Tequila Sunset (26 page)

Elvira’s tone shifted and Matías knew she was crying. “I only want for both of us to be safe!”

“I know. Please don’t cry.”

“Come with me, Matías. I’m begging you.”

“Don’t do this to me, Elvira.”

“You won’t be happy until they get you!”

“Elvira, you know that’s not true.”

“Do you love me, Matías?”

“Yes, I love you.”

“And still you can’t do this for me?”

“No, I can’t.”

“To hell with your work!”

“We’ll talk again tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

Matías keyed off the phone and put it on the coffee table. Elvira did not call back.

TWELVE

C
RISTINA SPENT THE MORNING LECTURING
junior high students on the dangers of gangs. They called it the “speaking tour” and at different schools she talked to children as young as ten and as old as eighteen. Some were already in the life and nothing she said would turn them away. Those kids she would see again, locked in the back of a patrol car or in a cell.

Freddie’s school was not one of the ones she visited. The children there were not targets for recruitment. Cristina worried about them mostly because they could become targets – for bullying, for robbery, for assault – and they were unable to defend themselves. Freddie was not in a wheelchair, at least, and he didn’t need a walker. Cristina told him that if someone scared him on the street, he was to run away as fast as he could and keep running until he could find a police officer. She hoped he would never have to do that.

Because of the speaking tour she had the afternoon off and she went to pick up Freddie from school. She parked in the small lot and went in through the main entrance. The door was electronically locked from the inside and a guard had to buzz her in. At the front desk she was obliged to sign her name in return for a sticker that declared VISITOR in big, red letters. The stickers were dated so they could only be used on the same day they were issued.

The office was downstairs, below street level. Cristina signed her name again and scribbled down her reason for picking Freddie up. Bureaucracy was the same everywhere.

The secretary called to Freddie’s classroom. “Ms. Salas?” she asked after a moment.

“Yes?”

“Ms. Gillies wants to know if you’d come down. Freddie’s in the quiet room.”

“Okay.”

“Right down that hallway. She’ll meet you.”

Cristina followed the secretary’s finger down a corridor she hadn’t been allowed in before. She saw Ms. Gillies, Freddie’s teacher, waiting almost at the far end and she faintly heard the sound of screaming.

The screaming grew louder and more vehement the farther she went. She felt her breath catch in her throat because she knew what Ms. Gillies would tell her when she got there, but she didn’t want to know.

“Hi, Ms. Salas,” Ms. Gillies said. She was an elfin woman who looked far too young to be a teacher. Maybe a teacher’s assistant. Her expression was sympathetic. The screaming was very insistent now. “Freddie’s right through here.”

She was brought into a room with white walls and a few desks. A pair of offices branched off from the central hub, but two other doors were closed. They were marked ROOM 1 and ROOM 2. The screaming came from Room 1. Two staff were on hand, looking sober.

“We have the door closed and locked because Freddie is out of control,” Ms. Gillies told Cristina. “Since you’re here, maybe you can talk to him?”

Cristina nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. The noises coming from behind the door were brutish and animalistic. No child should make sounds like that.

Ms. Gillies went to the door. She spoke through it. “Freddie? Freddie, your mom is here. We’re going to open the door, okay?”

Something slammed violently against the door, shaking it in
its frame. Cristina almost jumped. “He kicks the door,” said one of the staff members.

“Freddie, the door is opening now!”

Ms. Gillies unlocked the door and cracked it slowly open. It was dim inside the room, which was no bigger than a walk-in closet. A small bench was built into the wall.

Freddie was flush-faced and sweating, his hair stuck together. His eyes rolled in their sockets. He opened his mouth to scream again, but he saw Cristina and rushed forward instead. Cristina was caught around the waist, Freddie’s face buried in her stomach, and he was crying.

Cristina looked at Ms. Gillies and the others looking at her. They were watching her for some lead, some clue. All she could do was shush him and pat his head and neck. “It’s okay, peanut. It’s okay.”

“I’ll get his things for you,” Ms. Gillies said, and left the room.

