Pennies from Burger Heaven

by Marcy McKay

  Too bad. I’m supposed to payback Diablo at the Shangri-La this morning.

  Turdmouth isn’t at the Party Palace liquor store. There’s no Coke can waiting for me on top of the fire hydrant, so Mai Wong isn’t waiting in our hideout, either. We usually meet around now. I check out the phone booth, but it’s empty. Worry heaps on me harder.

  I’m definitely staying away from Diablo’s headquarters, but my mind still sees Spook’s forever stare. Between him and Sugar, I know I’m next in line to be murdered.

  It’s like a death wish to go by the Shangri-La in case Diablo or Eddie Loco show up early to kill me, but I’ve got to check there. Me and Turdmouth spent so much time investigating the motel yesterday, he might’ve gone back to steal Mama’s meth, too.

  I just scan the motel from across the street, standing in front of the sunny CAUTION tape. That body bag wasn’t too far from here. Death, murder, killings. They cover Paradise like this snow.

  Standing outside our room, it’s locked and it sounds like nobody’s in there. I keep searching.

  He’s not at the shelter …

  Or the plasma center …

  Or Carmella’s bus stop …

  That means I’ve got to go deeper into Paradise and look for him at Tent City and stomp toward his place now.

  However long later, my sneakers slow as I cross the overpass, watching the snowy tents below. I hate it here. All these vets with so many missing body parts freak me out. Mama says their nubs are just like the cemetery’s graves—each one tells a story.

  She’s wrong. Cemeteries are supposed to have graves, but bodies should keep their full parts. I know these folks didn’t lose ’em on purpose, but their missing limbs scream out something went wrong!

  There’s Turdmouth. He’s standing cozied up by the fire, warming his hands. Probably deciding how to spend my cash, if he’s still got it. The monster huge Mexican lady in her trash-bag raincoat sits next to him, yabbing away. He nods every once in a while, but isn’t paying too much attention to her.

  Limping downstairs, I want to ninja him like he always does me, but my mad won’t stay quiet. At the bottom of the steps, I growl at him like a tiger, a low, angry snarl, ready to attack.

  His head pops up, then his eyes spring wide open at me. Turdmouth starts backing up. He trips and stumbles, but catches himself. “I didn’t steal your money.”

  “Yes, you did. Give it back.”

  He turns and runs, blasting through the snow. Coward. I inch along slower. He’s sprinting by the tents and makes it all the way to the chain-link fence before I’m even close to catching him.

  As he scrambles over the railing, he shouts, “I swear I didn’t steal it. Don’t be mad.”

  “Then why are you running?”

  “’Cause you’re gonna hurt me.”

  “No, I’m going to kill you.”

  He screams something else, but I only catch, “Diablo!”

  After he lands on the other side, we stare at each other a few seconds. I do to his stupid candy heart what he did to mine. I rip it out, chew it up, then spit the pieces at him. MISS YOU peppers pink onto the white ground.

  He cringes and dashes away. His legs are so much faster than my hurt ones, but I keep him in my sight as I shuffle through the fence gate. He’ll go one way and I may lose him awhile, but I’ll always find him. My mind understands how his turdy brain works. We race along the invisible boundary line between Paradise and Chinatown.

  Turdmouth crosses over onto the forbidden side, hoping I’m too chicken to follow.

  He’s wrong.

  Dead wrong.

  Slush splatters my jeans as I turn my coat inside out to the black side. I’m still not flying the right color in the land of Asian Assassin Red, but at least it’s not blue and silver anymore. Turdmouth has already ripped off his Dallas Cowboys ski cap. Nothing can protect him from me.

  This is Zhi Peng Wong’s turf. This isn’t like the Chinatown I’ve looked up at the library—bright, colorful buildings and roofs that bend up into a small grin with dangly lanterns hanging from either side.

  These are tiny shacks crammed together in rows, one next to the other. Snow covers most of ’em, but I can still see they’re all made out of different scraps—wood, metal sheets, tarps. It’s hard to tell where one hut starts and the other ends ’cept each is a hodgepodge of colors and none of ’em match. They’re still slums; just not like ours. Surely, Mai Wong’s house is nicer than this.

