Playing for the Devil's Fire

by Phillippe Diederich

  “Super Barrio,” he yelled, “where’s the lucha?”

  The men around him laughed.

  Chicano didn’t flinch. He strutted right up to the truck and faced Pineda. “How’s the investigation, jefe?”

  “It’s going,” he said. “Rest assured, we’re digging deep for you.”

  “That’s right,” a man said. “Six feet deep.”

  Everyone laughed. They stank of liquor. Pineda grinned, his brown teeth dull, crooked. Nasty.

  “Good.” Chicano didn’t miss a beat. “I’m glad to hear it. You did an excellent job with that black Suburban on Avenida Porvenir the other morning.”

  Pineda flinched. Then he smiled and rested his foot on the front bumper of the truck. He was wearing the custom caiman boots, the same ones I had polished at La Gloria, the same ones I had seen outside El Gallo de Oro.

  “That’s right, jefe,” Chicano said. “I hear you’re conducting a thorough investigation.”

  No one said anything. They didn’t seem amused.

  Chicano smiled. “My contacts in Toluca said you’re close to making an arrest.”

  “What?” Pineda waved. “What do you mean, Toluca?” He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it onto the street.

  “The Federal Police said they’re thrilled with your work and the leads you gave them. Keep them coming.” Chicano winked at Pineda. “Congratulations.”

  “No, no.” Pineda’s face turned pale. “That’s a lie.” He looked at the men around him. They were staring at him, confused. “There’s nothing going on, no clues. I haven’t talked to the Federales.”

  “Buenas noches, jefe.” Chicano smiled. We walked away.

  “What was that about?” I said.

  “Just a hunch. I figure he didn’t investigate the shooting because he’s in on it.”

  “And when you mentioned the Federales—”

  “These jackals don’t trust anyone. Now Pineda’s going to have to watch his back.”

  “Did you see his boots? He must have killed the man at La Gloria.”

  “Don’t worry.” We looked on both sides of the street. “He’ll get what’s coming to him.”

  Zopilote’s green Golf was parked two doors up from Los Perdidos. He was leaning against it like he always did, wearing a red Adidas sweat suit and dark glasses. I didn’t recognize anyone in his group.

  “There you are,” Zopilote said. “Long time no see.”

  “We saw you just the other day, ¿no güey?” I could make out Ximena and Joaquín through the dark windows of the Golf. They were in the back seat, abstract shapes moving like a single mass, holding each other, bodies pressed together. I felt nothing. It was all very clear to me now. Everything Chicano had said about Ximena was true. I hated her.

  Zopilote stepped away from the car and pushed his chest out. “You still looking for your parents?”

  “Tell me something,” Chicano said. “How much do they pay you, because I have a big pile of dirty laundry I need washed?”

  Some of the men laughed.

  “I don’t do laundry, Super Barrio.” Zopilote’s voice was shaky. I guess a coward is always a coward no matter what car he drives.

  “I knew a girl,” Chicano said.

  “Just one?” Zopilote said and his friends laughed.

  “Yeah, she was a dancer. She danced at a club like that Gallo de Oro cantina you have here, only this place was a classy joint.”

  Zopilote pulled off his sunglasses. “I like El Gallo de Oro.”

  “I bet you do,” Chicano said. “But let me tell you about this girl. She was a nice girl who dreamed of dancing, just dancing and nothing else. But then a customer asked her to come out with him, right?”

  “¡Pa’ cogersela!” Zopilote said, and rocked his pelvis back and forth. His friends whistled and smacked each other like horny teenagers.

  “Yes, but she refused,” Chicano said. “She didn’t want to be with him. So the man pulled out a wad of bills, right? And he started peeling them off one by one.”

  One of the men laughed. Zopilote said nothing. He looked confused, as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry.

  “It didn’t take too many bills before she took the man’s hand and led him upstairs to a room.”

  Zopilote stepped forward. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean, cabrón?”

  “It’s just a story about a girl.”

  “Una puta,” one of the men cried out. The others laughed.

  “Yes, a whore,” Chicano said. “Every whore has a price, don’t they, Zopilote?”

