Speak of the Devil (13 page)

But he let Rooster go. Rooster turned, straightened his shirt, and spit blood on the ground.

“Good catching up with you, Hector,” Rooster said.

Hector turned and walked away.

19

The next morning, Anna and Jack stared at the golden pineapple sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. Sunlight streamed through the windows, glinting off the burnished metal of the faux fruit. Anna turned it around, as if seeing it from all angles would give her a better clue of its meaning. She looked at Jack, who merely smiled and shrugged.

“We need to register,” he said.

Anna drained her coffee and got up to pour another cup. She was still getting used to weekends as part of the Bailey family. When she was single, weekends meant sleeping in, going for a run whenever she woke up, maybe stopping by a coffee shop for a latte and a leisurely read of the weekend paper. But, now, Olivia was always ready to start her day at the crack of dawn. Jack was accustomed to the routine, and rolled out of bed around six every morning. He let Anna sleep in, but she was trying to get on board with the early-bird schedule.

Raffles jumped up on the table and poked the pineapple’s spiny protrusions with his orange paw. Something about the statue spooked the cat, who mewled and ran away. Anna and Jack laughed.

“How is registering going to solve the puzzle of the golden pineapple?” Anna asked.

“People want to send us stuff. If we don’t give them some direction, we’re going to get a bunch of these.”

“What would we even register for? You have everything a person needs to run a household.”

“I certainly don’t need any more pineapple statues. Take a look around. Make a wish list. It’ll be fun.”

“Should we ask Luisa if she needs anything?”

Jack paused. “No. This is our thing. Let’s do it ourselves.”

Olivia came running into the house from the backyard, her cheeks flushed from the outdoors. She held up a sprig of fresh peppermint. Jack knelt down and Olivia tucked it into his shirt pocket. It was their little ritual, every morning. He chewed the mint leaves throughout the day. To Anna’s surprise, Olivia turned and handed Anna a sprig of mint, too. It was the first time the girl had ever included Anna in the ritual. Anna accepted the stem with a lump in her throat.

Thirty minutes later, they were driving to the mall at Tysons Corner Center. Olivia sat in the backseat, singing along to Billy Kelly’s “People Really Like Milk.” The girl’s happy jamming reminded Anna of her sister. As Jack navigated the Beltway, Anna pulled out her phone and checked Jody’s status on Spotify. It read:

Jody is listening to “Someone Like You” by Adele.

Jody is listening to “Someone Like You” by Adele.

Jody is listening to “Someone Like You” by Adele.

Jody is listening to “Someone Like You” by Adele.

Jody is listening to “Someone Like You” by Adele.

Jody is listening to “Someone Like You” by Adele.

All the songs had been played last night, until 1:35
A.M.
Anna pictured Jody alone at her kitchen table, drinking merlot and looking at pictures of Brent as the song played on repeat. Jody would wake up today with a hangover, a still-broken heart, and the bleak landscape of a weekend with no plans.

Anna had been in the same place. Before Jack, she’d been attracted to a string of bad boys—relationships that never ended well. She knew there was no way out of heartbreak except a straight line through time. Still, Anna wished she could make it easier for her sister. She clicked through some songs, finding the most empowering post-breakup tunes she could. Then she sent Jody the songs and a message.

Jo—No more sad beautiful songs. This is your morning playlist. Be strong! Love you—Anna.

“Feeling Good” by Nina Simone

“Fighter” by Christina Aguilera

“You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by The Supremes

“Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood

“I Will Survive” (cover) by Cake

When she looked up, she found the car pulling into a huge Crate & Barrel, just as the store opened at ten
A.M.
It was a beautiful fall morning, sunny but crisp. Olivia chanted as they got out of the car. “We’re going to register! We’re going to register!”

Inside the cavernous store, a saleslady set them up with scanning guns and let them loose. Anna found a set of dinner plates she liked—but when she looked at the price tag on the back, she gulped. As a government worker with law-school loans, she lived frugally. Her old Ikea dishes cost a dollar a piece. These plates were fifty times as expensive.

