“When we talked last month, I mentioned a picture.”
“What? Oh, God.” Rachel coughed. “You mean that lithograph. The number 5. Did you take it? Jesus, that’s a Jasper Johns.” Rivera waited. “Oh, hell,” she said, “it’s only a print. It can’t be worth more than eight or ten thousand. Go ahead and take it, I hate that thing. If he goes ballistic he goes ballistic. I’ll tell him his father just died and wanted you to have it, he shouldn’t be so petty. Listen, we have guests coming, gotta run. I’ll tell Georgie later, and thanks a bunch.”
He pushed the button and set the phone on the table. Once more the girl was passing along the fence, but Rivera didn’t look. She was moving slowly, wanting him to notice her. He drank his Coke.
“Pocho!”
Now he looked, and she was eyeing him, not smiling or stopping. She wore a white dress that would be her best, for Fridays. With gold hoop earrings. “Sí, pocho!”
It was the word for someone trying to pass for white. She turned away and continued up the block.
Rivera parked on his driveway, pressed the garage-door remote, and got out.
As he approached, the door rumbled up to reveal stacks of furniture under garish fluorescent lights. Dining tables and mattresses crowded the space, stacks of clothes, end tables, coffee tables. To fit them in, couches had been stood on end; TVs and stereos rested on the tables, and there were lounge chairs with motors that vibrated. The boxes of clothes and some of the furniture would go to the annual distribution for migrant workers. It was tax deductible, like what lawyers called pro bono.
Smelling the sour odor of baked Naugahyde, he used the inside button to close the door. He let himself out the back entrance and started across the yard. A six-foot cyclone fence enclosed the lot. His ranch house had no pool, but Rivera had chosen it for its one-bedroom guesthouse. One day, he had hoped, his mother would live there.
Lights were on inside. Letting Dennis Stuckey stay in the guesthouse made it easier to keep track of him. But more than words were needed for Dennis to get the message. Stuckey, Stuckey, Stuckey, he thought. Like Burlson saying Pinky, Pinky, Pinky about his mother-in-law’s dog. As Rivera neared the cottage he heard music and smelled cooking. At the door he looked inside.
Steam was rising from a pot on the stove. Stuckey, naked, was dancing in the middle of the kitchen area. He was holding up something to the ceiling light. On the dining table lay crumpled bills and jewelry.
Rivera knocked. From inside came scuttling sounds, furniture being bumped.
“Yeah?”
“It’s James.”
“Hold on a sec.”
Feet shuffled, followed by the sound of Stuckey hopping on one foot, getting into his clothes. “Coming—” A kitchen cabinet opened and closed. Seconds later, the door swung open.
“Bro,’ ’sup?” Stuckey stepped back as Rivera came in. “You do the family yet?”
“I called. Everything’s fine.”
“Bitchin’.” Stuckey moved his head to the music, shuffled his feet. He had pulled on white shorts and the Osama Sucks tee shirt. Rivera closed the door. Any effort to manage someone like Stuckey would have to rely on the basics of fear and greed. He lived only in the present and never thought about much except food.
Rivera pointed to the boom box on the coffee table. Stuckey mamboed over and turned it off. “You hungry?” He did a judo punch, bouncing and jabbing as though boxing. “Like tofu? I got some killer fried tofu, I got brown rice and kale.”
“Any soft drinks?”
He shuffled across the room, through the kitchen to the refrigerator. Ass still moving, he opened the door and looked in. “You ever drink tequila and ginseng tea?” He looked over his shoulder. “No? Okay.” He looked back. “I got a nice wheat beer, all natural root beer. I got something called Vita Cola. I haven’t tried that yet.”
“Give me the cola.”
Stuckey got out two and stepped to the sink. He shook his head. “You are the man,” he said. “Today? With Ivy? I was fucking freaked, no shit. I come out, he’s nowhere. Gone. Not on the step, not in the chair. Then I see the robe floating. Fuck, he’s underneath, he must be. Where’s he gonna go?”
“What did you do?” Rivera crossed to the table.
Stuckey popped the tops off the sodas. “I didn’t know if he croaked yet, but I remembered what you said. Besides, I had to pee. After, I washed my hands with soap like I’m supposed to. I’m a food handler, right? I put on some deodorant, squeezed a blackhead—” he pointed to his forehead “—then back on the case. I called you, pulled him out. Called the front gate and the cops.” He handed Rivera a bottle, clinked it with his own and drank.
“What about golfers? It’s high season, there had to be people on the course.”
“You saw. Just the ones I talked to.”
“I mean when it happened.”
“Same people,” Stuckey said. “They lost a ball and came back to look. You believe that? All that money, and they still screw around looking for a fucking golf ball? Everyone else played through.”
Rivera drank. The soda was bitter, flavored with herbs. It was the sort of thing Stuckey liked. He was a vegetarian and believed eating meat was backward. People who were hip to the ecosystem knew better, he claimed. They were people like himself who respected the biosphere and didn’t use aerosols.
Rivera pulled out one of the table’s wicker chairs and sat. Stuckey sat opposite. He put his bottle on the table and turned it.
“Do you like this job, Dennis?” Looking up from the bottle, Stuckey nodded gravely. “What is it now, three months?”
“Fourteen weeks.”
“How much did you clear this month?”
“Don’t know, bro. Serious bread. It’s good. Nice people, great weather.” He looked around. “This crib.”
“Do you know what you have to do to keep your job?”
“Sure.” Stuckey turned back, acting
