Hostile Witness

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 27

"My mom's husband was gone, so when the job came at the Rayburn house she grabbed it. Worked like a slave, but what was she going to do? She had me and my brother to feed, put clothes on us. My brother, he was older than me. I was ten. Hell, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven living in that big house."

Rosa snorted at her ridiculous fantasy. She unrolled the fingers of one hand, poking holes in the sky with her rhinestone tipped nails.

"Why is it poor people are so friggin' stupid, huh? We think if we live between the walls and climb under those pretty white sheets in our little rooms in the back that we've made it to the big time. We're so damn grateful. I hate that shit. I look back, and I can't believe we ever fell for all his crap."

"Do you mind if we start at the beginning before we get to the crap part, Rosa?" Josie tossed back the drink their hostess had offered when it was clear they were going to be at this for a while.

Rosa had locked the door and flipped the open sign around. Marguerite's was closed. Not that anyone, as Rosa pointed out, would really care. The place was about to go belly up and she was just sticking around because that's what she did. She stuck around people and places and things until they broke down on her, shit on her, or just went away.

Josie could get behind that. When Rosa brought out the shot glasses, the salt, the limes, and the tequila, Josie was proud to drink with her. She saluted Rosa on the first two shots. They both sucked the salt from their hands, their dark heads tipping back, their long throats opening up to let the burning liquor slide down into their bellies. They sucked on the lime to cool their lips and Rosa refilled the tiny glasses. Josie nodded her thanks but kept this one in front of her, fingers lightly on the sides of the shot glass. Her eyes were trained on Rosa as she did her math. Rosa was twenty, maybe twenty-two at most but she seemed older by at least a decade. It was in the way she sat talking with them so casually, the way she drank so indifferently, and the way she let them know in the smallest ways that she was never relaxed enough not to be on her guard.

"Okay. You got the time; I'll give you the whole story."

She shot her liquor and pushed away the glass. Rosa spread her fingers to check out her nails. They were an expensive set, but she wasn't admiring her manicurist's handiwork. Rosa Cortanza was either thinking how far she'd come, or trying hard to remember way far back. She gave her head a little jerk, one of those very nifty gestures that street kids seemed to learn before they can walk. She wondered where Rosa had picked it up. Not living at Fritz Rayburn's house as the maid's kid.

"I was born here, in the U.S. My parents were wetbacks. I have a brother in Mexico somewhere. He went back home one Christmas before we started living at the Rayburn place. He couldn't get back into this country. My mom always meant to send money to get him but it never worked out. There was a sister after me. She died when she was little. Needed a heart or something. She died and then a little while later my brother went back to Mexico. My mother starts getting weird. She figures she's a failure because I was the only one left. You know all that shit about children being blessings from God. My mom really believed it. She figured she was cursed because she couldn't take care of her blessings. So that woman loved me to death. Like if she couldn't take care of me it meant that God was pissed at her and she'd go to hell."

"That's a lot to lay on a kid," Archer muttered.

"Tell me," Rosa laughed. "When my dad left for a better piece of ass I was really in for a treat. You'd think I'd been the Virgin birth. God was telling my mother that she had one more chance to get into heaven. Hey, either of you smoke?"

Archer and Josie shook their heads. Rosa shrugged. She was used to not getting what she asked for.

"It's okay. So, anyway, my mom couldn't keep the apartment without my dad's paycheck. She was cleaning houses. Forty bucks a pop. I used to think we were rich because she kept all that cash in a little box. I didn't know that's all we had. Most of it was ones and fives so it just looked like a lot of bucks." Her nails clicked against the chair back. "Hey, doesn't matter. Anyway, somehow she finds out about the job at the Rayburn place. It was a live-in gig. No more rent. I'd get to go to the Palisades' schools. God had dropped a damn plum in her lap. She spent all night on her knees giving thanks when she got that job."