“You want me to buy you an early dinner?”
“No, are you hitting on me?”
Chuito laughed and rubbed a hand over his forehead. “I got enough fucking problems. I don’t need to add hitting on my cousin’s chica to the list.”
“I’m
not
his chica.”
“Whatever you say.” Chuito shrugged. “Dinner?”
“You’re not moving until I say yes, are you?”
“No, probably not.”
“Fine. Meet you at Hal’s.”
“I walked here. We’ll take your car.” Chuito opened the door for her. “Gimme your keys.”
Katie gaped when he actually helped himself to the driver’s seat of her car.
“We need to sit down and start to really analyze the hypermachoism that is running rampant in your family,” she told him with concern.
“Fine, be difficult.”
Chuito pulled out his keychain that was heavy and had all the same tools Marcos’s did. He used a small screwdriver and, with very little effort, popped off the silver top to her ignition.
“You’re breaking my car,” she said in horror.
“I’ll fix it.” Chuito used a different tool on his key chain. He stuck it in the now exposed section of the car’s ignition and looked ahead as he fiddled with it, as if searching for something by feel, and within a few seconds, the car purred to life as if he was simply using a key. He gestured to her. “Come on.
Vámanos
.”
“My God,” she whispered, because she was sort of impressed, though she knew she shouldn’t be. “Can Marcos do it that fast?”
“Oh, please. I’m so much better at this than him.” Chuito gestured to the passenger seat. “In. Now. I’m hungry.”
Katie walked around to the passenger side and opened it. She looked out to the parking lot to see if anyone noticed that Chuito was essentially stealing her car.
No one did.
She put her briefcase down and then crawled in and buckled her seat belt, but the car wasn’t moving. She turned, seeing that Chuito was staring at her like she was insane.
“What?” she asked defensively.
“That’s it? You just get in the car with a guy who jacked it?”
“You said you were buying dinner.”
“Coño, no wonder he’s paranoid. You just said you hated me.” Chuito looked behind him to back up. “You are crazy, chica. Maybe you
should
end up with my cousin. He’s crazy too.”
Katie sighed and rested her elbow on the window. She put her head in her hand as she looked at the scenery. “Is he okay? I got the impression he’s in trouble at home.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Chuito sounded as stressed as she felt. “But, if it makes you feel better, Marcos is perpetually in trouble.”
“And you’re not?”
“I try not to be.”
She thought about that for a while, because that was a very different answer than one she would get from Marcos. Finally, she asked, “When was the last time you stole a car?”
“About three minutes ago.”
“Before that?”
“I dunno.” Chuito rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Five, six years ago? Give or take.”
“But you don’t need to steal cars anymore?” She knew he was a very popular fighter; after winning his second UFC title, he was arguably as popular as Clay. “You’re rich from the fighting.”
“I do all right.”
“How come you don’t drive a Ferrari like Romeo Wellings?” Katie asked, remembering that Marcos said Chuito gave money to all his old friends. “Or live somewhere besides over Jules’s office? Clay and Melody Powers just bought that big house on Westerly. You could probably afford one too.”
“What is the deal with the questions?” Chuito barked at her. “No more questions.”
Katie grinned in spite of everything. “OGs don’t like questions.”
“No, they don’t,” Chuito agreed as he turned and gave her a smile. “What do you know about OGs?”
Katie arched an eyebrow at him.
“You’re interesting, Katie. I’ll give you that. Very interesting. Not too many gringas show up and let some Latino steal their car and just go along for the ride.”
“And that’s exactly what it feels like.” Katie sighed and rested her forehead back in her hand as she looked out the window again. “Does he do this to every girl he hooks up with for the week? Leave her heartbroken and ask you to show up and sweep up the pieces? I know that’s why you’re here.”
“You think Marcos stays with women for a week at a time?”
“Doesn’t he?”
“No, he doesn’t. A night,
maybe
, a week, no,” Chuito assured her as he parked at Hal’s. “And you’re the first one he’s asked me to sweep up the pieces for. I guess that means he’s growing up. I suppose that’s something.”
