“Danny.”
“His last name?”
“No. He never said it.”
“Does he still work for Cabrillo Market?”
“He did the last time I called for a delivery.”
“When was that?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Would he be Latin, this Danny? Speaks with a slight accent?”
“Why… yes. He’s Mexican. Now how did you know-?”
“Thanks, Lina. Thanks very much.”
I left her standing there with her mouth open. I didn’t rush around to the front gate, but then I didn’t take my time either. This was the first break I’d had, and it might just be a big one.
What better candidate for Tom Washburn’s mysterious caller than a Mexican deliveryman nobody had seen except the forgetful Lina?
What better witness to murder than an “invisible” man?
Chapter Thirteen
The Cabrillo Market was a fifth of a mile south on Highway 1, or Cabrillo Highway as it was called through here. It was a cavernous place with an old-fashioned oiled, black-wood floor — a combination market, deli, butcher shop, and liquor store. The woman behind the grocery check-out counter was busy with a line of customers; I didn’t want to incur anybody’s anger by interrupting, so I wandered into the back to the customerless deli counter.
The guy behind the counter was about my age, lean and sinewy inside one of those white full-length aprons that look like bleached-out overalls. I asked him if Danny was working today and where I might find him.
“Danny Martinez, you mean?”
“If he’s the deliveryman here.”
“Well, he used to be. Not any more.”
“Oh? As of when?”
“Two weeks ago. I had to let him go.” There was a note of regret in his voice. “I’m Gene Fuller, I own this place.”
I introduced myself, letting him have one of my cards at the same time, and said I wanted to talk to Danny as part of a confidential investigation I was conducting. To forestall questions I didn’t tell him the investigation had to do with the Purcell family. But he wasn’t the nosy type, as it turned out.
When he was done looking at my card I asked him, “Would you mind telling me why you let Danny go?”
“Well… he’s had it rough the past month and I can sympathize with that. But I got a business to run here, I got my customers to think about. Not to mention insurance on the truck-last thing I need is to get sued. People can do that, I guess maybe you know — sue an employer for negligence if one of his employees has a drunk-driving accident.”
“Danny was drinking on the job?”
“Yeah. Damn shame, all the way around.”
“Had he done that kind of thing before?”
“No, no. Up until last month he was always sober, a good worker.”
“What happened to change that?”
“His wife left him,” Fuller said. “Well, his common-law wife, I guess you’d call her. Took their kid, five-year- old boy, cute little guy-took him and all their savings and went back to Mexico.”
“What was her reason?”
He shrugged. “They didn’t get along too well, always fighting. Just one of those things, I guess. But Danny’s crazy about the kid. That’s what tore him up, her taking the kid.”
“Couldn’t he do anything about getting the boy back?”
“He didn’t have any money for a lawyer. Besides, Eva was… well…”
“An illegal alien?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“My investigation has nothing to do with immigration matters, Mr. Fuller. I’m not interested in the resident status of Danny or his woman. And I have no intention of repeating anything you tell me.”
He nodded slowly, but he said, “I still don’t want to say. I’ll tell you this, though: Danny was born in the Salinas Valley. I know that for a fact.”
“How long did he work for you?”
“Three years, about.”
“You said he was a good worker. Honest, too?”
“Oh, yeah. Never any problem with that.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me where he lives,” I said. “It would save me some time.”
“I’ll tell you,” Fuller said, “but you won’t find him there.”
“Why not?”
“He’s gone. Lit out somewhere-Mexico, I figure.”
Damn! I said, “When?”
“I dunno. Sometime after I fired him. I got to worrying about him, the way he’d been drinking, I wanted to see how he was, if he had another job or maybe he needed a few bucks…” Fuller let his gaze slide away from mine; like a lot of compassionate men in the macho eighties, he was embarrassed to let his compassion show because he was afraid it would be mistaken for weakness. “Anyhow, I drove out to his place last Sunday. Most of his stuff is gone. Packed everything into his beat-up old Chevy truck and took it with him. Nothing much left but the furniture, cheap stuff from the Salvation Army.”
“And you think he went to Mexico?”
“To look for his son,” Fuller said, nodding. “Better that than moping around here, getting drunk and feeling sorry for himself.”
“Whereabouts in Mexico?”
“Search me. He never said where Eva was from.”
“Did he live here in Moss Beach?”
“Yep. Back in the hills a couple of miles.”
“Private house?”
“An old farm. Lived there ever since he came here.”
“Rented?”
Fuller nodded again. “Danny had a lease. Some fellow down in L.A. owns the property.”
“How do I get there?”
He gave me directions. Then he said, “This investigation of yours
… Danny’s not in any trouble, is he?”
“I hope not, Mr. Fuller.”
“Me too. He’s a good man, believe me. It’s just he’s had a run of lousy luck, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I know.”
I thanked him for talking to me-and then, because there didn’t seem to be any hurry now, and because disappointment and frustration sometimes make me hungry, I gave him an order for a poor-boy sandwich to go. I was eating too many sandwiches these days, which was one of the reasons my weight had crept up another few pounds. But how were you supposed to eat balanced, non-fattening meals when you were out on a job like this? And I was damned if I was going to eat any more yogurt and cottage cheese and carrot sticks; Kerry had had me on that kind of starvation diet once and it had been pure torture. Russian peasants and Basque sheepherders, she’d said, lived to be a hundred eating yogurt and soft cheese and vegetables. Well, so what? What was the use of living to the century mark if you weren’t enjoying life? I was willing to bet that when those ancient Russian peasants and Basque sheepherders finally did croak, not one of them had a smile on his face.
