It was the sound of a hundred bees buzzing around her head. No. It was a referee’s whistle that kept pealing over and over again. Monica twisted around in bed and pushed her face into her pillow. No. It was neither. She awakened to the telephone that was ringing. She stretched her arm out for the phone on her bedside table, but there was no phone there. And no table. Now Monica was fully awake and aware of where she was. There was only one phone in the house on Lucia, and it was in the hall.
Who would be calling at this time? Her father, of course! There must be something wrong. But the voice that answered her frantic hello was not her father’s. It was a man’s, and unfamiliar.
“Monica. Sorry to be calling so late, but I couldn’t wait.”
“Who is this?” Monica said as the light went on in Laurita’s room.
“This is Rob, Roberto Almayo. And I’ve got to know what you found.” He paused, then added quickly, “Hey, did I wake you up?”
Hurriedly pulling on a light cotton robe, Laurita was standing in the hall door.
“Yes,” Monica said, “I guess I’m still half asleep.” She covered the phone with her hand. “It’s Roberto Almayo,” she said to Laurita. “He wants to talk about El Pintor.”
Laurita shook her head and mumbled something that Monica couldn’t hear because Rob was speaking. “I guess I’ve gone and done it again,” he was saying. “Never figured you’d be in bed at eleven.”
Monica held back her irritation. “A lot of people are in bed by eleven,” she said coolly. “Except for owls. You must be an owl. I, for one, am a lark. I’m a morning person.”
“Does that mean that I should hang up and let you go back to bed?”
“You might as well. It’ll be easier to show you what I found than to try to describe it—and what I think it means—on the phone. Besides, what could you do about it tonight?” The moment those last words were out, she wished she could bite them back. Hadn’t she been just as eager as Rob a few hours before?
“Well, then,” Rob said awkwardly, “goodnight.”
“Before you say goodnight,” Monica said quickly, “let me—”
“Before I say goodnight,” Rob interrupted, “let me apologize again and ask how early a lark begins to chirp.”
“I don’t chirp,” Monica said with a laugh, “and you can come before breakfast, whenever that is for you.” She returned the phone to its cradle.
The light was on in the kitchen. Monica found Laurita there, warming milk in a saucepan on the stove. Laurita indicated the milk and asked, “Want some?”
“Sure.” Monica brought out two mugs and placed them on the kitchen table.
They sipped the hot milk silently for a few moments, then Laurita said, “Roberto’s still much too impulsive.”
“You mean the late phone call.”
Laurita nodded.
“That wasn’t so bad, really,” Monica said. “He’s upset about El Pintor, and he knew I’d found—” She stopped abruptly and then decided she might as well tell Laurita the whole story. Maybe, just maybe, she could throw some light on it. “While you were gone today, I went into the studio. I’d seen something there earlier—I didn’t know what—that kept bugging me. And when I found what it was, it bugged me even more. But I decided it had to be a clue to where El Pintor was on the day that he disappeared. So I left a message with Toni for Rob. That’s why he called me.”
Laurita took a sip of milk. Without raising her eyes from the tabletop, she asked, “What did you find there?”
Monica told her about the three drawings, about how weird the whole thing seemed to her, and ended by asking, “Why would he want to draw places in my neighborhood?” As she said that, something occurred to her that had not occurred before. “Holy pajamas! It just dawned on me. It could be just a coincidence.”
Laurita said, “Stranger things have happened. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence. He undoubtedly had a reason.” She sat back in her chair, her face puckering into a frown. “You know, Monica,” she said, “El Pintor was very fond of Cristina. She was as nice as she was pretty, and, after all, he’d watched her grow up.”
“My dad says he came here when she was a baby.”
“Yes, that’s what I’ve heard, too. El Pintor was her friend. Whenever Cristina was angry at her parents, even when she was wrong, El Pintor was the one that she’d complain to, and he listened. She always had him to run to. I was jealous of that. The only one I could complain to was your mother, and that wasn’t the same as an understanding grownup.” Laurita sighed. “None of us saw Cristina much after she married, but when El Pintor heard that she was dying, he went and sat by her bedside whenever he could.”
“Oh.” Monica found it hard to say more. Finally, she cleared her throat and said, “But what does that have to do with the sketches I found?”
“Maybe nothing,” Laurita said with a little laugh. “Anyway, why he’s been sketching those particular places isn’t the point, is it?”
“No,” Monica answered. “What we have to figure out is, was that what he was doing on the day he didn’t return? And the way I figure it, he was back there again.”
Laurita smiled. “We? So you’re in it, are you? You want to find him, too. Why?”
Monica was stumped for an answer. She couldn’t tell Laurita about the envelope she had found in the attic; she had made a vow to herself to keep her mother’s promise as well as her own. Her face was hot. She knew it was turning red. Even as a little kid, her blushing face had betrayed her most innocent white lies. Now she said, “I guess I’m curious. You know, all this mystery … and everyone seems to like him so much …” She was blathering; she knew that, but she couldn’t stop herself. “… and Rob is so worried about him, so I just … I just decided I ought to help.”
