But what about tomorrow? Tomorrow he’d have to walk past that corner again, and right down that street. What if someone recognized him?
The fear was fading, and Tomas smirked. Mr. de la Yedra had never wanted to know him before, when Tomas had suggested he could work at his store as a way to earn some extra money. He wouldn’t want to know him now. And he’d been hiding behind the counter the whole time. What was he going to say? “This gato fresco showed up in my store and saved me from a malandrín by throwing fireballs’?
If Tomas couldn’t believe it—and he’d done it—why would someone else? He’d come up with another explanation—a cigarette lighter or something. Peoples’ memories were funny that way. They tended to forget things they didn’t want to know about.
It was two days later.
Tomas sat on the fire escape outside the living room window. Even now, the neighborhood was noisy; cars, music, people on the street. Nobody looked up, though, so he had his privacy, and behind him, the apartment was dark and quiet. It was nearly midnight. Mamacita had gotten home about half an hour ago; in six hours she’d have to get up to catch the bus for work. This was no way to live.
At least nobody had noticed what he’d done. Just as he’d thought. There hadn’t even been a story about it in El Diario.
He made himself as comfortable as he could on the rusting metal and made the little flame move from one fingertip to the next and back again, like someone flipping a coin across the backs of his fingers. It was like the flame of a cigarette lighter—pale orange and steady—except it came from his skin, and it didn’t burn.
He stared at it, fascinated. Each night he waited until Mamacita and Rosalita were in bed before trying anything. Each night he promised himself that tonight would be the last time, but it never was. The fire was too much fun to play with. Too… seductive. It just felt… right, somehow.
What had happened to him in the bodega hadn’t been a fluke, nor a freak thing. A few minutes later when he’d gone to turn on the stove to make some rice, the pilot light had blown out, and instead of reaching for the box of matches as he usually did, he had unthinkingly pointed his finger at the burner. It had lit with a tiny whoosh. Thank God Rosalita hadn’t seen it.
So now… here he was. Playing with fire.
It was ridiculously easy, actually. All he had to do was get mad. Annoyed for little stuff like lighting the burner. Hard, raging angry for the fireballs. He’d fire-balled some rats down in the basement yesterday just to prove to himself he could do it again.
Now he made the little flame dance over the tips of his fingers and wondered what had happened to him to turn him into a fenómeno—a freak—like this. And what the hell he was supposed to do with it.
It wasn’t like he wanted to be a superhero. That was for comic books and movies. And he couldn’t see just telling people he could do this. Either they wouldn’t believe him—and lock him up for being crazy—or they would believe him, and then he’d probably be arrested or dissected or something. And then what would happen to his family?
This power was his. So couldn’t there be some way for him to use it to help Mamacita and Rosalita? Only he couldn’t figure out what it was. Being able to set things on fire just didn’t seem very useful.
New movement in the street below caught his attention, and what was moving down there did more than catch it.
A man was staring up at the fire escape, watching him.
It was a dark man, in a dark, perfectly tailored suit. And even from where Tomas sat, he could feel the chill coming off the man, the sense that he would pop a cap in your head with one hand while eating lunch with the other if that was what he’d been ordered to do.
This was so not good.
The man crooked a finger at him, and pointed to his own feet. You. Down here.
Trying not to think about what this meant, Tomas nodded, and waved, and ducked back in through the window. Moving as silently as he could—though he knew that nothing would disturb either his sister or his mother—he slipped through the rooms and made his way down to the street.
The man was even bigger close up, and he hadn’t looked small from the fire escape. Still without saying a word, he pointed to a car parked on the other side of the street. A black Lincoln Town Car. Boring, but very expensive.
This was definitely not good.
He made his way to the car, and as he approached, the rear window rolled silently down.
He couldn’t see inside. The interior was entirely in shadow and the passenger a mere silhouette.
A soft voice drifted out of the interior. “Tomas Torres.”
His mouth felt very dry. “Si,” he replied, then added, “Señor.”
“Little incident at the store down the street two days ago,” the voice persisted. “Thief routed. Muy Bueno. I would hate for the gentleman who owns the place to fall behind on his payments.”
Ah. Now Tomas knew who he was talking to. Tiburon Prestamo, the padrone. Everyone had heard of him. If you had a problem, Señor Prestamo could solve it for you. But his help came at a price.
A high price.
“So I understand you have a way with fire.” A pause. “What interests me is that the policia couldn’t find a trace of what actually caused the fire. Very interesting, that. You know what that means?”
The shadowy figure leaned forward; Tomas caught a whiff of expensive cologne, saw a gleam of silver hair in the street lights. He shook his head.
“Come on, you look like a bright boy. Without having a cause for a fire, they can’t say it was arson, can they?”
Tomas shook his head again.
“Now, I could use someone like you,” the padrone said, settling back in his seat. “Sometimes people are reluctant to pay what they owe. Now normally, I would ask someone like Jorge over there to pay them a visit and reason with them.”
Tomas glanced aside at “Jorge” and repressed a shudder.
“But it would please me to be able to handle such matters with more finesse. And a man can’t pay his debt with two broken arms.”
“No, Señor,” Tomas managed.
