“Hasta luego, señorita,” she said. “Enjoy San Esteban.”
Zoe stepped out onto Warren’s rooftop patio and inhaled the mountain air—sweet corn and cinnamon and the perfume of fresh flowers. . . . Pretty much what heaven must smell like, she figured, except one of those scents—the corn one—was making her weak from hunger.
She hoped she wouldn’t be too long in finding a place to eat. And once she got out the door, she saw there would be no wait at all. The source of the sweet corn smell was a tiny storefront tortillarilla, right across the road from Warren’s town house. About half a dozen street dogs were sleeping outside it—and for street dogs, they looked pretty well fed. Zoe figured that must be a good sign—the San Esteban version of trucks parked outside a highway diner.
She bought a half kilo of corn tortillas from the smiling, ancient woman behind the counter, and moments later, she left with a stack of them, wrapped in moist butcher paper and so warm they nearly burned her hands. After devouring a few, she rewrapped the stack and slipped it into her purse, then headed down the hill toward where she remembered the jardín was.
As it turned out, San Esteban was meant to be viewed in bright sunlight. The creamy stucco town houses with their sherbet-colored doors, the pink-tinted cobblestones, the clotheslines full of red, green and white paper snowflakes atop so many of the roof gardens—as if the whole town were decorated for a party . . . She hadn’t noticed any of that the night before. Someone seemed to have waved a wand over San Esteban, made it 50 percent more enchanting. Even the bizarre gutters looked fanciful. What with the dry heat and the sluggishness Zoe still felt from the altitude, she might have been moving through an unusually pleasant fever dream.
The only problem was her shoes. The hill was so steep that with every step, her foot would slide past the edge of her flip-flops, the thong part ripping into the tender skin between her toes. Before long, her feet were cut up and killing her. She considered going barefoot, but what with all the street dogs in this town, she’d have been risking a major case of E. coli.
A woman in a brightly embroidered white blouse, a matching head scarf and a skirt the color of fresh watermelon walked past, pushing a wheelbarrow full of fragrant mangoes. She matched the town. “Buenas tardes, guera,” she said, which Zoe knew from high school Spanish meant “Good afternoon, white girl,” but in a nondisparaging way.
How interesting to be a foreigner, which made her think of Warren’s last foreign visitor. A man. Ten years ago. She stored that information in her mind, wondering what Warren would say if she were to ask him about it. Probably something like, Have I ever told you how much I love your smile?
He really was a terrible interview. Maybe she could find an independent source. . . .
Zoe’s feet hurt enough to pull her away from her thoughts. What kind of a dumb guera was she, taking the cobblestones in flip-flops? She really didn’t want to go back to the house, though. The idea of walking back up that hill without a full lunch and a beer or two in her was beyond daunting. Plus, she didn’t feel like forcing herself on Guadalupe again.
As Zoe approached the jardín, she caught sight of La Cruz de San Esteban. It yanked at her attention in such a powerful way, it was almost a slap. She stopped walking and just stared at it, the traffic sounds around her muffling, even her foot pain fading a little. What was it about that cross?
She moved closer. In the trees around her, birds shrieked, the leaves shuddering with their movements. When she was about ten feet away from the cross, she peered at the Aztec bird carved into its face—the same bird, she saw now, as on Warren’s custom-made gutters, only without the snake’s body—and for a second, she could have sworn she felt an energy radiating out of it, an actual heat.
They avoid La Cruz because they think it’s cursed. Me, I feel just the opposite.
Zoe wanted to touch the cross, but someone else got there first—a man in a white hemp shirt and jeans, his salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a ponytail. She didn’t see his face, but he was quite tall and, Zoe guessed, American. The man waited a moment, then spread his arms, placing each of his hands on opposite arms of the cross. He bowed his head, stood perfectly still. And then his body began to vibrate.
Zoe watched, transfixed. She wished she could see his face, but his back was to her and his head was bowed—a crucifixion in reverse, with an electric current running through it. How very, very strange. And then, in an instant, he backed away, went about his walk as if he’d never stopped there in the first place. Zoe caught a glimpse of the man’s profile—a kind, weathered, largely sane face, with a broad, open smile.
