“You really don’t — want to go.”
“No,” he said. God, he did not want to go, he did not want to leave his street and his friends and his family.
“Can’t guarantee anything.” She winced. “Do my best. Will you — take a chance?”
Oh, man, is this crazy. But suppose it worked. He squeezed his eyes shut for a minute, nerving himself up to it, and then he nodded, quick and short, and it was like the weight of the whole sky just slid right off him.
He jumped up to go get the telephone from where Bobbie had dumped it down the arroyo.
Jake and Martín — if Martín ever came back — would get some story from him, when he got back to Pinto Street.
Blanca watched the patio gate swing behind Roberto. She stepped away from the door frame, where she had been standing hidden to listen. She couldn’t hear it all, but she’d heard enough, all right. Her face felt hot and red and she knew she was working up to a super fit, but she didn’t care. It would serve them all right if she died right there, her blood on their heads.
She went out onto the patio, turning to keep from catching the cast against the doorway, and stood over the old lady.
“He’s not going to Canada, is he?” she said. “You stopped him. You sold him some fairy tale about giving up to the cops instead of getting out of here — you’ve ruined everything!”
The old lady squinted up at her. “You should be — glad. He couldn’t — have taken you along.”
“He would have! I’d have made him take me, I can get him to do what I want! You don’t know anything about it! We were going to go together, we were going to get away, far away where nothing is the same, and you spoiled it!”
“You could have died,” came the whispered answer. “Both of you, any of the rest — shooting, chases — too dangerous.”
“Dangerous for you, you mean,” Blanca sneered. She kicked at the wreckage of the shotgun. She felt explosive with her own fury. Damn that Beto, damn him for ducking out on her! Damn this old bitch for making him do it! She hoped the old lady was really hurting right now, she sure deserved it.
“Help for Ricky, too — sooner.”
“First place we stopped, I’d have slipped away and telephoned for help for Ricky, without giving my name or anything. Did you think I’d just leave him like that, locked up and waiting? I’m his friend. And now they’ll lock us all up and I’ll never see him again and I’ll never ever ever get out of here and I hate you so much — If I had a gun, I’d shoot you myself, right now. You’ve ruined it all.”
The old lady’s eyes closed. “You’ll make yourself sick,” she murmured.
“I don’t make myself sick! It’s other people that make me sick!” Blanca cried. “ You make me sick! Beto makes me sick! Everything and everybody, you all — make — me — sick!”
Ellie sat at the end of the big, bare room leaning her head against the wall and looking out of the window. There was nothing to see outside, no movement, and no sound since the shots. In here the kids were quiet, listening as she listened.
In books they talked about the sweat of fear, usually the “rank” sweat of fear. She kept thinking she could smell her own sweaty clothes and skin.
The key grated in the doorlock.
She went rigid with a blast of energy that shocked her. Oh God I am afraid to die.
Bobbie opened the door and looked in. He smiled a peculiar, tremulous smile (is that how a killer smiles before he pulls the trigger?) and said in his old, shy tone, “Everybody can come on out now.”
Somebody’s come, Ellie thought, her heart leaping with joy; we’re free! And then, with a lurch back into terror, she thought, No, it’s a trap — we walk out and they shoot us down and drive away laughing. They’re monsters. This has to be a trick.
Joyce said in a tiny voice, “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing,” Bobbie said. “It’s all over. They want you to call up the guy at the hospice, Miss Stern. For Mr. Maulders. He’s pretty bad.”
I don’t believe it, she thought, but already she was moving forward. She could not stand to be cooped up in here another moment, not if they blasted her to bits on the threshold as she emerged.
“This way,” Bobbie said, trotting ahead of her eagerly.
In the living room, Dorothea was sitting in the leather chair near the fireplace, looking haggard. Roberto stood next to her, holding — a glass of water. The pistol was gone from his belt, and the shotgun had vanished.
“I’ll just go get rid of this,” Bobbie said, and he took the rifle out across the patio and threw it over the back wall.
