As the garage man put the Challenger on a lift at a Midas dealer by I-94, Kelson and Rodman sat in the waiting area and ate chips from a vending machine. Rodman said, ‘You think Doreen could’ve hooked up with Hugo Nuñez?’
‘Well, he’s got money, if that’s all it takes to get to her,’ Kelson said. ‘But I think it takes more. This man seems to twist her. He set up the killings so they look like she did them, if not me. I don’t know if Nuñez is smart enough to do that.’
Rodman thought about it. ‘You think she’d spend time with that lowlife anyway?’
‘She doesn’t seem to mind hanging around lowlifes.’
‘Let’s visit Nuñez and see what he tells us?’
‘Can’t go worse than last time.’
So when the car came off the lift with a new tire, Kelson and Rodman drove back to Chicago and parked outside Bomboleo.
The dining room and club were closed until dinnertime, though a taqueria connected to the place was crowded. Businessmen in suits stood at a heavy wooden bar and washed down carnitas and al pastor with beer. The bartender who’d directed Kelson to Nuñez’s backroom table was opening beer bottles. He wore a sombrero over his bleach-blond hair.
Kelson caught the man’s eye. ‘I guess the hat’s your idea of fun,’ he said.
‘Or funny,’ Rodman said.
The bartender gave Kelson a long look. ‘Your bruises are looking good. You probably should let them keep healing instead of asking for more kicks in the face.’
‘What time does Nuñez usually come in?’ Kelson asked.
‘Who?’
‘D’you know where he hangs out before he comes in?’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ the bartender said, ‘I’ll give you a Corona on the house. Just to be courteous. And then you can leave.’ He looked at Rodman. ‘I’d give you a pitcher, but management would have my ass.’
‘I need to see Nuñez,’ Kelson said.
‘He doesn’t talk to guys like you. He grinds them into the bathroom floor.’
‘Still need to see him.’
The bartender looked at Rodman, who shrugged and said, ‘If he says he needs to see him, I guess he needs to see him.’
The man said to Kelson, ‘It’s your face. He comes in for dinner around eight – unless he eats somewhere else. Either way, we keep a table free.’
‘Where is he before then?’ Kelson asked.
‘Do I look like his secretary?’
‘You look like a dick in a sombrero.’
Rodman said, ‘If he says it, it must be true.’
The bartender turned red. ‘Go to hell, all right? I try to help. I tell you to leave it alone. I offer you a drink. I give you what you ask for.’
Kelson said, ‘Last time you gave me what I asked for, I got kicked in the head.’
The bartender looked at Rodman, bewildered. Rodman said, ‘Sometimes you can’t win.’
So the man said to Kelson, ‘You want to get yourself killed? People say Nuñez works from an office in Pilsen. Over a currency exchange. Maybe you’ll go there and he’ll shoot you. Maybe then you’ll stop hassling me.’
Pilsen was a Mexican neighborhood on the Southwest Side. If you drove down the main drag on a Saturday night, you would think you were in Mexico City. ‘Where in Pilsen is the currency exchange?’ Kelson asked.
The man shook his head. ‘Don’t know. You’d never catch me looking for Nuñez.’
‘We can find it,’ Rodman said. ‘But we wouldn’t want you calling to let him know we’re coming.’
Kelson took out a twenty and offered it to the man.
The bartender shook his head. ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with you.’
Rodman asked, ‘You still offering that beer?’
‘Just get the hell out of here, OK?’