Black Hearts

  The door chimes above me as I step inside the shop, my nose met with the familiar smells of antiseptic, ink, and incense from the hippie shop next door. Sometimes I can only stay inside the shop for a few minutes because the patchouli and sandalwood scent is too overpowering for me, but today it’s mild.

  Lloyd is leaning against the glass counter, flipping through an old, faded magazine. He looks up at me, his long hair falling across his eyes, and smiles. Lloyd’s been working at the shop since the start and I’ve seen him go from a gangly and guileless twenty-something to an accomplished artist, taught by my father. What hasn’t changed is his awkward affection for me, whether he has a girlfriend or not.

  “Hey,” I say, eyeing my father in the corner of the room where he’s diligently working on a client. My father eyes me briefly, his eyes crinkling warmly before going back to small talk. He’s working on a design on a guy’s shoulder, probably a new person since I’ve never seen that crazy green mohawk before.

  “Hey yourself, cutie pie,” he says. Lloyd has called me cutie pie since I was twelve, and I have to be honest, I’m glad it hasn’t evolved into anything sexual, especially with my dad always within earshot. “How’s school so far?”

  I sigh, plopping my camera bag on the counter. “Shitty. Feeling way over my head and totally overwhelmed.” I pause, knowing being overwhelmed is pretty much the status quo for me. “What else is new?”

  “Give it some time, you just started a new year. Everyone is a little creaky when they’re getting used to something. Camden could tell you exactly how long it took for me to stop fucking up shade work.” I hear my dad grumble at that.

  “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t let your needle touch me until you were a pro,” I tell him.

  “How is your T-rex doing?”

  “He’s good.” I pull up the sleeve of my striped sweater on my right arm and show him his work that’s inked into my skin of my forearm. He did it a few weeks ago, a Tyrannosaurus rex with itty bitty fairy wings. It’s my second color tattoo and Lloyd does color really well. Every other tattoo I have is black and white, courtesy of my father.

  I’m not absolutely covered in them like my father or Lloyd is, but I do have my fair share. No surprise that it was my father who gave me my first one, an old-fashioned skeleton key on the inside of my left forearm. I’ve been fascinated with collecting keys since I was young and this one is still my favorite. I was fifteen but felt so much older as I sat in that chair and my dad gave me my own key, perfect down to each rusted detail. It didn’t even hurt, I was just so happy that I was part of the “circle.” My mom, Ben, everyone had them at that point except me.

  I also have a bull skull across my back shoulders with a crown of flowers adorning it, a handful of snowflakes to the left and below it, a mermaid on my inner bicep, music notes at my wrist (to match music notes on my mother’s arm), the death star on my other wrist with the words resist underneath, the symbol of my favorite band at the back of my neck, and a colorful sugar skull on my hip (also courtesy of Lloyd). Okay, sounds like a lot when I list them off like that, but both my dad and Ben are covered in them by comparison.

  And now, of course, the dinosaur.

  “You know what your next one is going to be?” Lloyd asks, pushing his straggly hair out of his eyes.

  I shrug. “I think I’m done for a while. Unless something strikes my fancy.”

  My dad laughs, his focus intent on the man he’s working on. “Violet, you and your fancies are going to get you in trouble one day.”

  He’s kind of right. I have this tendency to get really obsessed about things for a few months, sometimes even for a year, and then suddenly I lose interest and move on to something else. Just like that. I have a feeling that one day my body might be a map, like that guy in the movie Memento, except mine will remind me of all the things I stopped caring about.

  I don’t spend too long at the shop, I just wanted to say hi. My dad will probably work until seven tonight, just before dinner, and it’s only three in the afternoon right now.

  Still, that restlessness, a strange twinge of unease, is running through my veins. I’m half-tempted to head into the Magnolia bar for a drink—the owners know me and don’t care that I’m not twenty-one, even though I have a high-tech fake ID thanks to some of Ben’s computer handiwork—or even rifle through the stacks at Amoeba Records, just for something to do, some time to kill.

  I go home instead. It’s just around the corner, a periwinkle-colored Victorian. Not as big as many others in the area but now seems oversized with Ben living in Santa Cruz for school. I know when I’m done with school I probably should move out, but that means moving out of San Francisco since there’s no way I’ll be able to afford an apartment here, not unless I have a million roommates, and even then we’ll probably be relegated to the Tenderloin.

  “Mom?” I call out as I take the key from the lock and step inside the foyer. The house is humming with silence. She must be out.

  I look down at my feet as I nearly crunch a stack of envelopes and quickly bend down to pick up the mail. Some fliers and bills. As usual, nothing important or interesting.

  Until I spot one addressed to my father, Camden McQueen, with no return address. I flip it over in my hands as I make my way into the kitchen, placing the rest of the mail on the counter. The stamp is domestic, and the postmark is smudged and hard to read.

  I don’t normally snoop through my parents’ mail but there’s something about this that has uneasiness creeping through me again. Maybe because my parents rarely get mail like this, maybe because I’m a brat, bored and curious.

