Atticus

“You know, massage parlors, whores, the after-hours places.”

Atticus handed him the five-dollar bill. “You sell him a car by any chance?”

The kid hesitantly said, “Wasn’t no warranty to it or nothin’.”

“I know that. You have an accident in that Volkswagen you sold him?”

“No sir, I dint.”

“Was there just the original equipment on it?”

“I think so.” The kid furrowed his brow in a way that resembled profound contemplation. “Scott have an accident in it?”

“I think so.”

The kid halted in his walk and hung there for a half a minute, then hurried back up the beach as if his five-dollar bill would be lost if he stayed. Atticus headed toward Stuart’s villa on the cape, passing the pirate’s den of The Scorpion, with its blue neon and its palm-thatched roof and wooden deck and its dock leading out to some tied-up speedboats that rocked and smacked on the waves. Cerveza bottles and plastic glasses with green wedges of lime still in them were tipped and scattered over sand that was as gray as cigarette ash. And then there were some private homes that had the spiritless look of failed financial investments, places not slept in nor enjoyed but kept up by gardeners and maids who turned on the burglar alarms at night and went home. And at land’s end was Stuart’s grand pink villa and Renata in a soft white glamorous dress and a shawl, facing west on the lush green lawn to watch the sun flame out.

Evening dinner conversation was full of Stuart and his qualms about the high-speed trains that might rape Resurrección someday, the shoddy plastic plumbing in the house that was now being fouled with rainwater, the fancy condominiums that were being sold at a loss with the peso in such pitiful shape. Stuart talked about his bookstore and Publishers Weekly and a female employee who intentionally got pregnant, and that fed other topics that were passed around like bowls of food and handily put down in favor of others. Everything was kept light and tittering, though there was something fraught about their talk, as if there were levels of meaning that a visitor to their household would only hopelessly try to interpret. Renata flattered Stuart or held her silence while Stuart ruthlessly imitated friends or offered his firm opinions or quickly began arguments that were just as quickly forgotten. And Atticus turned his frosted glass of tonic water in his hand, imagining his son handling fall and winter nights like this, being as disquietingly quiet as he himself was, gently smiling at his company even while he fumed and ached inside.

He thought about the wrongness of much that he’d heard and seen in just two days. He considered asking Renata to go out and talk to the Mexican girl, but he felt unsure that he’d get anything further, that Renata was free to tell him the facts as she got them. Even now she was peculiar, flinching, private, scrutinizing, the first to start laughing, the first to stop, fairly timid in speech, tentative in action, for the most part seemingly uninterested in him. She was like a fresh, spoiled girl forced to eat with the old folks, and she couldn’t wait for the dinner to end. Was he murdered? she’d asked, and he’d said, I think so, and she still hadn’t asked him anything more.

Stuart finished the hollandaise sauce while delivering his assessment of the faltering real estate market, and Atticus questioned him about his own investments.

Renata said, with a hint of exasperation, “Stuart owns hotels.”

“I have partnerships in hotels,” he said, foolishly bowing to her. Stuart was falling into drunkenness, but he turned half around in his dining room chair and called, “Julia? Más vino por favor.”

Atticus filled his plate with fettucine. “Would it be likely I’d seen any of them?”

Stuart considered Atticus as if he’d found a fresh complexity in him. “It wouldn’t speak well of your sterling character. They’re in, how shall I say it?, a sportif part of our fair city.”

“Would that be Boystown?”

“Unexplored depths, Renata!” Stuart said. She failed to smile at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve been talking to taxi drivers?”

Atticus twisted fettucine on his fork. “I got big ears, is all.”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” Stuart said, and tilted away as a plump, happy maid named Julia poured a Chilean red wine into his goblet. “Oh, what is the name of that one, Renata?”

“Which?”

“Barry helped me refinance it. You know.”

“Casa Fantasía?”

“No, no, no! On El Camino, for god’s sake!”

“El Marinero,” she said.

Atticus held his face as it was.

“Yes! Exactly, darling. I blow you a kiss.” Stuart held up the Chilean wine and frowned at its label, then put it down again. “Would you like to hear about my stroke of genius, Atticus?”

“Anytime.”

“Wasn’t it a stroke of genius, Renata? Would you for god’s sake support me on that?”

Renata told Atticus, “Stuart advertised in the International Herald-Tribune.”