Thin Air

"My name's Spenser," I said.

"So, what's the Middlesex DA want with me?" Delaney said.

He was a tallish man, gone soft, with a lot of broken blood vessels in his cheeks, and an ugly red vinyl hairpiece on top of his head. It didn't match his sideburns, but it probably wouldn't have matched anyone's sideburns except maybe Plastic Man's. He or the guy out front had confused the part about I-used-to-work-for-the-Middlesex-DA. I decided not to clarify it.

"Looking for information on a guy named Luis Deleon."

"You try 411?" Delaney smiled. He had big yellow teeth like a horse.

"He's not in the phone book," I said.

"Why you asking about him?"

"Missing persons case I'm on," I said. "Woman named Lisa St. Claire. I thought Deleon might know something about her."

"Why do you think that?"

"She's married now to somebody else, but they used to date."

"He a Cha Cha?"

"Yeah."

"She's Anglo?"

"Un huh."

Delaney shook his head. He glanced over toward the washroom and then glanced back at me.

"You think she's with him?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just thought I'd talk with him. See what he knew. You ever hear of him?"

"Deleon don't even sound spic, does it? Doesn't matter. Fucking cucarachas change their name around here every other day."

He looked at the washroom again and licked his lips. "You wa

"Sure."

He got up and headed for the lav. The door closed. I heard him cough, a deep ugly sound, then some silence. Then the flush of the toilet. The door opened and Delaney came out. He looked calmer, and as he passed me on the way to his desk, I smelled the booze on him. He sat down at his desk, his eyes bright. Booze was what he'd gone to the lavatory for. The toilet flush was just camouflage.

"So you think some spic's got your girl," he said.

I shook my head.

"I don't know if anyone's got the woman," I said. "She may be in Augusta, Georgia, for all I know, listening to Ray Charles records. You got any paper on this guy Deleon?"

"Paper? You mean like a rap sheet? Like a record?" Delaney laughed and the laugh turned into a cough and he coughed until he had to spit in his handkerchief. Still coughing, with his handkerchief pressed to his mouth, he stood and went back into the lav. He was gone a couple of minutes and when he came back he was carrying a bottle of Bushmill's Irish Whiskey. He sat down and put the whiskey on the desk near him.

"Fucking cough," he said when he got himself back to breathing. "Whiskey's only thing that'll stop it. You want a pop?"

"No thanks," I said.

Delaney took a cup from the side table by his desk and blew in it to clear the dust and poured maybe three inches of whiskey into the cup. He drank some. He downed about half of it and licked his lips. His eyes were bright now, and his face, reddened with broken veins, was brighter red.

"Ahh," Delaney said. "Mother's milk."

I knew the feeling. I'd never been a drunk, but I'd drunk enough to know the feeling, the sense of wellbeing as the whiskey eased through your system. It was a feeling that was hard to keep balanced and Delaney had the look of a man for whom it was getting harder. Keep the buzz without getting so drunk you couldn't function. It could be done, and Delaney was sort of doing it, living a life of never quite drunk and never at all sober, nursing the bottle in hidden sips until he got to the point where he couldn't hide the sips. It was no longer pleasure for him. It was need. Booze was no longer recreation. It was medicine.

"Where was I?" Delaney said.

"I asked if you had any record on Luis Deleon, and you laughed so hard you started coughing, and coughed so hard you started to spit up and then you went and got your bottle and now you're happy. You got any record on Luis Deleon?"

"What is this, spic fucking central? They all got records, and they all got twenty names and fifty addresses. You want to find out about some spic in Proctor, you talk to Freddie Santiago, or you go over to San Juan Hill. That's where it's happening for all the spics around here, man, Freddie or San Juan Hill. That's spic central, pal."

He drank the rest of his whiskey. And poured himself some more.

"Tell me about San Juan Hill," I said.

The whiskey was making him expansive. He leaned back in his chair. The bottle on the table now, no more pretense. He eyed the bottle. It was a new one, nearly full. He was able to relax. He knew where the next drink was.

"The spics are divided into two factions. One of them is San Juan Hill, the other one is Freddie Santiago."

"Is San Juan Hill a place?"

"Yeah, north end of the city. It used to be Irish and when it was we called it Galway Bay. My mother was born there. Then the Cha Chas came in and we moved out and now it's San Juan Hill."

"And Freddie Santiago?"

"Guy runs a place called Club del Aguadillano in the south end of town. He's the establishment, you know what I mean, sort of a spic Godfather. Kids in San Juan Hill broke with him maybe five, six years ago, and we don't know how organized they are, but you're in San Juan Hill, you're on the other side of whatever fight Freddie's in."

He sipped some more whiskey, held it in his mouth, then tilted his head and let it trickle down his throat. "You got anybody in there?"

"Anybody in where?"

"In San Juan Hill, in with Freddie Santiago."

"Shit no, man, Anglo won't last ten minutes under cover with one of the spic outfits, fuckers don't even speak English, most of them."

"I was thinking you might have some Hispanic officers."

Delaney laughed, started to cough, and swallowed some whiskey. The coughing subsided.

"His-pan-ic officers?" he started to laugh, caught himself, and drank again. "You think we're going to give one of those assholes a badge and a gun? They'd pawn the badge to buy dope and stick up the pawn shop afterwards."

"Any Spanish-speaking officers on the force?"

"Shit no. Freddie speaks English. We get along good with Freddie."

"I'll bet you do," I said.

Delaney paid no attention.

"Freddie's a businessman," Delaney said. "Runs a tight ship."

There was admiration in Delaney's voice.

"Gets a lot of dope and pussy traffic from the prep-school kids come in from Andover, and he don't want to scare them away. Walk around the south end, the streets are clean, the street lights work. There's zero street crime in Freddie's area."

"How about San Juan Hill?"

Delaney shook his head.

"Dodge City," he said. "Bunch of coked-up gang bangers. All we can do is pen them in up there, keep it on the Hill."

"You think Deleon might be co

"Deleon." Delaney shook his head, fumbled on the desk for his bottle, poured a little more into his cup. "What kind of fucking Spanish name is that? De-le-fucking-on?"

"Probably one of Ponce's offspring," I said.

"Well I don't know nothing about him."

"Could he be on San Juan Hill?"

"Sure, he could be up there, pal. Fucking Elvis could be up there singing `You ain't nothing but a hound dog,' you know?"

"Think Freddie Santiago would know?"