by Zoe Chant
“What. A. Jerk,” gentle Bird said fiercely.
“Oh, you think that was bad? Just wait. It only gets worse. Which is pretty much why I’ve never yapped about it. What good does it do? But I said I’d get it out, so I will get it out. You know what things were like back then for girls who turned up pregnant with no ring. Especially brown girls with no money and no family.”
Doris winced. “Let me guess. The town turned on you as a harlot and a she-devil, while the guy gets off free and easy.”
“Got it in one. I confided in the head waitress, who I’d thought was a friend. I’d certainly taken enough extra shifts for her, and covered for her in other ways. But I’d missed the signals that she was hot for Rigo, and he’d just been polite to her. He was to all the women, except me. She must have burned a trail to the owner, because by the end of the week everyone in town knew. The diner fired my harlot ass.”
Bird scowled.
“But I was not about to put up with being treated like the town Jezebel, so I took my skimpy savings and got a bus ticket as far north as I could. There’s no use going into the deets. It was easy enough to get waitress work in those days, so I did, and when I started showing, I lied and said my husband was in the Korean War but I hadn’t heard from him in months.”
“Those were the days when hardly anyone had a phone,” Doris said, shaking her head. “I remember once my great-grandmother remarking tartly that a gal who needed to get lost could get lost. Though I never found out the story behind that.”
“Too bad. I would have liked to hear it. As for me, I certainly did. And so, my boy was born.”
Bird and Doris exclaimed almost in unison, “You have a son?”
“I do. Still do—I believe, though I’ve got no proof. That part is coming. When Alejandro was small he and I were mostly in boarding houses, with one phone in the hallway, everyone listening to whoever was talking. We moved a lot. There were some nosy types who seemed to think it was their duty to question Alejo about where his dad was. If he had a dad. Or I’d get the stink eye from holier-than-thous who didn’t believe in the husband in Korea.”
“I remember those days,” Doris sighed.
Bird nodded as Godiva went on, “Not that I cared what anybody thought, but I was not going to put up with Alejandro getting crap for having a single mom. So we’d move again, and I’d change my name. After three of those in a row, I rented a post box, and told him if we ever got separated, we’d write to that post box, and then find each other.”
“Now that was smart,” Eve said.
“But. Maybe it was the Nosy Parkers, or maybe peer stuff. Or maybe something boys just do, when they hit a certain age, because Alejandro kept asking about his dad. When he was little he believed me when I said his dad was a soldier overseas, but when he reached sixteen or so, suddenly he was all over me about who his dad was, where he was, and the rest of it.”
Doris the teacher and Bird the mother both nodded.
“I always told Alejandro the truth—that we’d been abandoned, that his dad was a worthless skunk, and anyway I had no idea where he was now. I didn’t even know his last name! I’d known him as Rigo El Cabarello, which was the name he rode under. I thought telling Alejo he was a skunk would disgust him into dropping it. But the day after he finished his junior year in high school, I came back from working a late shift one night to find him gone, with a note on his pillow: he’d taken off to find his dad, and promised to write to me as soon as he found him.”
“Oh, no,” Bird whispered.
“I reported him to the police as a missing person, just to get sneered at. Every single day or night, after I finished my shift—sometimes before and after—I walked that town for hours, looking for him. I went to all the places I knew he and his friends hung out. I checked the post office box at least three times a week. This went on until mid-July. It felt like forever, but it was probably a month and a half. I didn’t dare move away. I kept expecting Alejo to turn up, and I didn’t want him to find strangers at that crappy boarding house. You remember, no internet in those days, no cell phones. Once you lost touch with someone, they were pretty much gone.”
“So he vanished?” Bird clasped her hands tightly.
“Well, yes and no. There came a day when I finally found a post card in the box. Posted from somewhere in the Dakotas. He’d found his dad—how, I will never know. No return address, since it was a post card. But the handwriting was definitely his. The message just said he was fine, and everything was groovy. Said he’d write again. And he did. I got a post card every few days, always from different places heading west, always saying he was having a great time traveling with his dad. The last one was from San Francisco.”
