Four-thirty in the afternoon. A small hawk perched on a telephone pole, feathers barely moving; women wearing Sunday-go-to-church dresses chatted in the parking lot of the trading post, which was basically a mom-and-pop grocery store; a leathery senior in a white hat and lived-in jeans filled up his Ranger at the gas pump out front. Ray pulled the car into a parking spot.
He locked the car remotely with a click. Kat followed him into the store.
Racks of bait mixed incongruously with fresh spices. Apparently the people down here not only liked to catch fresh food, they liked to cook with spices, rare beer batters, unusual root-based roux. Unlike the grocery stores near her house in Hermosa, the aisles were not speckled with plastic grasses or lit with halogen spotlights to create the illusion of cozy gourmet. This store reminded her of the one down the hill from Franklin Street in Whittier when she was a kid, what they used to call “the little store.” Fusty candies in moldering baskets decorated the shelf below the counter cash register. The rest of the store held basics like toilet paper, tampons, and peanut butter stacked up to the black painted ceiling without any fanfare.
A gum-chewing teen manned the register. Ray did not pretend he wanted to buy anything.
“Pablo around?”
The jaw worked. Gum popped once, then twice.
“Haven’t seen him today.”
“I need to see him.”
A stare as indifferent as the stars blinked back.
“I know him,” Ray said.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Ray Jackson. My wife’s name is Leigh. Leigh Jackson.”
The gum popped again. The boy at the counter took a dirty rag out and wiped his counter down. When it continued to be grubby, he spit on the rag and wiped it again. “Don’t know you.”
“You sell my wife manzanita.”
A dim light penetrated the distant universe of his eyes. “Sounds familiar.”
“She builds furniture, and sometimes she uses the manzanita as bases for glass tables.”
“It grows wild out here.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t steal it, you know.”
“Nobody said he did.” When the boy began to straighten the newspapers, Ray said, “It’s not like he was selling her drugs.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“He around?”
“No. You want to buy something?”
No problem, Kat had a handful of goodies she wanted at the ready. She plopped them in front of the boy. Ray looked at the candy bars and said, “That’s not your lunch.”
“No, I missed lunch. This is high tea.”
The clerk smiled, revealing gold-tipped incisors, and rang their purchases up.
“Where can we find Pablo?”
Ching. Ching. Ching. “He’s my grandfather. You want to buy some manzanita?”
“Maybe.”
“We call it
“Sounds like a live wire,” Kat said, while he bagged up the food she couldn’t wait to eat. The cornflakes at the Idyllwild cabin had not assuaged her need for nutrients.
The boy began to hand her the change from her twenty; she waved him off.
He narrowed his eyes and tucked the money into the right front pocket of his jeans. “Grandpa comes in around five almost every night. Since Grandma died, he doesn’t cook.” He waved toward a steaming bar along one side of the shop. “He’ll eat any soup we dream up.”
“Is that what I’m smelling? Smells good.” Kat was now regretting the Mounds, the Snickers, and the paper-wrapped Necco Wafers she had just opened.
“White bean soup. I make it with fresh parsley, garlic, and a delicate imported parmigiano.” He smirked, and Kat imagined how many cans he opened in the morning, getting that fresh soup going.
“I’ll take a quart,” Ray said, pulling out his wallet.
They left to await the appearance of Pablo. They had only a few minutes to kill. Cars passed by but nobody stopped. Lights winked on behind them.
They didn’t want to return to the car, so they walked up the block toward a distant blinking sign that said, “Desert Tots.” On both sides of the street, empty lots extended for miles beyond the road. Tumbleweeds blew by. An early moon floated in the blue. A shaded wooden bench sat in front of the store, which on weekdays sold secondhand items for children. It was very quiet.
Ray opened his soup container and pulled a plastic spoon out of his pocket.
“You going to eat all that?”
“You could have told me to get two spoons,” he said, offering her the first bite.
“I couldn’t. I was embarrassed.” She slurped down a bite, then two, then three. “Oh, man.”
He took the spoon from her and sampled the soup.
“That kid can cook!”
They polished off the soup and walked up and down, past the library trailer, the bank branch, and the post office in the heat. That was one block and then they were in a neighborhood where a few kids played in a yard.
When they got back to the little store, they had a new contact, a middle-aged babe with bold silver streaks in her hair, who wore a lowcut T-shirt that displayed her amplitudes. Ray asked for Pablo again.
Seconds later, a man in a straw cowboy hat with a dark, seamed face appeared from behind a door at the back of the store. He had a cloth napkin decorated with roosters tucked into his neck like a bib. “Cheche outdid himself,” he said to the woman at the register. He paid no attention to Kat and Ray.
She answered, “He thinks he can talk you into paying for cooking school next year. He’s praying. He’s hoping.”
The older man, scrawny, small, no more than five feet five inches tall, nodded. “He’s been cooking since he had to stand on a stool.”
She pointed toward Ray. “These people want to talk to you.”
Pablo removed his bib, folded it, and placed it on the counter next to the woman. “Find a place for that, will you,
She stuffed the dirty napkin under the counter, turned away from them, and began watching a miniature television, with a serious expression.
“Hi,” Kat said, letting Pablo look them over. He leaned against the ice-cream cooler, the picture of a well-fed man. He must be past seventy, with large scarred hands and cords standing out in his neck.
“We’re looking for someone.” Ray pulled a picture of Leigh out of his coat pocket and handed it to Pablo.
Pablo held the picture of Leigh in his hands. “Long time since I saw this lady.” He had a deep, distant voice, like he was channeling it from somewhere else.
“Old man,” the woman at the counter said, “your memory needs tweaking.”
“Months,” he said stubbornly, and gave her a look. “Don’t pay any attention to her,” he said. “She just likes to talk.”
“Leigh is my wife,” Ray said. “She’s missing. If you saw her, we really need to know. We are afraid something has happened to her.”
“I remember a long time ago when I saw her, she mentioned you,” the man said. Kat couldn’t see his eyes under the hat. “I was asking why she came out here alone. She said she had a wonderful husband. A wonderful husband, but he didn’t have time for deserts and mountains.”
“She meant me, all right,” Ray said. He didn’t blink.
“She makes wonderful furniture. She made a table for me last year.”
“She did?”
“She’s a real artist.”
Ray looked away. Kat wondered what he was thinking. She said, “When you saw her, was she on her way somewhere?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“She didn’t say anything about her plans?” Kat broke in.
“Who are you?” the man said, his gaze moving back and forth between her and Ray.
“I understand why you wouldn’t be sure about trusting us. But this is urgent. She has disappeared. We have to find her.”
“Who are you?”
“Her best friend.”
“She didn’t mention you.”
“Nevertheless, here I am,” Kat said.
“If you know anything, anything at all-” Ray said.
“Sometimes people want to disappear for a while.”
“Is that what she told you? She came through here last weekend, didn’t she?” Kat said, the words rushing out.
The man squeezed his lips so tightly together they disappeared, and Kat was reminded again about guarding the mouth. She turned to the woman at the counter and said, “Please.”
“It’s up to him,” the woman said, jerking her head toward Pablo.
“You want the police here?”
“My cousin’s the deputy on duty here. I’m not afraid of him, or you two. You better go now.”
23
T hey’re lying,” Kat said, as they got back in the car and pulled back into the road.
