someone turned on a red-and-yellow rotating spotlight that flashed across the gyrating figures on the dance floor and then splashed directly into my eyes. I was already tired, and blinking to dodge the flashes of light almost put me to sleep-in spite of the ear-shattering volume.
In other words, salsa dancing wasn't my favorite. And it was odd to realize that a culture so alien to me was thriving right there in the middle of Ballard-what was once strictly white-toast Ballard-only blocks from the apartment where I had lived as a boy growing up. Times do change.
I was truly lost in a crowd, a fifth wheel. While musical numbers followed one after another, I sat there all by myself with no one to talk to and nothing to do but watch. To keep myself occupied and awake, I tried putting all the little pieces together: salsa dancing and Sobibor. Two murders and a hit-and-run. Thousands of gold teeth and a gold wrench. And Nazi toy soldiers standing in rows.
The sudden thought hit me with the force of a lightning bolt and left me feeling sick and shaken. What about those damn soldiers? I wondered. What if they weren't made of lead at all? What if they, like Bonnie Elgin's wrench, were made of solid gold?
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I was torn. On the one hand, I didn't want to miss the meeting with Lorenzo. On the other, I couldn't wait to get my hands on one of those soldiers in the basement of the Gebhardt house on Culpeper Court. Even considering it was almost eleven, I was sure Else would let me examine the soldiers for myself. Checking the metal content wouldn't require the professional services of someone like the crime lab's Janice Morraine. Just hefting them would be enough to tell me what I wanted to know. Or else I could scrape off some of the paint and see whether or not there was gold concealed beneath the enamel.
My distress must have showed. June Miller came back to the table for a sip of 7-Up. She offered reassurance and counseled patience. 'They'll be here pretty soon,' she said. 'Maria gets off work around eleven.'
There was no point fighting the music and trying to yell out an explanation. That was hopeless. Against my better judgment, I slouched deeper into my chair and listened to the boom of a complicated conga-drum solo. From then on, though, with my mind still working overtime, I kept one eye on the door. My vigilance was rewarded when, through the haze of cigarette smoke, I spotted a man and a woman who paused just inside the doorway.
The two of them, a man in his thirties and a somewhat younger woman, entered the room cautiously, as though they expected the Ballard Fire House to be furnished with armed land mines rather than tables and chairs. The man looked like a young Cesar Romero. He wore gray slacks, an open-necked white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and no tie. Walking with a noticeable limp, he went to the nearest corner and sank into a seat directly in front of the stacked speakers.
Great, I thought. We'll never be able to talk there.
The woman, presumably his sister Maria, appeared to be several years younger. Her dark hair, crinkled as if newly loosened from tight braids, fell almost to her waist. She stood near the door, surveying the room with quick, nervous glances that betrayed her anxiety. Eventually, she must have spotted June Miller. That wasn't difficult, since June's blond hair glowed like a pillar of yellow flame among the other, mostly dark-haired dancers. As soon as June smiled and waved, the young woman turned to the man and nodded.
June had given me strict orders not to approach either one of the newcomers until she personally cleared it with them. What I did do, however, was make my way, between songs, onto the dance floor, where I reclaimed Sue Danielson from the apparently pleasant clutches of a young Latino man with whom she had danced several dances.
The man spoke little or no English, but he danced with the verve and flair of a professional. Invariably, he had returned Sue to our table with a courtly bow to her, and with a politely deferential nod to me as well. I did my best to return the favor when he relinquished Sue to me on the dance floor, but he seemed genuinely mystified when, instead of dancing away with her, I dragged her back to our table.
'They're here?' she asked.
'Just came,' I answered. 'Maria's the young woman standing just to the left of the door. Her brother's seated at the table right in front of the speakers.'
'Should I go get June?'
'She said for us to stay put, remember?'
June had spent much of the evening dancing with a balding gentleman who must have been close to sixty and who seemed to be the most capable dancer in the room. While I squirmed with impatience, a laughing and unconcerned June Miller danced two more interminable numbers with her smooth-move partner. Just when I was about to go cut in on him as well, the band finally took what I considered a well-deserved break.
Instead of returning to our table, however, June hurried over to the new arrivals. After a moment's conference with Maria, June turned and beckoned to Sue and me.
Carrying what little remained in our three drinks, we threaded our way across the room. As we neared the table, I was surprised, as I often am, by how closely the Identi-Kit artist had managed to capture Lorenzo's likeness.
He wasn't a large man; but he was sleek, like a racehorse, and compactly built. Almost hidden behind the cloth of his unbuttoned shirt was a gold crucifix that glowed in the dim, overhead lights.
Gold again, I thought. That particular commodity seemed to be everywhere at the moment.
'Detective Sue Danielson and Detective J. P. Beaumont, this is Maria Hurtado and her brother, Lorenzo,' June was saying.
Maria, seated beside her brother, rose to her feet and then tentatively shook hands, first with Sue and then with me. Lorenzo didn't move, and he didn't offer his hand, either. His eyes stayed full on my face.
'How do you do,' he said formally.
There were only four chairs at the table. I rustled up a fifth and then sat in that one with Sue and June on either side of me and with both the Hurtados facing us. From the way he watched me, I knew it was no accident that Lorenzo had chosen the chair he was seated on. From that vantage point, he could observe the entire room. Whatever the real story behind his brother's death back home in Guatemala, it had left Lorenzo Hurtado a cautious survivor.
Still holding my gaze with his, Lorenzo used casual and unhurried movements to extract a package of cigarettes from his pocket. He offered the cigarettes around the table. When no one took one, he did so himself, shaking a cigarette loose from the pack, which he then returned to his pocket. He lit the cigarette with a steady, tremble-free match. June had told me Lorenzo was frightened of cops. If that was the case, he was doing a hell of a good job of covering it up.
Once the cigarette was lit, Lorenzo was the first to speak. He did so slowly and deliberately, as if taking scrupulous pains so as not to be misunderstood.
'I didn't do it,' he said.
'Didn't do what?' I asked, playing dumb.
'I did not kill Senor Gebhardt, and I didn't see who did it, either.'
'But you were there when he was killed?'
'Yes,' Lorenzo said. And then, 'No.' And then, 'Maybe.'
'Look, you can't have it both ways,' I insisted. 'Were you there or weren't you?'
The lights around us reflected on the smooth, closely shaved skin of Lorenzo Hurtado's narrow face, capturing a slight involuntary tic. 'I don't know for sure if I was there or not when Senor Gebhardt died,' Lorenzo answered. 'But he was still alive when I stepped onto the boat. I know that because I heard him.'
'What exactly did you hear?' I asked.
Lorenzo closed his eyes and shuddered. He swallowed hard, then opened his eyes again and stared at me while a stream of ashes spilled unnoticed from the smoldering and forgotten cigarette clutched between his fingers.
'You are a policeman, Detective Beaumont.' It was a statement, not a question.
The music wasn't playing, but even so, Lorenzo Hurtado spoke so softly that I had to strain to hear him. I nodded.
'Senora Miller says things are different here; that it isn't the same as it was back home in Guatemala when my brother died. So maybe you don't know what it's like. Have you ever heard the sound of someone being tortured?'
Suddenly, Lorenzo Hurtado was the interrogator and I the mere questionee. 'No,' I answered truthfully. 'I have not.'
