Against the Wall (13 page)

Kelsea mentions the slut walk and the drunk guy from the bar. That's also a long shot as far as I'm concerned. The Barbie dolls indicate a grudge against Kelsea and me, or a grudge against women in general.

An investigator takes pictures of the scene while the dean shows us security camera footage on his tablet. There's a grainy picture of someone in dark pants and a hooded sweatshirt, carrying a backpack. I can't even tell if the person is male or female. They appear to be wearing gloves.

“That could be anyone,” Kelsea says.

“Where were you last night, Miss Fine?” the officer asks.

She crosses her arms over her chest. “In my dorm.”

He glances at me. “And you?”

“I was home. At my brother's house.”

“You think we did this?” Kelsea says. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I apologize for her offensive language,” the dean says to Officer Jenkins. “Miss Fine is a passionate student.”

“Oh please,” Kelsea says.

The dean leads the officer away for a private discussion. It appears that we're the victims
and
the main suspects. Unbelievable.

I take my phone out of my pocket to call Noah. I can hear his ringtone, which is weird. Then I realize that he's already in the area. He's coming down the steps by the library, wearing a navy suit and a pin-striped tie. He looks tall. His sunglasses glint like justice.

“How did you know I was here?” I ask.

“I have an alert set up for incidents at SDSU.”

Of course he does.

Noah takes off his sunglasses and glances at the graffiti on the wall. “I read the dispatch details and figured this was related to your weekend event.”

Kelsea wastes no time bringing him up to speed. “That cop is acting like we did it ourselves, for attention.”

Noah's gaze narrows on Officer Jenkins. Before the officer and the dean are finished chatting, Noah steps forward to shake their hands. “I'm Meghan's brother, Detective Noah Young with the Chula Vista PD.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Officer Jenkins says, his smile fading.

“Do you mind walking me through?”

“Not at all.”

They go over the evidence and Noah takes his own pictures. I watch from a distance, nibbling on the edge of my thumb.

“Don't,” Kelsea says. “Your lipstick will wear off.”

I drop my hand quickly. “Does it look okay?”

“Perfect.”

Noah returns with the dean and Officer Jenkins. “Have you girls received any threats lately? Online threats?”

I exchange a puzzled glance with Kelsea.

“We get them on the women's center email account all the time,” she says. “It's the Internet.”

“What kind of threats?”

“Mostly rape. Anonymous stuff. The usual.”

“Did you tell the officer that?”

“He didn't ask.”

Noah arches a brow. “You didn't?”

Officer Jenkins's complexion turns florid. “If I investigated every anonymous threat—”

“There would be a lot fewer assholes making those threats and carrying them out,” Noah finishes for him.

“Mr. Young—”

“Detective Young.”

“I'm sure this is upsetting to your sister and her friend, but it looks like a prank.”

“Boys will be boys?”

Officer Jenkins rocks back on his heels. “We can't determine the gender of the perpetrator from the video. This wall was hit with similar graffiti less than a week ago and these girls took a bunch of silly photos in front of it.”

“So what?”

Jenkins doesn't bother to say more. He thinks we wanted more publicity and decided to manufacture it.

“Why don't you have any video of the crime itself?” Noah asks the dean.

“It's a timed system. The cameras sweep a large area.”

Noah's mouth twists with derision. “You didn't make any adjustments to the cameras after the first incident?”

“No.”

“Let me give you a professional tip,” Noah says. “When you don't amp up security in front of a building that has already been vandalized, in which female students are frequently targeted with rape threats, you're sending the message that their safety is not a priority.”

“We'll make some changes,” the dean says.

“Good,” Noah says curtly. “You'll need tech investigators out here to track down the IP addresses of those anonymous dickheads, too.”

The dean nods his agreement, and Officer Jenkins steps away to make the necessary phone calls. Noah shakes hands with the dean, who leaves for another appointment. Then Noah turns to me and studies my face. I tense up in anticipation of his next question.

“You broke up with Chip last night?”

“Two nights ago.”

“Was it contentious?”

I give him a wan smile. It was contentious, all right. “He wasn't happy, but I doubt he'd retaliate this way.”

He grunts in response. “You got boyfriend trouble?” he asks Kelsea.

“Nope. I've sworn off men.”

“Since when?”

“Since you got married,” she says, fluttering her lashes.

He doesn't laugh at her joke, which is so inappropriate I almost die. She makes outrageous comments to cover up for the fact that she's terrible at dating and relationships. The weird thing is that Noah falls for it. He looks sort of flattered and embarrassed. Kelsea has some kind of magical pixie catnip that men respond to.

