I nodded at my hot plate. “I could’ve cooked, at least.”
She gestured at the pizza box. “What’s the matter, you don’t like Father and Son?”
I looked around the room. “Eating at the restaurant itself would’ve been better.”
“Get over it.” She handed me her coat.
I hung it.
Xochitl grabbed two six-packs out of her shopping bag and stacked the beers in my little fridge, except for two, which she handed me to open. She stacked two plates with sausage pizza, and moved with hers to the edge of the bed.
I dragged my lone chair to face her.
Xochitl spoke with her mouth full. “My feet are killing me.” The same black leather boots from the other night wrapped her calves to the knees.
I put my plate down. “Let me help you with those.”
She let me unzip each boot and place it neatly in the corner. She pulled her legs under, Indian-style, on the bed, and had to bend way down to find her beer on the floor. We ate, drank, and listened to the postgame analysis on the radio.
Xochitl polished a Corona, then stood and went to the shopping bag. “Te compré un regalo.”
She handed me a small gift-wrapped box. I put my plate on the table.
“Why?”
“What a question. Open it.”
I unwrapped it. “A tape recorder?”
“That’s what it says.”
“For taping shit off the radio?”
“No. For recording your own voice.”
“I don’t sing, Xochitl.”
“Talking.”
“About what?”
She took the box and opened it. “I already put in batteries.” She removed the tape recorder from the box and rewound. “Listen.” On tape Xochitl recited “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” “I had to test it. You should record those stories of yours. I know you can’t see writing them. Maybe if you hear yourself, it’ll do something for you.”
I examined the tape recorder. “Think I got something to say, Xoch?”
“If you keep it real. The guy at the store said you don’t have to crowd the mic so much. It’ll record from across the room.”
“Sweet.”
Xochitl was on her knees, on the floor, in front of me. I was still in the chair.
“You gonna use the tape recorder?”
“Every day,” I said.
“Will you let me listen to the results?”
“What would be the point of doing it if I didn’t?”
A huge smile splayed across Xochitl’s face. “I told you to be honest. But it’s cute that you felt you needed to say that.”
I leaned down to give Xochitl a quick kiss and my cell phone began to ring. I went over to the top of the bureau and checked it. Tony’s name and number popped up.
I hit the reject button.
“Who’s that?” she said.
“Remember that friend I told you about?”
“The one who’s messed up?”
“He’s been calling like crazy for the past few days. I don’t feel like talking to him.”
“Too much drama?”
“He’s always trying to get something, and his mind is not all there. I’m sick of dealing with him.”
Xochitl checked out the view of the skyline. “You can see more than I would have guessed.” She went back in the shopping bag. “I’m glad you have a CD player. Look what I got you.” She handed me a copy of Rumours.
I said, “I haven’t seen this album cover in almost thirty years.”
“Sorry, I opened it,” she said. “I couldn’t resist. I didn’t know what kind of music you were talking about. I recognized some from the radio, though. Number six is my favorite.”
I flipped it over. “ ‘Songbird’?”
She put it on and played it. I felt a very dim, distant recollection. Xochitl stood behind me at the window and put her arms around me. We listened to the entire song. I wondered if Xochitl was trying to tell me something. But I didn’t have the nerve to ask.
“Did you learn anything, Xochitl?”
“Yes. We have different tastes in music.”
I slapped Xochitl on the butt. She giggled. I took her face into both hands and gave her a succulent kiss.
“Is there anything that we both like?”
Xochitl angled her head, and we kissed again and found our way to the bed. I sat her on the edge and kneeled. I kissed her and let my hands travel. Her chest rose and fell. I moved to her neck, then down her neck. When she pulled off her sweater and tugged at her bra, I swallowed her brown nipple. I massaged her in slow circles over the leggings and felt her moisture through the cloth. Her breathing quickened. I kissed her stomach and felt the scar. Then I sank lower, peeled off her leggings and panties, and let my mouth go the rest of the way.
Afterward, we lay in bed, held hands, and stared at the ceiling.
Xochitl squeezed. “You have a soft touch.”
I looked at my other hand. “You think?”
“Not the skin, the skin is tough. I mean your way. Tu manera de ser.”
“Um. Is that good?”
“That strong beat comes in handy.”
“I like your rhythm too, Xoch.”
“So everybody’s happy.”
We listened to the cars on the avenue below.
“Xochitl, I been wondering.”
She didn’t say anything or gesture in any way for me to continue.
“If this is too sensitive, tell me.”
“I will.”
“What was it that made you feel so pressured? With your parents, I mean.”
“Does it matter now?”
“Maybe.”
Xochitl didn’t let go of my hand. “I don’t know. It was never a clear thought.”
I listened.
Xochitl rolled over on her side to face me. She propped her head on her elbow and I took in her full stomach.
“I was an infant when we crossed the border. My father carried me. My mother and her brother carried the belongings.”
“Your old man swam with you on his back?”
“It was supposed to be shallow. There were ten or twelve of us. Halfway, the river suddenly went to their armpits. My father held me above his head. Some people got swept away. The coyote himself went under. Those who made it were scattered along the riverbank. My parents and mother’s brother found each other. They joined other survivors.”
