The Wonder Bread Summer (19 page)

Allie walked down the hall past a white-tiled bathroom and into a yellow bedroom with a single bed with pretty floral sheets and a yellow blanket. She lifted up the mattress. Sure enough, there was a gun there.

Allie returned to the master bedroom with the gun dangling from her first two fingers like a dirty diaper. Vice Versa sat up straight and watched her.

“That’s your gun now,” Frank said. “Keep it in your purse.”

“I don’t need a gun. I’ve got the lucky rabbit foot Wai Po gave me.” Allie wasn’t joking, but she smiled as if she were.

Hans laughed. “I’ve got my St. Jude medallion,” he said. “And I’m still carrying a gun.”

“Keep the gun, Allie,” Frank said firmly.

“Are you sure this is really Vice Versa?” Allie asked.

“Of course I’m Vice Versa! You dumb rabbit-foot-believing girl!” Vice Versa’s voice clanged like a fork against a tin pot. “What happened to your head? That thing’s fucking ugly!”

“Please don’t use profanity in my home!” Frank boomed, and he shut the closet doors.

Chapter 14

H
ans and Luis wanted to stuff Vice Versa in the trunk with Topher. Frank, Jorge, and Allie agreed that it would be inhumane to pack two grown men into one trunk with a dead condor. Besides, although they learned through Vice Versa that he had been sent to Los Angeles to retrieve the cocaine
by any means necessary
, he hadn’t, in fact, harmed any of them. Even Frank, who had been his prisoner for two nights. Vice Versa was sequestered in the locked van while they opened the trunk of the Prelude. The bird was laid out over Topher’s quaking body and examined, bald head to razor claw, by Frank.

“And you’re saying it just crashed through your windshield?” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Allie said. “I was sitting in traffic and it crashed.”

“I can maybe see it going through the windshield if the car was moving. In that case you’d have the velocity of the car versus the velocity of the bird, which certainly would be enough force to break the windshield. But a stopped car?” He paused. “Well, maybe if it weighs enough.” Frank lifted the bird and bounced it up and down, assessing the weight. Then he placed it back on top of Topher and said, “I guess that thing’s at least twenty-five or thirty pounds. And if it were diving straight down from five hundred feet up, going fifty miles an hour, at thirty pounds, then, yeah, that would break your windshield. Amazing.” He looked at Topher, who was crouching and silent, and poked him in the shoulder.

“He claims he lost the address for the guy with the coke,” Luis said.

“I only met him a week ago,” Topher said.

“You committed a crime with a guy you met last week?” Frank asked.

“I just fucking moved here from Laguna Beach. He was like the first fucking friend I’ve made!”

“Language, please!” Frank said.

“I think he’s lying,” Allie said.

“Are you actually dumb enough to lie so that you can protect some infantile surfer boy who had the nerve to steal a bag of already stolen cocaine from my temporarily imbecilic daughter?”

“I got mostly As in school last semester,” Allie said, but no one seemed to hear. They were all peering down at Topher, whose dull eyes reminded Allie of a goat or a cow. He shook his head no.

“No, you’re not lying?”

“I swear, man! We plotted the whole thing at Tommy’s Burgers at, like, three in the morning. He gave me his address on a fucking index card. I mean who uses index cards? I thought it was in my pocket but—”

“Enough!” Frank stepped back and slammed the trunk shut.

F
rank knew almost every street in every neighborhood in Los Angeles. So when Allie told him she had met Mike at the gas station across from the In-N-Out Burger with the palm tree that looked like it was bowing toward the ground, he knew exactly where they should go.

Allie got in the driver’s seat of the Prelude, her father sat in front with his gun on his lap, and Hans sat in the back. Jorge and Luis were in the van, with Vice Versa.

Allie had never driven with her father as a passenger before and was not prepared for the detailed instructions he gave her. Frank told her when to put on the blinker, when to change lanes, how fast to go, where to center herself in the lane, and how to turn hand over hand rather than keeping her hands in one place. By the time she pulled into the gas station, Allie was exhausted from the concentration it took to respond to each of her father’s directions. She pulled up against the fence that bordered the gas station, cut the engine, and leaned back in her seat.

“Do you see him?” Frank asked.

Allie looked out the back window. “No,” she said.

“Go out and find him.” Frank nudged his chin toward Allie. There was a boom and the car shook as Topher jolted around in the trunk.

Allie got out of the car just as the van pulled in beside them. Jorge was driving. “You find out where he is?” Jorge asked. The van bounced a bit and Allie leaned in and watched Luis push Vice Versa down to the floor.

