Find Her a Grave by Collin Wilcox

Jack knew how to live, and he was always good to me. Always. But then, about a year after Jack died, I met a man named Walter Draper.” As she said it, her eyes fell, her voice dropped, her shoulders went slack. “He had a restaurant here, in San Francisco. Two restaurants, in fact. And he wanted me to move up here, move in with him. He’d just been divorced—for the third time. That should’ve warned me. He said he’d had it with marriage. No more. But—well—Walter was exciting. He made a lot of money, and he spent a lot. He even had his own airplane. And we—well—” She hesitated, then ventured, “We got along. Sexually, I mean. That part—the sex—was great. Except that when Walter drank—got drunk—the sex got rough. And the longer we were together, the rougher it got.”
    “You moved in with him, then. Here. In San Francisco.”
    “Right. My father warned me—begged me not to do it. He was worried what it’d do to Angela. And, God, he was right. She was only sixteen when we moved up here. At first, I thought it’d be all right for Angela. She liked San Francisco, still does. Walter used to take her flying, and she loved that. She even learned to fly. She got a license and everything. And she liked her high school, too. She made lots of friends. She’s—well, you saw her. She’s beautiful. So, of course, the boys started coming around. And girls, too. Angela has always been good at that—not making the other girls jealous, because of her looks.
    “But then—” Louise waved a dispirited hand. “It all started to come apart, after a couple of years. Until finally, one night, Walter went wild. He—he went after both of us. Me, and Angela, too. Angela, you see, had moved out, once she graduated from high school. She couldn’t stand it, living in the same house with Walter. She moved in with her boyfriend. But then she had a fight with her boyfriend, and she moved back in. Just temporarily, just until I could help her find her own place. But then, the second night after she came back, Walter got drunk. He went after both of us. Me and Angela. He—” Suddenly her voice caught. Fighting tears, she began to shake her head. Would she cry? Bawl?
    “That’s all right,” Bacardo said. “Never mind that.”
    With great effort, she raised her head, looked at him directly. Yes, Bacardo had known. Of course Bacardo had known. She’d told her father what Draper had done. A week later Draper was in the hospital, both legs broken at the knees, plus internal injuries.
    “So you and Angela moved in together. Here.”
    She nodded. “Yes. For now, anyhow.” As she said it, she guessed at the reason for his questions. He wanted to know whether there was a man in her life—or in Angela’s life. She saw him look at his watch, then shift on the sofa to square his body with hers. The time had come to transact business.
    “Your father—” Bacardo paused, searching for the words. “He told me to get in touch with you as soon as I could after he died. He told you about it—told you what we have to do.”
    “The—” She swallowed, dropped her voice. “The jewels, you mean.”
    “That’s right.” Heavily, with a note of finality, he nodded. “The jewels. He told you what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to tell each other the words. That’ll tell us where the jewels are. Then we have to get them. And then you’ve got to figure out what to do with them.”
    Hesitantly, she nodded. From the back bedroom, the sound of music had ceased. She saw Bacardo’s eyes shift as the silence lengthened. Until, yes, the music began again.
    “Do you have a safe-deposit box?”
    “Yes. But it’s Friday night. And the banks’re closed tomorrow.”
    “Well, it might not matter.” Bacardo rose, went down the hallway until he could verify that Angela’s door was closed and the music was still loud. Now he returned to the sofa. Leaning toward her, he spoke quietly, carefully measuring the words: “What Don Carlo