“I have to get back to work,” he says gruffly.

“Thanks for your help,” I say.

“No problem. See you at home.”

As soon as he's gone, I give Kelsea my horrified face. “What was
that
?”

“I don't know,” she says. “He's really hot.”

“He's thirty, with a pregnant wife!”

“Well, you know I like older guys. Now he's got that virility thing going on, and he just turned the alpha up to ten. My ovaries exploded.”

“Don't gross me out.”

“You think my dad is hot.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn't actually
do
him.”

“Someone should. He needs to get laid and stop being such a grump-ass.”

At least Noah didn't notice anything wrong with my face. Kelsea discombobulated him with her weird come-on. I feel guilty and self-conscious, as if my secret is growing larger every day. Confessing to April helped. Maybe I can tell Noah later, after the evidence of the abuse is completely gone.

It occurs to me that failing to report Chip could endanger other girls. Was his loss of control an isolated incident or a harbinger of things to come? Will he get violent in his next relationship? He probably needs counseling, and I'm not doing him any favors by keeping quiet, but his future in baseball could be at risk. I know he's sorry for what he did, and I hope he'll never do it again. I just want to let it go and move on.

“You think this is just a prank?” I ask, studying the graffiti.

DIE SLUTS
.

“Either that, or someone wants to kill us,” Kelsea says.

I don't want to sleep in the garage.

The camping cot isn't comfortable, but neither was my bunk in Chino. There's more space and privacy here. The problem is that I don't trust myself around Meghan. I couldn't resist her back then, and I can't resist her now. When she was nineteen, she looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and desire. At twenty-two, she's a woman who knows what she likes. I saw the heat in her eyes on the dance floor when she felt my cock against her.

Jesus. I'm done for.

She thinks I'll cause tension between Noah and April if I leave. But if I stay and slip up, there will be major fallout.

I stare at the storage space above the ceiling beams. Everything is well organized. There's a kayak and a surfboard and some other recreational equipment. I think it's all Noah's, because white people like that kind of stuff. I wonder if he ever takes time off to use it. He seems to work crazy hours. Maybe I can do that to avoid Meghan. If I spend my mornings at the junkyard and my afternoons at Fine Ink, I'll be too busy to get in trouble.

The main problem is transportation. Bus travel can take hours, even for short distances. Scrappy's is only about five miles away. I could get there faster on a bike. I straighten and glance around the garage.

Noah doesn't have a BMX, which is my preferred ride, but there's a beach cruiser and a cool mountain bike. I take down the mountain bike to examine it. The tires are all-terrain and the frame is sturdy. It's pretty tough. While I'm checking out the features, I hear a car pull into the driveway. Noah opens the garage door a minute later.

I try not to look guilty, like a Mexican stealing a bike.

His brows rise in surprise. “You want to use that?”

“Can I?”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“You'll need a chain if you take it downtown.”

I'm not planning to, but I accept the heavy chain and padlock. I recognize it as the one Meghan used to lock up her bike at the grocery store where we both worked.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions,” Noah says.

“Okay.”

“Did you know the women's center at SDSU got vandalized?”

“No.”

He removes his cellphone from his pocket to show me some pictures. As soon as I see the death threat, my muscles tense. Whoever wrote that is seriously fucked up. Noah changes the screen to another shot of Meghan and Kelsea. They're making sexy poses in front of the same wall, with different graffiti.

“It got vandalized twice?” I ask.

“Last night and late last week.”

I examine the lettering with a critical eye. “Can you make it bigger?”

Noah uses a magnifying tool on his fancy cellphone, which is light-years ahead of the technology I'm familiar with. I notice some odd details in the graffiti. I can tell a lot about a guy by the way he tags. Before I share my insider info, it occurs to me that Noah might be
questioning
me, rather than asking me.

“You can't think I did this.”

“Not really. Your reaction doesn't indicate guilt.”

“This is sloppy work,” I say, offended.

He smiles at my comment. “Not a professional tagger?”

“No. It's not the same person in both examples, either.”

His smile fades. “How do you know?”

“See this E?” I flip back and forth between screens. “In ‘
STAY HOME
,' the E is made with curvy lines, like cursive. In ‘
DIE SLUTS
,' the E is one vertical line and three slashes. Most taggers prefer a smooth, continuous spray. The more you stop and move your nozzle, the messier your lettering gets.”

