Slow Burn (32 page)

She picked up
the phone in front of her, then thought better about talking about me in front
of me and put it back down.

"I'll be
right back," she said, and exited again through the door.

The minute the
door closed, I leaned over and swiveled the computer monitor my way. The top of
the screen read Rooms By Number. I pushed the return key until I was back at
the main menu. I quickly read "my way down the laundry list of options. F
was Hotel Personnel. This got me a database search page. I had two search
options, Job Title or Name. I chose Name, entered Tavares, Rodrigo and pushed
the button. In fifteen seconds I had what I needed.

Before leaving,
I returned the computer to the main menu screen and screwed it back in Marie's
direction. I think I heard Marie call my name just as I stepped onto the
escalator, but I was in a hurry and couldn't be sure.

Finding
Rodrigo
Tavares was a bit harder. The address was up on the hill, just south of
Madison, in what I'd call a transitional neighborhood. As a general
rule, the farther south
of Madison you go, the funkier the neighborhood gets. Nothing too
crazy. Seattle hasn't got a Cabrini Green or anything. Just one of
those areas that gives a guy
the urge to whistle and maybe have a little something extra in his sock.

In that part of
the city, isolated pockets of postwar homes sprout like dandelions among the
innumerable, multistory medical buildings which have, in recent years, devoured
the once solidly middle-class neighborhood. The result of this encroachment has
been to inflate the tax rate to commercial levels, offering the mostly elderly
natives one of two choices. They can either pay their taxes or maintain their
property. Most pay the taxes.

It was a duplex
just off Ninth Street. In the front yard, this summer's weeds waved like the
proverbial "amber waves of grain." Unit A was on the left, and Unit C
was on the right. I'll admit it. I was stumped. The address hadn't included a
unit number. I didn't have any more idea of which door to knock on than I did
about what in hell had happened to Unit B. When in doubt, left to right.

" Unit A
opened her door a crack. At least three chains, maybe more. It was hard to
tell, because it was dark in the apartment, and I had to look down into the
darkest of it because she was so short. She had thick salt-and-pepper hair.
Mostly salt and very long for'a woman her age, the hair formed a kind of mantle
around her face. I stuck my foot in the door. "I'm looking for Rodrigo
Tavares."

The words were
perfect English, but the rolled fs and machine-gun delivery were pure Spanish.
"Rodrigo is not here."

"Could you
tell me where I might find him?"

She didn't
answer.

"Are you
his mother?"

"He is not
here." -

"Do you
know where he is?"

All she had to
do was say no. I would have pressed her again and then given up. Contrary to
rumor, on Thursday nights I no longer beat up on old ladies. Thursday is
puppy-strangling night.

Instead, she
said, "Why doan you people leave him alone?"

Which, of
course, immediately brought to mind such questions as: "What people?"
"How come she's seen these people so often she assumes I must be one of
them?" and "Why are they bothering her Rodrigo?"

She leaned hard
on the door and got nowhere.

"You leave
him alone," she said, giving the door everything she had. It was the
noises that got me, as a series of pitiful squeals filled the air. She made it
sound like she was rowing for the Pharaoh and I was the bald guy with the drum.

I jerked my
foot out, and the door banged shut. I stood on the porch for a minute and then
knocked on Unit C. I heard the scrape of a chair. No chain locks on this door.
It popped so fast, it created a momentary vacuum in the surrounding air,
pulling my hair forward.

He was a big
one. Wearing a cutoff black T-shirt under a black leather vest, a pair of
brand-new jeans and some engineer boots. His long, greasy hair was pulled back
into a ponytail. He pointed a finger at my face, stopping about an inch short
of my nose.

"Don't be
tellin' me you got me up from my dinner so's you could sell me somethin'. Tell
me somethin', but don't tell me that."

"Okay, I
won't."

It seemed he
wasn't prepared for that response. "So wadda you want?"

"You know
anything about the kid next door?" Wrong question.

He pulled the
door closed behind him and stepped out onto the tiny porch. I was supposed to
back down the stairs, but instead held my ground. No more than a foot separated
us on the narrow porch. He put his hands on his hips and looked me over from
head to toe.

"Walk over
there," he said, pointing to the far end of the porch.

What the hell.
I walked down to the rail and back.

"You ain't
one, are you?"

"One
what?"

"One of
the sissy boys."

 "You
mean, like . . . ?"

"The kid's
a fruitcake," he said.

I wasn't sure
what to say next. Pointing out to him that such terms as "sissy boys"
and "fruitcakes" were no longer acceptable in the sensitive nineties
didn't seem like such a good idea, so I settled for, "No. I'm not."

"Not that
I give a shit, you know," he added. "Each to his own, is what I say.
Hell, I know a long-haul trucker trained a miniature schnauzer to lick his
balls while he was driving. Nicest guy in the world. Wife, three kids."

I figured I'd
just take his word for it.

"Rod's a
nice enough kid, but I can always tell. Just somethin' about 'em. I don't know
what it is."

"Mom
didn't seem to want to be much help," I said.

"Ya gotta
figure Mom's how he got that way."

Ah, the
Freudian Model.

"Any idea
where I might find him?"

"What
for?"

"I just
need to ask him something. No trouble."

He mulled it
over. " 'Cause I wouldn't want no trouble for the kid. He may be a little
light in the loafers, but like I said, he's a nice kid."

"No
trouble."

His
name was
Joe Mamula, but everyone called him Joe Mama. But everyone knew her as
Nancy. He worked for a vending machine company and serviced most of the
bars on the hill,
up in what he liked to call the "swish Alps."

