‘Shit, man,’ Manny said, voice a whisper. ‘Where is she? She with you?’
‘Would I be calling if she was with me?’
‘Hum, well, probably not. But she ain’t at work, ain’t home, and ain’t with you, where is— Holy shit!’ he almost shouted.
‘Shhhhhhhhh. What?’
‘Oh, shit, oh shit, oh man!’
‘What?’ I almost shouted into the phone.
‘My brother Eddie called a while ago saying somebody took his car, man! Somebody who knew where he kept the extra key, man! You don’t think Lotta woulda done that, do you?’
‘Shit! The low-rider?’ I said, thinking about Lotta behind the wheel of that beast. ‘Man, she only has a learner’s permit, and she’s not that good!’
‘Why would she take it?’ Manny all but wailed. ‘Man, like Eddie’s having a shit fit. He’s gonna kill her, man!’
‘If she lives through driving that damn thing!’ I said. ‘Look, Manny, I gotta go. I’m heading to Codderville and I’ll keep an eye out for her. Believe me!’
‘Man, you find her, let me know! Tia Anita’s asleep and I can use her car to meet you.’
‘Don’t you think there’s been enough car stealing for one night?’
‘Hey, I ain’t gonna steal it, man. Just borrow it, ya know?’
At that I hung up and looked at my guys. ‘Lotta’s missing,’ I said, as we crossed the bridge into Codderville.
We started driving around and I found myself going by the infamous bowling alley. And then I saw it. Big as shit. Eddie’s low-rider, flames and all. Sitting there in the front row at the bowling alley. I pulled in a couple of rows behind, as far away from all the bikes as possible, and the four of us piled out.
BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, APRIL 2009
‘Who’s Alton?’ Manny asked from the front seat, not taking his eyes off Megan.
‘Aldon,’ Graham corrected. ‘Nobody really,’ he said, also staring at his sister. ‘Used to be my best friend when I was a kid. That was before he died, though.’
‘Huh?’ Manny said, finally turning to Graham. All eyes and ears in the car were on Graham, except Megan, who looked to her lap.
‘Where the hell am I going?’ Eddie, the driver, asked.
‘Straight ahead. It’s an ’eighty-four Dodge Valiant. Blue. Vanity plates that say “Granof4,”’ Megan said.
‘That’s a dumb ride to kidnap somebody in,’ Uncle Ernesto said, honestly disgusted at the ineptitude of some people.
‘He stole our car,’ Megan said.
‘Grandma’s car!’ corrected Graham, letting himself get off track. Shaking his head, he said, ‘Tell me. Who the hell is this guy?’
‘Can you go faster?’ Megan pleaded to Eddie as his ride began to pick up speed.
‘Sure, chica. Calm down,’ Eddie said.
‘Megan! What is going on?’ Graham insisted.
So she told him – about Tommy, about the Internet, about him suddenly changing his tune and saying he was Aldon. About the accusations against their mother and Elena Luna.
‘And Liz believed this shit?’ Graham said, incensed.
‘No, of course not. I mean, not really,’ Megan said.
‘You mean she did!’ Graham accused.
‘No! She was so confused, Graham,’ Megan said, tears stinging her eyes. ‘Someone claiming to be a part of her real family—’
‘We’re her real family!’ Graham said.
Megan turned to the driver. ‘Do you see it?’ she asked.
‘No, chica. No blue Valiant. I don’t think I’ve seen one of those in a hundred years!’
‘Well, it is a blue Valiant! Trust me!’ Megan said, letting her temper show.
Manny patted her hand. ‘It’s OK, Megan,’ he said. ‘We’ll find her.’
Graham removed Manny’s hand from his sister’s. ‘Fourteen!’ he said, glaring at Manny.
‘So who’s this chick we’re looking for?’ Manny asked, keeping his hand on the back of the seat, just inches from Megan’s.
‘My sister,’ Graham said.
‘I thought she was your sister?’ Manny said, pointing at Megan.
‘She is, dumb ass! I have two.’
‘How old is the one we’re looking for?’ Manny asked.
‘Fourteen!’ Graham said, shooting Manny a look.
Manny turned around in his seat. ‘Well, somebody’s got an attitude!’ he said under his breath.
