“I’d found this old jade necklace. Very beautiful. An authentic relic. I gave it to her, as a parting gift. But she was angry at me and simply broke it. The beads spilled over the floor.”
Ah. So that’s where the bead came from. Her mother had explained nothing about its provenance, simply telling Atl and Izel that it would get them a meeting with Bernardino, if they ever needed to meet with him.
“Perhaps she might have mentioned that time, with the soldaderas,” he said, bobbing his head up and down. Atl had no idea what he was talking about.
“She did not tell me about what happened during the Mexican Revolution.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Only that you’d been her friend and if I ever needed help I should look for you and Elisa,” Atl said. “I could not understand how she could say you’d been a friend to her when you were of a different clan, a Revenant of all things. It sounded crazy.”
“Most of the time we were not friends. Allies, perhaps, when circumstances demanded it. The last time she visited me, it was duty that compelled her. A favor, you might say. It doesn’t mean we’d forgiven each other, for our respective sins, but I suppose she thought she owed this to me.”
“What sins?” Atl asked.
“That’s a long story and much blood was spilled. But it was a long time ago. Long, long ago. I forget bits and pieces of it, but I remember her.”
The record had stopped spinning. Silence settled into the room. Bernardino stared at her.
“Your friend is here,” Bernardino said, his eyes still fixed on her.
True enough, she could recognize Domingo’s footsteps. Domingo peeped into the room. He shuffled his feet, giving Atl a shy glance.
“Are you busy?” the boy asked.
“No,” Atl said.
She was acutely aware of herself, of him. Having Bernardino around did not help, his eyes darting between Domingo and her with the expression someone might have when solving a crossword puzzle.
“It’s nearly ten o’clock. We need to talk to Elisa,” Atl said.
“You want to go to Garibaldi?” Domingo asked.
“Yes, of course I do. We have a meeting with her.”
“I can go by myself,” Domingo said. “You should stay here and rest.”
“I need to speak to her. I can’t just send you out, as if you were going on an errand.”
“But you’ve sent me on an errand before. You should—”
“I am not going to discuss this with you,” she said, cutting him off. She already had a headache and her arm was throbbing. She wanted very much to yell at him and tell him he had not been appointed her knight in shining armor.
“You look like shit. I bet you feel like it. You’re not strong enough to be running around the city,” he told her.
“I can take this. I don’t know if you’ve reali—” she began, unable to believe he was contradicting her.
“I’ll be going with you,” Bernardino said, interrupting her.
Atl stared at him.
“You will?” Domingo asked.
“You do have a point. Atl is not quite herself yet. She might need my strength.”
Domingo gave Atl a questioning look and she nodded stiffly. Despite her protestations she could feel her energy ebbing away and she had no desire to fight both of them on this point, damn them. But she’d have a chat with Domingo, later.
CHAPTER
30
It rained like a motherfucker. Ana stared out the window while the other detectives typed on their computers. Several of them were probably playing online poker or watching porn. She doubted any one of them did any real work. Ana certainly couldn’t work, not today.
Castillo had screwed her over again. Now that the case had grown bigger, she wasn’t the main detective handling it. It had gone to Luna, and the fool was spending his time giving interviews, happy to be getting his name out there. Typical attention whore.
Ana smoked her cigarette and watched the rain fall, turning everything gray. They weren’t supposed to smoke inside the building, but it didn’t matter. Nobody enforced it.
Her phone rang.
“I’m feeling like we could use a talk,” Kika said. She sounded way too chipper considering the circumstances.
“I’m working,” Ana muttered.
“Take a break. There’s a Chinese café a few blocks from you, the Blue Lotus. You know it?”
“I’ve walked by it.”
“See you soon, doll.”
Ana opened the window and flicked the cigarette butt outside. She grabbed her umbrella and walked six blocks until she reached the ratty, narrow café that Kika had mentioned. Maybe it had once been a “Chinese café,” back in the ’40s, when such establishments—a cross between a bakery and a restaurant—proliferated and popped up through downtown Mexico City, but little remained of its heritage except for its name, written on a flickering neon sign. Inside, sad, sparse paper lanterns hung from the ceiling and a calendar proclaimed it was the Year of the Snake. She had the impression the calendar was wrong but she didn’t quite remember the Chinese zodiac.
Kika sat near the back. She smiled at her and handed her a menu that was bent and stained. Chop suey sat next to enchiladas, a cacophony of dishes with no rhyme or reason.
“How’s your day going?” Kika asked.