Bruja Brouhaha

by Rochelle Staab

  He hung up the phone. “We won’t get the blood test results until tomorrow, but you appear to be in excellent health, Liz. Congratulations. Keep up the good work. I’ll let Carmen and Victor know you completed the physical. I didn’t realize how close you were to them or that you knew the Rojases until I saw you at the wake.”

  “We’re very close. Nick and I became friends with Paco and Lucia because of Carmen and Victor,” I said. “Carmen and my mother are both members of the group sponsoring next week’s fund-raiser.”

  “I hope Carmen recovers from her surgery by then. I’d hate . . .” He stopped himself and held up a hand.

  “Don’t worry. Carmen is one of the most determined women I know,” I said. “She’ll have Victor carry her in if she has to.”

  “Please tell your mother how grateful we are for the time and effort her group put into helping the clinic. The showers will add some dignity to the homeless in the neighborhood. Assure her I will donate my own time to work with the Cherries on details if needed.” He closed my file to signal the end of our meeting.

  “One more question, if you don’t mind?” I said.

  “I don’t mind if it’s a short one, Liz. I have patients waiting.”

  “Lucia Rojas?”

  Tony nodded, his face grave. “Yes. What about her?”

  “Her behavior yesterday at the wake. I thought about what you said. I still believe she’s safer at home, but agitation and failure to recognize familiar faces are symptoms of dementia. What do you think?”

  “You should discuss this with Victor. Lucia is his patient,” Tony said.

  “I don’t want to approach Victor without a second opinion to validate my suspicions. And you had a definite opinion yesterday.” I sat forward. “I’m curious what led you to the conclusion that Lucia belongs in a nursing home.”

  Tony leaned back. “Victor and I discussed Lucia briefly when he asked for my help to hire a caretaker. Paco’s death was a severe shock to her nervous system. Yesterday I noticed Lucia veered between fantasy and reality. The hex on the neighborhood was, in my opinion, the act of a troubled and hurt woman. I see your concern about dementia. Her age makes her a strong candidate.”

  “I wish I knew more about her medical background. Lucia’s personality changed dramatically after the shooting. I care about her. I want to help her,” I said.

  “In your professional opinion, does Lucia’s mental state make her a danger to herself or others? If so, there are legal measures you can initiate.”

  “I can’t take legal measures. I’m not her psychologist. I’m asking as a friend,” I said.

  “Oh.” Tony straightened in his chair. “I assumed by your questions that you were acting as her psychologist.”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry if I was misleading.”

  “My fault for misinterpreting. We’ll keep this discussion between us, and leave it at that.” Tony stood. “Call Helen tomorrow for your blood test results. My best to Carmen if you see her.”

  I left his office and walked into a commotion in the reception area. Two little boys I remembered from Paco’s wake pulled at each other and at the skirt of the wild-eyed young mother trying to soothe the screaming baby in her arms. A blood-soaked towel covered the baby’s arm; a red bump swelled on his forehead.

  Helen brushed past me to the mother. “Mrs. Lopez, what happened?”

  “His arm. He fell down the steps. His arm.” She kissed the baby’s head. “Senora Rojas hexed him. The bruja broke my baby’s arm.”

  Chapter Eight

  Helen spotted the bloody towel on the baby’s arm and said, “Jackson, get someone to take the other children to the playroom. I have to get the baby into an exam room right now.”

  The boys, bursting with the raucous energy of four-year-olds, broke loose and darted across the room to a braided little girl on the chair next to Nick. Mrs. Lopez hesitated. The baby shrieked in her arms.

  “Take the baby and go with Helen,” I said. “I’ll watch your children.”

  Mrs. Lopez whispered gracias and followed the nurse into the hall to the exam rooms. The boys stood side by side on a chair, fighting to push each other off. Before I could reach them, one jumped down and made a break for the front door.

  “Whoa.” I caught him by the scruff of his T-shirt. “I bet there are games in the playroom for boys just like you. Does that sound like fun?”

  He nodded his brown curly head and then pointed at the little girl. “Is Maria allowed, too? She’s six.”

