Chapter 2 - THE RESTAURANT ON QUEENS BOULEVARD
Mateo Vasquez was waiting in the kitchen of his small restaurant when
Tony found him. A pot of tomato sauce simmered on the stove, but Mateo
looked like a man waiting for a sentence.
“Sit down,” I told him.
“I didn’t know what she saw,” he said immediately.
“Tell me what you do know.”
“Elena came home three nights ago and said she saw men putting someone
into a car. She was frightened. She said one of them looked like a man
who sometimes came here.”
“Marco?”
Mateo nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I owed you money. Because men like Marco made it clear that
talking would make things worse. And because I thought keeping my
daughter away from it would keep her safe.”
I noticed a child’s drawing taped beside the kitchen door. It showed a
brown dog with a huge head and a red collar. Underneath, in crooked
purple letters, Elena had written: BRUNO IS A GOOD BOY.
“Why did she draw my dog?”
“She met him once. You brought him here when your men came to discuss
the loan. Elena gave him a piece of chicken from her lunch. She talked
about him for weeks.”
I remembered the afternoon. Bruno had been unusually gentle with a child
who approached him without fear.
“Did she have a phone?”
“A little blue one. It was old. I bought it for emergencies.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone.”
Mateo explained that Elena had called him at 6:10 p.m. and said she was
almost home. Minutes later, a car struck her near the school crossing.
The driver never stopped.
“Did the police find the car?”
“They said there were no cameras facing the road.”
I turned to Tony. “Find every camera within six blocks. Stores, buses,
traffic systems. Every one.”
Mateo’s hands trembled. “Please. If you find the man who did this, don’t
let him hurt another child.”
I couldn’t promise him justice. Men like me had spent years confusing
revenge with justice.
But I could promise him this.
“No one will touch you or Elena’s memory again.”
As we left, I took the drawing. Bruno sniffed it in the car and gave a
May you like
soft whine. Then he looked toward the restaurant.
He remembered her.