He seems to accept my critique at face value. The lowercase e was my tagging signature, so I'm kind of an expert on it.

“That's not all,” I say. “The second tagger held the can too close to the wall. That's why the lettering drips.”

“Maybe he did that on purpose, to look like blood.”

“I doubt it, because ‘
DIE
' is much drippier than ‘
SLUTS
.' My hunch is that he'd never tagged anything before. He recognized the problem and tried to correct it by changing the angle for the second word.”

“Huh,” Noah says. “Can you tell what type of paint this is?”

I study both examples again. “The black is cheap shit you can buy anywhere. They make the nozzles graffiti-proof, which means they spray wide and you can't get clean lines out of them. The first guy is a little more experienced, but he doesn't care about style. He just wants to send a message.”

“And the red?”

“The red is quality paint from an art store, in the hands of a total amateur.”

Noah seems impressed by our little consultation. Nodding, he puts his phone away. “Matthew told me you worked security the other night, and that some guy poured his beer on one of the girls.”

“Yeah.”

“Did he give you that shiner?”

I don't have a shiner. I have a slight bruise on my jaw, mostly hidden by stubble because I haven't shaved in two days. Noah saw the mark yesterday morning before they went to the zoo. “Chip punched me.”

“Why?”

“You'll have to ask Meghan.”

He frowns at this vague answer, which evaporates the goodwill between us. The truth would have been worse. “Who set up the cot?”

“It's for me. Until I find another place.”

“You're looking for another place?”

I shrug, glancing away. He knows I can't afford to rent my own apartment. I've got no family in the area, and all of my friends are gangbangers. That's why I'm here.

“I can't tell you what to do,” Noah says, “but I don't want April under any extra stress. You feel me?”

I feel him, all right. Noah will do anything to keep April happy, including pressing me to stay here. He doesn't understand how hard it is for me to be in the same house as Meghan. It's like asking a crack addict to guard the stash.

Noah goes back to work and I decide to take the bike for a spin. I want to clock the distance to the junkyard and ask Scrappy about a morning shift. It's a hot, sunny day. There are a lot of girls in summer dresses and pretty sandals. The bike doesn't handle like a BMX but I get used to it. I explored every inch of this city as a teenager, selling drugs and hitting fresh walls. Skipping school.

I pass by Chicano Park, which is one of my favorite places. The murals lift my spirits and some of my tension fades away. It feels good to be back in my barrio, basking in the sunshine. Maybe I'm getting too old to stay angry.

I was pumped up for violence the other night, after Chip hit me. I rode the bus in a dark mood, counting liquor stores and seething. I thought about calling Junior. I also thought about finding a girl to hook up with. If I can't fight or drink, at least I can fuck.

Instead of looking for trouble, I went straight to Noah's house. I was tired, but I stayed awake for hours, worrying about Meghan. I'm still worried about her. Wanting her makes me crazy. I can feel myself slipping. How am I supposed to keep my hands off her now that she's no longer with Chip?

I need another outlet for my sexual frustration.

Noemi lives nearby. She meets my current criteria: hot and willing. I know from experience that it's easier to sleep with a girl you've had before.

Using her as a stand-in for Meghan seems kind of sleazy, but who cares? I just got out of prison. I'm a work in progress. I'm not binging on drugs or robbing people. If the worst trouble I'm into is getting some pussy, I'm doing okay.

The problem is that Noemi doesn't qualify as a casual hookup. We have a history, and girls always get the wrong idea when you go back for seconds. She's also connected to Eastside. That's the real dealbreaker. I can't antagonize my old rivals by banging Oscar's ex. I pass by her neighborhood without stopping.

I'm about to breeze through an intersection when I notice traffic is stalled. There's a white Monte Carlo in the middle of the street.

It's Noemi. Fuck.

People are honking and she's trying to restart the engine, to no avail. I ditch the bike at the corner and jog toward her.

“I think it overheated,” she says, her breath hitched in panic.

“Try to steer toward that curb,” I say. “I'll push.”

When I get behind the car, a worker jumps out of a landscaping truck to help me. It's on a slight incline, so the going is slow. Noemi steers the car to a parking spot on the other side of the street. I thank the worker with a handshake. Then I walk around to the front of the car and tell Noemi to pop the hood.

“It sticks,” she says.

