Lifeblood (10 page)

“Umm-hmm. I see you were listening for once. This guy should know if that area is in use.”

“I’d sure like to get a firsthand look at that ward.”

“Well, don’t look at me.”

“I’m not even looking at the phone.”

“You know what else that guy told me? The food at that hospital is good. You ever hear of good hospital food?”

“Sounds like a contradiction in terms.”

“He said there were a couple of black guys there—brothers, mind you!—who make the best greens in the whole United States. And a couple of Mexican women who make better red enchiladas than you can get anywhere in LA. We got to go have lunch in that cafeteria sometime.”

“Go out for lunch to eat hospital food?” Rachel’s voice rolled out without expression.

“My mama makes real good greens, but she don’t do it very often.”

“Greens.”

“Lord, woman. You have eaten greens haven’t you?”

“I guess.”

“You sound funny. You okay?”

“I had another fight with Hank.”

“I thought he was up north.”

“He was. He caught a ride down for the afternoon yesterday in somebody’s company plane.”

“So why did you fight?”

“He accused me of messing around. Some guy he knows saw me at the Pig with the pharmacist from the hospital and that drug company rep.”

“Well, guys are funny that way about their women. That shouldn’t be hard to patch over.”

“It got harder when he told me he’d been seeing some woman up there.”

“Yiiii!” Goldie drew out the exclamation, then paused. “I’ll check the bench after I get the crew started tonight. If you’re there, we could talk if you want.”

“I didn’t sleep much last night. I don’t know if I can stay awake.”

“If you aren’t there, we won’t talk.” Rachel could almost see her friend’s plain no-nonsense face as she rang off.

She twisted the engagement ring on her finger.

Chapter Eighteen

It was a little after noon when a shiny silver Toyota 4Runner drove up the ramp to the booth. Not sure she’d seen the vehicle before, Rachel leaned out the cubicle doorway and waited until the SUV window began sliding down. “Sorry,” she called. “This isn’t public parking.”

“I know that.” The face that appeared in the open window was Marty’s. He held out a plastic bag with a semi-circle of red letters that spelled Chow’s Chinese Kitchen. “Where’s an empty space?”

She took the bag. “Where’d you get that car?”

“Never mind that right now, Rache. Find me a slot.”

“Third one on your left, down there.” She pointed. Now what?

The sweet-and-sour aroma from the bag made her suddenly hungry. Sweeping aside the papers on her desk, she dug out a package of paper plates from a file drawer.

“How’s my girl?” Marty set down the box he was carrying and spun her about for a hug.

“Have you become a car thief?” She laughed into his collar, feeling better for some reason she didn’t quite understand.

“The apartment or the bench?” Marty asked.

“I haven’t had my full dose of smog yet today.” Rachel picked up the bag of take-out cartons.

Carrying the box, he followed her out onto the sidewalk. “Gorgeous day,” he said as they settled on the bench in front of the garage. “Not much smog at all.”

Hoping it wasn’t the present he’d mentioned, but knowing it probably was, Rachel nodded at the package that Marty set down on the sidewalk in front of him. “Better move that under the bench, or someone will steal it.”

“In broad daylight?” But he did as she suggested.

Rachel balanced a plate on her lap. “I saw a rollerblader make off with a woman’s purse while she was sitting on this same bench. The jerk was out of sight before it even registered on her what had happened.”

Marty watched her dish out fried rice and General Tso’s chicken. “Your hair,” he said.

“What about it?”

“I still think it makes you look too….”

“Chicano?” She handed him a plate.

“Chicana,” he corrected her.

“Well, it’s not my fault you didn’t teach me proper Spanish. I only know a couple words I’ve picked up on the streets.” She moved her eyes to his. “Why shouldn’t I look Chicana?”

Marty concentrated on his food. “You don’t think it makes people…I don’t know…look at you differently? Treat you differently?”

“My last name is Chavez. I have dark hair and brown eyes. Maybe they should think I’m Swedish?” She raised her face to the sky. The day was warm and bright. “I don’t get enough sun.” She held out and arm and pulled up a sleeve. “Look at this bar-room pallor.”

The lines over Marty’s eyes deepened. “Bar room?”

