastic bag I’d brought for the purpose and put the box back in place. I placed the memory card in a safe place inside my wallet.
I rifled through Yiolanda’s bedroom drawers, but besides a few personal letters, which I added to my collection, I didn’t find much worthwhile. I glanced through Rolando’s drawers, but they merely contained socks and underwear. I moved to the second bedroom, which served as a study, and where neat hanging folders helped me focus my search.
The tax sheets indicated that Rolando had paid the large sum of taxes incurred by the restaurant on time, and he had a file full of supporting documentation. His car and health insurance were paid up. Neither he nor Yiolanda had reported chronic health problems. The life insurance policy stated that if he or Yiolanda should die, two hundred and fifty thousand went to the survivor. I hadn’t heard of National Insurance, but it sounded normal enough. I could find out later from Joey.
Stock printouts showed that Rolando owned a piece of his brother’s business in Eugene, and his brother owed him, according to the sheet with small calculations in Rolando’s handwriting, ten thousand, down from fifty. I knew Rolando had loaned his brother money; I didn’t realize he’d loaned him so much. But I’d never heard Rolando complain about the transaction. He only complained that his brother avoided California.
Yiolanda’s stock sheet was in the same folder. She had a modest portfolio with several investments in Nevada companies. The statement valued her holdings at four hundred thousand. It would be enough to live on for a few years as long as she was careful. I folded her sheet and slipped it into my pocket.
The wastebasket by the desk was empty, but a couple of papers had spilled to the floor. One was for Mexican car insurance for when Rolando had gone down to San Carlos. The other was a receipt for a pair of men’s shoes from the Black Heel Shoe Store, Las Vegas.
An unloaded, rusty pistol was tucked away in the bottom desk drawer. Rolando had inherited the weapon from his father. He joked that he couldn’t use it because it was too rusty, but he couldn’t get rid of it because it was too full of memories. Instead he let it clutter up the house.
I moved out to the kitchen for a final check. At the table of a small breakfast nook, pieces of recent mail lay half in and half out of their envelopes. A thank-you from Rolando’s niece accompanied pictures from the baptism showing Rolando as the typical, indulgent godfather; the stuffed teddy bear enthralled him more than the squirming baby. A credit card statement showed that a hundred dollars had been charged for CDs at Música Latina. This was reasonable since Rolando kept up with the latest pop tunes and played them at Noche Azul before the live music started. Two hundred dollars had gone to a glass company; Rolando always laughed that the wait staff broke more glasses than they washed. There were several charges for gas. And eighty-five for dinner at Moonlit Nights.
I put down the account sheet and stared hard at the wall. Moonlit Nights was one of the fancier music restaurants outside the Vegas Strip. I examined the top of the sheet. The card carried both spouses’ names, but I was surprised Yiolanda had charged dinner on a joint card instead of paying cash. She could have dined with a group of friends, but Moonlit Nights was the kind of restaurant where the food and wine bill often balanced each other. The bill probably covered a cozy dinner for two.
I checked my watch. I’d been inside Rolando’s for thirty minutes.
He shouldn’t be coming for another hour, but I didn’t know what I was looking for, and I preferred to side with caution. If Rolando caught me, not only would I have to explain being in his home, but I’d also have to pretend to be my brother.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Joey came in quietly through his back door, which led into the kitchen. The narrow rectangle held a refrigerator and stove along one wall and a sink at the end. I was ensconced behind the table.
“Hey, Joey!” he grinned. He pulled open the refrigerator, pulled out two beers, and handed me one.
“You made twenty-five bucks in tips,” he said. “Not bad.”
He pulled the money out of his pants pocket, but I shook my head.
“Keep it.”
“Sure?”
When I nodded yes, he slid the bills back into his pocket. “I guess I earned it. How did you make out?”
I waved my hand over the table. Yiolanda’s letters and photographs covered most of it. “Nothing crucial except for the photo Yiolanda asked for.” I handed Joey my camera, which I’d loaded with her memory card.
Joey snatched it up. “Damn!” His eyes followed Yiolanda’s hand into Deeds’ crotch. “They’re friends all right. But is this photograph going to clear her?”
“If the restaurant staff remembers that she and h
er friend stayed until closing time, she might be all right.”
“What time did Leonard die?”
“Between midnight and four a.m.”
Joey sat across from me. “Even if she didn’t catch a commercial flight, what’s to say she didn’t jump into a private plane?”
“Good point. How long do you think it would take to fly to Vegas in a small aircraft?”
“Maybe two hours. Do general aviators have to log their flight plans?”
“I’m not sure. I could do some legwork.”
“If you have to. In the meantime, this photograph should help, but I doubt if it’s conclusive.”
Joey stretched his arms. “She tried to lie to the police, right? She’s either a chronic liar or an optimist. But back up a bit. I get the men mixed up. That guy she’s accused of killing—what did he do?”
“Leonard ran Hotel Farfalla. Named after Yiolanda, of course.”
“Farfalla?”
“It means ‘butterfly’ in Italian.”
“Sounds funny for Vegas.”
“Maybe he thought using a Romance language was a poetic touch.”
“Subtle. And the other guy murdered over there?”
“Chester Mathews danced at a night club.”
“And they were both her lovers? Mathews wasn’t gay?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Gutiérrez?”
I shrugged. “He was married.” I tapped Yiolanda’s stock portfolio. “Gutiérrez knew about money. They could have had common investments, or he could have advised her.”
Joey studied the list. “It would be interesting to see how long she’s held these stocks.”
“Is there a way to find out?”
Joey pointed out Yiolanda’s private account number, printed in the upper right corner of the report. “Sure. Get a woman to call and say, gosh, I was going through my records, can you tell me such and such. I can ask Christina to do it, or one of the girls at the office.” He took a long swig of beer. “Still, I don’t think this whole mess has to do with business. It’s too loose.”
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