“And he is a brother from another mother.” I added my two cents.
Terri frowned at me. “What do you mean by that?”
“Natives are the original us, before Latinos existed. They’re in our blood.”
Terri mimed playing a violin solo.
“A person of color is literally getting screwed,” I insisted, “by a white woman who’s stealing his money and trying to pimp him out to porn. You can understand why he doesn’t want to take this to the police.”
“Jimmy never said the woman’s white,” Katrina pointed it.
“Well, I doubt if she’s Native or Latina. And how many black Cindy McGhees do you know?”
Terri grabbed her bag and headed for the door.
“Alright, you win. Let’s go to Virtue’s, get some drinks and snacks, and figure this thing out.” She looked back at me. “Well, Lalo. You coming?”
10
“How you gonna take a man’s money then try to make him freak for the cameras?” Katrina picked over a kale salad. “That’s the textbook definition of a pimp.”
Terri dug into a bowl of shrimp and cheddar grits. “Back in the day in the ‘hood, we could have solved this real easy. Where’s a soldier when you need one?”
“Sitting right here,” I told her. “Just say the word and we’ll order up La Cindy an old fashioned southside beat down.”
“And you’ll be back in prison in an old fashioned southside minute. Dang, these grits is good.”
“It’s not fair.” Katrina stared at her resentfully. “You can eat anything you want and not gain an ounce. I just look at food and it goes straight to my hips. We’re twins! We’re supposed to have the same metabolism.”
“Enjoying my food here,” Terri reminded her, “not trying to go on no guilt trip.”
I drank my Pepsi, ate my crab cake sliders and listened to their good-natured sniping. It was an old familiar song I’d been hearing since we were niños.
Izzy was blowing up my cell phone but I didn’t answer. I knew she’d be salty when I got home late, but what was I supposed to do? Say “no” to hanging out with family I hadn’t seen in seven years?
I was working an opportunity and it wasn’t just about money. I needed to make it up to my cousins. I’d pled down an accessory to manslaughter rap that I wasn’t even guilty of. But I did commit a criminal act on their parents’ property, the childhood home we’d all grown up in. I owed the Robles girls more than an apology. I had to figure out how to make things right.
Even though they weren’t identical, the girls looked just alike, or at least they used to when they were young. They had very different personalities, though. Katrina was the nosy one, always trying to get in somebody’s business. She’d been a high-powered sports and entertainment attorney before she married one of her clients. Terri was loyal and steady, but had a short fuse. Katrina was a girlie-girl, Terri had always been a jock.
I listened to Katrina brainstorm ideas to get the business on its feet. I watched Terri laugh, disagree, and roll her eyes. The girls had their educations and all. I had my streets and prison. But when we got together we slipped into the language of our childhood. Spanglish sprinkled with Ebonics and words nobody else used. It was almost like a secret language.
The “associates” part of T. Robles was just for show, since it was a one-woman operation. Katrina expected it would soon be two. She was a T. Robles too, if you called her by her nickname Trina, and forgot she was married to a soccer pro whose last name was Amrani.
“T. Robles and Associates,” she sighed. “We’re gonna be partners in crime.”
“Against crime,” Terri corrected her. “If I go along with it, that is. The jury’s still out on that one.”
Katrina ignored her. “Double Trouble. It’s déjà vu all over again.”
“You’re lucky to have each other,” I told them. “I wish me and Ash were still close like that. Remember when we were young? Your moms used to call us Double Trouble squared.”
When my mother worked first shift on cleanup crew at Trinity Hospital, Auntie Lori would give us breakfast and take us to school. My aunt was on graveyard shift at the precinct. Tío Papi sometimes worked late hours as an immigration attorney. If he hadn’t made it home by the time she left for work, Mami would bring Katrina and Terri downstairs, feed us dinner and get us all into bed. My brothers Jesus and Carlos were in high school by then. Seven-to-ten years older than the rest of us, they were already running the streets.
