Something was definitely wrong. “Well, he was playing with his model car.” Sweeney looked up from the picture. “It’s radio-controlled,” Rivera said. “Out next to the pool. When the attendant went in to bring out lunch, Mr. Ivy was fine. Sitting on the pool steps. They did it that way every day. He thought Mr. Ivy might have reached for his robe on the chair. It must have caught and pulled the chair with it.”
Sweeney stared at him. “Don’t you think that’s negligent?”
“Well, sir, what I just told you is what we told the police and family. His daughter-in-law said she understood. I don’t think they consider us negligent. But we certainly won’t be leaving anyone alone like that again. Not for lunch or anything else.”
Sweeney continued staring at him, hands in his pockets. “Hard cheese for Ivy, but you win a few, you lose a few,” he said. “Is that it, James? Learn as you earn?”
Hard cheese. Rivera had never heard the expression, and felt uncomfortable. Win a few, lose a few, he knew that. “I’m sorry,” Rivera said. “You can ask—”
“Yes, I’m going to,” Sweeney said. “I’m going back to my house to check the club directory for the family’s out-of-state number. What’s that you’ve got there?”
“A picture.”
“Whose picture?”
It had never happened before, being challenged this way. Be agile, Rivera thought. Able to adapt. “It’s mine,” he said, holding it up for Sweeney to see. “It’s a gift. Mr. Ivy’s family is grateful—”
“Bullshit.”
He lowered the lithograph. “Pardon me, sir?”
“No one gave you that. The club newsletter did a piece. The art in this house is supposed to be worth over two million dollars. No one gives an attendant that kind of gift. Not to someone eating lunch when his father drowns.”
“You’re mistaken, I wasn’t here.”
“Whoever it was, he’s your responsibility. And let’s stick with the picture,” Sweeney said. He pointed again. “You closed the curtains, but they’re sheer. I saw you bring in something else, some picture of a bird. You took this one down, put that up. Then you opened the curtains and left.”
Adapt, he thought. Be flexible. “I don’t know how much it’s worth,” Rivera said. But it wasn’t true. He had looked up the artist’s name. Jasper Johns was famous, but the money value didn’t matter to him, just the number 5. The toucan was much nicer, that was why he’d chosen it.
“I told Mrs. Ivy I wanted it,” he said. “She told me I could have it.”
“Not a chance, James. Or is it Jim? You pick a name people feel comfortable with. Something besides Quinto Colon. Never mind how I know that’s your real name. You’re on the east coast, fresh off some cruise ship. Working in landscaping, at nursing homes. What’s a good Spanish name everybody’s familiar with? Who are they watching every night in the day room? Geraldo Rivera. There you go, James Rivera, everybody’s favorite gofer. Everybody’s favorite flunky.”
Rivera leaned the picture against the van. “I think I understand,” he said. “I see how this looks to you.”
“Good. Let’s go inside and call George Ivy.”
“We can do that. But first let me show you something.”
“Sure, James. You show me something, then we’ll call.”
“Fair enough.”
Rivera turned away and moved around the front of the van. He opened the door on the driver’s side, leaned in and popped open the glove compartment. He rustled service and auto-parts receipts as if looking for something before grabbing a folded sheet. He snapped closed the lid and turned on the van’s headlights. Before backing out, Rivera reached under the driver’s seat. Kept there was the onyx bookend from Cozumel. A tourist had thrown it away or dropped it, and a drunk crew member had used it to kill someone. Months later, working the ship’s loop cruises in the dead man’s place, Rivera had gone ashore and looked in the weeds at the end of the dock. He had found it, the face of a Mayan god or king staring up, waiting for him.
Left-handed, he held it against his hip and moved to the front of the van. “Read this in the light,” he said. “If you still want to call Mr. Ivy, we’ll go inside.”
Tall and skeptical in a black shirt, Sweeney stepped forward. Rivera remembered how it had been on the dock, all the blood on the planks. He glanced at the man’s pure white hair, then handed him the paper. Sweeney leaned down to see in the headlights, and in that moment Rivera saw it was a receipt for new tires.
“This is just—”
No blood. He swung, aiming for the center of the spine as Sweeney raised his head. The blow made a thud and Sweeney gasped, eyes wide as Rivera whipped his arm and struck again with all his strength at the same point, and again. Be agile, he thought, and again. Able to turn on a dime, light on your feet.
Sweeney dropped to his knees, trying to reach back, choking, now falling flat. Rivera went on pounding, changing hands for greater strength, still pounding, knowing it was enough but it was good to be sure, better safe than sorry, penny-wise, pound foolish, a stitch in time—Coming here, he thought, pounding, paying my dues, pulling myself up by my bootstraps—and no white man is fucking with my success!
Monday
8:40 a.m.
“Lemme see now,” Officer Buddy said. “Let’s do it again. You’re in the back here with the mother-in-law.”
“Every minute,” Stuckey said. “Like a skin graft. You remember at Ivy’s? OK, from that, James said no leaving. Stay with her the whole time. If you go to the kitchen, take her with you. That’s what I did. All night until she went to sleep. She eats this cheese that comes in a can. She wants some of the cheese, I stop the movie so we can go together. I’m outside with the door half open when she takes a leak. The whole time.”
Officer Buddy saw the attendant was now wearing a plain white short-sleeved shirt
