Excerpt of Mariachi Murder by D.R. Ransdell

“Andy, would you come up to my office for a minute?” I ripped off the broken E string and strapped the violin in its case. My instincts told me to be on guard, but what can you say when your boss makes a direct request? A decade older than I, he was more an uncle than an employer. “No problem, Rolando.” I worked my way through the kitchen, where Corinna was directing clean-up activities, exited through the restaurant’s back door, and trudged up the spiral stairs to the makeshift office on the second floor. Being called in was never a good sign. Usually it meant that Rolando needed a special favor. Even if he was willing to pay for it, the time/money ratio never worked out in my favor. Occasionally I’d resolved not to let Rolando Díaz get the best of me, but the results always backfired. I felt guilty if I didn’t do what he asked because I was indebted to him. Years earlier, he’d hired me to play at Noche Azul Restaurant even though I didn’t know enough mariachi arrangements to pull my weight. By now the restaurant was home. “Take a load off,” Rolando told me as he sat at the round table that dominated the room. “Want a brandy?” “All right,” I said cautiously as I sat across from him. For small favors he bribed me with beer. “Did everything go well tonight?” he asked. Since working my way up to the position of bandleader, I was responsible for decisions on stage. As we reached the end of one song, I called out the next. I had to balance tempos, give the musicians equal numbers of solos, and satisfy audience requests. In case of emergency I had to cover for the trumpet player by playing his melody lines on the violin or cover for a rhythm player by picking up the guitar. I liked the work and was good at it, but by the end of the night, the decision-making wore me out. “Things went fine until that drunk insisted on singing with us,” I said. Volunteer singers were a common nuisance. We didn’t mind the granddaughter belting out a favorite tune to her grandparents or the husband surprising his wife with a ballad, but when an audience member approached the stage Tecate in hand, we knew we were in trouble. “He wasn’t so bad,” Rolando said. This was not true. The balding crooner with the straw cowboy hat had started off beat and never found his way on. He mangled intonation as if it were a matter of style. As an extra embarrassment, after we beat him through “El moro de Cumpas,” a corrido about a famous horse race, he insisted on slaughtering “Pelea de gallos,” a huapango about a chicken fight. “The crowd loved him,” Rolando continued. “His friends loved him. Everyone else whipped out cell phones so they wouldn’t have to listen.” “Lighten up, Andy. You take everything too seriously.” “He forgot the last verse of ‘El oro de Cumpas.’” “Everybody knows which horse won the race. Big deal.” “I’m trying to save our audience from bad music.” “Hardly anyone noticed.” “I know, I know.” I always told myself not to be too critical, but then I didn’t listen. I tipped my glass towards Rolando in a drunk’s salute. “You didn’t call me up here to ask about tonight’s performance.” “You’re right, Andy. You’ve always been perceptive.” I didn’t reply. I could tell he was buttering me up, so I rehearsed excuses in my mind: “I can’t help you after hours because I’m expecting a call from my brother,” “I can’t open the restaurant for you tomorrow afternoon because I promised to help my elderly next-door neighbor,” or, best of all, “I can’t run errands for you because I promised to take my two nieces to the beach.” Rolando drained his shot and poured another. “I need to ask you a favor. I want you to keep an eye on my wife.” The metal sundials on my traje jingled as I lost my balance and nearly fell from the chair. Yiolanda strutted through Noche Azul in such skintight clothing that I was afraid she might stop breathing. Every night I kept an eye on her even though I promised myself not to. So many men fell at her feet that I didn’t want to get trampled in the crowd. “Why can’t you keep an eye on her yourself?” I asked. “I have to pop down to Mexico.” “At the height of the tourist season?” Rolando rarely left Squid Bay to travel forty minutes north to L.A., let alone to go anywhere else. “Yiolanda can run the restaurant,” he continued. “I’ve got to attend my sister’s granddaughter’s baptism in San Carlos. You’re looking at the godfather.” “Can’t it wait?” “She’s my only grandniece. I can’t refuse.” I took off my moño, a kind of floppy bow tie, and loosened my top shirt buttons. Squid Bay had broken a record that afternoon with a high of ninety-six. Since we’d barely hit July, the temperature signaled a miserable summer. We’d sweat all evening on stage even though we hadn’t worn our jackets. My boss rubbed his rough chin, which was evidence of a hurried shave. “You must think I’m stupid to have married a much younger woman.” “She’s not that young.” “When you’re fifty, a thirty-five-year-old is a teenager. Who knows what goes through that head of hers? One day she snaps at me and the next day she’s cooing. This is God’s way of punishing success.” “It’s not your fault you fell for her.” Yiolanda was the perfect fantasy because she didn’t work at flirting. It came as naturally as walking did to regular people. Once she got your attention, her pale eyes bored into you, egging you on. The feeling was always worse in the summer. On sweaty nights, she wore nothing under her dress. “Anyway,” I continued, “why me?”