  I lose Turdmouth around a corner, then spot him a while later—about half a block away. I find him, then he’s gone again. I don’t how long this goes on. The library let us play Hide-and-Seek there once, but this is different. There’s no rules, and I lose every time.

  At a cross street, I think I spot Mai Wong’s long, black ponytail, but it’s some old lady shuffling along. It’s just the side of her, but she’s having a hard time managing the snow. Her sneakers look brand new. One of her neon orange shoes lifts up, stamps a hole in the ground, then trudges on with the other.

  That is Mai Wong.

  Awesome. She knows these streets and can help me catch that thief in no time. The whiteness warps everything ’cause I swear she’s moving grandma slow today.

  Scared prickles me watching her. My cold fingers break out into a sweat inside my gloves. Ahead, Turdmouth disappears through a drainage pipe.

  What do I do? There’s a tug-of-war inside me between getting my cash back, or helping my best friend.

  Her hunched shoulders carry a pain that wasn’t there yesterday. She needs me. I’ll kill Turdmouth twice for this and slog on toward Mai Wong.

  I can’t call out her name since she’s forbidden from a piece of white bread like me. I’m coming at her sideways as she glances over here.

  She looks me square on. She sees me, but drops her head lower and hobbles a little faster. She’s trying to escape me. That worries my worry.

  I tell her stop, but she doesn’t. I whisper, “Mai Wong.”

  No response.

  I can’t see how bad she’s hurt ’til I’m closer. Mai Wong holds her left arm tender like a baby. Her pretty licorice eyes are blackened, her cheeks and lips are both swollen twice their normal size. Brown blood crusts her entire face. She’s all lumpy and whelped like mashed-up Play-Doh.

  There’s a quick kick to my gut that lurches my insides. I’m dizzy, furious over who beat her like this, though I think I already know the answer. Payback from the Barrio Brothers for killing Diablo’s sister. A sister for a sister. With their crazy thinking, I’m not sure why she’s not dead like Maria Flores. I want to say she’s lucky, but she looks anything but.

  “What happened?” I touch her arm, but she cringes like I burned her.

  She shuffles on, staring at her new shoes.

  “Who hurt you?” I try to block her, but she hobbles around me. “Was it Diablo?”

  “Go home. It’s not safe for you here.”

  “I should say the same to you.” I grab her by the shoulders, but she flinches so hard that I let go. It takes a few steps, but I get in front of her again. “Stop.”

  She does. I can’t believe the empty girl staring back. Someone beat all the love out of my best friend. Tears rush up my throat, but I swallow ’em ’cause I’m afraid they’ll just irritate her.

  Mai Wong shuffles away again.

  My voice still cracks as I follow her. “Talk to me. Please.”

  No answer.

  “Where are your folks?” Her head drops lower. I’ve got just a few seconds before she shuts me out for good. “At least let me help you find your parents.”

  I almost don’t hear her say, “They’ll be mad.”

  “Whatever you did or didn’t do, I promise you don’t deserve this.”

  Mai Wong stumbles on and nothing I say helps—not promises, not begging, she freaks when I touch her. Still, I need to warn her about the Barrio Brothers, so I say, “Spook’s dead. Zhi’s boys killed him yesterday.”

  She stops at her br
other’s name. Her back stiffens bone-straight. Mai Wong doesn’t turn around, or ask details, but she doesn’t move, either. She’s frozen into place. One tear trickles down her dirty, bloody cheek.

  “Tell me who did this, so I can make ’em pay.”

  Her empty eyes remind me of Spook’s and Sugar’s forever stare. She’s still breathing, but not really alive anymore.

  She closes her eyes. Another fat tear rolls down as she whispers, “Eddie Loco.”

  CHAPTER 33

  The snow turns slushy brown by the time I shuffle Mai Wong back to Paradise. She didn’t want her parents to see her like this. My arm stays locked around her waist and I don’t let go. I already hid her red bandanna inside her coat pocket, but that just leaves Eddie Loco’s purple hand marks on her throat in plain sight. I don’t notice the cold ’cause white-hot rage burns through me. He ruined her.

  It’d take forever to get her across town to our phone-booth hideout and I can’t chance Eddie Loco spotting us, so I take her to Turdmouth’s place in Tent City.