She got Freddie to loosen his grip on her and Cristina knelt down to brush the hair away from Freddie’s face. His eyes were swollen with tears now and his cheeks were still ruddy. Breath came in hiccups and spurts. “It’s okay,” Cristina said again. “I’m here. It’s all over.”

“One of the other students took a toy from him,” one of the staffers said. “He hit the student and we had to separate them. He wouldn’t walk to the quiet room so we had to transport him.”

“I w-want to go h-home,” Freddie said.

“We’re going to go home,” Cristina told him. “Let’s just get your book-bag.”

Ms. Gillies returned with the backpack. “His homework is inside and his point sheet.”

“Thank you,” Cristina said.

“Freddie, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ms. Gillies said brightly. “Okay?”

Freddie put his head down and didn’t answer.

“Oh, well,” Ms. Gillies said. “He’ll feel better in a little while.”

THIRTEEN

G
RACIELA DROVE THEM TO JOSÉ’S HOUSE.
They were forced to park a block away. It was a big party tonight. Cinco de Mayo.

“Do you think José’s wife will be there?” Flip asked.

“Her?” Graciela answered. “Never. She doesn’t even live with him.”

“Huh,” Flip said. “Where does she live?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere.”

Coming to these get-togethers had become a ritual of a kind. The club was one place where the Indians gathered, but it was at the house that they really bonded. They were all under José’s watchful eye when they ate his barbecue and drank his beer. And Flip was always aware that this was the place where he had first been with Graciela. Conflicting feelings came to him with that memory.

Walking up the sidewalk toward José’s place, Flip looked for some sign of the detectives watching. Detective Salas told him they kept an eye on José, but he never saw anyone on the streets. A few of the other Aztecas said once they rousted a pair of cops who were taking pictures of a party, but Flip wasn’t sure if they were telling the truth or lies.

Graciela held Flip’s hand until they were almost upon the house, and then she spotted her friend Rosenda standing in the driveway. She kissed Flip on the cheek and said, “Got to go. Have fun.”

“Bye,” Flip said.

As he headed into the crowded house, Flip realized that he was not ready for all of this tonight. He would have preferred to spend the evening at Graciela’s at her apartment, watching TV or doing other things. The noise and the music and heady clouds of smoke were too much and he could already feel himself getting a headache.

He grabbed a beer to try and quash the pain before it had a chance to take root, but it was already too late. Flip circulated to the very edge of the party, tucked away in one corner of the car park with the Lexus as a shield against the crush of bodies. The music could still get to him and the nauseating smell of cooking barbecue.

Flip wondered how long he would have to stay before he could make his excuses and get out of there. Graciela would be in no hurry to leave; she was in her element at these gatherings, always mingling, always talking. Everywhere there was someone glad to see her, even if it had only been a week since they last spoke together. Flip didn’t really understand it.

At one point he spotted Emilio, looking glum with his girlfriend Alicia on his arm. Flip knew Emilio’s court date was coming up, but nothing more than that. The less he knew about what the police did with his information, the less he could let slip if he was careless. Emilio spotted him watching and raised his bottle halfheartedly. Flip did the same for him.

After a while enough time had passed that Flip began to feel like he could make it the rest of the way without knuckling under completely to the pressure of the night. He was three beers in and finally they were starting to make a dent in the headache, but he was aware he hadn’t eaten. The barbecue smelled no better to him.

Nasario appeared out of the partygoers spilling out of the kitchen onto the driveway. Flip saw himself be spotted. Nasario zeroed in on him.

“Hey,” Nasario said when he came close.

“Hey,” Flip said. His bottle of beer was empty and he had the
sudden, insane urge to smash it over Nasario’s head and run. He knew if he did that he would never get away.

“José’s been looking for you. He wants to talk.”

“Right now?”

“Right now. Come on.”

Flip allowed himself to be led back into the house and down the back hallway where Graciela had taken him what seemed like forever ago. They didn’t go to the bedroom, but found a door that opened onto a rear patio and a small yard. It seemed strange that no one would be there when everywhere else was packed, but when Nasario shut the door and closed the party out, Flip understood that the back yard was José’s place and his alone.