When it was time for Aunt Lori to come home from work in the morning, Katrina and Terri would be waiting in their pajamas.
“What’s that I see?” When she came through the door in her police uniform, the twins would throw themselves at her. “Double Trouble coming at me. Oof, y’all kids are heavy.”
As soon as she finished hugging them up, me and Ashley would come running out to tackle her again. “Here comes another one, just like the other one. Double Trouble Squared.”
The tone of her voice and smile on her face let us know she loved that kind of trouble.
11
My mother died while I was in prison. I couldn’t even go to her funeral. That’s the kind of thing a man doesn’t forget, and never forgives himself for.
Mami always kept her life insurance up to date. I knew it wasn’t much. I didn’t find out what happened with it until I got out of prison. Ashley had used part of the money for our mother’s services, which was fine. The rest she took to pay for her IVF. Not so bueno. Fertility treatments weren’t covered by her health insurance. She and her husband were desperate to have a baby.
What could a brother say to a sister? You want her to be happy. You want her to have a child. But she never talked it over with you, she just did what she wanted to do. And you’re out here in these streets without a penny to your name.
My sister never thought she was stealing from her brothers. “Borrowing”, is how she put it. She swore she was going to pay it back, but her husband lost his job, and they were barely scraping by.
When I was ready to be discharged from the halfway house, Ashley wouldn’t even let me stay with them until I got on my feet. “It’s not that I don’t love you, Lalo. Joe doesn’t want an ex-offender in the house.”
“The ex-offender is your brother.”
“Don’t blame me.” Ash looked like she wanted to cry, but she didn’t change her mind. “I’m not the only one making decisions. There’s two of us.”
She gave me $100 and said she’d repay my share of the money as soon as she could. Didn’t mention anything about our older brothers, Carlos and Jesus. It’d been seven months. I hadn’t heard from her again and I never got dime.
And Ashley Starks de Rodriguez hadn’t turned up pregnant yet, as far as I knew.
12
“Okay, it’s a plan,” Terri finally agreed. “We’ll see my attorney first thing in the morning.”
“Why pay a lawyer,” Katrina asked, “when you got one sitting here?”
The girl was so flighty at times, you almost forgot she had been an attorney before she became a suburban trophy wife. Katrina surprised us both when she said her law license was still up to date. We went back to the office and had her draw up the documents.
By the time we were done it was getting dark, time to call it a day. Terri only lived a few minutes away. We both walked her home. The sunset bled a band of golden light onto Nichols Park. Huge flocks of crows flapped across the sky and settled into the trees.
Katrina had left her car in Trina’s parking garage. When I pulled it out to the curb for her, she insisted on taking me home. I would have said, no, gracias, but Katrina offered to let me drive. Who could say no to a sweet-ass ride like that—a silver BWM X3 that looked brand-new?
I was surprised Katrina was hanging out with us so late with a husband and baby at home. “Oh, Zak is out of town on a road trip and the nanny has Gustavo. Today was one of those times I just needed to get away. I get
so bored up in Kenilworth with nothing but time on my hands.”
Katrina was curious about where I was living. When I pulled up in front of the shabby two-flat, I could tell she wanted in. I told her that my girlfriend worked the night shift and probably would be sleeping. But when I came in Izzy was wide awake, sitting at the computer.
“You’re late,” she said quietly. “What kept you all this time?”
“I actually got a little job. It started it right away.”
When I came closer to kiss her forehead, Izzy quickly darkened the screen.
“What’s that you’re working on?” I asked.
Izzy blushed and ducked her head. She picked up a gizmo that looked like an old-fashioned radio. “One of the girls at work gave this to me.”
“And that would be…?”
“A baby monitor. Sylvia lost the instructions. I was looking for them online.”
I picked up the machine and looked it over. “Why don’t I give it a go? I’m pretty good with electronics and shit.”
