Speak of the Devil (14 page)

An old Latina behind the counter was speaking in soft Spanish to a young woman. Gato stepped in front of the young woman and slammed his fist on the counter. A glass globe holding a crucifix in water jumped and splashed. The young woman let out a little shriek.

“I need to talk to you,” Gato announced.

The old woman paused mid-sentence, and slowly tilted her head up to look at him. The proprietress was tiny, barely five feet tall. She had curly gray hair that spiraled halfway down her back. Her hands were small, bony, and crossed with ropy blue veins. Gato could kill her as easily as he could make a sandwich.

“I’ll be right with you, son,” she said. “I’m finishing up with a client.”

He put both fists on the counter, narrowed his eyes, and leaned toward her with a glare that had struck terror in a hundred shop owners. Instead of stepping back, she leaned forward and met his eyes. She had one blue eye and one brown. She patted his arm with one of her birdlike hands. “You can have some tea while you wait.” The old lady gestured to a ceramic teapot on a small table between two chairs.

Gato blinked, nodded, and went to pour himself a cup of tea. It was peppery with a sweet aftertaste. He wasn’t sure why he was standing here drinking it, instead of hurling the teapot across the store, but he was glad none of his homies could see. As he stood with the little teacup cradled in his hands, he listened to the old woman advising her client.

“This is the most powerful medicine for healing a broken heart,” the proprietress told the young woman, as she handed her a cellophane bag filled with dried leaves. “Brew it two times a day, every day, for a month. Each time before you drink it, say three things you dislike about Manuel. ‘He cheated on me, he is cruel, his morning breath smells like a dog.’ ”

The young woman smiled slightly and nodded.

The proprietress turned to a shelf and selected a small vial filled with thick golden liquid. “Do you have a good friend who is a man?”

“Yes,” said the young woman softly. “Roberto.”

“Is Roberto kind to you?”

“Yes. He has always been there for me. He’s my best friend.”

“Good. This oil is infused with potent herbs. Rub a drop onto the base of your throat each night before you go to bed. As you do, picture Roberto smiling at you. This will calm your mind, and make you dream of Roberto instead of Manuel.”

The old lady opened a glass case filled with jewelry and took out a necklace strung with polished blue stones. “Wear this every day. The stones are strong and unyielding. They will steel your heart and make
you
strong, too—so you are not tempted to go back to Manuel. If you see him and feel tempted, touch the stones and remember your
promesa
to your saint—and your promise to yourself. You will not yield.” The woman wrapped all three items and put them into a brown paper bag. “In thirty days, you will be cured of this heartache.”

“Thank you so much, Señora Zanita,” the young woman said as she paid. Gato’s eyes were riveted to the cash that changed hands, and he calculated that this store must be making a fortune. Less than the brothel on Monroe Street, but still enough to justify a hefty tax. He decided “rent” should be five hundred dollars a month. The proprietress came around the counter and hugged her customer. The young woman left the store looking hopeful.

Señora Zanita smiled and turned to Gato. She wore a flowing gray dress and several necklaces like the ones in the jewelry case. They were the only people in the store now.

“Thank you for your patience, young man. Come, come. I can see that you are troubled.”

“What? No, that’s not why I’m here.”

“I can read your spirit, son. And I can help.”

“Fuck you.” He threw his teacup down, shattering it on the tile floor. “I’m here to collect rent. Your business has been skating by, tax-free, for too long.”

The old Latina looked down at the ceramic shards and tea dregs scattered at their feet. Then she looked up at his face. Gato saw fear in her mismatched eyes, for just a moment. Then she laughed. She straightened her spine and put her hands on her hips.

“You are a smart man. Why do you think no one steals from a woman who is protected by the saints?” She gestured at a row of figurines. “I can give you something far more precious. Let me throw the shells for you.”

She turned and walked to the back of the store. The beads of her necklaces swayed and clicked with her movement. Gato hesitated, then followed her.