‘And you two thought you’d just come confront this guy, right?’ Graham said, glaring at his sister.
Sinking back on to Uncle Ernesto’s lap, Megan said, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘Graham, I think you’re missing the big picture here,’ Lotta said from his lap.
‘You know, I really don’t need y’all’s help here—’ he started, but Lotta interrupted.
‘You need somebody’s help, buster,’ she said, glaring down at him. ‘First off, Megan, are you OK?’
Megan shook her head. ‘No, not really. But thank you for asking,’ she said, shooting a look at her brother.
‘Did he hurt you?’ Graham demanded, moving forward so fast Lotta fell between his feet and the back of Manny’s seat.
‘Hey, pendejo!’ she yelled. ‘Pick me up!’
‘Sorry,’ Graham said, pulling her back on to his lap. To Megan he asked, ‘Did he?’
‘Not really. He threw me on the ground and I might have scraped my hands.’ She looked at them and they were indeed scraped. Manny grabbed one while Uncle Ernesto grabbed the other.
‘Oh, poor chica!’ Uncle Ernesto said. ‘We need to get these cleaned out!’
Graham hit both men’s hands away from Megan’s.
‘But mostly I’m just scared for Elizabeth,’ Megan told Lotta. ‘She’s not real strong,’ Megan said, as tears began to fall down her cheeks. ‘She’s little. A lot smaller than me. If I’d seen him, maybe . . .’
Lotta reached over and put her arms around Megan. ‘Honey, you did what you could! The guy blindsided you!’ She held Megan’s face up and with a finger wiped away her tears. ‘But we’re going to find her. And when we do, with all these macho guys we got here, the asshole’s not gonna know what hit him!’
Megan smiled for the first time in an hour.
E.J., THE PRESENT
We’d barely gotten in Luna’s car when her phone rang. She said, ‘What?’ then listened, then said, ‘Shit.’ Then she listened again. Finally she said, ‘Thanks,’ and hung up. She started the car, took her little dome light thingy from under my feet on the passenger side and put it on top of her car, and then started her siren.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked, beginning to panic.
‘There’s been an incident at the bowling alley. A bunch of underage girls . . .’ She faltered. Finally she said, ‘Shots fired.’
I just looked at her as she took the streets of Codderville at eighty miles an hour. We got to the bowling alley in record time, only to find two ambulances, a couple of squad cars, and a fire truck blocking the way. Scores of motorcycles were lying on their sides, and I could see the dark blue Chevy with the flames on the side pushed up against the building by the fire truck. And then I saw Graham’s Valiant and thought I was going to vomit. All my children, all of them, at a place where shots were fired. Before Luna could even stop the car, I had my door open and was puking out the side.
‘Hold on, Pugh. Nobody said anybody was hurt or any-thing . . .’
‘Yeah, yeah. Just stop the car.’ All I could think of was how I was going to tell Willis, who was in Houston yet again, that one or all of his children were hurt and/or dead. Just the thought made me woozy and Luna grabbed my arm.
‘Don’t panic until we get inside,’ she said.
I looked at her. ‘Then I have your permission to panic?’
‘Sure. Go for it.’
There was a uniformed cop standing by the entrance to the bowling alley. Seeing Luna he opened the door without question. Since Luna was holding my arm, t
he invitation seemed to include me.
We walked inside to be met with bedlam. The first thing I saw was a stretcher with a child-sized person on it. I pulled away from Luna and ran to the stretcher. The little face showing from under the sheet was covered with so much blood I didn’t recognize her. Her eyes were closed.
Then I heard a sound that almost ruptured my heart. ‘Mom!’
I whirled around to see all three of my kids standing with a uniformed officer. My girls ran to me and I pulled them to me, hugging them so hard it hurt all three of us. ‘Who—?’ I said, pointing my head in the direction of the stretcher.
Elizabeth was crying. ‘Alicia!’ she said.
‘Oh, my God!’ I said, letting go of my girls to turn back to the stretcher. The EMTs were still administering to her. ‘How bad is it?’ I asked.
‘Are you her parent?’ the female EMT asked.
Elizabeth grabbed my hand and I looked at her. She was nodding her head like crazy.
‘Yes,’ I said to the EMT.
