Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen (13 page)

Madam Arquette eyed me coldly. Then she turned to Josefina.

“Leave us. You will do no more on this matter, or I will throw you out. Say nothing. To anyone. Is that understood? My quarrel is with the Monsieur now.”

Josefina walked quickly out of the room, her own very-high platform heels going
clock-clock,
until the Madam and I were alone.

She walked over and rested her buttocks on the edge of her frosted-glass desk.

“You are an older man, experienced, why do you do this for a strange girl?”

“Because someone has to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because some things just have to matter more than other things, and sometimes you can’t just turn away and make something disappear. Josefina couldn’t leave it alone, because it’s her sister.”

“And you can’t leave Josefina alone, because … there are benefits I am not aware of? Security personnel are not allowed to solicit from the staff. That too is a violation.”

“Bite your tongue, bitch, she’s young enough to be my daughter. And if you’d stopped cutting back on security staffing when I told you to, maybe Elvira would still be alive, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, yes?”

For the first time, the Madam’s eyes dropped to the floor.

“I do not celebrate Elvira’s death, whatever else you may think of me.”

“Prove it. Give me what I need to keep tunneling on this. If it goes nowhere, that’s my fault. But I’ve got an old cop’s hunch, and I can’t move on it without your help. Josefina aside. Come on Madam, show me that the Aerie’s vaunted reputation is about more than just money.”

Her eyes stayed on the floor for a very long time. Then she circled back around to the other side of her desk, sat on her stool, pantomimed some commands to the computer, and waited while a piece of hardcopy spat out of a nearby, slim-line printer.

The Madam handed the copy across to me.

“Get out of my office.”

I looked at the paper, a tiny smile on my face, then popped up out of the chair.

“With pleasure. Good day, Madam Arquette.”

• • •

The Madam had been right. The anglo lady who liked flamingos was of the old money Beverly Hills upper crust. I still didn’t have a real name, but I had an address and I had contact information. The split with her husband had not affected her lifestyle to a great degree, both of them being from wealthy families, and she still maintained a significant estate. One I’d be hard-pressed to visit with any degree of subtlety. So I did what I thought best. I sent her an anonymous text with an address for a public library, and attached a picture of a flamingo to it. Then waited at the Frances Howard Goldwyn branch for her arrival, at the date and time specified.

I was not disappointed. Her designer womens’ suit and expensive sunglasses gave her away against the backdrop of working-class readers who lined the aisles and sat at the computer terminals. I was off in a corner, a hard-bound Audubon edition on
Phoenicopteridae
displayed prominently. I saw her before she saw me, but when she saw the cover on the book, she bee-lined over and sat down.

“Who are you, and what’s happened to Elly?”

“I am a family friend,” I said, keeping my voice low, to match hers. “And I am very sorry to say that Elly is dead.”

The woman’s hand shot to her mouth, the small clutch in her other hand nearly falling to the floor.

“My God,” she said, genuinely and horribly startled.

“That’s what I need your help with,” I said. “I used to be a police officer, and am handling this matter privately for Elly’s family. I was hoping you could tell me about some of the last conversations you had with Elly when she was at the Aerie. You were intimate with the Aguilar’s daughter, were you not?”

“No! I mean, well, yes, but no. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“Did Elly seem afraid of anyone, the last few times you were with her?”

“No,” said the woman, slowly removing her sunglasses and reaching for a handkerchief in her clutch. Tears had begun to flow down her face.

“Did she say anything about anyone at work? Someone who might have been bothering her?”

“No,” said the woman.

“Did you and Elly have any trouble? Maybe, a fight of some kind?”

“I told you,” she said through sniffles, “we weren’t like that. Elly was … she was pure. And beautiful. More beautiful than anything or anyone I have ever seen. Graceful and poetic, yet young and playful in the way only … I don’t think I can explain it, Mister . . ?”

“Rodriguez,” I said, reaching out a hand to shake hers. “Of the Los Taltos firm, out of Thousand Oaks.”

