“Here you go, Suzy Q. Sweet stuff today; a couple of almond rolls left over.”
“You sweet stuff you’self. Thank you kindly.” She carefully lined up the rolls and coffee on the cart’s foldout shelf.
She was wearing several layers of clothes in the gathering heat, her face red and sweating. “You don’t have to wear all that, do you, Suzy Q.? You look so hot.”
She nodded. “I don’ mind being hot, and it keep the rays out. Came down here to get hot, but that was before the rays. Don’t want the cancer.”
Sara adjusted her hat. “That’s a point.”
“You know,” she went on, “I could leave the extra clothes somewhere, and nobody would take them. I know that, even though the town’s full of murderers, but the problem is, I might not remember where I put them. Come winter I’d get awful cold.”
“It’s already November, Suzy Q. It doesn’t get real cold anymore.”
She laughed, a nasal wheeze. “That’s what they say, all right. You watch out, though.” She took a sip of coffee and pushed on. “Watch out for them murderers.”
Always good advice, Sara thought, watching her rattle away, waiting for her to say it. She stopped and turned. “You know it snowed the day I was born?”
“No kidding!” Suzy Q. nodded slowly and pushed on. Sara went back into the place.
José was cross-slicing onions. “That’s probably enough. It’s too damn hot.” The onion flowers really sold when it cooled off. This year, it looked like the aliens would get here before winter did.
And here comes Señor Alien himself, resident alien, Pepe Parker. “What’ll it be, Pepe?”
“Café con leche, por favor.” He sat down at the bar. “And a date, if you dance.”
“What?”
“New club opening in Alachua tonight. Old stuff—tango, samba. New club, new girl, what do you say?”
She smiled and put a cup of milk in the microwave.
“Pepe, I haven’t danced in years. I had an accident, and I’m still an operation away from the dance floor.” The bell rang and she took the milk out. “Thanks for asking, though.”
“Professor Bell told me about that … horrible thing. They ever catch who did it?”
“No.” She stirred a heaping spoon of Bustelo into the cup and brought it over with the sugar. “I think I know. But I could never prove it.”
“Gracias. Who?”
She looked around. The two customers had left and José was buried in his tabloid. She lowered her voice. “You’re no Boy Scout, are you, Pepe? I mean, you know how the world works.”
“As much as anybody, I suppose.”
“We have to pay protection, to keep the café from getting gangbanged. Is that shocking?”
“No. Sad, but no.”
“There’s a slimeball comes in here at noon today, every first of the month, to pick up his five hundred bucks. He calls himself ‘Mr. Smith,’ but everybody knows he’s Willy Joe Capra.”
“He did it?”
She nodded. “Or at least knows who did it. He’s made that pretty clear.”
“And you can’t go to the police?”
She shook her head wordlessly for a moment, and then knuckled at tears, her mouth in a tight scowl.