White Tombs (20 page)

“
Si
,”

Santana leaned in. “This is important, José. Did you tell Córdova that Rafael Mendoza was bringing Mexicans into the country illegally?”

López worked his jaw, as if chewing the answer. “Rubén was my friend. He get me this job.” His eyes teared and he looked down at his hands that were clasped in front of him.

“So you did tell him.”

“
Si
. Rubén no like it when he find out what Mendoza was doing.” López rubbed his uninjured eye with the heel of his hand, like he was only tired and not really crying.

“I’m going to get something to drink,” Santana said. “You sure you don’t want anything?”

“Coca Cola,” he said.

Santana went to the counter and ordered a Coke and a hot chocolate.

When he brought the drinks back to the table and sat down again, López stared at the open can in front of him, as though peering into a deep well.

“I wish I did not tell Rubén. Maybe he will still be alive if I did not tell him about Mendoza.”

“You did the right thing.”

As López picked up the can with both hands, his shoulders seemed to sag from the weight of it. His eyes drifted from the Coke until he was looking directly at Santana. “I say this to myself every day. But, you know, I no feel any better.”

“I imagine you don’t feel good about your eye, either, José. Who did this to you?”

“No one of importance,” he said. But the momentary panic that flashed across his good eye indicated the opposite.

Santana said, “I need to know.”

López looked at the can again. He rubbed his chin with his right hand and considered his options, which were basically slim and none. Finally he said, “You will keep my name out of it?”

“If I can.”

“His name is Luis Garcia. He worked for Mr. Mendoza.”

“What exactly did he do for Mendoza?”

López pointed to his eye. “He make sure no one talks about Mr. Mendoza’s business.”

“You know where Luis Garcia lives?”

“No,” López said with a shake of his head. “And I don’t want to know.”

Chapter 15

H
EAT FROM THE SUN’S RAYS
radiated throughout the Crown Vic as Santana took the White Bear Avenue exit off Interstate 94 and turned north. A quick-moving warm front had blown in late in the morning. Santana could almost imagine that it was the middle of July despite the snow that lay like a soiled sheet over the landscape.

Santana typed Luis Garcia’s name on the MDT keyboard in his Crown Vic. His name, last known address, and criminal history were in the computer system, as Santana had suspected, though there were no current wants and warrants. Garcia lived in a craftsman-style red brick bungalow with a gabled dormer on the corner of Kennard and Conway just west of White Bear Avenue.

Santana parked the Crown Vic at the curb and navigated his way across a sidewalk still icy with unshoveled snow. The street was deserted. Most kids were in school, and it was too early for the gangbangers to be out.

He walked up the steps and rang the bell. After a moment the door opened slightly and a heavy-set Hispanic woman peered out past the security chain.

“I’m Detective John Santana.”

She stared at the ID he held up and then at him. Cautious. Unsure.

“I’m looking for Luis Garcia. Can I come in?”

Her dark eyes darted nervously back and forth. “
No comprendo, señor
.”

“
Es Luis Garcia su hijo?
”

“
Si
,” she said, surprise showing on her dark, Indian face. “He ees my son. What has he done?”

“I’d just like to ask him a few questions.”

“He ees not home.”

Santana could hear voices in the background. Then he realized that she had the television on.

“Perhaps I could talk to you, Mrs. Garcia.”

She glanced inside like she was worried about something. She might have dealt with the police in Mexico and figured she had little choice but to let him in. If she were here illegally, dealing with the police would only add to her fears. She started to unlatch the chain and then hesitated a moment longer, weighing her options.

“Talking to me might help your son,” Santana said, offering encouragement.

He saw concern register in her eyes.

Finally, she unlatched the safety chain, opened the door, and allowed him to step into the living room with its unpolished hardwood floors and faded white curtains on the windows. It was a small room that needed a fresh coat of paint, yet it was as expensively furnished as a showroom. A black curved leather sectional that was too large for the space sat against one wall opposite an oak armoire. The armoire held a brand new Sony flat screen twenty-seven inch color television with a built in VCR and DVD player.

