Page 13 of Ghostlighted
She chuckled. “He thought about Yale, but he said he couldn’t betray Harvard that way, so he is staying.”
“Can you mail everything to him?” I asked.
She shook her head. “His address is changing, but even it had not, Guillermo does not trust delivery services with such large checks. He says their employees cannot always be trusted. He has studied many cases of theft in his classes, he told me. But I can no longer do what I used to.”
I exchanged a glance with Ricky, whose expression had gone suspiciously blank, so I had to ask. “What did you used to do?”
“Oh, I would give the check to Carson to take to Guillermo. He often attended real estate conferences in Boston, so they both assured me it was no trouble. But now that Carson is away, I don’t know what to do.”
Carson was away, all right, although ten years wasn’t nearly enough, in my opinion. It should have been twenty-five to life.
“I planned to throw him a graduation party,” she said to me.
“Yes, Ricky told me.”
She sighed. “That would have been so perfect. His friends and family could have celebrated with him, and I could have given him the tuition check and his gift as well.”
“You’re giving himmoremoney, Tia?”
“Bah. Money is not the important thing.” She beamed. “In my scrapbooking group, I have been working on a special album for him, with many memories from his life. It is very large, though, so I am not certain how to get it to him.”
Ricky draped an arm across her shoulder and gave her a sideways hug. “Don’t worry, Tia. We’ll figure something out.”
“You are such a good boy, Enrique.” She gave his chest a pat and then shook out her apron. “Now I will get you two some iced tea. You’ve been working hard and must be thirsty.”
“You don’t have to do that on my account, Sofia.”
“It is no trouble. I will be back inmediatamente.”
Ricky and I stood shoulder to shoulder, watching her climb the porch steps and disappear into the house.
“Let me get this straight,” I said slowly. “She pays for his tuition—hisHarvardtuition—out of pocket and he can’t even be bothered to come here to pick up the check?”
“He claims he doesn’t want to incur the expense of the flight. Since that would be paid by Tia too.”
“Why can’t she just pay the school directly? It’s all electronic now, anyway.”
“He says he doesn’t want to bother her with bills, and she doesn’t even have a credit card anymore after her last one got hit with thousands of dollars of charges from a resort in Belize.”
“Damn. Did her card get stolen at the same time as that jewelry theft?”
“No. It was several years ago, and the card was never out of her possession. The number just got spoofed.” He shrugged. “It happens. Saul took care of it for her, no charge. It was one of the last things he did before he retired from his law practice.”
“So she pays cash for everything now?”
Ricky lowered his chin and gave me aget reallook, and I got it.
“Ah. She doesn’t have to. Because you do her grocery shopping.”
“Me or my sister, although Felicia isn’t eighteen yet, so there are some things she can’t buy.”
“Does Sofia reimburse you?”
He snorted. “I’m not going to demand money from her for trivial things.”
“Right. Trivial things, like food and medicine.”
It occurred to me again that I had no idea what Ricky’s actual job was. He always seemed to have time to fill in at Taqueria Vargas if the restaurant was short staffed, spend an entire morning in the middle of the week planting his godmother’s garden, or show up whenever hapless ghostwriters needed their locks cleared out.