“So I would like to employ your services, so that Jorge’s time can be more profitably spent elsewhere—unless, of course, a more vigorous reminder turns out to be required. But those occasions hurt my heart. I consider them a failure of trust, a matter that I hope will never arise between us. And to show you how much I value your participation in my little enterprise, shall we say… a thousand a week?”
A thousand a week!
Tomas did his best not to stare slack jawed. That was more money than both Mama’s jobs put together. Rosalita could stay in school and have the pretty dresses she craved—and even new dolls to replace the ones she’d lost. Mamacita could quit one of her jobs. Not both of them—Tomas wasn’t going to be crazy enough to tell her how much he was really making and who his boss was, but he could tell her he’d found a job and bring her enough money that she’d be happy to quit one of her jobs so that she could spend more time at home. It would be easy to sneak more cash into the house without her noticing, and the rest he could save for tools, for his own car…
“A smart young man such as yourself you knows a good deal when he hears it, does he not?” the padrone said.
You don’t want to be a runner but you’ll take his money?
Tomas’s conscience reared up and he crushed it down ruthlessly. Anyone stupid enough to take a favore—especially a loan—from the padrone and then not make whatever payment was owed deserved what he had coming to him.
“Si, señor,” he said, respectfully. “I will do this thing for you.”
“Excellent.” The padrone leaned back into the shadows of the back seat. “Jorge, give him the cell.”
The muscle-man fished a tiny cell-phone out of his breast pocket and handed it to Tomas, who could not help noticing the scars across the backs of the knuckles, as if Jorge was accustomed to hitting things often and hard.
“Do not give that number
out to anyone. Your orders will come when someone calls you on that phone, so I don’t want it busy. Ever.”
Tomas nodded. “As you say.” He suppressed another reminder from his conscience about how this was just like the way the dealers operated.
“I see we understand each other. This is good. After you do your first job for me, Jorge will bring you your first week’s pay. And I do not want to discover that you are working for anyone else. I would be gravely disappointed.”
Tomas shook his head.
The padrone nodded, satisfied. “But I do not want you to feel as if you are being taken advantage of,” he added. He motioned again to Jorge, who again reached into his breast pocket once more and pulled out a roll of bills, peeling off five twenties. “Go take that little sister of yours for pizza. I’m sure she likes pizza.”
Tomas took the money and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. “She does, Señor. Thank you—”
But the padrone was finished with him. The window rolled up, Jorge got into the sedan’s front seat on the passenger side, the driver started the car, and the car rolled slowly away.
And only after he had gone back upstairs to the apartment did Tomas realize something. Nothing about these last few minutes—even the “gift” of money—had been an act of kindness. The money—and Señor Prestamo’s final words to him—had been a warning. We know you have a sister and we know where you all live. It would be a very bad idea to change your mind.
He told himself he wasn’t scared.
It had been three days since Señor Prestamo had given him the cellphone. Long enough for him to imagine that it might never ring, to pretend to himself that the whole night had never happened. Then this afternoon, while he’d been waiting outside Rosalita’s school to pick her up—the money meant they could take the bus to and from school, and there was pizza and ice cream after school—the cellphone he carried with him everywhere now had rung.
He hadn’t recognized the voice at the other end. It had given him a time and an address. And instructions.
And here he was. Out in the extremo del extreme of Queens—a place he’d never wanted to be—hanging around outside some old dusty warehouse in the middle of the night.
Everything here was dark—not many lights—and despite the heat of the night, Tomas shivered. It would be just his luck to get mugged. He was getting better control over his fire, but it was still far from perfect. And until he actually used it, nobody knew he had it. It wasn’t much of a threat. Not like a gun.
There didn’t seem to be anyone at the front—all closed up tight—but he wasn’t going in the front door anyway. He walked around to the back of the building, where the loading docks were. There was a door marked “Service.” When he got there, it opened, and an old guy in a Rent-a-Cop uniform opened it. He looked around, as if he was just checking out the view. Tomas was standing right in front of him, but it was like the guy didn’t see him at all. He set a brick in the door, chocking it open, and walked down the steps and away.
Tomas hurried inside, grabbing the brick and closing the door.
Once there, he wiped his hands several times on the thighs of his jeans, looking around. One lone light-bulb burned, far above him. There were stacks of cartons and big shipping crates all around him—the warehouse was filled with stuff—and he thought for a moment of liberating a souvenir or two, but it would take too much time, and Señor Prestamo hadn’t said anything about that. Besides, he had no idea what was in any of them. He wasn’t here to find out, either. He was supposed to set this place on fire. He just hoped that whatever was in them would burn. It’d be just his crappy luck if they were all filled with truck parts or something.
If this place went up, it would be the biggest thing he’d burned yet. He stared down at his open hand, imagining it filled with fire. Come on, come on…
But all he felt was nervous. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to set this place ablaze. He’d never felt less like a arrancador del fuego in his life. Maybe the power was gone. Maybe it had only been temporary, like a cold.
What would he do then? People like Señor Prestamo didn’t take “sorry” for an answer. Failure would be the same as refusal. And he wouldn’t be the first one to suffer. It would be Rosa. And Mama.
