Though he had insisted on seeing me, I had insisted on paying for the coffee and for picking out the place to meet. It was fifty degrees outside, a warm spell for Nashville in November. The sun was out. Few clouds painted the blue sky. Though there were no leaves on any trees, it was an appropriate time to be outside.
So I picked Centennial Park and McDonald’s coffee to go.
I handed Tekún the styrofoam cup. When he had first seen me, he had smiled from his Jaguar, closing the door and locking it with a computerized key ring that made the vehicle chirp metallically. Once he saw the big M on the side of the coffee cup, his brows knitted together. His mouth puckered slightly.
“This is your idea of a date?” he asked.
“No. This is my idea of a meeting.”
“Oh. I see.” He cracked open the cup’s rim and brought it to his lips. The smell stopped him. “This is awfully strong.”
“It’s not a latte, if that’s what you mean.”
“What, no cholesterol-ridden fried apple fritters?” He forced a southern accent.
“That would mean too much between us.”
“Fine. Would you like to walk around a bit?”
We walked the entire perimeter of the Parthenon, looking out at other people, mostly young students from Vanderbilt University who were taking advantage of the sudden break in the weather. To our left three young men tossed a Frisbee. A woman with a double-stroller rolled her two babies along the sidewalk that stretched over the large park. The din of traffic from West End Avenue was at a comfortable distance from us. Yet there was nothing comfortable about this moment. It was ten a.m. The Sáenz case was already thirty hours old. It was now being called by the media the third possible Jade Pyramid serial killing in the Nashville area. I was having a hard time enjoying a stroll through Centennial.
I was also out of my rhythm, one that I knew kept me sane. I exercised daily, making sure I got a couple of miles in on the track at the Y before working out with the weights for an hour. Yesterday I missed going to the gym. It would have been my arms and chest day. Today would have been my legs, torso, and back. I didn’t do heavy weights, but light with numerous repetitions. This daily exercise was more than ritual; it was a vice. I knew this. But it was a better vice than booze or drugs. It was an addiction that kept me sane, that kept the natural stress—or as my mother said, los demonios,—at bay. Now two days were going to pass, on a hot case that was gnawing away at my ability to keep the tension low. A quick workout at the gym this morning would have made for a good fix.
He interrupted my thoughts. “Your mother is a fascinating and lovely woman. I could tell that from our phone conversation.”
“She’s something else.” I grinned, though it was more chagrin, I’m sure.
“Salvadoran. I could tell that from her accent the moment she spoke. You come from strong roots.”
“That’s what I’m told.”
“Have you ever been there?” He glanced at me from the side.
“Nope.”
“Really? You should go. It’s a beautiful country. Some of the best beaches in the world. Did you know that surfers from Europe travel all the way to El Salvador? They say that’s where you find the best waves. I’m surprised you haven’t returned to your mother’s homeland.”
“Returning is something that’s never been a possibility for my family.”
He raised his head. His jaw dropped slightly in an ‘ah hah’ manner. I wondered if I had said too much. “You’re right. It’s a beautiful country. But it’s had more than its share of suffering. The guerrillas and the army and all. And the death squads. The squads in your mother’s country could easily compete with the ones from mine.”
“Guatemala, right?” I asked. “You been back there much?”
“Oh, yes. Whenever I can. But it’s been a while. Business has kept me locked up here in gringolandia.” He looked down at the grass. I noticed he hadn’t taken any sips from his coffee. He only held it up in his hand, probably waiting for a trash can to come up in our meanderings.
Over to our right a red Lexus drove by. Though the windows were tinted, I knew who was inside it: Raimundo. I shook my head and smirked. Walking with Tekún was not unlike taking a stroll with the president of a small nation. I wondered if the barrel of an automatic were pointed at me.
“You have a son, right?”
Watch it, I thought. “Yes.”
“Sergio. Nice name. Who’s he named after?”
“My father.”
“I see. Your father’s dead, isn’t he?”
I looked at him. “Yes. He is.”
“I’m sorry. Your mother seems still affected by that.”
“My mother is fine.”
“I’m sure she is. But she also misses him very much.”
My fingers pushed in the styrofoam walls of my coffee cup. I stopped walking. He did, too. We faced each other. “Tell me, what else did you and my mother talk about?”
“Oh, lots of things. Books, of course. Then I was telling her about my family back in Guatemala. How my Tennessean mother had followed my father back to his home country. How she speaks Spanish with a very southern accent. Then she started talking about you all, your father, your son. And your sister, of course. Catalina. That certainly was a tragedy in your life. I had read about it in the papers in Atlanta years ago, though I had forgotten about it. They never caught that man, did they? Never even really figured out who he was.”
I thought the coffee was going to push out of the hole in the top. Then my fingers twitched, taking some pressure off the styrofoam.
“I see how you became who you are, Romi. Salvadoran blood that just naturally screams for justice. I mean, according to your mother, that’s what your father was involved in back in the old country. And why they had to leave. I’ve seen that before, when a couple who’s never been out of their town or country goes to another place like here. The woman usually fares well. But the man, well, I suppose we men are just not as strong. We turn to the bottle or to drugs or some other crutch. That’s a sad way to die. Then the loss of your big sister to that maniac … It’s no wonder you are who you are.”
