The Painted Boy (29 page)

“Cousins.”

“Yeah,” Hector went on. “You really think they’ll show up? They were some bad-ass-looking dudes.”

“And
strong
,” Conrad said.

“They’ll come,” Anna told them. “And we’re going to play a kick-ass set for them—if we can just get our own asses in gear.”

She gave them all a fierce look, and everybody went back to work.

 

 

As the dawn light came over the peaks of the Hierro Madera Mountains, an old woman walked through the back alleys of the barrio, carrying a plastic lawn chair. Her progress was slow, but steady. But by the time the tops of the adobe buildings were catching the first rays of the sun, she had reached Camino Presidio. She opened her chair, set it down on the side of the street across from El Conquistador, and sat down. She didn’t know how long she would have to wait, but she could be patient.

“You didn’t come when it was Enrico going up against El Tigre,” a voice said from beside her a few minutes later, “and he was your own brother. What makes this time different?”

Elena didn’t bother to look at Rita. She kept her gaze on the doorway of the pool hall.

“This time I know it is happening,” she finally said.

“I didn’t make Enrico go,” Rita said.

“I know. But you encouraged him.”

Rita shook her head, but Elena was watching the pool hall.

“I wasn’t so much encouraging him,” Rita said, “as wondering why an old cousin of the powerful Salty Water Stream Clan hadn’t already rid us of Flores. Especially when it was already her responsibility to do so.”

Elena finally turned to look at her.

“You are misinformed,” she said. “Any medicine this old lizard ever had came from the land, and Flores stole that from me. He took it piece by piece, so subtly I never realized until it was too late. Now I can feel the pain he inflicts upon these small desert acres, but I can do nothing to stop it.”

“Yes, but—”

“And Enrico didn’t even have that.”

Rita stared at her for a long moment before she finally said, “I didn’t know that.”

“We all live with the burden of knowing too little, but in your case it got a brave—if foolish—young man killed.”

“I—”

“I didn’t know what Enrico planned until it was too late,” Elena went on. “But I couldn’t have stopped him. We can never stop these young men from throwing themselves into danger. But today, at least, I can bear witness to what will unfold.”

“I thought—”

“Hush,” Elena told her. She pointed upward to where a sky full of crows flew to vantage points on the tops of the surrounding buildings. “The crow boys are here. Jay must be on his way.”

 

 

Some came in their animal shapes, some as five-fingered beings, but as Jay neared Camino Presidio, the cousins began to gather around the old adobe building that housed El Conquistador. Hawk uncles perched on nearby rooftops with a crowd of crow boys and a couple of old turkey vultures. On the windowsills below were smaller bird cousins: cactus wrens, flickers, doves, a lone phainopepla. Deer women stood in the shadow of an alley with squirrels and wood rats underfoot. Tarantulas and spiders and the little lizard girls watched from hidden places, while on the corner across the street from the pool hall, a gang of javelina boys were goofing around, pushing each other and laughing.

And others came—not cousins, but interested parties all the same. Ghosting in and out of
el entre
were the spirits of palo verde and mesquite and cacti, pale, insubstantial shapes that became more and more vague as the morning light grew.

There were rumors that Coyote Woman herself was on her way. That was always the talk when something big was in the air, but like the eagle cousins, she rarely came. Still, Old Man Tortoise made his slow progress down the street, and he hardly ever emerged from the desert. He was accompanied by two members of the cat tribes—a young bobcat and a tall mountain lion elder in a beaded buckskin dress whose features kept shifting between cat and woman.

There were dogs everywhere—both cousins and their natural kin—but there were always dogs wandering around the barrio. They wove in and around the motorcycles and low riders in front of the pool hall and the parking lot, relieving themselves on the wheels of more than one.