  He owes me.

  The monster-huge Mexican lady glares at us from the campfire as I ease Mai Wong into the tent, but she doesn’t say a thing as she passes around a bottle to her cronies. One-Leg Larry’s blood is still caked everywhere inside—the folded lawn chair, the white trash sack, their sleeping bags. Our tennis shoes crunch over his broken beer bottles on the floor. The metallic smell of the blood is gone, but the creepiness hasn’t left. There’s still dark stains everywhere.

  The whole tent screams ‘what happened’?! I wonder why Turdmouth didn’t clean this up yesterday, then remember he was with me the whole time, scheming his little plot. I don’t mention my fallout with him, and Mai Wong’s too out of it to notice the unbelievable mess in here.

  I’m not sure whose sleeping bag I help her lie down on, then zip us into the tent. By the time I turn around, she’s curled into ball so small that her pain must be massive. Her eyes are clenched shut. I can’t stop staring at Eddie Loco’s finger prints on her neck. I should’ve choked him myself at the motel, so he couldn’t destroy her.

  I was afraid this would happen. I saw the Asian Assassins kill Spook myself yesterday. Plus, the Barrio Brothers still owed ’em for killing Diablo’s sister. The punishment had to fit the crime, so Mai Wong was the perfect answer in their crazy thinking. I make myself count to a hundred before talking, but even then my voice trembles, “When did he…hurt you?”

  She cradles her hurt arm closer.

  Some of the vets argue outside. I hear ’em shouting and cussing. Glass breaks—probably a bottle that’s being turned into a knife to kill someone. Here we go again. I wonder if one of ’em fought here with One-Leg.

  Mai Wong’s eyes stay closed. Those strangle marks move in and out with her slow, ragged breathing. I hated Eddie Loco before, but wish he’d died instead of Spook, who never would’ve done something like this. I don’t kid myself into thinking Diablo doesn’t know about this, either. He didn’t attack her himself, but he may as well have. He might’ve even ordered it.

  The squabble outside grows louder. I’m so busy listening to the fight I almost don’t hear Mai Wong whisper, “They’ll blame me.”

  “Who?”

  “My parents.” She mumbles more, but I only catch, “… your side of town.”

  She’s bawling again, rocking that arm closer. I think I understand. Her folks tell her all the time to stay in Chinatown, but she’s always sneaking here to Paradise to check on Zhi Peng. Still, I think they’d realize she didn’t deserve this, but I’m not sure. I’ve never even seen her family ’cept for her brother.

  The only thing big about Mai Wong is her tears. Rip-your-heart-out despair dribbles down to the dirty tent floor.

  My gut clenches up helpless. I don’t know what to do, or how to fix my best friend. Eddie Loco ruined her like that BMW did Egypt. The vets argue louder outside, so I raise my voice, “Where’d he find you?”

  More sobs.

  “Was he alone?”

  Nothing.

  “Were you headed to our hideout?”

  She blurts out, “Phone booth.” The whole tent shakes with her bawling. It reminds me of Diablo’s wailing wind at the cemetery. Long, loud and pitiful, with that same unfixable heartache. Pain so bad you think you might die.

  Is she saying he attacked her in our hideout? My brain spins, picturing Mai Wong looking both ways before she set a can on our fire hydrant or some other sign to say she was there. How Eddie Loco snatched her up from behind and yanked her to the alley. She cried, clawed and begged him to stop, her new neon orange shoes dragging across the snow. They may have been the last thing seen as he yanked her into our phone booth. I wonder if he did it alone, or if he passed her around to others like a bottle.

  It’s all my fault. I keep doing everything wrong. She was coming to see me. Yeah, maybe she was following her brother, but I’m part of the package here for her in Paradise. My mind reels on what to do. I wish I could get hold of Miz Jesus. She could fix this somehow, but they’ve gone to Honduras.

  Turdmouth’s still got the key to our motel room, but he’s in Chinatown and Mai Wong can’t make it that far. The key probably doesn’t still work. I hate him anyhow and never want to ever see him again. I’m not sure where the Wongs live and they don’t want some stranger showing up on their doorstep causing trouble. I might get shot. She may never tell me what all happened, but her body leaves enough clues to say it was bad.