The small back room was painted the darkest of blues. Polished white stones were embedded in the ceiling and walls, so the space resembled the sky on a dark night. Carved into the walls were dozens of small recessed nooks where white candles were lit, providing the only light. The scent of eucalyptus wafted from the candles. The furniture consisted of two chairs on either side of a table covered with an indigo cloth. Señora Zanita sat on one side and gestured for Gato to sit on the other. He did, feeling somewhere between intrigued and skeptical.

From a pocket hidden in her dress, Zanita pulled out a handful of shells, the kind you could find on any local beach. She placed them in Gato’s hand, then closed his fingers around them. He held the shells, feeling their weight, letting his fingers trace over the ridged ones and the smooth ones, those with tiny points and those with round whorls. After a moment, Zanita cupped her little hands and Gato returned the shells to her. She swirled them around her palms, then tossed them onto the indigo cloth. As she looked down at the pattern the shells made, her long gray curls fell around her face and glowed silver in the candlelight.

“Oh,” she said. “I see.”

“What?”

She met his eyes. “You have been given a responsibility. A position of leadership or trust. But it is one you don’t really want.”

“Hmph,” he grunted, unimpressed. She could have guessed that just by the fact that he was here to collect rent. “What else?”

“I see a girl. Correct?”

“Go on.”

“A beautiful young woman.” She looked back down at the shells. “You loved her very much. And you lost her.”

His gut clenched. An image flashed: Maria-Rosa looking up at him as they stood in Rock Creek Park, her eyes crinkled with a smile. His throat constricted, but he kept his face blank.

“It was a tragedy,” Zanita continued. “A great tragedy. And you haven’t been truly happy since.”

“What do you know about happiness?” Gato meant for the words to be a sarcastic growl, but they came out a whisper.

“I know you can be happy again. But you have to take positive steps. You cannot steal happiness. Happiness is a privilege that must be earned—with good thoughts, good acts, and kindness. You live in the world you create.”

He felt his head nodding in agreement. This was a truth he had guessed, but ignored, for a long time. She stood and gestured for him to follow her back to the front of the store.

“First, we must choose your saint,” she said briskly. She went to a row of ceramic figurines and studied the options. There were women on horses, men on horses, women holding babies, men holding swords. Finally, she pointed to the figure of a man with dark hair and a mustache. He looked like a wily poker player from a Western movie. “
San Simon
might suit you. Many outlaws who practice
Santería
like him.”

Gato nodded at the figure, but kept looking down the line of saints. His gaze landed on a skeleton dressed in a hooded white robe and a long set of brown beads. The skeleton carried a scythe and a set of scales. Gato reached out to touch its skull. Zanita’s blue eye grew wider, but the brown one smiled.

“La Santa Muerte,”
she said. “The Mexican Spirit of the Good Death. She will sometimes help where other saints can’t or won’t. Yes, I think you are right. This is the
santa
for you.”

She took down the figure and handed it to him. Then she selected a deep red candle labeled
Corazón Puro
. “For a pure heart,” she said. “Light this every day, and think about the man you wish to become. We all have good and bad inside us. You have plenty of good in you—I see it in your eyes. You must feed and protect the part of yourself you want to be dominant. You can decide to be a good man—or a bad one. Only
you
can make this choice. And it is a choice you must make, a battle you must fight within yourself, every day. But since each day is a new one, each morning offers you a new chance to do the right thing.”

She went behind the counter and scooped some dried herbs into a cellophane bag. “For strength,” she said. “I see you are already strong in the body. This will also strengthen your heart. Brew one cup every morning. Before you drink it, remember something kind that someone did for you, and how that act of kindness made you feel.”

She wrapped everything up into a brown bag and handed it to him. “What is your name, son?”

“Gato.”

“Your real name.”

“Diego.”

“Go with God, Diego.”

He reached in his pocket to pay, but she waved off the cash.

“Thank you, Señora Zanita.”