“Wait!” she called out. He turned to her. The smile disappeared. He didn’t look quite so kind anymore. His eyes were a very pale gray with a steeliness to them that was unnerving. For a second, she flashed on the look in Warren’s eyes, when she’d mentioned the cross in his dressing room closet. “Were you talking to me?” the man said. “Do I know you?”
“I . . . Sorry. . . . I thought you were someone else.”
He nodded and walked away, leaving Zoe standing there, wondering if maybe La Cruz de San Esteban really was cursed.
What a weird train of thought for an agnostic Jew. If Zoe’s parents only knew she was wandering through Mexico, crosses and energy and evil curses running through her mind.
Hell, if Steve only knew . . .
Take a rain check on the cross. You need protein. With some difficulty, Zoe turned away from La Cruz and started toward an inviting-looking restaurant called Las Enchiladas, across the far corner of the jardín. But she didn’t get far before she turned her ankle and fell to the cobblestones, catching herself with her hands, and then rolling to the side.
“Are you okay?” said a voice. Zoe looked up to see a tall, sunburned American girl—very young, especially for a gringo in San Esteban. . . .
“I’m okay,” Zoe said.
The teenager held out her hand and Zoe took it. But as she stood, she realized that, while her ankle was fine, her left wrist was in major pain—she could barely move it. “Must have landed on it funny.”
“The cobblestones are really dangerous,” said the girl. “I’ll take you to the doctor.”
“You don’t have to—”
“No worries. I was on my way there, anyway.”
Zoe tried moving her wrist again and nearly screamed. “I guess I should get it looked at.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I know the sun is hot and all, but in the future, you should always wear hiking boots or sneakers.”
“Yeah. I’ve been told.” She stuck out her good hand. “I’m Zoe, by the way.”
The girl squinted at her. “Not Warren Clark’s friend?”
Zoe’s eyes widened. “You know him?”
The girl smiled. “This town is so small it’s ridiculous,” she said. “I’m Naomi Boyd, Vanessa St. James’s niece.”
EIGHT
Steve had a date tonight. It was one of those dates that Zoe referred to as his news tricks, where he’d wine and dine a woman who was obviously interested in him, all so he could get information for a story. It wasn’t as amoral as it sounded—the woman was always single, Steve was always a total gentleman, she had a good time, he got the information he needed. . . . Everybody was, more or less, happy.
Tonight’s news trick was Debbie Cohn, a former publicist with the mayor’s office. Debbie had a big ax to grind against the bribe taker, Ernest Barthel, and an even bigger desire to get with Steve. She’d told him as much, repeatedly. Debbie was hot, too, with shiny black hair and great legs and a sexy, knowing laugh she’d used frequently during the course of his asking her out. But by the time Steve had said, “Pick you up at seven,” and hung up the phone, he was already looking for excuses to cancel. First, Debbie loved Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals and Steve . . . did not. To impress her, he’d scored two tickets to a Broadway revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. But now that he knew this would actually be happening in five hours, Steve realized
he’d rather stick pins in his eyes.
That wasn’t the real problem, though. Steve and Debbie could’ve had box seats for the Rangers with a cooler full of Grolsch, followed by a Ken Russell retrospective at the Ziegfield and a room at the W, and still he wouldn’t want to go.
All he cared about was Carlos Royas’s baseball cap.
Warren Clark had been in San Esteban during the time of Jordan Brink’s murder. The alleged murderer was photographed wearing a cap with the logo from Clark’s show. Why was a grave-robbing Mexican drug dealer who confessed to a brutal killing wearing a baseball cap from an American soap opera? Yeah, he could have gotten it at a San Esteban flea market or maybe he was even a Day’s End fan—but Steve couldn’t get past the idea that Clark and Royas might have known each other. He was even entertaining the possibility that Warren Clark had something to do with the killing.