‘It was a head wound,’ she said. ‘They bleed like crazy. I think she just passed out from the sheer fright of it all. Her vitals are good – hey, Mac, hand me some smelling salts.’
She waved the smelling salts under Alicia’s nose and she shook her head and then her eyes popped open and she said, ‘My head hurts.’
I bent down and kissed her on the cheek. ‘It’s OK, honey,’ I said. ‘You just got hurt a little. You’re going to be fine.’
‘Mrs Pugh?’ she said, looking at me.
I looked at the EMT. ‘She’s delirious,’ I said.
‘Are Elizabeth and the others OK?’ she asked.
‘I’m right here,’ Bessie said, coming to hold Alicia’s other hand.
‘And the others?’
Elizabeth looked up at me and then over to her siblings. ‘Megan got winged in the arm . . .’ she started, at which time I let go of Alicia’s hand and turned to my other daughter, who, I noticed for the first time, had a bandage on her arm.
Before I could say a word, Megan piped up, ‘It’s fine, Mom. It barely hurts.’
‘What about Lotta?’ Alicia asked.
At which point I looked around. I didn’t see Lotta anywhere. ‘Where is Lotta?’ I asked.
Looking at Graham I could tell something was wrong. His face was pale and drawn, and his hands were fisted. When I asked where Lotta was, I saw his friends, Hollister, Tad, and Leon, come up behind him, hands on Graham’s shoulders, as if holding him back.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
The front doors of the bowling alley opened and another officer came in, his hand gently on the arm of Lotta Hernandez. Graham, my big brave boy, burst into tears and ran to her, throwing his arms around her. Lotta started to cry, too, and they clung to each other, making me tear up, and I didn’t even know what was going on.
Finally, I got the story . . .
BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999
Luna said it would be OK if Willis and I went with her to check out Billy Dave Petrie, the man Clyde Hayden said had paid him five hundred dollars to take care of my family and me. It was a fairly nice drive from Codderville to the outskirts of Brenham. It took us forty-five minutes to find the sign saying Washington County, and another twenty minutes to find Birdsong Road and the mailbox that said ‘Petrie.’
The mailbox itself should have told us something. The door to the box was hanging open from all the circulars and junk mail shoved inside. We drove up the rutted dirt drive, splashing mud on the clean city car from the puddles left by a recent rain.
Four vehicles sat in the yard of the dilapidated trailer house, only two of them serviceable. The front door of the trailer stood open and as we got out of the car and walked towards the door, the odor almost knocked me over. Willis grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
Luna said, ‘Shit,’ under her breath. Turning, she said to Willis, ‘You know how to work a two-way radio?’ He nodded his head. ‘I think we’re still in range. Get the station and have them call the Washington County sheriff’s office. I need backup on this thing.’
Willis ran to the car while I stood where I was, watching Luna pull a hanky out of her purse to cover her mouth, her gun ready in her right hand. With her foot, she opened the door wide and stepped inside.
THIRTEEN
I hate them all so much! Hate them hate them hate them hate them!!!! I’m going to kill them all! And I’m going to enjoy it!
ELIZABETH, THE PRESENT
The door to the bowling alley opened and a man walked in. Young, not too tall, fair skinned with light brown hair. Someone I recognized immediately. I barely got out the words ‘It’s him!’ before he lifted an assault rifle and began to fire.
And he was firing at us. We all hit the floor. Everything felt like it was in slo-mo. Like a Quentin Tarantino movie. Except these bullets were real. Alicia was the last one down. On her back – dead. Blood all over her face. I started screaming and couldn’t stop. Megan, on the other side of Alicia, got up to run to me and got hit, falling to the floor. Lotta, next to me, grabbed for Megan, but Megan said, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’ Her right hand was pressed against the wound, blood oozing between her fingers.
Alicia dead, Megan wounded – I looked up and saw the bikers heading toward my stalker. ‘Get him!’ I said. ‘Kill him!’ I wanted them to smash his head in, pulverize him. I wanted to personally stomp on his exposed lungs! But he turned the rifle on them and then seven or eight handguns came out and everyone started firing. Lotta grabbed me to pull me down, pushing me to the floor on the other side of her, just as the stalker lunged for me. He grabbed Lotta instead and dragged her out the door, firing his weapon as he went, and mostly hitting the ceiling.