“Thank God.”
“Most supplies got lost. The coyote was gone. No guide in the desert.”
“That’s fucked.”
“They were supposed to meet others who would bring them to Amarillo. My father’s buddy was taking us to Chicago.”
“Underground Railroad.”
“Without a conductor. We wandered in the heat. It was freezing at night.”
“You remember all this?”
“I’ve heard the story so many times.”
“Everybody must’ve been freaking out.”
“Some men fought. Everybody got sunburned. They hunted possums, I think, but there was no water. My father says he thought about his mother a lot. On the fifth day my mother’s brother died of dehydration. They had to leave his body.”
“Poor thing.”
“The next day they found a road. A passing trucker brought them to a hospital.”
Xochitl and I lay on our sides, face-to-face. I brushed the hair away from her brown eyes.
“What a nightmare.” I wanted to make Xochitl feel better, but didn’t know how.
“My whole life, my parents, they lay it on how they came to this country for me. To give me and then my sisters, who were born here, an opportunity.”
“Parents talk like that.”
“My mother has this way. Like you never deserved her sacrifice. Like she might have been something.”
“You felt guilty.”
“She wanted me to. I don’t know, Eddie. I never talk about these things.”
Xochitl’s eyes watered. I pul
led her into my chest and kissed the top of her head. It felt good to feel the heat of her breath on my skin. We spent the rest of that Sunday in bed.
CHAPTER 23:
CONFESSION
After Xochitl left, I lay around feeling lonely. I thought of calling her, but knew that was desperate. I thought about recording something on the tape player like she wanted, but couldn’t think of anything.
Around nine at night I heard someone climb the stairs, real slow, with a strange, almost unnatural rhythm to his step. I realized it had to be Pelón with his bad hip.
I opened my door and went to the top of the stairs. He was halfway up the last flight, but he rested against the wall.
“Diablo,” he said, out of breath.
“What’re you doing here?”
“I can’t visit?”
I went back to my room, left the door open, stretched out on the bed with my hands behind my head. Slowly, Pelón hobbled the rest of his way up, then down the hall to my room. He caught his breath and grinned.
“Shut the door behind you.”
He did. He turned and stood and leaned on his cane. He was wearing glasses, and I remembered that he sometimes used to wear them in the past, but realized that I had not seen him wearing any since I got out. His prescription had gotten very thick. I didn’t invite Pelón to sit.
He looked around the room. “Antonio say he no see you no more. You don’t return his calls.”
“Are you his secretary now?”
Pelón pursed his lips. “Who bit you to put you in such a bad mood?” He hobbled over to my window and nodded.
I knew Pelón would not leave until he got his point across. “Help yourself to that chair.”
He plopped in it, gritted his dentures, and released a burst, like a machine that depends on compressed air might do when it breaks down. In Spanish he said, “Bones don’t help like they used to.”
“That’s what you get for living so long.”
Pelón creased his eye. “Think you can offer me somesing to drink?”
“I got nothing.”
“Not even a glass of water?”
I almost said no, but I got up, got a cup, went to the bathroom, and half-filled it.
Pelón smiled. “This didn’t come from the toilet, did it?”
“Taste it and find out.”
If that made Pelón nervous, he didn’t let on. He took a pillbox out of his breast pocket, and popped two of them. “Percocet. Don’t know how I could make it without them.”
“Why did you come here?”
Pelón nodded like, Yes, yes, business. “I wanted to talk to you about the police.”
“What about them?”
Pelón tapped his cane against the floor. “They dirty.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“No,” he said. “They real dirty. Evil.”
I don’t know if Pelón paused to give me a chance to respond, but I waited for whatever else he had to say.
“They gonna try to turn you, Eddie.”
“Turn me against what?”
“You own people. Antonio. Me.”
“Who says I’m with you jerk-offs?”
“They want what I got.”
“Why would they think they can leverage me against you, Pelón? Who the fuck am I to you?”
“You the fourth man, Eddie. I need you to get the job done, and they know it. They can smell these things. They want everything.”
“Whatta you mean, ‘everything,’ Pelón?”
“Everything. La Esquina Caliente. They buying property around there.”
“Real estate?”
“Sí. That’s what they do.”
“Coltrane and Johnson?”
Pelón nodded. “They buyin’ lots of buildings. Houses.”
I thought about that for a second. I didn’t see what anything like that had to do with Pelón. Or with me, for that matter. “That sounds expensive. But why do I give a fuck?”
“That’s why they keep this war going.”
“What war?”
“Between Antonio and Cucaracha. That’s why they like it. They know while everything hot around there, the values ain’t gonna go too high. They can just buy, buy, buy. Then when they own as much as they can, they clean up the block and the value goes up.”
It sounded far-fetched. “What’s your angle on all of this?”
“I’m the one who came up with the idea.”
Now we skated way out there. Pelón just admitted that he was in business with Coltrane and Johnson. In Spanish he said, “Who you think poisoned Roach’s material?”
