Jonathan Kellerman - Rage

Milo said, “I’d like to see Taqueria Pequeña, ” adjusted his harness holster, slipped on his jacket, and got out.

We waited in line. The smell of pork and corn and onions blew through the window and out to the curb. The prices were good, the portions benevolent. Customers paid with soiled dollar bills and coinage and counted their change carefully. Two people worked the stand, a young man at the deep fryers and a short, round, middle-aged woman handling the public.

The fry cook was twenty or so, thin and sharp-chinned. He wore a blue bandanna on his head. What was visible of his hair was clipped to the skin and tattoos explored his arms. All around him, grease arced and spattered. No screen guards, and I could see airborne specks land on his arms and face. It had to hurt. He worked steadily, remained expressionless.

The customer in front of us collected his tamales and rice and agua de tamarindo and we stepped up. The round woman had her hair pinned up. The makeup she’d put on that morning was doing battle with sweat. Her pencil poised without looking up. “Que?”

Milo said, “Ma’am,” and showed her his I.D.

Her smile was slow to settle in. “Yes, sir?”

“I’m looking for Nestor Almedeira.”

The smile closed up instantaneously, like a sea anemone reacting to being prodded. She shook her head.

Milo eyed the man in the bandanna. “That’s not him?”

The woman shifted to one side and peered around Milo’s bulk. Several customers had queued up behind us but now they were drifting away. “Carlos.”

“Could we see Carlos’s I.D., please?”

“He got no driver’s license.”

“I’ll see whatever he has, ma’am.”

She pivoted and shouted something in Spanish. Bandanna tensed up, drew his hand away from the fryer, and eyed the back door.

Milo said, “Tell him if he’s not Nestor, there’ll be no problem. Of any sort.”

The woman shouted louder and the young man froze. She covered the four feet between them with three choppy steps, talked and gesticulated and held out her hand. The young man drew a yellow scrap of paper out of his pocket.

The woman took it and handed it to Milo. Western Union receipt verifying that Carlos Miguel Bermudez had wired ninety-five dollars and fifty-three cents to a money-transfer office in Mascota, Mexico. The date of the transaction was yesterday.

Milo said, “That’s all he’s got?”

“He not Nestor,” said the woman.

“Nestor got fired?”

“No, no.” The woman’s eyes got heavy around the lids. “Nestor got dead.”

“When?” said Milo.

“Few weeks ago,” said the woman. “I think.”

“You think?”

“Nestor din’t show up much when he was alive.”

“How’d you find out he’s dead?”

“He sister tell me. I give him the job because I like her, nice girl.”

“How’d Nestor die?”

“She don’t say.”

“How long did Nestor work here- officially?”

She frowned. “Maybe a month.”

“Bad attendance, huh?”

“Bad attitude.” Another glance behind us. No customers. “You no want to eat?”

Milo returned the yellow scrap to her and she slipped it into her apron. Carlos the cook was still standing around, looking nervous.

“No, thanks,” said Milo. He smiled past her. Carlos bit his lip. “What’s Nestor’s sister’s name, ma’am?”

“Anita.”

“Where does she live?”

“She work at the dentista - up three blocks.”

“Know the dentist’s name?”

“Chinese,” she said. “Black building. You wanna drink?”

Milo ordered a lemon soda and when she tried to comp him, he left a five on the counter and made her smile.

By the time we got back in the unmarked, the lunch line had resumed.

Drs. Chang, Kim, Mendoza, and Quinones practiced in a one-story building veneered with shiny black ceramic tile. White graffiti stuck to the bottom of the facade like food-fight pasta. The sign above the door said, Easy Credit, Painless Dentistry, Medi-Cal Accepted.

Inside was a waiting room full of suffering people. Milo marched past them and tapped the reception window. When it opened, he asked for Anita Almedeira.

The Asian receptionist lowered her glasses. “The only Anita we have is Anita Moss.”

“Then I’d like to speak with her.”

“She’s busy but I’ll go see.”

The waiting room smelled of wintergreen and stale laundry and rug cleaner. The magazines in the wall rack were in Spanish and Korean.

A pale woman in her late twenties came to the reception desk. She had long, straight black hair, a round face, and smooth, sedate features. Her pink nylon uniform skirt showed off a full, firm figure. Her nametag said A. Moss, Registered Dental Hygienist. Lovely white teeth when she smiled; the job had its perks.

“I’m Anita. May I help you?”

Milo flashed the badge. “Are you Nestor Almedeira’s sister, ma’am?”

Anita Moss’s mouth closed. When she spoke next it was at a near whisper. “You’ve found them?”

“Who, ma’am?”

“The people who killed Nestor.”

Milo said, “Sorry, no. This is about something else.”

Anita Moss’s face tightened. “About something Nestor did?”

“It’s possible, ma’am.”

She looked out at the waiting room. “I’m kind of busy.”

“This won’t take long, Ms. Moss.”

She opened the door and walked through, approached an old man in work clothes with a collapsed jawline and an eye on the racing form. “Mr. Ramirez? I’ll be with you in one minute, okay?”

The man nodded and returned to the odds.

“Let’s go,” said Anita Moss, sweeping across the room. By the time Milo and I reached the exit, she was out of the building.

She tapped her foot on the sidewalk and fooled with her hair. Milo offered to seat her in the unmarked.

“That’s all I need,” she said. “Someone seeing me in a police car.”

“And here I thought we were camouflaged,” said Milo.

Anita Moss started to smile, changed her mind. “Let’s go around the corner. You drive a bit and I’ll catch up with you and sit in the car.”

The unmarked had taken on heat and Milo rolled down the windows. We were parked on a side street of cheap apartments, Anita Moss sitting stiffly in the back. A few women with children strolled by, a couple of stray dogs wove from scent to scent.

Milo said, “I know this is hard, ma’am- ”

“Don’t worry about me,” said Moss. “Ask what you need to.”

“When was your brother murdered?”

“Four weeks ago. I got a call from a detective and that’s all I’ve heard about it. I thought you were following up.”

“Where did it happen?”

“Lafayette Park, late at night. The detective said Nestor was buying heroin and someone shot him and took his money.”

“Do you remember the name of the detective who called you?”

“Krug,” she said. “Detective Krug, he never gave me his first name. I got the feeling he wasn’t going to put too much time into it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Just the way he sounded. I figured it was because of the type of person Nestor was.” She straightened her back, stared at the rearview mirror.

“Nestor was an addict,” said Milo.

“Since he was thirteen,” said Moss. “Not always heroin but always some kind of habit.”

“What else besides heroin?”

“When he was little, he huffed paint and glue. Then marijuana, pills, P.C.P., you name it. He’s the baby in the family and I’m the oldest. We weren’t close. I grew up here but I don’t live here anymore.”