The Painted Boy

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” Rosalie asked.

  “I don’t want to go to another funeral for somebody I used to call a friend.”

  “You’re not like them,” Rosalie said. “Why don’t you quit the gang?”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Tío did.”

  “Those were very different circumstances. The Kings owed him. But they own me.”

  “How can you say that? How can you live that kind of life?”

  Maria shrugged. “Ask me again if we get through all of this. Maybe I’ll feel like telling you then.”

  “But—”

  “I have to go,” Maria said, pushing away from the car. “I’ve been here too long as it is. If anyone saw me talking to you . . . ”

  Rosalie didn’t argue. She got out of the way when Maria started the Buick. Standing there in the dirt by the cemetery fence, she watched Maria pull out onto Mission Street and drive away.

  “I remember the day she came to school wearing the Kings’ colors,” Ramon said. “You just cut her off.”

  “What was I supposed to do? Overnight she became the enemy.”

  Ramon shrugged. “I don’t know that it’s ever as simple as that. We live every day with the bandas in our lives. We all have to find our own way to cope.”

  They were standing outside the Vargas house. The street was lined with cars. The mourners spilled out into the yard, talking in quiet voices, many of them smoking. The reporters were finally leaving them alone.

  “I did ask her why she did it, you know,” Rosalie said.

  Ramon shook his head. “No, you confronted her. It’s not the same thing.”

  Rosalie sighed. Ramon always kept her honest.

  “It just took me by surprise,” she said. “It took everybody by surprise. She was always so against the gangs.”

  “No surprise there, with her mother working for the probation department.”

  “And her dad being a teacher,” Rosalie said. “I know. But then one day she’s hanging out with us and the next morning she comes in wearing gang colors. How could I not freak out?”

  “Nobody’s blaming you, Rosie. Not with Tío and what happened to your mother and Paulo.”

  Rosalie nodded. “It felt like such a betrayal.”

  “I know.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “And I know you, too. You probably still find yourself regretting the things you said to her.”

  God, that had been such a terrible morning. The things that had come spilling out of her mouth while Maria just stood there and took it . . .

  “We were friends for so long,” Rosalie said. “And I felt even worse when her family disowned her.”

  “Yeah, that was harsh.”

  Rosalie knew they should go inside the Vargases’ house again but she couldn’t seem to muster the energy.

  “I saw Jay at the funeral,” she said.

  Ramon turned to look at her.

  “He was by that big cross near the gates and kind of hiding inside his hoodie.”

  “I never saw him,” Ramon said. “When did he leave?”

  “As soon as I noticed him. Except he didn’t walk away or anything. Instead, he just did that disappearing trick of his. Poof, he’s gone.”

  “I wish Anna hadn’t gone off on him,” Ramon said.

  “I know.” She leaned her head against Ramon’s shoulder. “But at least we know that he’s okay.”

  Ramon let her chill for a few more minutes, then he straightened up and took her hand.

  “We should go back inside,” he said.

  The next day Rosalie took another day off from school. She knew she was only delaying the inevitable, but with the funeral still so fresh in her mind it was hard to see the point. Why bother graduating when tomorrow you could be the next victim? She knew she’d see things differently in time—she’d been down this road before—but right now she could no more imagine sitting in class than she could joining one of the gangs herself.

  After Tío went off to the restaurant, she took the dogs for a long walk, following Redondo Drive for a couple of miles along the perimeter of the park. The desert landscape seemed more dangerous than it ever had before she’d read Jay’s journal. Was an invisible Lupita out there right now, watching her and the dogs go by?

  It was like Ramon had said. The world was bigger than they’d ever thought it was. Or at least bigger than she’d ever thought it was.

  When she finally got back home, she took a shower, collected Jay’s journal, and walked over to Anna’s. Half a block away she could hear the angry sound of an electric guitar. It got louder and louder the closer she approached. Standing on the street outside the Castillos’, Rosalie was surprised that none of the neighbors had called in a complaint. But everybody would know the story of what had happened, and Rosalie could only hope they’d understand.

  She waited until there was a pause in the music before she rang the bell. The only response was the guitar starting up again, louder and angrier than before. Rosalie tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so she went in. By the time she was standing in Anna’s doorway, she had her hands over her ears.

  Anna stood facing the window. Rosalie called out, but she couldn’t make herself heard. She waited another couple of moments, then walked over to the amplifier and pulled the power plug from the wall. The sudden silence felt almost as weird as the music had been.

  Anna whipped around, but her mood softened when she saw who it was.

  “I’m not going to school,” she said.

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  Anna’s eyebrows went up.

  “It’s hard for me, too,” Rosalie said. “Every time I walk down a hall I’m going to expect to see her, but she won’t be there. She’s never going to be there again. And everybody’s going to want to talk about what happened and . . . I’m just not ready.”

  Anna nodded. She unstrapped her guitar and set it in its stand. For a long moment the two of them stood there, almost like strangers, then Anna crossed the room and they held each other for a long time. Neither of them cried.

