Broken Places

by Tracy Clark

  I smiled. “Let’s hope you’re right. We’re due for a break right about now.”

  Chapter 14

  I pulled up in front of Hector’s house and Mrs. Luna and I got out of the car and walked up to the neat red brick bungalow with white trim. The small front square of lawn was crowded with yellow plastic daisies stuck into the patchy grass. When the wind picked up, the petals would turn like tiny windmills. Today the air was still. Ankle-high chicken wire separated the neglected grass from the city’s cracked and neglected sidewalk. On the front porch, I stood beside Mrs. Luna as she rang the bell. After a time, an old woman opened the door, staring rheumy eyed through a screen door that looked as if a dog had clawed at it one too many times. She looked at Mrs. Luna and smiled. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously when she saw me. Mrs. Luna spoke to the woman in Spanish, gesturing a few times in my direction. The woman listened, nodded, and then closed the door.

  “Hector’s grandmother,” Mrs. Luna explained. “She thinks perhaps Hector is out working on his car. She will check for us.” She drew her sweater in close against her body. I was sure there had been more to the conversation, but I kept my mouth shut. “She says you look like the police,” she added sheepishly. “She doesn’t allow the police into her home either. The police do not have the respect of the community.”

  Mrs. Luna started to say more but stopped when the door opened again and the old woman returned. This time she had a young boy about eight or nine with her. For a moment, the old woman stared at me without speaking, then said something to the boy that sounded like a command before she unceremoniously nudged him out onto the porch and closed the door behind him.

  “This is Raffi,” Mrs. Luna said. “Hector’s nephew.”

  The boy stared at me for a moment, then jumped down off the porch steps and headed for the side gate, waving for us to follow. “Come on,” he said.

  There were no plastic daisies in the backyard, only a couple of knobby trees with a sagging hemp hammock twisted between them. The garage, one of those aluminum-sided, two-car, prefab jobs, sat at the end of a narrow yard bordered by chain link fence. The blare of Tejano music also marked the spot in case I missed the visual cue.

  I stood quietly in the doorway of the small garage beside Raffi and Mrs. Luna, watching as Hector, dressed in chinos and a sleeveless undershirt, worked under the hood of a white, late-model Cadillac Eldorado. Off to the side, a plump, slope-eyed Latina, maybe about sixteen, sat in a battered lawn chair bopping to the beat of the music. As the girl moved, she twisted the dial on an old boom box in her lap, jumping from song to song, likely looking for one she liked better. On top of the radio, she’d propped a textbook—opened midway—and a bag of red vines. A school bag sat on the floor by her feet. Hector didn’t appear armed, neither did the girl, but I had no way of knowing what might be hidden in the garage, in the car, or in the bag.

  “Hector,” Raffi announced. “Somebody to see you.”

  Hector turned, wiping his greasy hands on an oily rag he pulled from his back pocket. He balked when he saw me. I noticed his knuckles were lightly bruised.

  “Who the fu—?” he began, before spotting Mrs. Luna. When Hector registered her presence, his demeanor shifted instantly from ferocious to almost docile. He smiled warmly at Mrs. Luna and hugged her, as a son would a mother. Gently, she stroked his jet-black hair and kissed him on the cheek, as she no doubt wished she could still do with Cesar.

  Spanish was quickly exchanged. Most of it I didn’t get, but I got enough to know that she was introducing me. I was able to pick out the words detective privado, so Hector was learning I was a PI, not a cop, not that either profession would cut me much slack with him. While Mrs. Luna explained, Hector glared at me, and I could tell by the way he did it that he was trying to decide which way to play it—hard-ass, routinely reserved for outsiders, especially cops, or conciliatory, as his obvious bond with Mrs. Luna dictated. The distasteful frown he gave me was clear evidence of his inner struggle.

  “Looks like cop to me,” he said, his heavy-lidded eyes narrowing. “I don’t like cops. I don’t like white cops, black cops, dude cops, or chick cops.” He stretched his arms out wide. “This right here is a no-cop zone.”

  I pulled out my card and laid it on his tool cart. “Like she just told you, I’m a PI.”

  Hector leered, then sniffed derisively. “Nah, I’m looking at cop. Don’t matter what the card says.”