Laurita said, “Roberto will need your help.” She stood up. “I’ll wish you good luck in the morning, but right now I need some sleep.”
“Me, too. And something tells me that Rob’ll be here early.”
He came in time for breakfast. Planned or unplanned, he arrived just as Laurita declared the scrambled eggs done, just as the toast popped up in the toaster, and just as Monica finished filling the glasses with orange juice.
The knocking at the back door was timid, so gentle that Monica and Laurita weren’t sure they had really heard it. But when it came again, Monica went to the door and found Rob standing there. His hair was damp and he smelled of soap and after-shave. His white T-shirt was rumpled, half tucked into his plaid shorts, the other half hanging over them as if he had dressed hurriedly.
“I didn’t wake you up?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“You don’t have to whisper,” Monica said. “We’re up. Come on in. You’re just in time for breakfast.”
When Laurita saw him she set another place at the table and said, “Sit down, Roberto.”
He accepted the invitation without any hesitation. “This is great,” he said. “My mother has one of her migraine headaches—that’s why Toni isn’t here—and I had to get my own breakfast, so all I had was corn flakes.”
“Helpless macho,” Laurita muttered and placed a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon before him.
“What? No salsa?” Rob said with a grin and ducked when Laurita flicked his cheek.
“Limosnero con garrote. A beggar with a club,” she said to Monica, “in case you were going to ask.” Rob shrugged and dug into the food on his plate.
When they were through eating, Rob asked to do the dishes to prove he wasn’t a “helpless macho,” but Laurita shooed them out of the kitchen. So, within minutes, Rob and Monica were standing by the worktable in the studio, the three pencil drawings spread before them.
“I know all these places,” Monica began, “and I know the people he drew, too. It’s the neighborhood I grew up in.” She went on to explain why she thought the pictures might be a clue to El Pintor’s whereabouts on the day of his disappearance. Rob listened without interrupting, but as she spoke, a frown grew on his face.
When she was through, he said, “I guess it’s worth snooping around there a little bit, but that’s a pretty skimpy reason for deciding he was there.”
Monica bit back her disappointment. She had been so sure he would agree with her.
“Hey,” he said, “I’m not putting your idea down entirely. It’s just that why couldn’t he have done these last year, or even a month or two ago?”
“Oh, oh, oh,” she said eagerly. “I left that out, didn’t I? He couldn’t have.” She pulled the sketch of the ice-cream truck closer. “Look. Last year Jana—that’s the little girl—was lots shorter, and her hair was just below her ears. Look, it’s below her shoulders now.”
“How do you know it’s the same little girl?”
She let out her breath in exasperation. “Because it’s Jana, that’s how. El Pintor did a good likeness. Besides, the T-shirt she’s wearing? See the huge sunflower on it? It used to be her sister’s. My friend Jackie’s.”
“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point. These drawings were done recently, but how recently? They could have been done a couple of months ago, and that wouldn’t help at all since El Pintor’s only been gone for about a week.”
“I give up,” Monica said angrily. “I give up completely. You’re right, I’m wrong. From what you say, these pictures don’t help at all. But, look, if you’re so worried about him, why don’t you call the police? Sure. Why don’t you call the Missing Persons Bureau?”
“Because I’m the only one who’s worried. The police wouldn’t listen to me. After all, I’m not a relative, and besides, El Pintor has a right to come and go as he pleases. He doesn’t have to report to anyone. But I know him and I am worried. Look, Monica, these pictures are a good starting place to look for him. I’m sorry if my questions bothered you. I’m just trying to be logical.”
“So am I,” Monica said crisply, gathering up the pictures. “And these drawings had me pretty convinced.” She bent across the table to stack them with the sketch pads. Abruptly, she pulled back and returned them to the tabletop. She picked up the drawing of Jana and the ice-cream truck and held it out to Rob. “And now I know why,” she said triumphantly. “Why hadn’t I pointed this out to you before? See? It’s Mr. Daniels. He never, and I mean never, brings his ice-cream truck to our neighborhood before school is out. And the schools there weren’t out till last Wednesday. There. How do you like that for pinning down the time? This drawing couldn’t have been done before last Thursday or Friday.”
“Are you sure—?” Rob caught himself. “Yes, you’re sure or you wouldn’t look so smug.”
“Well, I feel smug. Because I know, on this one, I’m absolutely right. And, besides, it’s a very important point.” Rob laughed, and, she thought, he’s even more handsome when he laughs. I like the way his eyes, all on their own, seem to laugh, too.
Rob handed her the pictures. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d have nothing to go on. I honestly don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I didn’t snoop around here only for you. I want to find him, too.” Rob looked quizzically at her and she added, “I have my reasons.”
“In that case, do you want to go with me?”
Monica looked at him with surprise. “Try to go without me,” she said.