Santana stood next to a black leather chair in front of four rectangular windows that looked out onto the street. A radiator ran along the wall beside him. Beyond the walnut archway that led into the dining room were a shiny oak table and four chairs. On one of the walls was a two-foot crucifix, and on another were three shelves filled with a collection of porcelain angels.

“I go to work soon,” Mrs. Garcia said, standing in front of the leather sectional with the remote in her hand.

She wore white shoes and a plain gray maid’s dress with CROWNE PLAZA printed on the nametag pinned just above her left breast. The nametag read: Ester Garcia.

Santana remembered a time when he and Rita Gamboni had enjoyed a dinner in the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel. The restaurant had booths that circulated like a slow-moving merry-go-round while you ate, offering a full view of the city through floor to ceiling windows. It was early in their relationship, a time when everything he said seemed interesting and significant to her, a time when her touch felt as if she had a constant fever.

“This won’t take long,” Santana said, giving Ester Garcia a smile.

She turned off the TV and lowered herself reluctantly to the couch, as though she were about to sit in something unpleasant.

He said, “You have a very nice home,
señora
.”

She averted her eyes, obviously embarrassed by her expensive surroundings.

“Luis help out.”

Santana took off his overcoat and folded it over the back of the cushioned chair. He took out his notebook and pen and sat down in the chair.

“Does Luis work?”

“When he can,” she said softly.

“Where’s that?”

“He no work in a long time. There are few jobs for …” her voice trailed off.

“Illegals,” Santana said.

Ester Garcia’s eyes grew large with panic and her mouth fell open. The radiator let out a hiss of steam like a cat alarmed by an intruder.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Garcia. I’m not here about your legal status. Everything you tell me will be between you and me,
comprende?
”

She looked at him for a long moment, still hesitant but less uneasy. “
De dónde es, señor?
”

“Colombia.”

She gave a knowing nod. “How many years?”

“Twenty.”

“It was hard for you, no?”

“Very. It’s easier now.”

She stared at him, motionless, still trying to make up her mind whether or not to trust him.

He said, “
Usted, señora? Cuantos años?
”

“Four years,” she said.

“
Viniste aquí con Luis?
”

“With Luis and my husband, Jorge. He work in the meat packing plant in Worthington.”

“
Tienes otros hijos?
”

“Only Luis.”

Santana could tell by her body language that she was more relaxed now, more willing to talk. “Is your husband here in St. Paul, or is he still in Worthington,
señora?
”

She thought about it for a while before responding. “One day Jorge go to work and no come back. I wait for two months in the apartment where we live with another family in Worthington.” She held up two fingers for emphasis and shook her head resignedly. “I think he get tired of the work and go back to Mexico.”

“Why didn’t you go back after him?”

Her lips formed a melancholy smile. “Jorge like the tequila more than work.” She held the smile for a moment and then let out a sigh that carried with it something other than weariness.

“More than me, I think.”

She gazed out the windows to her left, out into the cold, empty street where melting snow ran in dark, dirty streams along the curbs and down into the sewers.

“How did you end up in St. Paul?” Santana asked.

“One of the women in the apartment had a sister who live here and work at the hotel. She talk to Mr. Mendoza. He get me a job. Mr. Mendoza was a good man. When I hear on the TV that he die, I was very sad.”

“Did Mendoza get Luis a job, too?”

“
Si
.”

“Did he help you get the house?”

“I do not know. Luis brought me here one day a year ago. He say this is ours now. He say soon I no have to work anymore. We will have papers. We will be citizens. But I can always work. I don’t mind.”

Santana wondered how many Ester Garcias were working in the restaurants, fast food places and hotels throughout the city. All of them wanting to become citizens but many going about it the only the way they knew how — the wrong way.

“Do you know where Luis is now?”

“Sometimes he ees with his friends at Diáblos.”

“I know where it is. Would you have a picture of Luis that I could borrow?”