  The men around Zopilote whistled and catcalled. Zopilote turned red. He reached for his waist and pulled his gun, but Chicano tore the pistol away, cocked it and held it, the barrel inches from Zopilote’s forehead.

  Zopilote flinched. His hands froze in mid-air.

  “How much?” Chicano’s voice was like a rock.

  Zopilote didn’t answer. His hands trembled. No one moved.

  “How much, cabrón!” Chicano’s voice boomed.

  “I don’t know.” Zopilote stuttered. “How…how much what?”

  “How much is your life worth, hijo de tu chingada madre?”

  His friends looked away, at the ground, at Zopilote’s feet where a small puddle of urine had formed.

  “How much?” Chicano pushed the end of the gun barrel against Zopilote’s forehead. Zopilote clenched his teeth and shut his eyes.

  Then Chicano flicked his thumb and the magazine popped out from the bottom of the pistol. He caught it with his other hand and put it in his pants pocket. He cocked the weapon again. The bullet in the chamber flew out and fell on the sidewalk with a light clink.

  “Don’t be a pendejo,” Chicano said and waved the silver pistol for everyone to see. “This shit will get you nothing.”

  Zopilote smiled nervously. He ran his hand over his hair.

  “If any of you know what happened to Liberio’s parents, I’d like to know. And if you want to keep it confidential, I understand. No one else needs to know.”

  No one said anything. But in their eyes I could see death. It had been there all the time only I hadn’t really looked. I always knew they had killed my parents. Their silence was their confession. Not just Joaquín and Zopilote and their friends, but everyone—everyone who shook their heads and turned away, everyone who kept silent, everyone who told me not to worry, everyone who left Izayoc. They were all guilty of killing them.

  Chicano glanced at me. Then he tossed the gun up in the air. Zopilote tried to catch it, but he fumbled and it fell to the ground.

  “Come on,” Chicano said. The intensity of his anger was all over the street. “It stinks here.” Then he turned and smacked the window of the Golf and gestured an obscenity at Joaquín and Ximena.

  30.

  Despite his protests, Chicano came with us to Sunday mass. “It’s just that, where I grew up, the church was very strict,” he said as we walked. “If we didn’t do what the priest told us, he’d beat the hell out of us.”

  “Well, then,” Abuela said, “if you had done what you were told, there would not have been a problem, no?”

  “Ay, Doña Esperánza.” Chicano was wearing one of my father’s suit jackets. It was too small for him so when he raised his arms his hands shot out of the sleeves like Frankenstein. “I’m a freethinker.”

  “You mean a heathen.”

  “No, no. I believe in God. Por favor.”

  “But the church is the house of God. I do not understand what you have against it.”

  “It’s not God or the church, Doña Esperanza. It’s the damn priests.”

  “I agree with you on that particular point. Father Gregorio is not my favorite priest. He is much too liberal and prone to outbursts of passion which are unbecoming in a man of the cloth. But Father Félix Huerta, our previous priest, that was a man of the finest stock—Spanish from Spain.”

  “You know,” Chicano said, “Jesus was a liberal.”

  “Por
favor.” Abuela raised her hand to stop him. “Spare me the lecture. Jesus was a good man, but he wasn’t perfect.”

  “No one’s perfect,” I said, thinking of my father. I thought of what Gaby had said about the bakery’s finances. My father never let on that there was a problem. Then there was the man at the Centenario and everything he said. Lies. There was so much I didn’t know. I kept telling myself he was a good man, but maybe I was wrong. Everyone lies.

  “Jesus is not my beacon,” Abuela declared. “La Virgen de Guadalupe. That is who I go to church for. She is the one I pray to.”

  Chicano nodded his masked head. “I agree, Doña Esperanza. La Guadalupana is my spiritual center.”

  Abuela smiled. “There. We have something in common.”

  Father Gregorio’s sermon was about the importance of communion and how Jesus’ plan was for all of us to get along. Men are men, and we are one family and so on. As usual, it was long and boring.

  “The nerve of the man,” Abuela announced when mass was finally over. “No priest has ever given me a sermon like that. I will accept whom I choose to accept.”

  Jorge Bustillo, the carpenter from two blocks down from the panadería, leaned forward and tapped my abuela on the shoulder. “Neither will I, Doña Esperanza. The sooner they leave, the better.”

