Wrong Thing (8 page)

“You are fucking messing with me, bro,” said Miguel.

The Kid shook his head.

“You fucking killed him?”

“Yeah, I think so. I didn't wait to find out.” The Kid had found $314 in Crowley's wallet. He handed Miguel $100. He owed someone else $160 for the gun, but he wouldn't have to pay until he could afford it. “Look” he told Miguel. “You've been cool letting me stay here and eat your food and shit. I owe you this money. But if I'm gonna be wanted for murder and the bikers're gonna be looking for me, I don't blame you if you don't want me here no more. I'm gonna take off.”

Miguel threw the money back at him. “Don't give me your shit. This is your house, okay? You can stay till you get somewhere. Just don't tell Mikey, huh?” Mikey was Miguel's roommate. “He's kind of uptight about killing people.”

They watched the local news on TV. Crowley was dead, shot on the street by an unidentified Mexican male. The motive for the killing was not known, but there was speculation that it was drug-related.

“Good,” the Kid said. “That means the bikers'll know about it and back off”‘

“They might not,” Miguel said. “The bikers stick together. They got this code, you fight one, you got to fight them all.”

“That's ‘cause they don't expect to get killed. If any more of them want to get into it with me, that's up to them.”

Miguel just looked at him and said nothing. He tried to imagine what had happened, what it had looked like. The Kid was sitting in an armchair, wearing blue jeans and a short-sleeved flannel shirt and running shoes. His hair was neatly combed. He was drinking coffee from a mug. Miguel looked at him and tried to see something that separated the Kid from everyone else, but he couldn't see it.

“What was it like?” he asked. “How did you feel?”

“I didn't care.”

That was true, but it wasn't the whole truth. After it had happened, the Kid had sat in the Aztec Cafe and thought about it, what he had done, tried to take it all in. He'd thought he would be changed somehow, but he wasn't. It didn't seem like a big deal. He kept replaying it in his head, trying to feel some awe. But the awe never came. He'd never seen anyone die before, not even peacefully, and he'd always thought it would be dramatic, a life ending, maybe a spirit leaving the body. All that had happened was that Crowley was gone, dead, no change except that the body was broken and wouldn't function any more. It seemed like any other day. The cafe's hot cider tasted like it always did.

T
he cops pulled in some suspects, but none were guilty and the cops knew it. They never even talked to the Kid. Word had spread through the barrio that the Kid had done it, and would kill anyone else who went up against him, but nobody was sure it was true, and those who knew it was true weren't going to say anything to the cops. If anyone was going to snitch, it wouldn't have been to the cops—they would have made themselves some money by telling the bikers where he was. But nobody knew where he was, and the cops didn't know what to believe.

The Kid stayed at Miguel's. They never told Mikey what the Kid was into, but Mikey wasn't stupid. He got scared and decided to move out, so the Kid stopped being a guest, moved off Miguel's bedroom floor and into Mikey's room, and started sharing the rent.

He could afford it. He was making money. Some said it was from dealing, which he was definitely doing, and others said it was from killing people for money, which he may have been doing.

The bikers didn't like it, but they learned to accept it. Crowley had been the one who established control of the local drug trade, and with him dead there was no one among the bikers with the savvy to do it. The Kid's business wasn't large, and there was still enough of the market for the bikers. They knew it looked bad that a boy had faced them down by himself, but a couple of encounters with him helped the bikers decide they didn't want a feud. They talked a lot about killing him, but no one knew how to find him, and no one volunteered to try. There were even some bikers who believed that the Kid didn't exist, that he was a legend created in the barrio, a phantom who was blamed for every unsolved act of violence by a Mexican.

There are now some Latino gangs who claim the Kid, who say that he was down with them. The truth is that the Kid never claimed anyone but himself, and was never down with anyone except for the one or two people that he loved. When he was still in school, a couple of gangs did offer him membership, the chance to be jumped in—which means being beaten senseless as an initiation ceremony. The Kid said no, and the gangs left him alone because they had members who liked him. He belonged to no one, and now he seems to belong to everyone.

One evening Miguel said, “I think I'm gonna be your partner, bro.”

“How come?”

“Going to work's easy, but coming home ain't, because of you.”

“Why? What am I doing?”

“You sure as hell ain't selling advertising, that's for sure.”

“What's wrong with selling advertising? I thought you liked it.”

“It's not bad. But I got into it ‘cause I ain't into getting killed or going to jail. Thanks to your fine efforts, it don't look like I'd have to worry about that no more, now that you've restored free enterprise to the Santa Fe narcotics trade.”

“You always have to worry about it.”