And the cousins kept coming, big and small, old and young. Everyone was aware of Señora Elena and Rita, but while they paid their respects with nods or a wave to Elena, none of them actually approached until the arrival of Malena Gracia, the matriarch of the Beaded Lizard Clan who’d come from south of Santo del Vado Viejo, across the border that only the five-fingered beings considered relevant. Like Elena she was an old woman and overweight, her tread slow as she walked down the street; like Elena, she’d brought a lawn chair as well.

“This is quite the turnout,” she said after she settled down beside them. “Your little jackalope has been a busy girl.”

“She’s not mine to command,” Elena said.

Malena shrugged. “You know what I mean. Is anybody taking bets?”

“On the outcome?”

Malena laughed. “We all know the outcome. I was thinking more on how long an untried young dragon will last against El Tigre.”

“I don’t gamble on people’s lives,” Elena told her.

Malena gave another shrug. “Well, I’m guessing seconds rather than minutes.”

“Maybe Jay will surprise you,” Rita said.

Malena turned to look at the snake woman, then gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Sure,” she said. “And maybe the moon will step down from the sky and put an end to all this nonsense, but I’m not betting that’ll happen, either.”

She started to settle back into her chair, the plastic stretching, then lifted her head and looked around.

“What the hell?” she said.

Groups of five-fingered beings were drifting in from the various side streets. Teenagers, young adults in their twenties. None of them showed gang colors but many wore scarves or T-shirts decorated with skeletons.

“Malo Malo,” Malena read off a T-shirt—
Bad Bad
. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s the name of a local band,” Rita said.

Malena nodded. “I wonder who they’re rooting for.”

The crowd stood in small groups and looked around. Many pulled out cell phones and started texting.

“I don’t think they’re rooting for anybody,” Rita said. “I think they’re here for a show.”

Malena gave her a blank look.

“All that Malo Malo gear?” Rita said. “These kids are expecting a concert.”

“At this hour of the morning?” she said.

“Can you think of anything else that would get them out so early? And now,” she added, “I hear a couple of trucks. If there
is
going to be a concert, I’m guessing that’ll be the band.”

Malena looked from Elena to Rita.

“Now whose idea was this?” she asked. “You know this isn’t the time or place for a show. Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

“It’s their barrio, too,” Elena said. “So it’s good that someone brought them here to bear witness.”

“Except they think they’re just here for a show,” Rita said.

Elena shrugged. “In the end, it will be the same thing.”

 

 

Inside the pool hall, Cruz turned away from the window.

“There’s some old lady sitting on a lawn chair across the street,” he said.

A couple of other
bandas
got up from where they were sitting and went over to have a look. A tall girl the guys called Sweetcheeks laughed.

“That’s crazy old Elena,” she said, then she called over to where Maria was sitting by the bar. “Yo, Maria! Your mama’s out there.”

“I don’t have a mother,” Maria told her. “She’s just my landlady.”

“Man, there’s all kinds of weird-looking people out there,” another of the
bandas
said.

Cruz looked over to where El Tigre sat by the bar, drinking an espresso.

“You want us to get rid of them?” he asked.

Flores shook his head. “Why would I want that? The barrio is their home as much as it is ours.”

“Yeah, but this is just weird.”

“Now there’s two old ladies sitting across the street,” another one of the gang members said. “And isn’t that Rita standing beside them?”

Flores didn’t even bother to look up again.

“Just tell me when the China Boy shows,” he said.

Cruz and the other gang members gave each other puzzled looks. But they knew better than to argue.

“Sure thing, boss,” one of the
bandas
said. “Whatever you say.”

Flores glanced at Maria. She had her own espresso in front of her, but she hadn’t touched it. She’d looked up when Flores had spoken. Now she was back to focusing on some unseen distance.

“What about you, Maria?” Flores asked her. “You have some interest in the China Boy?”

She nodded, her face dark when she turned to him.

“He killed Alambra,” she said. “Now I’m just waiting for your say-so that he can pay for it.”

“You never cared for Alambra when he was alive, so why the interest now?”

“I still don’t care about him,” she replied, “but it doesn’t matter what I think or don’t. Alambra was a King. The China Boy owes us payback.”