She's not lying. It takes me almost ten minutes to get the damned thing open. The mechanism finally releases and steam pours out from the engine compartment. I have a bandanna in my pocket, an old relic from my gang days. I use that to unscrew the radiator cap and check the fluid level. There's nothing inside.

“You have any water?” I ask.

She hands me a plastic bottle. Her little boy is in the backseat, staring at me. I'm startled by the sight of him. I didn't realize he was there. I duck under the hood again, adding water to the receptacle. I replace the cap and step back.

“Can you start it?”

She does. After a brief sputter, it roars to life.

I close the hood and tuck the bandanna into my pocket. “You need radiator fluid, but that will get you home.”

“Thank you,” she says, smiling in relief.

I smile back at her. “No problem.”

“I owe you one.”

“Nah.”

She moistens her lips. “Well, I'll give you one anyway.”

I'm pretty sure this is an offer for a blowjob. She looks softer today, with mussed hair and worn-off makeup. She's a sexy girl, and I'm tempted to say yes, but it doesn't feel right to use her again. I'm about to mumble some lame excuse when a flashy silver lowrider revs past. I don't recognize the driver, but Noemi does. Her smile fades.

“It's
Tío,
” the kid in the backseat says.

Oscar's brother? Great.

“You'd better go,” she says.

I nod, watching her drive away. Then I hop on my bike and get the fuck out of there before her brother-in-law comes after me.

When I get to Scrappy's, it's too late to do any work. I make plans to return later in the week. Then I check out the empty trailer on the edge of the lot. It's dusty and full of junk, but it has plenty of room. This trailer could be my temporary crash pad if things get hectic. I can imagine cleaning out the space and throwing some pillows in the back. A few blankets to crawl under with Meghan.

I know it's stupid to wish for something I can't have, but I can't help it. Sleeping with other girls won't cure me of this obsession. As long as Meghan is single, available, and anywhere near me, I'm going to want her.

It would be easier if she hated me. If she hated me and found another boyfriend. If she hated me, found another boyfriend, and moved across the country.

I head back to Noah's for a quick shower and meal. Then I hop on the bus to Fine Ink. There's a deluge of customers all afternoon. Rose calls it the “spring break rush.” I call it mating season. Girls are ready to bare their midriffs and guys want to flex their biceps. It's the perfect time of year to show some skin and get new body art.

I earn my minimum wage by keeping the place clean, the supplies stocked, and the customers happy. Three girls from Barcelona walk in and Rose needs me to translate. I've never talked to anyone from Spain before, and they look like supermodels, so it's hard to concentrate. One of them wants a genital piercing and I have no idea how to say clit in Spanish.

They giggle at the phrase I use, “
botón de placer
.” I want to assure them that I know what to
do
with it, but that isn't really relevant. We fumble along and the girl points to a picture in the illustration book. Then Rose asks me to stand outside the door while she does the piercing, just in case there's a miscommunication. I'm sweating at the thought of going in to help. They come out a few minutes later, all smiles.

The rest of the evening is a blur of constant motion and fresh ink. Tank growls at me over a missing piece of equipment, only to find out that Gina borrowed it. At the end of the night Matthew calls me into his office.

I give him back his phone, braced for a scolding.

“Noah called earlier. He wants you to stop by Meghan's work and ride home with her. Her shift ends at ten-thirty.”

“Okay,” I say, shrugging. I don't mind playing bodyguard again, even if it puts me in close contact with Meghan. Noah's worried about the death threat, and I'm happy to offer my assistance.

“I heard you got punched in the face the other night.”

I rub the bruise on my jaw. “Yeah.”

“But you didn't hit back.”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe I don't like to fight as much as some people think I do.”

He studies me for a few seconds as if I'm a problem he can't solve. Then he gives up and glances at the screen on his laptop. “I got an email from one of my buddies at the YMCA. They want an artist to help their teen group with a mural.”

I straighten in my chair. “Really?”

“Are you interested?”

“Fuck yeah, I'm interested.”

“I'm not sure it pays anything.”

“I don't care.”

“Okay. He says he can meet you Friday at noon.”

“I'll be there.”

After I leave Fine Ink, I jog to the bus stop. I ride for twenty minutes and get out about a block from The Hop. I walk the rest of the way and hunker down on a concrete divider in the parking lot. I don't want hamburgers again, but I'm hungry.

Around ten-thirty, Meghan exits a door on the side of the building. She's wearing jeans and a tank top, carrying a shoulder bag. I'm about to stand up when I see a man emerge from the shadows by the Dumpster. He makes a beeline for Meghan.