Big Maria (21 page)

“You do not need to. When you have your court date, we get our moneys back,” Bernardo said. “If you speak to the hospital. If you say, ‘I am sorry,’ and explain how they let Papa Frank walk out of there with those men, I am sure...”

Mercedes turned her head so quickly that Bernardo swerved. “Walked out with what men? Who men? What’re you talking about?”

“I talked to a pretty woman at the hospital,” Ramón said.

“I’m talking to your brother,” Mercedes snapped. Ramón shrank from her voice. His immediate instinct was to jump from the moving vehicle. He got as far as his hand on the door handle but stopped himself.

Bernardo nodded. “He does not lie. Ramón talked to a woman. The black lady at the hospital told him. Papa Frank left with two men. We have met those men. They are his friends. Their names are Harry and Ricky.”

“How do you know he wasn’t taken against his will? He’s a sick man.”

Bernardo looked at her, not quite understanding. “Friends do not kidnap friends. They help each other. That is what makes them friends.”

“Considering that your grandfather may be in danger, you seem pretty sure.”

“He is in no danger.”

“Bernardo,” Ramón tried to cut in.

Bernardo continued, “Papa Frank will show up. I am sure. He was tired of the hospital. He knew you would not let him leave.”

“Bernardo”—Ramón looked at Mercedes’s clenched jaw and pleaded—“what are you doing?”

But Bernardo was on a roll. “Papa Frank is a grown man. He makes his own decisions. If he wants to go somewhere, he
does not need your permission. We are all tired of you bossing us around.”

“Oh, shit,” Ramón said under his breath.

“Is that all you have to say, Bernardo?”

Bernardo nodded.

“Please pull over.”

“Do it, Bernardo,” Ramón said.

“Pull over,” Mercedes repeated.

“We are almost home,” Bernardo said.

“Pull over,” Mercedes said, as if all other words had lost any meaning until those two were understood.

“No,” Bernardo said.

“Why are you doing this, Bernardo?” Ramón sounded on the verge of tears.

“Pull over!” Mercedes and Ramón shouted in unison.

Bernardo stared straight ahead, pretending to ignore them. To emphasize his disinterest, he whistled the theme song to
The Muppet Show
.

“I am your mother. You will do what I say.”

Bernardo closed his eyes. Luckily the road was straight and empty, because he didn’t open them for twenty seconds or more. He spoke slowly and definitively. “I will drive you home. Then Ramón and me, we will go to our home. And we will wait to hear from Papa Frank.”

Mercedes’s face burned red. Her anger grew inside her. She had never hit her children, demanding obedience only through intimidation and fear. While she was known to attack authority figures and inanimate objects with hurricane-like destructive power, she had weaned herself off physical violence to kin long ago. She loved her boys and couldn’t imagine striking them. Until that moment.

“Last time,” she said slowly. “Pull. This. Truck. Over. Now.”

“I will not,” Bernardo said.

Bernardo knew he was digging deeper, but he couldn’t stop himself. He had seen Harry and Ricky with Papa Frank. They acted like friends. They cared about each other. It showed. Their mother may have had a daughter’s instinct to care about his health, but she never seemed to care about Papa Frank’s happiness. Whatever he was doing, it was his choice. Bernardo needed to stand up for him in his absence.

A growl rose from deep inside Mercedes. It sounded like a purr at first and then an engine, and then something frighteningly inhuman.

“What is happening?” Ramón yelled.

Not having any recourse, not knowing what to do, and letting her rage completely devour her, Mercedes pounded her head into the dashboard, twice, in rapid succession. Her emotion numbed any pain, but the hard plastic did its damage. Ramón and Bernardo were so shocked that it took three sharp blows of head on car before they absorbed what was happening. Ramón bear-hugged his mother, trying to pin her to the seat. She managed to get one more blow in before he subdued her.

Blood ran down her forehead. Her hair had fallen out of its ponytail, and some of it stuck to her face.

Her wail made Bernardo’s skin prickle and his ears ring. Completely freaked out, Ramón screamed with her. Mercedes tried to continue her self-punishment, but Ramón held her tight against the seat.

