Chapter 24

"¿Hablan español?" he asked.

"Solamente lo hablo un poquito," I answered, "pero mi esposa es mi intéprete." I'd rehearsed that sentence in my head over and over so that I could get it right – I thought. If I'd asked Cecelia for help she'd have given me perfect grammar and diction – and fancy Spanish words too – but I wanted it to be me, even if it were grammatically incorrect.

Cecelia stepped into the opening with a bunch of Spanish that was so fast and fluent I only caught a word here and there. The gangbanger nodded and spoke a little bit in reply.

"Good," Cecelia said, translating, "because I only speak a little English."

"Okay," I said. "I'm looking for information about a white minivan. The B&Is stole it, and passed it one to the Bridge Boys, and they passed it on to the CC 25s." Cecelia rattled it off in Spanish as I spoke, even adopting my inflections and gestures as well as they'd fit into the translation. She has more talents than ought to be legal, and here was another one that I'd never known about.

The gangbanger nodded. "Yeah, I heard about that. I'm a junior CC 25." I would have sworn he was old enough to be a full member of the gang, but I wasn't here to look at IDs, which would probably be fake anyway. If he wanted to lie about his age, that was his business right now. "You could talk to Domingo Cuervo about it."

"Is Cuervo his name or a nickname?"

"It's his nickname – he likes ravens."

I grinned. "I like 'em too – maybe we'll get along. Where can I find el Cuervo?"

"Around." For the first time the guy seemed evasive. He'd been willing to talk to us – for some reason all the gangbangers had been more willing to talk than I'd expected – but probably he didn't want anyone to be able to say he'd ratted out Domingo the Raven.

"Look," I said, "I'm not a cop. I just need information. I don't care if I come up on Domingo smoking rock and making it with a 12-year-old." That was a lie the size of Alaska, but the gangbanger didn't know that. "I just need to know about the van."

He grinned at the vile image. I'd hated saying it, both because it was a lie and because it was vile, but when you wade in slime you can't stay absolutely clean. I'd had to thrash that out in my mind when I became a cop, and I've gone over it again from time to time as a PI. And I've always concluded that just as protecting one's country sometimes means that one has to kill, so doing my job – a necessary one – sometimes will require me to lie, and to hear or say things that I don't really want to hear or say.

"Maybe that's how you'll find him, too," the gangbanger said. "Check up around Edith and Garfield. He hangs there sometimes."

"Okay, mate, thanks." I don't know the first thing about the modern "handshakes" with their fist-bumping and finger-twisting, and I doubted that he'd know anything about a traditional one, so I didn't stick out my hand. I just nodded, he nodded back, and Cecelia and I turned and walked off.

Once we were back in the Blazer she asked, "Is it always this easy?"

"You're reading my mind again," I said as I turned the key. One of the things I'd had my mechanic do when he reworked the Blazer after I bought it was relocate the ignition switch to the dash. I grew up with that, and my old Chevy pickup that I'd driven for years had that arrangement as a stock thing. I want the key where I'm used to it ... and other things too, which is why my dimmer switch is on the floor instead of being part of the blinker. "No, it ain't always this easy. In fact, usually it's harder."

"Does the unaccustomed ease of the investigation worry you?"

"Not really," I said, shoving the shifter into first. "I know things balance out. It ain't karma or nothin' like that, none of that New Age nonsense. It's just statistics. Things have a balance overall. And if for a time things seem out of balance, pretty soon they'll swing back. You get extremes – some cases are brutally tough, and others are dead easy, and it balances out."

Cecelia nodded – I saw it out of the corner of my eye – and said, "That makes sense."

I am not always brilliant. I said, "Yeah, it does when you think about it."

"I could become angry with you, Darvin," she said, "but I take into account the fact that this is 20 years old for you, or more, and therefore second nature." She might not have been angry, but it was a rebuke nonetheless.

I waited till I'd turned north on Edith before replying. "You're right, C – I jumped down your throat. I'm sorry. For me, yeah, it's natural stuff. But you haven't been in this at all until now, and didn't know it. And I should have known that."

"Well, I have been with you on one prior occasion – as Ms. Johnston, who was assisting you that day."

I risked a glance at her, and saw she was smiling. "Yeah, there is that. I'd plumb forgot about that one."

"I did little; there was no reason for it to remain uppermost in your mind. All I did was prevent you from hurting that ... person."

"You also got in a good point with his girlfriend. You know, I wonder if he's still with her, or if he bopped off after someone else."

"It has been three years," she said, "so it would not surprise me if he has abandoned Ms. Perillo."

"Not me neither," I said. "Lemme see if I can find a place to park."

I did, without too much difficulty, and this time I reached for my gun. Again it wasn't something I could quantify – I didn't even think about it, I just put my hand under the seat and pulled it out of the clip. Only when I was putting it on my belt, and I saw Cecelia following suit, did I realize what I'd done.

Both our doors were still open, and I asked, "Why are we putting our guns on?"

"I don't know, Darvin – but you have yours, and I followed your lead." She gave me a sharp look. "Do you have a bad feeling about this?"