Drought (4 page)

‘Just drive carefully!' Peta shouted after him, as Tyler backed down into the road. ‘And call me if you have any problems!' She held up her hand to her ear to mime talking on a cellphone, in case he had already put in his iPod earplugs, and couldn't hear her.

Tyler turned left at the end of Fullerton Drive, and headed for University Parkway. He was listening to Rihanna singing ‘Where Have You Been', and he was singing along with her, tunelessly, under his breath. As he came around the curve toward the parkway, he saw that it was unusually jammed with slow-moving traffic in both directions. He managed to edge his way in front of a people carrier filled with anxious-looking old women, but after that it took him almost ten minutes to cover the short distance to Ralph's, stopping and starting every few yards. Every now and then there would be a barrage of horn-blowing but that did nothing to make the traffic move forward any faster.

It was only when Ralph's came into view that Tyler could see what was causing the delay. Red-and-white barriers had been set up across the entrance to the supermarket parking lot, and at least half-a-dozen police officers were directing traffic to keep moving. He put down his passenger-side window as he came closer and called out to one of the cops standing by the side of the road. ‘What's the problem, officer?' He could see his own reflection in the yellow lenses of the cop's sunglasses.

‘Store's closed until further notice, son. Keep moving.'

‘I'm only looking to buy some bottled water.'

‘Sure, you and everybody else in San Berdoo. People started fighting over it, so they had to close.'

‘Any idea where I can get some?'

‘Even if I knew, son, I wouldn't tell you, but I don't, so I can't.'

Tyler closed the window again because uncomfortably warm air was starting to flow into the Hilux from outside. He had to stay on the parkway until the next exit, but then he turned off and headed for North E Street. It was a scruffy blue-collar neighborhood, but at the intersection with West 33rd Street there was a Thrifty gas station and a tattoo parlor and a small grocery store called Dan's Food & Liquor. Tyler's mother never shopped there, but Tyler regularly dropped by on the pretext of buying gum or sodas because Maria Alvarez often served behind the counter after school.

Maria was in Tyler's class at Arrowhead High and he was hopelessly in love with her. Tyler thought that she was amazingly beautiful, but he had never asked her out on a date. This was partly because he had never managed to summon up the nerve, and partly because she already had a boyfriend, Ken Rigsby, who played tight end on the Arrowhead football team. Ken Rigsby was highly possessive and aggressive and probably would have beaten up on him if he had taken Maria out. In fact he probably would have beaten up on him if he had known that he visited the store so frequently to talk to her.

When he pulled into the parking area in front of the store, however, Tyler saw that the folding security grilles had been closed, and there was a sign in the window saying SORRY CLOSED. The Thrifty gas station was closed up, too, and there were padlocks on all of the pumps.

He was about to back out of the parking area when he caught sight of Maria's father inside the store. He climbed out of the truck and went up and knocked on the window. Maria was inside the store, too, emptying out the cash register and counting out change.

Maria's father waved his hand dismissively and shook his head, but Maria came up and shouted through the window, ‘Sorry, Tyler! We're closed! We had some trouble in here this morning! We're going to stay closed until the water comes back on!'

Tyler spread his arms wide and pulled an appealing homeless-puppy face. ‘I just need a few bottles of water, that's all!'

Maria turned to her father, although Tyler couldn't hear what she was saying. He flapped his hand again, as if to say that no, he wasn't going to open up for anybody. Maria looked back through the grille at Tyler and shrugged and shook her head

‘My sister's real sick!' Tyler shouted. ‘I have to find some water for her!'

Maria turned to her father again. Tyler could tell that he wasn't very happy about it, but he came over to the front of the store with his keys and unlocked the front door. Then he reached through the grille and unlocked the padlocks that fastened that, too, and slid it back just enough for Tyler to be able to squeeze inside.

‘Totally, thank you,' said Tyler. ‘I went to Ralph's first but it was all closed off because they had customers fighting over water.'

Maria's father was a short, stocky man with a bald nut-brown head and a heavy gray moustache like a yardbroom. He was wearing a red polo shirt with Dan's Food & Liquor
printed on it, in white, and a blue apron around his waist. Tyler saw that his left cheekbone was bruised crimson and his eye was beginning to close.

‘I'm just doing you a favor here, son, because of Maria. We had some nasty business here this morning, kids trying to take water without paying for it, and other stuff, too. I chased them off with a baseball bat and then I called the cops but the cops said they was too busy, on account of the water being off.'

‘I totally appreciate this, sir. I mean it.'

‘Well, fill up a couple of baskets quick as you can. Maria – help your friend, will you?'