  I couldn’t argue with him. Cops and robbers everywhere had a good nose for ferreting out the other. I could give the star back and walk away from the roll call, but even after two years I couldn’t get the cop out of my head. Cop literally oozed from my pores. Cop was in the walk, in the talk, in the way I saw the world, in the wary way I approached Hector. Same held for him, I suspected. Gangbangers walked an opposite path and saw the world from the bottom side up. My eyes held his. I didn’t take the bait. It was what it was.

  “Please, Hector,” cried Mrs. Luna, jumping in to end the stare down. “If there is something you know, you must say it.” Hector appeared unbowed. “This is about what is right, about familia.” The garage got quiet, except for the music from the radio.

  “I don’t know nothing about Cesar and no church,” Hector said.

  I pulled a photograph of Pop from my pocket, the one he’d let me take last Memorial Day. “Maybe you’ve seen this man with Cesar?”

  Hector gave the photo the briefest of glances before turning away, disinterested. “Nope.”

  I repositioned the photo so that it was directly in front of him. “This is Father Heaton. His picture’s been in all the papers.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t read the papers.”

  “You knew Cesar better than almost anybody,” I said. “Like brothers, right? Why would he go to St. Brendan’s?”

  Hector slowly crossed his tatted arms across his chest. “Who knows? Who cares?”

  “I care,” I said.

  Mrs. Luna turned to the girl in the chair. “This is Marisol, Hector’s sister. Perhaps you know something, Marisol?”

  I angled the photograph so the girl could see it. She shut her book and leaned in close for a better look, as did Raffi, who, apparently, didn’t want to be left out of anything.

  Marisol squinted. “I never seen him.”

  “Raffi?” I asked.

  The boy pursed his lips, concentrated hard. “Nah, I never seen him either.”

  I turned back to Hector. “Cesar ever mention going to St. Brendan’s?”

  Hector chuckled. Raffi, taking his lead from his uncle, joined in.

  “Yeah, right,” Hector said. “Like Cesar was some mona-guillo.”

  I didn’t know the term and turned to Mrs. Luna for help.

  “Altar boy,” she said, turning to Hector. “My son was good. He was reading the Bible.”

  I pulled out the photo of the black girl I’d found in Cesar’s Bible, but got the same negative response from Hector.

  “Cesar have a girl?” I asked.

  “He had lots of girls,” Hector said. “So?”

  “A girlfriend,” I said. “Maybe this girl?” I held the photo up again.

  Hector took his time answering, his eyes dull, flat. He looked bored. He didn’t want to help me. He didn’t trust me. I didn’t trust him. “Nah.”

  Marisol cranked up the volume on her radio, but there was something in the way she did it that piqued my interest.

  “That true, Marisol?” I asked, angling the photo so she could see it.

  Her head popped up. She blinked rapidly. “Huh?”

  “I asked if Cesar had a girlfriend. Hector says no. Maybe this girl?”

  Marisol and Hector exchanged a cautious glance. “Nu-uh, I never saw no girl of Cesar’s around here.”

  Hector shot me a satisfied grin. He looked pleased I was coming up empty. “So, we done?”

  “You and Cesar were close,” I said. “Yet, you don’t seem to care what happened to him.”

  Mrs. Luna jumped forwa
rd. “Yes, Hector. He was like your brother.”

  Hector began to slowly crack his knuckles, demonstrating just how disinterested he was in the whole thing. “Cesar’s dead, and dead is dead. We all die. That’s why you got to live hard, right?”

  Mrs. Luna screeched and flung herself onto him, shaking him as violently as a five foot three inch woman could. “Enough!” she yelled. “You are going to tell me what I need to know, or I swear to all that is holy—”

  Hector yanked his shirt free and sneered at her, his body coiled tight for a fight, but then he took one look at the grieving woman and appeared to melt into himself, his swagger gone. There was humanity buried beneath the toughness. I’d suspected as much. Most everyone had a spark of untouched humanness down deep that cruelty, dysfunction, or anger hadn’t yet destroyed. Hector’s guard was down, but it wouldn’t stay down. I had one shot to get what he was willing to give. Mrs. Luna’s nostrils flared, but she stood her ground, glowering, grieving. “Tell me about the last night you saw him.”

