tattoo of a naked woman riding a dragon inked on their forearms. It was a good disguise, anyway, and suggested that an aggressive Asian cat was the least of his (her?) concerns.
Unfortunately, the bartender was not so encumbered, as he noticed the change. “Easy, Scooter, easy,” he said, and then started to make his way over to the table with a bat in his hand. Sam didn’t know what he was planning with the bat, and anyway it was all a little too late, really, since Sam had wanted a beer about fifteen minutes earlier, but now just wanted to get psycho Rod back to the DMV before he did even more damage in public. Sam yanked Rod out of the booth by his sleeve and got him out the door before they had to fight their way out. Used to be you could go into a bar without encountering civet cats and drag queens, but Sam thought maybe it was the person he was hanging out with that brought on these odd circumstances. Sam made a mental note to find a better DMV source, perhaps someone who hadn’t been mentally neutered at some point in the recent past.
An hour later, Sam parked in front of a house on the eastern edge of Little Havana. It was an old house, probably built before 1930, conveniently located next to a coin-wash Laundromat and Kwik Stop on Northwest 8th. Across the street was the Olancho Cafe and a dollar store. It was one of those weird neighborhoods where these classic old houses were now wedged between commercial properties, which for Sam was a good thing. It meant that you could park in front of a house and no one would assume you were casing it, even when that’s precisely what you were doing.
The house looked to be no more than a thousand square feet, but there were enough cars parked behind the chain-link fence separating the property from the sidewalk to suggest that those thousand square feet were being occupied by quite a few people. The Honda Civic was there, as was an old Ford truck, its hood a rusted red, a lowered Camaro, a primer-colored Karmann Ghia on blocks and, parked all the way in the back, the Ranchero. It had a camper shell on it, which looked absurd, but then Sam didn’t exactly consider the Ranchero a practical car as it was.
From the exterior, the house looked to be in good shape. It had a fresh coat of yellow paint, the front porch was trimmed in white, there was a rocking chair just beside the front door-which was open-and an Adirondack-style chair on the other side. Whoever lived here, Sam thought, actually lived here.
The chain-link fence was joined in the center by two swinging gates padlocked together. Sam never understood why people somehow thought padlocks would keep them safe or keep their possessions from being stolen. All anyone needed to do was climb over the fence, hot-wire the car and drive it right through the fence. Or, with two paper clips, they could pop the padlock open in under twenty seconds. Sure, if you shoot a lock it might not open, but if you actually just disengage the locking system, it’ll pop right open.
Running around inside the fencing was a big Labrador. Another good sign.
Sam got out of his car and walked up to the fence. He could hear the drone of a television coming from the inside. The television was turned to either the news or an action film, as all he could hear was explosions and screams and sirens. Hard to tell the difference these days. The Labrador was rolling around with a stuffed penguin on the mostly dirt front lawn, paying Sam absolutely no attention in the least. Sam had a brief vision of what it would be like with that weird-ass civet in there, too. The Lab would probably lick it to death.
“Hello?” Sam shouted. He did it a couple more times until an older gentleman wearing Bermuda shorts and no shirt came out onto the front porch.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Real pleasant.
“Chuck Finley,” Sam said. “From the Department of Motor Vehicles.”
“You got a warrant?”
“No, sir,” Sam said. “Not a criminal matter. Just here about the registration on your Ranchero there in the back.”
The man walked down the front steps, stopped next to the dog and just stared at the animal, like he was trying to will it into action. “Some guard dog,” the man said. “My stepdaughter, she tells me this dog will help keep us safe. Two years, it’s never barked once. I don’t even know if it has vocal cords. Just chases that stuffed penguin around the yard all day.”
The man knelt down and scratched the dog’s head. The man was older, but Sam couldn’t figure out just how old. He had ruddy brown skin and his eyes carried deep bags, but his shirtless torso was lean and muscular. No tats, no notable scars, not even really any hair to speak of. He could be fifty. He could be seventy.
“Man’s best friend,” Sam said. “He’d probably bark if a penguin walked up.” The man snorted out a laugh, but didn’t move any closer to the gate or make a move to let Sam in. “So, about the Ranchero. I just need to check to make sure you’ve not been driving it.”
“I look stupid to you?” the man said. He looked at Sam without any sense of aggression, maybe because he was still petting his dog. Studies said dogs made people more placid. Maybe they were right. “Since when does the DMV make house calls?”
“Part of the stimulus plan,” Sam said. The great thing about the stimulus plan the government had recently put into motion was that no one had any idea what was in it. You could tell people purple monkeys were part of the stimulus plan and if you said it with some conviction, they would consider it for at least a few minutes.
But not this guy.
“If you’re looking for my stepdaughter,” he said, “she’s gone.”
Not a good sign.
“Out shopping?”
“How many times do you think you can threaten someone before they get the hint?”
“What about you?”
“I’ve lived here fifty years,” he said. “No one ever comes here and threatens me. She has her own life. I live here too long to be bothered by idiots.”
“You the original owner of the house?” Sam said. Just keeping it light. Pretending that bit about the threat slid right past him.
“It was built in 1929. I moved in a few days later,” the man said, a hint of a laugh in his voice. Keeping it light, too, but still not budging from his spot next to the dog.
“When did Maria move in?”
“You do think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
Not good again. The thing was, Sam got the sense the man was enjoying the game.
“What did you say your name was?” Sam asked.
“Shouldn’t you know that?”
Sam walked back to his car and pulled out the envelope of documents. They were all in the name of Maria Cortes.
“I’m looking for a young woman named Maria,” Sam said. “Or a big woman named Maria. You’re not either of them, right?”
“DMV doesn’t know if I’m a man or a woman? I’ve been driving a car since before you were born.”
The problem wasn’t with the DMV. It was with all of the government. “Yes, yes,” Sam said, “I see it here.” He didn’t, but that didn’t mean he was going to admit that. See if maybe the man would just give up his damn name, make it easy on everyone.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Chuck Finley,” Sam said.
“Like the ballplayer?”
“No, not like anyone. Just me. Chuck Finley.”
“There was another Chuck Finley,” he said. “Owned baseball teams.”
“That was Charles O. Finley,” Sam said. “That’s not me, either.”
“Could be you,” he said. “That guy was known not to play on the level too much. He once tried to trade his manager. Who does that?”
“Not me,” Sam said, trying to figure the guy out. It seemed clear he was smart, knew a few things about life and didn’t believe a single thing Sam was saying. Sam sort of admired him for that. These old Cuban guys. They’d seen so much crap in their lives, it almost didn’t make sense to try to con them for information.
“One other thing you got going for you?” he said. “You’re not like the other dudes been showing up. You got a car. Not a nice car, but not some screaming motorcycle.”
Uh-oh.
