Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

frustrated package. How many times do you think
you'd
have to hear ‘Ewww. Gross,’ before you never picked up a pan again?”
    “I might be tempted to pan-fry a ten-year-old.”
    “Oh, I was. I made the mistake of complaining to Marty, but she took it the wrong way.”
    “Had her own agenda, did she?”
    “Invited Esperanza to sleep over, and me to cook with her, for both girls. She was going to show me how a woman—therefore an expert—did it.” He stopped there, but I thought he wanted to say more.
    “Don’t tell me,” I said. “She wanted you to sleep over, too.”
    He said, “I don’t see why a man and a woman can’t just be friends. Do you?”
    I couldn’t answer. I had a whole shrimp in my mouth. Quickly he said, “I didn’t mean you and me, of course.”
    “It’s not the worst idea I ever heard.”
    “We’ll see.” I could have sworn the comers of his mouth turned up ever so slightly, as if the battle was won and he knew it. “Shall we go buy you a car?”
    I nearly choked on my tekka maki.
    “You need a really beautiful car. Gorgeous woman like you. Professional woman. Something jazzy. Something people can see coming for miles away. Something that says, ‘I’m Rebecca Schwartz and I’m
zooming
at you.'”
    Was he kidding? I didn’t even wear nail polish. “I don’t know if I’m the zooming type.”
    * * *
     
    “Something in a Mercedes?” He headed his silver compact toward a dealership.
    My throat was closing. “Julio. I can’t.”
    “What do you mean you can’t?” He opened the door, took my hand, and pulled me out, seeming not to notice the resistance I offered.
    A salesman hustled up, a dapper black man in a gray suit, smoothing his jacket. “Beautiful day. Gorgeous day for a new Mercedes. Happy to meet you, sir. My name’s Parker Fraley.”
    Julio made introductions.
    “Know what they call me ’round here? Black Magic. You prob’ly think it’s ’cause I work a silver-tongue spell on folks, don’t let ’em out of here without a new Mercedes. It’s not that, though, not that at all. It’s ’cause I can make anybody smile, you know that?”
    My stomach turned over. He was about to tell the one about the lawyers and the lab rats, I could feel it.
    Julio said, “I thought maybe a 560 SL.”
    “Little convertible. Perfect day for it. You know, you just got to be happy on a day like this—middle of August, almost back to school time. Tell you what—we’re having a back-to-school sale today. I’m gon’ give you a little ol’ 560 so cheap, you gon’ want two of ’em.”
    He opened the door of a sleek red convertible. “You’re the one buyin’, aren’t you, Ms. Schwartz? Jus’ sit behind the wheel of this little baby and see if you ever want to get in another car again.”
    “I can’t.”
    Julio said, “What’s this, ‘I can’t’?”
    “It’s against my—I just can’t, that’s all.”
    Julio blushed. The incredibly handsome, self-assured Mr. Julio Soto turned the same color as the car. “Omigod. The Germans. Magic, I’m really sorry. Another day, okay?”
    He hustled me back in his car before I figured out what was going on.
    “Rebecca, I forgot. I never thought you might have a thing about German cars. I can’t believe how stupid I am.”
    “Julio, stop. It’s nothing to do with being Jewish. I don’t know how to break it to you, but I’m a liberal.”
    The fact that he was driving stopped him not for a moment—he turned and stared, as if at my marbles, even now rolling out the window and onto the road. “I don’t get it,” he said finally.
    “I don’t want an ostentatious car.”
    “You don’t want—what?” He stopped, sputtering, took a moment, and collected himself. Finally he said, “Rebecca, here is your problem. You are not from Southern California. As I may have mentioned, I grew up in Santa Barbara, a town half the size of Berkeley with Rolls-Royce
and
Jaguar dealerships. And if you didn’t grow up in Southern California, you know nothing about cars. Believe them, because it’s true. You’re not qualified to pick out a car because you don’t understand the true purpose of a car, which is not, repeat
not
, to get from one place to another. A car has one purpose and one purpose only.
    “The right kind of buses, with a little planning, could be convenient as hell, carpooling— You know what? Even walking. Walking wouldn’t be half-bad for most things, but we never walk. We are busily polluting the planet