  Without turning, Abuela said, “They are not leaving. That is the problem. We have to either leave or get used to them.” Then she looked up at the new ceiling and sighed. “Someone is trying to buy our priest.”

  People shuffled out of the church. Chicano and I accompanied Abuela to the shrine of the Virgen de Guadalupe on the opposite side of the church from the Malverde shrine.

  She lit a candle, picked a few coins from her purse and dropped them in the box. Then she crossed herself and prayed. Chicano winked at the Virgen. “How’s my girl?”

  We met Father Gregorio at the entrance of the church. “How did the dog’s funeral go?”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he made it into dog heaven.”

  Father Gregorio smiled and ruffled my hair. “I’m glad to hear it, hijo.”

  “That’s a nice watch,” Chicano said.

  Father Gregorio glanced at his wrist. It was a thick gold-colored timepiece just like the one I had seen on the man driving the truck the night of the shooting at La Gloria. It looked heavy, expensive. “An indulgence,” he said.

  Chicano asked, “Is it gold?”

  “I doubt it. Someone left it in the collection basket.” Father Gregorio turned to my abuela. “What do you think of the renovation, Doña Esperanza?”

  “Much better.”

  “It’s been a long time coming,” Father Gregorio said proudly. “And I have placed an order for a pair of forty-six inch bells from El Rosario in Tlaxcala. Hopefully in a few weeks we’ll be tolling bells to announce mass.”

  “It’s been a prosperous spring, hasn’t it Father?” Chicano said.

  “I believe the new highway has been a blessing.”

  “But with prosperity comes greed,” Abuela warned.

  “Indeed, Doña Esperanza.” Father Gregorio nodded. “One problem begets another. But people with strong moral character will always prevail.”

  Abuela took Chicano’s arm. “Thank you for illuminating us, Father.”

  In the plaza, the vendors were doing a brisk business. Families I had never seen before relaxed in the shade. Poor peasants sat on the stoop of the shuttered storefronts. The fancy trucks and utility vehicles were still parked in front of the municipal building. Behind the cliffs to the north, dark gray clouds threatened rain.

  “That man,” Chicano said and looked back at the church, “comes about as cheap as your friend, Zopilote.”

  Every night around one or two in the morning Chicano rose, got dressed in the dark, and walked quietly out of the house. Every night I followed him. Every night he stopped in front of Ximena’s house. He’d whistle or throw pebbles at her window, and she would let him in. I didn’t climb the telephone pole to see. I knew what was going on.

  But then one night, Ximena didn’t open the door. I watched Chicano wait in the dark, pacing in front of her house for hours. It tore me up to see him like that. I knew exactly how he felt. Deep down, though, I was glad.

  31.

  After school I went to the Minitienda to see if anyone had seen or heard from Mosca. Don Ignacio wasn’t there. A new girl was working behind the counter. I didn’t recognize any of the customers. No one even raised their eyes to meet mine. They just moved slowly about the store, picking out their groceries in silence.

  I bought a tamarind Boing and stepped outside. The street was deserted. Everyone that used to hang out was gone. I even missed Zopilote leaning back against the wall drinking a caguama and talking trash nonstop.

  It started to rain. I finished my drink and headed home. When I crossed the street, I noticed a group of older boys walking out of La Gloria. They huddled under the awning of the cantina for a moment and then headed up Avenida Porvenir.

  “Boli!” Pepino waved.

  He was with Chato, but I had never seen the other three boys. Pepino had on a leather jacket and a Dallas Cowboys baseball cap which he wore sideways. The others were dressed like rappers, baggy jeans hanging down their hips, long t-shirts, dark shades. We met at the corner.

  “What’s going on?” I said. Chato slapped Pepino on the back. His new friends surrounded him. They were serious, quiet. One of them didn’t even look up. He just kept his head bowed, pressing buttons on his cell phone.

  “Not a whole lot of nothing, broder.” Pepino shrugged his shoulders, fingers twisting like a gangbanger in a movie.

  “I haven’t seen anyone around,” I said. “You?”

  “I haven’t been looking.”

  “I heard you hired Mosca to keep a lookout for you.”

  “You heard right, broder.” He glanced at his friends. “We had that boy on the payroll. ¿Que no?”

