All Involved (5 page)

Buys us more time. Just in case.

By now, somebody's called 911. No telling how long it'll take for someone to come pick him up though. My stomach actually convulses at the thought of him lying here for god-knows-how-long. One hour? Two? I take my flannel off and cover his face with it. I lift his head up a little and put the sleeves underneath like a pillow. My hands come back bloody.

After that it's just Clever grabbing baggies and me standing dumb right beside him, working up the courage to say what I got to. I lean down next to Ernesto, close enough to touch him.

I close my eyes and I say, “We'll get you buried good and right, big bro. I promise. But we can't just now, okay? So please forgive me just this one thing.”

I blink and close my eyes again, but only after I latch on to the only clean part left of his uniform, a seam on the shoulder, near the collar. I squeeze it hard between my thumb and index finger.

“We need the time a little more right now is all.”

Back at the house, the place's thick with homies wondering what the fuck we're going to do, how we're going to come back on them for what they did to Ernesto. That's the talk. Soldiers want guns and cars, a caravan even. They want blood and they don't even know whose. And it's good to hear and all that, but Ernesto wasn't theirs, you know? He's mine. His death's on me.

Fate's smart as fuck though. He gives them just enough time to get the steam off before sending everybody but Apache home to wait for orders. Reason why Apache got to stay is cuz he recognizes the gum wrapper, he just can't remember where from, so we're all just hanging on it cuz Clever's still laying his shit out and it's tense as fuck.

The walls feel closer, the ceiling way too low. Even my skin feels all thin and stretched out over my bones. It hurts worse every time
I look at the kitchen clock and feel Ray's guaranteed chaos getting closer and my chance at justice getting farther away.

If anybody feels much about Ernesto, they ain't showing it. Ain't crying or nothing. Even if they wanted to they can't, cuz that's bitch shit. Pure weakness.

“Wait.” Apache holds the baggie with the wrapper up and finally says, “The Cork'n Bottle! That's where I seen it!”

It gets real quiet then. We need to know he's sure, like sure-sure.

“For real,” Apache says. “They got all that kind of crazy shit there. Even, like, black licorice gum. Shit's nasty.”

Fate makes a face like he doesn't doubt that, but he needs to know something else too. “How you know?”

“Well, me and Lil Creeper were out this one time . . .”

Fate is already waving his hand at the name like it's a bad smell. It means it's okay, he gets it, so stop, you don't need to keep talking. All Apache had to say was Lil Creeper and it's done. Dude's name is a conversation ender. It means you don't need to explain cuz we believe you. How that dude hasn't been killed a hundred times or locked up for life I'll never know. It's like he's high all the time. Always in the wrong place. Always guaranteed doing dumb shit. And yet, miraculously, he's always wriggling out of tight spots. He's a real wormy motherfucker, but he's our wormy motherfucker.

One time when we were little, Ray wanted a bike, a Dyno. It was a BMX bike, the hottest shit on the street. This was back when Creeper was first using. Heroin, coke, whatever, it never mattered to him. If it could go in his body, it was going in. So Ray tells him he wants a Dyno, tells him the colors and everything.

That's how it works with junkies, you know. You don't gotta tell them to do shit. You just tell them what you want and drop it. It works better than aiming them. Cuz two days later Creeper comes up to the house with a bike, white and red just like Ray asked, but there's a problem. See, it wasn't a Dyno he stole from J.C. Pennies, it was a
Rhino
—some cheap-ass fucking rip-off bike with that dumb
brand name written in the same type of lettering. Man, we laughed so hard at that, and Ray couldn't help but pay anyway. Ernesto laughed harder than anybody, his whole body shaking.

Remembering this hurts my ribs. I say, “Hey, Fate, shouldn't we prolly page him up though?”

“Who? Creeper?”

“For why?” Clever wants to know.

I make a gun with my right hand, index and middle for the barrel, and point at it with my left.

Guns aren't easy to get. Not one that traces to somebody else, or one that's unregistered or filed down. And no disrespect to Ray's arsenal, but a .38 ain't gonna do it. A .22 rifle ain't gonna do it. Biggest piece we got in the house is a .357 revolver that needs cleaning. That's still only six shots though.

