“The INS, for one. Take the Ramirezes. When they got here, they barely spoke English but is anyone checking their El Salvador visas or whichever? They cut hair real well, everyone’s happy they’re here.” Cupping smooth, bronze cranial skin. “Not that I’m an expert.”

He turned the wheel easily, drove up a packed-earth driveway, pointed to a double-wide set well back from the road and preceded by an acre of weeds. “This is Mrs. Wembley’s place — and there she is, looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER
14

The trailer was shaded by an aluminum awning. As we rolled forward, a rotund pink form in an armchair looked up. At ten feet away, a mouth opened in a strawberry-pudding face and a magazine waved.

“Put some speed on, George. You’re the law, no one’s going to cite you.”

Cardenas said, “Don’t want to churn up your dirt, Mrs. Wembley.”

“Churn away,” she said. “Maybe something’ll grow.”

We parked, made our way through dead brush. Mrs. Wembley remained in her chair. A pink Las Vegas: Fun Fun Fun!!! sweatshirt matched her complexion. Gray sweatpants strained to package her thighs. Her feet dangled an inch above the porch boards. The rest of her body overflowed the confines of the chair.

As Cardenas began the introductions, she broke in, flashing a denture grin. “I’m Mavis, Missus was my mother-in-law and we don’t want to remember her with anything but unpleasantness.”

Pudgy fingers gripped mine and squeezed hard.

She said, “You’re a cute one.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“George is cute, too. That’s why I make sure critters visit, so I get to see my knight in khaki armor — this time you sent your sister, George. Is it my breath?”

“Ricki had some time—”

“Just kidding, Galahad. So serious. So tell me, that ca-yote was something, huh? Vicious teeth. Where’d she let it go?”

“Far enough.”

“I think she resents me for calling you all the time.”

She smoothed pleated white hair, tweaked a bulbous nose. Her cheeks glowed, smooth as a child’s. Fat’s a great wrinkle filler.

Cardenas said, “Of course she doesn’t.”

Mavis Wembley said, “She most certainly does,” and massaged an arm of her throne. The chair was slip-covered in blue-and-white duck cloth, like something from a Hamptons pictorial. Everything else on the porch was tubular aluminum and plastic straps.

“New upholstery?” said Cardenas.

Mavis Wembley slapped her magazine against a dimpled knee. “Like it?”

“Very pretty.”

“Pottery Barn, George. Love those catalogs, the whole world opens up to you. Especially suited for living in a metropolis like this one.”

Another slap of the magazine. The New Yorker.

Cardenas said, “Didn’t know you subscribe.”