Dorothea said, “Miss Stern, please make a phone call to the hospice. Ask for Frank.”
She indicated the telephone on the sideboard; it had been plugged back in.
“Are you hurt?” Ellie was acutely aware of the theatricality of the moment, the whole class of kids at her back looking and listening and drinking it all in, afraid to utter a sound until they knew how things stood, no more ready to trust this sudden freedom than she was herself. Blanca, that horrible child, had curled on the couch with her plaster-cased arm sticking up, her color very poor. She glowered at the hearthrug as if to ignite it with her gaze.
“I think I broke a rib,” Dorothea said faintly. “It’s nothing. But Ricky needs help.”
In the back of Ellie’s mind an unctuous little voice observed, “Now everybody can see what happens to the brave ones. She brought this on herself somehow.”
Whatever “this” was. There seemed to be no blood on Dorothea’s clothing, but she was clearly injured. And the atmosphere was so odd. Dorothea looked strangely composed despite her pain, and were those aspirins Roberto was handing her, with water to wash them down with? What the hell? Are we really free?
Jeff said, “Where’s Alex?”
Bobbie said, “He’s okay. He got away.”
Roberto cleared his throat. “Alex made a run for it. I went to fire over his head, like a warning shot, but she —” he flashed a tense glance at Dorothea — “must of thought I was aiming at him for real, so she tried to stop me. The gun went off. It’s just the recoil knocked her down, that’s all. It’s like a hard punch. There might not even be nothing broken, just a big bruise.”
They all stared, wide-eyed, at Dorothea, who said nothing.
Then Joyce quavered, “So is somebody going to be coming pretty soon?”
“Yes,” Dorothea said. “All Miss Stern has to do is to make that phone call.”
At this, there came a ragged cheer from the kids.
Ellie had never had a broken bone in her life. God, it must hurt. She walked over to the phone, floating in a sort of cinematic dream in which she saw herself simultaneously with feeling herself move.
Bolder now, she said, “What about that man who came by here?”
Roberto looked blank for a moment, as if she were talking about something that had happened ages ago. Ellie had the oddest feeling that while she’d been locked up here in the studio, something had moved up the clock hands for the people outside, pulling them on ahead of her.
“Oh, yeah, him.” Roberto frowned. “Mrs. Howard sent him away. I don’t know if he caught on or not.”
Jeff said uncertainly, “Uh, what about Mr., ah, Mr. Maulders?”
Bobbie looked unhappy. “He said to leave him where he is. We made him as comfortable as we could, with water to drink and blankets and everything. He won’t have to be alone there for long.”
Everybody was watching Ellie. It’s up to me to break the spell, she thought. God knows what comes next. How the hell am I going to write about this when I don’t really understand it at all?
She cleared her throat. “What’s the number at the hospice?”
11
Bobbie stayed near Mrs. Howard and Miss Stern. He was nervous about what might happen now that he and Roberto had gotten rid of their guns. Not that they had long to wait — the guy at the hospice had said he’d come right out, soon as he located this cop S
anchez.
As soon as Miss Stern had finished the phone call, Blanca had asked how long before somebody came. Now she was sitting next to Bobbie on the couch, looking mad. She jumped up, just like that, and said, “I’m going to go tell Ricky. Somebody should stay with him.”
Mrs. Howard talked easier after those aspirins Roberto had given her. She said, “Certainly, go and tell him relief is on the way. But don’t be surprised if he’d rather be by himself until Frank arrives, Blanca. It’s only because there’s nothing any of us can do for Ricky ourselves.”
“A real friend can go and sit with him,” Blanca retorted, and she walked out of the room.
Nobody followed her, and that was good, but Jeff was looking around, and he said, “Hey, we’ve been cooped up a long time. Is it okay if I go take a walk outside?”
“Of course,” Miss Stern started, but Mrs. Howard cut right across her without raising her voice, just talking.
“No,” she said. “No one is to go out, please, until Frank gets here. I want us all together and in plain sight when help comes. No mistakes now, people, not when we’re so close.”
