In Big Trouble
IN BIG TROUBLE
A TESS MONAGHAN MYSTERY
by
LAURA LIPPMAN
For the RCC'ers—
Lisa Groves
Jane Gundell
Leslie Linthicum
Ellen Perelman
Guess what? Fin de siècle is here.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
A sign hangs next to the cradle of Texas liberty…
Chapter 1
Tess Monaghan hated surveillance work, something of a problem for…
Chapter 2
Crow's photo from the newspaper stayed hidden in Tess's datebook…
Chapter 3
Thirty-six hours later, Tess was en route to Charlottesville. She…
Chapter 4
Tess, who never paid close attention in seventh grade social…
Chapter 5
They took a break, heading back to Quadling Country to…
Chapter 6
The sheriff held a metal wastebasket beneath Tess's chin. It…
Chapter 7
The front desk clerk at the Marriott in downtown San…
Chapter 8
Primo's, the bar where Crow's band had last played, was…
Chapter 9
He turned on his heel, but still in a crouch,…
Chapter 10
A telegram—now there was a concept. In a world…
Chapter 11
Hector's was not the type of place listed in the…
Chapter 12
They ended up Earl Abel's, the restaurant that Emmie had…
Chapter 13
Church bells were ringing in the distance before anyone bothered…
Chapter 14
There comes a point when it's simply too late for…
Chapter 15
Tess was jumping rope in her room on the next…
Chapter 16
They had breakfast at a west side cafe, a dingy…
Chapter 17
Marianna Barrett Conyers was in the garden behind her house…
Chapter 18
Esskay was behind the bullet-proof glass in La Casita's office,…
Chapter 19
Technically, Tess awoke to the phone the next morning, but…
Chapter 20
A.J. Sheppard had agreed to meet her for lunch, once he…
Chapter 21
Minutes went by, six-hundred-second minutes in which A.J. and Tess…
Chapter 22
"Obstruction of juctice," Al Guzman said, as if reading from…
Chapter 23
Thursday morning. Tess had been in Texas nine days. She…
Chapter 24
"He lives on Bikini."
Chapter 25
They left a message for Al Guzman to meet them…
Chapter 26
Seven hours later, Tess pushed open the door of Y Algunas Mas…
Chapter 27
Before setting out, she stopped at La Casita to ask…
Chapter 28
Thank God for make-up sex—Rick and Kristina were still at…
Chapter 29
"Pilar Rodriguez was my family's cook," Clay said stupidly. Tess…
Chapter 30
The emergency room at the county hospital was filled with…
Epilogue
I always loved him,…
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Despite the San Antonio map at my side, helpful friends, and my own impeccable memory, chances are I got some things wrong about the place I consider my second hometown—out of plain carelessness, or because I exercised a novelist's prerogative to make stuff up. Don't blame: John Roll, or any of my Texas in-laws, particularly Carolyn Fryar, who are all awfully good sports about the crazy woman their son married; Rick Casey of the San Antonio Express-News, who stopped to answer my questions even as he was fending off (unrelated) death threats; Bob Kolarik, also of the Express-News, who has been reading my novels longer than anyone; or Caitlin Francke of the Baltimore Sun, who didn't once laugh at my pathetic Spanish. I am also indebted to Joan Jacobson, Lisa Respers, Peter Hermann, the Gosnell-Branch clan, the denizens of DorothyL and La Luzers everywhere, particularly those girls and boys who liked to dance at Los Padrinos and the Bonham Exchange, drink at Mel's and the Liberty, then eat at Earl Abel's and Taco Cabana. (And no, Jeannie, I haven't forgotten Rolando's Super Tacos, but I'm still mad about them closing on Sundays.)
A note about music: While the band described within these pages is wholly a product of my imagination—I have yet to hear a Stephen Sondheim tune set to salsa rhythms, although I would certainly like to—dozens of musicians contributed a private soundtrack that created an instant cantina in my Baltimore office. They include Hal Ketchum, Brave Combo, the Mavericks, Alison Krauss, Emmy Lou Harris, the Dixie Chicks, Johnny Reno and the Sax Maniacs, Willie Nelson, Flaco Jimenez, Ruben Blades, the Texas Tornados, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the Perpetrators, and as always, Nancy LaMott and Elvis Costello.