  “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” Anna said.

  She turned away and sat down on the small sofa across from her bed. Rosalie joined her. Anna laid her head on the fat-cushioned back and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Every time somebody else dies,” she went on, “it’s like another piece of my heart gets torn away. It feels like I’ve got nothing left inside anymore.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you keep going on?”

  Rosalie shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve got Ramon.”

  “He’s like a rock.”

  “He’s hurting, too.”

  “I know he is,” Anna said. “Maybe more than any of us. I just meant the way he keeps it all together for everybody. That night it happened. At the wake. At the funeral.”

  “Did you know that he was planning some kind of payback against the Kings?”

  Anna’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Oh, my God. Did you talk him out of it? I’d love to see those sorry bastards taken down, but all that’s going to do is leave Ramon dead or in jail—which is the same as dead, because the bandas in there will take him down.”

  “Margarita’s father made him promise not to do anything.”

  “And did he promise?”

  Rosalie nodded.

  “Good.” Anna waited a beat, then added, “Jay could have stopped this from happening in the first place.”

  Rosalie didn’t try to argue.

  “That’s why I’m here,” she said. “Because you believe that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You need to read this,” Rosalie said, handing her the notebook.

  “What is it?”

  “Stuff Jay was writing before everything went to hell. Kind of like a journal.”

  “I don’t want to read it.”

  She tried to hand it back but Rosalie refused to take it.

&
nbsp; “Humor me,” Rosalie said.

  Anna held the journal unopened on her lap. She tapped the cover with a calloused fingertip.

  “What are you doing with this, anyway?” she asked. “It’s not like you to go prying into people’s private stuff.”

  “I’m trying to figure out what happened to him—where he went. This explains a lot.”

  Anna shook her head. “I don’t care. Jay’s the last person I’d want to—”

  “Are you going to read it, or do I have to tie you down and read it to you?”

  “Don’t you get it?” Anna said. “I don’t—”

  “Please.”

  Rosalie reached over and opened the journal. She flipped through the pages until she came to where Jay wrote about the hike the desert.

  “Just read this part,” she said. “It’s about that Sunday he went with Ramon. I checked with Ramon and he says it’s pretty much true.”

  She waited until she was sure that Anna was actually reading before she got up. She stood at the window looking down the alley behind the Castillos’ house until she finally heard Anna close the journal. She waited a few moments longer, watching a stray cat unsuccessfully stalk a bird, before she finally turned around.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “People can write down anything they want,” Anna said, her voice flat. “That doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  Rosalie noted that Anna didn’t say anything about Jay’s feelings for her, but she let that slide.

  “I told you,” she said. “Ramon said that’s how their conversation went. So if that much is true . . .”

  Rosalie let her voice trail off.

  Anna sighed. She dropped the journal on the sofa and leaned her head against the headrest again.

  “You think I overreacted,” she said.

  Rosalie shook her head. “You were working with what you knew.”

  “I overreacted.”

  “Maybe. But do you believe now that he didn’t know he could do whatever it was he did?”

  Anna sighed. “Probably.”

  “He really, really likes you,” Rosalie said.

  “Yeah. So I read. But considering what I said to him, I’m sure he doesn’t now. And I wouldn’t blame him.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  Anna looked away.

  “I really believe he’s just some kid that’s in way over his head,” Rosalie said. “And now he’s out there somewhere, all messed up, and he can’t even come to us because he thinks we all hate him.”

  “I don’t know how I feel.”

  “Bullshit. I think you held him at arm’s length because you did like him and it scared you. What he might be scared you.”

  “But Margarita . . .”

  Anna started to cry. Rosalie enfolded her in her arms, her own eyes welling up with tears.

  “I know, Anna. I know. It—it’s like Paulo and Mamá all over again . . .”

  After a few moments, Anna pulled back. She got up to get a tissue and blew her nose. By the time she sat down with Rosalie once more, she’d regained her composure.

  “So we need to find him,” she said.

  Rosalie didn’t have to ask who. She just nodded.

  “Ramon has some ideas,” she said.

  She’d been planning to tell Anna about seeing Maria Sanchez at the funeral, but decided that one small victory was enough for now. Anna had been way angrier than Rosalie when Maria hooked up with the Kings.

  Instead, she talked about Ramon wanting to visit the mescaleros.

  While she felt she could blow off school for one more day, Rosalie didn’t feel right about leaving Tío in the lurch. So after she left Anna’s, she returned home to feed the dogs, changed into a blouse and skirt, then went in to work.

  Ines was already there. She might act like a wannabe with her fixation on clothes and partying and clubbing, but in her heart she was still a barrio girl and knew to do the right thing. She was here without complaint because she was needed, waiting tables and handling the register. Paco was doubling as busboy and dishwasher while Tío had taken over the kitchen. He looked very relieved to see her.

  “How are you holding up?” Ines asked when Rosalie came behind the bar.

  “It’s hard.”

  Ines squeezed her shoulder. “Are you sure you’re ready to be here?”

