Aztec Sun

by Judith Arnold

  “Sandra Garcia. I’m a friend of her brother’s.”

  The clerk’s eyes narrowed, and Sandra almost added that she was a friend of Rafael’s, not Ricardo’s. But what difference would that make? Both brothers were in trouble with the law. Rosa’s colleagues probably assumed that they were both rotten.

  She watched the clerk cross to an intercom and speak into it, then turn back to Sandra. “Rosa’s in room fifteen, just down the hall.”

  Sandra started down the corridor in the direction the clerk had pointed. She passed crayon drawings, a colorful poster-size map of the world with little flags planted on various continents and a placard that said, in block letters: “Our Ancestors Come From Many Lands.” Further along the hall, she passed classroom doors, more art work and then the open door to room fifteen.

  The children were lining up to leave. Sandra remained in the hallway as Rosa instructed her charges to stay in line, two by two, no running and no talking in the halls. “Save your noise for the playground,” she reminded them, then smiled and signaled that they could leave.

  Her smile evaporated when she spotted Sandra just outside the doorway.

  As the children filed out of the classroom, Rosa stood at her desk, a picture of beauty and serenity despite the tension tugging at the corners of her mouth, the gray shadows circling her eyes. Others might not have noticed, but Sandra did. She had no doubt her mouth was just as tense, her eyes just as deep in shadow.

  Once the last student was gone, she entered the room. It was small but vibrant, the bulletin boards decorated with essays and drawings, the blackboard covered with long-division problems. Framed portraits of the President and the Pope beamed down at the empty desks, and the window sills were lined with flourishing plants. Fingering her crucifix and watching Sandra out of wary eyes, Rosa stood straight, her chin slightly raised, her posture as proud as her brother’s had been that morning.

  “I’m here to help Rafael,” Sandra said without preamble.

  Rosa folded her hands as if to keep from fidgeting. “How can you help him?”

  “By uncovering the truth. I know he introduced me to you as his friend, but I’m also a reporter. I’m here because...” She inhaled for courage. Her lungs filled with the scent of chalk dust, musty textbooks and apples. “I know he’s innocent, Rosa. I’m sure you know that, too.”

  “I remember how he looked when he told me Melanie was dead,” Rosa said. She brushed back a stray lock of hair that had unraveled from her braid, then folded her hands in front of her again. Her gaze never left Sandra. “He was sad. He was grieving. But he was not guilty.”

  “I know.”

  “My other brother, Ricardo... He wanted Rafael to take after him, but Rafael is a different kind of person. Ricardo was our father’s son, I think. I was my mother’s daughter. Rafael was always his own man.”

  “Actually...” Sandra saw no reason to waste time. “The man I wanted to talk to you about is Diego Salazar.”

  Rosa cringed. Her delicate features hardened; her nostrils narrowed in contempt, and she pursed her lips. “Diego,” she muttered distastefully. “What about him?”

  Her response was more revealing than Sandra had expected. “He’s Rafael’s best friend.”

  “He’s no friend,” Rosa retorted, then regrouped, tamping down her disgust. “He’s close to Rafael, that’s all. They work together. They have a history.”

  “Rafael told me Diego saved his life fifteen years ago.”

  Rosa nodded. “It’s only because he did that I can stand to hear his name without running from the room shrieking. I know he saved Rafael, and he has my gratitude for that. But...”

  “You hate him?”

  Rosa managed a repentant smile. “I’m a nun, a bride of God. I ought to have more forgiveness. But...yes, I hate him.”

  Sandra took heart. Diego had always seemed a bit too slick, too unctuous, too charming, with his glib patter and his air-kisses. But the way he’d laid all the blame for Melanie’s death on Rafael, the man who had carried him up out of poverty, who had given him a job and a salary that enabled him to wear his thousand-dollar suits... Such flagrant disloyalty went beyond mere disagreeability.

  “He told me he still carries a torch for you,” Sandra informed Rosa.

