LA. Franco Mysteries: End Of Watch Part 23

"How much older than you was he?"

The question confounded Alvarez. Her face frizzled up. "I don't know. Maybe twelve, t'irteen years."

"Did he use for a long time?"

"All my life."

"Any of his friends still around? Anybody he woulda used with?"

"I don't know." Alvarez jumped up and started pacing. "Why all dese questions? Why you wanna know about Pablo? You t'ink he done somet'in'?"

"We think he mighta seen somethin'," Annie said.

"Well, he be dead now. I tell you. What he seen, only G.o.d know now."

"What was your brother's full name?"

"His full name?" Alvarez struggled again. "Pablo. Maybe he have middle name. I don't know."

"Pablo Cammayo?"

Alvarez bobbed her head. Loosing another cigarette from the pack she lit it off her stub.

Annie asked where her mother was.

"To my aunt's." Flora pointed with her chin. "She in da next buildin' over."

Done with Flora, the women crossed to the next building in the complex. Rather than take their chances in a project elevator, they climbed eight flights to the aunt's apartment. Both were breathing hard when they got to the landing.

"All that ice cream," Annie gasped, but Frank didn't answer. She was trying hard to ignore the smell of frying onions and old p.i.s.s, the drone of music and noticias and babies, the scrawled graffiti and stripped light fixtures.

She'd lived two floors below. Sixth floor. Below the bug line so mosquitoes and flies still found her on sweltering summer nights.

"Ready?" she asked Annie.

Annie nodded and they knocked. The apartment number was painted on the door in glitter and Frank's hand came away speckled in gold.

A broad woman, her gray hair in cornrows, opened up. Annie flashed and asked for Rosalia Calderon.

"Rosa," the woman called without taking her eyes off the cops, "look like your girl in trouble again."

CHAPTER 39.

Rosalia Calderon confirmed what her daughter had said. She had, might have, didn't know, a son named Pablo Arturo Cammayo, born in 1949 in Panama. She and her husband moved from Panama to New York in 1956. She did laundry and ironing, he took day labor. She eventually got secretarial work and he found electrical jobs. He died when Pablo was twelve.

"Hard times for everyone," she remarked, a quiet woman with sullen eyes. "I lose my husband. I lose my son. Soon my daughter..."

Annie said, "You have two other sons. Tell us about them."

"Edmundo, he's a mechanic for Ford. He's a good son. Given me t'ree grandbabies. And Roberto, he's a priest. That bwoy." She nodded with grave solemnity. "He was called. He always knew he was gwan be a man of the Lord. Even from a teeny bean of a bwoy."

Annie and Frank shared a glance.

"Always?" Annie asked.

"Always" the mother insisted.

"Didn't decide it later in life, in his teens?"

"No. Always he knew. My second husband, he called him Padrito, Little Fat'er."

"How was Roberto after Pablo disappeared?"

"He was always a quiet bwoy. Not joking all the time like Pablo and his father. Berto's more like me. He knows there's much pain in the world. He missed his brother, anyone can see that, but he just prayed more. All the time, Berto was prayin'."

"Did Roberto ever use drugs?"

Calderon looked disgusted. "Never. Not him. Not once. I tell you, he was a man of the Lord, even from a small bwoy."

"How did you find out Pablo was gone?"

"Berto. He said Pablo come to him in the night. That he was in trouble wit' a man over drugs. That the man wanted to kill him and he had to leave for a while. Bobo told me he stole money from my purse for him. I cried more for the money than that bwoy, I can tell you. I long since used up all my tears for that bwoy. My firstborn."

"Who's Bobo?"

A faraway smile flitted over Calderon's face. "Berto. When Flora was small she couldn't say Roberto. It came out Bobobo. We called him Bobo back then."

"Thank you, Mrs. Calderon."

Frank stood quickly.

Walking downstairs Annie smirked, "Still leavin' Monday?"

Eyes straight on the step in front of her Frank gave a joyless smile.

"Well," Annie said, "I think we better talk to the Father again."

"Let me ask you something. Can you be objective, Cammayo being a priest and all?"

Annie whirled. She lifted the ID around her neck. "I didn't get this sellin' Girl Scout cookies, Frank. You askin' whether I can do my job or not?"

"I just need to know."

"You just worry about yourself, cookie, and keep outta my way." Annie brushed past and Frank let her stomp ahead.

Back in the car, Annie gunned into traffic.

