The Accidental Detective

syllables.
    “Do you have insurance?”
    “Yeah, sure, I’m so careful my liability policies have liability policies.”
    “So you’re covered. Besides, I can’t see how Gonzales was damaged, other than by heaving so hard he broke a couple of blood vessels beneath his eyes. Those heal. Trust me.”
    “Yeah, but he was on the last year of a three-year contract and had an endorsement deal pending. Local, but still good, for some dealership. Now they don’t want him. The only endorsement Bandit could get is for Mylanta.”
    “That’s still your insurance company’s problem.”
    “Yeah, they’ll take care of their money,” Marquez said, “but me and my restaurant will be left for dead. I gotta
prove
this wasn’t my fault.”
    “How can I help you do that? I’m a private investigator, not a health inspector.”
    Herb Marquez walked over to the door and closed it.
    “I don’t trust no one, you understand? Not even people who worked for me for years. This is a jealous town and a jealous business. Someone wanted to hurt me, and they did it by pissing in Gonzales’s dinner.”
    Tess decided she was never going to eat out again as long as she lived.
    “Not literally,” Marquez added. “But someone doctored that dish. Forty people ate from that same pot Saturday night, and only one got sick. It’s not like I made him his own private batch.”
    “You told the press you did.”
    “Well, it sounded nice. I wanted him to feel special.”
    Tess had a hunch that a handsome thirty-five-year-old man who made $6 million a year for throwing a baseball 95 mph probably felt a little too special much of the time.
    “I pulled your inspections at the health department after you called me. You have had problems.”
    “Who hasn’t? But there’s a world of difference between getting caught with a line cook without a hairnet and serving someone rancid meat. If I had any of the original dish left, I could have had it tested, shown it was fine when it left here. But it was gone and the pot was washed long before he took the mound.”
    “Did he eat here or get takeout?”
    “We delivered it special to him, whenever he called. That’s why I wanted you. Your uncle says you do missing persons, right?”
    She didn’t bother to ask which uncle, just nodded. She had nine, all capable of volunteering her for this kind of favor.
    “I had a busboy, Armando Rivera. Dominican. He claimed to play baseball there, I don’t know, but I do know he was crazy for the game. Plays in Patterson Park every chance he gets. He begged me to let him take the food to Bandit. So I let him.”
    “Every time?”
    Marquez nodded. “Locally. When he was on the road, we shipped it to him. I’m guessin’ Armando delivered the food at least six times. You see, the first time he came in, it was coincidental-like, the night before opening day, and he was homesick for the food he grew up with in Miami—”
    “I know, I know.” Tess wanted to make the rotating wrist movement that a television director uses to get someone to speed up. The story had been repeated a dozen times in the media in the past week alone.
    “And he pitched a shutout, so he decided to eat it every night before a start,” Marquez continued. “And he told reporters about it, and people started coming because they thought
ropa vieja
was the fuckin’ fountain of youth, capable of rebuilding a guy’s arm. And now he thinks it ruined him. But it wasn’t my food. It was the busboy.”
    “Armando Rivera. Do you have an address for him? A phone?”
    “He didn’t have a phone.”
    “Okay, but he had to provide an address, for the W-2. Right?”
    Marquez dropped his head, a dog prepared for a scolding. “He didn’t exactly work on the books. The restaurant business has its own version of don’t ask, don’t tell. Armando said he lost his green card. I paid him in cash, he did his job, he was a good worker. That is, he was a good worker until he walked out of here Saturday night with Bandit’s food and disappeared.”
    “So, no address, no phone, no known associated. How do I find him?”
    “Hell, I don’t know—that’s why I hired you. He lived in East Baltimore, played ball in Patterson Park. Short guy, strong looking, very dark skin.”
    “Gee, I guess there aren’t too many Latinos in Baltimore who fit that description.” Tess sighed. It was going to be like looking for a needle in the haystack. No—more like a single grain of cayenne in
ropa vieja.
    T ESS