Adrian McKinty - Fifty Grand

I take a sip of the weak mojito and keep my eye on him.

He’s on the hook, yes, but he’s still some way from the fish fryer.

Time for another gamble.

“We arrested Marta earlier today. We had to take her in first. She didn’t seem surprised. They took her to a different precinct, so I don’t have all the details yet, but I’ll get them eventually. I wonder what she’s saying about you right now?”

His eyes flash and I see that this is the tipping point. If he’s going to blab it’s going to be now.

But I’m wrong, he doesn’t say a word.

Instead he makes a fist and brings it down on the table. My phone bounces and lands on the sidewalk. The beggar kid runs from the shadows, snatches it, and instead of running off into the night, gives it back to me. Yeah. He’s good. That’s how you do it, Felipe. That’s called the soft sell. I slip the kid a dollar bill and check the phone’s still broadcasting. It is.

“What is she saying about you? I mean, who did it? It must have been you. A mother couldn’t do that to her own child.”

“Don’t you believe it,” he says in a whisper so low the phone mike won’t have picked it up.

“What was that? Tell me. Let me help you. What did she make you do?”

He closes his eyes, brings his fists to his temples.

“You’ve got the body?” he asks.

“Yes, of course. Little María Angela.”

“Will they let me see her?”

“Yes, you’ve every right to see her, you’re her father.”

He nods and takes a breath and it all comes tumbling out: “I am. I am her father. Although she pretended it was someone else’s. What happened to that guy? Eh? Don’t believe anything she says. Don’t believe a thing. She’s the one. Her. I didn’t do anything. She’s was the… She killed her. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing. When I came over the baby was already dead. All I did was get rid of the body. I didn’t ask her to do it. You gotta believe me. I didn’t ask her. Why would I? We would have managed. I’ve got a good job here. We would have been ok.”

He opens his eyes and stares at me.

“She killed the baby?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“She drowned it… her , in the bath. That’s why I thought to put the body in La Ceiba. You gotta believe me, I had nothing to do with this. You believe me, don’t you?” he says, his voice breaking. On the verge of crazy.

A couple more pushes. “Was it your idea? She wouldn’t have done it. You must have told her to do it.”

Eyes like catcher’s mitts.

The waterworks.

“No. No. Haven’t you been listening. I told her noth-I didn’t tell her anything. It was her. It was all her. It’s madness.”

“But why did you keep the birth a secret?” I ask gently.

“She wanted me to,” he says between sobs. “She begged me to keep it quiet. And I did. God forgive me.”

“You delivered the baby alive. And then, at some point, you left the apartment. And then what happened? Later on she called you to let you know she had killed the baby?”

“Yes. That’s what happened. I wasn’t there. I had to go to work. She called me. I came home and the baby was dead.”

I nod sympathetically.

“You believe me, don’t you?” he asks and grabs my left hand.

“Yes, I believe you. La Ceiba,” I say, enunciating the words clearly. If I know Hector, he’ll have divers down there with underwater flashlights before I’ve finished this mojito.

I release my hand from Felipe’s strong fingers. I push my chair a little way back from the table. He wilts, puts his head down on the stained mahogany top, and starts crying like a good one. It’s pathetic. What does he want me to do? Pat his back? Give him a hug?

“She killed the baby and you hid the body?” I ask to confirm the testimony.

I push the phone close to him.

“Yes, yes, yes!” he mutters.

That’s good enough for me. I swivel in my seat and signal the guys on the corner. I hold up two fingers and almost immediately two uniforms come out of a car I hadn’t noticed before.

The beggar kid disappears.

Felipe looks up as the cops clamber over the barrier around the patio tables. His eyes are desperate, darting left and right. He grabs the back of a heavy metal chair.

Shit.

Quick flash of a possible future: table overturned, chair on my head, dislocated eye socket, smashed teeth, blood in my mouth, fumbling for the gun in my purse, second swing of the chair, roll to the side, revolver in my hand, trigger, two bullets in his gut.

Sort of thing you never get over.

“Don’t even think about it,” I tell him severely.

He lets go of the chair.

“Please,” he says and tries to grab my hand but I slide away and he clutches air.

Finally one of the uniforms puts a hand on his shoulder. He flinches.

“You know where I was when she called me?” he asks me.

“Where?”

“The cathedral.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Yes. Yes. It’s the truth. I was there,” he says, pointing up the street.

“Praying for forgiveness?”

“No, no. No. No. You’ve got it all wrong. The baby was still alive when I left. She did it. She killed it. Drowned it.”

The uniforms look at me as if to ask “Is this one a runner?” I shrug my shoulders. Their problem now.

“Come on,” one of them says and cuffs himself to Felipe. With surprising efficiency an old Mexican julia appears from the plaza-brakes screeching, lights flashing, but, because it’s the Vieja, siren off.

“You believe me, don’t you?” Felipe asks, his eyes wide, tears dripping off his face like a leaky tap.

“I believe you,” I reassure him.

He walks meekly to the julia and gets in the back.

The doors close and just like that he’s gone, whisked off into the night as if he’s part of a magician’s trick. I look around the restaurant but the place is so busy no one except the Québecois has noticed any of this. The two widows at the next table are still studying the menu and everyone else is getting quietly hammered on daiquiris.

Only the gamin seems to care. I feel his glare from the semidarkness. His unasked question needs no answer but I give it to him anyway. Gratis. “He killed his girlfriend’s baby. A little girl. Ok?”

The boy looks skeptical. My cell phone vibrates. I stick in the earpiece.

“Hell of a job, hell of job,” Hector says.

“Thank you.”

“Where did you come up with that stuff? ‘María Angela.’ Fantastic. That’s exactly what they would call her, will call her when they find the body. You took a risk, though, no?”

“What risk?”

“You didn’t know it was a girl. What if it had been a baby boy?”

“They wouldn’t have killed it if it had been a baby boy. They would have sold it.”

Hector sighs. “Yes, you’re probably right.”

“I’ve given you enough to go on, right?”

“More than enough. Wow. The things that come from nothing. All we had was a tip from the old lady that she was pregnant and wasn’t pregnant anymore. We didn’t have proof of anything.”

“Well, now you got two losers whose lives are ruined.”

“Always the downside, Mercado. Don’t look at it like that. You did good. You really did good. You broke it open. In about two fucking minutes.”

“Like to take the credit, Hector, but it really wasn’t me. He wanted to talk. He was itching for it. I believe him about the cathedral, by the way, but he probably went there afterward. To ask forgiveness from Our Lady.”

Hector doesn’t want to think about that. “No. You really scored for us. Come on. Put down that glass and let me buy you a real drink. We’ll go to that place on Higüera. Let’s go celebrate.”