Bernardo wanted to tune it out. He tried. But the yelling and crying and kicking and struggling in the seat next to him was too much. It sounded like a kindergarten class during an earthquake.

He let out an exasperated breath. His mother would always get her way. Her will was inescapable.

Bernardo pulled over to the side of the road.

H
arry sat in his car, deeply concerned that things were going too smoothly. He knew there was supposed to be a point where the bad luck shifted to good, but he wasn’t convinced that he had reached the top of that hill.

Getting the two burros into the horse trailer had been surprisingly simple. He had expected some struggle and got none. The burros seemed anxious to be out of their small corral, even if it was into the fresh confinement of the horse trailer.

But staring once again at the boards laid across the moat, Harry had second thoughts. What kind of asshole digs a moat anyway? The boards looked narrower. The moat looked wider. What would happen if one of the tires missed? If the car went into the water? Would he drown? Would he get crushed? Would he die instantly? Or would he survive, only to die of infection after several painful weeks?

Out of all the possible scenarios, there was only one good outcome (he got across) and so many bad ones (a shit-covered spear piercing his vital organs, for example). Everything wrong could happen, so little right. His life story. A crap game played with dice that only had ones and twos on them.

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

“We had this conversation,” Frank said, leaning into the window of the car. “Destiny, all that. Second verse, same as the first.”

“I don’t know if my body will let me. My leg is shaking. My hands are froze to the wheel. My body, my brain is telling me not to. I’m having a freak-out here. Like a fear seizure or something. Like my body is rejecting me.”

“Take a couple breaths.”

Harry took three quick breaths. His wheeze sounded like a chain smoker in a Lamaze class. It did nothing to calm his nerves. He reached under the seat and pulled out a half-full bottle of bourbon.

“That’s the stuff. Take a drink. A good gulp,” Frank said.

Harry took a long pull. Drinking too fast, the bourbon went down the wrong tube. Harry sprayed liquor all over the windshield, the rest pouring down his chin and neck onto his shirt. He coughed, the back of his throat burning with booze and bile. His eyes watered, and heat rose to his face. It took him a solid minute to get the hacking under control. Even then, he felt like shit.

“You okay?” Frank asked.

“Went down the wrong way. Raped my lungs. Maybe it’s a sign. The wrong way,” Harry said.

“The hell. Sack up, Harry. The closer we get, the more you’re going to want to back out. This is the easy part. Everything after is going to be a hell of a lot harder. You do this, you prove you’re up for it. You don’t get across that water, you don’t deserve that gold. Quit acting the pansy, put on your man pants, and let’s go.”

Frank didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and walked over one of the boards. At the other side, he motioned with his hands for the car to move forward.

Harry coughed one last cough and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He smeared some of the bourbon off the windshield, not improving his visibility. He reached into the glove compartment and rooted around. Papers, pens, a lighter, a spark plug, a half-eaten sandwich, an apple core, a glow-in-the-dark condom. Where was it?

His Saint Christopher medallion was stuck to a Jolly Rancher. He separated them and clutched the small pendant in his hand.
With hardly a conscious thought, Harry’s foot lifted slowly off the brake and the car idled forward toward the moat.

“Nobody dies in a moat. That’s not a way people die. Not anymore. Let’s do this.”

W
ith Harry’s maps and the preprogrammed GPS unit, Ricky found the pier easily. The weatherworn wooden structure looked like it had been unused for decades.

Maneuvering the boat against the pier proved to be a challenge, the back end of the boat (aft?) not quite doing what Ricky wanted. But he was in no hurry, so he took the opportunity to learn. On the fourth try, he guided the boat parallel to the pier.

He didn’t know beyond squares and grannies, so he tied the boat with a bulky knot that looked like a monkey’s shoelace.

After an hour of moving around some supplies, Ricky stretched out on the deck. There were no clouds, only brightness. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the red glow inside his eyelids. The warmth of the sun and the peaceful rocking of the boat made it impossible for him to stay awake. His sleep was fluid and graceful.

He couldn’t remember the whole dream. He never remembered his dreams. If he was lucky, he retained scenes and images, but never the whole. He recalled a part of his dream where he was talking to an octopus-like creature with a bird’s head. The creature held a candle. It wasn’t scary. They were friends. It might have been a birthday candle. In the dream he was getting the creature’s permission to go to a surprise party. He wondered what it meant. He didn’t really believe dreams meant anything, but he had always liked how excited Flavia would get when he let her interpret his dreams. Maybe he would ask Harry.

