Lance held two chips to call, rubbing them between his fingers and watching Rese for tells. Her face revealed nothing. No gloat, no overconfidence. No doubt. He set the two back on the stack, then lifted five. “I raise you three.” Just to see if she’d break stride.
She had chips in her hand almost before his landed. “See your raise; raise you five.” The chips clinked into the pot.
Rico tossed his cards down.
Lance pursed his lips. Five more chips on a pair of jacks. He’d already invested too much. If he folded now he wouldn’t see her hand, but five chips was steep for curiosity’s sake. Was she bluffing? If she wasn’t, what would it say for him to call? If she was … what did
that
tell him? He toyed with the half stack of chips he had left. See her? Or fold. He eyed his jacks, but it wasn’t about them. He laid his cards face down, then met Rese’s gaze. “I believe you.”
Still nothing more than a flicker in her eyes as she slid her cards together and set them on the deck for his deal. Then she scooped the pot in and methodically stacked the chips. Still nothing as he reached for the deck to shuffle. He hadn’t paid to see. He had to cut and mix. No way. He fanned the top cards up and smacked them down, then rocked back and stared.
Even with his cheating she held her cool.
Rico ran his hand over his jaw. “You are in so deep, ’mano.”
Lance laughed. “I never recommended poker with Rese Barrett. Parcheesi was cutthroat enough.” And if he could spend the rest of his life and all eternity with her, that would be sufficient.
She raised her chin. “Your deal.”
The door opened and Chaz came in, deposited his coins into the money bowl, and sat down, stretching his legs out with a low moan.
Lance hooked his arm over the back of the chair. “Long day?”
“Good day. Productive, rewarding.” He looked around the table. “But why am I the only one who works?”
Lance shrugged. “The rest of us get by on our looks.”
“I work,” Rese said.
Rico got up and took a beer from the refrigerator. The conversation could tank if he took the subject too seriously.
But then someone knocked on the door. Chaz moved to rise, but Lance motioned him down. “Allow me, you who labor and are weary.” He opened the door and braced himself.
Coiled in what looked like a magician’s multicolored scarf, Star drifted past him with a puckish glance, then greeted Rese with a pirouette and air kisses. Before she could respond, Star moved past Chaz, dragging her fingers over his scalp, to Rico who stood in the corner like a dark pirate.
With a playful smile she flitted to him, then noticed his arm bound up to his chest beneath his draped shirt and gasped. “ ‘Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, and thou art wedded to calamity!’ What happened to your poor arm?”
“I was looking for you, chiquita,” he said. “But found a car instead.”
She reached out her fingers. “‘O comfort-killing night—”’ Rico drew back. “Cut the crap.”
There came the donkey ears.
Rese stood up. “We looked all over for you, Star.”
Star spun. “Why follow the moon, knowing it will rise again tomorrow, brighter and fuller for having been dark.”
Murder flashed in Rico’s eyes. Star had cut deeper than she knew.
“Star …” Rese tried again.
But Star raised her hand. Tremulous and pale, she turned to Rico. “Speak your verdict upon me. Shall I stay or go?”
Lance closed his eyes.
“There’s no place for you here.”
“Rico.” Lance and Chaz said it together, but Star spun with a glistened stare, then went straight for the door.
Rese jolted. “Wait! Star!”
But Star pulled it open and went through.
As Rese followed her into the hall, Lance turned to Rico. “I told you she had issues.”
“Everyone’s got issues, ’mano.” Rico clunked his beer down on the counter and paced. “Maury choked her. Maury bruised her. And she would have gone back to him. I never touched her. If she can’t see the difference, there is none.” He glared. “No difference at all.”
Lance took that in. He had tried to tell Rico to be careful, to keep his eyes open. Streetwise as he was, he’d been jacked over, and he hadn’t seen it coming. Star didn’t realize. Or maybe she did. Maybe it was her way of striking back.
Rico paced and spun, his free hand splayed. “You blame me?”
Lance shook his head. The situation spoke for itself. If she’d come back contrite, or even mindful of the hurt she’d caused, it would be different. But as Rese said, Star either didn’t know or didn’t care. And it was Rico’s cut palm he’d pressed his own bleeding hand to, when they were just old enough to mean it. He didn’t turn his back on blood.
