A Flower in the Desert (20 page)

The Piñon Court Apartments were way out on Cerrillos, past Siler, not far from Airport Road. The attached, single-story units were arranged in the shape of an L around a cheerless gravel parking lot, the top of the L facing the street. There were no trees, there was no grass. None of the cars in the lot was less than ten years old. The building was cinderblock, stuccoed and painted beige to make it look like adobe. The plaster was cracked and starred, and here and there irregular chunks had slid away and fallen to the base of the wall, where they lay crumbling like dreams and hopes in the stark sunlight. It was the kind of place the occupants tolerated because they were beginning their lives with hopes of better things, or ending their lives without them.

Apartment 14, Juanita Carrera's, was at the end of the base of the L. There was no car in front of her unit. I parked the Subaru, walked to the front door, pushed the buzzer at the door. Black paint had chipped from the buzzer's metal frame.

No one answered. I wasn't surprised; no one had answered the phone when I called. I moved to the window, tried to peer in. The curtains were drawn. I walked back along the gravel driveway to Cerrillos Road, to the line of faded black mailboxes numbered with stick-on gold numerals. Cerrillos is one of the main drags in and out of town, and the usual swarm of cars were whizzing down its length, most of them breaking the speed limit, some breaking the sound barrier. Their noise rattled against my ears, their backdraft slapped against my face. I opened the box labeled 14 and pulled out a stack of mail.

It was mostly junk, coupons and fliers. A copy of
Cosmopolitan.
No postcard from Melissa Alonzo. No personal mail at all.

“Help you, Bub?”

I turned. He stood about seven feet away, hands on his hips. He was big, my height but heavier. Late thirties or early forties. His black hair was rumpled and his jowls were unshaven. He wore an opened wool suit vest over a T-shirt that had been white before someone used it to clean the floor. It strained against his pudgy breasts and his round stomach. He wore stained green work pants that had probably never seen any actual work, held up by a thin black leather belt whose tip dangled in a loose curl from the buckle. He wore battered running shoes that had probably never seen any actual running. The shoes and the Cerrillos traffic had prevented my hearing his approach atop the gravel. But I should have been warned by other indications. I was downwind of him, and now I could smell stale beer and the sharp bitter smell of clothes that had been sweated in, allowed to dry, then sweated in again.

“I'm looking for Juanita Carrera,” I said. “Have you seen her lately?”

He nodded to the mail I held. “That's a federal offense, what we got here. Tampering with the U.S. mails.”

“I can see you know your law.”

“A wisenheimer, huh?”

“You'd be the manager.”

“I already know who
I
am, Bub. Question is, who the hell're you?”

“My name is Croft. I'm a private detective. We can do this a couple of ways. I can put the mail back, and then you and I can have a friendly conversation. Maybe both of us will get something out of it. A mutual exchange. Or we can duke it out like a couple of kids. Somebody might get hurt. Nobody would benefit. You decide.”

He looked me up and down. He said, “You probably go what, about a hundred and ninety, hundred ninety-five?”

“About.”

“Keep in shape, huh?”

“The Jane Fonda tapes.”

“A private detective, that what you said?”

“That's what I said.”

He shrugged, let his hands fall from his hips. “What the fuck. Who needs a hassle, right?”

Seventeen

W
E SAT IN HIS APARTMENT AND
we drank Budweiser from the can, the way real men drink it. The apartment was cluttered with secondhand furniture, all of it draped with dirty clothes—shirts, pants, socks, underwear. I practiced an ancient Oriental breathing technique in which you only exhale.

The manager's name was Bill Arnstead. He was a philosopher.

“These chiquitas,” he opined, “they're cute as a button when they're young. Nice headlights, nice tight butts. Good in the sack, too, once you get 'em away from their mamas. But they're over the hill at thirty. They turn into cows.” He grinned. His teeth needed work. “All them tacos they eat, prob'ly.”

This I found curious, coming as it did from someone who looked as though he were on the critical list at Weight Watchers.

“How old was juanita Carrera?” I asked him.

“I dunno. Twenties somewhere. A good-looking piece. Wouldna kicked her outta bed for eatin' crackers, that's for damn sure. Nice setta jugs on her. And nice long stems. You don't see that too much on your chiquitas, they tend to run stubby. But she was snooty. Wouldn't give ya the time o'day. They're like that sometimes. They got some kinda burr up their ass and they don't like white people.”

He reminded me—although she would've been horrified to learn it—of Rebecca Carlson. They possessed the same sort of small, cramped, bitter minds, trapped behind the same cramped walls of cliché and ignorance. Occasionally we like to believe that these people, no matter how offensive, are basically harmless, because their hatreds are so obvious and so transparent. But unfortunately, and unlikely as it seems, some of them can actually breed. Down through generations they can produce and multiply their poisons and their poverty of spirit.

He said, “How come she's so popular all of sudden, anyway?”

“Who else has been asking about her, Bill?” I was sitting back in a yellow padded chair. Arnstead was slouched at the end of a brown Naugahyde sofa, his feet propped upon a matching ottoman. Between his feet and the ottoman lay a denim work shirt, artfully folded into a lump.

He smiled slyly. “Dint you say somethin' about a mutual benefit? Like if you're askin' questions, and I'm givin' you answers, don't you think we got a situation here calls for some renumeration? I mean, hey, no offense, but this beer don't exactly grow on trees.”

I tugged my wallet from my back pocket, opened it, slipped out a twenty. I put back the wallet and laid the bill on the end table, beside an empty beer can.

“A twenty is all?” he said. “You got an expense account, right?”

“Think of it as a down payment, Bill. Who else was asking about her?”