  “Yes, but here’s the deal. The gamekeeper only lets quiet children in the playroom. Think you and your brother can be quiet for a little bit? Good games. I saw them.”

  Both boys agreed with enthusiasm. This childcare thing was easier than I thought. I sat next to Maria and let the boys crawl onto my lap. But the boys didn’t just sit. In an endless succession of motion they squiggled for comfort, picked at each other, and toyed with my hands and arms with sticky fingers.

  Maria, in pink from her T-shirt down to the laces on her sneakers, had Nick engaged. “And then the witch put a hex on us because I know because I heard her and there were lots of sirens last night then today my baby brother fell down the stairs and my mother said we can’t go outside to play anymore until the hex is gone or the witch is dead.”

  “Don’t worry, Maria,” I said. “There are no such things as hexes.”

  Maria glared at me. “Are too. The hex pushed my baby brother down the steps. My mother said so.”

  Nick, in a voice serious enough to hush a courtroom, said to Maria, “Scary stuff. I think your situation requires an antidoto. Do you believe in magic?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Fairy godmothers and good spells?” He leaned in, as if to share a secret.

  Another nod from Maria. The boys slid off my lap and huddled at Nick’s knees.

  “You’re in luck,” Nick said. “I happen to carry magic hex-breaking pills. If I give each of you one to break the hex, will you promise to behave and obey your mother?”

  The children bobbed their heads. Nick rose, turning his back to us. I heard a small rattle as he slipped something out of his pocket.

  He faced us. “Open your hands.”

  Three small palms stretched in front of him.

  Nick put an oval white mint into each hand. “Put this on your tongue. Don’t chew. When the magic pill dissolves, the hex will be gone.”

  The boys shoved the mints in their mouths.

  Maria studied the mint, doubtful. “This is a Tic Tac.”

  “Are you sure?” Nick said. “Sometimes magic comes in disguise.”

  Maria turned to me. “Do you believe in magic pills?”

  Her big brown eyes shone up at me, waiting, as I mulled a way to translate my skepticism into child-speak. “I believe in the power of little girls,” I said.

  She squinted at me, unconvinced, and popped the mint into her mouth.

  A health care assistant in blue scrubs approached our little group. “Are these the Lopez children?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Are you the gamekeeper?”

  Her chuckled yes satisfied the boys. She took their hands, and they trotted with her toward the playroom door in the hall off the lobby.

  Maria lingered in front of Nick. “Can I have magic pills for my Mom and baby brother, too?” He gave her two mints. She thanked him and ran after her brothers.

  Nick caught me shaking my head. “What?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—advocating magical thinking, giving candy to children?”

  “All children engage in magical thinking. The mints made the kids feel safe and in control.”

  “Nice. But I’d rather stop the hex rumor from snowballing,” I said.

  “We could wait for the whole family to come out, then weigh them down with facts. While we’re at it, we can tell them about Santa and the Easter Bunny, too. And about your story that only quiet children are allowed in the playroom. Don’t judge me while you swap truths with lie
s for your convenience,” Nick said with a cheeky grin.

  I put out my hand. “I’ll take a mint.”

  “Hex insurance?”

  I put the mint on my tongue. “No, I’m hungry.”

  “I’ll take one of those,” Jackson said from behind her desk. “I want the insurance. Mrs. Lopez was the third patient today blaming her problems on the hex. The whole neighborhood is in an uproar about black magic. Take my advice, don’t either one of you go near the witch across the street. Mind your own business. That’s my medical advice to everybody today.”

  “Lucia Rojas was upset yesterday,” I said, walking to the desk. “She just lost her husband. She doesn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

  “Honey, upset or not, black magic is black magic.” Jackson called across the room to Nick, “Hey, boyfriend. Where’s my magic pill?”

  Nick tossed Jackson the box of mints and then opened the front door. As we stepped outside he said, “I called Lucia’s apartment while I was waiting for you. Lucia is taking a nap so we have to kill some time. How hungry are you?”

  “Very.” I touched the cotton ball taped over the pinprick on my arm. “And I want a cookie.”

  When we reached the street, three young men with bandannas dangling from their jean pockets leaned against the low cement wall bordering the parking lot. They chewed on toothpicks, watching traffic pass like fans at a tennis match.

