No Happy Ending

Poisoned Pen Press

Chapter One

There's a dead Roman in the bathroom."

"When he's done pissing tell him to drop by and say hello," said Héctor Belascoarán Shayne.

A late, lazy, hot afternoon lingered outside the window.

"This isn't a joke," said the upholsterer Carlos Vargas from the doorway.

Héctor stared out at the clouds moving slowly over his piece of city. "Does he have a spear? Any Roman worth his salt's got to have a spear."

"I said he's dead!"

Héctor got up from the leather swivel chair where he'd whiled away what was left of the afternoon, and looked carefully at his officemate.

The upholsterer leaned against the doorjamb, his face pale, distractedly swinging a small hammer in one hand.

With a limp that was due partly to an old wound and partly because he'd left one shoe behind him under the desk, Héctor walked toward the door. He raised his left hand to his head and ran it roughly through his hair, as if to physically shake off his drowsiness.

"What about a helmet? Has he got a helmet?" Héctor tried one last joke, but the upholsterer's expression didn't change.

Was there really a dead Roman in the bathroom?

Carlos led the way down the ruined hall, the afternoon light filtering through the doorway onto the peeling walls painted a malignant green.

"Yes, he's got a helmet," said Carlos as he pushed open the bathroom door.

A Roman foot soldier sat on the toilet, staring at the tile floor, his throat slashed.

Blood oozed slowly down the brass breastplate, over the short, pleated skirt, the hairy legs, and into one sandal. A helmet with a faded plume rested on his head. A long wooden spear leaned against the wall.

"They've gone too far this time," Héctor muttered, cautiously lifting the Roman's chin. A four-inch gash cut across his throat.

"Who?"

"The sons of bitches who killed this guy."

The dead man looked at Héctor through bugged-out eyes. He was about fifty years old, with a stubbly growth of beard above a thick double chin. Héctor couldn't keep a shiver from running up his spine despite the absurdity of the situation.

He let go of the chin and the head sagged back toward the man's chest, partly covering the gash across his throat. There was blood on Héctor's hand. He wiped it off on the Roman's skirt.

"So what do we do now?"

"We search him," said Belascoarán, inserting his hand behind the metal breastplate etched with dragons and swords and into the pocket of a shirt cut off at the sleeves to give the Roman an authentic, period look.

"Car keys, a hundred pesos, an advertisement for a tailor's shop, an electric bill ..." he recited as he brought the items out and stashed each one in his pants pocket.

"There's something in his sock," said Carlos, pointing.

Héctor pulled a plastic-coated ID card from one of the dead man's incongruous socks and shoved it in his pocket without looking at it.

"Let's go, neighbor."

"Where to?"

"Anywhere but here. I don't like this. You can't just let people go around killing Romans in your bathroom."

The upholsterer, hammer in hand, turned back toward the office. Héctor got there before him.

The afternoon was starting to fade. He found his shoe under the wingback chair, collected his jacket from the coatrack, took his .45 automatic from his desk drawer, and slid it into his shoulder holster. They locked the office door behind them.

At that moment the elevator motor kicked into action.

"Quick! The stairs!"

"What if it's Gilberto?" asked the detective.

The two men eyed the metal grating. A song rose up from the elevator shaft, over the noise from the motor and the stillness of their held-in breath: a ranchera, sung loudly and off-key.

"It's Gilberto," said Héctor. Carlos nodded.

"What's up?" asked the plumber—the third member of that strange community that occupied the fourth-floor office of the building on the corner of Bucareli and Artículo 123—as the elevator door slid open.

"Let's go," said Héctor, pushing Gilberto back into the elevator, with Carlos right behind him.

"What's the big hurry? A guy comes into work feeling like getting something done for a change, and they won't even let him into his own office," Gilberto protested unsuccessfully.

"There's a dead Roman in the bathroom," said Carlos.

"Roman? Like a Roman orgy kind of Roman?" Gilberto Gómez Letras asked with sudden interest.

"He's got his fucking throat cut from here to here," said Carlos, with an appropriately emphatic gesture.

"Yeah, right. What're you guys trying to pull? Let's see ... what'd you do, go and hire a secretary behind my back and you've been up there balling her all afternoon ..."

Héctor leaned silently in one corner of the elevator. Who would want to get him mixed up in a murder like this? And what for? What was the idea of killing a guy dressed up like a Roman soldier?

"... what's her name, Amber Eden, Graciela Putricia?"

The elevator door opened and the three men went out, Gilberto still trying to convince his friends to let him go up and meet the new secretary.

Dodging traffic, they crossed the street and went into a Chinese restaurant. Héctor chose a booth where he could watch the door to their building. It was starting to get dark.

"Two cafés con leche, donuts, and a hot chocolate," said Héctor to the restaurant's owner. "Now let me think for a minute."

"It's no joke, Gilberto, there really is a dead Roman up there."

"Yeah, right. So what's her name?"

"Forget it, Gilberto. You don't have what it takes. All you'll ever have is those hookers you like so much out in Nezahualcóyotl. You want a secretary, you got to show some class."

The traffic got heavier. A pair of shoeshine boys played soccer between the cars with a ball of wadded-up paper.

"There goes El Gallo. Go get him and bring him over here," said Héctor. The upholsterer, who was sitting closest to the door, jumped up and ran out into the street. A car braked noisily.

A moment later, the sewer engineer Javier Villareal, alias El Gallo, sat in the booth with his three officemates.

"What's going on around here?"

"Will you believe me if I tell you there's a dead Roman in our bathroom?" asked Héctor.

"What can I say? In the two years since I've been sharing an office with you, I've seen two shootouts, a case of poisoned soft drinks, and a kindergarten party. One time Gilberto rented it out as a practice space for a salsa band, and another time some old geezer tried to stab me with a knife. What's a dead Roman to me?"

"You guys aren't fooling, are you?" asked Gilberto.

"Hot chocolate and donuts," ordered El Gallo.

* * *

Early the next morning a motorcycle messenger delivered a manila envelope to Héctor Belascoarán Shayne's apartment, pocketed his tip, and drove away. Héctor stood watching after him in the open doorway, bleary-eyed, the envelope in his hand.

After gulping down two glasses of grapefruit juice mixed from a greenish powder, he sat down at the kitchen table and tore...