"I been in
that pool hall up on Twenty-third a bunch of times on service calls. Every time
I been in there, he been in there. That's all I know, man." He reached for
the door. "My dinner's gettin' cold."

Before the door
completely closed. I shot a question at him, "By the way, Joe, where's
Unit B?"

"Fucked if
I know," he said and closed the door.

Okay, I'll
admit it. I'm not fond of going into gay bars. It has nothing to do with them.
It has to do with me. I always feel like a voyeur. I feel as if I'm looking
through somebody else's front window from the shrubbery. And it's not like I've
ever been made to feel unwelcome. The times I've found myself in that position
have, for the most part, been quite pleasant. Maybe I'm a repressed fascist, or
maybe it's the only time a heterosexual, middle-aged white man feels like a
ininority. Who knows?

I saw him the
moment I opened the door. Rodrigo was all the way in the back right corner
playing pool with three other guys. As I strolled the length of the room, I
tried to ignore the feeling that I was in Atlantic City, New Jersey, walking
down the Miss America runway without my swim-suit. I told myself to lighten up.
These guys had no interest in me. They were gay, not blind.

I stood at the
end of the pool table and waited for him to notice me. He was deep in
conversation with a muscular guy of about thirty in a blue tank top and white
shorts. The hair was a little shorter, maybe, and perhaps the banter just a bit
more animated, but otherwise it was standard pool hall, Anywhere, U.S.A.

Rodrigo threw
his head back to laugh, caught sight of me and bit it off. He leaned his cue
against the wall and walked my way.

"What are
you doing here?" He gave me a small smile. "Or did I seriously
misjudge you?"

Interesting.
Joe Mamula was positive he could recognize one of them, and now Rod was sure he
could recognize one of us. Dude.

"I'm
looking for you."

"Why would
you be looking for me?"

"I need to
ask you a question."

His face
clouded. "Did you hassle my mother?"

I gave him the scout’s
salute. "I asked her once. She refused. I went away. That was it."

He stayed on
the offensive. "What’s so important you have to knock on my mother's
door?"

"What's
with you that a simple inquiry makes her so nervous?"

 "What are
you, a liberal or something?"

"This is
Seattle, man. Maybe you haven't noticed, but nobody much gives a shit about
your sexual orientation."

"Old
habits die hard. Not every place is like this." Rodrigo looked over his
shoulder at his buddies and then looked me in the eye. "Billings, Montana. That's where I grew up."

"Quaint
little town, as I remember."

"Not for a
fag wetback ifs not. I could tell you stories."

International
diplomacy will probably not be in my future. Unable to come up with any kind of
decent segue, I simply changed the channel.

. "You
remember that day you came by with the cart? When I was standing outside
eight-fourteen?" "I remember. What about it?"

From over at
the table, someone called, "Rod—ifs your turn."

He answered
without turning. "Shoot for me, Freddy."

"Who was
in the room where you delivered the order?"

He wrapped his
arms around himself. "Oooweee," he said. "Don't get me mixed up
in that, man. Get my ass fired."

"This is
just between us." "Yeah," he said, "like I can trust
you." "You trusted me enough to let me take that bone from your hand
the other night." I'll admit it. It was cheap. He thought it over.

"What a
gomer," he finally said. "I couldn't believe that

guy-"

"One of a
kind."

"I guess I
do owe you, don't I?"

"That's
the way I see it."

"Okay,"
he agreed, "but you got to keep me out of it."

"No
problem," I lied. If this worked out like I thought it might, Rodrigo was
going to be real popular with the SPD. No sense in worrying him about it now,
though.

"Ifs like
Romeo and Juliet, man. We read that in my community college lit class last
semester. It was really cool. The Montagues and the Capulets. Star-crossed
lovers from warring families."

I don't
remember driving home. I must have done it, because I found myself standing on
the porch trying to figure out how to open the front door. After trying the key
one way six or seven times, I made the adjustment and turned the key over. The
house was dark. Rebecca called my name from upstairs.

"Ifs
me," I called back.

I stood in the
bedroom, dropping my clothes into the darkness at my feet, then crawled under
the covers and pulled the down comforter up to my chin. The sheets were new and
stiff. Rebecca's head turned my way. She reached out a hand and patted my face
three times. Good doggie doggie. And then made a lazy roll away from me and
began, ever so slightiy, to snore.

Duvall
brandished a muffin. "Don't say that again. I do not snore."
"Don't worry," I said. "You do it in a most demure and ladylike
manner. There wasn't much snorting and that kind of stuff."

I ducked my
head to the left and let the poppyseed muffin sail by.

"What kind
of stuff?"

"Well,
there was the drooling . . ."

She picked up a
knife. I held up my hands.

"Just
kidding."

"Is that
all you did? Lie there and watch me sleep all night?"

"I had a
lot on my mind. It took me a while to get to sleep."

"Like how
ifs possible people could have the unmitigated gall not to like the same movies
we do?"

"And the
look on the Meyerson girl's face when Candace jumped in and admitted she'd gone
to the movies with her and Rickey Ray. I could have sworn she didn't know what
the hell Candace was talking about."

"How could
that be? If it wasn't true, how could Candace be sure the Meyerson girl would
go along with the lie?"

"that’s
the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question."

"No. That
was Quiz Show. You've got your movies mixed up."

'This whole
damn thing is mixed. Pass the butter."

Adrift in a sea
of boxes and newspaper, we buttered our muffins and drank our coffee at
opposite ends of what used to be my dining room table, which, in this new
configuration, was now our kitchen table.