In Big Trouble

Chapter 24

"He lives on Bikini."

"Huh?"

"This detective, Marty Diamond," Rick Trejo said, heading up Austin Highway. Tess realized she knew where she was, for once.

"He lives in a bikini? You means he hangs around the house in one?" Tess envisioned a too-brown old man, greased-up and dessicated at the same time, his stomach cascading out of a tiny magenta swimsuit. It wasn't an image that sat well on a late lunch from La Calesa. Rick had given her another taco tutorial-actually, the menu had been Mexican-Mexican according to his lexicon, the same sort of food that Espejo Verde had served. Despite that unhappy association, it had been all she could do not to stand up on the breezy patio and belt out: "How Long Has This Been Going On?" One thing was certain: She was never going back to ground beef, cheddar cheese, and chopped lettuce in an Old El Paso shell.

"Bikini is the street name," Rick said. "All the streets in this subdivision have some kind of Hawaiian theme. Waikiki, Molokai. Lots of retired military around here. I think the Pacific Rim theme makes them feel at home."

The houses in this northeast-side neighborhood were small ranches. Some had fallen on hard times, but most were fastidiously maintained. The lawns, in particular, seemed a kind of fetish here. Tess wondered how much work it took to keep one's yard so green and lush in a climate like San Antonio's. Rain hadn't threatened once in all the time she had been here.

They were on Molokai now. A witch, two tiny skeletons, and some cartoon superhero that Tess didn't recognize were walking down the street with Mylar bags.

"It's Halloween," she said. "I'd completely forgotten. Lots of tricks, but no treats at La Casita. "

Rick grunted. He was in a rotten mood and had been preoccupied throughout their lunch, barely touching his food. Tess had finished his carne tampiquena for him. He had mentioned a fight with Kristina, but Tess didn't understand how that could bother him. Bickering seemed to be a cornerstone of their relationship.

"He must have a good porno name," she remarked, just to be saying something. "Our detective friend, Marty Diamond. A good porno name, but not a good soap opera name."

"What?"

"Don't you know how to get your porno name? You take your childhood pet and the name of the street where you lived as a child, and that's your ‘nom de nekkid.' I don't have a good one unless I cheat and take the cross street where I currently live. Then I'm Tweetie Shakespeare. What's yours?"

"Your dog's name is Esskay," Rick pointed out.

"You weren't listening. Childhood pet, childhood street. I think those are the rules. Besides, I said I was cheating. The porno names are problematic. But the soap opera names always work. That's middle name plus current street. Then I'm Esther Bond. So boring. Sounds like the old lady who runs the dress shop and never gets in on one of the big plots."

"I'm…Midnight Zarzamora." He scowled when Tess laughed. "I think it's pretty."

"Oh, very pretty. But you're going to need implants."

He was turning onto Bikini now. Two blocks in, a paunchy man with a cigarette was standing in his driveway. He had a bristly gray flat-top, a baby blue Banlon shirt that hugged his bulging stomach, and baby blue suede loafers that no one would ever dare step on. Even if Tess hadn't known it was Marty Diamond, she would have known that this was a man who had spent most of his life in uniforms, official or otherwise.

"Even my own house is no smoking," he said when they got out of the car. "So I stand out here and smoke, and then I see some weed I missed and I want to start dragging out all my gardening stuff."

"Detective Marty Diamond?" Rick asked, offering his hand.

"That's me. You the lawyer? I've heard a lot about you."

Diamond didn't take Rick's outstretched hand. Rick didn't take the bait, although Tess thought his good ol' boy accent seemed a little more pronounced when he spoke again. She couldn't tell if Rick used this way of speaking to mock people or to ingratiate himself. A little of both, probably.

"This is Tess Monaghan, a private detective from Baltimore who's been assisting me."

Diamond glanced at her dismissively, then turned back to Rick. Tess couldn't tell if she had been disqualified on the basis of her gender or her hometown. "Let's go sit out back, so I can smoke when I want to. Although I hope you won't be here too long. I got things to do today."

Sure, Tess thought. Smoke a few more Merits, yank out a few weeds, count a few more clouds as they go by. Marty Diamond was a busy, busy man.

