Walter had his back to me, but I could see Sydelle’s nostrils flaring even from here. I glanced at the court on the other side of my bench but kept my hearing and my peripheral vision focused on this one.
“What kind of playing was that, Walter?” Sydelle demanded. She patted her forehead with the towel, then slung it around her neck.
“You can’t win every time, Delle.” He bit off the words.
“Yeah, but you hardly ever win anymore.” Her voice was hard, too. “Not here, not at the casino.”
I peered at them again.
He straightened his back. “My company, on the other hand, is doing very well these days. One might even say winning. I mean it, one can’t succeed at every turn.” He cleared his throat. “And you played your usual beautiful, strong game. I love watching you on the courts, and everywhere else, too.” He slung his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.
The compliment seemed to do the trick. Her posture softened and she leaned into him, murmuring.
I took this as my cue to exit stage right, making a beeline for my car. I didn’t really need to talk to them. Maybe both Walter and Sydelle had a soft, affectionate side to balance their ambition. But had Walter meant Agrosafe was winning because the threats to its products had been removed? Threats in the persons of Jeanine Jordan and Paul Etxgeberria?
Chapter 45
At eight thirty, I plopped onto a stool at the counter facing the café’s pass-through window, even though my feet dangled. “I am so ready for a big breakfast, Carmen.” And longer legs, too, but that ferry had left the dock long ago.
“You got it, Robbie.” She slid me a menu even as she tossed her scarlet-streaked braid back over her shoulder.
“Did you say you had a special with my name on it?” I asked.
“Numero Uno.” She pointed at a Specials blackboard a lot like the one in my restaurant.
“OMG. Chile Relleno à la Chef? Yes, please, señora.” I wanted to ask how Luisa—the chef—presented the cheese-stuffed and batter-fried green chiles, but I didn’t. I figured I’d understand when it was on my plate.
Mamá leaned her smiling face into the pass-through. “¿ Sopapillas, tambien?”
Now my eyes really bugged out. “Of course! Sí, sí.” Now I really had died and gone to heaven. Deep-fried puffs of pastry as light as clouds served in a honey syrup were the preferred food of goddesses and were more typical of New Mexico. Another delicacy not to be found within hundreds of miles of the state I now called home. No, I wasn’t about to forgo sopapillas simply because the calories would go straight to my already padded hips.
“Bueno,” Luisa said and disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Carmen, did you ever get a chance to look at your security camera footage?” I kept my voice low.
“I tried. Something’s wrong with it.” She pulled her mouth to the side. “Can’t see anything.”
Too bad.
“So you’re leaving early tomorrow, right?” she asked.
“I am.” I tilted my head from side to side, miming how reluctant I was to go.
“But now you know where you’ll stay when you come back.”
“Absolutely. Listen, you and Mamá should come visit me. I have rooms upstairs like you do. You can meet my Pajarito. I’ll serve you biscuits and gravy and show you more green leaves and grass than you ever imagined could grow.” The first time I’d traveled to Indiana with my mom to visit her sister, Adele, when I was six, it had been in June right after school had gotten out. I could not believe how green it was everywhere. It hadn’t even seemed possible to someone growing up in a semi-arid climate like this one.
Carmen turned to face her mother and let out a string of Spanish. All I picked up was a trilled “Robbie.”
Luisa smiled broadly at me and thumped her heart twice. “Sí,” she said decisively.
Carmen bustled off. Her little bird-cat purred on the floor but couldn’t quite reach my ankles. He coiled himself and leapt up to the stool next to mine, then commenced a serious washing. Having an animal inside a restaurant wouldn’t fly in South Lick, but maybe the rules were more lax here, or maybe Carmen didn’t have the health inspector dropping by on a regular basis—and breathing down her neck—like I did.
Hector stuck his head through the pass-through window. “Hey, Robbie. I got your text but it was too late to answer. Mind if I join you?”
“Please.”
He emerged from the kitchen and picked up Pajarito, then sat with the cat on his lap, stroking his back, not looking at me.
I kept my voice low. “Did you find out anything?”
“Maybe.” He finally gazed at me, his face somber. “Mamá told you about Walter Russom’s gambling problem.”
“Yes.”
“I know a guy who knows a guy. The other guy isn’t a particularly nice type. And Russom owes him a boatload of money. He might lose his house.”
“Ouch. By ‘not particularly nice,’ do you mean like the Mob or something? Here in Santa Barbara?”
Hector gave me a kind but pitying look. “I think you might have led a pretty sheltered life in ways, Robbie. Yes, we have bad guys even here in paradise.”
A lightbulb went on in my head, just like in the old cartoons. “Is it Jimmy Lightfoot?”
“No way. Lightfoot is a businessman and a straight one. He does a ton of good for his people, on and off the rez. No, this is someone else. Trust me, you don’t want to know his name.”
“That’s fine. But, Hector, the detective does want it. He needs it. Will you tell him?”
He blew out a breath. The sounds of cookware clanking and pops of frying emitted from the kitchen. All around us was the hum of conversation, a laugh here, the clink of fork on plate there. Hector drummed his fingers on the counter. I sipped my coffee.
He looked at me with a slow, nodding frown. “Okay. Text me how to
