Double Dexter by Jeff Lindsay Page B

“It’s just a taco. They’re all pretty much the same.”
    “No, they’re not,” Deborah said. “These tacos got a cop killed.”
    “Killer tacos,” Vince said. “I like that.”
    “Maybe it’s a hangout,” I said, and Deborah looked at me expectantly. I shrugged. “You know, sometimes word gets around, like the burgers are great at Manny’s, or the
medianoche
at Hidalgo is the best in town, or whatever.”
    “Yeah, but these are
tacos,
” Vince said. “I mean—seriously.”
    “All right, so maybe they’re cheap,” I said. “Or the girl who makes them is wearing a string bikini.”
    “I know a lunch wagon they do that,” Duarte said. “This very nice-looking woman, she wears a bikini? They go around to construction sites, and she does big business, believe me. Just from showing her boobs.”
    “I can’t believe you assholes,” Debs said. “Why does it always end up about tits?”
    “Not always. Sometimes it’s ass,” Vince said, cleverly bringing ass back into the conversation one more time. I began to wonder if there was a hidden camera, with a smirking game-show host handing out a prize every time we used the word.
    “We could ask around,” Duarte said. “See if any of the other detectives are talking about a great taco place.”
    “Or great tits,” Vince said.
    Deborah ignored him, which should have made him grateful. “Find out what you can from the wrapper,” she said, and then she turned away and hustled out of the room. Duarte straightened up, nodded at us, and followed her out.
    I watched them go. Vince blinked at me, and then bustled out of the room, mumbling something about reagent, and for a moment I just sat there. My shirt still felt damp, and I was very peeved with Camilla Figg. She had been standing right behind me, much too close for safety, and I could think of no reason for that kind of proximity. Even worse, I really should have known it when somebody got that near to my exposed back. It could have been a drug lord with an Uzi, or a crazed gardener with a machete, or almost anything else as lethal as a cup of that wretched coffee. Where was the Passenger when you really needed him? And now I was sitting in a chilly lab wearing a wet shirt, and I was pretty sure that would not help my already fragile health. Just to underline the point, I felt a sneeze coming on, and I barely got a paper towel up to my nose before it erupted. Cold pills—bah, humbug. They were worthless, like everything else in this miserable world.
    Just before I melted into a dripping heap of mucus and self-pity, I thought of the clean shirt hanging behind my desk. I always kept one on hand in case of a work-related accident. I took it off the hanger and put it on, tucking the damp, coffee-spattered shirt into a plastic grocery bag to take home. It was a nice shirt, a beige guayabera withsilver guitars on the hem. Perhaps Rita would know a magic trick to get the stains out.
    Vince was already back in the lab when I returned, and we went right to work. And we really tried our very best. We ran every test we could think of, visual, chemical, and electronic, and found nothing that would bring a smile to my sister’s face. Deborah called us three times, which for her showed wonderful self-control. There was really nothing to tell her. I thought it was very likely that the wrapper held a taco and came from a lunch wagon, but I certainly couldn’t have sworn to it in a court of law.
    At around noon the cold pills wore off and I began to sneeze again. I tried to ignore it, but it’s very difficult to do really high-quality lab work while holding a paper towel to your nose, so I finally gave up. “I have to get out of here,” I said to Vince. “Before I blow my nose all over the evidence.”
    “It couldn’t hurt the tacos,” he said.
    I went to lunch alone, at a Thai restaurant over by the airport. It’s not that looking at old taco wrappers had made me hungry, but I have always believed that a