She looked meaningfully at Ruben and Dopey who nodded.
“Oh,” Veneno said. “I remember one time I saw him at the liquor store and he told me he had a special copa that was magic. He was off his ass drunk though, but that shit was funny so I remembered it.”
“I don’t remember my Grandpa being drunk ever,” Ruben said.
“That’s cuz your grandma beat his ass on the street with her purse and a *chancla *one day. We all saw it. After that, he never drank again,” Veneno said. “Shit, I’m still afraid of your grandma.”
They all laughed.
“Anyway, that’s the story about the boat house. Lincoln Heights, y que? It was fun remembering some of that, not the riots though,” Veneno said.
He patted his belly. “Damn those were good eats, too.”
Smiley laughed. “I’ll pack you some up. I gotta go get my kid in a few but thank you for coming and telling me about that place.”
“Thanks for having me, chula,” Veneno said.
Smiley rolled her eyes.
“Thanks for your help V.”
Veneno gave her one last sweeping look, shook his head and said, “Damn, girl, you fine.”
Smiley laughed and closed the door, leaving Veneno to shake his head again.
The boat house at Lincoln Park was an old building made completely of brick and surrounded by water on one side. There was a cement dock that jutted out over the water covered in brick and wood pergolas with ramps that sloped down into the lake. It was where the old paddle boats had once been stored, but that was long ago. The boat house was now a gallery in Plaza de la Raza with the new brightly colored buildings of the Plaza surrounding it and a huge archway from the parking lot on the Valley Boulevard side of the park.
Dopey pulled into the parking lot near the basketball courts and shrugged at Smiley who was raising an eyebrow.
“Lorca is safer here. Valley parking lot is too packed on a Saturday and those fuckers might chip the paint.”
Ruben nodded and got out of the car, going around to Smiley’s side and opening the door for her. Together, the trio walked across the park’s asphalt pathways that were a little bumpy and cracked from intruding tree roots. A cholo on a lowrider bike with a chihuahua on his handlebars nodded to Dopey as he drove by. Smiley laughed.
“Who is that vato, Carlos?” she asked.
“Tommy Chihuahua,” he said. “Vato lost his wife and kid in an accident and now he dotes on that fucking chihuahua that was his daughter’s. Takes it everywhere with him. She’s all he’s got. Vato was in Afghanistan when his family died. Drove him a little loco.”
“Dang. That’s sad.” Smiley said, wiping away a tear.
“Anything we can do for him?” Ruben asked.
“Your abuela Sara feeds him and brings him dog food for the chihuahua.”
“I didn’t know that,” Ruben said.
“Your abuela does a lot of good in the barrio that most people don’t know about. She likes to keep it like that,” Dopey said.
Smiley smiled. “We should help her with that, Ruben.”
Ruben nodded. “Yeah.”
They’d arrived at the entrance to the plaza while talking and walked in through the bright orange archway.
“So what’s the plan?” Smiley asked.
“Well, we’ll go scope out the boathouse and see if we see anything interesting. We’ll figure it out from there,” Ruben said.
“Wow, they really changed this place,” Smiley said as she admired the new murals and the huge mosaic calavera.
“Yeah,” Dopey said. “They got some artists in and did the murals. Did you see the one of Selena and Jenni Rivera?”
“Where?” Smiley asked.
“Right in front of the old boat house,” said Dopey, grinning.
“Guess that gives us an excuse to be poking around there,” Ruben said.
They walked past the calavera and to the boathouse. Smiley stopped to admire the mural of Selena and Jenni Rivera while the guys poked around the bricks and looking for possibilities. Smiley took out her phone and snapped pics of the murals and boathouse, focusing on oddly shaped bricks, up in the eaves, and along the iron grates hoping that the camera’s eye would catch something they could have missed. Occasionally, Ruben or Dopey would point their chins at something and she would photograph it, taking care to walk all around the boathouse and the plaza snapping pictures of other murals so that anyone watching her would think she was just interested in the art.
“What’s this, carnal?” Ruben asked Dopey as he pointed to what appeared to be a hole in a brick near the base of the building near a stunted olive tree.
“Dunno. Looks like something burrowed in. Smiley, watcha.”
Smiley knelt down and focused her phone camera on the hole, taking several snaps. They walked around and round the building, checking for similar holes and finding none. Satisfied they’d examined as much as they could and gotten enough photos, they left the park and drove back to Dopey’s house. He parked Lorca in his garage, carefully covered it and locked the garage door before joining Ruben and Smiley in his living room.
“Check this out,” Smiley said shoving her phone to Ruben.
“See that thing, it looks like there’s something shiny in that hole,” she said.
Ruben looked at the enlarged photo and then passed the phone to Dopey.
“I see it!” Dopey yelled. “Like something brillando.”
Ruben nodded.