by Heidi Ayarbe
“So my legs give out on me, and I collapse on his lawn and cry and cry and he comes over and hugs me like some kind of joto. And we cry together. All because of The Gambler.”
Moch runs his arm across his nose and finishes off his second can of Coke. The sky is blotchy purple, the first stars shining.
“What are you hoping for?” I ask.
Moch crushes the second can and holds the two together like cymbals, clacking the aluminum, making a tinny, ringing sound. “I’ve been working on that—to figure that out—real hard, you know. I’m even doing homework and shit—so I can maybe graduate. Get out of here.”
“And?” I ask. Maybe he can give me a tip. Something to hope for beyond surviving the week. How quickly things change—I’m him, he’s me.
Does he see that?
The lizard genocide has come to an end; the neighborhood kids have been called in for dinner. A pizza delivery truck drives by, honking at a couple hollering at each other in the street.
Dinnertime.
“I’m going to Indiana,” he says.
“Indiana? When? Why?”
“We’ve come into some money.” Moch stares at me.
I look away.
He continues. “Pa has a friend, Gary, who rebuilds motors in old cars and then sells them. He’s going to train me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find myself a nice little wife there—go green, you know.” He winks.
“I’ll marry you, Moch,” I say before I realize what I’ve said, and my whole body turns that purplish-red-right-after-the-sun-dips-down-behind-the-horizon color.
He wraps his arm in mine, his copper skin over my can’t-decide-what-to-be skin I have going on under a spray of a thousand freckles. He leans over and gives my cheek a kiss. “Thanks, Mike. But you deserve more. You’re going places.”
Like prison. But I don’t say that, because then I’d be the big disappointment all around.
“What about your dad?” I ask.
Moch exhales. “I don’t know. But I know I’m not doing him any good around here.”
“The restaurant?”
“Some dreams die.”
“You’ll do good there, you know?” I swallow back my embarrassment. “I mean. You’ll be good at building motors—or anything.”
“Yeah. I figure I’ve managed these cabrones for the past two years.” He points to the la Cordillera tattoo on his arm. “I’ll probably be able to manage building some motors and starting a licit business.” He picks up my cans of Coke. “Recycling.”
I grin. “So not only will you have a licit business, but you’ll also save the world.”
“Something like that.” He winks.
“What does the gang think?”
Moch puts his forefinger to his lips. “They don’t know.”
“I’m glad.”
“Me, too.”
I get up to go. “See you at school tomorrow. Tell your dad thanks for the Cokes, okay?” I walk to my car, feeling a little better about Moch.
Moch smiles, though the sadness in his eyes remains. “Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re up to, it has to stop. You know that, right?”
If it were anybody else, I’d play dumb—put on my bookie face and say the right thing. But not with Moch. “It’ll stop,” I say. “This weekend.”
Moch stands and stretches. He heads inside. I watch him go up the lopsided front porch stairs and kick on the wobbly steel. Something else for him to fix before he goes.
Moch found the path I lost.
Chapter 46
Sanctuary 4:30 Mills Park
WE GATHER AT THE SKATE
park. “Place your bets, guys,” I say, pulling out my betting book, scanning the crowd, hoping to see Josh. I lost that bet, too.
“Mike, aren’t you forgetting something?” Javier asks.
“Yeah, Mike. C’mon, you’re gonna totally mess with my luck,” Tim says.
I look at the group. “What?”
“A little Gambler to set the mood?”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay.” I inhale, and only one quote comes to me.
Oh, you self-satisfied persons who, in your unctuous pride, are forever ready to mouth your maxims—if only you knew how fully I myself comprehend the sordidness of my present state, you would not trouble to wag your tongues at me!
“Well, that was a downer. Geez, Mike, what’s your problem?” Tim laments.
“C’mon, guys. Lay off.” Seth has come to make his biannual bet. He never misses March Madness Final Four or finals.
“You bummed about BYU?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Nah. I was banking on Arizona.”