  The woman groaned. “Santa Maria, give me patience,” she whispered. “If I weren’t a religious woman, I would suggest a place where he could shove that torch of his.” Her cheeks darkened, as if she’d shocked herself. But she was too angry to stay embarrassed for long. “Did Rafael tell you about the time he beat Diego senseless?”

  “They were fighting over you,” Sandra said. “I heard about that.”

  “Everybody in the neighborhood knew I had a calling. It was no secret. Boys flirted, but it meant nothing. It was just teasing. Except for Diego.” She circled her desk and hoisted herself up to sit on it, as if the memory tired her.

  Sandra rested her hips against a student desk. “With him it was more than teasing, wasn’t it.” She’d suspected that when Diego had told her about his one big fight with Rafael, underneath the jokes he had been deadly serious.

  “I knew who Diego was. He was always hanging around with Rafael. It was more idol-worship than friendship, I think, but Rafael put up with him. One day when I was sixteen, he drove over to my school and offered me a ride home. Of course I accepted—he was my brother’s friend. Only he didn’t take me home. He drove me to a secluded bluff, where couples used to go parking. And he—” Rosa lowered her gaze to her crucifix “—he tried to force himself on me. He was very rough. He came close to raping me. I screamed and screamed, and as luck would have it, someone else chose that moment to go parking with his girl. He heard me screaming and came over. Diego acted as if it had all been just in fun, and he brought me home.”

  “I’m surprised Rafael didn’t kill him,” Sandra murmured.

  “If I had told him how far Diego went, he might have.” She sighed. “It was a terrible fight. Nobody saw Diego for a long time afterward. And then he started hanging around again. Rafael tried very hard not to allow Diego near me, but every now and then he’d whisper things to me, or pass me notes. He said he loved me. He was going to get me. Someday when Rafael wasn’t looking he was going to make me his.”

  “He sounds psychotic.”

  “Obsessed, I think. He could have a million other women. He probably has had a million other women. But he still badgers me.”

  “Even today?” Sandra found this more shocking than Rosa’s angry sentiments, more disturbing than Diego’s having tried to force himself on Rosa. That more than fifteen years later he should be harassing a nun horrified her. “How does he badger you?”

  “He sends me roses.” Rosa wrinkled her nose and shuddered, as if the gift were repulsive. “Red roses. A dozen every week, always with a letter telling me he still loves me, asking me to break my vows. Sometimes there are obscene things in the letters. He...he describes sex acts he wants to share with me. I throw the notes away and bring the flowers to area hospitals.”

  “Does Rafael know about this?” Sandra could guess the answer. If he knew, Diego would not be working at Aztec Sun. For that matter, he might not be walking. Rafael would put him out of commission in every possible way.

  Rosa confirmed Sandra’s hunch with a shake of her head. “I can’t tell him. He depends on Diego at the studio, and he’s still so grateful for the time Diego saved his life. Rafael was stabbed during a street brawl less than a year after Diego tried to force himself on me. I guess Diego was in the right place at the right time. He got Rafael to a hospital and won back his favor. Of course I’m glad he saved Rafael. I try to forgive him.” She sighed, a heavy, mournful sound, one that spoke more of disappointment in herself than of annoyance with Diego. “Then a week passes and I get more roses and another of his revolting letters telling me I’m his and I should break my vows. Forgiveness is hard.”

  “There’s no excuse for his behavior,” Sandra said. “Even if he is obs
essed. He ought to get counseling and leave you alone.”

  “He doesn’t want counseling. He wants me. Like a thing to be possessed. I know he saved Rafael’s life, but...”

  But Rafael had kept Diego from the woman he wanted to possess like a thing. Diego hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said his heart was still broken.

  A man carrying a torch could be considered armed and dangerous. A man who sent red roses, love letters and obscene messages to a nun was arguably deranged. A man who had saved a life might come to believe that that life was his to use however he pleased.

  Rafael had stood in Diego’s way many years ago. He’d kept him from Rosa; he’d been a part of the heartbreak. And a man with a heart that would never heal had nothing to lose.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE WIND PINNED SCRAPS OF TRASH against the chain link fence. Graffiti artists had converted the handball wall into a rambunctious mural, proclaiming that La Familia ruled, Coyote had been there, Los Toros were doomed and someone named Arlena went down on men for free.