Prologue
A sign hangs next to the cradle of Texas liberty, reminding visitors that concealed firearms are not permitted on the grounds.
She stops and examines this as if it were new to her, although the sign has been posted for several years now. "Don't bring your gun to the Alamo," she intones, to see how it sounds out loud, then laughs, startling a little boy. ("Mama, that lady is talking to herself. Mama—") Don't bring your gun to the Alamo. A nice phrase, but it doesn't make the cut. She won't record it in one of her little notebooks, the ones where she keeps her lists of first lines, fragments of poems, names for everything. Names for bands, names for songs. Names for the children she'll never have and titles for the memoir she'll never write, although her story packs some shock value, even in these jaded times. Oprah would need a whole week to get it all in.
Within the walls, it's like being in a shallow dish—azure sky above, the taller buildings crowded around, dwarfing the Spanish mission, which isn't very big to begin with. She walks through the gardens, noting the placement of each plant, each bench, each sign. Change is not to be tolerated. She picks up a cup with a little electric blue raspa juice inside and drops it in the trash, as fastidious in her own way as the Alamo's keepers, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. It is a shrine, and not only to Texas liberty. A shrine to her, to them. She even brings the same breakfast every time—two barbacoa tacos, coffee, an elephant ear, and the Sunday paper. She gets the pastry, while the tacos are for him, her own holy ghost.
He had been the first to bring her here, although she later learned she had not been the first he had brought here. Important distinction. Nor would she be the last, as it turned out. "Ever had breakfast at the Alamo?" he had asked her that first morning when they finally pulled away from each other, eyes bright, bodies limp, the cheap pearls of her broken necklace rolling beneath them, pressing into their flesh, so her skin was beaded like the white gown she had worn earlier. When everything was over, when she was banished from his life and had nothing left, she still had those words. "Breakfast at the Alamo." She knew others would be charmed by them as she had once been charmed.
And she began to see how a former lover's tricks could be appropriated and turned against him.
It was only a matter of time before the two of them showed up one Sunday with different, unwitting partners. She caught his glance across the courtyard, held it tight. The young woman with him had tried to see where his gaze had strayed, but he grabbed her hand and retreated. He had a horror of scenes, of anything ugly and public.
She didn't. That was her power. He had never shown up again, hadn't dared, and Breakfast at the Alamo became her exclusive property. Her signature, her trick of the t
rade, her trade for the trick. Rolling toward the warm body next to her on a Sunday morning, eyes still closed, mouth closed, too, so as not to inhale too much of the sour smell that strangers brought to one's bed. "Hey, darlin', ever had breakfast at the Alamo?"
Breakfast at the Alamo. Now that was a great name for anything—a band, a memoir, a betrayal. It was on all her lists. The world was full of poetry. Pick up a menu, for example, and there was "Shaved Meats, Piled High." That was going to be volume one of her unwritten memoir. She also liked the sign that had hung next to the Tunnel of Love at the old Funland amusement park: "C'mon Scaredy Cat, Let's Go Through." Of course, you had to be "this tall" to ride that ride, according to the grinning elf who stood next to the entrance with his measuring stick. By the time she was tall enough, Funland was long gone, its fixtures sold at public auction. Goodbye Scaredy Cat. And goodbye elf, you smug little S.O.B., with your measuring stick and your smirk for all those under five feet.
So she found her inspiration in the headlines and the rack cards, from the days when a sleazy tabloid king had owned one of the local papers. SEWER BOY STILL MISSING. GUNNED DOWN PREGNANT CAT FIGHTS FOR LIFE. GLUE DOG ON THE MEND. LITTLE GIRL IN BIG TROUBLE. TRUANT SAYS, "LET'S RAPE CHRISTY'S MAMA." 10,000 TOENAILS AID IN CANCER FIGHT. These, too, went into her little notebooks.