In his more rational mind, Steve had to admit—he was taking an Olympian leap of logic over one stupid cap. If he were to talk to a shrink about this, the shrink would probably tell him he was overreacting, that he had some kind of paranoid fixation on Warren Clark. It was also a good bet the shrink would add, “Are you really worried about your best friend’s well-being—or are you pissed off that she’s found happiness with someone other than you?”
And then Steve would punch the shrink in the eye. See, this was why Steve was not in therapy. Denial suited him just fine.
It was two in the afternoon. He had already filed the Royas story, but he’d asked Glen to keep his ears open for any follow-up info. Press weren’t allowed to speak to Carlos Royas, but all day Guzman had been trying to get hold of Royas’s mother, Alma—a pharmacist in San Esteban who spoke only Spanish. When and if he did speak to her, he promised to ask Alma where her son had gotten the cap, and if he had ever met Warren Clark.
Just for the hell of it, Steve ran a search on the Jordan Brink memorial service, and learned it had been held last week. He found a Post article about it, but it was short on details as the service was very private. From the start, Mr. and Mrs. Brink had refused to speak to the press—other than to insist, in a statement, that their son did not take or steal drugs. Couldn’t blame them for that; much of the reporting had been incredibly slanted. Steve skimmed the Post story for mention of them: Morrison and Barbara Brink of Astoria, Queens.
Morrison Brink. Unusual name.
Steve’s phone rang. It was Guzman, sounding a whole hell of a lot testier than he had at the start of the day. “I finally talked to Alma Royas,” he said. “Asked her your soap opera question.”
“And?”
“She hung up on me.”
Steve’s eyebrows went up. “She did? That’s . . . strange, don’t you think?”
“Not really,” he said. “Your son has just confessed to a brutal murder. His life and yours are pretty much over, and some reporter says, ‘What’s up with the logo on his cap’? How are you gonna react?”
Steve sighed. “Good point.”
He said goodbye and hung up the phone wishing that Guzman had never asked the question—because now he was more curious than ever. If Alma Royas had said, “How dare you ask me about soap operas at a time like this?” that would have been one thing. If she’d said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s just a stupid cap,” that would have been another. But hanging up on the question . . . That was like scratching a mosquito bite. It just made it worse.
The office of the local, American-born doctor was a few blocks away from the jardín, and as she walked there with Naomi, her wrist throbbing with each step, Zoe tried not to flip into interview mode. It was hard, though, because Naomi Boyd was a fascinating subject. A seventeen-year-old girl whose mother—and only immediate family—had died of cancer just two years ago, she’d moved to Mexico to live with an aunt whose most motherly act had involved a session guitarist with a diaper fetish. And then, just when Naomi was finally beginning to have some semblance of routine to her life, she woke up in the middle of the desert to find her summer crush murdered and mutilated. . . . Yet here she was, so very normal. If it weren’t for the worry that flooded her eyes every so often, Zoe would think Naomi’s life had been nothing but smooth sailing.
“The doctor’s name is Dr. Dave,” Naomi was saying now. “I know that sounds kind of corny, but his last name is Polish, with about fifty thousand consonants in it. It’s really hard for Americans to pronounce, and Mexicans just look at it and laugh.”
Zoe nodded. “It’s nice of you to take me.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Like I said, I was going anyway.”
“What for?”
They stopped at the corner while a truck roared past. Naomi gave her a bright smile, but Zoe saw it creep into her eyes again, that worry turning to panic. She understood Naomi’s life was the opposite of smooth sailing—and had been for so long that she’d become used to it, adept at ignoring all but the most treacherous waves. “Post-traumatic stress disorder,” Naomi said.
Zoe winced.
“No biggie, really. I’ve been having a few . . . episodes since last Friday and . . .” Her eyes welled up. She blinked a few times. “They gave me these homeopathic pills—well, Robin did. Dave’s assistant? They really weren’t doing much, so I looked them up online, and they’re like . . . chamomile.”
“You need something stronger.”
