The Scared Stiff (19 page)

"Sure, there's a risk," he said. "And that's where we catch a lot of them. But there's other ways, better ways."

Fernando said, "Like what?"

"Well, take this fellow," Leon said. "His wife is Guerreran, from a pretty large family. Now, the odds are good, you know, that somebody in that family, some cousin, maybe even a brother, was born around the same time our man was born, and died young. So there's no records on him except his birth certificate and his death certificate."

"I see," Fernando said, in the tone of someone who suddenly grasps the entire scheme.

Dulce said, "Do you mean he'll pretend to be this other person?"

"More than pretend," Leon told her. "The first thing he'll do, he'll get that other person's birth certificate."

I pushed away my uneaten sherbet.

"Then," Leon went on, "he'll use that identification to get whatever else he needs. A driver's license, maybe even a passport."

I pushed away my undrunk espresso.

Dulce said, "So he can pretend to be that other person
here.
But what if he wants to go back north?"

"Why not?" Leon said. "He has ID."

Dulce shook her head. "It's hard to believe such people exist," she said.

"Oh, they exist," Leon assured her. "The statistics are amazing. In New York State alone, the fraud division of the state Department of Insurance handles twenty to thirty of these cases a year. In your state of California," he told me, "it's more like fifty a year.

"Wow," I said.

Fernando said, "So you think that's what happened this time. He's borrowing one of his wife's relatives."

"Exactly."

Dulce said, "Is there any way to check?"

"Absolutely," Leon said. "I have an appointment at the Hall of Records Friday morning. I intend to spend the day there."

"Doing what?" I tried to say, but my throat clogged. I cleared it and tried again. "Doing what?"

"Our man is thirty-five," he told me. "I'm going to check every death certificate from his wife's family from around thirty years ago. Any time I find somebody in the right age range I'll check the birth certificates to see if there's been a request for a copy recently."

"That's brilliant!" Fernando said.

"Just legwork," Leon said modestly. To me, he said, "You aren't eating, Keith."

"I may have caught a bug," I said. "I'm sorry, I wish I was better company."

No, no, they assured me, I'd been fine company. And so had they, I assured them, and I'd very much enjoyed the conversation, but I thought maybe the best thing for me right now was early to bed; thank you very much, yes, I'm sure I'll be fine in the morning; don't let me break up the party, you go on; I'll just go up to my room; good night, good night.

And phone. Mamá said, "Artie's out."

"Tell him it's Keith Emory," I said. "Can you tell him that?"

"Sure. I thought your voice — I thought you was somebody else."

"Keith Emory," I repeated. "I'm at Casa Montana Mojoca, and I want to do that tour we talked about, Arturo and me. I want him to pick me up at the hotel at nine tomorrow morning."

"That's kinda early," she said, sounding doubtful.

"In fact, it's late," I told her. "You tell him. Keith Emory. Nine in the morning."

"Good morning, Mr. Emory."

"Right on time."

Arturo held the door for me and I slid into the Impala's backseat. He got behind the wheel, looked at me in his mirror, and put the car in gear. As we drove out from under the porte cochere and around the curving drive away from the grand hotel, he said, "You look like you got something on your mind."

"Ifigenia," I said.

This time the look he gave me was puzzled.
"My
Ifigenia?"

"I'd hate to think there was more than one of them."

"Why? What's up?"

"You told her about this scam we're doing. You told her a while ago.

"Sure, man," he said. "I tell Ifigenia everything."

"And she tells the cops."

His frown now crumpled his face into a mountain range.
"Ifigenia?"

"She didn't want you involved with me, and she told you so."

"Sure," he said. We were driving now through the manicured forest, neither of us paying any attention to the scenery. Arturo said, "Ifigenia never likes nothing I'm gonna do. She bitches at me all the time."

"A month ago," I told him, "more than a month ago, she wrote a letter to the police, telling them what I was going to do and how you were gonna help, and asking the police to come tell us they know what we're up to so we won't do it."

"No!" he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Ifigenia sent that letter?"