Fear grew in him then, and anger. He hadn’t asked for this power. He hadn’t asked for his whole life to be turned al revés—upside down—overnight. He hadn’t asked for Papi to go loco and to lose everything he had. Everything all of them had had.
Suddenly he felt the heat growing in his chest again—just like in the bodega, and in the basement. At first his relief damped it down, but he concentrated on his anger, and it soon returned, and this time he made it grow. He fed it with every scrap of anger and fear he had buried inside him.
And suddenly the fire was there.
With a whoop of glee Tomas flung a fireball at the nearest stack of cartons. He didn’t know what was inside, but the outside—wood and cardboard—caught quickly, and was soon burning with a bright golden light. Soon he was tossing fireballs everywhere, laughing in relief as they struck the crates and cartons around him, sticking and spattering and catching.
Burning.
It was only when he was coughing so hard he could barely breathe—and the warehouse was filled with smoke—that Tomas realized that he might be able to start fires, but that didn’t mean he was invulnerable to an entire burning warehouse coming down around him. He stumbled unsteadily through the smoke, back to the door he’d entered through, and staggered out down the stairs to the loading dock.
He was smart enough to know not to run, even though the fire was now plainly visible through the windows. Running attracted attention. Run—anywhere—and people always wanted to know why. He forced himself to walk the two long blocks and stand quietly on the subway platform—it was elevated here, not underground—waiting for the train. Just an ordinary innocent ciudadano going about his business. He was still standing on the platform when he heard the first fire sirens.
After that, it was easy.
Over the next two weeks, he got a few more calls. Once to torch an empty tenement. That was fun; it went up instantly—nothing but dry wood inside—and he didn’t make the mistake he’d made in the warehouse and stick around once the fire was started. Once he was told to start a fire in an empty lot. That was simple; all he had to do was toss one fireball and all the grass and trash went up like a pile of autumn leaves. A couple of times, all he had to do was set fire to a dumpster in an alley. Those could be hard—you never knew what might be in them—but two or three of his fireballs would start pretty much anything burning, and by now it was no trouble at all to call them up. Once he set fire to a car parked on the street. Each Friday afternoon Jorge came and found him outside Rosalita’s school—Tomas knew that was no coincidence—and handed him a thick envelope full of cash. Two weeks. Two thousand dollars.
But having money was more difficult than he’d thought it would be, and it didn’t seem to solve any problems. He’d thought he could buy Rosalita toys and clothes, but Mamacita would see them, and what would she say? He’d thought he could tell her he’d gotten a job, and explain the money that way—at least some of it—but what? And where? She’d want names, details, and he wouldn’t be able to provide them. He’d been sure he could sneak money into the housekeeping account, but the one time he’d tried it, Mamacita had been so suspicious, he hadn’t dared try it again. She counted every penny.
He was stuck.
I’ll think of something, he told himself desperately. Maybe Señor Prestamo will help. He hated to think of going to the padrone for a favor, but Prestamo owed him now, didn’t he? Tomas was taking care of all his dirty little jobs for him.
Like tonight.
He had no idea why he was going to Brooklyn; that was one of the questions he didn’t ask in his new line of work. Brooklyn was a long way away from Spanish Harlem—all the way off the bottom of Manhattan, and then some—but that was the address Tomas ha
d been given for tonight’s job. He hoped he could find the place easily, and do the job quickly, because from the looks of things, he’d have to hurry to get back before Mamacita was up and about. No chance he could just take a cab back, either, even though he had money to burn, because no taxista would stop for somebody who looked like a banger in the middle of the night. He’d have to take the trains back as well as out, and hope they were running—fast—when he was done.
It was after two when he reached the address he’d been given. Tomas looked around in confusion. He checked the scrap of paper in his pocket. Yes, this was the right place.
But it was all wrong.
The tenement he’d burned had been empty, with a junkyard on one side and an empty lot on the other. Here, both sides of the block were lined with two-story red brick buildings. His destination was the bridal shop in the middle of the right-hand side of the block, and there were businesses on both sides. All of them were gated and dark at this time of night, of course, but above all the shops, there were apartments.
There’s no way the whole block can be empty.
Tomas was confused. He knew he was supposed to come here and burn the place. That was what he did. And if he did it, there was no way nobody was going to get hurt or killed, because the bridal shop was right in the middle of the block, and the fire was going to spread.
He’d never hurt anyone. He’d never been asked to hurt anyone. Just burn things. Cars. Buildings. Garbage.
Maybe Señor Prestamo just wants me to burn up the stock?
He thought he might have enough control of his powers by now to do that. And everything in a bridal salon was white, anyway; if he just set a small fire, one that would go out by itself, smoke damage should ruin just about everything there. That had to be it. I’ll just go in and look around…
The building had the old-fashioned kind of security gates—iron latticework gates, not a solid shutter—with separate ones for the window and the door. As he’d been promised, the security gate for the door was unlocked, and so was the door itself. He slid the big steel door gate back cautiously—it was well-oiled, and didn’t make much noise—and then opened the door.
Novel - Arcanum 101 (with Rosemary Edghill) Page 2