The Masked Family (12 page)

 

*****

"May I?" said Max, touching a yellow-skinned apple that hung just over his head.

"As long as you don't pick 'em all," said Olenka, swallowing her latest bite of ham sandwich. "Are you sure you don't want half of this?"

The branch dipped down, then bounced back up as Max plucked the apple. "I'm fine," he said. "Thank you."

Olenka shooed a fly from the half-sandwich on the newspaper in her lap. "So where have you been for the last fourteen years?"

"All over." Max polished the apple on the frayed and faded sleeve of his brown work shirt. "Coast to coast. Wherever there was work to be had."

"I've heard that story before."

"Hard times," said Max. "So what about you?" He took a big bite from the apple and leaned against the tree as he chewed.

"Hard times." Olenka's eyes strayed to the nuns' cemetery, its tidy rows of stones boxed in by a wrought-iron fence less than thirty feet away. An ornate gilded cross stood at one end of the plot, as tall as a tall man, gleaming in the midday sun.

"It's good you got work," said Max. "You been here a while?"

"Six years, off and on," said Olenka. "Mostly during the school year, when the girls are all here. Sometimes in the summer, too."

"Your husband," said Max. "Is he on the road?"

Olenka glanced at the wedding ring on her finger. "No, he's dead," she said. "Mine accident."

"Sorry to hear that," said Max. He walked over and sat beside her on the bench. "Any kids?"

"Both dead." Olenka clenched her teeth, determined not to let the old pain wrap around her again. "Tuberculosis and flu. What about you?"

"Nah." Max tossed the apple up in the air and caught it. "I couldn't with the kind of life I've been livin'."

As he took another bite of the apple, Olenka took a long look at him. Up close, she noticed for the first time how many more lines were etched into his tanned face than she would have expected. There was a weariness in his eyes and a darkness underlying the glib lightheartedness he wanted the world to see in his expression.

She realized, in that moment, that as bad as her own life had been for the past fourteen years, his might have been worse.

Max bit off some more of the apple. "It's lucky I found you," he said. "I can finally say thanks."

"You're welcome." Olenka smiled.

"Thanks for the lousy directions to Portage, that is!" Max laughed and bumped his knee against hers.

"What?" said Olenka.

"I got lost! That trail you sent me on branched, and I took the wrong fork! I ended up in New Germany!" Laughing, he chucked what was left of the apple into the tall weeds.

Olenka laughed, too. "I'm so sorry!"

"Yup," said Max. "That sure was a fun night. I almost got killed, got lost in the woods for hours, and ended up in New Germany with no way home."

"Obviously, things must've worked out, though," said Olenka. "I mean, here you are, still in one piece."

"True," said Max. "And y'know, something good did come out of that night."

"What's that?" said Olenka.

"I met you." Some of the darkness and tension seemed to bleed from Max's expression as he looked at her. "You were my angel, Olenka. You saved me that night."

Suddenly, Olenka felt self-conscious and looked away from him. "If it wasn't for you, I might've been in the line of fire when they started shooting. Did you know that one of my cousins was shot to death that night?"

Max sighed. The newspaper crinkled in Olenka's lap as he reached over and covered her hand with his.

"I never forgot you, Olenka," he said. "All these years, I never forgot you."

Olenka smirked at him. "Yes you did. You didn't even recognize me when you saw me today."

"I did recognize you," said Max. "In fact, you're the only reason I came back to town."

"You recognized me?" said Olenka.

"I didn't want to scare you off." Max squeezed her hand. "The only thing that's gotten me through the past nine years is thinking about you and coming back to you."

Olenka didn't know what to say next. She felt like her feet had been knocked out from under her.

Max let go of her hand. "I'm not scaring you off now, am I?"

Hurriedly, Olenka wrapped her remaining food in the newspaper and got up from the bench. "Have to get back to work now," she said, not meeting his gaze. "You too, right?"

"Yeah," said Max. "There's just one problem."

"What's that?"

Max looked all around, then cupped his hands around his mouth. "I don't know a thing about church organs," he said in a stage whisper. "Please don't tell the Sisters!"

Olenka couldn't help giggling. "Not yet, anyway," she said.

 

*****

On the walk back up the hill, Max picked a daisy from the side of the path and held it out to her.

