“Isaid, I’m fine!” Lola snapped back, with which she shot up from the bed and went into the bathroom. There she looked into the mirror and made a professional assessment. Patient is a thirty-nine-year-old female Caucasian, well nourished but could drop a few pounds, looks like shit, bags under eyes, dry lips, bitten nails, twitches, dull skin. Reports insomnia, stupid fights with husband, night terrors, reduced sexual energy, recurring dreams. History of hypochondria but nothing recent. Patient is, or was, happy with career and relationships, no prior trauma except one voodoo ceremony, one life-saving miracle by a God in which she does not believe, and a few incidences of murderous violence…
She decided to sign up for a CAT scan. Let’s rule out the brain tumor, shall we? Meanwhile, she thought, on with the day. She opened the medicine cabinet and took down a vial of 5 milligram Valium tablets.
In the bedroom, Paz rose and threw on a sweatshirt and jeans. He would make breakfast for Amelia and take her to school and then return to shower and smoke a cigar and have some more coffee, just as if this were an ordinary day. In fact, by the time he completed these routines it would havebecome an ordinary day: again his extraordinary ability to bury unwanted thoughts. Had the drug companies been able to bottle it, Valium and its sisters would have been driven from the market.
Nor did the subject arise again that day or in the ensuing week. Paz watched his wife covertly for more signs of mental distress. He found them in plenty but felt helpless to intervene, having learned over the years how difficult it was to comment effectively on the mental states of one’s wife, if one’s wife was a psychiatrist. He was a patient man, however, patience on the Jobian scale being a requisite for homicide detectives, and so he waited to see what would evolve and paid a lot of attention to his daughter.
A week and a day after the killing of Yoiyo Calderón, after the elaborate funeral (not attended by Paz) and after the murder had vacated the front pages of the paper for others more recent, if less gaudy, Paz was at work at the end of the lunch rush running a wire brush over his grill and thinking that he should take his wife and kid on a vacation this year, take the boat and run down the Inland Waterway to the Keys, stay in a nice marina, let the sun bake all this shit out of the three of them. He began to think about what the best time would be to take this break, maybe have to wait until school break around Christmas, which would leave his mother alone on Christmas, no, couldn’t do that. After Christmas, then. Would Lola go for it?
A tug on his apron, and he started and spun around with a curse in his mouth. He was not wound as tight as his wife yet, but he’d dropped a lot of calm.
“What!” he said, more harshly than he meant, and he saw the child blink and draw back. He knelt and gave her a hug. “I’m sorry, baby. I was just thinking, and you startled me.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Something nice. Going out on the boat down to Islamorada with you and Mommy. A vacation.”
“Could we take Felix and Louis?”
“I don’t think cats like to go on boats. We could send them to the cat vacation hotel, though.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“There is. They can order fried mice from room service and there’s a bar where they eat catnip and get crazy. They’ll love it.”
“Okay, but there’s a lady out in the room who wants to talk to you. She didn’t order anything butcafé con leche and a guava tart.”
Paz thought immediately of Beth Morgensen. What if the woman was getting aggressive and starting to hunt him? It was all he needed just now.
“What does she look like?”
“She has blond hair. I never saw her before, I think. Table ten.”
Paz washed his hands and face and removed his greasy apron. As always when coming into the dining room after a shift, he paused for a moment to adjust to the shock of moving from the zone of controlled chaos and heat to that of calm, luxury, and cool. He’d never seen the woman at table ten either, but she seemed familiar in an odd way, something about her eyes and the set of her jaw. An old flame? No, he was eidetic on those. Someone from the police? Possibly. He observed her from the cover of the philodendron-draped woven screen that separated the service hallway from the dining room. She was indeed blond, the hair fine and well cut in a businesslike neck-length style, and wore a tan linen suit, also well cut, over a pale lavender blouse. Paz had an eye for clothes and color, and he could tell that those particular shades of tan and lavender were not colors available at Target or on the bargain racks. So, a wealthy woman, late twenties or early thirties, smooth tanned skin, not pretty. Her features were heavy, the nose prominent, the mouth too wide for the face, a fairly masculine face, really, one of those women who turn out looking a little too much like Dad. Her large hazel eyes, set a little aslant, catlike, with thick lashes, were, however, quite fine.
And a Cuban. Paz couldn’t have said exactly what about her appearance marked her as such, but he was sure of it. A nervous Cuban woman: she shifted in her chair several times as he watched and seemed to be looking for someone, or perhaps concerned that someone was looking at her, although the restaurant had emptied out and there were no people in her immediate vicinity. Her long tan fingers tapped on the table, an irregular rhythm that flashed darts of light from ring and bracelet.
Paz walked into the room and quickly to her table.
“I’m Jimmy Paz. You wanted to see me?”
She gave him an assessing look before speaking. She did not return his formal smile. “Yes. Please sit down. Do you know who I am?”
He sat and looked her full in the face for an interval. “No, sorry,” he said at last. “Should I?”
“Not really, I guess. I’m your sister. Half sister, I mean. I’m Victoria Arias Calderón de Pinero.” She extended her hand and Paz shook it dumbly, and then of course the odd familiarity of her face was explained. He shaved one very like it every morning.
“Ok-a-a-y,” he said after a stunned moment. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Pinero?”
“Not Mrs. Pinero, please! Victoria.”
“Oh, that’s nice of you, Sis. I guess I should have said sorry for your loss.”
“It’s your loss, too.”
Without responding to this, he said, “I’m surprised you even know I exist. How did you find out about me?”
“My Aunt Eugenia. She eats here all the time. She’s kind of the family character, the black sheep…”
“Excuse me, I believe I am that.”
He saw a little color appear on her cheeks. “Oh, Christ.” She sighed. “Please don’t make this horrible, although you have every right to, I know. The way my father treated you and your mother was disgraceful. I apologize on behalf of my family.”
“You know, I think I saw you once,” said Paz, ignoring this last. “I was fourteen or so and I just found out where I came from. I biked over to your place in the Gables, and you and another little kid were in the pool. You must’ve been like seven or around there. I stood there and watched you for a long time, until your mother noticed me. Then your father came over and took one look and he knew who I was and he dragged me behind some bushes and beat the shit out of me and told me he’d do worse if I bothered him again, that and wreck my mom’s business. So I guess I’m not interested in the fucking Calderóns or their apologies. Anyway, if that’s all,Victoria…” He pushed his chair back and was about to get up when she said, “Well, whether you like it or not, you’re his son. You have the same sarcastic nastiness, the same brutality and pride. Believe me, I’ve been the favorite target, so I know.”
He stared at her and saw her eyes were brimful of tears, one of which now dripped unregarded down her cheek.His eyes, his daughter’s, too.