“Couple guys. One of 'em was FBI. Showed me his card. A real slick operator.” He swallowed some beer.

“What was his name?”

“Stamford, somethin' like that. I got a card he left, somewhere around.”

“Did he say why he wanted to talk to her?”

“Routine, he says. Those FBI guys are like cops. They won't tell ya shit.”

“When was he here?”

“Thursday. Day after she left.”

“What time Thursday?”

“Afternoon.”

“Who was the other guy?”

“Some greaser. Mean-lookin' motherfucker. Said he was her cousin. I figured that was bullshit, 'cause of the FBI guy, day before, but I wasn't gonna argue with him. Sonofabitch was
mean.
Little slitty eyes, looked like they could see right through ya. And your greasers, lotta them carry blades. I can take care of myself, but who wants to fuck with a blade.”

“And when was he here?”

“Friday. Afternoon again.”

“And what did you tell them, Bill?”

He smiled another sly smile. “What I knew. Same thing I could tell you if I wanted.”

I slipped out my wallet, removed another twenty, put it beside the first, put the wallet back in my pocket, sat back against the chair, waited.

He grinned. “That didn't hurt so bad, right?”

I said, “Why don't we start with how long she lived here.”

“‘Bout two years. Be two years in January. Didn't have a thing to her name when she showed up, just one of them cheap plastic suitcases. No furniture, nothing. The apartments are all furnished, see.”

And regally, if they were all furnished like this one. “Did she have many visitors?”

“None. She was snooty, like I said. Kept to herself.” He finished off the beer, crumpled the can in his fist. “Want another brewski?”

“I'm fine.”

“Be right back.” He swung his legs off the ottoman, lumbered out of the sofa, thumped his way into the kitchenette. Over the Formica counter I watched him open the refrigerator door and reach in. He slammed the door shut, then came thumping back, carrying two beers in his big right hand. He eased down into the sofa, grunted, put one beer on the table to his left, swung his feet back up onto the ottoman. “Case you change your mind.” He popped the other beer open. “What was it you wanted to know?”

“You said she didn't have visitors. Did she go out often?”

He shrugged. “She went to work.” He drank some beer.

“Besides that.”

“Once in a while, yeah. Sundays, she went to church. I know it was church ‘cause I asked her one Sunday where she was comin' from. She told me it was none of my business, but just for my information she went to church every Sunday.” He shrugged. “Snooty. Like I said.”

“Did she go out any other times?”

“Sometimes. Like on the weekend. At night. For a couple hours, maybe. I got to watch out for the place, see, so I check out the cars come into the lot. She goes out sometimes on a Saturday night, maybe at seven, and usually she comes back ten, ten thirty. Went to a movie, I figure. I don't think she was gettin' any. Dint have that look they get when they're gettin' pumped steady.”

“So no men friends.”

“Nah. She dint have that look. And I never saw none.”

“Woman friends?”

“Uh-uh.”

“She came back from work at the same time every day?'

“Uh-uh. Other guys asked the same question. She came back late on Tuesdays and Thursday. Around ten, ten thirty. Had to work late, prob'ly.”

“What kind of car did she drive?” I could've learned that from Motor Vehicles, but Bill was available now.

“A Honda. One of them Civics. With the hatchback.”

“Color?”

“Yellow. Real beat-up. A junker.”

“You know what year it was?”

“Nah. All them Jap cars, you can't tell years. It was old.”

“You said she left on Wednesday. What time?”

He drank from the can. “Wednesday night. Ten o'clock, maybe.”

“Anyone with her?”

“Uh-uh.”

“She have a suitcase?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Couldn't tell.”

“You have a passkey to her apartment, Bill?”

He drank some more beer. “Well now,” he said, and the sly smile reappeared. “Me lettin' you in there, that'd be against the law, right? And what happens you break somethin'? I'm the one responsible.”

“You've already made forty dollars, Bill. In less than half an hour. Pretty good wages.”

He grinned. “Yeah. But you're sittin' there wonderin' what's inside her apartment, and I'm the boy can get you in.”

“That's not what I'm wondering.”

“Yeah?” He grinned again. “Whatta ya wonderin'?”

“I'm wondering how much damage I'll do to my boot when I kick your fat ass out the window.”

He sat up. “Hey.” His grin was gone. His mouth was open.

“I'm wondering what your nose would look like coming out the back of your head. I'm wondering what the cops'll think when they find out you haven't reported Juanita Carrera missing.”

“Hey, I got no obligation—”

“She's been gone for over a week. Two people have come looking for her. No one knows where she is. Missing Persons would be interested. And I'm wondering what kind of code violations the cops will find when they come out to this dump. That's what I'm wondering, Bill.”

“Listen, you got no call to talk to me like that. I been answerin' all your questions. I been cooperatin'.”

“Bill?”

He swallowed a quick gulp of beer. “What?”

“Get the passkey.”

His eyes dipped downward, then looked back up at me. “I got to come along. It's the rules.”

He was breaking the rules even by letting me enter the apartment, but I'd already drawn enough blood. “Fine,” I said.

The layout of Juanita Carrera's apartment was identical to Arnstead's. A small living room, a smaller dining alcove, a kitchenette, a tiny bathroom, a bedroom in the back. But Arnstead's apartment looked like it had been lived in by the three little pigs, and Carrera's was spotless. The cheap furniture was clean and polished, and nothing seemed out of place, except for a few books lying on the dining room table. There was a faint smell in the air of dust, and of some sweet floral scent.

Arnstead stood at the door, leaning against the jamb, his arms folded above his belly. I asked him, “Did the FBI agent check this place out?”