“Remember,” Jack murmured into her ear, “it’s either that plate or another pineapple.”

Anna shot the plate with her scanning gun. Somewhere in cyberspace, her desire for twelve of the ceramic dishes was noted. He kissed her cheek and they kept going.

Olivia was the most enthusiastic shopper, pointing to gadgets she had no idea how to use: French press, bread maker, double boiler. Anna handed the little girl her scanner and let her shoot them. Part of her was appalled by the gross consumerism of it all. Part of her was entranced by the shiny red KitchenAid mixer. She scanned it.

Jack held up a ridiculous pig-shaped oven mitt. “I want to grow old with you and this.”

“Aw, that’s so romantic.” She laughed.

There
was
something poignant about the activity. This was the juicer she would use to make Jack and Olivia orange juice in the morning. This was the garlic press she would use to make sauce for their dinners. Each little item held its own set of future stories, its own moments of happiness that would define their family.

Anna thought about the fractured family she grew up in—the sound of a belt hitting flesh punctuated her childhood. She understood the generational cycle of violence, how women tended unconsciously to seek out men like their fathers. She’d often worried that she would fall into the same pattern. Marrying Jack was a powerful rebuttal to that worry. She took a deep breath and smiled at him over a plateau of candlesticks.

After two hours, they were done. Anna felt tired but happy. The saleslady did some clicking on her computer, proudly explaining that guests could look them up by bride’s name or groom’s name, and sort gifts based on price or category. “Voilà!” She handed them the printed registry. Anna folded the papers triumphantly into her purse. There was something very official about being listed together in Crate & Barrel.

After they left the store, Olivia asked if they could go buy her Halloween costume. The adults agreed, and they went to Tysons Corner Center mall. Tucked under an escalator was a seasonal costume store. The front was filled with rubbery masks of demons, zombies, and all variety of Freddy-Krueger-ish monsters. Anna smiled at the sight of two clean-cut boys deciding which gory creature to be. Olivia ran straight to the tiaras and princess dresses. She pulled out a shiny green
The Princess and the Frog
“Tiana” costume. Anna thought that would be the end of it, but then Olivia paused in front of a costume of a witch, complete with a warty green plastic nose. The girl looked back and forth between the princess and the witch, clearly torn.

“I’m not sure if I want to be good or bad.”

“Tough choice,” Anna agreed.

“Usually, you’re very good,” Jack said. “Halloween is the one night you get to be somebody else, if you want.”

Olivia stood for a few more minutes, then returned Tiana to the rack and pulled out the witch package. She handed it to her father. “Sometimes, it’s fun to be bad.”

He laughed and went to pay for the witch. As the clerk rang it up, Anna slipped a sexy nurse costume onto the counter. “Sometimes it’s fun to be bad,” she whispered. Jack’s eyes lit up.

That night, after Olivia went to bed, Jack popped some popcorn, Anna turned on the TV, and they cuddled on the couch. They rented the movie
Cloud Atlas
. As the opening credits began to roll, she grabbed her purse from the floor and took out the registry papers. She scanned the list, looking for all the fun things they’d registered for today.

She didn’t recognize anything. The lady must have printed the wrong registry. But then Anna started to recognize some of the stuff on the list. Here were the dishes they used every day; here was the big lobster pot that crowded the cabinet beneath the sink. She flipped to the first page. “Jack Bailey” was listed as the groom, but the bride was “Nina Flores.” The saleslady had printed out the registry from Jack’s first wedding, seven years ago.

The movie started to play. Tom Hanks was on a beautiful Polynesian beach, but Anna wasn’t paying attention. She skimmed all the things that Jack had chosen when he and Nina had envisioned the life they would have, the home they would make. It was a fearful contrast, the difference between their expectations and the way their lives had actually played out.

Anna turned to show Jack, but he was already reading it over her shoulder. His face looked pained.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’ll call tomorrow and have them remove this one. Are
you
okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” she said, although she felt somber. She knew she was taking over a home that had been created before she’d even contemplated having a family herself. She understood her role as a safekeeper of the things that Nina Flores had begun: the house, Olivia, the family. “I wish I knew more about what she was like. What your marriage was like.”

