Being one of Father Leo’s altar boys meant there would be many rules to follow. Big Boy had to be sure there were enough hosts for the masses he served, and that the wine was ready in the chalice when the priest walked into the sacristy. The door to the priest’s closet containing his vestments was to be unlocked, the candles on the altar had to be lit, and the Bible Father Leo read from placed on the altar and opened to the reading of the day.
Big Boy felt as if Father Leo could look right through him. He sometimes saw the priest kneeling down in front of a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus before mass, his face in his hands. He seemed like he was praying, maybe listening to the voice of Jesus in his head. Big Boy felt as if the priest was watching him around the girls who came up to receive Communion during mass. He had ordered him not to think nasty thoughts, and since that time, that was all Big Boy thought about. He remembered Quincy, a black kid from juvie, who had told him all there was to know about girls, and that real men did it to them, and didn’t ask any questions. Big Boy wasn’t sure what “did it to them” meant, but he was hoping to find out, maybe from Ernestina, one of Nanda’s friends.
Big Boy had gotten into the habit of watching Ernestina at school every chance he got, noticing how her sweater plunged into a V, showing the smooth skin of her neck, and lower still, to the outline of her breasts, almost identical to Nanda’s. He got his courage up one day at lunch and talked to her at the drinking fountain, towering over her, even though she was a year older than him.
“Have you seen Nanda around?”
“Nah, she’s gone. Her mom won’t say where. I think she went to California.” Ernestina took a drink from the fountain and the water dribbled from her lips to her chin and onto her chest. It took all of Big Boy’s strength not to reach over and brush the drops of water from her chin and kiss her. She watched him, suddenly tossing her head and laughing out loud at something somebody said to her, then she walked past Big Boy like he wasn’t even there.
“I’m so proud of you,” Big Boy’s mother said to him one Sunday morning at breakfast. “My own son, serving mass! Maybe someday you’ll be a priest … Yes, I want you to think about it.” She picked up Big Boy’s three-year-old sister in her arms. “Lizzie can get married and have kids someday, but I want you to be a priest, a saint, like Father Leo. If it weren’t for him, I don’t know where we’d be. He brought me a food box the other day and had the sodality help me pay the rent. I tell you he’s a saint! Now he’s watching over you. Franco called him the other day to see how you were doing, and Father gave him a good report.”
“Why did my PO call Father?” Big Boy asked.
“I told him Father Leo was as good as your own dad, and better because he’s really taking an interest in you, so he put him down as your mentor. I tell you, God’s blessing us!”
Big Boy trudged to St. Anthony’s that morning to serve 10 a.m. mass, and thought of Father Leo looking through him, reading his thoughts, and now he was talking to Franco.
Walking home after mass, Big Boy decided to go by Nanda’s apartment. He walked past the bakery and El Toro Restaurant to cross Central Avenue and get to Nanda’s, all the while watching out for any of the boys who normally hung around that section of the projects. Maybe one of them would want to challenge him for coming into their territory, then he’d need a good excuse, or he’d have to fight to get out. He saw no one. It was a spring day, the weather warm. He saw kids playing a baseball game at Harmon Park in the distance, and caught sight of the park’s swings, the old rusty merry-go-round, and the bathrooms, the faded walls marked up by gang signs, and he longed for Nanda. He longed to see her one more time, look into her sad eyes, watch her take flight, then catch her in his arms again and fill her with kisses, slowly caressing each breast.
Big Boy noticed the black Oldsmobile parked in front of Nanda’s apartment and peered into the car’s window, this time not spotting the girl’s jacket. He saw boxes in the backseat, luggage and papers strewn around.
“Hey!” yelled a man coming out of Nanda’s apartment. “What do you think you’re doing? Get away from there!” The guy was tall, over six feet, wearing a jacket in spite of the warm day. He had sunglasses on, and wore a beret cocked at an angle.
“I’m not doing anything,” Big Boy answered, “I was just wondering … if you’ve seen Nanda.”
“And who would be wanting to know?” asked the guy, walking leisurely up to Big Boy, lighting a cigarette.
“A friend.”