The lists had been something else they had done together, her gift to him. Sudden thought: Had he stolen those, as she had stolen Breakfast at the Alamo? Did he carry a notebook like hers, impress his new girls with the music of everyday life? No, he wouldn't make a list with anyone else, she was sure of that. Because he was better than she was. That's why she loved him still. That's why she hated him.
She works slowly through the paper and her elephant ear, savoring both. As always, she saves the society pages for last. It's skimpy this week, not much going on. Pretty soon the fall parties will start and that will change. Everyone who's anyone is on the circuit from Halloween on, especially now, with this stupid All Soul Festival. She used to be an anyone.
She closes her eyes, enjoying the sun, which has finally begun to relinquish its summer-tight grip on the city. It feels good. It feels good just to be alone. A few days ago, the flaws of the latest man had surfaced all at once, the details swimming into focus, the way a photo's image takes shape in a pan of developer. His pores were too large, his eyes the wrong color, his ties the wrong width. He wasn't tall enough. They were never tall enough, no one was tall enough. He didn't have the guts to go through with it. Another list to keep and maintain, a catalog of defects that always began and ended the same way: Not him.
But you don't have to be with someone to have breakfast at the Alamo. Actually, it's better alone. As long as she stays in the gardens. She doesn't like the buildings—the Long Barracks, the high-ceilinged souvenir shop where she once coveted the blue and white Alamo dinnerware. The buildings are cold as crypts, chilled by the horrible memories they hold. Places can remember, too. But here, in the garden, beneath the hot, healing sun, the soil has forgotten all the blood it has known. She wishes she could forget. She wishes she could remember. Wake up, Mommy. Wake up, Mommy.
"Tienes sueños, pobrecita?"
The voice makes her start, and the barbacoa tacos tumble to the ground from her lap. Tienes sueños—Are you sleepy? He uses the Spanish reluctantly, at her insistence. But it's so much better in Spanish: Do you have dreams? Nothing but.
She squints into the sunlight.
"Why are you here?"
"I couldn't find you this morning. I worried."
"We broke up. Remember, I broke up with you?" Not cruel, just stating the facts.
"I know. And I know why. But I can't turn my back on you."
"You're going to help me?" Incredulous, not quite trusting him, although she wants to so badly. She needs an ally.
"I promise," he says. "I'll help you, and you'll help me."
She wonders if he thinks this means he'll get to crawl on top of her again. As much as she could use his assistance, she isn't sure she could stomach that. Once she's done with a man, she's done. It's like trying to reheat a cup of coffee. Dark, bitter stuff. But she doesn't think he's trying to find a way back into her bed. Truth is, he had seemed even less interested than she, if such a thing were possible.
But he's going to help her. Her mood takes off, like a rocket. In her joy, she pleats the grease-stained bag from her breakfast into a tiny accordion and pretends to play it. "A little conjunto music, ladies and gentlemen. Please welcome la señorita con la concertina, la señorita mas bonita, la señorita de las carnitas, la señorita de Suenos Malos." She sings, one of her favorite old folk songs. "Ay te dejo en San Antonio." I've already left you in San Antonio.
A few tourists look up, smiling hopefully, as if her song might redeem their wasted morning. The Alamo can be the ultimate anticlimax, the guaranteed disappointment to end all disappointments, at least for those who dream of wind-swept plains and a Davy Crockett who looked like John Wayne. "It's so small," outsiders always complain. "And there's a Burger King across the street." Personally, she likes the way the mission is plopped down in the middle of real life. Home of the Whopper meets the fort of the whopper, with all its little lies, all those stories told to make it cleaner, better, nicer. Davy Crockett swinging old Betsy, Jim Bowie groaning on his cot with a broken leg, William Barrett Travis drawing the line that separated the men from the boys. Death made people so pure. Did it matter if none of it was true? Did it matter if all of it was true?
"Maybe I should sing a few bars of the ‘Yellow Rose of Texas.' Bet I'd make some money before the Daughters kicked me out."