“Good choice,” I say.
They place their bets. I act normal, like some lady’s not almost dead because of me.
Mission accomplished.
But the mission kind of got blurry. I wonder if this is how the Crusades began—a couple of conversations about why my religion is better than yours, then a few hundred years of slaughter. Just a giant misunderstanding.
Mrs. Brady is out of critical condition and is semi-conscious. As far as I know, though, she hasn’t said anything about Josh—about us. The governor is going gung-ho, pleading through the media for information regarding the dangerous duo Babylonia. We’ve gone from sainthood to Judas with the flip of a coin.
Because of her, I’m thinking about all the houses, all the robberies, doubting us, what we did.
Maybe we were wrong all along.
How did right and wrong get so hazy? How come I couldn’t see this coming? I lie down on a bench, the sun long set, the cold seeping through my clothes, skin, until I can’t tell where the bench ends and my back begins. I listen to the skateboarders’ whirring wheels, the scrape of the bottoms of boards across concrete jumps, the clatter of boards when they flip.
“You’ll get pneumonia,” Josh says, draping his jacket over me. A faint smell of nutmeg clings to it along with the familiar fabric softener and pine. He sits at the end of the bench. I keep my eyes closed. He talks. “I had to give them the money. I just had to do something. I panicked and felt hopeless. I’m so sorry.”
I lie there, my back frozen, my front warm from Josh’s jacket. I can’t speak to him, though, because he left me when I needed him. Big-time. He left me to deal with Leonard. It’s like my voice box has frozen, too.
“My dad fired them,” Josh says. “Mr. Mendez and all the others. The investigations, the feds looking into Ellison Industries’ employment records. He fired them all. About twenty that I know of.”
I already knew. Mr. Mendez is riding up to Reno every morning to look for work.
“I found out last week,” he says. “Dad was talking about it to his lawyer. His lawyer said it was time to stop thinking outside the bun. So my dad totally lost his cool then, you know. Telling his lawyer that he was a racist son of a bitch, blahblahblah. And his lawyer said, ‘With all due respect, I’m not the one employing them.’”
More rich guilt. Scoop it on.
You still left me.
“I went to Leonard’s. I was going to give him the title to my car,” he says. “But he said the debt had been paid. What did you do?”
The ice starts to melt. A tear trickles down my cheek. I hate that I’m crying, hate that he matters. Even when he shouldn’t. Not anymore. “Turns out I had a trust fund,” I will myself to say. “I need to pay it back somehow.” The cold bites into my fingers and nose. “I’ve lived with Lillian for years and I don’t know anything about her. That’s pretty sad.”
Josh moves and sits down on the grass in front of me. He pushes my bangs out of my eyes. I can feel his breath. Cinnamon Trident. “I didn’t mean that stuff I said to you. I was freaking out and—”
“I’m sorry, too,” I say. And mean it.
“We’ll get the money. One last job—one last bet. And we’re done.”
“Done,” I echo.
“Yeah. Maybe we’ll have to start going to pizza a
nd the movies like normal teens.”
“High cholesterol is sounding like a pretty good option right about now,” I say, finally opening my eyes to look at him.
He kisses a tear from my cheek. “We’re going to be fine.” He has that perfect smile again—making me feel like everything’s under control. Like he really has a solution to all this. It’s like he’s back in that world where Babylonia is untouchable, where Babylonia is right.
“I can’t find my bracelet,” I say. “I don’t know where it is. The last time I remember having it was showing Jeanne at the dance.”
Maybe we were wrong. But I can’t bring myself to tell him. Not now. I have to believe this last hit will be right. I look up to the sky, the first spray of stars coming out.
Josh is quiet. “It could’ve fallen off anywhere—at school, at the dance . . . anywhere.” He scratches behind his left ear. The corners of his mouth fight to smile, then win out. But the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Anywhere,” he says in a flat voice.
“Anywhere,” I echo, and lay my head back down again.