He might have remembered more of the dream if he hadn’t been jolted awake by a burro licking his face. When a gigantic tongue that smells like fermented cheese wakes you, you tend to
lose all short-term memory. At first sight the elongated burro’s face made no sense, making him unsure of what it was and what it meant.

The confusion led to momentary panic. Pure reaction. He punched the burro in the side of the head with a sweeping right hook.

F
rank had the best vantage point. Everything happened fast, but like an umpire watching a bang-bang play at first base, his mind absorbed and replayed everything to interpret the details.

Minutes before, Frank and Harry had pulled up to the pier with the horse trailer. They saw Ricky sleeping on the deck and thought they’d have some fun. They quietly unloaded the burros—as quietly as one can unload a burro—and brought them over. The burros appeared curious about the boat. As one of them sniffed around, Harry gave it a little push from behind toward Ricky. That’s when the donkey licked Ricky’s face.

Ricky punched the donkey. The donkey reeled to the side and hoof-kicked Harry square in the nuts. That’s what you get for standing behind a donkey. With an echoing scream, Harry flew backward off the pier and into the water. But the donkey wasn’t done. It bit Ricky in the cheek. Ricky screamed and grabbed at the animal’s face. Harry splashed in the water toward the pier. Frank pulled the burro’s reins. Harry climbed onto the edge of the dock. The donkey stepped on Harry’s hand. He fell back into the water. Finally, Frank got the donkey under control.

The quiet that followed was tense. Everyone waited for more, the inevitable aftershock after a big earthquake.

Ricky brought his hand to his cheek. The thick teeth of the donkey had done more squeezing than biting. It felt bruised, but the bite hadn’t broken the skin.

Frank held the reins on both burros. They skittered on the pier but calmed to the point of control.

“Where’s Harry?” Ricky asked. He had been too busy being bitten to hear the splash.

Frank smiled, pointing to Harry at the edge of the pier.

“Give me a hand. My cast is getting heavier,” Harry yelled, his wary eyes on the donkey.

“How’d you get in the water?” Ricky asked.

“Stupid thing nutted me in the junk. My boys feel like bruised fruit, my stomach is queasy, and I think I broke my diddling finger.”

Ricky and Frank burst out laughing. They knew they shouldn’t, but they couldn’t stop.

“Yeah, great. Hi-larious. Now will one of my so-called friends help me out of this swamp?”

“T
ell me about the men that took Papa Frank,” Mercedes demanded.

They were parked at the side of the road. The traffic was light, so they only got pelted with dust every couple minutes. The boys leaned against the side of their truck as their mother paced in front of them, a drill sergeant at inspection. A small furrow had formed on the ground from her pounding footsteps.

“I do not think they took him against his will,” Bernardo said.

Mercedes stopped. “They’re with him. They know where he’s at. That’s what matters. Who are they? Where do we find them?”

“The big one with the littler arm is Ricky,” Bernardo said. “Papa Frank had us watch him. A problem with drink. He would not do harm to Papa Frank. Ricky owes him. He appears to be honorable.”

“You can’t trust a drunk. The other one?”

“Harry. He is not so honorable, a schemer, a planner. Very insensitive to our native heritage.”

“He calls us the Go Go Gophers,” Ramón cut in.

Mercedes shot Ramón a glance that made three drops of urine leak from his body.

Bernardo continued. “I do not like the one called Harry, but Papa Frank does. The three of them, they are friends. They were on a search. I do not know what for. We went in a boat. They dove in the Colorado River. They found a box.”

“What was in the box?”

“I do not know.”

“These idiots pull a box out of the water and you weren’t curious?”

Bernardo looked at her, not quite understanding. “It was their box, not my box.”

Mercedes ground her teeth.

“Do you know where they live?”

“They both live in the same mobile home village in Blythe.”

“Take me there.”

“We must go by the compound first. Tuco, Blondie, and Angel Eyes have not been fed.”

“Your dogs can wait.”