He reached for the remote and put the movie on pause.

“What do you want to know, love? I’ll tell you.”

She had a lot of questions, but the one that came out was, “Why didn’t you tell me that Nina was greenlighted?”

He rocked back in surprise. “How did you hear about that?”

“I spoke to Carla.”

“Carla.” He shook his head. “Why did she bring it up?”

“Hector Ramos did his own personal walk-and-talk around Langley Park. Carla thought he might be looking into how Nina was killed.”

Jack’s face hardened. “Hector was the Eyes that night. He was supposed to make sure Nina got out of there safe.”

“You don’t like Hector?”

“He was one of Nina’s best friends, and he’s supposed to be a solid cop. But when Nina died, I couldn’t stand to be around him anymore. I blamed him. And I get the impression he didn’t want to be around me, either.”

She noticed that Jack hadn’t answered her original question. “Why didn’t you tell me about the greenlight?”

“Look, any cop faces threats. Nina was threatened by MS-13, but it wasn’t the first time she faced that sort of thing, and it’s not why she died. She died doing an undercover drug operation.”

“Right, but . . . now that we know MS was carrying around her picture, do you still think that?”

“Yes.”

He really
wanted
to believe that Nina’s death wasn’t related to the gang. She couldn’t figure out why.

“Do you still miss her?” she asked softly.

“I’ll always love her.” He looked down at the registry paperwork, folded it, and set it on the side table. “I wish she could see Olivia growing up. But God works in mysterious ways. I mourned her for a long time. Eventually, I moved on. And then I found you.”

Jack kissed her gently. He drew her closer, and her body relaxed under his touch. Life was complicated and messy, but his mouth on hers was simple and sweet. She lost interest in watching the movie. They turned off the TV and went up to the bedroom.

20

Adams-Morgan was the type of neighborhood that MS-13 would have owned thirty years earlier. Now the main drag was lined with cute shops catering to hip twenty-something professionals. There was no way Gato could walk into a restaurant like Cashion’s Eat Place and demand “rent.” The manager, in his skinny jeans and skinny tie, would laugh him off the polished floor and promptly call 911. But a few stores remained from back in the days when Eighteenth Street was a center for recent Hispanic immigrants. These were the shops amenable to the type of business in which Gato specialized. And the neighborhood was diverse enough that he could walk alongside the professionals heading to their brunches, and no one paid him any mind.

Gato strode down the busy street until he got to the Botanica Poderes de los Santos, a little storefront just south of Columbia Road. As he walked in, the door brushed against a fringe of orange raffia hanging from the ceiling. He remembered his mother saying something about raffia—the strawlike fringe was supposed to show that you were entering a sacred place, devoted to the power of the saints or something. For a moment, Gato felt a lick of doubt. He didn’t want to anger the saints. He could use all the luck he could get. Then he shook off his concern.
Fuck it
, Gato thought. The only true power in this world was violence—and the fear that came from it.

The door swung closed behind him, shutting out the noise of the street. Inside, the botanica was quiet, with only the soothing sounds of tinkly music and low voices consulting by the counter. The store was spiced with the aroma of fresh and dried herbs, some of which were tied in bunches and hung from the ceiling. This was the basis of the botanica—botany—herbs meant to cure and heal, and to facilitate the power of the saints. To the left was a large ceramic statue of Santa Barbara, riding a white horse. The saint was draped in a chain of fresh flowers, and a profusion of dollars was tucked into her crevices and scattered at the feet of her horse. Behind her, shelves were filled with colorful candles in tall glass cylinders, each with a picture of a saint on it. Gato read the labels on the candles:
Yo Puedo y Tú No
—“I can and you can’t.”
Tapa Boca
—“Shut up,” to get someone to stop gossiping about you. Gato picked up a green one labeled
Chango Macho
—“Mr. Moneymaker.” He considered taking it. But no. He didn’t need to light a candle to make money. He knew what he had to do. He put the candle back and strode to the cash register.