He messed with the tool sticking out of her ignition, and it turned off. She was still amazed, because not only did it take incredible speed and efficacy to steal a car…it also took incredible wit.
“Did you graduate from high school?” she asked curiously.
“Are you kidding?” Chuito snorted and turned to her. “I got expelled when I was sixteen.”
“I feel like the system is failing in Miami.”
“Chica, the system is failing everywhere. Miami is not unique. Why do you think I volunteer at the Cellar as much as I do? Kids drop out in Garnet too.”
“Not the same,” she argued, because she was a high school teacher. She knew their drop-out rate was very low. All the teachers worked hard to help out their troubled youth, and, as Chuito observed, the Cellar helped too. She shrugged, trying not to dwell on things she couldn’t fix. “Are you going to put the top part of the ignition back?”
“No, it’s broken. I’ll have to replace the ignition. I’ll stop on the way home and get you a new one. I’ll install it.”
“Why would you break my car if it’s going to cost time and money to repair?” Katie asked in disbelief. “That makes no sense.”
Chuito held up his key chain and looked at it for a long moment. “It’s been a long time since I carried a key chain like this. It’s been in the drawer for years. I just wanted to see if I could still use it.”
“Is that a skill you forget?” Katie asked, because he didn’t seem to be struggling from lack of practice.
“No, it’s the mentality. Here, it’s easy to forget that part. I’ve been away from home for a long time.” Chuito looked haunted as he stared ahead, as if taking in his surroundings just to remind himself where he was. “I should’ve thrown it away years ago, but I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
He turned to her, his gaze calculating before he finally admitted, “I think I knew I might have to go back to it eventually.”
“Stealing cars?” She laughed. “You can’t be hurting that bad for cash. I don’t care how much you give away to your friends.”
“No, the rest of it. Stealing cars was always the easy part.” He stood and put his keys in his pocket. “I needed to see if I could do the easy stuff to make sure I wouldn’t fuck up the big stuff.”
“What’s the big stuff?” Katie sat there staring at him. Chuito might not have been her favorite person before now, but he was her closest connection to Marcos, and she found she didn’t mind his company for that reason if nothing else. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not.” He sighed as he leaned against the door frame to her car, resting his head on his arm. “Coño. I wish you could’ve made him stay here.”
“I tried.” She couldn’t help the tears that stung her eyes. “I didn’t want him to go either.”
“I know.” He lifted his head and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not your fault. It’s not even his fault. It’s
my
fault. Marcos is a lover. I’m the fighter. I just dragged him down with me, and then I left him there to deal with the shit I got us into.”
Katie wanted to say something, but the words were trapped in her throat. Their realities were so much more complex and dangerous than anything she could have imagined before Marcos had crashed into her life.
A lot of it was very unfair, but they didn’t seem to look at it like that.
“Dinner.” Chuito closed the door and walked toward the diner.
Chuito was one of those men who expected people to follow when he spoke, and she got the impression that, like Marcos, he had earned that attitude the hard way.
Marcos said he got to be the original OG by being a nice guy, and maybe that was half-true. He helped out all of his friends. She imagined those other gangsters weren’t any different than Marcos, made hard by life, with thick shells that kept them from expressing even the most basic of vulnerabilities.
Men like that didn’t give their loyalty to just anyone. They certainly wouldn’t accept help from someone easily.
They respected Chuito for a reason.
Chapter Sixteen
Miami
It was one of those great days in Miami, not too hot, not too cold. There was a breeze, but the sun was shining. Spring in Florida was always the nicest time of the year in Marcos’s opinion, after the cold, before the violent storms and unbearable heat of summer.
It was a good season to die.
Nothing worse than burying someone in the rain. His aunt had a thing about funerals and rain. She thought it was bad luck, as if there was a good day to bury someone. Still, it upset her terribly. They had all been to too many rainy funerals for their sanity, but his mother and Juan had died in the spring, and the sun had been shining when they buried them. The wind had been in their hair. It was nice. Peaceful.
