Ralph and Chico walked up to them. I followed.
None of the kids moved, but the skinny one in the middle smiled. He had the pointiest chin I'd ever seen, with a little spiky tuft of adolescent beard at the tip. It made the lower half of his face look like it had been fashioned out of a stirrup.
"Boss man," he said. "?Que pasa?'
Ralph smiled back. "Vega. You want to take your Chiquita’s here and play somewhere else? You're cramping my business, man."
I got the feeling Ralph and Vega had gone through this a couple of times before. They looked at each other, both smiling, waiting for something to break.
What broke was our new man Chico's patience. He detached himself from Ralph's side and said, "Fuck this."
He walked up to the skinny kid and lifted him by his jacket with one hand. Maybe that would've been impressive if the kid hadn't weighed ninety pounds, or if Chico hadn't planted his legs apart and given Vega a beautiful opportunity to knee him in the balls.
Vega's knee was mostly bone, and what he lacked in weight he made up for in ferocity.
As he kneed Chico, Vega's face tightened and his teeth clenched so hard his tuft of beard almost touched his lower lip.
Chico grunted, dropped the kid, then doubled over and started turning around in slow motion. Chico's face was the same colour as his bandanna. One of the fullbacks kicked him from behind and Chico went sideways onto the asphalt groaning: "Mierda, mierda."
I looked at Ralph. "He's new."
"Yeah."
Vega adjusted his baggy clothes and sat back down, smiling again. He rubbed his little beard and told his buddies what a big tough pachuco Chico was. They laughed.
"Oh, man," said Vega, "you had some customers come by today, Boss, but they didn't look like a good type of people, right? We told them no way. We're looking out for you good."
About then a scrawny grayhaired man shuffled out of the pawnshop, looked at Ralph a little fearfully, and started apologizing in Spanish.
"Mr. Arguello, I swear I didn't know they were out here. I chased them off twice already."
Then the old man started waving a rolledup newspaper at the three kids, halfheartedly telling them to go away. Nobody paid him any attention. The kids were looking at the .357 Magnum Ralph was now holding.
"You know, vato," Ralph said to me casually, "used to be you had just La Familia coming to you. Least they were adults, right? Now you've got these pinche kids, think just because they can beat up their math teacher they got a right to protection money.
Sad, man. It's really sad."
Vega looked at the gun in Ralph's hand like it was a big joke. "You gonna shoot me, Boss Man?"
Vega wasn't afraid. Maybe you don't get afraid when you're seventeen and you've got your set behind you and you know guns the way other kids know skateboards.
On the other hand, I didn't like the way Ralph was smiling. I'd seen Ralph use a .22 like a staple gun on a guy who'd touched his girlfriend in a bar. Ralph had been smiling the same way as he stapled the guy's palm flat against the wooden counter.
"We got guns," Vega said. "Like in the middle of the night. Outside your house, right?"
Chico was on his hands and knees now, taking noisy breaths and mumbling that he was going to kill them.
Vega looked down and said, "Good dog."
That got another laugh from his fullbacks.
Ralph was perfectly still, frozen. I figured I had a few seconds before he made up his mind what part of this kid's body he was going to blow a hole in.
"You three need to leave," I said.
Vega looked at me for the first time. "Who's this, Boss Man? This your girlfriend?"
Before Ralph could shoot, I grabbed Vega's ankles and pulled. The kid went back off his elbows and hit his head on the cement edge of the stairs. I dropped him just as his fullback buddies realized they needed to act.
I don't often use Ride the Tiger. Usually you don't get opponents attacking the way a tiger does, from above. As the first kid jumped me I slid into bow stance and swept my arms up in a circle, my right hand rolling against his chest and my left hand against his leg. He flew over me like he'd been bounced over the top of a spinning wheel. I didn't look behind to see how he landed on the asphalt of the parking lot.
The second kid tackled me from the side. I hooked his baggy jacket, turned my waist hard, and flipped him over my knee. He landed on his butt with a muffled crack.
By the time I saw Vega move out of the corner of my eye and saw the flash of metal and I turned, it would've been too late.
There was a click.
