Del Rio by Jane Rosenthal

Author:Jane Rosenthal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Back in my room, my neighbor wrapped the hideous bedspread around me, its musty pom-poms in my face, and handed me a glass of water. “You okay?” he asked. “Can you take some deep breaths?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t really talk. My teeth were chattering, my hand shaking too much to hold the glass. I gave it back to him. Jim Fletcher was dead. Not that I intended to spill any material facts to this man. Actually, I wanted him to leave, just leave. Jim Fletcher was dead. I needed to think about what that meant. I needed to be alone.

“I’m Nathan, by the way.”

I nodded and pulled the bedspread more tightly around me, thinking, Go, go.

He stood up, but he didn’t walk to the door, just stood by the window below, where the body was still hanging off the roof. I realized Nathan and I were stuck here. Neither of us was going to be able to leave until the soldiers removed it.

“Here’s the weird thing.” Nathan sat on the bed next to me, his words almost a whisper. “I knew those people.”

As soft as his voice was, it was as if he’d slapped me, like in the old movies where the cop smacks a blubbering dame and says, “Snap out of it, Myrtle.”

Snap out of it, Callie, I told myself. Focus. Don’t give anything away. “What do you mean, you knew them?” I hoped I sounded normal, at least for the situation at hand, not overly anxious to know the answer.

Suddenly, he was telling me more than I could have imagined. Ventana Azul, Birds of Paradise, Marco and Don Cacho, a dwarf, Bud and Fletcher. All of them. “And then there was this French guy named Francois. I think he took off on this Cacho guy’s yacht. It was all very weird, like some horrible dream.” He started to laugh. “Sorry,” he said. “Inappropriate, I know. I was just thinking the stupidest thing. I should have bought trip insurance. I had a friend who went to India, and someone died on this expensive trip. He’d purchased trip insurance, and they paid him back because someone else died, paid him every last dime he spent. Wonder what I could get for this experience. Sorry, not funny, I know. I’m just babbling.”

I held up my hand and motioned that I wanted to get past him. Dragging my bedspread with me, I walked to my bag, pulled out my bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and waved it in Nathan’s direction. He shook his head. I got a glass from the desk and poured a slug. “So, Nathan, you have a last name?” It was probably too pushy, but he surprised me. He handed me a card. Nathan Bernstein, it read. PROFESSOR OF ART HISTORY, UC BERKELEY.

“How’d you get here?” I mean, who knew who this guy really was? So far, no one here was what or who they said they were. Even me. Seriously, I was not about to believe some card from a fancy university.

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