  Hector glanced at her, and then faced me. He looked like he’d rather cut off his own arm than help me, but after some hesitation, he squared his shoulders and began to talk. “We were at Angel’s, all right? We drank some beers, then he got a call and left.”

  “Do you know who the call was from?” I asked.

  His cold eyes grew even colder. I hadn’t thought it possible. “No,” he snapped.

  “Long call? Short call?”

  “Short. And none of my business. Or yours.”

  The garage was not big enough to give any of us room to breathe easily. Hector, Mrs. Luna, Marisol, Raffi, and I were far too close for anyone’s comfort. The raw hate radiating off Hector’s body seemed to heat up the place, but I pushed on. “What’d you two talk about at the bar?” I asked.

  Hector didn’t answer right away. He let my question lay there like a dead alewife washed up on the beach. This pulling of teeth was excruciating. Would the Scorpion code of silence win out, or would he tell Cesar’s mother, and by extension, me, what we needed to know? Everyone waited for him to decide as the thump-thump of the music punctuated the awkward passage of time.

  Finally, Hector shook his head, and the corners of his mouth turned up into a sly grin. He wasn’t going to tell me, and there wasn’t anything I could do to compel him. I couldn’t arrest him. I couldn’t call for backup. I opened my mouth to ask another question, but before I could get the words out, Mrs. Luna hauled off and slapped Hector across the face, leaving an imprint of her entire hand on his cheek. Stunned, he stumbled back but quickly regained his footing and lurched forward as though he were going to strike her back. Instantly, all the air in the garage got heavy. Marisol and Raffi gasped.

  I quickly stepped in front of Mrs. Luna and pulled her behind me. “Stop! Right there! Everybody just stop!” Hector’s eyes, black and dangerous, bore into mine. They were evil eyes. I extended one arm to hold him off, the other to hold back Mrs. Luna. “Back up! Right now! Hector, keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Mrs. Luna screeched from behind me. “I am not afraid of you! You are a boy, a child! I have nothing to lose!”

  Rapid Spanish followed, none of it helping to squelch the fire. This was no place for a gangbanger face-off. If I had a gun, Hector likely had one. I motioned for Mrs. Luna to keep quiet.

  “Let’s everybody just calm the hell down,” I said.

  Mrs. Luna backed up. Hector backed up, then turned to pace the floor. It was a tiny garage. Bullets made big holes. I was working on three hours sleep and, dammit—I didn’t want to die in a prefab garage listening to Tejano boom box music.

  Hector stopped pacing, studied Mrs. Luna, then me. He stood straighter, lifted his chin. “What’re you going to do?”

  “That depends on what you do,” I said.

  Our eyes held.

  “I got it covered.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said.

  Mrs. Luna kept at it. She may have been little, but she’d apparently found her voice, unfortunately, at the absolutely worst time ever. Hector began to ease over toward his tool cart, and my breath caught. His tools were there, possibly something else. A slap in the face was a difficult thing to let slide, especially for a hard man whose ego was so deeply tied to being perceived as such.

  “Hector, whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t!” I commanded. “Back away from that cart.” I eased my right hand down to the holster at my back. “Let’s all just dial this thing way back.” Hector stopped, but didn’t back away. He was still within range of the cart. He eyed it, but didn’t move. This is how people died, I thought—one person strikes and won’t back down, another feels disrespected, but doesn’t have the emotional foundation to work it through. I held both my hands out in front of me to show they were empty, taking a chance I hoped I wouldn’t come to regret. “Look. Look. Empty hands,” I said. “We’re just here to talk. That’s all.”

  He breathed noisily, menacing eyes spitting fire. “She comes into my home like this!”

  “Think, Hector. There are children here. Marisol, Raffi. And I’d really like it if we could all walk out of here alive and well.”

  Hector slid a glance toward Marisol and Raffi; both sat riveted.

  “They got to learn how it is,” Hector said. “How to be!”

  My stomach lurched. “Not here. Not like this.”