The kid was propped up on one elbow, a long knife in his hand, the tip frozen six inches away from my thigh. Ralph was kneeling next to him, smiling calmly, the muzzle of his .357 pressed hard into Vega's eye. Vega's head tilted up at the same angle as the barrel, as if he was looking into the eyepiece of a telescope. His free eye was twitching violently.
"The man put you on the ground, ese," Ralph told him amiably. "You got any sense, that's where you stay."
The three of us stayed frozen for a couple of centuries. Then, finally, Vega's knife clattered against the pavement. "You're dead, Boss Man. You know that?"
Ralph grinned. "Twenty or thirty times, ese."
Ralph took Vega's knife, then stood up and put away Mr. Subtle. I looked around. The guy I'd knocked on his butt was still on his butt. He was staring at me. His eyes were watering and he was tilting sideways, trying to get away from the pain. The guy I'd thrown into the parking lot was trying to stand up, but it looked like his left shoulder was glued to the pavement. I think maybe his collarbone was broken.
I got the kids to their feet and started herding them out of the lot.
They shuffled down Bandera, Vega shouting back at me that they knew where I lived and my family was dead. I called after Vega that his buddy would need a doctor for the collarbone. Vega shot me the finger. His eye was still twitching from the cold, oily nudge of the .357 muzzle.
When I came back to the front door of Number Fourteen, Chico was sitting on the sidewalk, trying not to throw up. He looked up at me resentfully.
"Lucky shot," I said. "I thought you had him."
The old man with the rolledup newspaper was trying to explain to Ralph that everything was fine and he would have it under control from now on. He looked nervous.
Ralph grinned at me and brought out a clip of money and peeled off a few bills.
"Least I can do, man."
The going price for beating up teenagers was two hundred dollars. A lot more expensive than a few .357 rounds. I gave the money back to Ralph.
"No thanks."
Ralph shook his head in amazement. "So you wouldn't be into it, eh, vato "
He laughed. Then he turned and went into Number Fourteen to check on business.
22
There are definite disadvantages to teaching a fouryearold to tell time. As soon as I walked in Erainya's front door at six that evening Jem looked up at me from the diningroom table, pointed at his Crayola Swatch, and told me I was late. We now had only thirty minutes before our movie started at the Galaxy. He didn't want to miss the previews.
He scooted out from the table and rushed toward me. Instead of our usual fulltackle hug he screamed "Watch!" as he ran, then proved how well he'd been practicing his moves by landing a flying kick in my crotch.
There are also disadvantages to teaching a fouryear old martial arts.
I wiped away a few tears and limped with him into the kitchen, assuring him he was learning the basics just fine.
The kitchen smelled like burnt fila and garlic. It always smelled like Erainya had just been cooking, though I'd never actually caught her doing it. I suspected she'd snuck an entire sweatshop full of Greek cooks back from the old country and kept them locked in the basement when she had company over. Of course this was the same woman who'd shot her husband, so I'd never gotten the courage to actually check her basement. No telling what or who else I'd find down there.
Erainya handed me a threesection paper plate loaded with Mediterranean food. It was so thickly covered with Saran Wrap I couldn't tell exactly what was underneath the wrap. I only knew it was food because Erainya handed me a plate like that every time I came over. Apparently my uncertain employment status hadn't changed the ritual.
"Just in time," I said. "I was beginning to think I might have to go shopping this month."
"Ah." She slapped the air next to her ear, but she did it listlessly, like her heart really wasn't in it today. She was wearing a pullover black shirt and dark slacks, which meant something was up for tonight. Erainya only forgoes the standard Tshirt dress when she knows she's got some crawling or running or breaking in to do. "Just leftovers.
Some kibbeb. Dolmades. Spanakopita. There's a little melitzanosalata—what's . . .
eggplant salad, I guess you'd say."
Erainya's first language was English, but every once in a while she likes to forget how to translate something from Greek. She says thinking in Greek clears her soul.
Jem raced to the bedroom to get his sneakers. When he disappeared down the hallway Erainya said, "You thought things over, honey? About the job?"
"I'm thinking. I have an interview lined up. For a college position."
Erainya gave me the black eyes. "I thought you couldn't stand the idea of a dusty office and a tweed suit."
