“I was. I should have done this years ago, finding you, but I was shit scared of Dad. Embarrassing, but true. Again, I’m sorry.”
“Hey, I knew about you, too, and I didn’t make a move, and I didn’t even have your excuse.”
They regarded each other silently for a moment, a silence she broke with “So, Jimmy, what’s the story? Are you going to be a belated big brother and help me out?”
“Can I think about it? It’s going to be a major wrench for me, and other people are involved.”
“Sure,” she said, “I understand.” She slipped a card from her purse and handed it over. It was a JXF Calderon Inc. card and it had Victoria A. Calderon listed as CEO.
“CEO, huh? You’re a fast worker, Sis.”
“I am. I have to be. And not to pressure you, but this, what I asked, has to be quick, too, or there’s no point.” She rose from her chair, and he rose, and she kissed him on the cheek and walked out of the restaurant.
The mother was waiting for him in the kitchen.
“What did she want?” was the first question.
“Mami, how do you even know who that was?”
“Don’t be stupid, Iago, of course I know who that was. I ask you again, what did she want?”
“She wanted me to find out who killed Yoiyo Calderon. Since you ask.”
“And will you?”
Paz threw up his hand dramatically. “Mami, what are you talking about? I’m running a restaurant here, I got no resources, I’m not a cop anymore…it’s ridiculous. Not to mention I hated the guy.”
“He was your father. You have an obligation.”
“An obli…this is coming from you, after the way he treated us?”
“It doesn’t matter what he was or what he did. He gave you life. He’s part of you. You should do what you can. And also, my son, I run this restaurant, not you.”
“Thank you, Mami, I almost forgot. And you forgot to say ‘a father is always a father.’”
At this the mother fixed him with her famous stare, a psychic bazooka that ordinarily would have stripped thirty years off his age and made him mumble and shuffle away. Not this time. Paz was angry now. He was being manipulated into doing something he didn’t want to do, that he didn’t really think could be done, that was going to end badly in some way. Worse, he was getting a shot at detective work again, it was being laid in his lap, and he didn’t know if he could still do it, without a badge in his pocket and a gun on his belt, and also he knew (now the lid was sliding off) that he still lusted after it, that he was designed by nature to do that kind of work, that he was not really content to grill meats rather than suspects forever, that he had talked himself into a life that was in some deep way utterly false. So he met the stare, focusing his anger on his mother, and they locked eyes for what seemed like minutes.
And now Paz was appalled to see a tear, slow and fat as glycerin, roll out of his mother’s eye and descend her brown cheek; and then another and a small freshet of them fell. Paz gaped, for he had never in his life seen his mother cry; it was as if she had sprouted a third eye. And her face seemed to have lost its carved-in-mahogany look and become sad and vulnerable. Paz felt a pang of disorienting terror, as he might have in an earthquake, seeing ripples on the solid earth.
“What? What is it?” he asked helplessly, and here she shook her head slowly from side to side, and said in a slow sad voice, creaky with strain, “No, I can’t tell you. I can’t make you. It’s much too late. Here you have to go alone and do what you have to do.” She pulled a fresh hand towel from the pile on the counter and wiped her eyes, then behind this scrim re-formed her face into the accustomed mask of command. “You’ll let me know. It will take some time to replace you on the early shift.” With that she turned and left the kitchen, leaving Paz wondering if he had imagined it all.
But the hand towel was there on the counter where she had flung it. He picked it up and found it was still damp with her tears.
Now Amelia appeared, dressed in her shorts and T-shirt, holding her hostess gown carefully on its hanger. He inspected her with care. “I hope you’re still the same,” he said.
“What?”
“Nothing, sweetie. You about ready to go?”
“Uh-huh, but, Daddy, could we stop at the market and get more little Fritos?”
“More Fritos? I just got you a ten-pack the other day. What’re you, feeding the whole school?”
The child rotated her sneaker toe in a tiny circle and looked into the middle distance. “No, but it’s nice to share snacks. Miss Milliken says.”
“Oh, well,” said Paz in delight at constancy. “If Miss Milliken says, then Fritos will flow forth in a never-ending stream.”
“Is all you eat Fritos?” the girl asks. They are high in the tree. It is recess time at Providence Day School. The voices of children at play float up through the rustling leaves.
Moie licks his fingers and impales the little bag on a twig. “No, I eat other things.”
“Where, in a restaurant?”
“No, Jaguar gives them,” replies Moie. His Spanish is coming back a little, he finds, in these short conversations with the girl, although he does not trust the language to express anything complex. This is disturbing, not to be able to speak to others freely, far more than he thought it would be. Father Perrin had been correct: he could not really speak the language of the wai’ichuranan, and Jaguar has sent this child to help him. It was not shameful to make an error before a girl, especially one who would probably not live for much longer. Another reason why Jaguar has sent her.
Or so Moie supposes; it is still unclear. He rummages in his net bag and takes out a clay flask. The girl says, “Are you going to change into a monster now?”
“Not now,” says Moie.
“How come?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“I do not. How come you live in this tree?”
Moie regards the child with a fierce expression, but she meets his eye without a blink. Over her left shoulder he sees her death hanging, well separated and glowing like a small star. He thinks of the word interesting, which he has learned from Father Tim, a word the Runiya lack. It describes a hunger Moie has not known existed, but, like pisco for some men, it is hard to give up once tasted. This girl is interesting, and not only because Jaguar has sent her to him.
“How come?” she asks again.
“I will tell you,” says Moie. “First, before anything, there was Sky and Earth. Each was separate from the other and they didn’t know each other’s language, not at all, so they were very sad. They had no one to talk to! But from their sadness there came Rain, who knew the language of both of them. And they were happy for a while. But then Sky wanted Rain to be his wife, and she agreed. This made Earth jealous, because he also loved Rain and he wanted her to be his wife. So they fought a war. Sky sent lightning to strike Earth, and Earth sent fires and smokes from inside him to choke Sky. Then Rain said Stop, stop, I will marry both of you. First I will be with Sky, then I will drop and be with Earth, then I will rise again to Sky. So they went on and on. Rain had many children. She had Sun and Moon. She had River. She was pleased that there were more things in the world, so she went to her husbands and said, It’s good to have many things. You must make things, too. So they did. Sky made stars and birds. Earth made plants and trees, and worms and insects and the swift animals. Earth was proud of these things and he boasted of them to River. River said, If you mate with me, we will make something even greater than these things. Earth said, If we did that, your mother, Rain, would be jealous. But River said she didn’t care about that and smiled over her shoulder at Earth. So he mated with her. So in time out of her womb came Caiman.”
“What’s that?”
Moie makes spectacles of his fingers and gnashes his teeth and writhes his body until she understands he is talking about a crocodile, like the one in Peter Pan.
“River told Caiman that he could only eat the creatures that put their feet to the water, but he was a wicked child and would not listen. At that time there were no fishes. He left the water and chased the deer and tapirs and ate them, and ate trees and all plants, and the beetles and ants.”