"Anonymous, but yes. My name is the only name she mentioned."

"A month ago?"

"Or more."

"Come on, man," he said. "How come we didn't hear from the cops:

"The letter just got there. Your goddamn post office strikes again."

"You're sure, man?" He really didn't want to believe it.

I said, "I had dinner with the insurance investigator last night."

This time, when he looked at me in the mirror, he was half smiling, as though we were telling jokes together. "No, man," he said.

"Yes, man," I said. "His name is Leon Kaplan."

"That's what he told us, yeah."

"That's what he told me too. He went to college years ago in Boston with Dulce's husband Fernando."

"Oh, man, that's crazy," he said. "That's a, whaddaya call it.
Coincidencia."

"Coincidence," I said.

That delighted him. "Yeah? The same word!"

"Another coincidence," I said. "Except it isn't, not exactly. Guerrera's a small country, not that many people go to college in the North. And it wasn't Kaplan's case to begin with; he took it over because he wanted to see his old friend again."

"Huh."

I leaned forward, my forearms on the seat back behind him. "Arturo," I said, "they were gonna pay off. They were all ready to pay the money when that letter showed up. The reason that son of a bitch is here is because that letter showed up."

"Oh, I'm sorry,
hermano,"
he said. "I wouldn't think she'd do a thing like that."

I sat back again. The river was just coming into view. "Well, she would," I said. "And she did. Not to hurt you, to protect you."

"She always nags and pushes at me, you know," he said. "That's why I can't be with her all the time. I love her, man, but she drives me crazy. But this… She musta figured, Get the cops in ahead of time, nobody's gonna be in trouble."

"I trusted you," I said. "You trusted Ifigenia. She trusted the post office. We were all wrong."

"Oh,
hermano
, don't say that."

The ferry was there, and the man in the green-and-white uniform gestured for us to drive aboard, so Arturo couldn't say anymore until we'd boarded and stopped. Then he turned around to look at me directly and say, "I don't know what to do about her. The letter's already gone. Whaddaya want me to do?"

"Nothing about Ifigenia," I said. "We've got another problem. Let's get out of the car."

The ferry was moving. There was another taxi aboard, in front of us, with an old couple in it. Their driver got out and nodded to us, but the old couple stayed in the cab.

Arturo and I stood at the rail and looked at the river. Across the way, the other ferry was just pulling out. Arturo said, "What's our other problem?"

"Tomorrow, Leon Kaplan plans to spend all day in the Hall of Records. He's gonna look at death certificates from the Tobón family from thirty years ago and compare them with recent requests for birth certificates."

Arturo sighed. "He's gonna find Felicio, man."

"If I was still at Luz's," I said, "or still at Carlos's, I wouldn't know a thing about this, and tomorrow Lola would be on her way to jail."

"Oh, man."

"He told me so. Last night. He smells the fraud and he wants to prove it, and he said, and I'm gonna quote him, That lady's on her way to jail."

"Not Lola," he said.

"We've got today," I told him. "I don't know how we do it, but we get that death certificate out of the records."

Arturo scrinched his face up. "Get rid of Felicio's death certificate? How we gonna do that?"

"We've got a whole ferry ride to come up with an answer," I said.

The ferry approaching us also had two vehicles on it, both of them trucks bringing provisions to the hotel. One was a slat-sided truck weighed down with cartons of canned goods, and the other was that same beer truck we'd seen the first time. The driver of the beer truck waved, and I waved back. Beside me, Arturo sighed.

Arturo's house in San Cristobal turned out to be more upscale than I would have guessed. It was on a nice residential street in the outskirts of town, all the houses along here being concrete block covered with stucco and painted bright colors, most with cement porches and painted tin roofs. Several, including Arturo's, had chain-link fences defining the property. There was a driveway gate, but it was open, so Arturo just turned in and stopped on the concrete pad beside the house. A number of toys and tricycles were on the weedy lawn.

Arturo had insisted on coming here first, because he said he needed to speak severely to Ifigenia and also because he had an idea involving a cousin of hers. "More cousins," I said.

