“Police,” Sonny said with authority, taking out his wallet and flashing his great-grandfather’s sheriff’s badge. “I need to get in there.”
“That’s a cheap way to see the play,” she complained. “I would have sent complimentary tickets.”
“Is Celeste here tonight?”
“Celeste? You mean Gila. Yes, but the play’s already started.”
“Get us in,” Sonny said. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
CC grimaced. “Spare me the bad lines.”
“Step aside,” Sonny said, and plowed his wheelchair into the lobby.
“No need to interrupt the play,” she cried, rushing after him.
Inside, the lobby was warm and deserted, except for a dark-haired woman who stood behind the punchbowl.
“I need to get in there!” Sonny insisted.
“Okay, okay, but try to be quiet.”
She led them into the darkened theater. On stage the confrontation scene between San Miguel and el Diablo was just starting.
“Who’s the Devil?” Sonny asked.
“Vic Silva. He’s great. Did you see him in Billy the Kid?”
“The play? No.” But where’s Raven?
The actors, a motley crew that made up the cast of shepherds, had just stepped back to allow the Devil to take center stage. Sonny spotted Celeste, playing the role of the shepherd girl, Gila, the only woman in the group.
Vic wore the mask of a devil, a resplendent red cape, two horns, and a pitchfork. Speaking lines in old, archaic New Mexican Spanish, he angrily stepped forward, lifted his pitchfork, and looked out at the audience as he called for war and destruction:
O, Miguel, suspende tus dulzuras.
Lo primero que tengo que borrar es el mundo.
Yo mando el sol, mando la luna,
mando ese cielo estrellado.
El sol se vera eclipsado solo porque
yo lo mando. Yo haría todo un infierno.
An appreciative audience applauded the poetic delivery.
Now San Miguel, dressed in white with feathery wings flapping behind him and a wooden sword in one hand, stepped forward and answered the Devil’s challenge, declaring that Christ, the Messiah, had been born and that the shepherds would adore him as king of the universe.
San Miguel’s speech was not convincing nor as poetic as the Devil’s, but he struck at the Devil with his sword and the Devil stumbled backward. A second figure appeared and pushed both San Miguel and the Devil out of the way.
“That’s not in the script,” CC whispered to Sonny.
The flash of a fireball exploded in front of the actor who had suddenly taken center stage. Dark smoke swirled around him. The audience held up their hands to shield their eyes from the bright flash. A ripple of oohs and ahhs swept through the theater. The stage effects were great.
Nervous theatergoers jumped into the aisles, unsure of what was happening.
“Raven!” Lorenza exclaimed.
Raven in black, the stage lights shining off his silk outfit, raised his cape and looked fiercely at the audience, and those in the front rows, seeing his hideous face, drew back in horror.
“It’s just a mask,” said a boy in the front row.
“The play’s ended!” Raven shouted. “Gila’s mine!” He grabbed the unsuspecting Gila by the wrist.
“No!” she cried in pain.
Raven’s piercing eyes found Sonny. “Mine!” he repeated. He had come to kidnap Celeste in front of Sonny, left him the clues to follow, daring him, as always, to stop him.
“Get off the stage!” CC shouted, pushing her way through those crowding the aisle. “Where’s José Rodriguez when we need him!”
Others in the audience began to shout: “Get off the stage! We want the old Devil.”
“Is this for real?” somebody asked. The play was quickly falling apart.
“Let me go!” a confounded Gila cried, struggling to get loose. The other actors on stage also appeared confused. This was not the play they knew.
Raven turned to the audience. “There will be no birth of Christ,” he said scornfully. “The land of Canaan shall remain barren, and your women will remain barren. You must turn to me and pray that I relent. Pray to me as your king!”
A few, believing the scene was part of the play, nodded in agreement.
“Gila!” Sonny shouted, his cry echoing through the theater. “Don’t go with him! Fight him!”
“She’s mine!” Raven shouted. “Number four! You lose!”