————
“Star, come in and talk about it.” Rese followed her down the hall.
“I am made tongue-tied by authority.” Star’s feet pattered down the stairs.
Rese hurried to keep up. “Rico’s upset. You should have expected that. But we can—”
Star rounded the landing. “You heard him. There’s no place for me.”
“He’s not the only one. We’re all involved in this.” If Star took off again, how would she get back to Sonoma? How would any of them? “Star, wait.”
Star landed at the bottom. “The fates have spoken.”
“There are no fates.” Rese clambered after her. “And Rico isn’t God. Just give him a chance to—”
“I gave him a chance.” Her chest heaved. “And I don’t do God.” She stalked down the hall, jerked open the door, and went out into the night.
Rese stared after her. She had known better. There was no holding Star back. There never was. What peace she seemed to have found from Mom’s words in the mental hospital, the joy she had with Rico, obviously wasn’t enough. Or it had been stolen, as Lance said, by some stalking evil.
Whatever the case, Star was gone again. Rese went back up, amazed she could still care.
————
Lance motioned Rese onto the couch beside him when she came back alone. He wasn’t surprised and doubted she was. But it could get touchy if Rico kept talking—and he did.
“She makes you want to help, then cuts when you’re not looking.”
Rese looked up at Rico. “You don’t know where she’s been.”
“I know where I’ve been. Where we’ve all been. It’s what you do with it, chiquita.” He slid his good arm into his shirt sleeve, left the rest dangling. “It’s how you treat your friends, how you treat your enemies. She made the choice, not me.” He strode to the door and went out.
Lance released a slow breath. Rese really couldn’t argue. She’d expressed the same when Star took off before. And she had more experience with Star’s behavior than Rico.
She pressed her palms to her forehead. “Why does she do this? It’s like she’s possessed.”
Across the room, Chaz opened his eyes. He’d been in silent prayer, Lance knew, since the whole thing unfolded. Now his face drew tight.
“People do things for all kinds of reasons, Rese.” Lance didn’t like the way Chaz had fixed on those thrown-off words. She hadn’t been serious, but Chaz came from a place of voodoo and violence. They’d contended with forces of darkness before, only not in this living room.
Circumstances on the island were clear, but this … How much was Star’s recklessness, her choice? Human frailty. But Chaz started to speak, binding spirits, his voice soft yet vehement. Rese lowered her hands and stared. Slipping an arm around her, Lance tried to convey normality. But unexpectedly, his spirit ignited.
As Chaz spoke the spirits into submission, he saw them bound and flailing, a vision clearer than anything he’d experienced before. He no longer thought of Rese in his arm, or Chaz across the room. He hardly even thought of Star, so deep was his realization of God.
After a time, he realized Chaz had stopped speaking. His thoughts slowly coiled back, and his eyes unglued. Rese became solid under his arm. He straightened.
“Are you okay?” She scrutinized him.
Chaz grinned. “We lost you for a while, mon.”
“I’m fine.” Lance slid his fingers into the back of his hair. “But I think this fight is real.”
Chaz locked his gaze. “A principality?” He wasn’t really asking; he’d sensed it too.
Rese looked from one to the other. “You don’t mean seriously … I was just talking.” She slid back in the couch. “You bound evil spirits?” She resisted, naturally, but he was not up to the battle. More than anything he wanted a quiet place to regroup. One didn’t recover lightly from an encounter with the living God—which sounded bizarre even to himself.
Chaz said, “Through the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, all fallen things are subject to us.”
Lance swallowed. Though he’d referenced an actual evil, this was more than he’d gone into with Rese.
She turned on him. “You said the dead don’t threaten the living.”
“We’re not talking about ghosts.”
“Demonic spirits can harass us,” Chaz said. “And sometimes they are invited in.”
Rese stood up and paced. “So … the
thing
I felt in the tunnel was real?”
How had she jumped to that? Lance crossed his ankle over his knee. “It was fear, Rese. You can’t ascribe everything a demonic nature.”
Chaz said, “But it could have been real.”
She spun. “Walter was real?”
Chaz had no reference for her question.
Lance shook his head. “Walter was part of your mother’s illness. Someone who became real to you as a child alone with her.”