I need like seventeen if I'm gonna do what needs to be done.

Fate's way ahead of me, as usual.

“Already did,” he says.

I nod at him and head into my room. I cut a look at my Lorraine sitting on the bed. She's done with her toes now. They look blue and small in the dimness, like shiny gumdrops. Her eyes are wide, and I can tell there's a lot of words dammed up behind her mouth but she won't say shit. She'll wait till I do. As she should.

I look at the clock by my bed, and my stomach balls up. It says I got an hour. Sixty fucking minutes. And that's bad. Cuz, see, there's a problem with that Cork'n Bottle Apache knows.

It's over the line.

It's not technically our neighborhood and since we don't own that shit, we can't go there unless we're stealth as fuck. And we don't got time to round up everybody, go over there, get it, come back, and then do something.

I get an idea then, a stupid one. Fast as I can, I'm out of my chucks, my khakis, my undershirt . . .

Lorraine cocks her head at me like she knows I'm about to do something crazy but is way too scared to ask what. I'm pulling
one of her dresses out of my closet, grabbing some eyeliner off the dresser and handing it to her.

“Do it good and fast,” I say.

She looks at it, then at me, and smiles real wicked. Before I know it, I got cat-eyes, penciled-in eyebrows, and my hair's getting feathered. I look like a bad copy of her in a gold sparkly dress, whoreish as fuck.

When Lorraine checks her finishing touches, somebody finally says it in the next room: “Wait, Cork'n Bottle on Imperial?”

“Yeah, that's the one,” Apache replies.

“Shit,” Clever says.

Fate's already thinking his way around it. He's been doing it. He knew when I knew that it was over the line. “We roll deep over there. Grab the tapes. See if we can't get a face on the fucker that chews this.”

“Or we do something unexpected,” I say, stepping out from my room. The wedge heels are a new thing. They feel like stilts.

“Damn,” Apache says and leaves his mouth hanging open. He's about to say something about how I look, but Clever nudges him quiet.

“Lemme go over there and grab them tapes,” I say. “It'll be in and out. Fast as hell.”

I put a please on the end of it so Fate knows it's his call, but he also knows it's prolly the best chance we got right now. At least, it's the best chance I got.

“Could be a trap or something,” he says to me.

I just kind of shrug. If it is, it is. I know he's right, though. Cuz Fate's twenty-five. He's seen things every which way. You don't live as long as him, putting in work for a decade, without being paranoid.

“They catch you over there, it ain't gonna be tickling,” he says.

That's his way of saying I get a bullet if I'm lucky, a knife if I'm not.

I know it. Everybody in the room knows it.

Clever doesn't like it either. “I still think we just roll deep over there, like five, six cars, grab the tapes, and be out.”

Apache's eyes light up, so you know he agrees.

Big Fate glares them both down. Sometimes he's more fam to me than Ray ever was. He knows me so good, knows I can't get talked out of shit like this when I get locked on to it. He stares at me hard, but there's something in those eyes though, a shiny spot like he's proud and he doesn't like it but he knows better than anybody how I gotta go. He wants me to be careful. He wants me to come back safe. He's just not going to say it.

I can't walk normal outside, can't really sway like I usually do, so I gotta slap my heels down after my toes kind of. It's enough to get me to the curb without eating shit. I feel eyes on me, but I don't turn around and check the cameras. Could be the last time I see any of them. That occurs to me, but I don't wave or nothing. I just get in the car.

Lorraine's got some sort of Japanese piece of shit riding on three good tires and a spare. Used to be her cousin's. It's got no lighter cap and a Dodger-logo baseball stuck on top of the gearshift. I slide in and turn the key. Smokey Robinson comes on the radio, but I shut him off as I notice the blinking clock on the dash is off by six minutes.

I got fifty left. That's it.

The starter sputters, but the car kicks in gear and I shoot down my street with the sticker of the Virgin Mary staring at me while I scrunch around in my seat cuz Lorraine's dress is twisted around on my hips. Figures. She's two sizes bigger than me but I can't help it now. I fight that shit down at a stop sign, looking at my eyes in the rearview, all Cleopatra'd. I hit the gas.