  The worst kind of bad.

  I’ve heard enough sounds from under the bed to understand what Eddie Loco did. What he wants to do to me. It’s awful enough when someone pays for it, I can’t imagine someone stealing it from you.

  I don’t like doctors, but even I can see Mai Wong needs more than a Band-Aid to get better. She needs a cast, for sure. They’ll fix her outsides, but her insides may never be the same.

  Her wailing stops, but she’s still whimpering a few squeaks here and there. I stroke her hair off her forehead, but she flinches, so I quit. I’m not sure what to do when she sets her good hand over mine. Mai Wong squeezes hard enough to crush my fingers, but I bite my lip and let her. She needs to feel someone here for her. Someone safe, who loves her. I couldn’t save her then, I’m botching it up with Mama now, I couldn’t protect Egypt forever ago, but I’m standing by Mai Wong now.

  I’ll stay here ’til the end.

  Then, I remember … in my coat pocket. My lucky penny is long gone, but there’s two other things in there. First, I see No-Brains’ white business card:

  Sergeant Patrick Noblitt

  Remington Police Department

  He’s the last person I want or need. Ever. I cram him back into my jacket.

  The second is the food receipt where O’Dell wrote down his cell number for me. He’s not much, but something’s better than nothing, and that’s pretty much all we’ve got right now. At least I’m used to it.

  I give Mai Wong’s hand a soft squeeze. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Don’t leave,” she whines.

  “I won’t be gone long. I promise. You need help.”

  My wet sneakers slosh along as the wind beats against me and freezes my tears. I try to say it’s from the cold, but I know better. These new coins from the water fountain rattle in my coat pocket. I should be glad to have replaced some of my stolen cash, but I’m not.

  The vets have stopped fighting. They’re all laughing around the campfire now, sharing swigs from a bottle wrapped in a brown bag. There’s shattered glass nearby them. The monster-huge Mexican lady eyeballs me as I walk up to their circle.

  I keep my distance, but say, “Any of you got a cell phone I can borrow? It’s an emergency.”

  She says, “We look like AT&T?”

  I ignore her and keep trudging up the hill toward the overpass. There, I rush into a small cigar shop. Smells like they sell weed here, too, but who cares? They let me use their phone.

  As I’m dialing, my hand aches from Mai Wong
squeezing it so hard. My fingers also don’t believe we’re calling the Butt Munch on purpose. Mama left me, Turdmouth betrayed me, O’Dell may screw me somehow, too, but I just want him to get Mai Wong to a hospital pronto.

  When he answers, we both hear me say the impossible to him. “I need your help.”

  O’Dell’s driving to Tent City right now. I hope his piece-of-crap truck makes it here. Back with Mai Wong, there’s a dull ache in my heart watching her curled up so tight. At least her breathing’s slowed and evened out more.

  I think she’s asleep as I sit beside her ’til she says, “Talk.”

  “Why?”

  She crushes my hand again. “I keep feeling him on top of me.”

  Shockwaves of Eddie Loco jolt through my insides. The bloody tent spins as I search for the right words to distract her. “Umm … okay … O’Dell will be here soon.”

  “Who?”

  “The groundskeeper from the cemetery.”

  “Butt Munch O’Dell?”

  I smile how she remembers. “Yeah, but he’s better than I thought.” She’s colder than me. Even though my mind feels flustered, I try to send peace and love to Mai Wong. Especially to her heart. We shiver together, then start to warm up.

  After a slow, deep breath, I say, “Okay, so let me catch you up on me.”

  I tell her the latest since yesterday: O’Dell driving me around to look for Mama and sharing his food, Miz Jesus sneaking me another hundred, finding Mr. Jesus later in our room cheating on his wife, Turdmouth pinching Carmella’s room key for me (that should’ve been a majSor red flag about what he’d do), No-Brains saying he’s my uncle. No wonder I’m so tired.

  She says, “He look like your mom?”

  “Not really. Sort of.”

  “Liar.” She starts to snicker, then winces from pain.

  I pat her through it, then say, “I mean, maybe they’re related. They’ve both got jet black hair and the same sort of turned-up mouth, but it’s his eyes that freak me out. He stares with Mama’s laser look.”