“Oh, Pop. It’s an expression. I’m not drinking. I’m not using. I’m so pure I’m boring.” She changed the subject. “The new 4Runner,” she said, not wanting to know but asking anyway. “Nice. It’s yours?”

“First off, it’s not new. It’s three years old, low mileage, thirty-five thousand.”

“Still, those babies aren’t cheap.”

“I told you what I won.”

“That wasn’t your last poker game, Pop.” She didn’t say that pawnbrokers don’t do cars and a quick sale to a used lot would bring only about half what he probably paid.

Marty grinned, ignoring her implication. “I bought it for you.”

“You what?”

“That old Civic of yours has seen better days. You need a good car. I thought I’d trade you. I don’t drive all that much. You take the new one, I’ll take the old.”

“Pop, I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“The last time you drove a car of mine you were run off the freeway by someone who was probably trying to kill me.”

“No one is trying to kill you now.” Marty paused, examined her face. “Is there?”

“Nope. Nothing is going on in my life except this garage.” Rachel finished the last of the rice, folded her plate and put it in the bag with the empty cartons.

“Any luck landing a new company to replace the one you lost?”

“Didn’t I tell you? Turned out, I was hardly out a week’s rent. Jefferson Medical Center.”

“That’s wonderful, Rache.”

“So one of these days, I can buy another car myself.”

Marty put his plate in the bag. “Is that the hospital where those two kids disappeared?”

“One was dead. It’s possible the other boy died in the emergency room—before he could be admitted to the hospital. But I guess you could say they both disappeared because I can’t find out what happened to either one, dead or alive.” She turned to look at her father. “I think it has something to do with the fact they were Mexican.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you think that might be part of the reason they came to be locked in that van in my garage?”

Marty glanced at her, then away. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I had lunch with one of the doctors at Jefferson who’s now parking with me. She worked for a while in Mexico. Chiapas. She says things were pretty awful there.”

“Chiapas is just about the poorest place in the country. Maybe in the world. Always has been.”

“Was all your family wealthy?”

“You’d probably call them filthy rich. We had servants.”

“You never go back. You never see your relatives?”

Marty shrugged. “Tia Inez was good family. The best.”

“Your mother’s sister? Where is she now?”

“She died. Breast cancer. She lived just long enough to see me through college.”

“Did Mom ever meet her? Did she know…?”

“No. Inez was gone by then.” His eyes flicked back to Rachel’s face. “You’re all the family I need.”

She took his hand and squeezed it, thinking how hard it must have been on a young boy to be thrust into a strange country, a strange culture. He would have been about the age of the kids she had found in the van. Maybe the family was wealthy, but her grandfather must have been an asshole.

“Why didn’t your mother leave him? Take you and your brother and sisters and come live with Tia Inez?”

Marty shook his head. “That sort of thing wasn’t done in my family. It simply wasn’t done.”

Rachel gazed into the middle distance and tried to imagine being rich and having to tolerate abuse.

Marty took the opportunity to change the subject. “So when are you getting married?”

She tilted her head and made a face he couldn’t see. “I don’t know. We’ll set a date one of these days.”

“You want a big wedding?”

“Good God, no,” she sputtered. “You have any idea what a big wedding costs these days? You didn’t win that much. We’ll go to a chapel in Burbank or something. I can’t afford a big do, let alone a dress I would only wear once.”

Marty reached under the bench and brought out the package. “That’s why I brought this along.”

She frowned. “A wedding present? We don’t even know when—”

“No-no.” Marty placed the package in her lap. “Open it.”

Rachel gave him a perplexed look. Not wanting to deal with this, but seeing no way out, she undid the plain brown wrapping. The large box inside was a yellowish white. She lifted the lid and her eyebrows drew together.

“It’s white. Satin or something. I can’t open it here on the street. Tell me you didn’t buy me a wedding dress, Pop.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then why does it look like one?”

“It was your mother’s.”

Chapter Nineteen

When her clients began collecting their cars for the evening rush hour Rachel was still trying to sort out her feelings about the wedding dress. She had no urge to take it out of the box to try on or even just to admire. She could see the fabric was beautiful. Even after all these years, it fairly glowed.