His wife fussed around them at first, bringing out a tray of iced tea no one touched, offering trick-or-treat candy no one wanted. A yippy little Yorkshire terrier dogged her every step. Mrs. Diamond was a small, bird-like woman who seemed innately tentative-in her words, in her movements. Yet she had been so voluble when Rick had called earlier in the week. Part of the reason they hadn't canceled this appointment today was because he dreaded another drawn-out conversation with her. It had seemed easier to go through with it.

"We wanted to talk to you about an old case-" Rick began.

"You the girl who found Darden?" Diamond asked abruptly.

"And Weeks," Tess replied. Rick was very big on hierarchy, as it turned out, and insistent on conducting this interview. She didn't care. They were just doing this to be doing it, to fill time so they wouldn't feel so useless.

"I hear Guzman's not one of your biggest fans." He was addressing Rick again. Tess glanced at him, and Diamond smiled, showing his surprisingly nice teeth, not at all stained or yellowed. Dentures, probably. "Yeah, I still got some friends downtown. Not many. And they're not Guzman fans, so don't worry, but they brought me up to speed on what's happening. That new breed is a little righteous for my taste. No offense. I mean, it's not because they're Mexican that they're so holier-than-thou. Guzman wants to be chief someday. He has ambition."

Steve Villanueve had said almost the same thing, but his tone had been admiring. Diamond made it sound ridiculous, contemptible.

"You were in homicide?" Rick asked.

"Robbery."

"How did you get involved with Darden and Weeks?"

"We knew those guys a little, they liked to hit convenience stores and drive-in restaurants. When the kidnapping came down, they put together a task force, with the feds, the sheriff's department, and a couple of our guys."

He leaned back in his chair, patting his stomach as if it were something separate from him, a big round cat he had suddenly found in his lap. "Yeah, we didn't figure them for something like this at all. This was for big stakes, not a weekend's worth of beer money. On December 16, two guys jump out of a car on the north side, grab this kid out of his stroller, right in front of his nurse. Danny Boyd. Dad was a big airline executive. Everyone assumes it's a kidnapping, because the guy's loaded. But three days go by, and the note doesn't come, no one makes contact. Lucky for us, the nanny is the greatest witness ever. She remembers the make of the car and gives us a partial on the plate. She was a smart little beaner, I'll give you that." A not-quite-conciliatory look at Rick. "Sorry. Didn't mean anything by that."

Rick ignored the apology. "Didn't you have to let the feds run the show? They usually pull rank in kidnapping cases."

"Oh yeah, the feds were hot for it-at first. But when we got the kid back and had the guys in custody, and it looked like a loser, they weren't so eager to prosecute. They kicked it back to the DA about three months in. It was a tough case. They only take the easy ones, those guys."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Rick said agreeably.

Diamond lit another cigarette. "Cowbirds. They'll take your nest, but they won't leave anything behind but their own shit."

"Still, you had an eyewitness, you got the kid back. Sounds to me like you had a pretty good case." Rick grinned, and for the first time today seemed wholly himself. "Not that I couldn't have gotten them off, but the DA obviously had plenty to work with. I'm surprised the feds backed away."

"We didn't exactly get the kid back. They gave him back. On day five, two guys walk into the Pig Stand restaurant with a little blond boy. They order a lot of food, and eat most of it."

Tess noticed Diamond used the present tense, as if he were narrating an episode of Dragnet.

"Already, they're kind of suspicious-looking, these two dark-haired bikers toting this golden-haired little kid around. Then one gets up and goes to the men's room. Second one follows him a few minutes later. Like a waitress isn't going to notice that these two dirtbags just left a toddler alone at the table. They went out the bathroom window, the manager called the cops on them for walking the check, and we found Danny Boyd, making mud pies with the ketchup. Unharmed, as far as anyone could tell."

"‘Ransom of Red Chief!'" Tess said. "Only he was so little, he couldn't have been that mischievous. Maybe those two thugs just couldn't handle changing diapers?"

"O. Henry lived here for a while," Rick offered. "Not far from the Alamo."

