Monkey Around

by Jadie Jang

  “You somethin’… ‘woo woo’, too, ain’tcha?”

  I lowered my voice even more and looked at him through my eyebrows. “Don’t you worry yourself about me, little alpha. Worry about your own problems. You gonna let Tez in on this, or not?”

  We played eye-chicken for a long moment, then he pointed at me with his chin. “Call ‘im. But tell ‘im he’s got safe passage for this only. Don’t tell him about the Huexotl. And when that shadow thing is found, It comes back to me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Tuesday, October 18, 2011

  San Antonios’ HQ, Oakland

  That left us with at least half an hour to wait for Tez to arrive. Most of the guys seemed to get creeped out by Chucha’s body, so they left the dining room to have a council of war in the kitchen. The Sobbing Boy—now quiet—stayed with me.

  I wondered if my announcement to Tez on the phone had been too abrupt. There was a reason people beat around the bush when giving bad news, wasn’t there? I’d always hated that, hated the way the doctors had thrown piles of words at me before telling me that Mom was going to die, was dying, was dead. So I hadn’t prepared him much—just: “Tez, something awful has happened.” And then “Chucha is dead.” Everything after that was just the logistics of getting him here quickly. Maybe that wasn’t enough. Maybe I should’ve called Ayo and had her break it to him. But no, Ayo didn’t care— at least, not the way I did. Ayo wasn’t a—

  Wasn’t a what? A friend? And what was I? Tez’s stalker? Ayo wasn’t Tez’s stalker? Could I claim to be Chucha’s friend when I had only met her … four days ago? When I’d only met Tez himself—officially—a week ago? Could I claim to be his friend? Anymore, I mean, now that Chucha was dead?

  Oh. My. God. Was that all I was worried about? That some cute guy wouldn’t pay attention to me because he’d just lost his baby sister? Jesus, what was wrong with me? I needed to stop thinking …

  Sobbing Boy’s after-sobbing hiccups had evened out to normal breathing. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old, this kid, grown suddenly tall and skinny and looking as if his fashionably sagging pants were a genuine hand-me-down accident. He was going to be good looking, but hadn’t quite figured it out yet.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Jimmy. You?”

  “Maya.”

  “Why you even here, Maya?”

  “Chucha had a fight with her older brother; that’s why she came here. And he hired us—Ayo and me—to talk her into coming home.”

  “Oh,” he said, as if he understood something deeply. “I didn’t know she had beef with her brother.”

  “You know something about pain-in-the-ass older brothers?” I asked, half-smiling in invitation.

  “Well, you saw the way he is with me. Always smacking me around.” He looked discontentedly at his hands. Smacking him around—Juice? Juice was his brother? I looked more closely at him. Yeah … yep, I could definitely see it.

  “She was really nice, you know? Not like most of the bitches come around just to get sexed up, think they so bad. Or tease me for being little.” He hadn’t quite caught up to the fact of his recent growth, apparently. I suspected there was more eyeing and less condescension these days. But his sexual resentment was something I was used to from my days with the Celestials—and had no time for.

  “Maybe if you don’t act like they only exist to have sex with you.”

  “That’s what she said,” he pointed at her with his chin.

  I turned to look at her, for a moment thinking that she was there, ready to back me up in this argument. Then I saw her hand dangling limply over the edge of the table, drained of all her quivering, rubber-taut energy, and tears sprang to my eyes. She was never going to grow into a true badass, never figure out that Juice wasn’t the answer, never going to see if Jimmy beat the odds and developed respect for women, never getting the chance to teach him respect.

  Juice called to Jimmy from the kitchen and he lurched off.

  I forced myself to look at Chucha—at her body, knowing I was going to have to when Tez came. I needed to be … useful … to him. I needed to be of help to him, because god knows he was going to have trouble with this. I got up and walked over to the table and forced myself to look down at her, all of her, to scan her body for evidence, but somehow I couldn’t quite see the whole, couldn’t quite take it in.

  I scarcely noticed when Jimmy came back in.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll get the little bitch that did this.”

