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Her expression reminded me of Mount Saint Helens right before it exploded.
“Okay, it didn’t prove a damn thing.” I raised my hand to eye level, squinting through the space between my thumb and index finger. “But didn’t seeing those bigots get theirs make you feel that much better?”
“Violence isn’t going to change their minds,” Jace said. “It isn’t going to make the problem go away. It only makes it worse.”
She had me there.
Jace looked both ways when she entered Fit to Print and smiled coyly at Rufugio Tapia. I followed her inside, but she wasn’t paying any attention to me.
“Hi,” she said as she moved toward him. It was a small word, yet she filled it with promise.
“Hello,” Tapia replied.
They stared into each other’s face, their eyes waltzing together in four-four time. She reached the counter and leaned halfway across it. Only he didn’t bend to meet her.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me, R.T.?” she asked.
Tapia gestured in my direction with his head.
“Don’t mind me,” I said. “Kiss the girl.”
Tapia found something on the counter to interest him. The young woman looked down and away. They weren’t going to kiss and the only explanation that I could think of was that she was white and he was Hispanic and there was a witness.
“Mind if I use this?” I asked, gesturing at the nearest Apple.
“Help yourself.”
I had stopped at Fit to Print to gain access to the Internet, using my credit card just the way my mysterious e-mailer must have. While I surfed, Tapia and the young woman bowed their heads toward each other and spoke softly. I tried to give them as much privacy as possible.
I had found all the names I wanted in the yearbook Suzi had lent me and was now looking for addresses. Dr. Dave Peterson was easy. He had his own Web site. I called his number in Mankato on my cell and arranged for an appointment the following morning. Grace Monteleone was now principal of West Mankato High School. I found her number easily enough, too, but I had to climb over three tiers of bureaucracy before I could arrange a meeting about an hour after I was set to speak with Dr. Peterson. Gene Hugoson, Brian Reif, and Nick Axelrod were all in Victoria. I recorded their addresses in my notebook and decided to visit them in person without calling first. It took a while to find Josiah Bloom. He was also in Victoria, but apparently he moved around quite a bit. I nearly gave up on Lynn Peyer before I found records of her numerous marriages and divorces. Unlike Monte, Lynn had changed her name three times and now went under the name Lynn Matousek. She also lived in Victoria.
I logged off the Apple. Tapia was standing next to me as I put on my jacket. The young woman was standing at the counter. She might have been waiting for a bus for all the attention she paid me. Tapia extended his hand and I shook it.
“I want to thank you for helping my girl.”
I grinned.
He said, “What?”
“ ‘My girl.’ I like the sound of it. I bet she does, too.”
Tapia suddenly found something on the floor that needed looking at. Jace began to blush. Her cheeks were the color of a winter sunset.
“Have you two ever read Romeo and Juliet?” I asked.
“You mean the story about the two lovers who die because their families hate each other so much they can’t be together?” Jace said. “That Romeo and Juliet?”
“Bad example,” I told her.
“You think?”
“There has been trouble in town recently between Latinos and Somalis and the white residents,” Tapia said.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Usual thing. Whites complain that immigrants are taking all the jobs, which is nonsense. The jobs they are taking—it’s in the slaughterhouse. People coming up here are taking the dangerous, low-paying jobs—the hard work, low-prestige work—that the white, U.S. born residents just won’t do. I don’t blame them. My father, he worked hard, so very hard, worked two jobs when I was young so I could go to school, so I wouldn’t need the slaughterhouse.
“I don’t know,” he added. “I didn’t see much discrimination in college, but down here . . . Sometimes it is bad and sometimes it is not so bad. Right now it’s bad because kids—children of immigrants—they were arrested for using drugs, using methamphetamine. Now people are saying that along with ruining the economy we’re bringing in drugs. Yet people are also excited because Victoria might win another state basketball title after all these years because of the kid who plays center—a young man from Somalia. I just don’t know.”
“Did you ever think of leaving? The both of you going somewhere else?”
“Do you know a place where there is no discrimination?” Jace asked.
“The Cities,” I said.