“We need to tie him to something,” Jorge said. “He’s been hurling himself all over like a bouncing ball.”

“Tape him to the floor,” Allie said, and she laughed at the idea of a man being taped to the floor of a van. Then she shuddered and wondered if this experience was eroding her respect for humanity and life. “On second thought, don’t tape him to the floor!” she said, and she walked off, with her purse hiked up on her shoulder, in search of Mike’s friend Jimmy.

Jimmy’s uncle, the owner of the gas station, was working. “Jimmy don’t work till tomorrow,” he said in a rich Southern accent. His front eyeteeth were missing and he was as bluish-white as skim milk. He was definitely not from California.

“Do you have Jimmy’s phone number?” Allie asked. “I need to call him.” She burrowed into her purse for a scrap of paper, saw Vice Versa’s gun nestled there, and immediately yanked out her hand.

“Who’re y’all again?” the uncle asked. His accent was so thick that at first Allie thought he had said
whore
.

“I’m his girlfriend,” Allie lied smoothly in a way that she knew would have saddened Wai Po.

The old man squinted at her. “If you’re his girlfriend, why don’t you have the number already?”

“New girlfriend,” Allie improvised. “We started dating two days ago. I met him here.”

“He didn’t give you that lump in the bean, did he?” The old man put his hand up above his eyebrow. Allie mirrored him and felt her forehead. She had forgotten about her bump in spite of the fact that each new person she saw seemed to mention it.

“Oh, no!” she said. “I opened a jam-packed closet and something fell on me.”

The old man seemed to accept her explanation. “Like in the cartoons,” he said.

“Yeah, like in Bugs Bunny or something.”

“Okay, well, come in the office and I’ll let you use the phone,” he said.

Allie followed him inside. The office was the size of a phone booth and smelled like tobacco and gasoline. “I’ll dial,” the old man said, and he put his crooked white finger in the rotary and dialed as Allie held the phone. “Is it ringing?” he asked.

“It’s ringing,” Allie said.

“Good,” the man said, and he went outside, leaving Allie alone.

Jimmy answered on the fifth ring.

“Jimmy?” Allie said.

“Katie?”

“No, it’s Allie.”

“Allie?” His voice sounded worried. Allie imagined him panicking over not remembering who Allie was.

“I met you a couple days ago when I got gas but I didn’t have enough money to pay and so you called your friend Mike, who, uh . . .” Allie looked around. No one could hear her, yet she still felt uncomfortable mentioning cocaine on the phone.

“Oh, yeah, I remember you! How’d you get my number?”

“Your uncle.”

“My uncle? Bart?”

“I guess. The guy with the funny accent.”

“Yeah, that’s Bart! He’s been in California for like thirty years. Can you believe he still talks like that?”

“Not really,” Allie said. She looked out the window and saw her father standing next to the trunk of the Prelude. His face was as stern as a hammer. “Listen, can you tell me where I can find Mike? I was supposed to meet him here to give him some more of that stuff, you know, but he’s not here and he already gave me the money for it so I want to be sure to get it to him.”

“Did you try his house?” Jimmy asked.

“I lost the address,” Allie said.

“He lives in that apartment building next to the In-N-Out,” Jimmy said, and Allie’s eyes immediately landed on the three-story, green stucco building. “But if he’s not there, check Zuma. I heard the waves were good today.”

“But if he lives across the street, why did he drive over to meet me last time?” Allie asked. She couldn’t look away from the apartment building. She feared Mike would walk out any second.

“He always drives over—he loves that truck.”

“Which apartment is his?”

“Across the street!”

“No, what’s his apartment number?”

“Oh, man, I don’t know. I’ve only been there once. Maybe second floor? Like I told you before, the guy parties a lot and I just don’t party.”

“You study,” Allie said.

“Yeah, for now. I study and work.”

A
llie stood by the car in front of her father, her back to the apartment building.

“Look behind me,” she whispered.

“What?” Frank asked.

“Behind me.” Allie was almost hissing. “Mike lives in that green stucco building.”

“Why are you talking like that?”

“Dad! What if he’s watching us?”

“Well he certainly can’t hear us from there! Do you see how many cars are between us and that building? It would be like trying to hear over the Mississippi in a rain storm.”

Hans and Luis approached Allie and Frank. “Well?” Hans said.

“He lives in the green apartment building right there.” Frank nodded his head. Hans and Luis both turned and looked at the same moment, like synchronized dogs. Allie could see the twinness in them.

“Let’s go,” Hans said, and he went to the van while Luis slipped into the backseat of the Prelude.