“She ain’t got no friends … cousins maybe, but friends?”
Big Boy felt his stomach cramp as the guy leaned next to the car, puffing on his cigarette. He stuck the cigarette in his mouth as he rolled up his sleeves to show off his tats, blue webs that climbed up his arms.
Big Boy wanted to walk away, disappear like Nanda had, but now that he was so close to this man who had just walked out of her apartment, he was determined to get some information from him.
“Are you from Las Vegas?”
“Yeah, and who wants to know?”
“Big Boy.”
“You ain’t that big. Nobody’s big, we’re all the same size. Ain’t nobody can outrun a bullet.” Then he laughed as he saw Big Boy’s face turn pale. “Want a cigarette?”
“Nah, that’s okay.”
“Ah, yeah, Nanda. Now, there’s a girl, if you know what I mean. Now, she’s big in all the right places.” He laughed again, gruffly. “Right, Big Boy? Is that what you want? Some action?” The guy sneered, then reached into his pocket to take out his car keys. “I gotta go,” he said. “Ain’t got no time to be talking to big boys who are full of shit. Is Franco your PO?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Been on the streets all my life. Tell that son of a bitch he owes me. He owes Chano, and I ain’t forgot.” Then he climbed into the Olds, and Big Boy stood watching the car creep down the street, thinking how Nanda would have looked sitting next to Chano, smoking a cigarette.
Months went by, the whole summer, and other girls joined the boys at Harmon Park—Ernestina and Yvette and a few others who were loud and bossy and played hard to get, but let themselves be caught in the end. Atalia visited Big Boy and told him to stay away from Harmon unless he wanted to get involved with narcos and floozies who did it with everybody. No matter what she told him, Harmon Park drew Big Boy like a magnet, leering at him with memories of Nanda, soft, fleshy breasts, rich warm places inside her he’d like to get to. Sometimes tears crawled down Big Boy’s face late at night as he thought of Nanda disappearing like a puff of smoke, and everybody moving on with their lives, as if it didn’t matter at all. Maybe she was living in Las Vegas—dancing at a casino. But she was too young for that … or maybe she was dead. When Big Boy said the word dead in his mind, he flinched, as if he had been hit in the face. Dead, her body lying out some-where in the desert. Big Boy closed his eyes tight to block out the thought.
On the anniversary of Nanda’s disappearance, Father Leo called Big Boy into his office.
“Stop moping around about that girl,” he said nonchalantly. “I know you’re trying to figure out where she is. If I were you, I’d drop it. Clean heart, remember? I think you need another confession, you’re way overdue. Confession on Saturday, at 2 p.m. Be there.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Oh, by the way, Franco says you’re almost ready to be released from probation, and I told him you were totally repented—no more shoplifting at Woolworth’s. Right, Big Boy?”
“Right.”
“You don’t want to follow in the footsteps of Chano—you know, the guy who visits Nanda’s family sometimes.”
Big Boy looked up at Father Leo, surprised that he knew anything about Chano. Maybe he had visited him in prison, or heard his confession. Then he saw Father Leo smile broadly, as if he had just caught Big Boy sneaking a sip of wine from the chalice. He pulled open the drawer on his desk and reached in, taking out a silver chain with a small cross. He watched Big Boy closely, saw
the fear in his eyes as the boy glimpsed the chain he had given Nanda in Father Leo’s hand.
“I want you to give this to Ernestina,” Father Leo said quietly, leaning close to Big Boy. “You understand, don’t you?” He waited, dangling the chain in midair between them.
Then he sat back as Big Boy took the silver chain from his hand and dropped it in his pocket.
“Confession on Saturday, don’t forget,” Father Leo said.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
MEGAN ABBOTT is the Edgar Award–winning author of Queenpin, The Song Is You, and Die a Little, as well as the non-fiction study, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir. She is the editor of the collection A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir. Her fourth novel, Bury Me Deep, is loosely based on the Winnie Ruth Judd “Trunk Murderess” case from 1930s Phoenix.