“I’ve never heard of them,” she said.

“Not many people have. We’re small, because it allows us to be discrete. Please know that anything you tell me today is in the strictest confidence.”

She nodded, blowing quietly into the handkerchief.

“So there was nothing amiss?” I said. “Nothing at all?”

“No.”

“Then what stopped you from seeing Elly last month?”

The woman blew her nose one more time, and collected herself.

“I did it for Elly’s sake. I could tell I was falling in love. Literally and truly. I was going to cross lines that would destroy Elly if I didn’t take myself away. And I couldn’t live with that. So one day I simply stopped making appointments.”

“And you never saw her again after that?”

“No.”

I sat back in my chair, frowning deeply.

“Mister Rodriguez, who would hurt that girl?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

We sat for several moments, the woman staring at the tabletop. Then she looked up at me, her red eyes mournful.

“There is one thing,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Last time I was with Elly, she seemed distracted. Bothered. I asked her what was wrong, and she said her brother had called her from East Los Angeles, asking her to come home. She said they’d had an argument on the phone, then she’d laughed it off like it was no big deal. She and her brother had never gotten along, or so she said.”

I mentally filed this as Very Important, and waited for the woman to continue.

Which she didn’t.

I finally stood up.

“You’ve been helpful,” I said. “If you remember anything else, please contact me using this text address.”

I handed her a plain white card with a number on it.

“Again, strictest confidence,” I assured her.

She took the card and put her sunglasses back on.

“Mister Rodriguez,” she said.

“Yes?”

“If you ever do find out what happened, please let me know?”

“I can do that,” I said. And meant it.

• • •

Josefina’s apartment was even more messy than last time.

“Antonio and Elvira never argued,” she said as she handed me a cup of hot, lightly sugared coffee. It was early morning, and she was just going to bed, while I was just getting ready to head back to the Aerie

“The woman said they did,” I told her. “And you expressed to me that you thought there was no telling how much the family might hate you, after Elvira came out and went Special at your advice.”

“Yes, but I expected them to hate
me
, not her.”

“Would they have hated either one of you enough to kill?”

“I could never think that …”

“But?”

“But, last time Papa and I spoke, he said I was dead to him.”

“What about your brother?”

“Antonio and Papa always got along. Like father, like son.”

“Where is Antonio now?”

“When he left home, he went to find work on the farms.”

“Do you have an address?”

“No, but I am betting my parents do.”

“Do they have an address?”

“Of course.”

“Then it’s time for me to talk to your parents.”

“No!”

“Their daughter is dead. The city has already sent the official notification. If my daughter were dead like that, I’d sure as hell want someone to tell me why, or who had done it.”

“No,” she insisted.

“Josefina, do you really want to find out the truth?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then let me finish this.”

• • •

The barrios of East L.A. weren’t a hell of a lot different from the barrios of Oakland. Row upon row of mid-20
^th
century cheap housing that had slowly been churning through the hands of the poor over the last hundred years. The little bungalow I stopped at was a near carbon copy of the house where I’d grown up, and though they were older, the Aguilars were about what my Mom and Dad would have been, had my father not died young and left my other to struggle in solitude.

Taking me for a city official—I neither confirmed nor denied that identity, as they welcomed me into the front room and offered me a cold glass of water—the Aguilars expressed deepest regret at the fate of Elvira.

“Never should have let her go,” said Papa Aguilar. “It was bad enough when her older sister turned on the family.”

“You had a falling out with Elvira’s older sister?” I said innocently.

“She is a pervert,” Papa Aguilar said. “Ran off and turned herself into an animal who screws rich gringos. Disgusting.”

I experimentally swirled the icy water around in the scratched acrylic tumbler they’d given me.

“I’m sorry that things didn’t turn out well for you and your daughters.”

“You make it sound so neat and clean,” he snorted.

Mama Aguilar placed a firm hand on his bicep, gave him a knowing look.

“We have lost both our daughters,” Mama said. “Please forgive us if we are not as polite about it as we should be.”

