as long as it’s you. Between the strong inclinations of you and my brother, it sure makes it worth my time to dig up a bunch of warped memories from people with mixed motives to see if I can’t exonerate the name of a dead man.”
“What about your name?”
“It’s Allison. Sometimes Allie, Al, Lis, Alley Cat, even Joey if Joanna’s playing around with the name tags.”
It was true. I, the valedictorian of my high school class, was the disembodied, pretty hand that put your drink on the bar after deftly slipping a napkin beneath it. The hand that swiped the spills and scooped the dollars from the mahogany when the stools stood empty. My drinks were perfect, my pours lethal, my customers happy and my mind numb. People came and went, with only a few who even glanced at my face. Travelers assumed I spent my days in auditions; regulars didn’t give it a second thought. They flitted in and out of my life like a swinging tavern door. In-motion hands didn’t allow time for reflection. They stayed as busy as the front legs of a fly that never rested. As they should. It was like I’d spilled my last name on the bar one day, wiped it away with a towel, and made it disappear forever.
“ That’s all you want?” Detective Barkley said. “A job that doesn’t require a last name?”
“ What’s it to you, Detective?”
He fixed me with a frown. It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand the bitterness, but he sure didn’t like it. Maybe he saw in me the same thing he’d seen in dear old dad—the desire to get it over with. The look of an innocent who’d given up.
“ Honestly?” he said. “I think you like your no-name life. But you’ve shut out more than you know and it’s a convenient excuse not to succeed.”
Cutting, but h is comment slipped off me like melted butter. “You and my brother ought to get together. Teach a philosophy class or something. Feng Shui, acupuncture, hypnosis, the works.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve probably overstepped my bounds.”
“ No worries, Detective. Something tells me it won’t be the last time.” I lightened the comment with a twisted grin, got in my car and drove away as the box in the trunk slid right and left, making a muted scratching sound. Just itching to get out.
Chapter 7
Allison… present
Enzo Rodriguez had strayed far from being the immigrant son of farm workers who, years ago, had landed himself a legitimate job at an auto mechanic shop. But he hadn’t strayed too far. He now owned a franchise operation with over 200 locations. One of those places you popped into 1000 miles late and then overpaid to get your oil changed while reading a magazine with half the words smudged into oblivion. By the time you needed to do it again, the crappy sticker on the windshield had curled over itself so many times, it was unreadable or floating around your feet, maybe stuck to the underside of the gas pedal. I’d have to tell Enzo that if he could come up with a decent sticker, he might be able to double his business.
He’d agreed to meet me at Kitty’s Diner in town for a late lunch. Despite its name, it was one of the fancier places to eat in Lavitte, although its age showed around the margins. The cracked vinyl seat kept catching my skirt and pinching my thigh, and the peeling wallpaper revealed a layer of greyish sheetrock sporting ancient drip trails. At some point, that same moisture had seeped between the double-paned windows, creating spotty condensation that obscured the bottom fifteen inches of the view. Since the view consisted of a dry cleaner and a boarded-up video rental store, I wasn’t missing much.
The rapidity with which th is meeting had come about had left me little time for mental preparation, so I was doubly shocked when Enzo walked in. I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles, as he did when he testified at my dad’s trial, that it wasn’t him. He stood a good eight inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than the Enzo I
“What about your name?”
“It’s Allison. Sometimes Allie, Al, Lis, Alley Cat, even Joey if Joanna’s playing around with the name tags.”
It was true. I, the valedictorian of my high school class, was the disembodied, pretty hand that put your drink on the bar after deftly slipping a napkin beneath it. The hand that swiped the spills and scooped the dollars from the mahogany when the stools stood empty. My drinks were perfect, my pours lethal, my customers happy and my mind numb. People came and went, with only a few who even glanced at my face. Travelers assumed I spent my days in auditions; regulars didn’t give it a second thought. They flitted in and out of my life like a swinging tavern door. In-motion hands didn’t allow time for reflection. They stayed as busy as the front legs of a fly that never rested. As they should. It was like I’d spilled my last name on the bar one day, wiped it away with a towel, and made it disappear forever.
“ That’s all you want?” Detective Barkley said. “A job that doesn’t require a last name?”
“ What’s it to you, Detective?”
He fixed me with a frown. It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand the bitterness, but he sure didn’t like it. Maybe he saw in me the same thing he’d seen in dear old dad—the desire to get it over with. The look of an innocent who’d given up.
“ Honestly?” he said. “I think you like your no-name life. But you’ve shut out more than you know and it’s a convenient excuse not to succeed.”
Cutting, but h is comment slipped off me like melted butter. “You and my brother ought to get together. Teach a philosophy class or something. Feng Shui, acupuncture, hypnosis, the works.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve probably overstepped my bounds.”
“ No worries, Detective. Something tells me it won’t be the last time.” I lightened the comment with a twisted grin, got in my car and drove away as the box in the trunk slid right and left, making a muted scratching sound. Just itching to get out.
Chapter 7
Allison… present
Enzo Rodriguez had strayed far from being the immigrant son of farm workers who, years ago, had landed himself a legitimate job at an auto mechanic shop. But he hadn’t strayed too far. He now owned a franchise operation with over 200 locations. One of those places you popped into 1000 miles late and then overpaid to get your oil changed while reading a magazine with half the words smudged into oblivion. By the time you needed to do it again, the crappy sticker on the windshield had curled over itself so many times, it was unreadable or floating around your feet, maybe stuck to the underside of the gas pedal. I’d have to tell Enzo that if he could come up with a decent sticker, he might be able to double his business.
He’d agreed to meet me at Kitty’s Diner in town for a late lunch. Despite its name, it was one of the fancier places to eat in Lavitte, although its age showed around the margins. The cracked vinyl seat kept catching my skirt and pinching my thigh, and the peeling wallpaper revealed a layer of greyish sheetrock sporting ancient drip trails. At some point, that same moisture had seeped between the double-paned windows, creating spotty condensation that obscured the bottom fifteen inches of the view. Since the view consisted of a dry cleaner and a boarded-up video rental store, I wasn’t missing much.
The rapidity with which th is meeting had come about had left me little time for mental preparation, so I was doubly shocked when Enzo walked in. I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles, as he did when he testified at my dad’s trial, that it wasn’t him. He stood a good eight inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than the Enzo I
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