ROBERT ANGLEN is an investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic who has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize; in 2005, the Arizona Press Club named him journalist of the year. Born in Los Angeles, he has worked as a skip tracer, bill collector, cab driver, and process server. His stories have appeared in newspapers, magazines, and several anthologies, including Night Terrors and Diablo. He and his wife are parents of triplets.
LEE CHILD, the author of twelve best-selling novels, has been a television director, union organizer, theater technician, and law student. He was born in England but now lives in New York City, and leaves the island of Manhattan only when required to by forces beyond his control.
DAVID CORBETT is the author of three critically acclaimed novels: ThThThe Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime(a New York Times Notable Book), and Blood of Paradise— which was nominated for numerous awards. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, including San Francisco Noir and Las Vegas Noir, and he contributed a chapter to the world’s first serial audio thriller, The Chopin Manuscript. Corbett lives in Vallejo, California.
STELLA POPE DUARTE has won two creative writing fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, for Fragile Night and Let Their Spirits Dance, her highly acclaimed debut novel. Duarte has won honors and awards nationwide, and her most recent novel, If I Die in Juárez, is the story of the over 400 young women brutally murdered in Ciudad Juárez. Currently, she teaches creative writing for an assortment of college, university, and community-based programs. She lives in Phoenix.
DIANA GABALDON is the author of the award-winning, New York Times best-selling Outlander novels and the Lord John Grey novels. Gabaldon holds several advanced degrees in science and spent a dozen years as a university professor with an expertise in scientific computation before beginning to write fiction. A third-generation Arizonan, Gabaldon lives with her husband in Scottsdale.
DOGO BARRY GRAHAM is a novelist, poet, screenwriter, social activist, and Zen Buddhist monk whose works include The Book of Man, Before, and Kill Your Self. His nonfifiction has appeared in such national magazines as Harper’s and Flaunt.
Originally from Scotland, he has traveled widely and has made his home in the U.S. since 1995. He lives in Phoenix, where he is the abbot of the Sitting Frog Zen Sangha. His blog, The Urban Monk, can be found at the-urban-monk.livejournal.com.
CHARLES KELLY, as a reporter for the Arizona Republic, found missing heirs, investigated the 1976 bomb murder of Republic reporter Don Bolles, and helped a falsely convicted American tugboat captain get out of a Mexican prison. He is the author of the novel Pay Here and is currently working on a new novel as well as a biography of the hardboiled writer Dan J. Marlowe. Kelly lives in Scottsdale.
PATRICK MILLIKIN is a bookseller at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale. As a freelance writer, his articles, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Publishers Weekly, Firsts Magazine, Paradoxa, Your flesh Quarterly, and other publications. Born in Los Angeles, he moved to Arizona in 1972 and grew up in Scottsdale. Millikin currently lives in central Phoenix.
GARY PHILLIPS has been a community organizer, taught incarcerated youth, was a union rep, and worked for one of those shadowy 527s. He has written hard-boiled books and such for a long damn time. His short stories have appeared in several previous Akashic Noir Series volumes, among other publications.
KURT REICHENBAUGH grew up in Tampa, Florida and earned his English degree at Florida State University. He has lived since 1990 in Phoenix, where his day job is grinding out financial spreadsheets for a life insurance company. His stories have appeared in Sounds of the Night, Tales from the Moonlit Path, and Niteblade. He has recently completed his first novel and is working on his second.
JAMES SALLIS is the author of over thirty books, as well as hundreds of stories, poems, and essays. Perhaps best known for his New Orleans–set Lew Griffin detective series, Sallis has also written Drive, a modern noir classic soon to be adapted into a film starring Hugh Jackman. Sallis teaches creative writing at Phoenix College and Arizona State University. An accomplished musician, he performs regularly around town, both as a solo artist and with his trio, Three-Legged Dog.
JON TALTON is the author of the David Mapstone mysteries, including Dry Heat and Cactus Heart, as well as The Pain Nurse. A fourth-generation Arizonan, Talton has worked for newspapers around the country, including as a columnist for the Arizona Republic. Before journalism, he spent four years as an ambulance medic in Phoenix. He now lives in Seattle, where he is economy columnist for the Seattle Times and runs the blog Rogue Columnist.