  I looked over at him and my vision cleared again. “It was a supernat, Jimmy. You’re not equipped.”

  His face was the clouded sky on a windy day. “Not that shadow thing,” he said. “The bitches who ordered the hit. We’re gonna get ‘em, tonight. We’re heading out as soon as Tez gets here.”

  He shouldn’t’ve been telling me about any of it. I knew the rules as well as anyone. He shouldn’t’ve been crying earlier, either. Even little ones, seven or eight years old, get smacked when they cry. His mouth was twitching between what might be a smile or a grimace, and an attempted snarl. He looked proud one second, and terrified the next. Juice must’ve been coddling him, but after his sobfest earlier, I guessed that Jimmy was finally going to be forced to toughen up.

  “Don’t go, Jimmy,” I said impulsively.

  He looked at me like I was stupid, then shrugged. “We can’t let them get away with that.” He nodded to Chucha again and walked out.

  He’d been checking in with me. Somehow, in the past half hour or so, I’d become someone he checked in with. I knew why; knew whom I was replacing.

  I turned to go after him, but Tez walked in. I hadn’t heard the door.

  Tez didn’t look at me, acted like he didn’t even see me. Where I couldn’t quite look at Chucha, he couldn’t look at anything else. He looked like himself, but … blank.

  “I want to know all of it,” he said. Was there a slight faintness to his voice?

  I didn’t speak right away. I hadn’t told him anything about the stick or the shadow creature; not because I was being careful but because both of us had been focusing on him and Chucha. What should I tell him, and what shouldn’t I?

  “All of it,” he said, more firmly. His voice jolted my brain into action, and all at once, I gave it over. This was his business, not mine. I moved around the table to his side, so I could speak quietly. I told him everything in chronological order: about the San Antonios getting the stick somewhere, about Justin and Bu Bu, both killed guarding it, about my encounter with the shadow in front of La Peña, about Chucha finally being tasked with guarding the thing and how it affected her, about pursuing the shadow tonight, and then coming in to find her dead.

  “Juice is very touchy about the stick, though, so you’d better act like I didn’t tell you about it. You don’t want beef with him.”

  He nodded, just as Juice came in. They didn’t quite look at each other.

  Tez looked at me. Right. I was still go-between. “Juice,” I said in my most respectful voice, “Tez would like to know how his sister died.”

  Juice complied, looking at me as he talked, but clearly talking to Tez. “They got her outside somehow. I dunno. Everybody was asleep but Chucha was on watch in the back, Beto in the front. He saw her step out the back door and then heard her open the backyard gate. So he waited for five minutes or so, then he went out back to see what was up. He found her under the tree next door and called for help, and then he saw some guys running off down the street and definitely recognized one of them as this 70s dude from Arroyo Park.” I filled in the blanks: Beto had seen the guys running away with the stick. “So we brought her inside. Creeper was asleep in his room, but he swears he looked out and saw that shadow thing floating away.”

  “I saw it, too,” I said. “I didn’t see the 70s guys, but I wasn’t looking.” I looked at Tez. “So I can’t confirm that the other guys were there or had anything to do with her death. The Shadow was alone the other
two times I saw it.”

  “So,” said Juice, after a moment. “We cool? Can we get her off to the hospital now? We can’t wait much longer …”

  Tez looked down at Chucha again blankly. He reached out and tried stroking her hair, but then withdrew his hand again immediately, as if burned.

  “You’ll see her again soon,” Juice said, then bit his lip and looked as if he regretted speaking.

  Tez stepped back and nodded, still looking down. Two guys stepped forward and picked her up carefully, following Beto out of the dining room. Juice waited until they’d cleared the hallway and gone out the front door, then waved Tez and me to follow him.

  He led us out the back through the yard into the lot next door, with a couple of his guys following, probably equally out of caution and curiosity. We halted under a tree.

  “Beto found her here,” Juice said.

  Tez crouched on the ground. I noted, half blankly, half sensually, that he could squat with his feet flat on the ground. He lifted his upper lip and sucked air in through his teeth. He closed his eyes and did it again.

