Midnight Rambler: A Novel of Suspense

I picked up the napkin dispenser on the bar. Sonny yelled “No!” but it was too late. The dispenser left my hand and shattered the TV screen. Glass rained down on the bar. Sonny said something about history, then got a broom and started cleaning up.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“You're history if you don't replace the TV.”

“You're going to throw me out?”

“I will if you don't replace the TV.”

“Can you lend me the money?”

He swept around my chair. “No.”

“Come on, just for a couple of days,” I said. “I'll pay you back. You know I'm good for it.”

Going behind the bar, Sonny removed a black box from behind the register, pulled out a card, and showed it to me. It contained my two tabs. The little tab had caught up to the big tab, and I owed the bar nearly five hundred bucks.

“Replace the TV and pay your tabs and your rent, or you're history.”

“You're serious.”

“Damn straight.”

He retrieved the napkin dispenser and replaced it on the bar, then resumed his sweeping. I felt as if I'd lost my last friend in the world.

I turned on my stool and looked out the window at the bright blue ocean. Should I just go take a swim and not come back?

The thought had crossed my mind before, but never seriously. This time, it was serious.

The bar phone rang. Sonny answered it, then handed me the receiver.

“It's your girlfriend.”

I figured it was Melinda accepting my offer from last night, but I was wrong. It was Julie Lopez.

“I know who put my sister's body in my backyard,” Julie said.

I drove past Julie Lopez's house a couple of times, not wanting to run into any cops or reporters who might be hanging around. The place was quiet, but I still looked over my shoulder when I knocked on her front door.

Julie ushered me into the living room and bolted the door behind me. Her eyes were ringed from lack of sleep, her puffy face void of makeup. Her dirty short-sleeved shirt and faded cutoffs only hardened the picture.

There was no real furniture in the living room, just three folding metal chairs and a card table with a greasy bag from McDonald's in its center. The last time Julie saw her sister it was over breakfast at McDonald's, and I was surprised that she still ate their food. We sat on two of the chairs and faced each other.

“Who put your sister's body in your backyard?” I asked.

Julie looked around the room before answering me. The look in her face was best described as paranoid. I looked around the room as well. There were no wall hangings, unless you considered mold art.

“Are you afraid of something?” I asked.

She nodded. She was a big woman, with large breasts and curvaceous hips, and was considered a hot number with the older Hispanic men who enjoyed her services. In a whisper she said, “It was the cable TV guys. They put Carmella in the backyard.”

“The cable guys?” I repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Is that why you called me over here?”

“Yeah, Jack.”

I felt the strength leave my body. Opening the McDonald's bag, I removed a large order of french fries and helped myself. Julie threw me a wicked stare.

“That's my breakfast,” she said angrily.

“You get any for me?”

Julie didn't understand the question. I was pissed off and not ashamed to show it. I had important things to do. Like replace the TV in the Sunset and figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. She grabbed the fries out of my hands with a catlike quickness and shoved several into her mouth.

“I can prove it,” she said.

“All right, prove it.”

“Last week the cable on the TV stopped working. Ernesto called the cable company, and two repairmen came out that afternoon. They said the wire in the backyard was old. They dug a trench and laid a new wire. But guess what?”

I had no idea where this was heading, and shook my head.

“The cable don't come back on. Ernesto looked at the work they did. Then he climbed up on the pole. When he came back in the house, he called them dumb fucks. I ask him why, and he said the problem was on the pole. That was why we weren't getting HBO. The problem was on the pole.”

“So?”

“Don't you get it?”

“No.”

“What you acting so pissed off about, Jack?”

“I'm sorry, Julie, but you're wasting my time.”

She threw the french fries and hit me in the head. I jumped out of my chair.

“I don't have time for this,” I said angrily.

She wagged her finger in my face. “Listen to me. The cable guys didn't have to dig in the yard. The problem was on the pole.”

“So?”

“The cable guys knocked the cable out on purpose. Then they dug a hole when me and Ernesto were sleeping, and put my sister's body in it. Get it?”

Hookers work at night, sleep during the day. Someone could have come into Julie's backyard and dug a grave while she and Ernesto were sleeping.

“What about the gold crucifix that was in your sister's hand?” I asked. “It was identified as Ernesto's.”

Julie dragged me into the kitchen and pointed at a bookshelf beside the rattling fridge. Two gold crucifixes stood upright in a display meant to hold three. The middle crucifix was missing.