According to my friend at the ExpressNews, the Miranda Daniels developmental tape featured strong material and was as good as a surefire gold record. It had a strong buzz going, whatever that meant. My friend expected the deal to go through with Century Records and Miranda to be on the Billboard charts by New Year's. He said the human interest angle really helped- first and foremost the recent tragic death of Miranda's brother, who had written some of her best songs. The murder of her former fiddle player helped too.
'The tabloids are eating this up,' Carlon McAffrey told me. 'You don't happen to have an in with this Chavez guy, do you? Or Daniels?'
I hung up the phone.
I did tai chi on the back porch until almost noon. Halfway through the long form my muscles started to burn the right way again. The vacuous sick feeling in my stomach faded. Once I got into the sword form I could almost concentrate again. The phone rang just as I was completing the last section.
I went inside and caught it on the third ring.
Kelly Arguello said, 'Allen Meissner.'
'What?'
'Get a pen, stupid.'
I pulled one out of the crack in the ironing board. Kelly rattled off a social security number, a Texas driver's license number, a flight number.
'Meissner applied for the social security number two months ago,' she said, 'at age fortyfive. Got his license at DMV two weeks ago, then plane tickets to New York on American, booked for tomorrow. Good trick considering the guy died in '95. Meissner used to be an inhouse auditor for Texas Instruments.'
'Holy shit,' I said.
'You did say before Friday, didn't you?'
'You found him.'
Kelly laughed. 'That's what I've been trying to tell you, chico loco. Your client's going to be happy?'
I stared at the flight number. 'When was this reservation made?'
'Yesterday. Hey-this is good news, right?'
I hesitated. 'Absolutely. You're incredible, Kelly.'
'I've been trying to tell you that, too. Now about that dinner-'
'Talk to Ralph.'
'Oh, please, not that again.'
I leaned down against the ironing board and ran my fingers into my hair. I closed my eyes and listened to the slight crackle of the phone line.
'No,' I said. 'I mean you should call him.'
She spent a few silent moments trying to interpret my tone. 'What happened? What'd you two get into this time?'
'You just need to call him, okay? Even better, get down here. Spend a day with him, okay? He needs-I don't know, I think he needs to be reminded you're around. Some niecely influence.'
'Niecely is a word?'
'Hey. English Ph. D. here. Back off.'
'This is the thanks I get for helping you?'
'You'll do it?'
Kelly sighed. 'I'll do it. I'll also come to see you.' She said it like it was the deadliest threat she could make. I smiled in spite of myself. 'Bueno?' she asked.
'Bueno,' I agreed.
56
It was Friday morning before I spoke to Milo and Miranda again. I never found out how Miranda's things got picked up from the safe house on the South Side-Ralph just handled it somehow. Ralph didn't call me. That told me something.
Milo and Miranda arranged to meet me at the Sunset Cafe for breakfast. Gladys the exreceptionist for the ex Les SaintPierre Agency set up the appointment.
The Sunset Cafe was the kind of place you'd drive right by-an adobe oneroom shack on the ridge rising from Broadway, wedged between an art gallery and an insurance office. Despite its name, the cocina opened early and closed early, serving egg and bacon and came guisada tacos and strong coffee to blue collars. When I pulled the VW up the steep driveway and into the tiny parking lot, Milo's Jeep was already there.
The Daniels' brown and white Ford pickup was also in the lot, minus the horse trailer.
Willis Daniels was sitting in the driver's seat. If he noticed me walking up, he didn't let on. At least not until I stood at the window for a few seconds.
The old man looked up from his book and smiled a tight smile. 'Mr. Navarre.'
He offered to shake, gentlemanly. His hand lacked any of the energy it had had when I'd first shaken it, outside Silo Studios a hundred years ago.
'You not hungry?' I asked.
The smile took on a kind of sad amusement. 'I'd just be in the way. You go on.'
He went back to his book, sighed. It would've been easier if he'd yelled at me, or frowned at least. I went inside.
Milo and Miranda were drinking coffee at the table by the window.
Saying Milo looked nice is superfluous, but somehow there was shock value in seeing him immaculate again after the way he'd looked on that warehouse floor, then in the hospital bed. His trousers were dark and freshly pressed, his white shirt crisp with starch. The bandages underneath the shirt made his left shoulder look bulkier than the right. He was wearing a diamond stud earring and his shortcropped black hair looked freshly trimmed along the edges.
He hooked a pink chair with his fingers and dragged it out from the table.
'Have a seat, Tres.'
I sat between them.
Miranda was wearing lightly tinted round sunglasses. She'd chosen all white today-long skirt, blouse with just enough motherofpearl studs to put it into the Western category, white anklelength boots. Even her hair, dark and curly, was pulled back in a white headband, making her forehead look high and her sunglasses that much more obvious.
She was looking into her coffee, holding it with both hands. She glanced up briefly at me, then down again.
'Here.' I set my shoe box next to Milo's untouched plate of tinfoilwrapped tacos.
Milo scowled, lifted the lid, then closed it again.
At a table across the way one of the construction workers had apparently seen what was inside the box. He said, 'Holy shit' very quietly and nudged his friend.
'You brought me cash?' Milo asked, incredulous.
'That's the way I found it.'
Milo looked at me, a little puzzled by my tone. 'All right. Fifty thousand?'
'Half.'
He looked at me longer.
'Problem?' I asked.
'Very possibly.'
'The rest I'm giving to Allison. The way things are shaping up, it may be the only thing she gets out of this deal.'
Milo let his eyes slide over to Miranda, who looked suddenly very sad.
'Allison,' Milo repeated. 'You know that this is agency money, Les' and mine. You know she doesn't have claim to it-why the fuck-'