  I take the letter over to the stove and put on the kettle. While I wait for the water to steam, I examine it further. It’s a thin envelope and it seems like there isn’t even anything in it. Maybe a slip of paper or a sticky note or something.

  Finally, steam begins to rise from the kettle and I hold the back of the envelope over it, just enough for the glue to start to lose its hold. Then I take a knife and carefully slide it under the flap until the envelope is open. I shake out the contents.

  I was right about it not being a letter.

  It’s a newspaper clipping.

  I pick it up gingerly, afraid to harm it.

  It’s a small square with the headline: Ex-Sheriff George McQueen Laid to Rest on Sunday above an old photo of a man in his forties. A man that would have looked like family even if I hadn’t see his name.

  He has my father’s eyes.

  He has our ears.

  My hands start to shake as I read the article.

  Palm Valley’s ex-Sheriff George McQueen was laid to rest on Sunday afternoon at the First Baptist Church on Main Street. McQueen had been battling cancer for the last year, having been put into the Palm Valley hospice before he started undergoing treatment. Aside from controversial arrests, he was also known for a scandal involving his only son, Camden McQueen, back in 2013. While Camden’s name was later cleared by police, his son was never seen or heard from again, and evidence points to his possible death at the hands of a Mexican drug cartel. The investigation has long since closed.

  George McQueen served as Sheriff from 1990-2015 and was an advocate for the church and briefly ran for mayor in 2018 before his health started to decline.

  He is survived by his wife Raquel and his stepdaughters Kelli and Colleen. Donations may be made to the Baptist church.

  The paper slips out of my hands, floating slowly to the counter.

  I can hardly breathe, hardly move. My heart is thumping, slow and loud, until it’s all I can hear.

  What the fucking fuck did I just read?

  I snatch the paper back up, blinking at it, trying to understand the words and what they’re saying.

  Sheriff George McQueen.

  My grandfather I never met.

  My grandfather that my own father told me had died when he was a teenager.

  I’ve had a grandfather all this time and never knew about it. I spent my whole li
fe thinking he was dead.

  Why would my father lie to me?

  Why was my father involved in a “scandal” over twenty years ago, why has he been presumed dead or missing this entire time, and what the fuck does he have to do with drug cartels?

  I don’t know what to do with this information.

  There’s nowhere for it to go, no space in my brain.

  There’s only that zinging feeling at the back of my head, traveling down my spine, the feeling that tells me I was right.

  I was raised in a house of lies.

  The only thing I know is that I can’t let my parents know I found this. I have to assume that my mother is in on this truth as well. I have to keep it to myself and carry on until I have a better idea of what’s going on.

  I have to talk to Ben.

  Please, lord, don’t let him already be in on it.

  I know I’m running out of time, that my mom could come home at any minute and bust me, so I take out my phone and take a picture of the clipping. Then I put my phone away, stick the clipping back in the envelope, take out a small vial of Krazy Glue from the junk drawer, and carefully glue the flap shut.

  Footsteps coming up to the front door.

  My mom.

  I quickly jam the letter back into the stack of mail and leave it on the counter so it looks like I casually threw it there as I often do.

  Then I turn and run as quietly as I can up the stairs to my bedroom, going inside just as I hear the front door open.

  “Violet?” my mom calls out.

  My heart is racing now, galloping around and around in my chest, and I’ve got a horrible feeling that I’m on the edge of losing control, of losing any sense of understanding who I am, who my family is.

  “I’m here!” I manage to cry out, my voice breaking.

  “Okay!” she calls back, and I hear her go into the kitchen.

  I wait a few moments, staring blankly at some of the city shots I have on my wall. There’s a black and white print of the ferry building, swamped in fog, looking like something out of a film noir. I took it when I was still in high school, one of those days where my ex-boyfriend Hayden and I would roam the streets, pretending to live bigger lives than we did. And now, with one letter, I feel my life is growing too large, too fast.

  If all of that about my father and grandfather is true…

  Who sent that letter? Why wasn’t it addressed? They obviously wanted Dad to know that his father had passed away, so why not a phone call?

  “Hey, Vi, were you making something?” my mom shouts up, sounding distracted. “The kettle is on.”

  Crap. “Uh yeah, was going to make some tea.”

  “What kind? I’ll make it for you.”

  I take a deep breath and make my way down the stairs, trying to appear as casual and normal as possible.

  My mother is standing in the kitchen and rifling through the cupboard where we keep the tea and coffee. I eye the stack of mail. She’s already gone through it, and I can see the envelope folded up and sticking out of the back of her jeans.

  I quickly avert my eyes and get two mugs out. “You want some too?”

  When she turns around to face me, she shakes a box of green tea and jasmine at me, smiling.

  “I need the caffeine. This okay?”

  But her smile seems forced, on edge, her eyes wary. I wonder if mine look the same.

  I don’t think she suspects a thing.

  And now I suspect everything.

  Chapter Two

  Vicente

  Sinaloa, Mexico

  “Always keep your promises.”

  It was something my father often said, like it was some bit of personal wisdom of his, a catchphrase with a copyright. He says it in such a grave way, like this type of honor is more important than any other. He holds being a man of your word above all else.