  “What’s he doing?” Juice asked in a whisper you could have heard a mile away.

  “He’s flehming,” I said, as much to myself as to them. “Smelling through his mouth. It’s an animal thing. Humans don’t do it.”

  “Shut up,” Tez said, and everyone did.

  Tez’s order didn’t just shut my mouth. It also shut off the hamster wheel inside my head. My brain went quiet and just watched him as he samurai-walked around the crime scene, drawing in the air at about crotch-height and again at ground height. It was weird, but also weirdly graceful. Jesus, could I maybe shut off my libido at a time like this? I’ve never much been one for shame; it’s my animal nature, I think that simply doesn’t understand shame. But I felt ashamed tonight, every time I thought something sensual about Tez. The poor guy had just lost his sister, and I was throwing pheromones at him.

  That thought distracted me while Tez finished his examination, ranging in circles around the spot under the tree until he reached the far side of the lot where the gangbangers had presumably run off.

  “Anything?” I asked as he came back over.

  “Well, I’ve got the scent of the 70s dudes. Three of ‘em. They didn’t touch Chucha, just came close here”—he pointed at a spot near the tree—“and then took off. I’ve caught the shadow creature’s scent, too. Only it touched her. Then it went off there.” He pointed in the direction the shadow had floated off. I read between the lines. The gangbangers hadn’t been involved in the actual killing. They’d waited until the shadow had distracted her and grabbed the stick.

  “Okay,” Juice said, reasserting his authority. “Vamonos.”

  Tez and I exchanged glances. I spoke for both of us. “Juice, are you sure you want a war with the 70s? Something feels off about this.”

  He showed his quality as a leader yet again, by not scoffing. “What do you mean?” he asked calmly.

  “Why didn’t the shadow thing leave with them? If it were changing tactics this time—luring Chucha off so it could kill her without being interrupted—why would it need to bring backup?”

  “You don’t think it was working with the 70s?” Juice was skeptical.

  “I don’t know. Something else is going on here, and I’m not sure what it is.”

  I stopped to think for a moment, and then took Juice by the elbow and led him a few yards off, far enough to keep his boys from hearing, but not Tez, with his cat hearing. He seemed surprised, but amenable, and in this I saw Chucha’s influence—he’d become used to dealing with smart young women. The thought gave me satisfaction … then a sudden stabbing feeling in my heart.

  “Juice,” I said, “maybe don’t mention this to anyone yet, but Ayo and I have been investigating a series of killings.” His eyebrows went up, but he didn’t interrupt. “All shapeshifters, and most of them have been in touch with the stick, but not all.”

  He nodded. “Justin, Bu Bu, and now Chucha—” he started.

  “But Justin wasn’t the first,” I said, interrupting before he could claim jurisdiction. “There was one killing, as well as a disappearance well before Justin was killed. We can’t confirm yet that the disappearance is related, but the killing was definitely done by the same shadow creature. So can you tell me where you got the stick from?”

  He suddenly looked menacing. “No. You tell me who was killed first.”

  I’d been trying to avoid this, but at least I’d know if he lied. “It was a dude from SF Chinatown called Wayland Soh. Had ties to the Hung For Tong.” I looked at him expectantly, but he was already shaking his head.

  “No,” he said, “that’s not who we got it from.”

  I debated telling him that Wayland was the one who got the instructions to Ayo, but figured, given how close and secretive he’d been about the instructions, that he’d just get more paranoid and menacing if I did.

  “Your contact—did they have any connections with Hung For or Chinatown, or the Asians … any connections at all?”

  He was already shaking his head halfway through my questions.

  “No. I’m not gonna tell you who, but I know how they got it, and there’s no connection to any of those dudes. At all. Going back months, even years. I know that for a fact.”

  His voice sounded insincere, like he was trying to direct me away from the stick. But I had a better lie detector, and he wasn’t lying about any of it.

  “What does that do to your investigation?” he asked.