He pulled Gila away, and the audience, hearing her cries, sensed something wrong. This is not the way the play should end. San Miguel the archangel was supposed to beat the Devil and drive him away.
A couple of the actors started forward to help Gila, but a second flash filled the stage, and Raven and the girl were gone.
“Back alley!” Sonny cried, and he and Lorenza turned to push their way through the crowd.
Outside, Lorenza started the van, and as soon as Sonny boarded, she stepped on the gas. The van lurched forward, leaping off the sidewalk and just barely missing the stoplight on the corner. She turned right onto the street, then into the alley behind the theater. Ahead of them a black van was just squealing away, leaving a cloud of burned rubber in the dark alley.
“That’s him!” Sonny shouted.
Now it was onto the streets of Alburquerque, with Lorenza pursuing a reckless Raven who loved the games he played.
He tried to lose them by driving around downtown streets, in and out of alleys, but Lorenza clung to him. Then he raced up Central Avenue, not stopping at the red lights. The late hour and the cold meant there was little or no traffic. Raven gunned his van up Central, and by the time they drove past Jack’s Cantina, they were doing ninety.
“Don’t lose him,” Sonny whispered, peering intently at the tail-lights they were following. If they lost Raven, they had nothing. Nada. The clock would quit ticking for Sonny and his grandmothers.
At University Avenue, Raven made a wild left turn, sped to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, and hung another left. Then he gunned it down the hill toward the center of town.
The van’s speed attracted a siren, a red light flashed. They had picked up a city cop, one who quickly got on Lorenza’s tail. A bullhorn sounded but the words weren’t recognizable.
“We’ve got help,” Lorenza said.
“We need it,” Sonny replied, glancing out the window at the car with the flashing light. The men in blue sometimes did come in time. Sonny took the phone, dialed 911, and asked for Police Chief Garcia.
At Broadway an old 1950s veterano in a customized Olds was creeping home toward Sanjo after sharing some mota with some compas in Martineztown. He started across the street, then stopped to stare blindly into the lights of Raven’s van pressing down on him. The black van appeared as Doña Sebastiana’s death cart. The old pachuco swore, made the sign of the cross, and closed his weary eyes. La Muerte had come for him this night.
Raven’s van swerved, hung on two wheels as it went around the Olds, then sped up the overpass.
The old lowrider breathed a sigh of relief and thanked the Virgin. Then he saw Lorenza’s van. “Chingao,” he whispered, and closed his eyes again. Muerte number one had spared him, but number two was bearing down on him.
Lorenza clipped the front end of the lowriding Olds and spun it around, metal tearing into metal. She swerved and straightened out the van. A ball of fire erupted in the back of the van as the ruptured gas tank caught fire.
“We’re on fire!” she cursed, and gunned it up the overpass, Raven’s lights were now barely visible, and a second police car was tailing them.
“Stay with him!” Sonny shouted. Raven turned right on Second Street and headed north. Now three police cars had joined the chase.
A police dispatcher came on the line, and Sonny tried to explain the situation, shouting into the phone. “I don’t have time to explain! This is an emergency. Call Chief Garcia! This is Sonny Baca! Tell him I’m
heading north on Second toward Alameda. I’m chasing Raven! Repeat, Raven! Tell him I’ve got Raven!”
At that moment a rear tire blew and pulled the van to the left. Lorenza struggled to hold the van straight as it bounced across the median, scooted a hundred yards up the wrong lane, then leaped over the curb onto the wide dirt path along the irrigation ditch.
“Can’t hold it!” Lorenza cried, fighting the steering wheel.
She hit the brakes, but the tires couldn’t grip the frozen dirt along the deep ditch. The van, trailing flames, skidded and flipped over.
Sonny grabbed the counter, but it tore loose and the books came crashing down on him. On the van’s first roll the rear door opened and Sonny and wheelchair flew out. He went sliding down the slope of the ten-foot ditch, then the chair went out from under him and he hit the ground.
He was aware of the bouncing and rolling, then a brilliant light, like phosphorus burning, exploded in his brain, an explosion of lovely colors creating a luminous door through which he entered.
