Sergei Kolyadenko.” He paused to see if the name meant anything to Grif, and Grif nodded. It was the same name Marin had given them. Baptista pointed to a tattoo, the number fourteen, which meant nothing to Grif. “We served together in Soledad. Now you give me something.”
“All right. This him?” Grif asked, pulling out the photo Marin had given him.
Baptista glanced at the copy. “Maybe.”
“Know what he was in for?” Grif asked, tucking the picture back in his jacket.
“Drugs. Weapons. Money laundering. He was too pussy for more than that.”
“Did he deal while you knew him?”
“We was all dealing back then . . . as your woman probably saw from my record,” Baptista added, voice hard. He threw an arm over the back of the sofa and sprawled. “But I ain’t in that shit anymore. Didn’t you hear?” His face grew a smile. “Crack is whack.”
“We’re not looking for crack, Mr. Baptista,” Grif said, his own voice crisp. He might be in Baptista’s home and on his turf, but he wasn’t going to roll, either. “We’re looking for krokodil.”
Baptista lifted a shoulder. “Never heard of it.”
“You will. It’s affecting people in this neighborhood, and it’s dangerous.”
Some softer emotion skittered across Baptista’s gaze, but it was gone too quickly to identify. “Is that what J.P. was on?”
“So you do know Jeap?” Grif said.
Baptista scoffed. “Don’t say it like it means something. Everyone knew Jeap. My abuela and his family knew each other on La Isla.” He jerked his head toward the kitchen where the old woman and Kit could be heard murmuring softly.
“And when was the last time you saw him?” Grif asked.
“Two, three weeks ago. With some hot chick and the tweekers you just found dead in Crazy Lettie’s place.”
Grif tilted his head. “How do you know they’re dead?”
“Because the heat don’t come to this neighborhood for the living.” He cocked his head. “And neither does the press.”
“And this hot chick?” Grif asked, wishing for Kit’s always-present notebook. “What did she look like?”
Now Baptista smiled, face almost going handsome. “Stacked. Long legs. Great ass. Crazy damned hair, though. Blue, the first time I saw her. Pink the next.”
And he shook his head as if to say, Kids these days.
“So she was here more than once?”
Baptista stopped shaking his head and sent Grif another piercing look. “I know you might find it hard to believe, but people do come here more than once.”
“Catch a name?” Grif said, undeterred.
“Why would I need a woman’s name?” Baptista said coolly.
Grif sighed, stared, and hoped Kit was having better luck in the kitchen.
The men,” the old woman began, surprising Kit, because she hadn’t been sure Baptista’s abuela spoke English. “They talk like they play cards, no? Their hands held close to their chest. Tea? I made it myself.”
Kit nodded once and took the seat that Marco Baptista had vacated. “Thank you, Ms. Baptista.”
“Josepha,” the woman corrected, eyes crinkling as she smiled. She placed a cup of steaming tea on the table, and Kit realized that she really had made the tea herself. Leaves and stray roots floated on the surface. The color was uneven, but it smelled of lemon and something muskier and unnamed.
“Don’t worry,” Josepha said, settling across from Kit, palms cupped around her own mug. “The men will argue some and when it’s all settled they will tell us their plans. We can then agree, or change their minds for them.”
Kit laughed, though she remained on guard. Hospitality usually made her melt into the moment, but the voices from the other room—the way Baptista had looked at her like an object instead of a subject—had her on edge. That, coupled with the foreign language and the corner altar and the exotic smells, made Kit feel as if she were in a foreign country without a map or guide or rudder to steer her back home.
“You’re very pretty, Ms. Craig. You look like the girls did when I was young.” Josepha smiled slightly, eyes far off as she remembered, nodding at Kit’s red-trimmed kimono dress. “I used to wear things like that, back on the island.”
And she’d probably been beautiful, Kit thought, because despite her humble home—and the wrinkles and the missing teeth—there was something regal about Josepha Baptista. Something her grandson, and life, hadn’t yet knocked out of her. Kit recognized it, and liked it.
“I wish I could have seen it all back then,” Kit said. “The fifties is the era I love the most.”
“An era you never lived?” Josepha asked, then