“I didn’t come here to discuss who I am,” I said, not even wanting to say Tekún’s name. I didn’t want to call him ‘Tekún,’ as that sounded too familiar. Yet I didn’t want to give him the respect of calling him ‘Mr. Murillo’ either. What I wanted to do to him would have cost me my job. “You said you could help me with this case. That’s why I’m here.”
“That’s fine, Romi. But I think it’s good for you to know how much your mother needs to talk.”
“What do you mean needs to talk? We talk fine. I don’t think that’s your right to get into my private life. And stop calling me Romi, for god’s sake!”
My thumb pushed through the styrofoam. The hot coffee poured over my hand.
He tried to help me. Before he could grab the cup from my fingers, I flung it away in a backhand toss. I felt my teeth gritting together on their own accord. My hair slapped against my face, then rolled down over my shoulders. The cup and its remaining coffee flew over to Tekún’s right side and ended in a small, wet explosion in the grass. I wiped my hand against my coat, rubbing it to take away the burn. “I’m fine. I’m fine,” I said to his intervention. Then I held my other hand up in a ‘Stay back’ position. He respected that. As I cleaned the coffee off my hand with my coat, he stayed put in one place. But he did offer me a handkerchief from his pocket, which I took.
“I take it I punched some buttons,” he finally said.
I did not respond. I kept cleaning coffee that was no longer there. Just the burn.
“Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”
Bullshit, I thought—different from what I said, almost necessarily, as if it were expected of me. “Yes, well, I suppose we all have bags of bones from the past that we’ve got to deal with.”
“Yes. But your bag seems a bit more filled than the rest of ours.”
I flung my head up and looked straight at him. “You want to give me some information regarding this case?”
He sighed. After I gave him back his handkerchief, he put one hand in a pocket. We resumed walking. He offered me his coffee. I declined. After about two minutes, in which I suppose he was allowing the silence to clean out the sudden discomfort of the coffee spill, he talked. “When your victim, Mr. Sáenz, came to see me … you were right, he was working on an article about the drug market here. He talked to me about a gentleman who went by the name of Two-Bits. I understand the name fit the person. He was a two-bit drug dealer here in town. I, of course, had never heard of the man. But after Mr. Sáenz was killed, I had one of my employees, Mr. Colibrí—I believe you met him in my offices, he goes by the name of Pajarito—I had him look up some information on this Two-Bits fellow. He’s in jail now. The local police caught him several weeks ago and put him away.”
“So why was Sáenz interested in this guy?”
Tekún seemed to weigh his words carefully, though not necessarily out of a need to hide anything. Then again, he was careful with everything he said, placing his words down like pieces of a chess game, always ready for a checkmate. I couldn’t help but think that his supposed kind and concerned demeanor about my father and my sister were his way of wheedling into me. “Mr. Sáenz seemed to believe that Two-Bits had something to do with the deaths of that doctor and that nurse.”
I’m sure my look was a puzzled one. “How? He’s in jail. You said he’s been in prison for several weeks. How could he have killed Hatcher and Kim?”
“According to my employee, Mr. Two-Bits was a small-time drug pusher who stayed small time because he didn’t treat his drug dealings as a business. He’s a rough fellow, known to be very violent. I believe Pajarito used the word ‘sick’ when referring to him. Two-Bits did have some people under his thumb, however, cohorts who could have done his dirty work for him. Hit men, I suppose you could call them.”
He talked like a neophyte when referring to the drug world. An incredible actor, I thought, remembering back to the Atlanta narcotics detective’s anger over the phone. “I see. And you think these ‘hit men’ are the ones going around killing people and sticking jewelry into their bodies.”
“I have no idea, Romi—Detective. I’m just telling you what I know. I heard on the radio this morning the possibility that another jade pyramid had been found on the latest murdered victim, Mr. Sáenz. I thought it my duty to give you whatever information I could.”
“I see. Thank you, Tekún.” My previous anger had abated somewhat. Getting information that would get me farther down the road of this investigation helped to mollify that old, uncomfortable, yet necessary rage.
At first I did not notice that he had stopped, leaving me to take two steps without him. “Yes. By the way, Detective, about my nickname. You know, it’s a rare person who uses it to refer to me.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. Only very certain people know about it. Didn’t you tell me a little black cat told you that name?”
“Yes, a little cat. Or a little bird. Some little animal.” I laughed. Perhaps a little more heartily than I should have. Then an inner warning started to whoop it up inside me. My previous anger had, as it had before, broken down some tracking devices in my brain, ones that usually kept me in touch with clues and danger signals.
“I see.” He smiled. “Well. I hope this information about Two-Bits will be of some help.” He offered me a handshake, which I took. “I’m sorry about the coffee. I hope your hand will be all right.” Then he turned and walked to his Jaguar. Within seconds he was gone from my side. The emerald green Jaguar left Centennial Park, with the red Lexus following directly behind.