"May I see you again?" he said.

Olenka pushed a lock of jet-black hair behind her ear. "I'm sure we'll pass each other in the halls."

"No no," said Max. "I was thinking more along the lines of dancing or a movie or a moonlit drive."

"You have a car?" said Olenka.

"Make that a moonlit stroll." Max picked another daisy and offered it to her with the first. "Please? Let's get to know each other better."

"Well, maybe," said Olenka, but she wouldn't take the daisies from his hand. "But don't get any funny ideas."

"Funny ideas about what?" said Max.

"I'm not looking for someone," said Olenka. "Not anyone. Got it?"

"Got it," said Max.

Three months later, they were married.

 

*****

Chapter Twenty-Two

Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, 2006

Though Cary had grown to hate his ex-girlfriend, Crystal, he still felt an unexpected ache in his gut when he watched her get married.

Crystal had taken almost everything they'd owned, had swept away the kids he'd loved, and fled to Mexico without the lamest attempt at a goodbye. Worst of all, she'd again exposed the kids to the smack-shooting creep of the century, Drill.

Cary had absolutely no reason to feel anything but pure hatred toward Crystal and contempt for her little wedding on the beach.

But there it was. Sadness and loss.

Deep down, it turned out, he actually missed that drug addicted bitch.

I'll be damned.

"I always cry at weddings," said El Yucatango, who sat at the opposite end of the rowboat. Dressed in his full super-hero wrestler regalia as always, he flicked back his fishing rod and cast the line out over the water. "Hand me some Kleenex, Beacon."

Even if Cary had had some Kleenex, he would have ignored him. His attention was focused like a laser on the scene playing out on shore.

He watched through a battered pair of binoculars in a battered boat afloat in the gulf. El Yucatango had brought him there without explanation...at least until he'd pointed out the wedding party.

El Yucatango had known what he was doing, that was for sure. If Cary had been on shore at that moment instead of a hundred yards away from it, he would have crashed the wedding in a heartbeat. He had questions that demanded immediate answers.

Questions like, where the hell were the
kids
?

"You better get that pole in action," said El Yucatango. He kicked the rod and reel that lay on the floor of the boat, which he'd brought along for Cary. "Those fish will jump right up and kick your ass if you don't show 'em who's boss."

Again, Cary ignored him. All he could think about were Glo and Late and why they were nowhere to be seen.

At their own parents' wedding, they were nowhere to be seen.

Crystal stood barefoot on the sand, wearing a skin-tight white satin spaghetti-strap number. Her long, dark hair danced on the breeze, and her pale skin flashed in the bright sunlight.

Drill towered beside her in white slacks and a red silk shirt that billowed in the wind like a parachute. The white and red outfit sharply contrasted with his deep brown skin and ebony skullcap.

Between the bride and groom, a pudgy little priest dressed in black read from an open Bible. A smoldering cigarette hung through the bristles of his bushy black mustache.

But the kids weren't there.

Nightmare visions whirled through Cary's mind like black helicopters. The kids had been traded for drugs. The kids had been abandoned in the desert. The kids had been locked away in a basement.

The kids were dead.

In that moment, for the first time, Cary realized that he would need revenge if something bad had happened to the kids. He'd need the kind of revenge that left Crystal and Drill fucked up forever.

The hell with the super-hero code.

"I don't see the kids," he said, scanning the beach in both directions with the binoculars. "They weren't invited to their own parents' wedding?"

El Yucatango fumbled with his fishing rod as the rowboat rocked on the waves. "Maybe they got an invitation and turned it down, huh?"

"Are you sure they're even in town?" Cary turned the binoculars back on the ceremony just in time to see Drill put a ring on Crystal's finger.

"My source said there are kids, Beacon. A little girl and a little boy. He thought they'd be here today."

Cary watched as Crystal slipped a ring onto Drill's finger. Again, he felt an ache in his gut. "Who's your source?"

"That priest there." Suddenly, El Yucatango's reel whirred as line spun out of it. "
Oye
! I got a bite!"

"I wish your source had known where the kids would be during the wedding." Cary adjusted the binoculars' focus. The priest's cigarette bounced as he spoke with one arm upraised. "We could've picked them up while these two were here getting married."