He isn't amused.
"If I help you, then you have to listen to me, do things my way. You have to stop doing shit like this. Nice and normal, remember? That's how you fly under the radar. Nice and normal."
"Who wants to be nice? Or normal?" She drops her makeshift accordion, begins breaking apart a scab on her calf. It reminds her of bacon, the way it crunches in her fingers. She scratches her shin, drawing fresh blood. Normal is giving up. Normal is everybody else, going on with their lives. Normal is the real sickness, the pretense that lets your body live while your soul shrivels inside. Besides, she wants him to know she's back in town, wants him to be aware of her. She wants him to sit up in bed at night, wondering if he just felt her hot breath on his neck. Tienes sueños, pobrecita?
Blood dribbles down her leg, warm as a teardrop. He grabs her hands, holding her fingers tight so she can't pick at herself anymore. "Everything you want, you'll have," he says, his voice almost pleading. "But you have to trust me."
She shakes her head up and down, pretending to agree, trusting no one and hoping no one trusts her. Everything you want. Men made such promises so easily. Alamo dinnerware, a new pearl necklace, a car upon high school graduation, a safe place in the world, love everlasting. It's her lot in life to have nothing she wants, she knows that now. She sees herself as she wants to be, sleeping peacefully, just like the photograph. Sees him as she wants him to be, screaming, screaming, screaming, his mouth as round and wide as the entrance to a carnival ride that never ends. C'mon scaredy cat, let's go through. She's ready. She's tall enough now—and old enough, and sad enough, and desperate enough.
She's ready.
Chapter 1
Tess Monaghan hated surveillance work, something of a problem for someone who made her living as a private investigator. Do what you love and you'll love what you do, they told her. Well, she loved everything else about her job. Loved being her own boss, loved being her only employee. She was even starting to love her gun, which she knew was kind of creepy. Unfortunately, surveillance work was a private investigator's bread-and-butter, and she loathed every minute of it, especially in the cause of romantic disputes. Besides, it was just so passive. All her life, she had hated waiting for things to happen. She yearned to be an instigator. Yet here she was again, slouched down in the front seat of her car, camera ready to document someone else's bad behavio
r.
She stared at the faded plaster king who welcomed guests to the Enchanted Castle Motor Court on Route 40. Time had not been kind to him—his purple coat had whitish spots that made it appear as if it were moth-eaten, his face was pitted, and one eye had faded away, so his once-genial smile was now more of a leer. Still, he made her feel nostalgic, for Maryland's past and for her own. There was a time, almost in her memory, when Route 40 was the major east-west highway across the state of Maryland and these kinds of campy stucco cottages had beckoned to travelers with neon promises of air-cooled rooms and fresh pies in the diner.
As for Tess, she had lost her own virginity in this particular motor court, at the allegedly sweet age of sixteen. The wine had been sweet at least. Mogen David, hijacked from her Gramma Weinstein's Seder almost two months earlier, because teenage Tess had been methodical about her bad behavior. The younger version was always plotting, looking ahead to the night when she could just get it over with—first drunk, first dope, first sex—mark another milestone on her path to adulthood. Why had she been in such a hurry? She couldn't even remember now. Anyway, it hadn't been bad, it hadn't been good. In fact, it wasn't unlike her early rowing practices. Sore muscles you didn't even know you had on the day after. But it got better, and she got better at it. Just like rowing.
This was the part she remembered the best: The motor court's diner had still been open then and afterwards she had blueberry pie, hot, with vanilla ice cream, the chubby king smiling benignly at her through the glass. That had been just perfect. To this day, blueberry pie made her blush. Now the diner was just a rusting aluminum shell. Despite the reputation fostered by the film Diner, Baltimore had a severe diner deficit, if you didn't count the modern, ersatz ones, and Tess sure didn't. "Where have you gone, Barry Levinson?" she sang softly to herself. "Charm City lifts its hungry eyes to you." No more diners, no more tin men. No Johnny U's Golden Arm, no Gino's, no Hot Shoppes Jr.'s, no Little Taverns.