“No, thanks,” Izzy took it back. “I really need to figure it out for myself. So, tell me about this job.”
I gave her a rough sketch without any details. Terri had been particular about keeping it all under wraps. I expected Izzy to be excited for me, but she only shrugged and looked out the window. “Who’s the girl you were with?”
“What girl?” I asked in confusion, then realized that Izzy’s desk looked out onto the street. “Oh, that was my cousin, Katrina.”
“You just said her name was Terri.”
“They’re two of them,” I explained. “They’re sisters, actually twins.”
“Come on, Lalo. Tell me the truth. That’s a black girl you were with.”
Uh-oh. I could see it coming. No matter what I said in my defense, Izzy went through these episodes where she thought I was with someone else. The pregnancy had made it worse.
“I’m fat and pregnant, I’m short and plain, my boobs are too small and my thighs too big. No wonder you want somebody else. That girl you were with is gorgeous.”
I kneeled down to put my face against her belly. “Isabella Esposito, I swear to you. I haven’t been with anyone else. I don’t even look at other girls no more. I wish you could believe me.”
She lowered a tearstained face onto my head. “I want to, Lalo.”
Just then the doorbell buzzed and I got up to answer it. Katrina Amrani de Robles was on her way up to our second-floor apartment. She came in shifting from one foot to another doing what we used to call as kids, the pee-pee dance. “Lalo, my bladder is bursting. I’ll never make it home. Mind if I use your john?”
When she came out of the bathroom I introduced her as my cousin. Izzy looked confused and Katrina gave her a wink. “I know we look like Mutt and Jeff. My father is Mexican, my mother’s black.”
“And very, very tall,” I said. “I feel like I’m in the land of the giants whenever I’m with those two.”
Izzy smiled with relief. She seemed relaxed after that. She even offered Katrina some of the food she’d made.
Katrina shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ve got to be going. Plus, we had dinner already. Didn’t Lalo tell you?”
“You already ate?” Izzy turned to me. “But I made caponata, your favorite.”
“You lucky dog,” Katrina whistled. “You got a girl who can burn. I thought I smelled something good. What do you put in your caponata?”
“I’ll get you the recipe later.” I said, leading cousin curiosa to the door.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Izzy was upset all over again about the dinner I missed. Or maybe it was just those pregnancy hormones. She huffed over to the kitchen and started putting food away. She was crying again. I could tell by how her shoulders trembled.
“I didn’t have more than a snack earlier,” I lied. “Let me get some of that.”
Even after I ate, it didn’t make Izzy happy. She wouldn’t talk to me and went into the bedroom and napped for the next few hours. I woke her up when it was time for her to get ready for work. She wouldn’t even let me walk her to the El like I usually did.
I got her an Uber instead.
13
“Are those for me?” the woman asked, yawning and stretching. She licked her swollen bottom lip and reached for the flowers with shaky hands.
I quickly tucked the bouquet behind my back. “No, but I do have something for you.” I held out a three-page document.
I hadn’t expected the felonious Cindy McGhee to be such a looker. A petite freckle-faced redhead with bee stung lips, somewhere in her early thirties, she seemed like a sexy, grownup version of Little Orphan Annie. It surprised me that Jimmy Hill hadn’t wanted to get a hit of that. Maybe extortion had deflated his libido. Maybe the drunk girl thing turned him off.
Having had a longstanding habit myself, I knew an addict when I saw one. La Cindy, as my cousins called her, was clearly a heavy drinker. You could see broken vessels in the whites of her green eyes, and the puffiness around them. Her swollen lips and shaky hands were dead giveaways, along with that dazed grogginess that comes with a regular hangover.
It was ten on a late spring Tuesday morning in Humboldt Park. This had been a Puerto Rican barrio back in the day. Now it was almost yuppie-fied beyond recognition.
