“I didn’t tell her until after I got it.”
Vega hit the steering wheel and cursed back at the drivers who were honking and giving him the finger. He was probably the only male of his generation who was uninked and he intended to stay that way. All his musician friends had tattoos. A lot of cops did, too. Dolan had a great big Harley-Davidson eagle tattoo on his forearm.
Not Vega. He was squeamish about needles. He had a piercing in his left ear that he got back in his early twenties when he still thought he was going to make it as a guitarist. He’d nearly fainted from that. But even if he weren’t squeamish, he didn’t want his daughter marking up her body that way. A tattoo felt incompatible with her intellect and ambitions. How could anyone take her seriously as a doctor with that thing on her shoulder? Maybe it was simple prejudice on Vega’s part. But he suspected a lot of other people felt the same way, if not about their own bodies, then certainly about their children’s.
“How could you do that, chispita? Without asking either of us?”
“I’m eighteen. It’s my body!”
“And you’re my daughter!”
She turned to him. The light had left her eyes. “Yes, I’m your daughter,” she said in a soft, steely voice. “The daughter you practically drove out of your house this morning. The daughter who’s trying to take care of you when everyone else has turned away. I never judged you for shooting an unarmed man. And yet you judge me for getting a tattoo?”
“I’m just trying to make sure every door in life is open for you. Like Lita did for me.”
“One little rose on my shoulder isn’t going to close any doors,” said Joy. “The problem isn’t with the tattoo, Dad. It’s with the way you see me.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I want to be a doctor anymore.”
“Oh.” Vega tried to mask his disappointment but it sat there between them like a deflated balloon. Joy had wanted to be a doctor since she was twelve years old. Her dream had become his. He didn’t want to let it go.
“Can I ask what you do want to be?”
Joy rubbed a hand along the black fuzz of her jacket, stroking it like a kitten.
“I like working with young children a lot. Maybe a kindergarten teacher—”
“What? You want to waste your talents on—on—wip-ing snotty noses and teaching kids to crayon their ABCs?”
“Oh, that’s rich.” Joy rolled her eyes. “Coming from a man who shoots people for a living.”
Vega turned away without saying anything. Then he shifted the truck into gear and nosed back into traffic.
“Sorry, Dad,” she said after a minute. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“Forget about it.”
“If you want to talk—”
“I’m okay.”
Vega drove around St. Raymond’s Church looking for parking. He couldn’t find anything nearby so he parked about eight blocks away, around the corner from his mother’s old building. They’d have to walk back to the church. Vega grabbed his aviator sunglasses and Yankees baseball cap from his glove compartment and slipped them on.
“It’s not sunny out,” said Joy.
“That’s not why I’m wearing them,” said Vega. “I don’t want to chance getting recognized.”
“Is that why you haven’t shaved since you got home?”
Vega hadn’t really thought about it. But yeah. Maybe. He wanted to hide from the world. A beard was one way to do it. If he stayed on administrative leave long enough, maybe he’d grow out his hair, too.
St. Raymond’s was an imposing sandstone-colored church with filigreed stained-glass windows and twin spires that looked like cake decorations. The inside smelled of incense and lemon oil. There were no services going on so they were the only people in the nave with the exception of a janitor sweeping the pews, an older, heavyset Hispanic-looking man with a broad weathered face. Vega asked if Father Delgado was around.
“I’m not sure if he’s in the rectory, se?or. He was out making rounds at the hospital earlier. He will be here for Saturday evening Mass.”
“Is there any way you could find out if he’s in the rectory right now? It’s important that I speak to him.”
The janitor’s dark, sad eyes settled on Vega’s. He brushed a hand across his gray mustache. Vega sensed the man knew who he was. Was there no place any longer where his reputation didn’t precede him?
“I will see if I can find him.”
“Is there a bathroom around here?” asked Joy.