Page 58 of Passions in Death
She watched a couple of street LCs grab a cart meal before they started their nightly stroll. A woman in micro shorts and a sports bra stepped out on a third-floor fire escape and watered a wilting pot of flowers. A skinny white cat with black markings sat on the windowsill and watched her.
She passed a market with fruit stalls flanking the entrance. It smelled like summer.
A guy in a backward fielder’s cap sold knockoff designer wrist units at a sidewalk table. He had a couple of tourists on the hook.
They’d be better off with a sundial, but you lived and you learned.
The after-work crowd began to flood the sidewalks, fast walking, talking on ’links, heading home or for drinks, an early meal. She passed a bar where happy hour spilled out to the sidewalk tables, and like the fire escape flowers, people wilted in the heat.
More poured up or down the steps at subway stations.
She turned a corner and watched a man in a business suit swooshing his way down the block on an airboard.
She caught snatches of conversation.
Frankie can fuck himself with a cactus.
We need to lock down that account.
My feet are killing me. Are you sure we’re going the right way?
Then turned once more and stopped at the first address.
Surprised, she studied a townhome of painted white brick with a pot of flowers, not wilted, on the stoop.
Three tidy stories with solid security and windows shining clean, it nestled between another set of townhomes and a Mexican restaurant called Abuela’s with sidewalk service under a red-and-white-striped awning.
ChiChi must be a hell of a stripper, Eve thought, and walked up to press the buzzer.
Though the entrance had an intercom, there was no answer, not even from an annoying program. She gave it one more buzz, and a woman stepped out of the next door, leading a little rat dog.
“She’s not home.”
Eve stepped down, walked over to the woman with battleship-gray hair worn in a top bun. She wore a flowered dress over a body whittled down, to Eve’s eye, by a solid eight decades. She had a face of sharp bones, golden skin, lively dark eyes, and bold red lips.
Beside her the little rat dog sniffed at Eve’s boots. Then yipped and yapped as if someone had kicked it in the ribs.
It bounced like a spring.
The woman snapped something at it in Spanish, and it sat, just staring at Eve with slightly crazed eyes.
“Do you know if Ms. Lopez would be at work?”
“Of course she’s at work! We earn a living in our family. This is about poor Erin. A sweet girl, an artist.” The woman crossed herself. “God has welcomed her into his arms, but too soon for those who knew and loved her.”
Then she pointed a finger at Eve. “I know police when I see police. What do you want with our ChiChi? I’m her abuela.”
“You’re her grandmother?”
“Didn’t I say so? This is my place.” She gestured to the restaurant. “The family business. But ChiChi, she has no skill for cooking, for this business. She has other skills.”
The abuela smiled.
“Yes, ma’am. You knew Erin Albright?”
“A good friend of my granddaughter, a friend of our family. Our priest will dedicate a mass to her. Why do you need to talk to ChiChi?”
“It’s routine, ma’am.”