Nobody argued.
In a few minutes Blanca came back, looking shaky. She sat down by herself on a blanket chest next to the tv and didn’t look at anybody.
If only everybody would just forget the whole thing, Bobbie thought. I’ve never been in real trouble, no arrests, no record. So now what? My whole life could be spoiled! But at least I’m not in a car chase with the cops after me and Beto waving a gun around. One thing — next time somebody’s in trouble, I’ll keep my big mouth shut and let them find their own way out.
Roberto came and sat next to him. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t look so down. We made a good try, right? But the old lady was too much for us. She’s a bruja, did you know that? If we’d of tried to run, she’d of witched us right into the hands of the cops. I’m not afraid of anybody, but there’s no point fighting a witch.”
Bobbie, taken completely aback by this idea, said, “What do you mean, a witch? There’s no such thing!”
“No? How you think Alex got away? You think he did that on his own, that jerk? What about this ghost that’s wandering around here, and that great big wall the old lady’s spirit-helpers made for her out in the desert back of this place? She didn’t say so, but I bet she’s got some Indian blood, you know? Look at her from the side, you see what I mean? Indian blood and Indian magic. You don’t want to take chances with that.”
He told Bobbie about wonders and amazements, and Bobbie listened, enthralled, wishing he had a story that good to tell his friends when they asked him how come he turned back and came home after all.
Joyce couldn’t believe it. She sat playing cards with Sarah and Cindy — Sarah always carried a tiny, dog-eared pack with her — playing badly because she kept glancing over at where Mrs. Howard and Miss Stern sat with the two Cantu boys. Everybody was just waiting, but this time waiting to get free and go home.
All that crying for nothing, she thought, picking up one of Cindy’s discards. All that being scared, and it comes out fine. She felt jangled and twitchy, and she could tell Cindy felt that way too.
Suddenly Cindy put her cards down. “Hey, is anybody going to believe this when we tell them? Nobody will ever believe us!”
Sarah giggled but it ended up catching, like when you cry.
“I tell you what,” Cindy said, “I think we should commemorate the whole thing, what do you think? I mean do something to mark it, that it really happened.”
“Well, what?” Joyce said.
Cindy looked over her shoulder at where Blanca sat by herself with her encased arm propped on the sill of the window next to her. “Why don’t we all write our names on Blanca’s cast?”
Joyce was up before any of them. She went over to Blanca. “Hi,” she said. “How are you doing?”
Blanca looked away and didn’t answer. The other girls crowded around. Cindy had fished out some colored pens from her bag. She handed a red one to Joyce. “Listen, Blanca,” she said, “you know how people put their names on a cast and decorate it? We’d like to write on your cast, so there’ll be something to remember us by.”
“I don’t want to remember you,” Blanca said in this thick, hateful voice. “I don’t want to remember anything.”
“Too bad,” Sarah said. She had green eyes like a cat, and now they got narrow and sly, and she lunged forward and grabbed Blanca. “We don’t care what you want.”
Joyce jumped in to help Sarah, and suddenly all four of them were rolling around on the floor in a panting tangle of flailing limbs and fury. Blanca was grunting and gasping from where she got hit. A wild kick caught Joyce in the knee, and she yelled and tumbled free, holding her leg.
Somebody grabbed her hair — she looked up into Roberto’s face that was like a fright mask of anger — and then Jeff tackled him and Miss Stern was standing up and watching with her mouth wide open and not a sound coming out and Blanca was screaming, “Leave me alone, I don’t want you writing on it, let me go!”
“Stop!”
It was Mrs. Howard who had spoken. Despite the weakness of her voice, she only had to say it once. Roberto let go, and Joyce leaned over and grabbed at Sarah’s shoulder because Sarah still had ahold of Blanca by the waist. “Hey,” Joyce whispered fiercely, “she says quit it.”
They all broke apart and sat panting and sniffling and nursing their bruises. Blanca sat up silently, her hair a wild tangle and a drippy scratch over her left eye. Even Bobbie had a bloody nose that he kept wiping on his shirt and then looking at the stains like he couldn’t believe it.
