“Maybe not. But we’re working together on this, remember? And she knows me. She trusts me. She’s a lot more likely to tell me her secrets than a stranger.”
His look took her measure. “You have to decide, Reina. Which you want more. The truth, or holding on to your romantic fantasy about Ralphie and his little widow.”
She realized she was biting her lower lip—and made herself stop. “I don’t think it’s a fantasy. But if it turns out that’s all it is, fine. I do want the truth. I want it more. I want it most of all.”
OUTSIDE, THE MUGGY morning had turned cloudy. When Rio left Phoebe, he rode his bike to Ralphie’s Place and took the alley around to the back as per Phoebe’s instructions of the day before. Behind the bar, he found a small loading area. A big green Dumpster stood against the building next to a wide roll-up aluminum door with a bolt-type lock. When he stuck the key Phoebe had given him into the lock, an alarm began beeping a warning from inside. The door slid upward with one easy shove and the alarm box was right there, on the wall inside, next to the door. He whipped out the card Phoebe had given him and punched in the code.
Silence. A low-wattage overhead light had come on. It cast a dim glow over a combination garage and storage area. Boxes and crates lined the bare brick walls and a red Chevy van, dinged and dented and probably about twenty years old, was parked nose-in on the left.
A red van.
A steel door a few feet from the front of the van would take him into the back rooms of the bar—if the key to the garage fit the lock, which Rio had a pretty good feeling it would.
First things first. Rio wheeled his bike in and parked it next to the van.
Then he gave the area a cursory check, reading the labels on the boxes, peering into an old microwave that had been left on top of a crate. He checked out the van, which was full-size with a flat front—the kind of vehicle—and the color—that had put an end to Ralphie Styles.
Inside, the van smelled of dust, with a faint hint of dampness. The rear seats had been removed and lint-spotted gray shag carpeting covered the floor.
In front, a dream catcher hung from the rearview mirror and a half-empty Aquafina bottle waited in the cup holder between the seats. Rio sat in the captain-style driver’s seat, leaned across to the passenger side and popped open the glove compartment: insurance up to date; registered to Phoebe Isabel Jacks.
He got out and went around and looked at the grill. It was original, he’d lay heavy odds on that. Original and intact. Around the edges of it you could make out the van’s original colors: silver and maroon. But the red paint job wasn’t new, just badly done, the shine faded out, dinged and rusting in spots. Rio got down on the concrete floor and looked under the front end. No surprises there. The undercarriage, like the grill, was worn but undamaged.
Whatever had smashed Ralphie flat, it wasn’t Phoebe’s old red van.
Rio got to his feet, brushed off his slacks, and moved on to the steel door that would take him into the bar. He was just sticking the key in the lock when he heard the soft whir of an engine and the crunching of tires on bits of gravel in the loading area behind him.
Pocketing the key, he put on his Clark Kent glasses, turned and strode between the van and his Softail. He stopped in plain view, just beyond the garage door.
The car was a yellow Camaro. Boone Gallagher unfolded his long frame from the low front seat. He had his left hand on the window of his open door, in plain sight. His right arm was down at his side, the hand not visible, tucked around behind him.
“Who the hell are you?” Gallagher demanded.
Rio raised both hands high and wide and put on his most harmless, ineffectual expression. “Rio Navarro. Phoebe gave me a key, said I could store my bike here.” He tipped his head back, in the direction of the Softail behind him.
Gallagher’s frown deepened, but his lean body relaxed a little. “Navarro. You the one Ralphie Styles left half this bar to?”
“That’s me.”
Gallagher bent slightly toward his car. When he straightened, he brought his right hand up: empty. He’d either decided he didn’t need his weapon, after all—or there was no gun. Rio figured the former, but in his line of work a man learned to suspect the worst. “No offense, man,” said Boone. “Things have been kind of tense around here lately, if you know what I mean.”
“I understand.”
“So I need to see a little ID.”
Rio almost smiled. Yesterday, Phoebe. Today, Darla Jo’s brother. They all had to see a little ID. “No offense taken. I’ll just ease it out. Slowly.”
“Yeah. Slowly.” Gallagher remained covered by the door of his car. “Good idea.”
Rio produced his wallet, flipped it to his driver’s license, and passed it over the driver’s door window to Boone, who grunted at the proof, and then flipped it down and studied Rio’s P.I. card.
Finally, with another grunt, he stepped free of the car door, shoving it shut, and gave Rio back his wallet. “Didn’t mean to be unsociable. I saw the garage wide open and you standin’ there and—”
“No need to explain.”
Boone tipped his red-brown head to the side and smiled in a cautiously friendly way. “Hey. I seen that bike before….”
Rio gave him an easy shrug. “I stopped in for a shot of tequila. Yesterday, around three or so. I met Phoebe then.”
Boone was frowning again. “I was here. I don’t remember you.”
“I got a haircut since, and I cleaned up a little.”
Boone nodded. Slowly. “Yeah. Okay.” He grinned. “My sister hates your damn guts even though she’s never met you, in case you didn’t know.” Rio decided he’d be wiser to say nothing to that. Boone held out his hand. “I’m Boone, Darla’s brother. Darla was Ralphie’s—”
“Wife. Yeah, I know.”
Boone’s grip was firm and dry. “You’re a P.I., huh? From Los Angel-eez.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, come on inside. I’ll brew us a pot of coffee and you can tell me about all the movie stars you know.”
RALPHIE AND DARLA’S marital bliss had begun and ended in a trailer park south of Northwest Tenth, a few blocks east of Meridian. Phoebe pulled into the park an hour after she showed Rio the door. The whole drive over there, she had a nervous feeling in her stomach and a heaviness in her heart. The sign at the entrance did bring a grin, though: Rose Rock Suburban Estates.
“Come on out to my estate,” Ralphie used to say with a wink.
Through the gray day, a misty rain was falling. It dripped from the sign, dribbled like slow tears from her windshield. Phoebe cruised past single-and double-wides in a rainbow of colors, each with its own little carport jutting off the side, shading small squares of patio with plastic lawn chairs and cast-iron smoker barbecues.
Ralphie’s trailer, down at the end and around the corner, was one of the nicer ones. White, with blue shutters, striped awnings and a small redwood deck, it boasted a cheerful row of dwarf nandinas behind a low brick border in front.
Things were looking a little ragged, though, since Ralphie’s death. A couple of potted daisies on the deck steps, thriving the last time Phoebe had come by, had dried up and died. The grass, once pristine, was scraggly and uncut, dotted with dandelion flowers. Phoebe shook her head at that. She’d talk to Boone, see if he could make a little time to mow the yard for his sister.
Darla’s three-year-old red Sebring convertible, bought a few months ago in one of Ralphie’s deals, sat alone beneath the two-car carport. They’d repoed Ralphie’s V-series Cadillac, hauled it