“The cops?”
Pelón raised his eyebrows like, Who else?
“That’s crazy.”
“That kid in the park?” he said. “Who you think shot him? Follow the money.”
I thought about the fact that the kid was shot with a .38 on the same night that the narcs had recovered a .38 from Tony’s car. And how later they were real cocky about their ability to link that very weapon to the murder.
I said, “What could they possibly gain from all that?”
“I tole you. They keep the war going and keep the property values down until they can’t buy no more. They tryin’ to control the market. Tony’s operation is on the corner, out in the open. Any enemy can drive by and spray bullets. Roach thinks Tony is his enemy. Tony thinks Roach is the enemy. They both just puppets.”
“You got a wild imagination.”
“I already ran this scam. Over there by Wicker Park. You remember how that was? Now for this piece, I brought in these two, and it was my biggest mistake. I was the bank, their name was on the deed with me, through some dummy companies. I thought it was perfect because they could give protection. That was my mistake. Now, these hijos de putas are X-ing me out.”
“Why?”
“They don’t need me no more.”
I didn’t follow.
Pelón’s face began to sag. “Estoy pela’o.”
“Huh?” It’d been so long since I’d heard it put that way, it took me a second to figure out what he meant. “You’re broke?”
I thought about Pelón’s apartment. His peacock’s fan worth of hundreds in the back of the limo after the racetrack. But I also remembered how the narcs had said he was “bleedin’ like a stuck pig.”
I said, “Tony said you own bodegas.”
“I used to.”
“A bunch of buildings in Wicker Park?”
“Gone. I lost it all.”
“How?”
“Taxes.”
“The IRS?”
Pelón made a face. “Uy. Don’t even mention those animals. They’re the ones who got Capone.”
“Why didn’t you pay?”
Pelón looked at the floor. “Everybody has a weakness.”
“You spent all that money on hookers?”
“Gambling. Those goddamn casino boats. The freaking high rollers’ table.” Pelón shook his head. “I used to think that I was in control.”
Pelón talked about the cycle. First he went for the fun, entertainment, with friends. Then by himself, because he was lonely and bored.
“I bet, and sometimes I win big. Then I bet more. That’s how it sucks you. You put more on the table every time, trying to get back what you lost. You start chasing it. Everything disappears down the little hole. Is like a slow fire.”
“Your condo?”
“We in court right now. The bank is taking it.”
“What about the money Tony brought to your house that night?”
“That was nothing. Just a loan. The Mexican is a shylock.”
“Your winnings at the racetrack? Curly-Q?”
Pelón shook his head. “After I drop you and Antonio off that night, I went straight to a casino boat. I came home with eight hundred dollars.”
“You blew seventy thousand in one night? How’s that possible?”
“When the Devil is determined, he doesn’t sleep.”
“Jesus. What abo
ut your limo?”
“I bought that car used. Is not worth much. I had to lay off my driver. Now I’m driving it myself.”
If I were more sophisticated, I might’ve thought that the way in which Pelón had an answer for everything was proof that he thought about it too much and was therefore lying. Somehow, instinctively, I saw past all that reasoning, and I took Pelón at his word.
I said, “So you’re really busted. That’s why you’re so hot to do this job.”
“They got a lotta money on that boat. A lot of it was mine.”
I nodded.
“I know that boat inside out. I know every routine. The schedule, the movements. I ain’t done nothing but think about this. Success is guaranteed.” Pelón put his hand out. “You gonna be the fourth man.”
I stood and shook his hand, the one with the missing fingers. “I wish I could say that everything is gonna work out for you, Pelón, but I don’t think that’s the case. For the last time, count me out.”
Pelón’s weak smile went straight to shit.
I went to the door, opened it, and kept my hand on the knob. “I’m sure I’ll read about your adventures one day.”
Pelón sat in my lone chair, in the middle of my tiny room, disappointed, not believing that he’d just been dismissed.
My posture left room for no doubt.
Pelón hoisted himself out of the chair slowly and hobbled up to me. “Sometimes the young, they don’t know what’s good for them.”
“I’m not that young anymore.”
“You should see yourself through my eyes.” Pelón put his hat on, tilted it, and went out.
I shut the door and went to the window to watch. The limo was across the street. A long time later, Pelón emerged from my building. He hobbled slowly. Sure enough, he let himself in behind the wheel of the long white limo, and chauffeured himself to wherever else he had to go.
After Pelón left, I thought about the things that I knew about him, the money I knew that he made all those years before, when Tony and I were affiliated with him on the burglaries. The money he tried to make. Pelón always had his hand in something.
After the stash house job, where Pelón made like a raging elephant and crushed the wheelchair guy’s head with a tusk, my crew and I avoided doing anything but routine burglaries with him. Mansion jobs where we were assured of nobody being home were a staple. Breaking into warehouses at night was fun too. My crew and I also made money flipping cocaine. We didn’t need to do anything more dangerous than that. Eventually, Pelón came to our loft and spoke to me, Tony, and GQ about another high-risk venture.
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