Gato left the botanica feeling better than he had in a long time. Out on the sidewalk, red and orange leaves played at his feet. He breathed in the clean, crisp afternoon air. As he walked down the long hill to Dupont Circle, he didn’t notice the pricey shops or the young professionals or the sounds of traffic. He thought about whether he really could become the person Señora Zanita suggested. It was a revolutionary idea. It filled him with light, and also a sharp longing. This was an emotion he hadn’t experienced in years, and it took him a while to recognize it. It was hope.

Hope felt good.

Only as he was riding the escalator down to the subway did he realize that he hadn’t collected any rent.

21

At home, Anna established a new routine. She set her alarm for 5:30
A.M.
and was out the door just as Jack and Olivia were rising. The office was empty when she arrived at 6:45, and she found she could sometimes be more productive during the first two hours of uninterrupted concentration than throughout the rest of her workday. Each evening, she tried to leave the office by six. She made it a priority to get home in time for dinner with Olivia and Jack, and to read to the girl before bedtime. Olivia would cuddle next to her, laying her head on Anna’s arm.

After the girl’s bedtime, Jack would set up his laptop on the kitchen table and work a couple more hours. Sometimes, Anna would still have loose ends from work, but usually she could just sit next to him, sipping a glass of wine, watching an episode of
Mad Men
on Hulu or sneaking a read of
Us Weekly
magazine.

She bought the classic parenting book
Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care
to help her interact with Olivia. One passage stood out:

It is not your job as a parent to banish all fears from your child’s imagination. Your job is to help your child learn constructive ways to cope with and conquer those fears.

She felt reassured. She hadn’t banished all the fears from her
own
imagination, but she had ways of coping with them. That was something she could give Olivia, too.

By ten each night, Anna was exhausted. She remembered the days in college and law school—not so long ago—when she’d just be heading out for the night at eleven. But now she was a working mother.

That meant her days were hectic. She had to juggle her personal and professional tasks and learn new ways to be efficient. There was never enough time for everything she wanted to do.

But she was happy. She loved being part of this little family. She realized that happiness wasn’t “having it all.” No one had it all; that was literally impossible. You couldn’t go to the bar with friends at the same time that you read a book to your child at the same time that you worked late on a project. You had to make choices. Happiness came from being content with the compromises you made.

She made compromises between work and family, between Starbucks runs and Candy Land games, between sex and sleep. And she was satisfied with the trade-off. It helped that she didn’t have to do it alone. She could work while Jack got Olivia ready for school; he could do the dishes while she and Olivia gave each other pedicures. Anna realized why people referred to their spouse as their “partner.”

Sex with Jack had always been good. Despite the darkness that she saw in her profession—or perhaps because of it—Anna appreciated the beauty of two consenting adults giving each other pleasure. And Jack was a generous and skilled lover. But now there was the additional closeness that came from the knowledge that this was her partner for life. It made everything deeper and more intense. She craved him throughout the day, couldn’t wait for the moment when she could lock the bedroom door, turn off the light, and start tugging off his shirt. He laughed at her eagerness, but was happy to oblige. Afterward, she slept soundly, curled into his chest.

The stuff they’d registered for started to land on their doorstep via UPS packages with happy congratulatory notes. Nina’s old dishes, vases, and utensils slowly began making their way to a “giveaway” pile in the basement. Anna wouldn’t have admitted it, but she breathed a little easier with every old dish that went into exile. The house started to feel more like her own.

She noticed herself using the phrase “Jack’s house” less and “our house” more. Jack did the same. Her name was not on the title, but her life was centered there. It was home.

The more she became part of the family, the more Anna came to appreciate Luisa. The nanny cooked and cleaned, picked up Olivia from school, and helped her with her homework. Anna realized Jack never could’ve held the job of Homicide chief without Luisa’s assistance. Luisa helped Anna learn the domestic skills that Anna’s mother—dealing with her own demons—hadn’t passed on. Luisa showed her how to tend to a scraped knee, where the good linens were kept, the secrets to her best recipes. Anna felt like a certified adult when she roasted a whole chicken by herself. Luisa smiled at her approvingly.