Clandestine

I nodded assent and let him walk into the steaming hallway ahead of me. We took the stairs up to the third floor. Sanchez fiddled with the double lock on his door, and when the door opened I slammed my right fist into the back of his neck, sending him sprawling into his immaculate, cheap-plush living room. He looked up at me from the floor, his whole body trembling in anger. I closed the door behind me, and we stared at each other. Sanchez recovered quickly, getting to his feet and brushing off his silk jacket.

The sardonic grin returned. "This ain't happened in a while," he said. "You with the sheriff's?"

"L.A.P.D.," I said, for old-times' sake. I dug the letters out of my coat pocket, holding my coat closed so that Sanchez wouldn't know that I was unarmed. I tossed them in his face. "You forgot your mail, Joe."

I waited for a reaction. Sanchez shrugged and plopped into a sofa covered with Mexican souvenir blankets. I pulled a chair up to within breathing distance of him.

"Dope and green cards, pretty nice," I said.

Sanchez shrugged, then looked at me defiantly. "What do you want, man?" He spat at me.

"I want to know what a good-looking, middle-class white woman like Marcella Harris was doing down here on Medina Court," I said, "besides buying dope from you."

Sanchez's manner seemed to crumple in relief, then tense up in fear. It was bizarre. "I didn't kill her, man," he said.

"I'm sure you didn't. Let's make this simple. You tell me what you know, and I'll leave you alone—forever. You don't tell me, and I'll have the Immigration cops and the feds up here in fifteen minutes. Comprende?"

Sanchez nodded. "A friend of mine brought her around. She wanted to buy some reefer. She kept coming back. She thought Medina Court was kicks. She was a loca, a hot-headed redhead. She liked to smoke reef and dance. She liked Mexican music." Sanchez shrugged, indicating completion of his story.

It wasn't enough. I told him so: "Not good enough, Joe. You make it sound like you just tolerated her. I don't buy it. I heard she used to hang out with you and a bunch of other pachucos down at the auto graveyard."

"Okay, man. I liked her. 'La Roja,' I used to call her. 'The Red One.'"

"Were you screwing her?"

Sanchez was genuinely indignant: "No, man! She wanted me to, but I'm engaged! I don't mess with no gringas."

"Forgive me for mentioning it. Was she hooked on stuff?"

Sanchez hesitated. "She . . . she took pills. She was a nurse and she could get codeine. She used to get crazy and act silly when she was high on it. She said she could be . . ."

I leaned forward. "She said what, Joe?"

"She . . . she . . . said she could outfight any Mexican, and out-fuck and out-drink any puta. She said that she'd seen stuff that . . . that . . ."

"That what?" I screamed.

"That would have made our cojones fall off!" Sanchez screamed back.

"Did she hang out with any other guys here on Medina?" I asked.

Sanchez shook his head. "No. She was just interested in me. I told the others to leave her alone, that she was bad news. I liked her, but I had no respect for her. She used to leave her kid alone at night. Anyway, I started giving Marcella the cold shoulder. She took the hint and didn't come around no more. I ain't seen her in six months."

I got up and walked around the room. The walls were adorned with bullfight posters and cheap landscape prints. "Who introduced her to you?" I asked.

"My friend, Carlos. He used to work at that factory where she was the nurse."

"Where can I find Carlos?"

"He went back to Mexico, man."

"Did Marcella Harris ever bring anyone else around to see you?"

"Yeah, once. She knocks on my door at seven in the morning. She had this guy with her, she was hanging on to him real tight, like they been . . ."

"Yeah, I know. Go on."

"Anyway, she starts jabbering about the guy, how he just got promoted to graveyard foreman at the plant. I sold them some reef and they split."

"What did this guy look like?"

"Kind of fat and blond. Kind of like a stüpido. He had no thumb on his left hand. It kind of spooked me. I'm superstitious and I . . ."

I sighed. "And what, Joe?"

"And I knew that Marcella was gonna die mean. That she wanted to die mean."

"Ever see Marcella with a dark-haired man or a blond woman with a ponytail?"

"No."

I got up to leave. "Poor roja," Joe Sanchez said as I walked out his door.

Mrs. Gaylord Wilder, Marcella Harris's landlady, had nervous gray eyes and a manner of barely controlled hysteria. I didn't know how to play her—impersonating a cop was too risky with a solid citizen, and intimidation might well bring repercussions from the real cops.