It took four full minutes to pull onto the road and make a left turn into the driveway of Mike’s apartment building. Allie could see why he might drive over—it would be hard to dodge through the traffic and there wasn’t a crosswalk in sight.

“Pull to the back of the building,” Frank said, and Allie obeyed.

Mike’s truck wasn’t anywhere to be seen. “I’ll go knock on some doors and ask people if they know which apartment is Mike’s,” Allie said.

“Absolutely not,” Frank said. “You will wait in the car.”

“Dad, come on. No one’s going to open the door to any of you guys. People are afraid of men who come around apartments in the middle of the day.”

“She’s right,” Luis said. “Our mother never opened the door if a man was on the other side.”

Frank leaned back in his seat and thought for a moment. “Fine. But Luis goes with you. He has blond hair—people aren’t afraid of blond hair. Hans, Jorge, and I will be three steps behind you, hiding out.”

“That’s fine.” Allie got out of the car and Luis walked with her. Hans and Jorge caught up with Frank and the three of them followed, just as Frank had said.

The apartment building had exterior hallways with rickety iron rails. There were no people around. Allie and Luis stopped on 2B and knocked. No one answered. They moved down one more, to 2C, and knocked again. It wasn’t until they had gone halfway around the square and knocked on apartment 2K that they got lucky: a woman with blond hair that was matted into a nest on top of her head opened the door. She was about thirty years old, with a pink rabbit-looking nose, and was wearing ski boots, underwear, and a T-shirt with an iron-on teapot decal.

“Hey!” she said, as if she and Allie knew each other.

“Oh, sorry, I thought this was Mike’s place.” Allie couldn’t help but notice how easily the lies were now swimming out of her mouth. Was lying like having affairs? What difference did it make if you had one or seven—either way, you were an adulterer.

“Surfer Mike or Musician Mike?”

“Surfer Mike.”

“Next door. Two L.”

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry to bother you,” Allie said. “Thanks so much!”

“Okay,” the woman said, and she shut the door.

Luis motioned to Frank, Jorge, and Hans, who were peering in from around the corner. They jogged to catch up, Frank in front. Allie had never seen her father move so quickly. He seemed younger, livelier.

The men separated, two on either side of the door. Allie knocked. There was no answer. Allie knocked and knocked and knocked.

“Move aside,” Frank said.

There was a loud, snapping crack, like a giant branch breaking off a tree, as Frank kicked down the door. Allie was starting to believe that there was nothing her father couldn’t do. Frank had disarmed Vice Versa, given her a gun for her purse, and guessed the final showcase value within $310. What was next?

The group stood back and waited for something to charge out of the apartment. But nothing did. The woman in 2K didn’t even open her door.

One by one, they filed in, Allie in the rear. The kitchen was at the back of the room, the living room in front, all of it open. An array of surfing magazines sat on a brown wooden coffee table in front of a long, green couch. There was an orange crochet throw blanket draped over one arm of the couch. Nothing hung on any wall, and the only thing on the kitchen counter was an un-bagged loaf of sliced white bread. The green shag rug in the living room appeared to have been vacuumed and the air smelled of Windex. Allie was surprised that someone with such a crusty, soiled interior would be so tidy.

Hans and Luis explored a small hallway off to the left that led to what Allie assumed were the bedroom and bathroom. “All clear,” Hans shouted after a few seconds. He and his brother returned to the living room.

Frank sat on the couch as Allie and Jorge searched in the living room, coat closet, and kitchen. It only took a few minutes to see that the coke was not there.

Luis went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Allie stood beside him and looked at the contents: one Heineken, a roll of salami, two apples, and a small brick of extra-sharp cheddar. The shelves were so spotless they looked almost new.

“Well, at least he’s clean,” Allie said.

Luis opened the cupboard and grabbed a box of Ritz crackers. Allie took the box from him, pulled out a cracker and ate it.

“Anyone want cheese and crackers?” Luis shouted out.

“Is it domestic cheese?” Hans asked. He was on the couch next to Frank now.

“Yes.” Luis rolled his eyes, then whispered to Allie, “He won’t eat domestic cheeses.”

“I’ll have some,” Jorge said. He was standing in the middle of the living room, rotating as if something might suddenly appear through the broken front door.

Luis sliced the cheddar and arranged Ritz crackers on a white plastic dinner plate. He took the plate to the living room and set it down on the coffee table. Allie pulled a middle slice from the loaf of bread on the counter.

“This tastes like Wonder Bread,” she said, and she grabbed another piece, then sat on the couch between Hans and her father. Frank leaned forward and took a cracker and slice of cheese.