Guillermo looked up to see his oldest brother, Ted, attached to the foot.
Ted was short with broad shoulders and barrel chest, like Papa, but he still retained the physique of an athlete. A rebellious lock of dark brown hair almost always fell into his left eye. His newly-grown mustache was much more trimmed than Papa’s.
“And stay the hell off of Tio’s car,” Ted growled. “You know how he fusses over it.”
“Not Tio’s car anymore.” A shit-eating grin spread across Guillermo’s face as he straightened up. He held out his right fist chest high.
Ted and Hope stared at Guillermo’s hand. He turned his hand over and opened his fist, like a magician. Only, instead of a rabbit or dove escaping from his grasp, he dangled a set of keys from his fingers.
“Mine. All mine. Tio gave it to me. A graduation present. He only has daughters, he thought a guy should have it.”
“Dude!” One of Guillermo’s friends shouted and high-fived Guillermo.
“What?” Hope’s mouth hung open. “Celli loves that car.”
“You get your ass in there and make Papa proud.” Ted’s eyes glowered. “This is your big day too. I can’t believe you’re doing shit like this now.”
Guillermo straightened up. “What’s the big deal? It’s just high school, man.”
“Cut the crap.” Ted grabbed his little brother’s bicep and spun him around. “You know it means a lot to Papa. He never went to high school. And don’t give me that barrio shit either. Act like an adult for once in your life.” He shoved his brother toward the restaurant entrance. “And pull up your pants.”
Guillermo turned and looked at his friends. They looked down and kicked at the ground. He did as ordered. He pulled up his pants and marched back into the restaurant.
Ted turned towards his little sister. “Hey, chica, you look beautiful.”
“Oh you,” she slapped at his shoulder. “I bet you say that to all of your sisters.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Ted put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “Let’s go have a party.” They strolled in lockstep after Guillermo.
****
Seattle
Lisa had never seen a jail cell before, except on Law and Order. In fact, she had never even been inside a police station. Yet here she was, sitting in her flower-print flannel pajamas locked in an iron cage off to the side of a busy room full of cops working at their desks.
“What ju in for, babe?” A short, round Latina woman said as she plopped down on the bench next to Lisa.
“I . . . I don’t know . . .” Lisa’s mind had not yet caught up with reality. She pulled her pajama top close around her neck.
“C’mon, a pretty mama like ju? Ju musta done some bad chit.”
“The police broke into my house.” The nightmare replayed in Lisa’s mind. What had she done to deserve this? “They said there were drugs in the basement. They must have planted them. They want my Jimmy. They have my daughter.”
The Latina woman flung her hair back out of her eyes. “What kind of drugs?”
“Cocaine, they said they found a bunch of packages. They couldn’t have. Jimmy and I . . . we don’t do drugs. And guns. They said they found guns. I don’t allow guns in my house.”
“Guns and drugs.” The dark-haired woman held out her hand. “I’m Angie. Looks like ju in some pretty deep chit.”
Lisa stared at the hand a moment, then shook it limply. “I’m Lisa. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Ju talked to jour old man? He know what’s goin’ on?”
“Jimmy? He’s out of town. Out of the country. He’s in the import/export business. He’s on a trip to Vancouver.”
“Ju better get a hold of him, Mama. Ju don’ wan’ him walkin’ back into this mess.”
“Lisa Adams.” A tall police woman with a clipboard in her hand opened the cell door. “Detective Peterson wants to talk to you.”
“But I’m not dressed.” Lisa folded her arms over her chest. She was mortified, being out in public in her PJs. “I don’t even have a bra on.”
“Let’s go.” The police woman took Lisa by the arm and led her to an interrogation room where two men waited. The first was Petrocelli, the little rat who led the raid on Lisa’s house. The other was a large man in a badly crumpled suit.
The big man, over six feet tall and big around as a house, pulled out a chair for Lisa. “Sit here, Mrs. Adams.”
He sounded polite enough.
“Mrs. Adams, I’m detective Peterson. This is Assistant DA Petrocelli. We have a few questions for you.”