  The four men playing two-on-two basketball paid no attention to the graffiti. They were intent on the hoop, the ball and each other, racing, blocking, elbowing each other out of the way. They sweated, they laughed and cursed and shouted each other’s names as they passed the ball and set up their shots.

  Sandra watched them from her car. Two of the men she’d never seen before. She recognized Antonio Torres, Melanie’s costar from White Angels, and the fourth man, the tallest on the court. The one with the tattoo and the scar.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so she could see the marks. His arms moved so fast, the Aztec sun etched into his flesh was a blur, a notched ring grazing his biceps. The knife scar was clear, however, a slash of white against glistening bronze. When he stretched, his rib cage pressed against his skin. When he lowered his arms his muscles became more visible, lean and well defined. His jeans rode his narrow hips, revealing the flat surface of his belly, the indentation of his navel.

  He played skillfully, hitting more baskets than he missed. But what allowed him to dominate on the small urban basketball court tucked between several buildings on a side street in East L.A. was his intensity. He was everywhere, homing in on the ball, stealing it, passing, shooting, scoring. Burning off his frustrations, exorcising his rage.

  Looking irresistibly sexy.

  She wondered how such a man could survive the confines of a jail cell. All that energy, all that concentration and aggression would make being imprisoned as deadly to him as execution itself.

  He wouldn’t go to jail. She wouldn’t let it happen. Sometimes things were clear-cut, black and white.

  She got out of her car slowly, not wanting to attract notice. For some reason the air seemed hotter here than in Pico Rivera. The buildings reflected the sunlight; the breezes scorched. Sandra removed her blazer and tossed it onto the back seat of the car.

  Despite the constant chatter of traffic, the far-off whine of a siren, the clack of two skateboarders zooming down the sidewalk and the percussive rhythm of Spanish rap distorted by a pair of cheap speakers positioned near an open window somewhere, the thump of the closing car door caused Rafael to turn. The ball bounced past him but he didn’t make a move to catch it. He was too busy staring at Sandra.

  He was panting, perspiring, his hair a mop of damp black waves. He shoved it from his sweat-slick cheeks and forehead. Then he planted his hands on his hips, his lungs still pumping, his eyes dark with hatred as he stared at her through the chain-link fence.

  If he loathed her now, he might loathe her even more once she told him about Diego. She knew the risk the messenger took in delivering bad news. Yet as she returned Rafael’s laser-sharp stare, as she took in his lanky proportions, his shimmering skin, the marvelous spectacle of his naked chest, she found herself lost in a steamy memory of the last time she’d seen him naked and sweating and out of breath.

  Suddenly, shamelessly, she wished everything would disappear—the street-corner basketball court, the cramped barrio neighborhood, Diego, the criminal justice system, the world. She wished everything would disappear but her and Rafael, and they could love each other, without right and wrong, black and white, the past or the future. Just now. She wanted that more than she could remember ever wanting anything before.

  And it was something she would never have.

  She crossed the street, weaving between a spray-painted fire hydrant and a street light bedecked with flyers about missing cats and flea markets. She walked to the fence, curled her fingers through the metal links and willed Rafael to come over to her.

  He remained where he was for several long minutes. The sun beat down on them; the air sizzled. When one of the other men shouted something to Rafael, Sandra paid no attention. Neither did he.

  After what felt like an eternity, Rafael crossed to a corner of the fenced-in lot, lifted a T-shirt and used it to mop his face. Slinging it around his neck, he strode toward her. His gait was leisurely, his expression thunderous.

  “What do you want?” he asked, his voice low enough to send a tremor of alarm through her.

  She could tell him she loved him. She could tell him she was sorry, she wished she could have protected him, she wanted to make it up to him in any way she could.

  Or she could put her own needs aside and focus only on what he had to hear. “Diego did it.”