"Really?"

"There's more." Diamond seemed miffed by their interruptions. He was enjoying himself, the very act of telling the story loosened him up, the way a drink might have freed the tongue of another man. Tess could tell he was more at ease with them. Or at least with Rick. After the one question about Darden, he hadn't acknowledged her presence at all.

"So we have a problem. No ransom demand, no real evidence, car's gone, the feds are washing their hands of it. And wouldn't you know, the star witness can't ID these guys after all. Oh yeah, she had the car cold, but she couldn't pick these guys out of a lineup. They're claiming some other guy left the kid with them. The only thing we had going for us is that their court-appointed attorney is this do-gooding little Mex who's coasting on affirmative action." Another sly look for Rick. "No offense, Counselor. You're good at your job-too good, according to my buddies. But this girl was an airhead."

"Go on," Rick said.

"I mean, she was one dumb cu-cookie." Tess's turn for that pretend look of contrition. "So we tell her that the doc who examined little Danny couldn't rule out sexual abuse. Which is true, 'cause you can never rule out fondling and shit, even though you can't prove it, neither. But why would they take the kid otherwise?"

"Everything's done for sex and money," Rick said.

"Exactly," Diamond said, not catching Rick's ironic tone. "So we tell 'em we might go for a molestation charge on top of the kidnapping if they didn't plead out. We play them against each other, tell Darden that Weeks is fingering him, tell Weeks that Darden says it was all his idea. They agreed to make full confessions on the state kidnapping charges-they don't want that baby raper shit on their record. They thought they'd get a lighter term for pleading out. They should have remembered judges in Texas are elected. District Judge Bailey gave 'em twenty years when they went before him. And that's what they served. They were model prisoners, but every time they went before the parole board, they got shot down. They picked the wrong guy's son to mess with, that's for sure. The Boyds moved away, but Daddy Boyd made sure those guys stayed in for their full term. Now they're dead. Can't say I'm surprised, or sorry."

"And that's it?" Rick asked.

"Isn't it enough?"

"Of course, it's more than enough," Rick backtracked, trying to soothe Diamond's feelings. "To be honest, when we called and asked to see you earlier this week, we thought you might give us a lead on Laylan Weeks. But the case has altered, as they say."

"Is it true what they say about Weeks's body?"

Tess realized he was speaking to her for the first time. "I think it's supposed to be a secret."

"Sure, to the public. Cops gossip, too, you know. I hear Guzman thinks he's going to solve the Espejo Verde murders and be a goddamn hero. That guy's in love with the technology of crime-solving. But he's not a good cop. He's got no instincts for people."

Tess looked down at her datebook, which she had held open in her lap during their conversation, doodling on that day's date. She had drawn the figure of a child, sitting in a booster seat.

"Tell us about Danny Boyd."

"What's to tell? His daddy was rich and his ma was good-looking. Lucky for him, he looked like ma. She was a cute little thing, blond, blue-eyed, very hot. Did you know women get sexually excited when they're upset like that? It's a medical fact. All that adrenaline, and Mrs. Boyd didn't wear a bra."

Diamond closed his eyes, enjoying some private memory.

"And he was two years old?"

"Thereabouts. Maybe younger, maybe older. He could walk, he could talk, but we weren't going to court with his testimony, if you know what I mean."

"We know," Rick said, standing. "We won't take up any more of your time."

"Good luck with whatever you're working on. It's hard for me to know which side to root for in this one. Don't go for lawyers much, as a rule, but I sure do get tired of reading about the great Señor Guzman in the Eagle."

"Detective-" Tess began, her voice artificially sweet. "That little dog is so cute, does he have a name?"

"Cute? If you say so. Drives me crazy. That's her Butchie."

Butchie Bikini. Now that was a name for a porn star. Behind Diamond's back, Rick grinned broadly, momentarily cheered.

They hadn't even left Diamond's street when Tess asked: "How could you put up with that?"

"With what?"

"With beaner this and Mex that and the sneering way he called Guzman ‘Señor.' He was goading you the entire time we were there."

"Which is why I ignored him."