Lisa sat down and stared at the men. She was still too dumbfounded to speak, too embarrassed to look them in the eye. The little man couldn’t keep his eyes off of her breasts. Ever since she nursed Kayla, the darn things hung down to her kneecaps.
“Let’s start with your husband,” the big detective said. “Where is Mr. Adams?”
“He’s out of town. Out of the country.” Lisa kept her arms crossed over her chest. “Kayla! What have you done with my daughter?”
“She’s safe, Mrs. Adams. She’s with a foster family. In Child Protective Services care.”
“No.” Lisa started to stand.
Petrocelli put his hand forcefully on her shoulder and held her down.
“She’s only ten,” Lisa pleaded. “She needs me.”
“I’m afraid it may take some time to work this whole thing out,” Peterson said. “If you’ll just cooperate and answer our questions, we’ll be able to get you out of here much faster.”
“I need to get out of here now; I need to see Kayla. . .”
“Let’s start with the coke.” Ignoring her, Petrocelli continued. “How long has your husband been storing it in your basement?”
“Coke?” Lisa tried to think. “He doesn’t drink Coke.” Oh, they mean cocaine. “He doesn’t do drugs. He has nothing to do with that.”
“What do you take us for?” Petrocelli shouted. “We’re not stupid. We know your husband has been one of Seattle’s major distributors for years.”
“No, we have a child. Jimmy wouldn’t do drugs.”
****
After two hours in the interrogation room, Lisa was exhausted. She still had no idea what they wanted from her. How could she give them information she didn’t have? Jimmy wasn’t a drug dealer. No, she had no idea how the guns had gotten into her basement. She didn’t know any of Jimmy’s business associates.
Now that I think of it, she thought, Jimmy never talks about his business.
He is a legitimate businessman, Lisa managed to convince herself. He ran an import/export business from their home. They could check out his computer if they liked. It had all the records.
There wouldn’t be anything incriminating on his computer, would there?
No, she didn’t know when Jimmy would be back. He worked like that. Sometimes he’d be gone a couple of days, sometimes a couple of weeks. He didn’t know when he left where his trip would take him. It just depended on what kind of deals he managed to come up with.
He always drove to Vancouver, but there was the time he brought her a silver necklace from Mexico.
For some reason, that horrible little man didn’t believe her. The big detective was much nicer. He tried to help, but every time he did something nice, the district attorney yelled at her.
And the way he looked at her, like she was naked. A cold shiver ran down her spine.
She returned to the holding cell in tears.
“How ju doin,’ Mama?” Angie asked.
“I . . . I don’t know . . . It’s . . . it’s awful. They’re accusing Jimmy of horrible things.”
“Where is ju husband? How come he not here to bail ju out?” Angie sat down on the bench next to Lisa.
“He’s away.” Lisa wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ve got to call him. He’ll know what to do.”
“Ask for ju phone call. They gotta let ju make one phone call.�
��
Angie put her arm around Lisa’s shoulder and pulled her close. Lisa slumped into her.
****
East Los Angeles
“Absolutely not,” Mama’s voice rose. She almost never raised her voice. “I won’t have my eighteen-year-old son traipsing around the country by himself.”
Mama, Guillermo, Hope, and Papa sat around the table in Mama’s kitchen. Coffee and pan dulce was the breakfast of the day. They would have a more substantial meal later, before El Chaparral opened.
“Mom, it’s no big deal.” Guillermo pulled at a cuerno de manzana. “Everybody does it. Eddie, Chapo and Tony are up for it. Their parents don’t have a problem with it.”
“I don’t care what everybody else does. You’re my son. You’re only eighteen. When you’re twenty-one, you can go out and kill yourself if you want, but until then, you do what I say.”
“Dad?” Guillermo turned to Papa.
Papa remained silent, just looking off into infinity.
“How old were you and Papa when you took off for the US?” Guillermo asked.
“That’s different,” Mama said. “People were a lot more mature in those days.”