Flores laughed. “Maybe you’ll get your chance,” he said. “Keep that little blade of yours sharp and ready.”

Maria grinned back at him, but the humor never reached her eyes.

“My blade’s always sharp and ready,” she said.

“Man, there’s something going down,” another of the
bandas
standing by the window said. “Now it looks like every kid in the barrio’s showing up out there.”

Cruz nodded. “And a hell of a lot of them wearing Malo Malo gear.”

Around the pool hall various gang members got to their feet and started for the door.

“Everybody chill,” Flores said. No one made another move. “I know you’ve all got this big hate on for Malo Malo, but right now nobody does a thing. We’re just waiting on the China Boy—got it?”

The
bandas
wanted to ask why, but they knew better. They settled back in their chairs, on edge now, ready for anything.

Still standing by the window with Cruz, Sweetcheeks took out her cell and went online.

“The band’s putting on a free concert,” she said after a moment. “That’s what all those kids are doing out there.”

“Interesting,” Flores said as if it was anything but.

He unfolded a newspaper and spread it out on the bar in front of him. Taking a sip of his espresso, he began to read the front page, just as he did every morning.

 

 

Lupita sat cross-legged on the roof of an adobe building across the street from the pool hall, surrounded by joking crow boys and an old turkey vulture. They’d arrived wearing their bird skins, but she’d had to climb up a drainpipe at the back of the building.

Now that she was here, she was having second and third thoughts about her part in this. There were so many people down on the streets—her own and the five-fingered beings—that it would be a miracle if no one got hurt. And inside the pool hall—how many
bandas
did El Tigre have in there?

The sound of truck motors drew her attention away from El Conquistador. North on Camino Presidio she saw two flatbeds approaching. She recognized the members of Malo Malo and their friends. There was no traffic this early, but she was still surprised when the drivers parked their trucks back-to-back, blocking the street. The Malo Malo fans surged forward. There were maybe a hundred of them—with a few cousins boosting their number—and they crowded close to the front of the makeshift stage.

Lupita watched the band haul a pair of generators from the truck beds and set them up to feed power to their equipment.

She turned her attention to the front door of El Conquistador, then back to the band. Any moment, El Tigre’s gangbangers were going to come out to see what was going on. The two groups would be at each other in an instant.

She looked the other way down the street. Where was Jay?

As if in answer, a crow dropped from the morning sky, shifting into his man shape just before he touched the roof. He landed lightly on his feet. When he turned, Lupita recognized him. His name was Chico and he lived out in Crow Canyon, but he was often in the barrio.

“The dragon’s on his way,” Chico said. “I just talked to him.”

“What’s he like?” another of the crows asked.

“Not as big as I thought, but the dragon inside is full of fire.”

The crow boys all grinned at each other.

They were actually looking forward to a fight between Flores and Jay, Lupita realized. Didn’t they see how it could all go so wrong?

This was all Rita’s fault.

No, that wasn’t true. Rita might have convinced her to push Jay into this confrontation with El Tigre, but Lupita herself was the one who’d agreed. And then she’d had the bright idea of gathering a bunch of cousins and five-fingered beings to watch the show.

She’d thought she was doing the right thing. She’d thought that this was what taking responsibility was all about. Making a change. Standing up to what was wrong. But when it all went wrong, it would be on her. She was going to be responsible for whatever happened when the gangbangers confronted the cousins and Malo Malo and their fans.

“This isn’t how it was supposed to go,” she said. “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

Chico turned to her. “Damn straight, and his name is El Tigre. That dragon’s going to shut him right down.”

“But what if he doesn’t? What if El Tigre wins and he sics his
bandas
on us and all those kids down there?”

“Too late to worry about that now,” the old turkey vulture said in a rasping voice.

He pointed down the street. A couple of blocks north, Jay had stepped onto Camino Presidio. From the Malo Malo stage an electric guitar played a few bars from a spaghetti western soundtrack and all the crow boys laughed and pumped their fists.