"Maybe that was sour grapes. Nobody ever offered me a dusty office and a tweed suit."
Erainya slapped air. "Not that I care—not like I want you back if you won't work right.
I'm not losing my license over you being an idiot, honey."
"Sam Barrera speak to you again?"
"I don't know nothing about Sam Barrera's cases and I don't know nothing about what you're doing on your time off, you understand that?"
"Sure."
Erainya glared at the dishrags. "I'm not going to let that ouskemo tell me what to do, neither. Maybe he's got some friends in a lot of places. He doesn't own me."
I nodded. We were quiet, listening to Jem throw toys and other large heavy objects around his bedroom, apparently looking for just the right fashion statement footwear.
"Be good to know some background on a guy named Tilden Sheckly," I said. "About some shipments he's been processing through his dance hall, especially any connections he might have in Europe. Like for instance if your friend in Customs knew anything—what's her name?"
"Corrie. I didn't hear any of that."
I agreed that she hadn't.
Jem came back wearing purple Reeboks. He showed me how the heellights flickered when he bounced up and down. He'd also put a Casper the Ghost mask on his head with shafts of his thick black hair sticking out of the eyeholes. I told him he looked great.
Erainya started loading up her purse while Jem told me about what his Halloween costume was going to be. The costume apparently had nothing to do with the Casper mask. He told me how many hours and minutes were left until six o'clock Sunday, when he was going trickortreating. Then he told me about the movie he was taking me to—something with marsupials that transformed into cosmic warriors.
Erainya packed her cassette recorder, her Mace canister, her obligatory box of green Chiclets, and five Kleenex folded into triangles. She deliberated over her key chain, rubbing her thumb on the little gold key that opens her gun cabinet.
Then she looked up and realized I was watching her.
Her eyes turned hard as obsidian. She stowed the keys in her purse and zipped it.
"Is two hours going to be enough time?" I asked.
I tried to keep my voice casual, disinterested. Erainya responded the same way.
"Sure, honey. Fine."
Jem gave up explaining the virtues of outer space marsupials to me. He climbed back onto a stool at the kitchen counter and started colouring a picture of Godzilla.
"The Longoria case?" I asked.
Erainya hesitated long enough to confirm it. "It's nothing, honey. Don't worry about it.
I'll just be able to run some checks faster while Jem's out with you."
Jem coloured a red halo around Godzilla's head, focusing his energy into the tip of his marker with a level of concentration no adult could match.
"Erainya—"
She cut me off with a look. When she spoke she addressed the top of Jem's head.
"Don't you waste time worrying about the wrong person, honey. I can tell you all about it next week when you're back at work."
I didn't answer.
Erainya muttered something in Greek that sounded like a proverb. She sighed and put her purse on her forearm.
"I'll meet you back here by nine. And no damn candy at the theatre, huh?"
Jem complained a little about that, telling her we always got Dots and Red Vines, but he knew better than to push it. He just shut his mouth and let his mother rewrite the rules as ridiculously unfair as she wanted. That's a lesson everybody learns eventually with Erainya.
23
After the movies I dropped Jem off at Erainya's house and flipped a coin, Compton or Blanceagle. I was half hoping the coin would land on its edge and I could go home.
Instead it came up Blanceagle. I headed out for the address I'd seen on Alex's driver's license, 1600 Mecca.
Mecca Street, like its namesake, is a place most people only get to once in their lifetime, only with the help of Allah, and only after many tribulations. Once you do find the road, it twists illogically through the Hollywood Park subdivision, disappearing and then reappearing, following what was once a creek bed through the rolling hills just inside Loop 1604.
I took 281 North and gave myself up to the hajj as soon as I exited, praying that someday I'd find Alex Blanceagle's house.
Hollywood Park was showing its age since I'd been there last, almost ten years before.
The pseudoranch houses that lined the streets were now more weathered, the lawns that had been grafted with fruit trees and turf grass now regressed in spots to the original scrub brush, mesquites, and cactus.
On most blocks the pristine look of affluent Gringo land had given way to more downtoearth realities— plastic daisy pinwheels in the yards, porches overflowing with tricycles, windsocks, political signboards, pumpkins, and paper skeletons.