It’s transmitting and they’re recording, so if he says anything incriminating we should have it on tape. Our boy’s pretty close to me now anyway, fussing over two foreign ladies and pushing the priciest wine on the menu. When he’s done I catch his eye.
He shimmers across and stands next to me.
“Yes, madam?” he says in English.
I’m dressed like a foreigner. A white blouse, a tartan skirt, half pumps, a faux pearl necklace. I’ve even put on lipstick and eye shadow and my short hair is styled with bangs. I’m supposed to look like a Canadian businesswoman, but as soon as he speaks I realize I’m not going to play that game: teasing information out of him, flirting with him, pretending to be drunk… Now it all seems so tacky and pointless.
“Yes, madam?” he says again.
Young. Twenty-four, it said on his employment application, but I think he’s a few years younger than that. Thin, handsome, probably using this gig to make connections for the bigger and better.
“Can I get you another mojito,
“You’re the head waiter?” I ask him.
“Well, for tonight.”
“I’m only asking because I saw you bussing tables earlier.”
He smiles. “When it’s like this we all have to pitch in.”
“Take a seat,” I say.
He smiles again. “I’m afraid that’s not permitted and even if it were, on a night like this, with the place packed to the rafters, it would simply-”
I take out my PNR police ID and place it discreetly on the table. He looks at it, looks at me, and sits. No “What is this?” or “Are you for real?” or a glib joke about the health inspectors finally coming for the cook. No, he just sits, heavily, like his legs have given way. If my thoughts were miked up I’d be saying to Hector, “Man, take a look at his face.” His whole expression had changed as instantaneously as if he’d just been shoulder tapped in improv class. Poker’s not his game, that’s for sure.
“Please, Detective, uhm, Mercado, uhm, can you tell me what this is about? Will this take long? I’m very busy. I have a job to do,” he whispers.
“I’ve come to ask you about the murder of Maria Angela Domingo,” I tell him.
“Never heard of her.”
“No?”
“No.”
“That was the name they gave her in the morgue. Domingo, because it was a Sunday when the body was found.”
He frowns. His foot begins to tap. There’s even sweat beading on his upper lip. Christ, what’s the matter with you? You wanna get life in prison, Felipe? Calm down. At least make it look like I’m working you a little.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, finally.
“Don’t you?”
“No. I don’t. And I don’t appreciate this. Who put you up to this? I suppose you’re looking to get a few drinks or something. Well, have your drink and leave. We have good relations with the police.” He gets to his feet. “Now, if you don’t mind-”
“Sit where you are.”
He doesn’t move.
“I said sit!”
He almost jumps and then he doesn’t so much sit as collapse. Better be getting this on video, Diaz, we could use some of this stuff with the judge advocate.
“It will only be a matter of time before we match the baby’s DNA to the DNA of your girlfriend and, of course, you,” I tell him.
His mind is racing. He takes a drink of water.
“Do you know the law?” I ask him.
He shakes his head.
“Whoever makes an admission of guilt first can become state’s witness against the other,” I say.
He looks dubious.
“I mean, we don’t know how she died. Not yet. We don’t know the details. Maybe the death was an accident? You’re both young. You don’t know what you’re doing. How could you know how to care for a baby? Come on, Felipe. Come on. We don’t want to take two young lives and ruin them. We don’t want you to go to jail for twenty or thirty years. That’ll cost the country a fortune. We don’t want that. All we’re interested in is finding out the truth. The truth. That’s all we care about.”
I take a sip of the weak mojito and keep my eye on him.
He’s on the hook, yes, but he’s still some way from the fish fryer.
Time for another gamble.
“We arrested Marta earlier today. We had to take her in first. She didn’t seem surprised. They took her to a different precinct, so I don’t have all the details yet, but I’ll get them eventually. I wonder what she’s saying about you right now?”
His eyes flash and I see that this is the tipping point. If he’s going to blab it’s going to be now.
But I’m wrong, he doesn’t say a word.
Instead he makes a fist and brings it down on the table. My phone bounces and lands on the sidewalk. The beggar kid runs from the shadows, snatches it, and instead of running off into the night, gives it back to me. Yeah. He’s good. That’s how you do it, Felipe. That’s called the soft sell. I slip the kid a dollar bill and check the phone’s still broadcasting. It is.
“What is she saying about you? I mean, who did it? It must have been you. A mother couldn’t do that to her own child.”
“Don’t you believe it,” he says in a whisper so low the phone mike won’t have picked it up.
“What was that? Tell me. Let me help you. What did she make you do?”
He closes his eyes, brings his fists to his temples.
“You’ve got the body?” he asks.
“Yes, of course. Little Maria Angela.”
“Will they let me see her?”
“Yes, you’ve every right to see her, you’re her father.”
He nods and takes a breath and it all comes tumbling out: “I am. I am her father. Although she pretended it was someone else’s. What happened to that guy? Eh? Don’t believe anything she says. Don’t believe a thing. She’s the one. Her. I didn’t do anything. She’s was the… She killed her. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing. When I came over the baby was already dead. All I did was get rid of the body. I didn’t ask her to do it. You gotta believe me. I didn’t ask her. Why would I? We would have managed. I’ve got a good job here. We would have been ok.”
He opens his eyes and stares at me.
“She killed the baby?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She drowned it…
A couple more pushes. “Was it your idea? She wouldn’t have done it. You must have told her to do it.”
Eyes like catcher’s mitts.
The waterworks.
“No. No. Haven’t you been listening. I told her noth-I didn’t tell her anything. It was her. It was all her. It’s madness.”
“But why did you keep the birth a secret?” I ask gently.
“She wanted me to,” he says between sobs. “She begged me to keep it quiet. And I did. God forgive