  I shrugged, then shook my head. “Not your problem,” I said. “But Juice, can you guys maybe hold off on your vendetta until Tez and I have gotten a chance to investigate this? They’re gonna be on high alert as it is and if you come rolling up, they’ll never relax enough for us to eavesdrop. And what we find out from them could be key to answering both questions. I mean, maybe they’re not working with the shadow thing. Maybe it was just a coincidence they were here at the same time.”

  I didn’t mention that I hoped that, by delaying Juice, he might reconsider involving Jimmy. He’d obviously been keeping the boy out of more serious action, his need to protect probably warring with his need for his brother to harden up and not embarrass him. This might give his protective instincts a chance to win out.

  Juice gave me a hard look. “I have a stake here,” he said, his voice full of meaning.

  “I understand,” I said. “We won’t interfere with your interests. Just give us tonight.”

  He stepped back. “Tonight. I want you to be in touch by 10 tomorrow morning.”

  I hesitated. Who knew what would happen, or what trail we’d be on the next morning? “If possible,” I said finally. “If you haven’t heard from me, there will be a good reason.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And if we roll without hearing from you, there will be a good reason.”

  Well okay then.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Tuesday, October 18, 2011

  70s Arroyo Territory, Oakland

  We took Tez’s car (a ten-year-old black Civic) but, beyond strategizing, didn’t make any conversation on our way over to the park.

  The Arroyo Park branch of the 70s Mad Dogs was headquartered in a small house on the park, off of 78th Ave., where the shot-caller lived, but the place was dark and quiet. We headed into the park itself and found a few young men hanging out—they didn’t see us; Tez had thrown some sort of invisibility glamor over us—and hit a couple of other likely places we’d been told about, but Tez didn’t smell our three suspects.

  The last place we were told to look was a fast food joint on International with a patio, a holdover from mid-century when the neighborhood was friendlier. We parked away from the boulevard and approached on foot from downwind, through a low, wide plateau of auto shops. Tez stiffened as he got a good whiff of the six or seven young men draped across the plastic picnic tables.

  Tez must have still been hiding us, because we got no reaction as we approached, even
though we were the only moving objects for miles. One of the guys was white, a lean, twitchy type, and he kept getting up and restlessly pacing around the patio, then sitting down and quickly demolishing a section of a huge pile of chicken and fries, then getting up again. He made my eyes burn. Tez said “werewolf” low into my ear. The werewolf twitched a little more and looked in our direction—I guess Tez couldn’t dampen sound—but looked away again and downed another handful of wings, bones and all. What was with all the lone wolves being hired by gangs? Was somewolf out there turning people and selling them? I’d have to remember to talk to Ayo about it.

  Once my eye got past the werewolf and his tics, I noticed that the other six guys were sitting in a loose circle, ignoring their food and focusing on—yep, that was Chucha’s magic stick all right. It had shrunk to about two feet long, although the knob at its top end had stayed the same size. The bottom end was now a bit wider and knobbier, and the thing looked overall like a cheerleader’s baton, except more “ethnic.” In fact, to a mundane eye it would have looked more like a different stick from the same set as Chucha’s stick—same design, different use—only I felt an absolute certainty in my soul that this was the same stick, shrunk down. Even if I hadn’t known, deep in my soul somehow, that this was the thing, the fact that these guys were sitting right out in the open playing with a valuable magical artifact they had just stolen from a bunch of guys with cars and guns would have told me that this thing was having a—let’s say—deleterious effect on them.

  “Shall we get closer and listen in?” I breathe-whispered into Tez’s ear.

  He didn’t seem to hear me. I took ahold of his arm (so solid! So warm!) and led him in closer. An older guy with a dark braid under each ear was holding the stick; maybe he was the shot caller; it was hard to tell, since all of them had equivalent looks of excitement and wonder on their faces. Every few seconds he would switch the stick from one hand to the other, as if it was hot, or unpleasant to hold. The other guys took turns leaning in and rubbing it, grinning, snatching their hands away, and leaning back out, exclaiming, “It tingles!” and “It’s like an electric shock!” and the like.