Miss Stern said sharply, “All right, everybody, what was that all about?”
Cindy, looking up from a torn button on her blouse, said sulkily, “We wanted to write our names on her cast, that’s all.”
“I don’t want your dirty names,” Blanca spat.
“Who cares what you want, you creep!” Cindy said. “You and your creepy brother, we should take you in the bathroom and stuff your head down the toilet, you little —”
“That’s enough,” Mrs. Howard said.
“Freak,” Cindy finished, baring her teeth at Blanca like a dog.
Joyce hugged her aching knee and was glad she had fallen out of the fray early on. She was ashamed to have anything to do with Cindy and Sarah now. Trying to take it out on a kid with a broken arm because they didn’t dare take on Roberto or Bobbie!
Mrs. Howard went on, “You are all still in my house. No one is to bother anyone else for as long as we’re together here. Are we going to tell people later that we survived being held hostage at gunpoint but couldn’t control ourselves afterward when the danger was over?”
You had to remember, Joyce thought, she’s the only one that really got hurt. You could hear it in the tired, thready sound of her voice. She’s the one that got hurt, and her dog got killed, and she says take it easy. What an amazing person. How did a person get to be like that?
When you quit being scared, that was when you could ask questions about those things.
Joyce hugged her knee tenderly, thinking, I don’t mind having a sore knee. It’s like a war-wound, even if nobody ever knows that but me.
“Do your ribs hurt a lot?” Ellie asked. Could you die of broken ribs, if you were an older person? Dorothea looked terrible.
“Not so bad. Be worse tomorrow. I’ll have a hell of a bruise. Like the time Horace kicked me.” Dorothea chortled faintly, stopped with a gasp, her hand to her side. “He’s my horse.”
“Too bad you don’t have at least a bottle of Scotch or something.”
Dorothea shook her head. “I wouldn’t want any. Liquor makes me sleepy, and besides, on top of lots of aspirin — better not.”
“Aspirin!” Ellie said, shooting Roberto a killing look where he stood slouched by the front window, with his back to them all. “What’s Roberto doing, showing what good care he takes of his hostages after he’s broken their ribs? Now he’s Robin H
ood?”
“It’s over,” Dorothea said. “We’re all in pretty good shape, even me. Don’t exaggerate how bad things were, Ellie.”
Ellie gaped at her. “Don’t exaggerate? What is there to exaggerate? We’re alive and together by the skin of our teeth and you know it!”
“All the same,” Dorothea said in a fading voice. “No great harm.”
“Didn’t you tell me he tried to kill Alex? Didn’t you stop him from committing a murder? Listen, I was half-minded to join in when those kids jumped Blanca just now.”
“I know you were,” Dorothea murmured. Her eyes were closed again.
“Well, can you blame me? We could have been killed here!”
“But we weren’t,” came the patient, exasperating answer. She’s treating me like a kid, Ellie thought. She took my class right out from under me just now, after all I’ve done with them, and now I get this? Who the hell does she think she is?
“I don’t get it,” Ellie said, her jaw clenching painfully with tension. “Are you on their side?”
“I’m on the side of keeping the all-around damage as contained as possible.”
Ellie felt as if the floor had lurched under her feet. “You’re going to help them, aren’t you? You’re going to minimize the whole affair and try to get the law to go easy on them — that little thug and his rotten, weird sister and that snake of a cousin of his! It’s a wonder you didn’t actually help them get away!”
“If they’d still wanted to go, I would have,” Dorothea said.
“Even if he might go murder other people because you aren’t on hand to prevent it?” Ellie was outraged. “If the courts turn him loose because you take his side, and he goes on to actually kill somebody like Alex later on, how will you feel?”
Now the painter’s eyes opened, and there was an angry shine in them. “Those are not my choices,” she said. “I can’t live his life for him. My choices are about what happened here. I’ve made them. His choices belong to him.”