"We got cousins by the dozens," he agreed, "but some cousins are better than other cousins."

So here we were, and Arturo got out of the car and went marching into the house. I was still in the backseat, the window open beside me, and the first thing I heard was a very loud female voice. Then I heard a very loud male voice. Then I heard them both, and then I just heard him, and then it became very quiet.

Too quiet, for too long. What was going on in there? I sat for ten minutes, not liking this, wondering if I should go into the house, a little afraid of what I would find there. Arturo was usually an easygoing guy, but he was also big, and if he got mad he could do some real damage. What should I do?

The front door opened, and a woman came out. She carried something in front of her in both hands, like a cake. She was buxom, in a sexy kind of way, with great billowing waves of gleaming black hair all around her face. She wore a lot of makeup and a scarlet peasant blouse and black toreador pants and a white apron. Her stiletto heels clacked on the concrete floor of the porch.

She came down the stoop and turned toward me, and I saw she was crying. Not sobbing, just with tears running down her cheeks and a tragic expression.

It took her awhile to get to the car because her heels kept sinking into the lawn. She'd take a step forward, rock back, take the next step forward, rock back; and all the while weeping. What she carried was actually a white cake of some kind, round, about seven inches wide, with something dark gold poured over the top and running down the sides here and there.

Was this Ifigenia? Was she going to throw a pie in my face? What was going on?

Behind her, Arturo came out the front door, looking solemn. The woman reached the car. She extended her arms, putting the cake through the open window, offering it like a sacrifice, lowering it so I had to take it and hold the cut-glass plate it was on from underneath on both my palms.

The woman looked at me with great dark eyes in a wet tragic face, all her makeup running. "I sorry," she said, and turned around, and step-rocked, step-rocked, back toward the house. Now that her hands were free, she wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.

She and Arturo passed each other on the stoop, he coming down. He started to say something to her, but she vigorously waved him off, turning her head away, holding the apron to her face. She hurried on up the stoop and into the house, as Arturo came back to the car. He gave me a weak grin and a headshake as he walked around the front, and then he got behind the wheel.

I said, "Arturo? What was that?"

"Ifigenia," he said. "I 'splained the situation to her, and she's sorry."

"She said she was sorry."

"Well, she is," he said, and started the engine, and backed the Impala into the street. "She just gets too whaddaya call it, dramatic. Dramatic."

I hefted the cake or whatever it was. I said, "But what's this?"

"That's to say she's sorry, man." We were driving down the street now, turning toward downtown San Cristobal. "She just make that, so she give it to you, say she's sorry."

"But what am I supposed to do with it?"

He raised an eyebrow at me in the mirror. "Do with it? You're supposed to give it to
me.
That isn't gringo food."

"Wait wait wait," I said. "What is it, Arturo, what is this?"

"Quesillo,"
he said. "It's like a caramel custard, like a flan. It's a great dessert. Ifigenia makes great desserts. But not for you."

"She gave it to me, Arturo. She gave it to
me."

"We don't have to fight over it," he told me. "You wanna know what it tastes like, I'll give you a piece."

"Arturo, she gave it to
me.
And," I said, "I am getting tired of holding it on my lap. But if I put it on the seat, it'll fall over or something."

He pulled to a stop at the curb and twisted around. "Give it to me, I'll put it on the floor in front."

I didn't trust him. "Arturo," I said, "just remember who she gave it to."

"Sure, sure," he said. "We'll talk about it later. Gimme."

So I gave it to him, and he put it on the floor in front on the passenger side, and wedged it into position with a couple of beer bottles against the edge of the plate.

"There. It's safe now," he said, and we drove on.

I said, "Arturo, excuse me, can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure," he said. "Why not? You're my brother now, remember?"

"That house back there," I said. "Can you really afford that?"

"Who, me? No way, man."

"Then who pays for it? I'm sorry if I shouldn't ask that—"

"No, no, man, Ifigenia pays for it. She's rich, man."

"Oh, yeah? What, did she inherit money?"