“I have entered the dream.” He heard his voice.
The pyrotechnic display coalesced into a rainbow, then the rainbow became a shower of bright butterflies, iridescent, many-colored butterflies that danced in front of him, then slowly fluttered away.
He heard a voice call his name.
A muddy hand reached out and touched his face.
I’m alive, he thought, his eyes fluttering open, feeling the frozen, damp earth of the ditch. His face was covered with dirt and mud, as were his hands and arms. He kicked and felt his feet strike the brittle grass and weeds of the ditch. He didn’t know how long he’d been out. Down the ditch the burning van lit up the night.
Lorenza, he thought, and cried her name.
“I’m here,” he heard her response. She appeared, hovering over him, kneeling beside him.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Just roughed up. You?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Any pain?”
“No.”
“Can you move?”
“Yeah.”
“I lost him …”
“Those lights …”
“Cops,” she said. “Do you feel any broken bones?”
“No.”
“God, you just flew out—I hit the air bag. Don’t move; the cops will help. Luckily the gas tank didn’t explode—”
The police cars that had been chasing them had skidded to a stop, their lights illuminating Lorenza and Sonny sitting in the ditch. Several police officers with pistols and shotguns drawn stood behind their cars.
“Don’t nobody move!” one shouted.
“I can’t, cabrón!” Sonny cursed.
“Hands above your heads!” the second officer shouted.
Lorenza stood, held her hands in the air. “We need an ambulance! We need help!”
“My books.” Sonny groaned. The books were burning to ash. “Sonofabitch was doin’ a hundred,” one of the officers said, approaching them cautiously.
“It’s a wonder anyone’s alive.” Two drew close, a third ran toward the van with a fire extinguisher in hand.
“The chief just radioed in. He knows the guy.”
“Are you hurt?” one of the officers who drew near asked.
“No,” Lorenza replied. “We need help. He was in the wheelchair when we went over.”
The cop shone his light on the wrecked wheelchair that stood twenty feet away. “He won’t be using that again.”
“Help me up,” Sonny said, holding out his hand. “I’m okay.”
“You’re not supposed to move,” the officer said, shining his light on Sonny’s muddied face. “Ambulance will be here soon. Chief Garcia called. He’s on his way, too.”
“Never mind the ambulance,” Sonny complained. “Did you guys stop the black van we were chasing?”
“No,” the cops answered. “We didn’t see a black van. We were following you.”
“Damn!” Sonny cursed. He pushed his leg to brace himself and felt it respond. For the first time in months the leg had actually responded to a command to move. He tried again and his leg moved, a surge of energy filling the muscles.
“I think I can—”
“Best not to move. We’ve got an ambulance coming,” the officer that knelt by him repeated. He shone his flashlight in Sonny’s eyes. The guy didn’t appear to be drunk or on dope, and he had just escaped uninjured from the wreck, but his eyes seemed happy, juiced up, maybe the adrenaline.
Somewhere in the excitement an angry Chief Garcia appeared at the top of the ditch, then scooted down.
“Sonny! You sonofabitch! You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”
“He wasn’t driving,” Lorenza explained. She had taken off her coat and covered Sonny. The night was freezing.
“Was it Raven?” Garcia asked, scowling.
“Yes,” Lorenza replied, and turned her attention to Sonny. “Can you feel anything?” She squeezed his hands.
“I’m okay,” Sonny groaned. He was fully conscious now, and the first thought that crossed his mind was that they had lost Raven and the girl.
“You’re bleeding,” Lorenza said. Blood was dripping from a scrape on his cheek.
“You were chasing Raven?” Garcia asked.
“Till your boys got on our tail,” Sonny said.
“This van was doing over a hundred on this stretch,” the cop who had knelt by Sonny said to the chief. “We had a report that someone driving a van had just kidnapped a girl at the Kimo Theater. These two were running fast.”
“Raven took a girl?”
Sonny nodded. “Help me up.”
“No, stay on your back,” Lorenza ordered.
“An ambulance will be here any minute,” the officer said again.
