“Let them arrest me,” Fernando said. “I got nothin’ to hide.” He glowered at Bentz with a dark gaze of pure hatred. “But you…look at you, sweating like the pig that you are. I hope whatever you’re going through, it stings like a bitch.”
Bentz didn’t release his hold on Valdez to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The Jennifer imposter had escaped him, but he was not going to let this one go. “Cut the theatrics, kid. You don’t have a chance of seeing sunlight from outside a prison wall if you don’t start talking. Tell me where your girlfriend is, and where are you holding my wife. You’ve been working with her from the start, right? Are you the runner? Do you take care of the dirty work?”
“Again, you’re talking crazy!”
“If I’m crazy, why are you the one going down for kidnapping?” Bentz said, thinking of Olivia trapped somewhere in a prison. His grip on the boy tightened. “Kidnapping…and just maybe a few counts of murder.”
CHAPTER 37
The Blue Burro was hopping, the dinner crowd spilling into the bar where colorful piñatas and fake parrots hung from open beams painted in bold primary colors. Dressed in dark slacks and white shirts with bandannas at their necks, the waitstaff bustled through the connecting rooms, skirting around each other and patrons. They carried trays laden with food or opened up portable serving tables to prepare homemade guacamole. Every so often they stopped serving to assemble, plunk a huge Mexican hat on a customer’s head, and sing a special Mexican birthday song.
The place was festive and fun and brimming with customers.
Montoya suspected the police had been here searching for Fernando, so he decided to tread carefully, try to blend in. He pocketed his wedding band and took a seat at the bar, grabbing one of the few open stools next to the doors swinging into the kitchen. He ordered a scotch from a bartender who looked as if she could barely be twenty-one herself.
Lively Mexican music could barely be heard over the hum of conversation and clink of glasses, but Montoya listened intently, trying to hear something that might help him learn more about Fernando Valdez, his sister, the silver Impala, or the woman who had last driven it. Slowly, he sipped his drink, his gaze wandering to the mirror mounted over the bar so that he could unobtrusively watch the action behind him.
For a while inane chatter floated past him. But as he was close to finishing his drink, he heard Fernando’s name come up in bits of conversation floating through the swinging doors from the kitchen.
Something about him not calling in and a waitress complaining about being forced to stay through the crush of dinner to cover his shift. Though she liked the money, she was really inconvenienced and pissed as hell that he, of all people, would make her work a double, which was a real pain in the ass with the baby and all. She’d had to call her mother to bail her out and babysit the kid. Or something close. It was hard to tell, and Montoya only heard parts of the conversation: her side because her voice was so shrill.
Trying not to appear interested, Montoya watched from the corner of his eye. The door to the kitchen swung open again, and Montoya caught a glimpse of the girl with a round face and tight lips. Her near-black hair was streaked with contrasting stripes of platinum and pulled tightly away from her face to a tight knot at her crown. She was seething, and Fernando seemed to be the cause of her exasperation.
“Ouch,” he said to the bartender when the door swung closed again and the girl’s voice still shrilled from the kitchen. “Someone’s not happy.”
“Never. Acacia’s never happy.” She gave him a smile as she filled glasses with ice.
“Not with Fernando,” he said.
She quit scooping and studied him. “You know him?”
He shook his head. “Not that well. I took a couple of classes at the J.C., business classes at night, for my job. Insurance adjustor. Fernando was in one. He mentioned he worked here.”
“He won’t much longer if he doesn’t show up,” she said, shaking her head as she pushed the scoop through the ice and drizzled cubes into glasses set on the counter below the bar. “He’s a player. A ladies’ man. Acacia doesn’t like it. Wants him to settle down.”
“With her?”
The barkeep threw him a look that told him his question was asinine. “Of course with her. He’s the father of her child.”
“Is he? Didn’t tell me about a kid.”
“Figures. Acacia, she claims they were together a couple of years back. They hooked up at a company party and she got knocked up.” She glanced at Montoya. “The kid looks just like him. Fernando isn’t arguing about it, he’s just not stepping up.”
A new wrinkle, Montoya thought, as a slightly flustered waitress hurried to the bar and rattled off her order. “Can you hurry that? I forgot to turn it in and the women at table six are getting pissed.”
“Got it.” The bartender nodded and started mixing drinks, first for the waitress, then for a party of four at the far end of the bar.
Montoya decided he’d probably gotten all the information he could from her and he didn’t want to tip her off by talking too much about a guy he “barely knew.”
The door to the kitchen was pushed open by the same harried waitress and Montoya caught sight of Acacia stepping out a rear door.
Quickly, he paid for his drink, left a generous tip, then wandered outside to the cool night, a breeze blowing across the parking lot. Montoya waited for a rush of traffic to clear, then crossed the street to a convenience store. He bought a pack of Camels and returned to the restaurant.
Hoping to catch Acacia on her break, he headed toward the back of the building, where he caught sight of the small crowd of cooks and waiters clustered under an awning near the delivery door of the Blue Burro. Montoya unwrapped his pack and placed an unlit filter tip in his mouth. He patted his pockets, pretending to be looking for a light as he approached the group of half a dozen workers who were smoking and laughing, telling jokes, and ribbing each other.
Acacia stood among the group, just finishing her cigarette. Under the security light she looked more angry than ever, frowning as she took a final drag.
The laughter and jokes dissipated as he moved closer.
“Can I bum a light?” Montoya asked in Spanish.
One of the cooks, a big guy with a thin moustache and dirty apron, nodded. “Why not?” Shrugging, he flipped a lighter through the air and Montoya caught it on the fly.
“Thanks, man.”
Acacia stubbed out her cigarette and seemed about to walk inside.
Montoya lit up and said, “Anyone seen Fernando?”
Everyone went stone silent.
“No?” Montoya frowned. “I heard he worked here and he owes me money. Thought I might collect.”
At first no one said a word; they’d all apparently heard the cops were searching for him. The big cook in the dirty apron looked as if he wanted to dart inside. He dumped his butt in the overflowing ash can.
“Something wrong?”
No one said anything until Acacia, unable to contain her irritation with the guy, shook her head. “He owes you money? Get in line.”
Montoya flipped the Bic back to the cook. “So he owes you, too?” he asked Acacia as the big guy slipped through the screen door to the kitchen, a shorter waiter on his heels.
“You wouldn’t believe.”
“Try me.” He offered her a cigarette from his pack.
She shrugged, then took one and lit up as a scruffy cat stole through the shadows, slinking under the Dumpster in the back alley.