Act of God

ransacked by somebody last Thursday into Friday.”
    “Ransacked?”
    “Yes. Anything she could have had that somebody Would want?”
    Another head shake, this one slow. “Wouldn’t know to tell you. Like I said, she wasn’t the confiding type.”
    “Cross also ask you where you were when Teagle was killed?”
    “Yes.” A little defiance behind it.
    “And I should ask her?”
    “No, I’ll be happy to tell you. I was at the store Saturday into Saturday night and all day Sunday, working with Lupe.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “The temp in Darbra’s office.”
    “So you were breaking her in.”
    “That’s right. She’s a good girl, learning fast.”
    “And you were working Saturday night, too.”
    “Like I said.”
    “Was Joel Bernstein?”
    Swindell stood. “You’ll have to take that up with him.” As she walked out, I guessed I’d be paying for the drinks.

    “Look this way at things. She not throw it in your face.” I said, “The way Darbra would have?”
    Grgo Radja shrugged as he sat in a different chair than Beverly Swindell had used. He glanced at her full cup, clean spoon.
    “There was something wrong with the coffee?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    The hooded eyes moved to my iced tea. “Yours?”
    “We just didn’t get around to them.”
    “You want try something else to drink?”
    “This is fine.”
    “I don’t want force you, but maybe you join Grgo in some slivovitz?”
    “What is it?”
    “Brandy from plum, Croatia drink.”
    I wondered if this meant he wanted to talk to me, especially given how tight he’d been about Abraham Rivkind and Darbra the first time I’d seen him. “Sure, thanks.” Radja bellowed out a foreign word, which brought the waiter running, then conversationally, “Slivovitz,” and something else.
    The waiter reappeared with a brown bottle, squat and oval, and two bell glasses half the size of a big brandy snifter. The waiter poured several ounces of the slivovitz into each glass. Then he left the bottle on the table and went back to the kitchen.
    I said to Radja, “If you’d like to smoke, I don’t mind.” He picked up his glass in both hands, rolling it between his palms like a potter with clay on a wheel. “The cigar is for me a sometime thing.” He looked to his hands. “This warm up the brandy, more flavor, but maybe you try first, see you like it.”
    I took a sip. Fiery, with a flavor like the plum sauce for a Szechuan moo shu. “Excellent.”
    “Yes, so. Cannot find the slivovitz here now, because of the wars over there. Slivovitz I think is only thing we agree about, Serb and Croat. In my country, they... but you not here to learn more about Croatia, eh?”
    “No, I’m not.”
    Radja nodded, more like a slight, sitting bow, and inhaled over his glass. The smudgy eyelids got dreamy, then he tossed half the drink at the back of his throat, making a thick sound of satisfaction. “Only a little is enough, you do things right way.”
    “That’s true.”
    The eyelids blinked slowly. “So, this Darbra, you find her?”
    “Not yet.”
    “You still ask about Mr. Rivkind?”
    “If you feel like talking about him.”
    “No. Not to tell you things. Maybe tell you not to ask things still.”
    I took another nip of the slivovitz. “Why is that?”
    “What can you find to help him now?”
    “I’m trying to help his wife.”
    “Same thing. A man and his wife, no good to find things, push things out can’t help nobody.”
    “What kind of things?”
    “Any kind. Mr. Rivkind, he good man. He no kind of man for you to ask question about.”
    “It’s my job.”
    “Maybe you need other job.”
    “I like this one.”
    In a lower voice, Radja said, “Maybe better you find other job still.”
    I tried warming my glass the way he had, my shoulders square to him. “Is that a suggestion or a threat?”
    Radja shrugged, the beard riding his collar like a surfboard on a wave. “Croat like me, we don’t make threats, just see what is right, and we do that.”
    I said, “Grgo, there some reason you didn’t want Mrs. Swindell to know we’d had a talk already?”
    He considered it, like he’d prepared a speech about it. “Mr. Rivkind good to me, save my restaurant because he bring his people here. I don’t want these people think Grgo talk to you. I don’t want you talk to these people, these good people, give them pain in their heart.”
    “Somebody already did that, by killing Abraham Rivkind. Darbra Proft is involved in this