She pushed herself up from the couch and went to drawer in the dining room where she took out a thick photo album and brought it back to the living room. She sat down on the couch again and set the album gently in her lap.

Santana watched her as she turned the pages, gazing at the distant memories captured in each of the photos.

Removing a photo from the album, she looked up at him. Her eyes were dark pools filled with concern and hope.

“Luis is a good boy,
señor
. Very smart. I try to get him to finish school here. But he no read so good. He has a lot of energy and a temper, too. Sometimes he get into trouble.”

She held the picture of her son with both hands close to her heart, reluctant to give it up.

“I understand,
señora
.”

Santana held out a hand.

She looked at him and then at the distance between his outstretched hand and hers.

“I’ll return it safely to you,” he said.

Her mouth began to tremble and she looked at Santana again, as if giving her son’s photo to him in some way implied that she was turning her back on her only child.

“And my son too,
por favor
,” she replied.

That was a promise Santana could not make.

D
iáblos was located at the bottom of the bluff near Cesar Chávez and State. Traffic was usually heavy in the area and the sidewalks were busy with Hispanic shoppers, most of them without hats and gloves and heavy coats. Santana parked his car at the curb a half block down behind a customized, white and blue, low rider ’64 Chevy Impala with fender skirts. It had been washed and waxed recently and the finish shone like a polished floor.

A bank of dark clouds had rolled in suddenly from the west, covering the sun and dropping the temperature ten degrees. Snow crystals blown by wind gusts pricked Santana’s face and sliced across his skin like razors.

From the outside Diáblos looked like a pueblo with its white walls, red tiled roof and board-and-batten door. From the inside it looked and smelled the same as a thousand other bars, the stink of stale beer and cigarettes hanging like body odor in the air. On Santana’s right was a long bar with red padded stools running the length of the room. Behind the bar was a Mexican flag and rows of multi-colored bottles, an alcoholic’s wet dream. The bartender, an old Hispanic man with craggy features and white hair, looked up momentarily as Santana entered and then went back to washing glasses.

Sets of square tables and chairs were loosely organized in front of the bar. Ceiling fans sat motionless above him. In an alcove to the left were a pinball machine, pool table and a couple of high-topped tables.

Diáblos was nearly empty at this time of the day, so Luis Garcia was easy to spot. He was a muscular kid, about five feet seven inches, and dark like his mother with the same flat nose and Indian features. His jeans were baggy and low on his waist. He had a gold bandana tied over his head like a pirate. The tight black T-shirt he wore showed off a pair of large biceps. He was playing pool with another Hispanic kid the size of the Goodyear Blimp. The kid looked younger than Garcia, maybe nineteen, and wore his long, shiny, dark hair in a ponytail. A Vikings sweatshirt hung over his belt and expansive gut.

Santana walked over and stood near Garcia. He could see now that Garcia was trying to grow a mustache and goatee and having little success.

A young Hispanic girl with bleached blond hair, a leopard skin skirt and black turtleneck sweater sat on a stool at a round high-top table, smoking Lucky Strikes and drinking shots of tequila from a half-empty bottle.

Santana flipped open his badge wallet, revealing his shield.

Garcia gave it a cursory glance and said, “
Qué es lo que este pinché cabrón quiere?”

The Hispanic girl giggled.

Santana had understood what the girl was laughing at. Garcia wondered what this fucking pig wanted. But rather than let on, he ignored the insult. Garcia was showing off for her, letting her see how tough he was. Santana had expected it.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about Rafael Mendoza, Luis.”

Garcia looked at him as though Santana had two heads. He had a thick, silver chain around his neck and a five-pointed crown tattooed on his right forearm, a symbol of the Latin King Nation.

“I don’t know any Mendoza, man. Hey, Reínaldo,” he said to the fat kid across the pool table. “I know any Mendoza?”

Reínaldo shook his head dutifully. “No, man.”

Garcia turned around and looked at the blond girl sitting at the table behind him. “Liz,
mija
. Do I know any Mendoza?”