“No, help me up,” Sonny insisted.
“You sure?” Garcia asked. “The ambulance is here. It’s best if they strap you down and take you in.”
“Dammit! Help me up!” Sonny repeated.
Garcia and the cop lent a hand, and Sonny stood up, unsure of his strength for a moment but aware that a change had taken place during the crash. His legs, which till now had felt so numb and useless, felt strong. He tested them by taking a step forward.
“Sonny? You sure you can—” A worried Lorenza spoke to him.
Sonny smiled, wiped mud away from his lips, and took another step. “I can walk! Help me out of here.”
Garcia and the cop helped him up the steep side of the ditch, and when he stood at the top, Sonny was breathing hard, but there was no doubt about it, his legs were responding. He pushed the two aside and took a step forward.
“I can walk!” he shouted into the glare of the police car lights.
A clanging fire truck from Ranchitos drove up, followed by an emergency rescue vehicle. Two attendants jumped out.
“You the injured party?” one asked, looking at Sonny.
“Do I look injured!” Sonny shouted. “I can walk!”
26
Sonny rested in his bed. A hot shower and aspirin had eased some of the soreness, but what had really buoyed his spirits was knowing he could walk again. Some of the despair he felt over Rita’s miscarriage lifted.
“The shock must have cleared up the circuit board,” Lorenza said as she bandaged the cut above his left eye. “Your brain finally can get messages to the legs.”
“The blow to the head?” he asked.
“Probably. We’ll see what your neurologist says.”
“Yeah,” Sonny whispered. He stroked the sleeping Chica.
Chief Garcia had given them a ride home. Sonny had not only been able to walk to the police car, he had walked from the car into the house. Whatever had happened was miraculous, and he kept reaching down, rubbing his thighs, checking their strength. The numbness was gone. His brain said flex, and the correct muscle grew taut to do his will.
Still, the feeling of elation alternated with blame for losing the girl.
Garcia conta
cted the Saavedras, and after he spoke to them, he let Sonny talk to the distraught mother. It turned out that Sonny was distantly related. These Saavedras were from Tomé, near Belén, and that family was related to the Jaramillos, Sonny’s mother’s side of the family.
“Distant relations,” he murmured as he hung the phone.
“Todos somos primos,” Lorenza said.
“Including Raven and me,” Sonny mused. Raven was his alter ego, his other self, the dream of chaos in the memory. He was sitting there now, in the middle of his evil circle, gloating over his conquest.
“I’ve got an officer at the Saavedras,’” Garcia said. “I’ll go over there myself. Damn Raven!”
Yeah, damn Raven, Sonny thought. If Garcia only knew how much he wanted to damn Raven to hell! And now it might be too late. Four girls and four grandmothers were in his clutches. Sonny’s time on earth could be measured by hours. Tomorrow was the solstice. Raven would use his sorcery on the grandmothers at the exact solstice moment, when the sun hung in a balance, and Sonny would disappear from the face of the earth.
“Is there time?” Sonny asked as he looked at Lorenza making preparations.
“Yes. You have a few hours left before the solstice. Don Eliseo will be here any minute now.”
“Is there another way? Not to involve don Eliseo?”
“No,” she replied.
“He has to help,” Sonny whispered.
“Yes,” she said, and disappeared. A short time later the aroma of sweet grass filled the house. She was cleansing the house, preparing for the ceremony. Still later he heard the shower running.
Yes, dangerous or not, it was time to meet Raven. He lay back on the bed, trying to relax, trying to find the power of Coyote and draw it into his soul. He was about to enter the most important dream—nightmare really—of his life.
On the way home he had tried to explain some of the details to Garcia, as much as he dared.
“I knew Paiz was after Raven. Hell, I’ve been chasing him, too!” the chief had retorted. “But God Almighty, Sonny. This is science fiction! Plutonium? Raven has a ball of plutonium? And he’s running around ’Burque? I don’t believe it. But I do know he’s got this girl, and I’m going to nail him! I’ve got the city shut tight.”