Luz

Even considering the strange bed, I should have slept right through because I’d been pushing myself too hard and needed the rest. Instead I kept waking up and checking on Carolyn—like my subconscious thought she was going to die on me. The woman never stirred all night. Once the hospital staff satisfied themselves that she didn’t have a concussion or fracture, she was given a prescription for pain pills, which she couldn’t wait to get home and take. The only thing that changed with her that night was her eye, which had puffed up and turned multicolored by morning. She was not going to be a happy camper the first time she looked in the mirror.

At dawn I’d wrapped up in a blanket on her patio to watch the sunrise creep over the Franklins, but then I dozed off in one of her loungers and woke up with my knee aching, so I rubbed on some of her husband’s pain cream, thinking that my chile-pepper stuff would have done me more good. Maybe that’s because I’ve got Indian blood. My ancestors probably used chiles to doctor all their ills. Then I made myself some coffee and toast and ate it in the warm kitchen while I waited impatiently for Sleeping Beauty to wake up; I needed to get home, change clothes, and give myself a shot—it was that day—but I didn’t want to do it until she woke up. It was a bitch, being tied to a medication schedule when I actually had something interesting to do with my time.

Carolyn staggered out around ten-thirty. “Have you seen my eye?” she groaned.

“It’ll clear up in a week or so,” I said.

“A week,” she cried, and dropped into a chair, aghast.

I told her she was lucky to come out of last night with just a black eye. I’d been reading the paper. Ignatenko was in jail, and the cops had found the alley victim at Thomason Hospital. The guy talked his head off, identified Manny Diaz as the attacker, said Ignatenko had threatened him because of the drugs and bookmaking at the club. So the guy was arrested, him and his broken bones: collar bone, six ribs, and three leg bones, plus some cracks in his arms and a bleeding kidney. There was a warrant out on Manny and more charges on Ignatenko. INS was talking deportation hearings, so Boris was, as I’d told him, thoroughly screwed. “We did good work last night,” I told Carolyn, and read her choice bits of the story.

That brightened her up a little bit, but not much, so I said she should get a black eye patch for her eye, sew some beads or sequins on it, and set a fashion trend in El Paso.

“That’s a ridiculous idea,” she said sternly, and then started to giggle.

I was on a roll, having cheered Caro up without even knowing I had any talent in that area. My mother once told me she’d rather be sick on her own than have me around looking glum and botching up the nursing chores. Once Caro stopped giggling, I told her what I’d been thinking about her doctor friend. While I talked, I poured her a cup of coffee; from the look on her face, you’d think she didn’t like my coffee, even though I was known at Central Regional Command for my great coffee during my days on patrol. I fixed her some toast too, and even poured her a glass of juice since I figured she needed healthy stuff.

“Tell me about his butt,” I said, plunking the juice down in front of her.

Her expression was amazed and offended. Carolyn would make a crappy poker player. Everything shows on her face. If she got a good hand, she’d probably light up the room. “The doctor’s butt,” I added, just to be sure she understood what I wanted. “How wide would you say it is?”

“I don’t go around measuring men’s bottoms,” she replied stiffly.

I took a deep breath. “Look, you think he might have killed Vladik. It’s a long shot, but what have we got to lose? We need to think about him, this doctor. One thing I noticed in Vladik’s house was his sofa. He’s got this microwave upholstery on it. Feels like suede.”

“Microfiber,” she corrected.

“Whatever. Anyway, you sit down on it; your butt leaves a print. Lean your hand on it. Handprint. One of each on the Russian’s sofa. I had the crime-scene guys take a picture. Of course, that dumb Guevara thought it was a waste of time, but then he thought Gubenko died of natural causes. Probably still does.”

“If he’s so sure of that, why is he harassing those of us who provided food for the party?” Carolyn asked sharply.

“Because it’s easier than doing a real investigation,” I told her. “So how wide is the doctor’s butt?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “He’s had trousers over it every time I’ve seen him.”

“This wide?” I spread my hands to about two feet.

“Luz, he’s a thin person, but quite tall, and I don’t how wide his rear end is.”

“What about his hands?”

She thought about it. “Large, but then they would be. As I said, he’s tall. You wouldn’t expect little bitty hands or feet on a tall man. And his fingers are long and thin with short, manicured nails.”

I nodded. My recollection of the prints on the sofa was pretty vague, but it seems to me that the hand did have long fingers; of course so do Boris Ignatenko’s hands. Now Manny Diaz—he’d be more likely to have short, broad hands, but since I’d never seen the man, that was a guess.

“What we need to do is knock on my neighbors’ doors and ask if anyone saw or heard anything that night. If we can get a description of someone going in or leaving—”

“We? You expect me to go out looking like this?” She covered her eye with her hand.

“You planning to hide out for the next week or so?”

“I’ve heard of putting steak on a black eye,” she said. “But I’d have to go to the store to get some, and that would be so embarrassing.”

“Right. I get the idea. I have to do the canvassing by myself. Only problem is, you know what the doctor looks like. I don’t. And steak never did me any good. Course I used cube steak. Maybe you need a more expensive cut—sirloin or T-bone. Or a filet. That would be about the right size.”

“You’re making fun of me,” she said.

“Instead of a steak, why don’t we get you an eye patch? The decoration is up to you. Go for plain if you want. You could wear a hat too, a big, wide one. My neighbors won’t even notice you got a black eye. They’ll think you’re a gardener in your big hat.”

“What a wonderful idea. The pirate-gardener. Maybe I should bring along gardening gloves. And a trowel.”

I grinned at her. “So are you in?”

“I suppose so,” she grumbled. “If we can find an eye patch. But you’ll have to drive. I’m taking pain pills.”