“Was he all right?” Bird asked, her eyes huge.
“He said he was having a blast. You know teenage boys. Not exactly forthcoming. That last post card was about watching guys painting the Golden Gate bridge, and wasn’t it a kick how once they get done they have to start all over again. And that was the last one.”
Godiva tipped her head toward her study. “I still have the post cards. Then nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. A year passed. He turned eighteen, and legally he could do what he wanted. But I still wanted to find him.”
Godiva shook her head. “After his birthday came and went and no message, I paid up on the box for ten years, and came out west to look for him. Since the last place I’d heard from him was San Francisco, that’s where I headed. Never found him, and I was broke. So I settled on the west coast to start over. Eventually made my way down here. But I kept writing to him at that post box, and every year I traveled back to check the box myself. After I got an agent, she checked it for me, as it was a short drive for her. Nothing. Ever again.”
Doris and Bird had exchanged glances a couple times. Doris said slowly, “Sounds like you were living hand to mouth there for quite a while.”
“That I was.”
“But somewhere in there you became a successful writer, about a private investigator. Did you ever think of hiring a real one to find your boy?”
“You betcher booty I did! My very first royalty check, before I even moved out of Cockroach Central, the dump of an apartment I was living in at the time. Nada. I tried again when computers became a thing, and I thought surely it would be easier—how many Alejandro Cordovas can there be in the country? Thousands, I guess, because that try, too, was a bust. I even tried to find Rigo, except that I never had learned his last name, and ‘Rigo El Caballero’ didn’t get any traction whatsoever. So I just continued to write to Alejo every year, birthday and Christmas, always with my address and phone. So if he wants to find me, he can.” Godiva sighed. “And that’s my story. Or was, until Rigo turned up this morning.”
Bird said softly, “You didn’t ask him this morning about your son?”
“No. I took one look at Rigo’s handsome face—oh yes, he’s still hotter than a bonfire, damn him—and lost it.”
Bird said, “I know you haven’t asked what I think, but I’m going to say it anyway, speaking as one mother to another. Even if Rigo’s a total asshat, you ought to ask him, before you do anything else. Or you will always wonder.”
Godiva sighed sharply, not wanting to explain that she’d always known she would. But would he refuse to tell her? What if he didn’t know either? The thought of talking to Rigo hurt so much. All those old emotions had come rushing back, as if he’d dumped her yesterday. How could she explain that to Doris and Bird?
But she knew she had to face him, even if for thirty seconds, before she blew out of town to seek a fresh start.
She also knew she’d bent Doris and Bird’s ears long enough.
So she forced a smile as she chucked the handful of underwear back into her bureau. Then she reached for her phone to call Linette. “Looks like I’m staying put.”
Doris spoke firmly. “Good. And we’ll back you up.”
Chapter 4
Rigo
Rigo walked around the pretty seas
ide town, appreciating the sea air, until it was time to meet Joey for lunch.
But when he arrived at the restaurant, it turned out Joey wasn’t alone.
“I know you came to help us with Long Cang,” Joey said. “But first, what can we do to help you?”
“Look, I appreciate the offer,” Rigo said, his gaze brushing past Doris sitting shoulder to shoulder with Joey in the coffee shop booth, her expression about as warm as Siberia in mid-January. “But I don’t want to get y’all involved in my messes. Seems to me I ought to go calling on Godiva, flowers in hand, and fix it up myself.”
Joey’s gaze dropped as he slipped the pack of dog whistles Rigo had given him into his pocket. Yeah, this guy sensed the tension from the women, too.
Doris said, “I wouldn’t.”
“Not like a stalker,” Rigo said to her. “Just go knock on her door. Once. If she tells me to git, I’ll git.”
Bird, who was sitting next to Doris, said, “That’s good to know. But it might not be good for you.”