  I cocked my head in their direction. “Those guys are here every time I come to the clinic or visit Lucia.”

  “I noticed them, too. They’re gang members,” Nick said.

  “How can you tell?”

  “The tattoos, the colored bandannas, the attitude,” he said.

  “Maybe they know something about the men who shot Paco,” I said as we walked along 7th Street toward MacArthur Park.

  “If they know, they won’t tell you. You’re an outsider. They’d take your naïveté as an invitation to snatch your purse.” Nick glanced across the street. The “CLOSED” sign was in Botanica Rojas’s front window. “I think I’ll spend a few afternoons at the botanica to talk to Paco and Lucia’s customers.”

  “Talk about outsiders. You look like—”

  Nick shook his head and swept his fingers through his sandy brown hair. “A wealthy financier? A sports agent? I was going for both when I dressed this morning.”

  “A professor. A cute professor.”

  We passed the line of people waiting outside Langer’s Deli, home of the legendary #19 Pastrami Sandwich. Across the street in MacArthur Park, children played soccer and couples sunned themselves on the grass.

  “No wonder people write song lyrics about MacArthur Park—it’s so beautiful,” I said.

  “The park was renamed for General MacArthur after World War II, otherwise Donna Summer and Richard Harris would be singing about a soggy cake in rainy Westlake Park.”

  “Soggy cake?”

  “The song, ‘MacArthur Park.’ The cake in the rain?”

  I laughed. “Right. My Mom loves that song. I never understood the lyrics.”

  We rounded the corner onto Alvarado Street and headed south, sauntering amid shoppers at stalls lining the sidewalk. Merchandise spilled from table and wall displays of jewelry, stereos and cell phones, games, fabrics, and food. Banded bundles of socks and underwear were stacked outside a dress shop with rows of party dresses, First Communion suits and dresses, and pastel Quinceañera gowns on the walls inside.

  Ahead of us, a toddler, fluffed out in red and white polka dots and a crinoline petticoat, stretched out her arm to a stuffed pink pony hanging on a display. Barely able to reach the pony on her tiptoes, the tot pulled at the old woman holding her other hand.

  “Quiero, Abuela.” I want, Grandmother.

  I smiled at the woman and said, “Your granddaughter is adorable.”

  The woman gaped at me in horror. She picked up the tot, spat into the child’s hair, and rubbed the gob in. Then she darted into the shop with the little girl in tears.

  I turned to Nick, surprised and repulsed. “What was that about?”

  “She spat on the girl to protect her from the evil eye.”

  “The evil eye? I called the child adorable.”

  “You called her adorable but you didn’t block your envy by touching her. The compliment triggered the evil eye.” Nick spoke like I had ignored a well-known fact.

  “Why would she take my compliment as envy?”

  “Some cultures believe compliments mask envy with a wish for harm. Babies and young children are the most vulnerable. Touching erases the envy. Some people use spit.”

  I pretended to spit on my hand then patted his head. “You’re so smart. I promise not to insult any more children today.”

  Two shops down we came to a botanica with a handmade sign in the window: Protección de la Maldición. Curse protection.

  Nick stopped. “Talk about opportunism.”

  Oscar Estevez waved through the botanica window and came outside. With his shoe polish–black pompadour, black chevron mustache, and blackened eyebrows, I likened him to an old-school cowboy bandit with a bad dye job. His beer gut pushed at the black buttons on his long-sleeved white shirt. Heeled cowboy boots brought him close to my height.

  He raked his eyes over my body, then cocked his head at Nick. “What are you doing here?”

  “We came down for a late lunch.”

  “You can forget Fidencio’s,” Oscar said, pointing down the block. “A fire gutted the place last night.”

  I stepped off the curb to look, and saw yellow police tape cordoning off the sidewalk on the next block. Black soot covered the bricks on the front of Fidencio’s restaurant. The windows were boarded.

  “What happened?” Nick said.

  “Grease fire in the kitchen. The cook blamed it on the hex. My protection spell business tripled this morning. I sold out of protection oils and candles before noon.” Oscar smirked. “Lucia did me a big favor by scaring the shit out of everybody. She’ll probably lose her business because of it. Maybe I’ll buy her out.”

