relaxed slouch. His black eyes had no meaning in them.
“You see how we scared him, Chollo?” del Rio said.
“I could improve on it, Vic, if you want.” It was the first time he’d spoken. Neither he nor del Rio had even a hint of an accent.
“You sure you guys are Mexican?” I said.
“Straight from Montezuma,” del Rio said. “Me and Chollo both. Pure blood line. What’s this about Zabriskie?”
I took the picture out of my inside pocket and put it in front of del Rio. He looked at it without touching it. I picked it up again and put it back in pocket.
“So?” del Rio said.
“Your daughter,” I said.
Del Rio didn’t speak.
“I got it from her grandmother.”
Del Rio waited.
“Anything you don’t want him to know?” I said.
“Chollo knows what I know,” del Rio said. “Chollo’s family.”
“How nice for Chollo,” I said. “I know who your daughter’s mother is.”
“Yes?”
“Jill Joyce,” I said, “America’s cutie.”
“She tell you that?” del Rio said.
“No,” I said. “She hasn’t told me anything, and half of that is lies.”
Del Rio nodded.
“That would be Jill,” he said. “What do you want?”
“Information,” I said. “It’s like huevos rancheros to a detective.”
“Si,” del Rio said.
“Were you and Jill married?” I said.
Del Rio leaned back a little in his chair with his hands resting quietly on the bare desk top in front of him. His nails were manicured. I waited.
“Your name is Spenser,” he said. I nodded.
“Okay, Spenser. You think you’re a tough guy. I can tell. I see a lot of people who think they are a tough guy. You probably are a tough guy. You got the build for it. But if I just nod at Chollo you are a dead guy. You understand? Just nod, and…” He made an out sign, jerking his left thumb toward his shoulder.
“Yikes,” I said.
“So you know,” del Rio said, “you’re on real shaky ground here.”
“It goes no further than me,” I said.
“Maybe it doesn’t go that far,” del Rio said. “Why are you nosing around in my life in the first place?”
“I’m working on a murder in Boston,” I said. “And I’m working on protecting Jill Joyce. The two things seem to be connected and your name popped up.”
“Long way from Boston,” del Rio said.
“Not my fault. Somebody has been threatening Jill Joyce. Someone killed her stunt double. Jill won’t tell me anything about herself, so I started looking and I found her mother and then I found you.”
Del Rio looked at me again in silence.
“Okay, Spenser. I met Jill Joyce when she was Jillian Zabriskie and she was trying to be an actress, and I was starting to build my career. We were together awhile. She got pregnant. I had a wife. She didn’t want the kid, but she figured it would give her a hold on me. Even then I had a little clout. So she had it and left it with her mother. I got her some parts. She slept with some producers. I supported the kid.”
“You still got the same wife?”
“Yes. Couple years after Amanda was born, Jill’s mother started disappearing into the sauce. She was never much, but…” He shrugged. The shrug was eloquent. It was the first genuine Latin gesture I’d seen. “So my wife and I adopted her.”
“Your wife know about you and Jill?”
“No.”
“She know you’re the kid’s father?”
“No. She thinks we adopted her from an orphanage. We don’t have any other children.”
“How old is Amanda now?”
“Twenty.”