At first she had put the box on top of the filing cabinet. When she had trouble concentrating on the figures she was posting in the ledger, she had taken the box up to the apartment and slid it under her bed.

Why was everyone who mattered in her life determined to see her married? She glanced down at the engagement ring, wiggled it, then pulled it off. It dropped to the floor and bounced out of the cubicle. She chased it to the front wheel of a parked car and put her foot out to stop its roll.

Did she want to end the engagement? No. Maybe she was just tired.

But Hank is messing around. He even admitted it.

He said he had dinner with someone. Dinner. Period. Big Deal.

Right.

She put the ring back on, then took it off again, put it in an envelope, and the envelope inside the top file drawer.

After several interruptions, Rachel was still sitting over the ledger, deep in thoughts that had nothing to do with accounting, when someone knocked on the cubicle window.

She jumped, startled.

“Whoa,” came the voice on the other side of the glass. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She peered, puzzled, at the speaker. The light in the garage was always dim. He moved a little closer, and the light from the cubicle lit his face.

“Just wanted to say hi,” Gabe said. “I’m parking over here now. Most of the pharm staff is. I guess they figure we just sit around all day and need more exercise. Six blocks’ walk each way is supposed to extend my life. Saw you when I came in this morning, but you were busy.”

“Nice to see you,” Rachel said.

He gestured at the ledger. “Are you finished? For the day, I mean.”

“As much as I’m going to be, I guess.”

“Could I interest you in dinner?”

Rachel looked at her watch to buy some time while her mind raced. Well, why not?

Too many reasons to list.

“You’d have to pick the restaurant, I don’t eat out much and don’t know LA very well.”

Hank is probably having dinner with that woman in Sacramento right now.

“Okay,” Rachel said. “Thanks. I’d like that.”

A smile broadened itself across his face. “Where to?”

“Someplace casual. And close. I have to be back to lock up. Have you been to The Pantry?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s been here forever. Very plain and straightforward. No frills, no nonsense.” She stopped. A smile played about her lips. “Like me.”

“Are you?”

“Sort of. Get your car.”

“You’re on.” He headed up the ramp.

A white Integra pulled up next to the booth. He lowered the window and clicked the door lock. “Hey lady, want a ride?”

Suddenly flustered, Rachel got in and turned her face to the passenger window so it couldn’t be read, though she wasn’t sure what might be seen there. “The Pantry’s on Figueroa. Downtown. It’s not far, but the one-way streets are a pain. And with all the construction you can’t be sure a street that was open yesterday will be open today. I’ll try to navigate.”

After a few double-back turns, she pointed to a small parking lot that was emptying of day traffic. The night life hadn’t picked up yet.

The Pantry, however, had a waiting line. “Popular place,” Gabe said as he and Rachel joined the queue.

“Plain, good, cheap food, and lots of it,” Rachel said. “That’ll do it every time. An ex-mayor owns the place now. I hear politicians do power breakfasts here.”

“I guess 1940s retro is in these days,” Gabe said when they were finally seated at a scarred Formica table next to old photos of a younger Los Angeles.

“What is that waiter carrying?” Gabe asked.

“A billy club.”

“A what?”

“They’re open all night and I guess the clientele isn’t always the tuxedo crowd. I hear the waiters don’t hesitate to conk a noisy diner, but that might be apocryphal. I once saw them chase a guy who tried to leave without paying. Awesome.”

“Cheap enough,” Gabe said, looking at the menu. “You sure the food is edible?”

“Very. The rib eye is good. The other steaks are a little tough. The pork chops are good.”

A waiter stopped at their table and fidgeted until they both ordered rib eyes.

Rachel tried to ignore the tingle that went up her back when Gabe’s dark caramel eyes held on hers. Pheromones, she thought. I hate them. “So how’s your friend?” she asked. “Gordon something. The drug salesman.”

“He doesn’t like to be called a salesman.”

“Why not?”

“He sees himself as a philanthropist. And in a way, he sort of is.”

“How so?”

“Oh, if some guy—somebody one of the docs knows or one of us in the pharmacy hears about—needs an expensive med and doesn’t have prescription insurance, Gordon gets it for him free. If it isn’t his company’s line, he trades another rep for it.”