"You shouldn't let stuff like that go by," Tess said, thinking of how Jackie believed in confronting anyone, even prospective clients, who made the mistake of saying something racist in her presence. "It's like…letting someone litter, or pour toxic waste into the water system."

"Look, he's some old fart on a policeman's pension whose only hobby is killing weeds and trying to get lung cancer. My car probably costs more than he paid for his house. I win."

"As in, the one with the most toys, etc., etc."

"Most toys, most power. A person who really has power over you doesn't have to pull the kind of pennyante shit he was trying. We had to be polite to him because we thought he might have something for us. That's the up side to getting nothing. We don't owe him, and we don't have to go back."

Tess thought back to Diamond, how he had slobbered over Danny Boyd's mother, with her big blue eyes and blond hair. Danny had taken after his mother. A cute little boy, a rich man's son. Blond hair, blue eyes.

"I'm not so sure we came away empty-handed."

"What are you talking about?"

"Danny Boyd. He doesn't fit. He never fit. It's like trying to hammer the wrong jigsaw puzzle piece into place. Why do two convenience store robbers suddenly upgrade to a high-stakes kidnapping?"

"Because they had just killed three people in a botched robbery and they needed the money to get far away," Rick shot back.

"I thought of that. But they didn't ask for any money. They took a kid, then tried to give him back, and they were so broke they walked their check at the Pig Stand, whatever that is. You think we could get the original police report on the kidnapping? I want to check something out."

"Legally, we're entitled, but I bet the cops won't make it easy for us," Rick said. "As it happens, I now realize I know the ‘do-gooding little Mex' who represented Darden and Weeks. She's an attorney with a nonprofit, does environmental law now. And, no, she wasn't well-suited to criminal law, but she's the kind of analretentive Harvard grad who keeps her records forever. Chances are, she picked up a copy of the complaint, preparing to depose the nanny if it came to that. I know her pretty well."

"She still a friend, or did it end badly?"

"Darlin', she's ages too old for me." Rick smiled. "She's more of a mentor-mama figure to me than anything else. Besides, all my ex-girlfriends love me. It's the current one I can't keep happy."

It was dusk before the bell rang on the fax machine in Rick's office, a small but posh suite of rooms on the twentieth floor of a downtown office building. Tess stared out at San Antonio, watching the way the city began to glow at sundown. The sky almost seemed to part, the east going black while the west was still full of rosy clouds, the McAllister Freeway running between them like a dividing line. It was really a very pretty place in its own right, a lovely place of hills and old trees and gracious homes. There was nothing here to dislike, and much to admire. It was not, in the end, that different from Baltimore. A small big city, provincial and anxious, eager to please. Its only flaw was that it wasn't home, and she was so homesick.

She held Jimmy Ahern's The Green Glass in her hand, her thumb marking the page. In the end, the proof had been in the padding. All those little details that he had thrown in so frenetically, trying to puff the book up to full-length. How had the cops missed the motive buried there? Not that it would matter, unless she was right about this, too. She needed A plus B before she could get to C.

At the high trill of the fax line, she turned and watched two pages peel off the machine, falling to the floor where they rolled and shimmered like shiny snakes. When she didn't move Rick leaned over and picked them up, handing them to her facedown so she could have the first look.

"Well?" he asked as she scanned the old report.

"The Boyds lived on Shook Avenue."

"So your hunch was wrong."

"My hunch was dead-on," she said, looking up with a victorious grin. "The Boyds lived on Shook, but the kidnappers grabbed Danny on Contour Drive, less than a block from Gus Sterne's house on Hermosa. A little blond boy, out with his nanny, the same age and description as Clay Sterne, just outside the Sterne house. Sure, the Boyds never got a ransom demand. Because Gus Sterne did. And never told anyone."

Rick rubbed his eyes. "I'm totally lost," he confessed. "Why did Darden and Weeks have it in for this one family?"

"They didn't. They took Clay because Gus Sterne said he would pay them to kill Lollie and then reneged on the deal. They were just trying to get him to pay up. And if they had taken the right kid, things might have worked out differently all around."