The Painted Boy (19 page)

“I told you,” she said. “Ramon said that’s how their conversation went. So if that much is true . . .”

Rosalie let her voice trail off.

Anna sighed. She dropped the journal on the sofa and leaned her head against the headrest again.

“You think I overreacted,” she said.

Rosalie shook her head. “You were working with what you knew.”

“I overreacted.”

“Maybe. But do you believe now that he didn’t know he could do whatever it was he did?”

Anna sighed. “Probably.”

“He really, really likes you,” Rosalie said.

“Yeah. So I read. But considering what I said to him, I’m sure he doesn’t now. And I wouldn’t blame him.”

“We don’t know that.”

Anna looked away.

“I really believe he’s just some kid that’s in way over his head,” Rosalie said. “And now he’s out there somewhere, all messed up, and he can’t even come to us because he thinks we all hate him.”

“I don’t know how I feel.”

“Bullshit. I think you held him at arm’s length because you did like him and it scared you. What he might be scared you.”

“But Margarita . . .”

Anna started to cry. Rosalie enfolded her in her arms, her own eyes welling up with tears.

“I know, Anna. I know. It—it’s like Paulo and Mamá all over again . . .”

After a few moments, Anna pulled back. She got up to get a tissue and blew her nose. By the time she sat down with Rosalie once more, she’d regained her composure.

“So we need to find him,” she said.

Rosalie didn’t have to ask who. She just nodded.

“Ramon has some ideas,” she said.

She’d been planning to tell Anna about seeing Maria Sanchez at the funeral, but decided that one small victory was enough for now. Anna had been way angrier than Rosalie when Maria hooked up with the Kings.

Instead, she talked about Ramon wanting to visit the
mescaleros
.

 

 

While she felt she could blow off school for one more day, Rosalie didn’t feel right about leaving Tío in the lurch. So after she left Anna’s, she returned home to feed the dogs, changed into a blouse and skirt, then went in to work.

Ines was already there. She might act like a wannabe with her fixation on clothes and partying and clubbing, but in her heart she was still a barrio girl and knew to do the right thing. She was here without complaint because she was needed, waiting tables and handling the register. Paco was doubling as busboy and dishwasher while Tío had taken over the kitchen. He looked very relieved to see her.

“How are you holding up?” Ines asked when Rosalie came behind the bar.

“It’s hard.”

Ines squeezed her shoulder. “Are you sure you’re ready to be here?”

“Probably not. But I can’t leave you guys on your own.”

That wasn’t something Rosalie would have shared with Tío—he would have sent her home. But Ines understood. She gave Rosalie’s shoulder another squeeze, then split up the tables between them.

It wasn’t until a couple of hours later that things got scary.

 

 

The restaurant was still two-thirds full when Amada Flores walked in. Alone. No bodyguards, no
bandas
in tow, nobody but himself.

Rosalie had never seen him in person before. He was much more handsome than news reports made him out to be, but he was a lot more frightening, too. Pictures could never capture the confident grace with which he moved, nor the feral power that crackled in his dark brown eyes. His smile was utterly charming. The eyes said he could kill you at any moment, for no reason, without remorse.

The entire restaurant went still. No one spoke. There was no clink of cutlery against plates. Ines was in the middle of changing a CD, so even the sound system was silent.

Rosalie realized that her hands were trembling. She clasped them together, but it didn’t seem to help. She was still shaking inside.

The unnatural stillness brought Tío out of the kitchen, and that worried Rosalie more than any fears she might have for herself, Ines, or their customers. She saw the hardness settle over Tío’s features, putting a dark look in his eyes that reminded her that once he’d been considered almost as dangerous as El Tigre was now.

“You’re not welcome in this place,” Tío said.

El Tigre’s own cold gaze went icier still. But his voice was mild when he spoke. “You don’t even know why I’ve come.”

“I don’t care. Get out of here.”

“Be careful, old man. With one word I could have this little restaurant of yours come crashing down around your ears as easily as your cook destroyed the music hall.”

