Thin Air

I nodded.

'Of course,' I said. 'You say they got a garden on the roof? Stuff grow in pots or what?'

'No, they dumped a bunch of dirt up there, must have carried it up in buckets. It's a flat roof and it's covered with dirt and there's a bunch of plants growing up there.'

'What kind?'

'I look like fucking Juan Valdez?' Chollo said. 'How the fuck do I know what kind? I was twenty-three before I found out that stuff didn't grow canned.'

'House is supporting a lot of weight,' I said. 'How about Deleon? What do you think?'

'Deleon's not normal,' Chollo said.

'You mentioned that,' I said.

'He walks around in there like he's on the Starship Enterprise. And he dresses like he's going to a masquerade. He had some kind of fucking vaquero look today-boots, the whole deal. Even carried a short leather whip around his wrist. Like a quirt, you know. Like he was Gilbert Roland.'

'Theatrical,' I said.

'Absolutely, and he can't wait for you to stop talking so he can tell you some more about himself. My people this, and my operation that, and my citadel so and so. He actually uses the word citadel, for crissake.'

'You think she's in there?' I said.

'I didn't see her,' Chollo said. 'But there's a locked room.'

'Yeah, there is.'

'And there are wedding plans.'

'Yeah, there are.'

We sat quietly for a while. Chollo finished his sandwich and I drank some decaf while he did it. Chollo then wiped his mouth carefully with a paper napkin, put the napkin in the bag the sandwich had come in, and sat back to drink his coffee. There was no hint of pickle juice on his shirt.

'He's such a jelly bean,' Chollo said. 'He could have his private quarters guarded to make himself feel, like, important.'

'And the wedding?'

'Could be the lovely bride is filming in Monaco,' Chollo said, 'and jetting in just before the event.'

'And hubby-to-be is arranging the wedding.'

'Sure,' Chollo said.

'You believe that?'

'No.'

'You think she's in there?'

'Somebody is,' Chollo said.

'So we gotta go in.'

'Going to be a lot of blood we go in there straight on,' Chollo said. 'I got no problem with that, but if it is Belson's wife is in there, he might.

'We gotta go in,' I said.

'She was a princess, a wonderful mother,' Luis said. 'She was beautiful and she cared for me beyond all else.'

As he spoke, the badly edited film jerked from scene to scene. In many of the scenes, lit by the cheap floodlight bar of his camera, Luis's mother was with men. In one scene she was kissing a man next to a bed when she was filmed. The man had a hand on her butt. The fabric of her short skirt was gathered in his hand. The skirt was hiked nearly hip high. She turned as if frightened, holding her hand to shield her face, gesturing at the camera.

'I used to tease her when she would come home with a date. I would catch her giving them a little kiss and later I would tease her about it. But it was never anything with the men. She always said I was the only one, the man she truly loved.'

'And your father?'

Luis shook his head, annoyed. 'I had no father,' he said.

'Is he alive?'

'I told you,' he said, 'I have no father.'

The film looped back to the beginning, and began its second run-through. The apartment so often pictured seemed no more than a single room. The men pictured were never the same.

'Your mother had a lot of men,' Lisa said.

'They were friends. She never loved them.'

'She had friends in every night?'

Luis stood suddenly, and walked to the far side of the room.