“Understandable,” I said, then took a drink.

“At least we still have Antonio,” Mama said.

“Your son?”

“Yes, he’s been home from Santa Clara for a few months now. He’s earned some money, now we’re going to help him go back to school.”

“What was he doing in Santa Clara?”

Mama lead me into the kitchen, where she pulled a mason jar off the top of the refrigerator. It was filled with a viscous, golden substance. “Bee-keeping.”

My hair stood on end.

Mama handed me the jar of honey, and I hefted it experimentally, choosing my next words very, very carefully.

“Did the coroner tell you exactly what caused Elvira’s death?”

“Does it matter?” said Papa. “I got the notice. I crumpled it up and burned it without needing to read the fine print. Elvira was gone the moment she chose to follow her sister.”

I carefully replaced the mason jar on top of the fridge.

“Mister Aguilar,” I said, “did Antonio ever go visit either of his sisters after he came home?”

“No,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes … well, I don’t think he did.” Papa’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at?”

“If you’d read the full text of the coroner’s findings, you’d know that Elvira died because she’d been injected with
bee venom.
”

Both of them froze in place, eyes narrowing at me, then slowly widening in comprehension.

“
La policía …
” Papa Aguilar breathed.

There was a slam as the back door opened and closed. Clomping footsteps came up the stairs, and a young, fit man appeared at the other doorway to the kitchen.

Mama and Papa stared at me for an instant longer, then looked at their son, then back at me. Antonio’s smile dropped, and he stared at me too.

“What’s going on?” he said. “Who is this?”

“Rodriguez,” I said. “I’m from the city. I need to talk to you about Elvira.”

Maybe it was the way I’d said it? Maybe it was the fact that I still had the military-cropped haircut I’d kept since my Army days? Maybe he’d noticed the bulge of the stun gun I had in a holster tucked into the pit of my arm, under my suit jacket? Whatever it was, I never had a chance to get in another word before three things happened simultaneously:

Antonio, spinning and running back down the steps.

Mama screaming, “Antonio,
no!
”

Papa screaming, “
La policía!
”

I flew past the Aguilars and down the stairs, feeling the steps in my knees but pleased that I could still be quick when I wanted to be. He never bothered to close the door as he sprinted across the patio, around the detached garage, and down the filthy, narrow street beyond. I skidded around the corner—my loafers not quite as good on concrete as his athletic shoes—then shouted his name at the back of his head as he pelted for the nearest intersection. I followed, sweating and cursing, but managing to keep an eye on him as I went around the corner, saw him dodge two cars while crossing to the other side, and kept running for the next intersection further south. I pulled the stunner out and kept pumping arms and legs, at once dreading the chase, but feeling the muscle memory exhilaration of pursuit. Just like old times. I wasn’t the police, but I wasn’t going to let Elvira’s killer go, brother or no brother.

Across an alleyway.

Across another street.

Down a sidewalk, headed for a larger thoroughfare.

People stopped or stepped out of our way as I ran, still shouting his name.

He stopped and turned once, just long enough to glare at me—the whites of his eyes large. Then he started running again, head still turned. Across the thoroughfare, against traffic.

Cars skidded and honked—he slipped between two lanes.

The tow truck never saw him. But I did, and it was too late.

• • •

Antonio Aguilar lived just long enough to give a full confession in the hospital, before he passed. I stayed well clear of the Aguilars, figuring they themselves might be incited to murder if they spotted me. Police at the hospital knew me, and let me loiter around; out of respect for the old days. Which is why I was shocked absolutely when I saw Josefina arrive. All Normal eyes darted to her, and stayed on her as she walked carefully through the hospital hallway, hands pensively clutching a purse in front of her as she padded along in canvas flats and a sensible, modest dress, holes cut in the back for her wings. She saw me, but didn’t stop to say anything. I kept an eye around the corner of the waiting area as I saw her approach her brother’s room, speak to the cops at the door, then pass inside.