“Yeah, but . . . My problem ain't selling advertising. It's that I sell advertising all day, then I come home, and here you are. And what're you doing? You're laying around on your ass reading a damn book or whacking off to porno—if you ain't already in bed with some bitch. And that's all you've been doing all day long. That, my brother, is the problem. It makes me feel unfulfilled.”

“So what're you gonna do about it?”

“Go in with you. You down with that?”

“Sure.”

Miguel gave notice at the paper, telling his colleagues that he was going into business for himself, but neglecting to specify the nature of the business. They threw a party for him in a bar, and the Kid went along. Miguel introduced the Kid as his new business partner. When people asked what they were going to do, the Kid was cryptic, saying he liked to keep a lid on things. The sales guys looked suitably impressed.

The business built very quickly. Soon they had people working for them. They'd take business trips to Mexico. Sometimes their associates in Mexico would call and tell the Kid that they'd like him to visit a troublesome person in another state, and the Kid would always go. This was how he built favor. Miguel was an equal partner, but he knew he couldn't have done it by himself, or with another partner. It was people's fear of the Kid, and his usefulness to the narcos, that made it so easy. Miguel liked living with the Kid. They got along, and the Kid cooked dinner every night. Miguel had never eaten so well before. After dinner they'd go out to clubs and try to get laid. They were successful as often as not.

They became known to the cops and to the Drug Enforcement Administration. But the DEA was very good at identifying drug dealers and very poor at gathering enough evidence to arrest them. It was unusual for the Kid and Miguel to have the product they were selling in their house. And the cops had the wrong idea about what they were doing; they thought it was gang-related. A couple of times, they ambushed their suspects and searched them for tattoos. Miguel had some, so that proved that he was in a gang. The Kid didn't have any, which proved that he was in a gang too, but trying to hide the fact, or else he would have tattoos.

On one of the Kid's business trips south of the border, he stayed at a resort. It was an old resort and hardly exclusive, but that was something he liked about it. He would never have felt comfortable in a very formal surrounding, a place where he would have to think about etiquette all the time. This place wasn't like that. It was quite expensive, elegant but not grand, and being there made the Kid feel good.

The night after his business was taken care of, he was sitting by himself in the resort's jazz bar, listening to the house band. He saw a woman sitting alone at a table. She was white, blonde, in her twenties. She was looking at the Kid and smiling. He went over and asked if he could sit at her table. She kept smiling and said yes.

The woman was from Texas. She had just finished medical school, and was taking a vacation to reward herself. She was unhappy and wanted to talk about her life: loneliness, an abortion, a miserable relationship she was still involved with and couldn't seem to get herself to leave. The Kid listened as she talked. They ordered a bottle of red wine and drank it. The woman ate an avocado salad. The Kid had no counsel to offer her. Under the table, their legs were touching.

It got late. The band finished playing. She leaned close to the Kid and said, “I know I shouldn't, but I really want to kiss you right now.”

The Kid kissed her on the mouth. Then they were kissing each other, their mouths open. He briefly felt her tongue before they moved apart.

“Let's finish these and go somewhere,” the Kid said, pointing to their drinks.

“Okay . . . But I don't want to go to my room. Or your room. Let's just take a walk.”

The resort had gardens, with lights and a fountain. They walked around, holding hands under a full moon. There was a dark, wooded area nearby. When the Kid walked towards it, the woman followed him.

When they were as far into the trees as they felt they needed to be, they stopped walking. The Kid took off his jacket, laid it on the ground, and they sat on it. They kissed, and kept kissing for a long time. She moaned into his mouth. He could feel the vibrations on her breath. He ran his hands down her shoulders to her waist, pulled her shirt out of her pants. He touched the skin at the small of her back, then slid a hand down into her pants. With his other hand, he reached for her belt and began to unfasten it.

She stopped him. “I can't,” she said. “It's too much.”

“Okay,” he said. They went on kissing. After a while, her legs had parted and his hand had moved between them. He stroked her, harder as her moans got louder. She clung to him, rocking against him, eyes closed. Finally she gave an explosive gasp, then leaned her head on his chest.

“Did you come?” he asked her.

“No. I nearly did. But I can't relax.”

“I want you to.” He reached for her and began stroking her again, faster and more insistent.

“Oh shit . . . ” She unfastened her belt and undid her pants. He put a hand inside her panties and felt her wetness squeeze around his fingers. She took his hand and moved it up a little, showing him where she felt it most. He stroked her and she came in seconds, squealing through clenched teeth.

They held each other and kissed for a while. Then he felt her get excited again.

“What do you want?” he whispered.

“I want to go” she said, her breathing so heavy that he could barely make out the words.

“What?”