Tío shot Rosalie a look and she shook her head. She had no idea how Flores had come to that conclusion, either.

“Then either do it or leave,” Tío told the gangster.

Anger flashed in El Tigre’s eyes, but he kept himself otherwise under control.

“You need to understand something here,” he said, his voice still mild. “I know all about you doing Julio’s time. How when you got out of jail, you wanted to get out of the life. You’re a stand-up guy—you proved that by taking the fall—so Julio gave you his blessing. You’re off-limits to the
bandas
and he even fronted you the money to open this place.”

“Which I paid back, with interest.”

“Whatever. Your problem right now is that Julio Garza doesn’t run the Kings anymore. I run the Kings. I run all the
bandas
south of the San Pedro.”

“Is there a point to all this old history?” Tío asked.

“Yeah. Keep shooting off your mouth, and I bring it all down. So give me a little respect, old man, and listen to what I have to say. I show you respect by coming here alone, my hands empty.”

He held out his hands as he spoke.

Tío gave him a curt nod. “I’m listening.”

“I’m here about the dragon,” Flores said.

Tío’s face remained blank.

“Your cook, Jay Li,” Flores went on. “I need to get a message to him.”

“We haven’t seen him since . . . that night.”

“I told you, I’m not playing—”

“And I’m telling you,” Tío broke in, “he never came back. Not here, not to the house.”

Flores took a moment to consider that. He studied Tío until he was finally satisfied that he was getting the truth.

“He needs to know,” Flores said, “that the attack had nothing to do with the agreement he and I had. I knew nothing about what Alambra had done until it was too late. If the dragon hadn’t killed that whore’s son, I would have done it myself.”

“Margarita Vargas is still dead,” Tío said.

“And I take full responsibility for that. Tell him if you see him. Whatever we need to do to make things right again, I’m ready to talk to him.”

He was scared of Jay, Rosalie thought. No, not scared—respectful. Which she would have thought strange if she hadn’t seen how Alambra had died. But Flores was still a power to be reckoned with, and not only because the
bandas
were under his command. There was something about him, just as there was with Jay. She thought about how he was called the Tiger and wondered if perhaps it was more than just a name.

“I have my doubts that we’ll see Jay again,” Tío said. He went on as El Tigre began to interrupt. “But
if
I do, I will give him your message.”

Flores nodded. “Do this and the arrangement you had with your old boss, Julio, can continue with me.”

Before Tío could respond, Flores turned away and the door closed behind him. Tío stood there for a long moment. He looked around the restaurant and Rosalie knew just what he was feeling, how he hated that all this old
bandas
business had just come up in public. But the gazes of the customers were sympathetic and she didn’t think any of them would talk about what they’d witnessed, if not for Tío’s sake, then for fear of coming to the attention of El Tigre.

Tío’s gaze swept across the restaurant one last time, then he went back into the kitchen. Rosalie started to follow, but Ines laid a hand on her arm.

“Let him be,” she said. “He’s embarrassed and mad, and that’s never a good combination. Give him a chance to work through it.”

Rosalie nodded. Though Ines and her father weren’t close, they knew each other well. And Ines was right. Tío always needed time to process the unexpected.

“So what’s the story with Jay?” Ines wanted to know. “Flores seemed almost, I don’t know how to put it . . .”

“Respectful?”

Ines nodded. “But he’s just this kid from Chicago, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“Except Flores is saying that Jay blew up the dance hall?”

Rosalie shook her head. “Jay didn’t blow anything up. I was there.”

“I wonder why Flores thinks he did?”

“Who can figure how a mind like his works?” Rosalie said.

The front door opened again, interrupting them. Rosalie braced herself against Flores’s return, but it was just an older couple.

“I’ll get this,” she said.

She grabbed a couple of menus and went to greet the newcomers.

 

 

Both Anna and Ramon were waiting when Rosalie got home from the restaurant. They were around back on the patio with the dogs scattered all around them. Pepito was the first to notice her return. He barked and leaped from Anna’s lap and then the whole pack was jumping around Rosalie until she gave them the command to stand down. She fussed over them all, then made her way onto the patio and collapsed into a chair.