Frank explained, "It's just you being Catholic and him being a priest, it made me wonder."

"Yeah, well, don't wonder no more. You maybe let your personal life interfere with your work. Me? I got twenty-six years on the Job. You don't think I've ever worked a priest before? I could work the Pope if I hadda, cookie, so don't you worry about a chump like Cammayo."

"All right. Sorry."

Annie shook her head and grumbled. She fished through her purse and chomped on espres...o...b..ans. "It's Sunday, you know. I could be home, but what am I doin'? Runnin' around chasin' down a cold one for you, that's what I'm doin'. And what do I get for it? aAnnie, can you interview a priest?' No, this I do not need."

Staring out her window, Frank let Annie rant.

Annie parked at the precinct and Frank followed her upstairs. Annie flipped on her computer. Frank sat and watched.

"Think you could make coffee while I work?"

"You runnin' Pablo Cammayo?"

"Yeah. Wanna tell me how to do it?"

Frank bit off a smile and made the coffee.

After she brought Annie a "regular," meaning with a regular amount of cream and two sugars, Annie told the monitor, " aFraid we ain't gonna get much, this being asixty-nine and prior. Got somethin', though."

She hit the print b.u.t.ton and Frank retrieved the paper. Lifting a brow she read, "Nineteen seventy. Busted in Kansas. Armed robbery. Did half a nickel in Leavenworth. Paroled early."

Annie scrolled and typed. Her coffee got cold. At last she sat back, whipping off her reading gla.s.ses. "After that, nothin'. Probably shot a hot load and is pushin' up daisies in a Podunk Potter's Field. You know that's the odds, right?"

"Yeah," Frank agreed. "I still want to talk to Cammayo."

"He's got a five o'clock ma.s.s. It's one thirty. Ya already ruined my Sunday. Wanna ride to Brooklyn?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

CHAPTER 40.

Father Cammayo was at Our Lady Queen of the Angels. Obviously dismayed to see the women, he checked his watch. "Sunday's a busy day for me."

"It's my day off," Annie countered. "Surely you can spare ten minutes."

Cammayo looked at his watch again. "No more."

"Good. You tell us the truth, Father, and it shouldn't even take that."

"What truth might that be?"

"We talked to your sister Flora this mornin'. And your mother. Very nice women, both of aem. Very helpful. Very fond of you. Very respectful of how you've always wanted to be a priest. How you had the callin' since you were this high," Annie said with her hand over the floor. "So enough already with Franco's murder and your sudden epiphany. And tell ya the trut'," Annie confided, "your story wasn't that good the first time ya told it."

"What else did they tell you?"

"You're pressed for time, Father. We don't need to go into that. So tell us again why you're still takin' flowers to this man's grave."

"They wouldn't understand," he told his folded hands. "It was an epiphany. A vision, if you will. I'd always known I would be a priest, yes, in my head. But standing on the sidewalk that morning I knew it in my heart. That was when I truly felt touched by G.o.d, when Christ became real for me, a man of flesh and blood as I was, who suffered. But as I admitted, I was weak. I didn't want to suffer like Christ-choosing to follow a life of the spirit seemed less a trial than following a life of the flesh. And that morning I felt as if G.o.d had touched me personally, had approved my choice and offered His grace even though I felt it was a coward's way out. So it was an epiphany. And I still am grateful after all this time."

Frank clapped. "Nice, Father. Maybe it'll play in the pulpit but I'm not buying it."

"That's your choice," he conceded. Looking at his wrist again, he added, "Now I really must go."

Frank looked at her watch too. "Aw, you said ten minutes, Father. Don't tell me you're not a man of your word."

"If you don't believe me what else can I say?"

"Well," Annie responded. "You could tell us about Pablo."

Cammayo blinked. "Pablo."

"Yeah. Pablo."

"What about him?"

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Nineteen sixty-nine."

"Yeah, winter, right?" Aiming in the dark, Annie added, "The night of February twelfth, to be precise. What happened that night?"

Cammayo's Adam's apple rose and fell. "I don't know where my brother is."

Annie shot an eyebrow up. "I didn't ask ya that. I asked what happened that night."

"It was a long time ago. I was young. I don't remember."

Annie was crestfallen. "No disrespect, Father, but you're killin' me here. All my life a Cat'lic, and here's a Father lyin' to me. You're breakin' my heart here."

Frank interrupted. "Thing I wanna know is, how'd you know Franco died for three dollars?"

"What are you talking about?"