LAURA TOHE is Diné (Navajo) and lives in Phoenix. She writes poetry, short fiction, and essays, some of which have won awards. Her publications include No Parole Today and Tséyi’/ Deep in the Rock: Reflections on Canyon de Chelly. She is also the author of a libretto, Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio.
Currently, Tohe is at work on a book about the Navajo Code Talkers. She teaches at Arizona State University.
LUIS ALBERTO URREA has written many books, including the national best sellers ThThTh e Hummingbird’s Daughter and Th e Devil’s Highway ( a 2005 Pulitzer Prize fifinalist). He has also won the Kiriyama Prize for fiction, a Lannan Literary Award, an American Book Award, a Christopher Award, and a Western States Book Award. Urrea lives with his family in the Chicago area, where he teaches creative writing at the University of Illinois—Chicago.
DON WINSLOW’S novels include A Cool Breeze on the Underground, The Death and Life of Bobby Z, and The Power of the Dog. He also coauthored a nonfiction book, Looking for a Hero, with historian Pete Maslowski. His script The Winter of Frankie Machine is being developed into a film directed by Michael Mann and starring Robert De Niro. Winslow lives with his wife and son in Southern California. His latest book is The Dawn Patrol.
Also available from the Akashic Books Noir Series
BOSTON NOIR
edited by Dennis Lehane
240 pages, trade paperback original, $15.95
Brand-new stories by: Dennis Lehane, Stewart O’Nan, Patricia Powell, John Dufresne, Lynne Heitman, Don Lee, Russ Aborn, Itabari Njeri, Jim Fusilli, Brendan DuBois, and Dana Cameron.
Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Th e Given Day) has proven himself to be a master of both crime-fiction and literary fiction. Here, he extends his literary prowess to that of master curator. In keeping with the Akashic Noir Series tradition, each story in Boston Noir is set in a different neighborhood of the city; the impressively diverse collection extends from Roxbury to Cambridge, from Southie to the Boston Harbor; and all stops in between. Lehane’s own contribution—the longest story in the volume—is set in his beloved home neighborhood of Dorchester and showcases his phenomenal ability to grip the heart, soul, and throat of the reader.
LOS ANGELES NOIR
edited by Denise Hamilton
360 pages, trade paperback original, $15.95
*A Los Angeles Times best seller and winner of an Edgar Award.
Brand-new stories by: Michael Connelly, Janet Fitch, Susan Straight, Patt Morrison, Robert Ferrigno, Gary Phillips, Naomi Hirahara, Jim Pascoe, Diana Wagman, Héctor Tobar
, Emory Holmes II, and others.
“Akashic is making an argument about the universality of noir; it’s sort of flattering, really, and Los Angeles Noir, arriving at last, is a kaleidoscopic collection filled with the ethos of noir pioneers Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
D.C. NOIR
edited by George Pelecanos
304 pages, trade paperback original, $15.95
Brand-new stories by: George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, James Grady, Kenji Jasper, Jim Beane, Ruben Castaneda, Robert Wisdom, James Patton, Norman Kelley, Jennifer Howard, Jim Fusilli, Richard Currey, Lester Irby, Quintin Peterson, Robert Andrews, and David Slater.
“Fans of the [noir] genre will find solid writing, palpable tension, and surprise endings to keep them reading.”
—Washington Post
BROOKLYN NOIR
edited by Tim McLoughlin
350 pages, trade paperback original, $15.95
*Winner of Shamus Award, Anthony Award, Robert L. Fish Memorial Award; finalist for Edgar Award, Pushcart Prize.
Brand-new stories by: Pete Hamill, Arthur Nersesian, Ellen Miller, Nelson George, Nicole Blackman, Sidney Offit, Ken Bruen, and others.
“Brooklyn Noir is such a stunningly perfect combination that you can’t believe you haven’t read an anthology like this before. But trust me—you haven’t … The writing is flat-out superb, filled with lines that will sing in your head for a long time to come.”
—Laura Lippman, winner of the Edgar, Agatha, and Shamus awards
BALTIMORE NOIR
Phoenix Noir Page 25