She turned back. “I felt him down there.”
Lance reached out a hand to her. “Something, maybe. But don’t be too quick to name it.” He drew her back down beside him.
She shook her head. “I don’t believe this.”
“The powers of darkness are real,” Chaz said. “But you can’t look for them behind every bush.”
“Or wine rack,” Lance added.
She glared. “There was something down there, and it wasn’t your great-grandfather’s skeleton.”
“Great-great-grandfather.”
She glowered, then turned to Chaz. “Is Star possessed?”
“Possession is very rare.” He spread his hands. “But her beliefs and actions are risky.”
Rese closed her eyes. “I don’t believe this.”
Lance squeezed her hand. “We don’t know,” he said, though the vision clung to his mind. He hadn’t anticipated anything like that, but something had shifted. He didn’t know what or why, but he knew what Rese said was true. Things happened for a reason. And he could not doubt now that he was part of it.
T
wo days later the walls echoed. The windows shook. Hair flying, skin dripping, Rico beat on his drums, wincing with every shift in position, his left arm doing the job of two—not pretty, but indomitable, working out his hurt and anger and maybe a little regret. Lance had seen him like this before, and there was only one way to communicate. He plugged in the electric guitar and matched Rico’s rhythm, then laid down the lead and lyrics of one of the edgier songs he’d written in their dark phase.
“Scream. Plead. Bleed out your heart.
What does it matter? What does it gain?
It doesn’t stop the pain.
When hope is escaping, where do you start?
How can you matter? What can you gain?
Nothing you do stops the p-a-i-n… .”
“Every degree the planet turns
Someone burns, someone burns.
Every heart that pumps with greed Someone bleeds, someone bleeds.
But no one stops the pain… .”
Rico’s voice joined, and for the first time in too long they found their harmony, he and Rico blending pitch and tone and dynamics. They sang the second verse and chorus, the third and fourth. Facing off, eyes locked, Lance absorbed the anger and frustration and hurt, adding verses he hadn’t written yet, words that came as the music built.
“Have you looked into the eyes of hunger in a child
Crunch your crispy fries; like your chili hot or mild?
What does it matter? What does it gain?
Have you walked among the ghosts,
hands out hoping for a dime?
Outta my way, outta my way;
Can’t you see I don’t have time?
Scream, plead, bleed out your heart.
What does it matter? What does it gain?
Can’t, no, can’t, no, can’t stop the pain… .”
And when the words ran out, the instruments spoke on. Reverberations numbed his ears. His forearm screamed. Eight minutes. Ten. Fourteen. Playing until Rico slumped on the stool, chest heaving.
Winded himself, Lance waited. He’d known Rico to regenerate, but his hand dropped, dangled the stick, then let it fall. He spoke one word in Spanish that pretty much summed it up.
Lance took off the guitar. “You need a shower, ’mano.”
Rico raised his arm and sniffed. Lance didn’t need that proximity to know Rico had purged poisons. Another wave wafted as he got up and stripped his shirt, wiped his head with it, then walked stiffly to the bathroom.
While Rico showered, Lance heated oil in a skillet on the hot plate, fried the plantains he’d purchased that morning, warmed some rice and seasoned it with sofrito—a blend of cilantro, garlic, oregano, and minced peppers.
Rico emerged ravenous, as Lance had known he would, given the scents of his heritage and his exertion. He devoured the offering, then sat back and sighed. “You were right.”
Lance rested his forearms on the table. “About what?”
“It wasn’t really her. She was only going along.”
“Still had a good thing, Rico. What did Saul say about your sound?”
Rico tipped his eyes up without raising his face. “What does it matter?”
Lance let out a slow breath. He’d seen Rico do surgery on his heart before—the reason his father, Juan, had no place there. It had been two days since he’d cast Star out, and now he’d purged more than toxins on the drums. “What are you going to do?”
Rico shrugged, looking down at his arm, strapped tight to his chest. “We’ll see, won’t we?” Then he straightened. “Except you won’t. You won’t be here.”
He was right. “Rico …”
“That’s life, man. It comes at you, and if you don’t get out of the way, it runs you right over.”
As good an explanation as any.
“Where’s Rese?” Rico looked around the room as though just realizing they were alone.