Marcos lay on the grass next to his mother’s grave, staring up at the tree branches. It was a good spot. Chuito had bought out all the plots in this section a few years ago when he started to make real money fighting. Four to the left of Marcos’s mother. Five to the right of Juan. All that were left in the row.
His Uncle Ramon was three rows over. Everyone else was buried in Puerto Rico. This was the closest they could get his mother and Juan to family. Burying them had been a huge expense. The other Los Corredores had helped, because they stuck together for things like that.
They used to be Marcos’s family too. A lot of them still were.
When Chuito bought the extra plots, Marcos asked him why so many. There weren’t that many of them left to bury. Chuito said he was planning ahead, like he always did, and in his mind they would be married and have children before they died.
Marcos had laughed in his face.
What sort of lie was he living in that little country town that let him believe they were going to end their days old and married with kids? Back then he thought the funeral director had just seen a famous fighter with a lot of money and screwed him.
Now Marcos understood a little more. He sorta liked the dream of being old and married with grandkids running around. He wondered what sort of kids he and Katie could make together. He smiled, thinking of little girls with their mother’s kind heart.
It was a nice dream, but still just a dream.
And he still thought the funeral director screwed his cousin.
At least on his side.
Maybe Chuito would marry his neighbor and have a bunch of country kids with funny accents.
Marcos pulled his sunglasses off from where they rested on the brim of his hat and put them on his face, deciding he wanted to be buried in shades like a baller. Maybe his Miami Heat hat too. None of this suit business. He hated that people always ended up looking cleaned up and saintly in death. Plus, the faces of the dead weren’t nice to look at. Somehow, the pain was still there no matter how much some mortician tried to fix it. Marcos had seen it on every friend he’d buried. He’d seen it on his mother and Juan too.
He needed to write this stuff down, because he sure as shit didn’t want people standing over him seeing the look he had on his face when he died. Shades and a hat were a necessity.
Jesus, he was depressing the fuck out of himself.
He’d take the bullet. So what?
He would be remembered as hot and sexy and young instead of old and gray. There were worse fates. He tried to tell himself that, but he pulled his hat and glasses off and set them on the grass behind him, before he rolled on his side and propped his head in his hand.
“I met a girl,” he confessed to his mother in Spanish. “She’s smart. A teacher. She’s a gringa, but I think you’d like her.”
He sat there for a long time talking to his mother, telling her about Katie. About Chuito. About the Cuban, Fernán, Aunt Sofia was seeing. He basically caught her up on all the gossip because it had been too long since he’d been there, but his mother’s and Juan’s graves were well kept.
Aunt Sofia had obviously been out here recently.
His mother had probably already heard all about Fernán.
He touched her grave when he was done and then walked around the back of the two headstones, so lonely there in the row, and sat next to Juan. He wrapped an arm around the cold gray marble and closed his eyes, trying for one moment to imagine his cousin’s slim shoulders, still wiry with adolescence.
“Don’t worry,” he promised him. “I got this. I catch Chu’s back, you catch mine. That’s the deal. Put in a good word for me. As long as you make sure I end up in the right place, I can do this.”
He closed his eyes, because that marble felt nothing like the warm, enthusiastic energy that had always surrounded Juan. He was starting to feel a little insane to be asking a stone for a favor, but then the sun hit Marcos’s face just right. It glowed bright red behind his eyelids, and the breeze ruffled his hair like it had the day they’d buried both of them, making him believe, for just one crazy moment that wherever they were, his mother and Juan were just fine.
It couldn’t be such a bad thing, getting out of this hard world that hurt more than it soothed. Marcos had a fuckload of sins on his soul, but maybe if he did the right thing, Juan could get him in.
“And watch over my chica for me,” he added as the leaves above him rustled. “Take care of it until I get there.”
He bumped his knuckles against the headstone and got up. He picked up his hat and glasses, and walked away without looking back. He was stronger now. It helped in a way the tequila hadn’t.
There was no traffic when he drove to the warehouse, which was a fucking miracle. He felt Juan with him the whole way, and when he turned off his truck, he left his gun in the glove compartment.