  “Probably not. But I can’t leave you guys on your own.”

  That wasn’t something Rosalie would have shared with Tío—he would have sent her home. But Ines understood. She gave Rosalie’s shoulder another squeeze, then split up the tables between them.

  It wasn’t until a couple of hours later that things got scary.

  The restaurant was still two-thirds full when Amada Flores walked in. Alone. No bodyguards, no bandas in tow, nobody but himself.

  Rosalie had never seen him in person before. He was much more handsome than news reports made him out to be, but he was a lot more frightening, too. Pictures could never capture the confident grace with which he moved, nor the feral power that crackled in his dark brown eyes. His smile was utterly charming. The eyes said he could kill you at any moment, for no reason, without remorse.

  The entire restaurant went still. No one spoke. There was no clink of cutlery against plates. Ines was in the middle of changing a CD, so even the sound system was silent.

  Rosalie realized that her hands were trembling. She clasped them together, but it didn’t seem to help. She was still shaking inside.

  The unnatural stillness brought Tío out of the kitchen, and that worried Rosalie more than any fears she might have for herself, Ines, or their customers. She saw the hardness settle over Tío’s features, putting a dark look in his eyes that reminded her that once he’d been considered almost as dangerous as El Tigre was now.

  “You’re not welcome in this place,” Tío said.

  El Tigre’s own cold gaze went icier still. But his voice was mild when he spoke. “You don’t even know why I’ve come.”

  “I don’t care. Get out of here.”

  “Be careful, old man. With one word I could have this little restaurant of yours come crashing down around your ears as easily as your cook destroyed the music hall.”

  Tío shot Rosalie a look and she shook her head. She had no idea how Flores had come to that conclusion, either.

  “Then either do it or leave,” Tío told the gangster.

  Anger flashed in El Tigre’s eyes, but he kept himself otherwise under control.

  “You need to understand something here,” he said, his voice still mild. “I know all about you doing Julio’s time. How when you got out of jail, you wanted to get out of the life. You’re a stand-up guy—you proved that by taking the fall—so Julio gave you his blessing. You’re off-limits to the bandas and he even fronted you the money to open this place.”

  “Which I paid back, with interest.”

  “Whatever. Your problem right now is that Julio Garza doesn’t run the Kings anymore. I run the Kings. I run all the bandas south of the San Pedro.”

  “Is there a point to all this old history?” Tío asked.

  “Yeah. Keep shooting off your mouth, and I bring it all down. So give me a little respect, old man, and listen to what I have to say. I show you respect by coming here alone, my hands empty.”

  He held out his hands as he spoke.

  Tío gave him a curt nod. “I’m listening.”

  “I’m here about the dragon,” Flores said.

  Tío’s face remained blank.

  “Your cook, Jay Li,” Flores went on. “I need to get a message to him.”

  “We haven’t seen him since . . . that night.”

  “I told you, I’m not playing—”

  “And I’m telling you,” Tío broke in, “he never came back. Not here, not to the house.”

  Flores took a moment to consider that. He studied Tío until he was finally satisfied that he was getting the truth.

  “He needs to know,” Flores said, “that the attack had
nothing to do with the agreement he and I had. I knew nothing about what Alambra had done until it was too late. If the dragon hadn’t killed that whore’s son, I would have done it myself.”

  “Margarita Vargas is still dead,” Tío said.

  “And I take full responsibility for that. Tell him if you see him. Whatever we need to do to make things right again, I’m ready to talk to him.”

  He was scared of Jay, Rosalie thought. No, not scared—respectful. Which she would have thought strange if she hadn’t seen how Alambra had died. But Flores was still a power to be reckoned with, and not only because the bandas were under his command. There was something about him, just as there was with Jay. She thought about how he was called the Tiger and wondered if perhaps it was more than just a name.

  “I have my doubts that we’ll see Jay again,” Tío said. He went on as El Tigre began to interrupt. “But if I do, I will give him your message.”

  Flores nodded. “Do this and the arrangement you had with your old boss, Julio, can continue with me.”

  Before Tío could respond, Flores turned away and the door closed behind him. Tío stood there for a long moment. He looked around the restaurant and Rosalie knew just what he was feeling, how he hated that all this old bandas business had just come up in public. But the gazes of the customers were sympathetic and she didn’t think any of them would talk about what they’d witnessed, if not for Tío’s sake, then for fear of coming to the attention of El Tigre.

  Tío’s gaze swept across the restaurant one last time, then he went back into the kitchen. Rosalie started to follow, but Ines laid a hand on her arm.

  “Let him be,” she said. “He’s embarrassed and mad, and that’s never a good combination. Give him a chance to work through it.”

  Rosalie nodded. Though Ines and her father weren’t close, they knew each other well. And Ines was right. Tío always needed time to process the unexpected.

  “So what’s the story with Jay?” Ines wanted to know. “Flores seemed almost, I don’t know how to put it . . .”

  “Respectful?”

  Ines nodded. “But he’s just this kid from Chicago, right?”