  Something flickered in his eyes, a flash of heat lightning signaling an impending storm. “What?”

  “We have to talk, Rafael.”

  “Why aren’t you writing your big story? Why aren’t you busy getting your name in print?”

  “Shut up and listen to me,” she said, surprised to hear her own voice as hushed, as tight with anger as his. “Diego set you up.”

  “No.”

  “He’s a beast. He was in your office just before I came in yesterday morning. He had to have been the one who planted the drugs. He told me I could wait inside your office when he came out—he probably wanted me to find the stuff there. It was sitting in an open cabinet.”

  “You’re crazy. He would never—”

  “After I left your office yesterday, I talked to him. He sold you out, Rafael. He told me you were the one who’d been giving Melanie drugs.”

  “No.”

  “He sends your sister roses.”

  Silence rippled through the wire mesh of the fence, silence and tension. Sandra gazed into Rafael’s eyes, seeing another flash of lightning sweeping the storm clouds across the gold-rimmed irises.

  Behind him Antonio shouted, “Hey, Perez, are you still in the game?”

  “No,” he whispered. She didn’t know whether he was responding to Antonio or to what she’d just told him.

  He was still breathing hard. A drop of sweat skittered down his cheek to his jaw, and he swiped at it with the back of his hand. His tempestuous eyes didn’t move from her.

  “Every week,” she said. “A dozen red roses along with a love letter—or sometimes a sex letter.”

  “No.”

  “He invites her to break her vows with him.”

  “No.” The edge of desperation in his tone told her she had gotten through to him.

  “Hey, Raf?” one of the other players called to him.

  He held her gaze for a moment longer, pivoted on his heel and loped over to the others. He conferred with them briefly, and then mopped his face with his shirt once more and headed for the gate.

  Sandra moved along the crumbling sidewalk to the gate and met him as he emerged from the basketball court. He slammed the gate shut and clamped his hands over her shoulders, his fingers biting into her flesh. “I’m in no mood for your games, Sandra.”

  She kept her tone steady and gazed up into his eyes, hoping he could read her sincerity in them. “This isn’t a game.”

  “A few hours ago I was in police custody. I have a murder charge hanging over my head, thanks to you.”

  “Thanks to Diego,” she said. “If you don’t believe me,
ask Rosa. I’ve just come back from talking to her. She told me Diego never stopped harassing her. Not once in all these years... Every week he sends her a dozen red roses and an obscene love note.”

  He shook his head. “You’re lying. Rosa would have told me.”

  “She knows how much you rely on Diego. And he saved your life. I think she was afraid that if she told you, you’d beat him up again, maybe worse than the last time.”

  “I would tear him limb from limb if it was true. But it’s not.”

  “Call Rosa. She’s at school right now. Her class might be done with recess, but I’m sure you could talk to her for a minute. Just call and ask her, Rafael. I’m telling you the truth.”

  He wrestled with his thoughts, with his doubt. Sandra understood that he saw her not as a woman who loved him and wanted to save him but only as his enemy.

  So be it. As long as she could convince him to confront Diego, she would be satisfied for now. Later she would figure out how to survive her own broken heart.

  “If you don’t want to talk to Rosa, ask Diego,” she urged. “Find out what he has to say for himself.

  “He saved my life.”

  “He’s still in love with your sister.”

  Rafael might deny everything else, but he couldn’t deny that. His jaw clenched; his large, strong hands fell from her shoulders and furled into fists. He was no longer sweating, no longer panting. Every part of him, from his disheveled hair to his sneakered feet, was still, poised, reined in but ready to break loose.

  “Where is Diego now?” she asked.

  He pivoted and started stalking down the street.

  Sandra had to run to catch up to him. “Rafael?”

  “He’s at the studio. Overseeing things in my absence.” He increased the length of his strides.

  She ran faster, then grabbed his arm to slow him down. “Listen to me, Rafael. I think Diego was keeping Melanie in cocaine on the set. She seemed stoned a lot of the time.”

  Rafael glowered at her. “Diego was in charge of keeping her clean.”