El Yucatango grunted as he fought whatever had taken the bait on his line. "My source didn't have their address." The boat kicked around as he shifted and struggled. "He said he'll beat it out of them today...and give it to us tonight for a million dollars."

Cary let the joke pass without comment. "I just hope I'm not too late." Through the binoculars, he saw Drill kiss the bride. It was something he'd never imagined himself doing, not even when their relationship had been at its best...but it felt like a punch in the stomach. He couldn't watch anymore.

He put down the binoculars and turned to watch El Yucatango instead. The super-hero's pillowcase mask and purple t-shirt were soaked with sweat as he battled the fish. Even his braided unicorn hair horn was looking wet and wilted.

"Do you have any kids, Yucatango?" said Cary.

"Eleven." El Yucatango pried the pole back slowly with the reel locked, then started winding in some line. "You should see the cowlicks they got." He paused his winding to bob his hair horn at Cary.

"Wow," said Cary. "That's a lot of kids."

El Yucatango's gold tooth flashed as he grinned. "They all hate me. Ever since El Demonio del Diamante stole my title and got me banned for life from
lucha libre
."

"None of them stood by you? Out of eleven kids?"

"I tell you why." El Yucatango continued to wind in the line. "El Demonio del Diamante tricked them."

Cary frowned. "Now how could he do that? They're your kids."

"But he is family, too." El Yucatango let the rod flex forward, then hauled it back again. "El Demonio del Diamante is their beloved uncle."

"Wait a minute," said Cary. "You mean that statue you pissed on...your greatest enemy of all time..."

"Is my
brother
," said El Yucatango. "
Mi hermano, sí
...which makes it a thousand times worse. Now do you understand?"

Cary nodded. "Yeah, I do. I don't get along with my brother, either."

"Really?" El Yucatango leaned back to get leverage. Each turn of the reel seemed to take a major effort.

"We haven't spoken in years," said Cary. "He blames me for something that happened a long time ago."

El Yucatango grunted as he fought the fish. "Family...can be the worst enemy...of them all."

Cary looked toward the shore. Even without using the binoculars, he could see Crystal and Drill lying in the sand, her white dress alongside his red shirt. "I don't see the priest," he said. "Do you think he might get us the information early?"

"No, Beacon," said El Yucatango. "He has another wedding and a baptism after this. We won't see him till suppertime."

"Of course." Cary ladled a thick layer of sarcasm over his voice. "I just hope we can talk him into letting us buy him dinner."

"All we can do is try our best," said El Yucatango.

"So what do we do in the meantime?" Cary combed his fingers through the blond racing-stripes in his red hair. "Go door to door looking for the kids?"

"I'm gonna take you to one of the shittiest spots in Puerto Peñasco," said El Yucatango. "What you see there will turn your stomach. It will disgust you."

Cary frowned. "Where is it?"

El Yucatango wound the reel hard and jerked back the rod, hoisting a two-foot-long fish out of the water. "I'm gonna take you to see my brother."

 

*****

At first, Cary thought El Yucatango was guiding him toward one of the big houses on the hillside. El Yucatango's directions had him driving the taxi straight for one of the biggest, in fact, with pale yellow walls and red terra cotta rooftops.

But before they reached the gate in front of the place, El Yucatango told Cary to turn right. A few blocks' worth of mansions later, and they pulled into their true destination.

The lettering in the wrought iron arch above the entrance read, "Cementerio de San Jacobo."

"Is this a short cut or something?" said Cary, driving under the arch.

"To the afterlife, maybe." El Yucatango seemed agitated and fiddled with his bushy beard. "Just keep going, Beacon."

"Does your brother live near here?" said Cary.

"Not far," said El Yucatango. "Turn left."

The taxi entered an upscale sector, gliding between rows of tall monuments. Stone angels and crosses and statues of the dead slid past on both sides, a forest of frozen gray figures in the afternoon sun.

El Yucatango had one arm hanging out the window. As the taxi drifted around a bend, he suddenly smacked the palm of his hand against the door.

"
Alto
, señor," he said. "You're practically on top of him."

Cary parked along the road and cut the engine, then followed El Yucatango through a thicket of monuments. He ended up face to face for the second time with a bronze replica of El Demonio del Diamante.