Naomi nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I’m not a druggie or anything. . . .”
“You don’t need to explain it to me.”
“Robin’s really nice, but she’s so holistic. She’s way into Reiki.”
“What is that—some New Age thing?”
Naomi rolled her eyes. “Most people here swear by it. Vanessa goes for sessions three times a week. It’s this healing technique where someone—the Reiki master—holds his hands over you and aims positive energy at the afflicted area. He never touches you, but it’s supposed to make you all better.”
“And people get paid for this.”
“A lot, I think.” There was a slight break in traffic, so they hurried across the road. “In fact, there’s a Reiki master right next to Dr. Dave’s. I bet you anything Robin tries to get you to go to him for your wrist.”
“Sorry,” said Zoe. “I don’t trust anybody who calls himself ‘Master.’ ”
Naomi laughed. “I thought I was the only one in the world who . . .” Her voice trailed off.
They passed a coral-colored building with a deep blue door that read Studio Rafael and next to it, a larger, white building with two shingles out front: REIKI MASTER PAUL and DR. DAVID KVORCZYK, MD. “Looks like we’re here,” Zoe said. But when she turned to Naomi, the girl was staring across the street—at a town house whose rooftop patio bore just a few dead plants. “That’s Patty Woods’s house,” she said, panic floating in her eyes. “She’s . . . she was Jordan’s great-aunt.”
Back in the Summer of Love days when Patty Woods was in her late teens, people used to call her Patty Permasmile. That was because she went through life with her eyes half closed, a grin affixed to her round, freckled face—the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the Have a Nice Day logo.
The thing was, Patty wasn’t any happier than the next person. She was just stoned out of her mind most of the time. She would wake up in the morning, grab her water pipe and smoke a bowl before brushing her teeth. She’d keep seven thick doobies mixed in with her pack of Kents, and go about her day smoking one every three or so hours, just to keep the buzz going. She lived in New York City at the time, allegedly attending Barnard but mostly wandering through the Central Park Rambles with her other hippie friends, marveling at the falling leaves, singing Jefferson Airplane at the top of their lungs, laughing at the rats.
The downside to all the smoking, though, was that it made Patty very paranoid. First, she began to think her friends were making fun of her behind her back. Then, strangers were staring at her and thinking evil thoughts. After a while, she got the snaking feeling she was being followed, which turned, very qu
ickly, to a near-constant sense of dread.
One day, Patty became convinced a hot dog vendor was about to draw a gun on her, and she ran screaming out of the park. It was then she decided enough was enough—this wasn’t even fun anymore—so she threw the rest of her stash down her apartment building’s incinerator and went completely clean.
In forty years, Patty hadn’t even touched an aspirin. She had never felt the slightest bit paranoid—especially not in San Esteban, where teenage boys serenaded their mothers on Día de Las Madres, where guns were illegal for everyone except the police, where people smiled and said hola as they passed you in the street, where good or bad, she believed she had everyone figured out.
But now, things were different. That dread was back. She hadn’t had people figured out after all. The group was still meeting, and whoever had ripped out poor Grace’s heart had wreaked the same horror on her nephew.
Now she had real reason to be afraid.
Jordan had arrived at her front door unexpectedly, one day before Corinne was due in for her summer break. “I’m sorry I didn’t call first,” he had said. “I’ve been traveling around Mexico, and I missed it here.” At the first sight of him, Patty couldn’t help but smile. He was bigger now—a young man—but he still had that specialness.
She’d hugged him tight and said, “Of course you can stay.” And she’d thanked God for how resilient children could be.
But that night, after a day of sightseeing, Jordan had returned to her house changed. Changed back. His mouth was tight, as if he were biting back pain. There were clouds in his eyes—not tears, but the threat of them, which was worse.
“Are you still doing it, Aunt Patty?”
“What?”
“Are you still . . . you, Rafael, Warren and the rest . . . Are you . . . ?”
“Jordan—”
“. . . still going to Las Aguas?”
“No, honey. I told you. We stopped a long time ago.”
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