  It doesn’t matter that he’s killed thousands, wounded thousands more, made billions, ruined millions. He wants you to believe that above all else he is honorable and good.

  I can’t take it seriously. Especially when I know of more than a few occasions when he gave his word and then did the opposite. But in his twisted, warped logic, he never sees that he’s at fault. There’s always an excuse.

  But tonight there is no excuse.

  My father is drunk again.

  It doesn’t bother me. He doesn’t get vicious—no more than he is sober. He doesn’t get loose—he’s as composed as always. If anything changes, it’s his honesty. He starts to spout the truth, and I always make sure I’m around, like a fucking dog, eager for any scraps. Anything at all.

  Tonight he’s in his office, a bottle of expensive tequila open beside him. He’s invited me to have a drink with him. I know it’s because of what’s been happening this last week.

  He’s afraid.

  I don’t drink much, but I smoke like a chimney. I sit down on the leather seat across from him, light up a cigarette, and accept the highball glass half-filled with amber liquid. My mother jokes that I have tequila eyes, like my father, the color of the darkest, most golden reserve.

  “I say that a lot, don’t I?” he says, his mouth twisting into a crooked smile. He’s watching me closely, as he always does. Trying to figure me out, trying to see if I will ever measure up. The thing is, I don’t want to.

  “About keeping promises?” I say after a sip. The drink is smooth and bracing all at once. I take a drag of the cigarette and blow it toward the ceiling fan which disperses it toward the open window. We’re in the jungle, the compound well hidden beneath the thick canopies but close enough to the Pacific that we still get the breeze. It’s one of a dozen houses I’ve grown up in. Drug lords can’t stay in one place for too long, and my family is extra diligent.

  Or I should say, was. It’s been five years since our cartel lost its footing as top dog. There was a while there, when the wall was being built, that people were panicking. My father was the first to use submarines to send drugs into the US and Canada, and our cartel became more wealthy and powerful than you could ever imagine.

  Then the wall was only partially completed. A scar across Texas. The Zetas made deals with the DEA on the other side. We were nearly wiped out. We haven’t been able to best them since.

  It’s not all horrible. It means we haven’t moved around so much, from place to place, because not as many people want us dead. That’s something. It’s an inkling of stability.

  But it means that my father and his injured ego have been searching for a way to claw itself back.

  It means me.

  I’m the prodigal son, the one who is supposed to take over when my father commands me, the one who is supposed to get things rolling again. He says that I’m almost the age when he first started being the right-hand man to one boss. The boss he would eventually kill.

  But I would never kill my father, and it certainly wouldn’t be for the fucking cartel.

  I don’t want it.

  I’ve been trained for it, I’ve grown up in it. I killed my first snitch when I was fourteen. I killed a few more since. I’ve sat in on deals, I’ve made decisions, I’ve gone in place of my father sometimes, much to my mother’s dismay. If it wasn’t for me flying to Germany and Italy and the UK to meet with buyers, I wouldn’t speak so many languages, know how to deal with so many different, dangerous people. Or know how to disappear. That’s the most important one.

  I’ve had a taste of the power, the glory, the respect, and the money.

  I’m not saying I don’t want it.

  But I want it my way.

  Not his.

  And he knows it.

  “Yes. Worthless promises,” he says, his mouth tightening before he throws back the rest of his drink.

  He needs me and I think he hates me for it. He’s got a few men who have stuck by him over the years. There was Diego, who was by his side for decades, and then there’s Barrera, Parada, Tio, Nacho. They’ve got my father’s respect but not his truest trust. My dad learned a few
hard lessons about trust, and it’s only in family, in blood, that it exists.

  “Vicente,” he says slowly, tapping his fingers along the redwood desk, the lamp throwing spidery shadows from his hands. “I’ve done some thinking. About your plan.”

  I don’t say anything. I know never to interrupt him. Always let him deal the deck first, every last card, before you throw yours down.

  “I’ve talked it over with your mother. Your sister also.” He pauses and his fingers do too. He clears his throat, his eyes shadowed and focused on nothing at all. “I can’t figure out why you want to leave but your mother thinks it would be good for you to get it out of your system. To see how the other half live so you’ll be more grateful than ever to have the life you have here.”

  His eyes swing to me, squinting softly. “You know that this is what you were born into. That you would be crazy not to want it.”

  I nod. I never said I was sane.

  “That this is in your blood. You’ve got the brains and the guts for this job, dare I say even more than I did at your age. But there’s a lot to learn and you have to be willing to learn that from me.” The room seems to grow darker. Outside, a rooster crows. “Time goes by fast. Too fucking fast. It seems just yesterday that you were born, and now you’re a man. You know this, yes? You see how each day changes things. We don’t have the luxury of time in this business. No one does. We have to act now. We should have acted yesterday. So, while I give you permission to go to California, or wherever it is you wish to go, it is just for two months. Then you must return.”

  And if I don’t? The question is on the tip of my tongue but I don’t dare ask it. The truth is, I’m relieved. I didn’t think he’d let me go at all, and if I dared to leave Mexico without his permission, I wouldn’t get very far.