Fifty Grand

I wouldn’t have taken him for a good listener, but he is.

And the questions he does ask are short and to the point.

“How long was your brother in Fairview?”

“Three days.”

“Is that long enough?”

“It’s all the time we had. But Ricky’s good.”

“What did your father do here?”

“He worked for High Country Extermination-as a pest controller.”

“What’s that?”

“A ratcatcher.”

“What if Ricky got it wrong?”

“I went to the garage. I looked at their books. I think he got it right.”

“What if the person who hit your father didn’t use the Fairview garage? What if they had their car towed to Denver?”

“Ricky managed to check the Fairview Towing Company records for all of May.”

“Very resourceful, but what if they used a Denver towing company and a Denver garage to do the repairs?”

“In that case, they’re going to get away with it. There’s no way I can check every garage and every towing company in Denver for May and June.”

“If you turn this over to the U.S. police-” he begins but then changes tack. “You already know, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve eliminated one suspect, but there are many things up in the air.”

“Who’s your prime suspect? Tell me. You know I’m not a yapper, I won’t tell anyone,” he says eagerly.

“No.”

A pause. Yellow light filtering in through the window. Someone yelling in drunken Spanish at the far end of the parking lot.

“What are you going to do once you’ve found him?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

His eyes narrow to a Mongolian squint. “You came here to kill him, didn’t you? He hit your father and left the scene of the accident. He left him to die by the side of the road.”

“It was worse than that. He knocked him off the Old Boulder Road into a gully. He tried to climb back up to the road but he couldn’t make it. His lung was punctured. He drowned in his own blood.”

Paco’s face loses its color. “The Old Boulder Road?”

“Yeah.”

“So this hypothetical driver of yours was one of those fucking movie people?”

I don’t want him to jump to any conclusions. I don’t want him going up there himself. You were the man in New Mexico, María, but now I’ll show you what I can do. He’s the type.

“No. Not necessarily. I don’t know for sure.”

“It’s one of those guys whose homes you’ve been cleaning. Someone up on Malibu Mountain. It’s Cruise, isn’t it? Fucking Tom Cruise killed your old man and the Scientologists covered it up.”

I roll my eyes. “Francisco, calm down, it’s not Tom Cruise.”

He nods, clucks his tongue. “So, when are you leaving town?” he asks casually, but we both know it’s the key question.

I don’t answer.

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” he says.

He opens the window to let in fresh air. He keeps his back turned. He doesn’t want me to see his face.

“I have to be back in Mexico by Monday night.”

“Monday!” He turns. “What’s today? Saturday? Monday! Christ, when were you planning on telling me?”

“I was going to tell you,” I lie.

“You played me for a sap.”

“No, I didn’t. I don’t have all the pieces yet, I have a lot to do, when I had it all I would have told you.”

“Jesus, María. I should have stayed in Denver. No, I should be going to fucking L.A. with everyone else. I only wanted to be here because I thought you’d be here.”

“I’m sorry I screwed you up.”

“Yeah, you did screw me up. You fucking did.”

“Paco-”

“Chupame la turca,” he says sadly, goes to the door, opens it, and tries to slam it behind him but even that fucks up and it catches on the back of his heel, tripping him.

“How far are you going to get in your socks?” I yell after him.

I wait for him for a minute. Two.

Bathroom. Mirror. Sink. Splash water. Reflect. My fault. A conversation I should not have had. There’s a time for the truth and there’s a time for silence. Any good interrogator knows that. Paco’s too young to understand. Too immature to be any kind of a confidant for me.

Faucet off.

He opens the door, comes in, crying.

He falls on his bed like a kid.

I sit beside him, stroke his back.

“What will I do after you go home?”

“You’ll be fine. You’ve got a job, friends, you’ll be fine.”

“I should have stopped those guys in the desert.”

“No. You should have done exactly what you did. You kept a cool head and I’m proud of you.”

“You’ve a boyfriend in Havana?”

“No.”

“Maybe I’ll come see you when I’ve got some money saved.”

“Sure.”

Sure.

“I saw you praying.”

“Yes.”

“What’s that like?”

He shakes his head. He doesn’t understand the question. He yawns.

Time flowing forward in single breaths. Entropy maximizing.

“I’m tired,” he says and yawns again.

He starts breathing like a cat.