“It’s not different. You were sixteen. Papa was eighteen. You didn’t even tell your parents. You just ran away.”
Mama looked to Papa. He sat stone still.
“I was with your Papa,” Mama argued. “He was smart and strong.”
“So, I’m not smart and strong? Besides, me and the guys aren’t moving to a new country. We’re just taking a road trip. Lots of guys do it when they graduate.”
“Papa?” Mama took her husband’s hand.
“Guillermo is right, Corazon. He is a man now. He needs to get out. Be on his own. When Ted was eighteen, he went to Seattle, to go to school. It’s time for Guillermo to start making his way in the world.”
“Just don’t get yourself into any trouble, Raton,” Hope said. She knew Papa would have the last word. “You stay safe. I’m not going to come and bail your scrawny ass out if you get in over your head.”
Chapter 2
Seattle
Lisa made her call from the payphone on the wall in the police station, humiliated and freezing in her pajamas.
Jimmy didn’t answer the first four times. He finally picked up on the fifth call.
“Hullo?”
She could hear loud voices and Mexican music in the background.
“Jimmy? It’s me. Lisa.”
“Lisa? Baby? What are you doing calling me? Haven’t I told you never to call me when I’m on the road?”
Lisa danced nervously from foot to foot. “Jimmy! It’s an emergency! The police! They came to the house and broke down the door.” She took a couple of quick breaths to stabilize her shaky voice. “Jimmy I’ve been arrested… They took Kayla away.” Her pitch rose by an octave on her final words.
“Oh shit!” Jimmy never cussed.
“They say they found drugs and guns in the basement.”
“Lisa, Baby, don’t say anything to anyone. I’ll get you a lawyer. Until he gets there don’t talk to anyone.”
“But, Jimmy, You have to come get me. I want you to come home.”
The music blared in the earpiece. Was that Spanish she heard in the background?
“Listen to me, Baby. I can’t come home. If I come back into the country, they’ll arrest me too. I can’t help you if I’m in jail. This is just a big mistake. I’ll figure out a way to fix it.”
“Jimmy.” Lisa hated it when she sounded whiny, but she couldn’t help herself. “Come get me!”
“I’ll find you a lawyer. I’ll figure out how to get you out of there. Just hang in there for now, and don’t talk to anyone.”
“Jimmy, the guns. The drugs. How did they get in our home?”
“Did you tell the police anything? Have you talked to them?”
“I don’t know anything. They took Kayla away. She’s in some foster home.”
“Damn. She’ll be okay. We’ll get you out of there and everything will be all right.”
“She won’t be okay. She needs me. They keep asking me questions, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I mean . . . just sit tight. The cops must have planted the drugs. Yeah . . . I don’t know how else they got there. We need a lawyer. I’ll find someone to straighten this out. Just don’t talk to them. Don’t tell anybody anything.”
“No, Jimmy. You come home right now. I need you. Kayla needs you. I mean it. Come home.”
“No can do, Baby. I gotta go. Hang in there. I’ll send help.”
“Jimmy . . .”
The line went dead.
The policewoman led Lisa back to the holding cell.
“Can I get a blanket or something?” Lisa asked as she was ushered through the steel cage door. “I’m freezing.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” The policewoman didn’t seem too unfriendly.
“So, Mama, wha’ ju find out?” Angie patted the bench next to her.
Lisa sat. “He told me not to talk to anyone. He said he’ll get me a lawyer and that it’s all a big mistake, the police must have planted the drugs.”
“Sounds like a lying son-of-a-beech to me.”
Lisa’s head snapped towards Angie. “No! He wouldn’t lie to me. He’s great. He’s a good father, a good provider. I know he’ll get me out of this.”
“When’s he comin’ to get ju out then?” Angie had an all-knowing look in her eye.
“He says can’t come back into the country until this is all straightened out.” Lisa shivered, “or they’ll arrest him too.”
“So he’s gonna leave ju in the can? Let jour little girl sit in some foster home? Sounds to me like he’s hangin’ ju out to dry.”