  “She won’t sell,” Nick said.

  “So you say,” Oscar said. “But she and Paco should have left the neighborhood a long time ago. The old man was losing friends with his anti-gang crap.”

  Nick spread his hands. “The man just died, Oscar. Have a little respect.”

  “Respect?” Oscar shrugged. “Paco wasn’t the beloved old santero he pretended to be. I’m not the only one thinking good riddance.”

  A punk with a shaved head and goatee sashayed to the botanica door. The muscles on his arms and chest, covered with tattoos, popped beneath his black T-shirt. He lowered his sunglasses, spit on the sidewalk, and eyed at Oscar to go inside.

  “Customer,” Oscar said. “Later, Nick.”

  After they disappeared into the shop, I said, “Tough guys or just crude?”

  “Oscar caters to the criminal element Paco and Lucia didn’t want in their shop—the gangs and drug cartel members who worship Santa Muerte for protection from the law. There.” Nick pointed through Oscar’s window to a statue of a skeleton shrouded in a cloak of play money, with the scales of justice in one hand and a globe in the other. “Santa Muerte, the saint of death.”

  “Is Oscar in a Santa Muerte cult?”

  “He feigns neutrality, but he plays up a resemblance to Jesús Malverde, a twentieth-century Mexican bandit often worshipped with Santa Muerte.” Nick pointed again, this time to a crude bust of a caballero with the same black-buttoned white shirt, black hair, brows, and chevron mustache Oscar wore. “Malverde was Mexico’s Robin Hood, the saint of drug traffickers. Oscar collects everything he can find on Malverde. C’mon.” Nick took my hand, tugging me up the block. “Lupita’s Taco Truck should be right around the corner.”

  “Truck food?” I said, skeptical.

  Food trucks were big business in Los Angeles. Most were innovative and fun, but a few were downright scary. When we crossed the street, I turned the corner with hesitation,
but customers were lined up outside Lupita’s Taco Truck like it was free food day. We ordered and ate on a bus bench, balancing plates on our laps while afternoon traffic crawled by. My doubts were erased with the first bite of my carne asada, heaped with grilled steak in a jalapeño and tequila flavored marinade, topped with avocado, tomatoes, panela cheese, and fresh cilantro. Hot sauce heaven.

  “If José Saldivar was dealing drugs, maybe he was into Santa Muerte. Oscar might have known him.” I popped a radish in my mouth.

  “Saldivar was in a gang from Boyle Heights. I doubt he shopped in a rival neighborhood.”

  “But Saldivar was shot in rival territory. Maybe Oscar heard something on the street from the local gangs,” I said.

  “The street isn’t talking. You heard Dave and Bailey. Gang members would rather go to jail than snitch and face retaliation. Paco and Saldivar were shot on a city street without witnesses? Teresa Suarez didn’t recognize the shooters or remember anything she saw? No one stopped or came forward?” Nick sneered. “Without witnesses the case will go cold. Paco and the kid deserve better.”

  “If Oscar knew something, would he tell you?”

  Nick took the last bite of his carne asada, crunched the paper plate into a paper bag, then smiled. “Maybe. He’s arrogant. He likes to show off. He might confide in me. For a price.”

  I stood up. “Then we should go back.”

  “He won’t talk in front of you. I’ll come back alone and catch him off-guard.” Nick tossed our garbage in a trash can and took my hand. “Ready for that cookie?”

  We crossed Alvarado to a panaderia, following the nutty scent of baked goods inside to a row of glass cases filled with fresh conchitas, empanadas, and sugared galettas. I bought a dozen Mexican wedding cakes, a favorite of Lucia’s, and ate one while Nick paid. We made our way up the block at a quick pace. Trotting in heels through a crowd kept me from dipping in the bag for a second cookie. When we rounded the corner onto 7th, the sidewalk traffic thinned to a trickle.

  “I see lights on inside,” Nick said as we neared Botanica Rojas. “Lucia opened the shop.”

  “I’m glad. Going back to work is a positive step for her.”