I stood at the open door of a small two-story building that was set off the street behind a brick bungalow. These coach houses were once horse stables with living quarters for a carriage driver above. Now they’d been refurbished and fancied-up for the new monied set.
The bouquet was an idea that I hadn’t cleared with Terri. Skirting it, amigo. Not breaking it. I figured that if La Cindy looked through the peephole and saw a Latino with flowers, she’d probably think “delivery man” and open the door. Which in fact, she did.
Yet when I tried to put the summons in her hand, she demanded that I wait while she went to get her reading glasses. Maybe she was more like forty.
Cindy stood in the doorway wearing a silky robe that gaped open in the front. There were flashes of a pierced nipple and navel that I wasn’t quite sure were accidental. A glimpse of her trimmed crotch revealed that the carpet didn’t match the drapes.
She paged through the document then dropped it to the floor. Fine by me. She had accepted the summons, duty done.
“Well, that’s all a crock of bullshit,” she said with a seductive smile. “Hey, why don’t you come inside and join me for a morning cocktail?”
I backed away with my hands upraised. “Thanks, but no thanks. Just doing my job.”
I didn’t want to mix it up in any La Cindy mess. Terri hadn’t wanted to use me in the first place, but she needed a process server that would work fast and cheap. While the law didn’t exactly rule out a convicted felon, the “good moral character” part was open for question. Skirting and skating like I was on roller blades, tato. Skirting and skating.
Cindy McGhee narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, giving me the once-over. She looked exactly like a pimp sizing up a prospect. “You ever do any acting, José?”
If I’d been counting them up, that was another strike against her. I hated when gringos called you by a generic Mexican name. I sneered and turned away. “Yeah, right. Because I am so the pretty boy type.”
I hightailed it down the stairs and crossed the tiny yard. As I entered the gangway leading to the street, I heard her calling after me. “You’re not bad looking for a Mexican boy. I get lots of calls for the ethnic type.”
I sprinted to the sidewalk and took a deep breath. Finished, over and done with. I walked past a place calling itself the Ukrainian Village Tavern even though that neighborhood was a mile to the east. A hand lettered sign in the window read, “Tequila Shot Tuesdays, half-priced.” I came upon the El station where I’d gotten off that morning and decided to pass it by.
We didn’t have too many perfect spring days like this in Chicago. It usually went from the freezer to the
inferno.
I lived with Izzy in Hermosa, the neighborhood where so many boricua had fled when they got priced out of the area. It sat right on Humboldt Park’s northern border. I was only a few miles away from home. I was gainfully employed, or about to be, with a full pack of squares in my pocket and a present for my old lady.
I decided to walk through the park, then out onto Grand Avenue. The further north and west I went, the browner the complexion. Puerto Ricans mostly, but a lot of Mexicans, too. No more than a handful of blacks and gringos. This used to be Latin King territory though it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Still I was careful to keep my La Raza tattoos covered. When I had the money I’d get them lasered off.
The flowers hadn’t just been a trick for La Cindy, they were for a treat for my old lady. I’d meant to bring some home to her last night, but hung out with my cousins and forgot all about it. There’d been that little trouble afterward, but I was sure it had blown over. I was on my way home to her with a peace offering in hand.
It was already Tuesday afternoon but I was feeling easy like Sunday morning.
14
I’d left the apartment that morning before Izzy got in from work. When I got back home she was at the computer again, still in her CNA uniform.
“For you, babe.” Her hands were busy closing out her browser, so I put the bouquet on the desk. “I’m ready to get into that caponata again. Italian food always tastes better the second time around.”
Izzy swiveled in her chair and gave me la mirada. “Where were you this time?”
“Just taking care of some business.”
“Don’t lie to me, Lalo. You were gone when I got home. Did you sleep out last night?”
My “easy like Sunday morning” mood flew right out the window. “Isabella, we’re not going through this again. You wanted me to get a job. Fine, I got one. Now you act like a chica loca when I try to do my work.”
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