“You didn’t tell me that Maria was at the funeral,” Anna said.

Rosalie sighed and shot Ramon a look. He shrugged.

“It just came up,” he said. “I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret.”

“It’s not. It’s just . . .”

“You thought it would set me off,” Anna said.

“I didn’t know. But you were just starting to give Jay the benefit of the doubt and . . .”

“I get it,” Anna said. “You thought I’d go postal on you.” She sighed. “God, am I really such a schiz?”

“You’re just intense,” Ramon said. “And empathic. So when you’re feeling other people’s pain, you feel it intensely.”

“Not to mention your own,” Rosalie put in.

“I guess.”

Anna sighed again, then noticed how Pepito was giving her a hopeful look. She patted her lap and he bounded up, curling into a contented ball.

“Why do you think Maria keeps giving you these warnings?” she said.

“I don’t know. I don’t get it, either.”

“I don’t get
her
,” Anna said. “When you think how she was before she joined the Kings and, God, her family. They’re like the poster people for an anti-gang ad.”

“We should still be careful,” Ramon said. “We have to tell everybody to watch out.”

“Maybe not,” Rosalie said, and she told them about Amada Flores. “It sounds to me,” she said, finishing up, “like Flores is pretty serious about sticking to this agreement of his.”

“Big whoop,” Anna said. “Look where that got Margarita.”

They all fell silent. The dogs, sensing their unhappiness, grew restless.

“I talked to one of the uncles about Jay,” Ramon said after a while.

Rosalie looked up, happy to have something else to think about.

“Does he know where we can find him?” she asked.

“Yes and no. I told him what we knew. When I got to the part where Jay just disappears he started talking about how there’s another desert inside the one we can see—or maybe he said it’s kind of a step sideways.”

“Like in Jay’s journal.”

Ramon nodded. “He called it
el entre
and said that’s where we need to go looking.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Anna asked, then she shook her head. “I can’t believe I just said that. Now you’ve got me on the mystic dragon wagon.”

“He told me that there are lots of ways,” Ramon said. “Meditation or mescal tea can open the door. Or we can go on a spirit quest.”

Rosalie started shaking her head as soon as he mentioned the mescal tea.

“Or we can go into this desert,” Ramon went on, “the one that we can access, and ask for help from the spirits.”

“And they’re just going to come to us,” Anna said.

Ramon shrugged. “I’m only passing on what Alfredo told me. He says there are places where they tend to appear more often than usual. There’s one he called Crow Canyon, but I couldn’t figure out where he says it is. But another one’s up in the mountains off the Vulture Ridge trail and I think I know the place he means.”

“So let’s go,” Anna said.

She put Pepito down on the ground and stood up. The dogs all scrambled to their feet.

“It’s past midnight,” Rosalie said.

“So?”

Rosalie turned to Ramon. “The trail will be dangerous in the dark, won’t it?”

He shook his head. “Not really—not with this moon. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be careful. And we need to put together some gear. Water, energy bars, flashlights, ropes . . .”

“We’re just going up the trail,” Anna said.

“And you never know what you’re going to run into out there,” he told her. “C’mon, Anna. It’s basic Desert 101.”

Anna looked from him to Rosalie. “Okay, so we put some gear together, and then we’ll go, right?”

“Why can’t this wait until tomorrow?” Rosalie asked.

“Because if I don’t do something,” Anna said, “I’m going to go out of my mind.”

“That’s not a long trip,” Ramon told her, smiling.

Anna gave him a light tap on his shin with the toe of her shoe.

“Ow!”

“I think you need a more manly boyfriend,” Anna told Rosalie.

Rosalie smiled and thought, as if. But she didn’t say anything. She was happy to see Anna stepping outside of her anger and sorrow long enough to be teasing Ramon. And tired though she was, she completely understood Anna’s need to be doing something.