Rigo was glad Joey had picked out a round booth in the coffee shop. Otherwise, he suspected strongly that both women would have squeezed in on either side of Joey rather than have one of them sit next to him. “Why? She does have a loaded cannon in her front yard?”
Silence, just long enough to make it real clear that his joke had croaked like a squashed bug.
“No,” Doris said, and pushed a stray French fry around on her plate. “But she has houseguests. What you’d be facing are a lot of women whose experiences, let us say, don’t lend themselves to trusting strange men rolling up to the door uninvited.”
Bird leaned forward. “Not to mention Godiva’s neighbors, all of whom know her. She’s been watching out for them for years. They know what the situation is at Godiva’s, and like as not, you’d find the local police turning up between the time you parked your car and walked halfway up her driveway.”
Rigo remembered what he’d learned about her childhood. Of course she’d be saving strays. She’d been a fierce protector of those needing protection when she was barely older than any of them. “She takes in battered women, is that what you’re trying to say?”
Doris hesitated, then said, “Maybe one or two. Most victims of violence get help through organizations or social services. Godiva takes in the women who fall through the cracks.”
“Older ones,” Bird amplified. “Who you can say were kicked around by legal means.”
Rigo shook his head. “I’m not getting it.”
As he’d hoped, they were talking to him. Bird fixed her wide, serious gaze on him as she said, “There’s one who came home from work early one day to discover the husband she’d been supporting for years—bad back, he said—being surprisingly athletic in her bedroom, on the wedding ring quilt she’d stitched herself, with the neighbor across the street. She threw him out that night. He retaliated by siccing his brother the shady divorce lawyer on her, which left her barely with the clothes she stood up in. All legal. She had nowhere to go until Godiva took her in.”
Doris said, “Another lived with her son until that son turned forty and fell into the clutches of a barracuda who schmoozed the clueless schlimazl step by step into marriage, then getting power of attorney over Mom’s affairs in case ‘something happened’, then into shoving Mom into a cut-rate warehouse for the old while the barracuda used Mom’s life savings to redecorate the house for hubs’ ‘important business entertaining.’ Mom escaped from that dump with nothing but the clothes on her back. Again, every step was legal. But not fair by any means. Godiva took her right in.”
Bird finished up the tag-team not-quite-attack with, “Any strange man showing up at Godiva’s house is liable to find something worse than a cherry pie flying through a window at him.”
“Got it,” Rigo said, thinking, You walked into this with your eyes wide open, boy.
From the basilisk: silence.
Rigo forced the sharpness of disappointment—regret—down. He knew he deserved what he was getting. But . . . “Seems to me what y’all are saying is, I’m arrested, tried, and convicted before I get much past ‘howdy.’”
“If the shoe fits,” Bird whispered, making Rigo wonder what kind of no-good sidewinder lay in her past.
Then Doris reached over and laid a hand on Bird’s wrist before turning to Rigo. “Look,” she said, and it seemed like she was struggling to be fair. “I’m sorry to sound judgy. It’s just . . .”
“Just, it might be better not to go knocking on her door,” Bird finished.
Joey said, “Which brings us back to my idea. Tomorrow is the regular meeting of our local writers’ group.”
Rigo shook his head. “I’m grateful for your thinking of me, but I’m no writer.”
“Godiva is,” Joey said.
“Yep.” Rigo snapped his fingers. “I clean forgot, what with the zombies and all else. I’ve read every one of her books! She was always a mighty fine storyteller.”
“As a successful mystery writer,” Joey said, “she has fostered this group pretty much since she moved into this city. So if you come, it will be to a public place, a safe space. That might go a ways toward protecting you both, if you wish to have a conversation.”
Rigo appreciated Joey’s effort to be neutral. “I’m listening.”
“You even know where it is—the back room of the bakery I directed you to this morning.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Rigo leaned back, hands out. “Seems to me that’s about as neutral as a volcano about to erupt. That baker will take one look at me and bring out the double-barreled shotgun. She’s got one laser-glare on her.” He whistled.