When he was gone, the waitress in the little café said, ‘The cops are on their way.’ She ran to Alicia and felt for a pulse. ‘She’s alive,’ she said.
The biker chick who’d been with the big Hulk Hogan-mustache guy rushed over to check on Alicia and Megan.
I just stood there, staring at all the blood, knowing neither Alicia nor Megan would be hurt now if not for me. And Lotta – I couldn’t think about it. It was truly all my fault. Every bit of it. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, then realized I’d been saying it for a long time.
‘You guys OK?’ Megan asked the biker chick.
‘Yeah, couple of wing shots like you, honey, but the fucker couldn’t shoot worth shit.’
‘That’s good,’ Megan said.
‘Damn skippy,’ the biker chick said.
That’s when the first police officer arrived and, with him, the first ambulance.
When I got through with my part of the story, Mom said, ‘Well thank God Alicia’s OK. And Meggy,’ she said, pulling my sister to her and making Megan say ‘ouch!’ I hadn’t heard Mom call Megan ‘Meggy’ in a hundred years. It sounded nice.
Everyone looked at Lotta, who was still firmly in Graham’s arms. ‘He just dragged me to his car . . .’
‘What was the make and model?’ Mrs Luna asked.
‘It was a Toyota Celica, newish, dark blue with a gray cloth interior,’ she said as Mrs Luna wrote furiously. ‘But I don’t think it was his,’ Lotta continued. ‘There was a baby seat in the back. I think maybe he stole it.’
‘OK,’ Mrs Luna said. ‘What happened after he put you in the car?’
‘He drove toward Black Cat Ridge, but then he stopped at the bridge over the river and yanked me out. He tried to shove me over the bridge, but I kicked him in the balls and started running. I heard him start the car up, but when I turned to look, he was going over the bridge the other way so I stopped running.’ Looking over her shoulder, her gaze landed on this really cute policeman. ‘Then Officer Martinez came by and picked me up,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘And the rest, as they say, is history.’
I think Graham wasn’t sure whether to thank Officer Martinez or slug him, although I think thanking him would be the safer route.
‘Did he say anything to you in the car?’ Mr
s Luna asked.
‘Not to me, really. He just kept saying, “I’ll kill them, I’ll kill them” over and over. It was really scary,’ Lotta said.
Mom went up to her and got between Lotta and Graham and hugged her. ‘I’m so sorry this happened to you,’ she said. Then slapped Lotta’s hand. ‘But that’s what you get for taking the girls out in that low-rider!’
‘Hey, it wasn’t my idea!’ Lotta said, pointing at me.
My mom turned to look at me. ‘It seemed to be a good idea at the time,’ I said.
Mom stared at me for a full half-minute, then started laughing. She hugged me and said, ‘You are soooooooooooo grounded.’
E.J., THE PRESENT
The upshot of the whole thing was three bikers got arrested for possession of unlicensed concealed weapons and discharging firearms within the city limits, and just being butt-ugly I think, while the real criminal, Elizabeth’s stalker, got away yet again.
I took the girls to Vera’s house while Graham took his boys home then was going to take Lotta home and explain to her parents what happened. I should have gone with him, but I had someone else to notify.
I went with Luna in her car back to Black Cat Ridge to notify Alicia’s foster parents that she was in the hospital.
The house where Alicia lived was just outside Black Cat Ridge. The houses inside Black Cat Ridge are all homogenized builders’ homes, each little village inside the ‘city’ a certain price range. Each little village having its own pool and rec center. This way the kids at the high school just had to ask each other which village they lived in to find out whether or not the other was good enough to befriend. OK, I had some problems with the set-up.
The foster home was in the country outside the city limits of Black Cat Ridge. When we found the right dirt road to go down, it took a while at night to find the right mailbox. I knew the name of the foster parents was ‘Rampy,’ George and Inez, which helped us find the mailbox, which stood next to a rutted drive between clumps of brush and trees. Luna turned into the drive and within seconds we could see the house, all lit up like a Christmas tree, but not nearly as merry.
There were several vehicles in the drive, on the grass, and further out in the acreage. We could hear someone cursing and banging on what sounded like yet another vehicle behind the house. Most of the vehicles we saw appeared to be non-working.
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