José smiled and asked if Jack wanted to come in and maybe look around. It was clear that he wanted to make a final sale for the day. Jack saw his opening. He went inside and pretended to look around, grateful that he had just enough cash on him to buy something on the small side. He opted for a beautiful yet small chair, one that he could easily take back to his hotel room.
“Your accent,” José said as he handed over the money. “Where is it from?”
“I’m American,” Jack said.
“Ah, but your Spanish is incredible.”
Jack considered telling José that he was half Italian and had learned from his mother. But he wanted to use that information to figure out where Tio Angelo was. He needed to time it all perfectly.
“Listen,” Jack said, drawing a finger down the sleek line of the back of the chair, “I don’t know anyone in Mexico City yet. I’m pretty new here. Just figuring out my life. You wouldn’t happen to know a good bar around here? I’m dying for a drink.”
It wasn’t hard to convince José to join him. Apparently, he had two toddlers at home who often screamed their heads off between dinner and bedtime. Jack laughed nervously, thinking back to when Kennedy, Penelope, and Gavin had been toddlers.Had there been a more beautiful time in his life? Had there ever been a time when he was more needed?
But he understood that many men bonded over loud toddlers and how “heinous” that time was, so he laughed.
José led him to a bar at the corner that showed soccer games and offered free peanuts. Jack ordered a beer, while José opted for tequila. José’s favorite soccer team was playing, and José was distracted, calling out for them to make a goal. It allowed Jack some time to think.
What did he want to get out of this? It felt fortuitous that it had happened like this at all. But he reckoned that José wouldn’t just give up information about his Tio Angelo, especially not if they were in business together. But what was José’s role in all this? Maybe he delivered drugs along with his furniture. Or maybe he was just friends with Tio Angelo. Maybe Tio Angelo had moved to Mexico City years ago, hiding out as his numerous drug operations continued to run rampant across the United States. Maybe he lived like a king.
All Jack wanted to do was come right out and ask how Angelo found him. But José’s fists were in the air, and he was howling with victory as his soccer team scored a goal that put them four to one. Jack high-fived José and pretended to celebrate with the others in the bar. They looked at him as though he mattered, if only because he liked the same team as them.
Things took off after that, even without Jack doing anything at all. José ordered them more tequila and talked to Jack about everything: his wife, his career, his love of Mexico City, and his gratefulness that he hadn’t moved to the United States when others had.
“Did you have family that left Mexico?” Jack asked, thinking of Ricki back home on the beach.
“My cousin left,” José said. Nothing about it indicated that José knew that Jack knew him.
“Where did he go?”
“He’s on a beach,” José said, laughing. “He’s a bit of a bum, if I’m honest. He never wanted to get married, have kids, or even have a real job. I help him out when I can.”
Jack’s ears rang. He drank the rest of his tequila and tried to come up with a question that would lead them both to Tio Angelo. But before he could, José drew his arm around Jack’s shoulders and said, “We need some real food. Come back to my house to celebrate.”
Jack knew this was risky. Maybe José had been pretending to be kind since they’d met and would lead him back to Angelo, back to defeat. But during the walk to José’s place, nothing seemed out of place. At the front door, they could hear the screaming and crying of José’s toddlers, plus the soft words coming from his wife as she tried to console them. José burst through the door, bringing more chaos. But the toddlers spontaneously stopped crying and waddled over to hug him and say, “Papa! Papa!” José’s smile was enormous. His pretty wife looked tired, but she came over, too, and kissed her husband and shook Jack’s hand.
After all that time in the hotel shivering, Jack felt overwhelmed with the warmth of that little kitchen in Mexico. José’s wife fetched them beers, put the kids to bed, and served them big platters of beans and rice, avocado, and chicken. There were tortilla chips in a big blue bowl. Jack ate heartily, chatting with José and his wife when she returned from the kids’ bedroom.
And then, just as Jack took a bite of flavorful, spicy chicken, his eyes flickered to the hall, where a photograph was hung in a thin silver frame. A cold shiver went down his spine. José followed his gaze, still smiling.
“Is that your father?” Jack asked, nodding toward the photograph of José and another man, an older man with dark hair streaked with gray.
José took a chip and crunched it. “Not my father, no. But he’s something of a guardian for us here in the city.”
“God bless him,” his wife affirmed.
“He doesn’t look Mexican,” Jack said, arching his eyebrow.
José’s wife snapped her fingers. “He’s Italian, in fact. He’s from Tuscany, I think.”
“Tuscany,” José affirmed. “That’s right.”
“What brought him here?” Jack asked.
“Business,” José said. He wore a soft, funny smile, as though he was proud of himself and his lies.
Jack’s heart pounded with intrigue. For the first time, he knew he was closer to Tio Angelo than Angelo could guess. José didn’t have any idea who he was.
But it meant he had to change the topic swiftly, if only to distract José.