Wanted: lost bracelet, message from God.
Chapter 47
SETH INVITED US OVER FOR
the games. His parents have a massive basement that smells a little funky but is private enough to give us our space. They pump us with ginger ale and snack foods. His brothers and sisters watch, too.
I called Leonard and bet a little over two thousand on U-Dub, money-lining it the whole way—the money I have left over from Lillian’s bank account. I’ll need to pay off my clients—the winners. I don’t have any extra cash to do that. So we’d better win. We have to win.
Bet what you can lose. What if I can’t lose anything? I’m feeling a whole lot of sympathy for Nim these days.
The VCU Rams and Huskies tip off, the Huskies in a sludge start. By the end of the second quarter, they’re behind by twelve. God, their tongues are practically dragging on the floor. The party goes on. Seth is pacing back and forth, his fifty-dollar bet looking like money thrown down the toilet.
And I’d swear to God his brothers and sisters have multiplied. More blond-headed, clean-cut kids come in, wrestling for space on the remaining bean bags.
The teams are back with their coaches—slick, gelled hair and thin ties in Armani suits. They pace the sidelines, shouting, screaming. The Huskies’ coach has a red vein that bulges on his forehead.
I’m trying to visualize the two worst conversations on earth I’m going to have to have. One: telling Lillian that I emptied the savings account; two: telling Police Chief Dominguez that it’s all my fault.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon.” I’m kneeling before the TV.
Somebody throws a jujube at me and says, “Move out of the way.”
“Sorry.” I blush.
Josh, for the first time I’ve ever met him, is still. Frozen to the couch cushion with a half-eaten pretzel in his hands. His eyes narrow. “C’mon, U-Dub Huskies. Win. This. Fucking. Game.”
The basement gets quiet.
Josh looks at the wide-eyed faces of Seth’s sisters and says, “So sorry. Excuse me. Sorry.”
The Rams have the ball and are practically playing with the Huskies, tossing it around the three-point line, all too confident. Then something happens. Something magic. You can see it in Gutzman’s face. He’s in the zone—totally in command of the court, his silver high-tops a shiny blur on the screen. Gutzman rushes the point guard—who pauses, just at the wrong time—steals the ball, and tosses it to Grisemer, ready for the cherry pick.
Fire.
The Huskies work the court, pulling in from behind, pressuring the Rams’ offensive—moving from zone to man-to-man defense, pretty much camping on the Rams’ butts.
Rams call time-out. Twenty seconds on the clock. The Rams are in possession of the ball and up by one. They come back, make a quick two pointer, then do a full-court press, pushing the Huskies’ offensive.
Gutzman takes the ball and there’s this moment, this pause; I think everybody sitting in the stadium sees it. He stops, the time racing to zero. But he stops, takes the extra second, fakes right, then dribbles, gliding by the Rams’ defense—as if the Rams were doing the boulder-in-the-hallway test. They can’t touch him.
Gutzman tosses it to Grisemer, who sinks the ball, getting fouled in the meantime.
Two seconds on the clock.
Grisemer stands on the free-throw line and swishes the first.
Tied.
The stadium has gone mad—electrified. We can practically feel the pounding of feet, the thunderous stomping.
“One more. One more,” I whisper.
My eyes go blurry when he sinks the second shot. We’re all jumping and screaming—my voice feels foreign, hollering so loud. This is a sign.
Everything’s going to be okay.
Everything.
One more bet. One more hit.
Chapter 48
Investigators Get First Big Clue Leading to Identities of Babylonia Burglars
“DID YOU READ THE PAPER?”
Josh asks.
I stare at the glow of lights from the alarm clock: 6:14 a.m. I’ve been awake since three a.m. “In case you didn’t remember, we’re always a day behind, so I do know what the weather forecast for yesterday is.”
“Well then. That gives us a day before Lillian finds out.”
“Finds out what?”
“They found your bracelet.”