Times like this, I'm glad I never got no tattoos. You're burnt right away being marked up like that. It was Fate's idea for me not to
get any ink. Shit though, he's got his work from this dude's garage that everyone's been talking about. Pint. That's his name. Fate says he'll be a famous dude that came from Lynwood someday, like Kevin Costner is, or Weird Al Yankovic, and now people are saying Suge Knight too. Death Row Records. That guy.

I'm jealous of Fate's tattoos, but fuck it. He said years ago that I gotta keep clean, that I'm scarier that way. I can go anywhere without them, that I can blend in. He says I'm the element of surprise, and I get that, but he knows I'm entitled to two tattooed tears. My next thought hits me hard and blunt, baseball-bat style.

Shit.
Three
tears now. Counting Ernesto.

My breathing gets tangled up in my lungs. It's starting to feel normal almost, like I only got half my breathing space to use, not all of it.

I don't exactly have my license, but Ernesto taught me to drive good, how to drive defensive. And you know it's funny when I think that, cuz some old lady who can't see past her hair curlers puts half her van into my lane and I honk hard, dodge that shit, speed up, and change lanes easy. I swear, fucking people drive around like this is Culiacán, ignoring lanes, never signaling. I freeze a little after thinking that cuz it's something Ernie used to say all the time.

You know, he never complained when he had to sell his truck a year ago to pay Ray's bail after the dumb fucker caught an aggravated assault charge. Ernie volunteered to do it. He knew we couldn't be showing drug money or they'd be finding a way to investigate us, audit or some shit, whatever the fuck they do.

That truck of his was our only family asset besides the house. And Ernesto did it. He sold it and didn't even blink. Walked to work every day after that. He worked longer hours. He wouldn't even take the money Ray offered for a new ride. Instead he just walked and saved for a new one.

Him and Ray never got along. I mean, they loved each other, but they scrapped like crazy growing up. Ernie never lost, not that I ever saw, which of course made Ray raw and competitive, mean as
fuck. Made him want to join up too. Made him always want to prove himself and overdo shit, like two weeks ago when he shot up a club.

It's an old story. You prolly heard something like it a million times. That doesn't make it untrue though, just makes it stupid that people keep repeating this shit. See, Ray gets loaded out of his mind, goes to a club, and when some
cholo
claims another set, he heads to the car and gets his piece and decides everybody needs to be talking about how bad Lil Mosco is, then it was just that bang-bang-screech shit: shooting and squealing the tires and boning the fuck out.

He shot somebody in the eye, a girl with parted hair and big shoulders. We know cuz the TV said so. Well, it didn't say she had parted hair and big shoulders. That's just my observation.

Her parents held her picture up on the news when they were pleading
en español
for more information regarding her death. Some white dude on Fox 11 translated their words with all the emotion of a grocery list and not like two people crying. Ray was smoking when he saw it and he laughed at that girl's parents, took another hit, and laughed again.

What the news didn't say and maybe her parents didn't know was that she was all involved, not civilian. That doesn't mean she had it coming, but when you're in, it's always a possibility. You can be involved and still be a wrong place, wrong time kind of girl when you catch one. No gang ties ever protected anybody from a bullet. A click is not a vest—I remember Fate said that at the time—it's a family.

Just thinking of that makes me mad at Ray all over again, about how he's been laying low since then, mostly away, doing errands as amends to Big Fate for being dumb as fuck. Everybody knows he did what he did, and they didn't say shit, but they were waiting for him to pop his head up so they could get one back on him.

But he didn't. Guess they got tired of waiting. Figured one was good as any other, civilian or not. Brother for brother. Same thing, right? That's the only thing that makes sense.

My eyes are wet and itching, so I roll the window down and
get some dry night wind on my face cuz I'm not about to mess up Lorraine's work. I can smell the fires, like everybody in this neighborhood got wood-burning stoves overnight and stuffed them with tires, garbage, whatever.

That girl in the rearview isn't me. I convince myself of that shit. She's a spy. Dangerous. She's got a .38 in her girlfriend's borrowed purse.