Part 23 (1/2)
”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.”