  “What do you mean, the payroll?”

  “Wise up, Boli.” Chato put his arm around Pepino’s shoulder. “We’re all on the payroll.” He pointed at the others, “Franco, Rata, Nacho. How do you see it, güey?”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not.”

  “At some point, you’ll have to make a choice, broder.” Pepino shrugged Chato’s arm off his shoulder and pushed him back. He gestured, his fingers twisting around his waist and crotch. “You gonna have to decide. You’re either in, or you’re out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look at what happened to Kiko,” he said.

  Chato grinned. “That güey made some bad choices.”

  “You think about it,” Pepino said and shook the rain off his hair. “We can’t waste time with you right now, broder. We’re on patrol. We gotta keep an eye on things around here. Report back to Duende, see?”

  They pushed past me.

  “Pepino?”

  He stopped. They all turned.

  “Where’s Mosca? Is he still on the payroll?”

  Pepino smiled wide and shook his head.

  “Where is he?” I said.

  He stepped forward and unzipped his jacket. He pulled the sides back. He wore a fancy blue shirt unbuttoned down to his stomach. Hanging over his bare chest on a gold chain was a small red sphere with a bright yellow swirl at the center.

  The devil’s fire.

  I lunged at him. He fell back. I came down at him, throwing punches left and right. He coiled up. The rain pelted down on us. My head burst with pain. I turned. A fist slammed against the side of my head. Twice. I fell off Pepino. Then I stood, dizzy. Two of his friends came at me, kicking and punching like a machine. I stepped back, dodging, folding, fighting. My back hit the wall. They were on me like cats, three of them at once, punching everywhere. I fell to the ground.

  Then the kicking started.

  I curled into a ball and shut my eyes. Pain shot up my sides, my face, my head.

  Suddenly it stopped.

&nbs
p; “You don’t listen, cabrón.”

  I opened my eyes. Pepino was standing over me. He had a split lip. Blood trickled down his chin. He pulled a switchblade from his pocket and flicked it open. “You’re going to end up just like your little novio. Maybe you’ll get lucky and meet your parents where you’re going.”

  The other boys smiled. Chato smacked his fist against the palm of his hand. I pushed myself back with my feet, but my legs were too weak, my body too heavy.

  Suddenly, Pepino was swooped away like he’d been sucked by a vacuum.

  His friends turned.

  Chicano held Pepino up by the wrist, dangling him like a ragdoll. “What the fuck you doing, hijo de tu chingada madre?” Pepino dropped his blade. “Do something, you fools!”

  The other boys pounced on Chicano.

  Chicano turned and smacked them with his left as they jumped on him. They bounced back like they were made of rubber. Then he twisted Pepino’s arm until it snapped. Pepino howled. Chicano dropped him. The other boys attacked him again. He kicked one in the crotch. The kid dropped to his knees. He punched another in the jaw and he fell beside Pepino.

  I tried getting up, but my muscles wouldn’t respond.

  Chato fell beside me, face flat on the ground, unconscious. Someone screamed. It all became a blur of pain and darkness. Then everything went black.

  When I opened my eyes, the ground was moving under me. I turned my head. The street was sideways.

  I was draped over Chicano’s back. My body bounced. Every step shot a jolt of pain to my ribs. I tried looking back at the road. I wanted to see how he had left Pepino, but I couldn’t move. My mouth was dry. I opened it to drink the rain. It was too much effort. I closed my eyes.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in my room. Jesusa sat at the foot of the bed, staring at me. The room had a strong smell of eucalyptus. My body, my muscles were like jelly, relaxed, painless. I floated. I closed my eyes and saw my parents. My father was sitting on a bench by the plaza, smiling like when he’d watch Gaby and me playing when we were little. My mother was next to him. They were holding hands. I walked toward them, but I wasn’t getting any closer. They kept smiling and waving at me as if everything was fine. I ran. I ran as fast as I could, trying to get to them. But they kept receding. The more I moved forward, the further they moved back, smiling and waving like nothing was wrong. I ran so hard my legs burned with pain. And all the while they kept waving. My chest and arms ached. I couldn’t move anymore. And they still waved, floating back until they became little tiny specs in a long black tunnel.