and presumably still learning her trade, there was nothing on her in the files.
Parker hoped to change all that this Tuesday night.
Actually, following Rosie was not such a terrible chore. In fact, it was almost enjoyable. For a woman who was now forty-seven—according to her date of birth at the time of the single possessions bust—she had a very sweet little ass that was a definite pleasure to observe. Swinging up the avenue in a tight black skirt, she looked like any one of the hookers patrolling this turf. Then again, to ParkerallPuerto Rican girls looked like hookers.
But where was she going in such a hurry?
ROSITA WASHINGTONknew she was being followed.
This troubled her.
The buy was supposed to go down this coming Tuesday at midnight, and this was now already past twelve o’clock on Sunday afternoon and some clumsy cop who looked like a homeless person was on her tail. It was one thing to have to worry about the people supposed to be buying the product from you. It was another to have to worry that maybe the cops had found out. But how?
Two brothers coming toward her from the opposite direction smacked their lips and rolled their eyes and craned their necks at her as she went by. She wanted to tell them Yo, mind your fuckin manners, okay? but you never knew who was carrying a box cutter these days, or even a gun, so it was just better to keep your mouth shut and let them come in their pants.
She stopped to look in the window of a shop selling running shoes and barbells and all kinds of fitness shit, when all she wanted to do was take a quick peek up the street to see if Mr. Law was still on her ass. There he was, stopping to light a cigarette as if he was paying her no mind, oh my what a smart detective you are, mister. Made you the minute you picked me up outside my building, now the problem is how toshakeyou.
She went in the A & P up the street, and then hurried to the ladies’ room at the back of the store, figuring to stay in there awhile, let him believe he’d lost her. She’d have gone out the back way, but there wasn’t no back way cause there were too many thefts in the hood, you had only one way in and out most stores so you could keep an eye on a woman suddenly got pregnant with a sack of potatoes under her coat. He was waiting outside when she finally hit the street again, pretending to be studying the Mother’s Day display of flowering plants on a cart outside the store—was Mother’s Day already here? Man, the way these holidays snuck up on you! She marched right past him without skipping a beat, just as if he wasn’t there, and kept on walking till she got to a place sheknewhad a back door.
The lettering on the plate glass window of the shop read: EL CASTILLO DE PALACIOS
She opened the door and went in.
A little bell tinkled over the door. She closed the door behind her, glanced quickly through the window to make sure the cop was still with her, and then smiled as The Gaucho came out from the back to greet her.
13
WELL NOW, Parker thought, isn’t this interesting?
The Gaucho is giving us information on a Rosie Washington deal going down this Tuesday night, and here’s Rosie herself marching into his shop big as daylight on Sunday afternoon, will wonders never?
Of course, they were both spics, so who knewwhatevil the two of them had cooked up together?
Half-spic, anyway, in her case.
He took up a position across the street, thinking maybe he should try to get a court order to plant a bug in The Cowboy’s shop.
THE FIRST THINGPalacios thought as he came through the beaded curtains from the back of his shop was that Rosie knew he’d ratted her out.
“Hey, hello, Rosie,” he said, smiling. “What brings you here?”
“I need a dreams book,” she said. “For my cousin.”
Not everyone knew what kind of a shop Palacios ranbehindhis shop. Most people truly did come in for religious, paranormal, or supernatural items. So it was entirely possible that Rosie had a cousin who needed a book that would explain the significance of a recent dream so that she’d know whether she was going to win the lottery or fall under a spell instead. No one but the police knew that Palacios was an informer. Well, of course not. If everyone knew how he picked up a few extra pennies, how could he ever garner any information at all? It was terrifying to think that Rosie had somehow discovered he’d be getting a tidy little sum after they busted her this Tuesday night. Rosie was not in the business of selling violets to opera goers. Rosie was in a business where people broke other people’s heads and shot them in the balls.
“What kind of dreams has your cousin been having?” Palacios asked.
“She’s been dreaming that a cop is following her,” Rosie said, and Palacios went pale. “Gaucho,” she said in a rush, “I think the law is on my tail. Can I go out your back door?”
Palacios almost wet his pants in relief.
AT FIRST, Ollie thought the girl sitting on the park bench with Donner was the Emmy he was looking for. The girl was a blonde, wearing a short blue skirt and knee-high blue socks, flat brown shoes, and an abundant white blouse. As he came closer to the bench, however, he realized that the girl couldn’t be older than thirteen.
“Go play, Heather,” Donner told her. “But don’t get lost.”
“Okay, Bill,” the girl said, and smiled at Ollie, and then walked off toward the playground equipment on the hill.
“Little old for you, ain’t she?” Ollie said.
“Yeah, well, times are difficult,” Donner said. “You want to lecture me, or you want to hear about Emmy?”
“I’m listening.”
“She’s a boy.”
Ollie looked at him.
“That’s not what Stein told me.”
“Stein told you right. Emmy can pass for a girl any day of the week. But she ain’t Emmy, she’s Emilio. And Emilio’s a boy.”
“Emilio what?”
“Ah-ha,” Donner said. “That’s where the cash comes in.”
“Do you have a last name for him?”
“I do.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“I do not.”
“So how much do you want for thisvaluableinformation?”
“I told you. A deuce.”
“For just a name? No address?”
“The valuable information is that you’re looking for a cross-dresser. The minute I give you his name, you’re on him like a bag of fleas.”
Ollie sighed.
“Lollipops cost,” Donner said philosophically.
Ollie opened his wallet. He took two hundreds from it, and handed them to Donner. Up on the hill behind them, Heather was on one of the swings, blue skirt flying, white panties showing. Donner fingered the bills.
“Herrera,” he said. “Emilio Herrera.”
Of which there were probably ten thousand in this city alone.
LUCAS RILEYwas perhaps twenty years old, they guessed, a skinny, blue-eyed kid some five feet, nine inches tall, freckles spattered all over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, the map of County Donegal all over his