Joey flashed a brief, rueful grin. “If you’re with us, she won’t bring out the heavy artillery. You’ll have to listen to people reading, but afterward, people mix as they drink coffee and eat pastries. You could present your case to Godiva in a safely social environment.” Joey added, “I feel I owe you this chance after your help this morning, with the dog whistle solution.”
“That wasn’t much,” Rigo protested. “Doesn’t get us any closer to Long Cang.”
“No, but it does help protect the innocent. So, will you come with us?”
There was only one answer to that, of course. “Sure. I appreciate the invite.” After a brief, awkward silence, Rigo got up and excused himself, saying he had to visit the men’s room.
He went there, but on the way out he stopped at the cash register, paid for everyone’s meal, and then headed out the front door to spare them all any more awkwardness.
He knew where to go, if not what to do. But he had the rest of the day, and what he suspected would be a restless night, to figure it out.
He took his car to a car wash, handing out generous tips to the workers whose faces lit up when they saw his Phantom. They polished it to a shine with loving care. Then he drove back to his motel overlooking the beach and the Pacific Ocean. The rooms were plain, but clean, and each had a little balcony from which he could sit and watch the sun going down. Then he called Alejandro, as promised.
Alejo had to be moving around with the phone right in his pocket, as he answered on the first ring. “Have you found her? Is it her? Did you see her?”
Rigo felt bad at the eagerness in Alejo’s voice. “It’s her,” he said. “But I only saw her for a moment.”
Alejo’s sigh reached across all the cell towers between Kentucky and California. “I can’t believe you found her, after all this time. Is it really her? Didn’t she see you? Did you talk to her?”
“Not yet,” he was forced to say.
“Oh. Okay.”
The drop from eagerness to disappointment in Alejo’s voice made Rigo grimace. “I’ll be seeing her tomorrow night. I’ll call the minute we get a chance to meet up, I promise.”
“Right,” Alejo said. “Damn. After all this time . . . so that mystery writer really is her? The last name wasn’t a coincidence?”
“I still don’t know why she chose to use Hidalgo as her last n
ame, considering the memories she left behind weren’t so hot. But it’s her. I’d know her anywhere.”
“She must not have recognized you,” Alejo said. “She won’t recognize me, that’s for damn sure. Geez, I was a scrawny, zit-faced pencil-neck when I took off.”
“Still are, amigo,” Rigo said, forcing a joking tone, though he felt like his heart had been hammered by a giant hand. “Maybe not the zits.”
“Yeah, right, Dad. I’m going to remember that when you get your old ass back here, and we get on the mats,” Alejo retorted. Then he launched into a report on the day’s doings.
They talked business for a while. When that was done, Rigo said, “What more can you tell me about that dog whistle and sewer escapade? The dog whistles worked on the victims here, making me wonder if whoever was pulling that scam in Chicago came out here.”
“I don’t remember a lot about it. It was some years back,” Alejo said. “And I wasn’t there. I learned about it from Lance.”
Rigo nodded. Alejo’s boyhood buddy was connected with the Midwest Guardian.
Alejo went on, “What I do remember is they caught the shitweasel behind it, and I’m pretty sure his punk-ass is still behind bars. But I’ll call Lance and ask. I haven’t talked to him for a few weeks, whoa, more like a couple months. Good excuse to catch up.”
“Do that,” Rigo said. “I’d appreciate it. And anything else you can dig up about that incident. Tell him we’ve run into something similar here, and if he has any advice, I’m all ears.”
They signed off, promising to talk to each other on the morrow. Then Rigo set his phone down on the nightstand by the bed, picked up his dog whistle, and stepped back out onto the balcony. In the ochre rays of the vanishing sun he jumped off the balcony and shifted to his basilisk, making certain he was invisible to human eyes.
His wings snapped out and he soared out over the rippling waves below. As he banked and picked up the onshore sea breeze, he gained altitude. Below, the little town was laid out in a grid parallel to the shoreline. As he spiraled upward, the last of the sun vanished beyond the sea, and the lighting shifted to shades of cool blue.