“No! He wouldn’t do that.” She shook her head in denial at Angie’s accusations. “You don’t know him. He’s not like that. He just needs to figure out what’s going on,” Lisa protested.
“Well, I know men. That rat’s not comin’ back.”
“Angie Martinez.” The tall policewoman approached the cell accompanied by a slender brunette wearing a black business suit. “Your lawyer’s here.”
“Mama, this is Jennifer. Ju need to talk to her. She’ll take care of ju.”
****
East Los Angeles
“You always have the best coffee.” Maribel Rodriguez reached for a cup in Ted’s cabinet.
Ted wasn’t awake enough to react. He’d seen his next-door neighbor in her night-time outfit of boxer shorts and a tank top too many times to arouse him. She was attractive enough, a tall, slender beauty with a dark pixie-cut hairdo and a nice body.
“Mornin.” Ted managed to utter. He was never much of a morning person. He couldn’t even make a fist until after his third cup of coffee or midday, whichever came first.
Maribel rummaged through the fridge until she found a carton of milk, then turned to the cupboard for a box of cereal.
“Raisin Bran?” She shook the box at Ted. “That’s the best you can do?”
“Hey, chica, I’m not a big cereal person.”
Ted couldn’t remember when his apartment had become open-season for his neighbor. She was nice, probably his best friend in LA, but she acted like she owned the place.
“How was Friday night in the restaurant business?” She asked.
“Same as always.” Ted poured himself a cup of coffee. Maribel had been in his apartment so many times and seen him in his boxers so often, he didn’t think twice about it. Hell, she’d seen even him naked.
When they first met, there had been a sexual thing, but neither of them fell in love. It didn’t take long to decide that they worked better as friends than as lovers.
“Any celebrities?” Maribel asked.
For some reason, people who were not in the business always thought it was glamorous. They didn’t realize that it was non-stop hard work.
“Nah, it was just a busy night.�
� Ted shrugged. “We were short a busboy and I ended up doing dishes and bussing tables most of the night.” He pulled out a stool at the breakfast bar and sat down.
As soon as his ass hit the seat, a sable Burmese jumped into his lap.
“Hey, buenos días, Oscar.” Ted scratched behind the cat’s ears. “What’s the haps, little man?”
Ted hated cats, but Oscar had been Meagan’s cat. Meagan was his best friend Chris’s fiancée. When she was killed in Canada during the terrorist attack, Oscar moved in with Ted and ruled his apartment with an iron paw.
“How come you’re always having to cook or do dishes or bus tables? I thought you were the boss?”
In the five years since Ted returned to LA from college in Seattle, he had managed Papa’s restaurant. Now, Papa hung out in the bar, seated guests in the dining room and chatted with the celebrities who showed up. Ted and Hope, ran the restaurant.
“Staffing the shop is the hardest thing I have to do. It’s not unusual for a cook or busboy to not to show up for a shift. Someone has to cover them until we can find a replacement to fill in. I usually end up doing the work because Hope is better at conning people into coming to work on their days off.”
“You hate it, don’t you?” Maribel plopped down on the stool next to Ted.
Ted’s apartment showed his growing prosperity. A tan leather couch and matching recliner faced the wall filled with a big screen TV and surround sound system. Even though it was still in his East LA neighborhood, it was in one of a few new luxury high-rises that were making their way into the fringes of the barrio.
Ted wanted to live close to Mama and Papa, that’s why he’d come back to LA in the first place. And it was close to El Chaparral. He could walk to work and not risk his new black-on-black BMW Z4 roadster on the mean streets of LA, not to mention his own parking lot.
He finally had that BMW he’d always dreamed about. After Papa won seven million dollars in the lottery a few years back, allowing him to buy the restaurant where he’d cooked for more than two decades, money was no longer an issue. He was still a spendthrift, but he wanted to reward Ted for coming home to be close to Mama. Business was good and he gave Ted a pretty decent salary.
The Mexican Connection: Ted Higuera Series Book 3 Page 2