Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

“He had this boy workin’ for him. He looked Latino himself.” He shook his head. “No, not Latino. Because, you know? There is a difference. Latinos are like more South American, and they have Indian—Native American—blood in them. They are more beautiful, you feel me? Their skin is darker and smoother, their eyes are deeper, their hair is blacker. Hispanic, the word comes from España, and the Spanish are more mixed. They have more European blood in them, There were Celts living in Spain, and Goths and Basques. You get a lot of blond Spaniards, did you know that? And a lot of Spaniards have real pale skin.” He pointed at me with his manacled hands. “Those that have dark skin, that is Arab blood, not Native American. It’s a different skin altogether, man. They are like Italians and Greek. Not beautiful at all.”

I nodded. “OK.”

“So, this kid was more Hispanic than Latino. Black hair, big brown eyes, he could have been a…” He grinned. “He could have been a Corleoni, or a Gambini, you know what I’m sayin’ to you?”

“But he wasn’t.”

“Uh-uh. This kid’s name was like yours, Stone, of English origin. Mine, mine is Scottish. Are you interested in the etymology of names, Stone?”

“No, not really, and you’re clowning again. Get to the point, Wayne.”

He winked without smiling, pointed a finger at me like a gun from a manacled wrist and made a “Tsc!” sound. “You got me.” He was serious for a bit, thinking. “Let me tell it my way, Detective Stone. You’re getting what you want. You know…?” He nodded a few times, then shrugged. “Maybe, if you listen, you might get something extra.”

“Fine, keep going. He wasn’t Italian Mafia.”

“No, he wasn’t that, though if the mood took him he might have told you he was. Here’s the thing about that boy. He was always tellin’ you stories. His mom was a Mexican hooker from Los Angeles. His daddy was a film star.” He laughed. “He’d never tell you who, you know what I’m sayin’? But he’d leave you clues, like, real obvious clues—like, he’d tell you what movies he starred in.” He threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Sometimes it was Robert De Niro, sometimes it was Al Pacino, one time it was George Clooney, and that I could almost believe, you know? He kind of looked like George Clooney… them big eyes.”

He chuckled. I waited.

“He was a liar. A big liar. He could not help himself. Me and Ted, we would laugh and joke about it. He never did nobody any harm with his stories. He was just a dreamer and he could not tell the difference half the time ’tween what was a daydream and what was real.” He settled his ass in the chair. “But see, I think that’s where the problem was. ‘Cause, I told you this was kind of like a family bar. During the day all kinds of people would come in and have some lunch, or a coffee. It was a nice place. And see, he had an eye for nice, Catholic Latinas. I used to make fun of him sometimes and he didn’t like it. Used to make him mad. I’d tell him, ‘I see you, looking at that girl. She’s too god for you, boy. She’s gonna be a doctor, or an attorney.’” He shook his head. “Then he’d go off on one of his fantasies. He was studyin’ night school to be a film director, and his famous daddy was gonna help him. He was just workin’ at the bar to pay for his classes…” He shook his head again. “Man, I guess it was pretty sad.”

I drew breath to ask him about his delusions about being a filmmaker, but he raised a finger and shook his head. “Let me tell it my way, Mr. Stone. You’ll get everything you want. You have my word.” He licked his lips and took a deep breath through his nose, looking up at the ceiling. “So, I began to notice, because, believe it or not, Stone, I am an observer of human conduct. I began to observe that in the evenings, and sometimes during the day, he would approach certain girls, always the same kind of girls, pretty Latinas, always kind of what you might call demure: nice, polite, well-dressed. They would always keep to theirselves, drink maybe a glass of white wine, never get drunk. You know the kind of nice, Catholic girl I am talkin’ about. And I do believe that he fell in love with each and every one of them. They would ignore him to begin with, but he’d come across as inoffensive, a bit naïve, you know what I’m sayin’? And before you knew it he was tellin’ them his stories and they was wanting to mother him, because all nice Catholic girls just wanna be mothers, you know? They want to be the Virgin Mary. It’s an archetype thing, you feel me?”

“I feel you, dude. So what happened?”

“So one night he’s talking to these two chicks, only one of them is Latina, the other is a white chick. And the Latina is suckin’ it up, man. He’s tellin’ her his daddy is George Clooney and all that shit…” He wheezed his laugh, leaning forward and shaking his head. “And she is buyin’ it, man. And, you know what? The next night she comes back alone, and dude, the son of a bitch is hitting on her big time and she is into him, man! I never knew he had it in him. I see him do it a couple of times. And I told Ted, you know? ‘Man, Ted, respect for this kid! He’s getting’ more pussy than I am, dude!’”

He paused and became serious again. “It was, ahh… Saturday night, May 14th. I’d been havin’ a few