CHAPTER 22 #2
“Fine,” he conceded. “I’d still like to learn about him.”
She handed him a glass bowl. “I wanted to tell you a long time ago.”
“Really?”
“Of course! You think I like pretending to have only one son?”
“Then why did you?”
She shook her head and sighed. “A lot of reasons.”
“I wanna hear them.”
She reassessed him. “Okay.”
Good. That had gone well. She was willing to be open.
Diego just had to make sure he didn’t jump the gun and ask the only question that really mattered: Where could he find the bastard?
After they finished with the dishes, they gathered in the living room.
Lucinda had him shuffle some things around to free up a plastic bin that was filled with old photos.
He didn’t care about most of them, since they were of Oscar and Lorenzo as children.
“Who’s the white guy?” Diego asked, puzzled that his grandma and her two boys were hanging out with some geezer at a poor-man’s version of Disneyland.
“My second husband,” she said.
Diego shook his head. “I don’t remember him.”
“You wouldn’t. Ralph died before you were born. As far as Lorenzo was concerned, that was his father. He was too young to remember Carlos. Oscar was old enough though. He never took to either of them.”
“Hey, this must be your dad!” Ricky said in excitement after plucking a photo from the plastic bin. “He looks just like you. Or I guess it’s the other way around.”
Diego snatched the photo from him, his stomach lurching when he saw Lorenzo looking much the way he remembered.
A little younger perhaps. As for the man standing at his side…
Diego had often wondered what having a sibling would be like.
Now he had a better idea. Shorter than him and lankier, their faces were very much the same.
Oscar’s was framed by dark hair parted in the middle in a style typical for the seventies.
His eyes were almost black and had a mean glint.
“You always reminded me of him,” Lucinda said.
“Is that a good thing?” Diego challenged.
His grandmother’s response was noncommittal. “It’s simply the way things are.”
“Here’s another!”
Ricky had found a whole stack. Diego flipped through them, focusing intently on the man rather than his surroundings.
Oscar rarely smiled. He often held a beer or had a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
Whoever was pointing the camera at him had surely hoped for more than the dead emotionless stare.
“He seems like a miserable piece of shit,” Diego grumbled.
Lucinda swatted the back of his head, but not hard enough to hurt.
“Watch your language. And no, he wasn’t a very happy boy.
The divorce was hard on him. So was moving here.
Ralph wasn’t a natural father. He didn’t have kids of his own.
He wasn’t a very patient man. I thought maybe they needed discipline.
We didn’t have much structure before him.
Carlos was an alcoholic. Ralph was no saint, but he was better than that. ”
Boo-fucking-hoo. Oscar was raised by a hard-nosed jerk. That didn’t excuse anything he’d done. Especially since… “Lorenzo seemed to turn out fine.”
Lucinda nodded. “Ralph was softer on him. Maybe because he was so young. I think that made it easier to see Lorenzo as his own. Oscar was already…” She shrugged. “The way he is.”
“A troublemaker?” Ricky asked with a grin, like it was a charming personality trait.
“Yes,” Lucinda replied, her tone somber. “He does have a knack for getting himself into trouble.”
“Now we know where you get it from,” Ricky said, failing to read the room. “You’ve got to meet each other. Hey, does Oscar live around here?”
Bless his little inquisitive heart! The question sounded perfectly innocent coming from him.
“I’m not sure,” Lucinda replied. “I haven’t seen him for years.”
“Oh.” Ricky slumped. “Do you have his phone number?”
Diego watched his grandmother shake her head before artfully changing the subject. “This was his first car,” she said, passing him a photo.
Diego was no longer a kid who could be easily distracted.
He only took note of the Roadrunner to ensure he’d never drive one.
Hell, he probably wouldn’t even touch a Plymouth again, just to avoid being anything like the man who shared the same face as him.
He made sure his own remained impassive as they went through more photos.
Diego was certain that his grandmother knew more than she was letting on. Perhaps mixed company was the issue.
“We should probably get cleaned up,” he suggested. “You wanna go first?”
“Huh?” Ricky blinked. “Oh. Sure.”
Diego fetched him a clean towel. Once his boyfriend was locked in the bathroom and he could hear the water running, Diego returned to the living room.
Lucinda was putting the photos away.
“I need to find Oscar,” he said.
She eyed him a moment. “Why?”
Diego prided himself on being honest. He despised liars. But what he said next stretched the truth to its absolute limits. “Because he’s my dad.”
His grandmother sighed. Then she patted the couch next to her. Diego sat down, his pulse racing. He was close now! Enough that he swore he could taste blood.
“I haven’t heard from him in years.”
“So you said. Is that unusual?”
“Yes. Oscar was involved in some nasty business. He would never tell me what. I only know that it involved trips across the border.”
“Drug running,” Diego stated.
“Could be. The last time I saw him, he was taking one of those trips.”
Diego’s frustration skyrocketed. If the asshole had managed to disappear across the border… Actually, it didn’t matter. Diego would hunt him down. Even if that meant searching all of Mexico. “Someone must know where to find him.”
Lucinda thought about it. “His best friend, maybe.”
“Who?”
“Hector. They often made those trips together. I saw him a few months ago. I didn’t realize he was still in El Paso.”
“And you didn’t ask him?”
“I was on the bus. He was standing on a street corner. By the time I got off at the next stop, he was gone.”
“But you looked for him?”
“Of course!”
Diego realized that he had an ally. They weren’t on the same side, considering what he planned to do, but for now, they both wanted to know where Oscar was. “Tell me everything you can about Hector. I’ll find him.”
She didn’t have much to go on, but after some digging around, she was able to produce a photo and the names of a few of their former haunts.
“They used to always drink together at MacDoogle’s,” she said.
“I had to pick them up from there once, when the bartender took his keys. I don’t think it’s open anymore. ”
He got the address from her, just in case. Diego heard the shower stop. Time was running out, and there was one more very important question.
“How did Lorenzo learn that I wasn’t his?” he asked. “I know a test result made him suspicious, but Mom said he got into an argument with his brother on a trip down here. Did you hear any of that?”
Lucinda shook her head. “Oscar was always giving him a hard time. I think he resented Lorenzo for having it easier when they were kids. And a better life as an adult. Lorenzo had a wife, a kid, his own business… I think Oscar wanted to take him down a notch. He was drunk.”
“So he told him.”
Lucinda shook her head again. “I don’t know what he said.”
But he’d clearly said something and it caused ripples—no, a tidal wave—that took a life and destroyed two others. Oscar was guilty. A trial wasn’t necessary. Diego didn’t care about justice. All that mattered to him now was being the executioner, because he was certain.
His biological father deserved to die.