The resemblance to the statue El Yucatango had pissed on at the edge of town was unmistakable. The cemetery version bulged with muscles and a strong, square jaw. The statue's mask and chest bore the emblem of a huge diamond, tapering to a sharp point.

Only the statue's pose was different from that of the version at the edge of town. Instead of standing with arms stretched high overhead and legs pressed together, this Demonio del Diamante stood with legs apart and hands on hips, with arms akimbo. His head was turned to face solemnly into the East, in the direction of the rising sun.

In case Cary had any doubt about the statue's identity, a name was carved into the granite pedestal on which it stood:
El Demonio del Diamante
.

"But I thought..." Under Demonio's name, Cary read a set of dates:
1945-2005
. "You mean he's...?"

"He cheated me one last time," said El Yucatango. "He stole my title, disgraced me, had me banned for life from
lucha libre
, and then he
died
before I could restore my good name and reputation."

Cary was having trouble processing the scene. All along, he'd expected to find El Yucatango's brother in a mansion with lush tropical gardens and a vast swimming pool, thriving while the man he betrayed lived in poverty. "But you said he was
living
here."

"Before he died, he was," said El Yucatango.

Cary shook his head. "You said our
enemies
were all gathered in the same
place
."

"I didn't say they were all
alive
, did I?" El Yucatango kicked at some of the wildly colorful flowers heaped around the base of the statue. "Ah, this makes me
sick
."

"So, wait," said Cary. "I thought you were gonna
wrestle
this guy."

El Yucatango scooped up fistfuls of flowers and pitched them at other gravesites. "Every time I'm here, there are more flowers.
This
garbage, too!" He held up a red thong panty, then flicked it away. "More and more fans all the time! More people believing the lies!"

Cary was starting to wonder if El Yucatango had completely lost it. "You challenged the Diamond Demon! You said you wouldn't leave until you wrestled him!"

El Yucatango was pitching flowers right and left. "They think he's a
hero
. Even
dead
, he
still
ruins me! I'm beaten by a
ghost
."

"Yucatango." At the risk of getting pitched like the flowers, Cary got close enough to put a hand on the super-hero's shoulder. "If your brother's dead, who exactly are you planning to wrestle?"

El Yucatango looked up at him with a sly smile. "His
ghost
, of course."

"How?" said Cary. "I don't understand."

"El Demonio del Diamante will rise from the dead." El Yucatango held out his hands, palms up, and slowly raised them over his head. "He will not be able to
rest
as long as I keep spreading the
truth
about what he did and
challenging
him to defend his title."

Cary listened with a straight face and nodded, waiting to see where El Yucatango was going with this. "And you plan to beat him."

"Of course I will!" said El Yucatango. "You're going to let me win!"

"Me?" said Cary.

"Why, sure!" El Yucatango threw an arm around Cary's shoulders. "You'll put up a good fight at first, and then you'll let me win!"

"You'll be wrestling
me
?" said Cary.

"It'll be a hell of a show." El Yucatango's free hand swirled through the air in front of Cary's face as he spoke. "First, we dig up the grave. Hide the body. Make it look like he's risen from the dead.

"Then, we dress you up in El Demonio del Diamante's costume. You meet me in the ring, I defeat you, and you disappear!"

"I disappear?" said Cary.

El Yucatango snapped his fingers. "Just like that."

"And this is the 'small thing' you had in mind, isn't it?"

El Yucatango nodded. "Isn't it a super plan, super-pal?"

"I don't suppose I could just pay you your fee and skip the digging-up-the-dead-guy part, could I?"

"This will be your finest hour, Beacon," said El Yucatango. "When you look back on it, you will always know that you righted a terrible wrong.

"As for El Demonio del Diamante, his screams will reach all the way from the deepest pit of Hell to the highest cloud in Heaven! On that day, the Devil's fiery torments will seem like sweet kisses compared to the agony of seeing me regain the title and good name he stole!"

"You're sure
I
won't be the one screaming?" said Cary.

El Yucatango laughed and squeezed Cary's shoulders with crushing pressure. "Don't worry, Beacon! I won't hurt you in the ring! I'm a professional!"

"Maybe," said Cary, "but can you protect me from the angry crowd if they find out I'm impersonating their beloved Diamond Demon?"

"I take it back." El Yucatango was grinning, his gold tooth gleaming. "There might be some screaming after all."