  Mrs. Luna kept at it, ignoring the tension, the danger. “You would strike a mother? Is that how far you have fallen? What would your own mother say about that? I held you as a baby. I welcomed you into my home as a boy, and now you would do this to me?”

  My eyes stayed trained on Hector’s hands, as sweat ran in rivulets down my back. Hector appeared to think about his mother, about what she’d say. Maybe that would be enough to convince him to stand down. We all waited anxiously for him to cycle it through. Anxious moments passed before his shoulders relaxed, he moved farther away from the cart, and I gulped in air as though I hadn’t had any in weeks.

  Hector stared at Mrs. Luna. “For your disrespect, nothing. This I do in honor of Cesar. But only once.” Then he turned to me. “Your lucky day, cop who’s not a cop.”

  I barely heard him over the blood rushing in my ears. “I’ll take it.”

  “Cesar wanted out,” Hector said. Mrs. Luna drew in a quick breath and covered her mouth with hands that shook. “I told him he was loco. That there wasn’t no out, but he wouldn’t listen. He didn’t want the life no more.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  He slid me a look that was hot enough to pierce a hole in a sheet of titanium. “Couple months ago.”

  That’d be February, I thought. The same month Pop began to notice someone following him.

  “Who else knew about him wanting out?”

  Hector chuckled bitterly. “Everyone knew. Cesar wasn’t hiding nothing. I warned him, tried to get him to see, but Cesar was Cesar. He said he could handle what was coming down. Still, I’m trying to save his ass from a world-class beat down, or worse.” Hector snarled, “Blood in, blood out. That’s how it is.”

  “So you beat him,” I said.

  His eyes darted to Mrs. Luna. “I didn’t say nothing about a beating.”

  “You didn’t have to. I see your knuckles. The bruises are about a week old. I saw his face.”

  I could feel Mrs. Luna tense behind me, her rage nearly palpable. I motioned again for her to stay quiet.

  “He was lucky it was me,” Hector barked, half pleading to her. “He would have got worse from the others. I beat him, so they wouldn’t kill him!”

  I didn’t know what to say. My “otherness” could never penetrate Hector’s twisted value system. Gangs stitched together family from broken human pieces, creating an off-kilter patchwork with its own set of mores and strictures, incomprehensible to those who didn’t belong. All you could see from the outside was the violence, the futility, and the waste. I suddenly felt an overwhelming sadness for the lives forfeited, i
ncluding Hector’s, evil eyes and all.

  “So the Scorpions met not for beer, but to pile on Cesar,” I said.

  “He knew what had to happen. He wanted it. He was turning his back on family, so all of us took our turn, me first and hardest. We made it so he’d remember what he was giving up, but that’s all. We had no part in what went down later. It’s not on us that Cesar flipped and went after some priest.”

  “You lie,” Mrs. Luna screeched. “He could not do such a thing to God!”

  Hector’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t fire back; instead, he drew a half-empty pack of Marlboros from his left pants pocket, pulled one out, slid it into his mouth, and lit it with a cheap Bic he pulled from the right pocket. He was going for cool detachment. He got insolent four-year-old with candy smokes.

  “We did what we had to, then we turned our backs like he did to us.” He took a step forward.... “And we don’t need no lady cop coming out here asking questions that don’t have nothing to do with her. Now I’m done talking.”

  Mrs. Luna shook her head, pity on her face. “I hope you will someday see how foolish you are. I wish this, especially, for your mother. This is the end between us. From this time on, I do not know you.”

  She turned on her heels and walked out of the garage, back up the walk. I turned to back out after her, but stopped to ask one last question.

  “What are you, a junior or senior at Cervantes?” I asked Marisol.

  The girl’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know where I go?”

  I pointed to the school decal on the bag at her feet. “Junior? Senior?”

  “Junior,” she answered warily. “Why?”

  I shrugged, smiled. “Just curious. Thanks for your time, Hector.”

  Raffi trailed me up the walk, flitting around me like a gnat. “Oh man, Hector is mad.”

  “Yep, I got that.”

  “It was like a real standoff! Cool, huh?”

  “No. Not cool.” I picked up my pace, but Raffi matched it.

  His eyes sparkled excitedly. “Can I see your gun? What do you got? A Glock?”