I look down at my naked wrist and feel like I’ve been impaled on Satan’s pitchfork.
“At Mrs. Brady’s house.”
“Oh.” Now all the air has been sucked out of my world.
“Okay,” he says. “Who saw you wearing it?”
I rub my eyes.
I’ve been wearing it for a month. Everybody and nobody.
“Has anybody ever noticed it, though?” Josh asks.
Jeanne.
“We’ve got to talk to Seth before—”
“Need a ride?”
“I can meet you there.”
“Need coffee?”
“Yes.”
“Get dressed. I’m outside waiting—double shot of espresso, three pumps of cinnamon dolce.”
“Okay.”
We get to Seth’s just after seven o’clock. The sun has risen over eastern Nevada—bright orange rays like fire creeping through the valley.
His family is piling into the van—ready for church. I don’t see Seth. Maybe he’s gotten out of going to church with everyone. We wait until they leave.
Who’ll be the first to call in the tip for five grand?
Probably Nim. But he doesn’t read the newspaper. I have my doubts he even reads. And he’d never pay attention to anything I’m wearing. At all. It’s been a lifetime since Nim was my greatest nemesis. It’s like that old life was swallowed up by something much bigger than me—something better.
Something worse.
We knock on the door. Seth says, “I’m not going. I’ve told you a thousand times.” He throws open the door. “Oh. Hi. Come in.” He rubs bloodshot eyes. “I was just thinking about you.” Today’s Appeal is lying next to him on the table.
“Imagine that,” I say.
“Imagine that.”
I try to keep my eyes from the front-page article. The description of my bracelet. The reward.
“So. Babylonia, huh? Have you come to spray-paint my house?”
I’d laugh if I didn’t feel like I was choking on air. I inhale and exhale, leaning over, hands on knees, trying to catch my breath. Maybe I should be a fish—grow gills, slip into dark murky waters where I can drift around unnoticed in algae swamps.
“What have you done?” Seth asks.
“I don’t know anymore. It just seemed—”
“We need a chance to make this right,” Josh says.
“How are you going to do that?” Seth asks.
Nobody had to know about us. Babylonia would’ve become a Carson High legend, something future gene
rations would’ve tried to repeat. Now we’ll be voted “most likely to be on Interpol.” All because of a lost bracelet and Mrs. Brady. She wasn’t supposed to be home.
Josh is pacing like a caged tiger.
Nobody has to know about him. Will Seth keep quiet? About Josh?
We won a chunk in the Final Four. We have just one more game. The NCAA final. But how can I explain it to Seth? How could he understand? If we can just do one more hit—one more house—to pay back Lillian and leave a little extra for Luis and Moch. Counting the cash we had for our bet and win, we’ve now got almost four thousand dollars. I need $3,700 more. Then we can cut our losses. It’s all about knowing when it’s time to stop. Just one more hit, one more bet, and we’re done.
“Look at this,” Seth says, and turns on the TV—the local news. We’re everywhere. WANTED: Babylonia. WANTED: Fugitives of the law. WANTED: Near-assassins. Seth shows us all the articles he’s saved on Babylonia, bookmarked blogs.
We skim through articles. Three casinos have been fined thousands of dollars for doctoring employee files. There are shots of dozens of men and women standing in the lot near Leonard’s—blurred faces—waiting for day work. “What did you expect would happen? Did you even think this through?”
How can you think through infinity?
“We just need one more day,” Josh says.
Seth looks at us. “Why?”
Because . . . I don’t have a real answer why, why I think tomorrow will be any different from today. But tomorrow feels like it’s millions of miles away. Tomorrow is a lifetime away. Today is our last chance.
Today is Josh’s only chance. Mine’s already been blown.
I stare at the Appeal. Seth looks at me. I can’t read his expression. I say, “Have you ever, I don’t know, been given a chance to do something, really do something? For the first time in my life, now mattered. It was all about now. Hope. Purpose.”