José offered Flip his hand and they shook. The odor of mesquite smoke clung to José. He probably didn’t even smell it anymore. “Flip,” he said. “Glad you could make it.”

“I never miss one of your parties, José.”

“I know. And I like that.”

Nasario stayed by the door, his back against it so no one else could come through. Moths fluttered around the light above him. It was still spring, but the mosquitoes were out. Flip could hear them buzzing his ears.

“How is Graciela?”

“She’s good, thanks.”

“When she graduates from school, I’m going to have something for her. Just a little gift. To get her started, you know?”

“Sure.”

José looked left and right into the adjoining yards. They were both dark and no one stirred. He turned to Flip. “I’ve got something I want you to do for me, Flip.”

“What do you need?”

“It’s Emilio. He’s been snitching.”

“Emilio? No way.”

“Yes way! Those
pendejos
at the District Attorney’s office, they
got to be sweating him pretty good on that drug beef. And a lot of Indians are getting busted right now. I can hardly put a
carnale
on a corner somewhere without the police snapping him up. Somebody’s snitching. It has to be Emilio. He’s trying to buy his way out of doing real time.”

Flip shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”

“Well, start believing it. He’s been coasting for a long time, anyway. Now he’s snitching on the family? When’s he going to turn on me?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go to Juárez with Nasario and César. Tonight.”

“José, I can’t be going in and out of Juárez, I told you.”

José stiffened. “You saying no to me?”

“No, I’m not, it’s just—”

“You go to Juárez with Nasario and César. You take Emilio. I’ll square it so you can get back to our side of the border with no problem. I’m telling Emilio it’s to pick up some weed and bring it back. He’s done it before. Only this time you get him over there and you pop him.”

Flip’s headache was gone. He could not turn away from José though he wanted to, and he could feel Nasario’s eyes on him. The tiny, glass sounds of moths hitting the cover of the patio light were loud to him. “I don’t know if I can do that,” he said.

José took something from his pocket and pressed it into Flip’s palm: a stainless-steel pistol not even as long as his hand. “It’s loaded,” José said. “You down?”

“You know I’m down. What about Graciela?”

“I’ll tell her you had to do something for me. She doesn’t need to know what.”

Flip put the gun in his pocket. It couldn’t weigh much more than a pound. His heart beat against his chest so that it hurt. He wished for another beer.

José clapped Flip on the shoulder. “You’ll do all right.”

FOURTEEN

N
ASARIO PUT ON THE RADIO AS THEY DROVE
to Juárez. Flip sat in the back seat next to Emilio, with Nasario and César in the front. The Mexican police at the border barely even glanced at them, though Flip felt the gun in his pocket weighing him down and so cold. He wondered if Emilio was carrying and what Nasario would do if Emilio pulled his own gun.

The car wound down dark streets with little lighting, past closed businesses secured with iron. Emilio seemed to know where they were going, or if he didn’t he didn’t seem to mind one way or the other. Flip was afraid Emilio would catch the look on his face and the whole thing would be blown. Emilio barely glanced at him.

“Hey, man, why you driving so slow?” Emilio demanded of Nasario. “I want to get back before the party’s all over.”

“We’re almost there,” Nasario replied. Flip clenched his hands until he thought his knuckles would burst.

They drove slower and slower until they were barely crawling along. Nasario peered into the empty spaces between buildings where there were no lights at all. Finally they stopped before a broad vacant lot. Nasario killed the engine.

“
¿Que carajo?
” Emilio asked. “This isn’t Octavio’s place.”

“We’re gonna wait for him here,” Nasario said. “Let’s get out.”

Flip was the last one out of the car. Emilio was already complaining about the stop, about the delay. Flip saw Nasario had his gun out and by his side as he rounded the car.

“I’m telling you,
esé
—” Emilio said.

Nasario shot Emilio through the neck and Emilio danced sideways. César drew his pistol from the waistband of his pants and put two rounds into Emilio’s chest. Flip fumbled with his pocket, trying for the pistol there, as Emilio staggered out into the lot. His mouth was working and blood was coming out.