“How long did Nestor work here- officially?”
She frowned. “Maybe a month.”
“Bad attendance, huh?”
“Bad attitude.” Another glance behind us. No customers. “You no want to eat?”
Milo returned the yellow scrap to her and she slipped it into her apron. Carlos the cook was still standing around, looking nervous.
“No, thanks,” said Milo. He smiled past her. Carlos bit his lip. “What’s Nestor’s sister’s name, ma’am?”
“Anita.”
“Where does she live?”
“She work at the
“Know the dentist’s name?”
“Chinese,” she said. “Black building. You wanna drink?”
Milo ordered a lemon soda and when she tried to comp him, he left a five on the counter and made her smile.
By the time we got back in the unmarked, the lunch line had resumed.
CHAPTER 22
Drs. Chang, Kim, Mendoza, and Quinones practiced in a one-story building veneered with shiny black ceramic tile. White graffiti stuck to the bottom of the facade like food-fight pasta. The sign above the door said,
Inside was a waiting room full of suffering people. Milo marched past them and tapped the reception window. When it opened, he asked for Anita Almedeira.
The Asian receptionist lowered her glasses. “The only Anita we have is Anita Moss.”
“Then I’d like to speak with her.”
“She’s busy but I’ll go see.”
The waiting room smelled of wintergreen and stale laundry and rug cleaner. The magazines in the wall rack were in Spanish and Korean.
A pale woman in her late twenties came to the reception desk. She had long, straight black hair, a round face, and smooth, sedate features. Her pink nylon uniform skirt showed off a full, firm figure. Her nametag said
“I’m Anita. May I help you?”
Milo flashed the badge. “Are you Nestor Almedeira’s sister, ma’am?”
Anita Moss’s mouth closed. When she spoke next it was at a near whisper. “You’ve found them?”
“Who, ma’am?”
“The people who killed Nestor.”
Milo said, “Sorry, no. This is about something else.”
Anita Moss’s face tightened. “About something Nestor did?”
“It’s possible, ma’am.”
She looked out at the waiting room. “I’m kind of busy.”
“This won’t take long, Ms. Moss.”
She opened the door and walked through, approached an old man in work clothes with a collapsed jawline and an eye on the racing form. “Mr. Ramirez? I’ll be with you in one minute, okay?”
The man nodded and returned to the odds.
“Let’s go,” said Anita Moss, sweeping across the room. By the time Milo and I reached the exit, she was out of the building.
She tapped her foot on the sidewalk and fooled with her hair. Milo offered to seat her in the unmarked.
“That’s all I need,” she said. “Someone seeing me in a police car.”
“And here I thought we were camouflaged,” said Milo.
Anita Moss started to smile, changed her mind. “Let’s go around the corner. You drive a bit and I’ll catch up with you and sit in the car.”
The unmarked had taken on heat and Milo rolled down the windows. We were parked on a side street of cheap apartments, Anita Moss sitting stiffly in the back. A few women with children strolled by, a couple of stray dogs wove from scent to scent.
Milo said, “I know this is hard, ma’am- ”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Moss. “Ask what you need to.”
“When was your brother murdered?”
“Four weeks ago. I got a call from a detective and that’s all I’ve heard about it. I thought you were following up.”
“Where did it happen?”
“Lafayette Park, late at night. The detective said Nestor was buying heroin and someone shot him and took his money.”
“Do you remember the name of the detective who called you?”
“Krug,” she said. “Detective Krug, he never gave me his first name. I got the feeling he wasn’t going to put too much time into it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Just the way he sounded. I figured it was because of the type of person Nestor was.” She straightened her back, stared at the rearview mirror.
“Nestor was an addict,” said Milo.
“Since he was thirteen,” said Moss. “Not always heroin but always some kind of habit.”
“What else besides heroin?”
“When he was little, he huffed paint and glue. Then marijuana, pills, P.C.P., you name it. He’s the baby in the family and I’m the oldest. We weren’t close. I grew up here but I don’t live here anymore.”
“In Westlake.”
She nodded. “I went to Cal State L.A. and met my husband. He’s a fourth-year dental student at the U. We live in Westwood. Dr. Park’s one of Jim’s professors. I’m supporting us until Jim gets out.”
“Nestor got out of the Youth Authority three months ago,” said Milo. “Where did he live?”
“First with my mother and then, I don’t know,” said Anita Moss. “Like I said, we weren’t close. Not just Nestor and me. Nestor and the whole family. My other two brothers are good guys. No one understood why Nestor did the things he did.”
“Difficult kid,” I said.
“From day one. Didn’t sleep, never sat still, always destroying things. Mean to our dog.” She wiped her eyes. “I shouldn’t be talking about him like this, he was my brother. But he tortured my mother- not literally, but he made her life miserable. Two months ago she had a stroke and she’s still pretty sick.”
“Sorry to hear about that.”
She frowned. “I can’t help thinking Nestor living with her contributed to it. She had a history of high blood pressure, we were all telling Nestor to go easy on her, don’t stress her out. You couldn’t tell him anything. Mom wasn’t naive. She knew what Nestor was up to and it really upset her.”
“Drugs.”
“And everything that goes with that lifestyle. Out all night, sleeping all day. One week he’d be working at a car wash, then he’d get fired. He’d just disappear without a word, then he’d show up at Mom’s with way too much money. My mother was a religious person, she had a real problem with money you couldn’t explain.”
She plucked at her badge. “One time he threatened my husband.”