The store was very cramped, with narrow aisles, but its shelves were crowded with everything from cans of catfood to bug repellent to dried lima beans. Packets of nuts and beef jerky and dishwashing brushes hung down everywhere, so that it was like walking through a small and aromatic forest. Maria led Tyler to the refrigerated shelves at the back of the store.

‘Be careful,' she said. ‘The floor's still wet where they were fighting over the water.'

‘I totally appreciate this, Maria.'

Maria handed him a wire basket and smiled at him. She was very petite, with black flicked-up hair like a TV star from the 1960s and a heart-shaped face with huge brown eyes. Tyler loved her little upturned nose and the way her lips pouted as if she were almost on the verge of crying, and he loved her wrists which were so thin he could have clasped his hands all the way around them. He had surreptitiously taken photographs of her in class with his cellphone, and he had six or seven of them stuck on to the back of his bedroom closet door. More than anything else he was intoxicated by the smell of her. She always seemed to smell of vanilla, and roses.

‘Is you sister very sick?' she asked, as she stacked two-liter bottles of Arrowhead into one of the baskets.

‘She has this really high temperature, that's all. We're not sure what it is.'

‘Well, I hope she gets better soon. And I hope the water comes back on soon. It was so scary this morning. We had around ten of them in here, and they were taking bottles of water and candy bars and anything else they could lay their hands on and just running out without paying. When my dad tried to stop them they hit him with a mop-handle.'

‘What – was it a gang?'

‘Not one of the proper gangs – not like any of the Bloods or the Sun Crazie Ones or one of those. Just local kids. But they were really going wild.'

‘I should've shot them,' her father put in. ‘The trouble is, you do that, you shoot some punk, you get into trouble yourself, just for defending your own property.'

Once they had filled two baskets with bottles of water, Tyler hefted them up and carried them across to the counter. ‘Thanks, Mr Alvarez. How much do I owe you?'

Maria's father was totting up the number of bottles when there was a deafening crash at the front of the store. They all looked up in shock to see three or four young men in hoodies kicking at the security grille. They kicked at it six or seven times before they suddenly woke up to the fact that although the grille was drawn all the way across the front of the store, Mr Alvarez had left the padlock unlatched after he had let Tyler inside.

With whoops and shouts, they started to shake and rattle and yank the grille open.

Mr Alvarez picked up the phone from behind the counter and handed it across to Maria. ‘Call the cops,' he told her, tersely. ‘Don't take no for an answer. Tell them if they don't come, somebody's going to get themselves shot. Tyler – take Maria into the back of the store. Take this.' He reached under the counter and handed Tyler a baseball bat with duct tape around the handle. Then he ducked down a second time and came up with a sawn-off shotgun.

Maria said, ‘Papa –
don't
!'

But Mr Alvarez snapped, ‘Get in the back, Maria, you hear me? This is my store – my property! Nobody breaks in here and takes what is mine!'

Tyler took hold of Maria's arm and said, ‘Come on, Maria! Just dial nine-one-one! Your dad can handle this!'

‘Papa!' said Maria, as the hoods wrenched the grille back far enough to open up the door. They came strutting into the store, whooping and whistling, pushing over displays of cookies and cakes and baby-food, and dragging their hands all the way along the shelves so that scores of cans clattered on to the floor.

‘Papa, don't shoot them!'

But Mr Alvarez was already pointing his shotgun at the hoods, and flicking off the safety-catch with his thumb.

‘You get out! All of you, get out now, or else!

‘Oh, Papa, don't
shoot
them!' mimicked one of the hoods, in a falsetto voice.

‘You hear me? I count to three, then I shoot!'

‘Oh,
please
, Papa, please don't
shoot
them!' crowed the hoodie, and danced around in front of the counter with his arms spread wide, as if he were inviting Mr Alvarez to pull the trigger. At the same time, more hoods were crowding into the store from outside, at least another six of them. They swaggered down the aisles, pulling even more cans and jars and packages off the shelves so that the floor was littered with dented cans and broken glass and burst-open bags of flour and peanut butter and strawberry jelly. To add to the mess, they stamped on cereal boxes so that cornflakes and Cheerios were scattered everywhere.

‘Water!' shouted one of the hoods. ‘Get all of that freaking water, man!'

Crouching low behind a Coca-Cola display unit so that the hoods wouldn't see them, Tyler pushed Maria through the door at the back of the store and into the cramped little room which Mr Alvarez used as an office. They hunkered down on the floor next to Mr Alvarez's battered old desk. It was unbearably stuffy and hot in there and smelled of stale cigar-smoke. Maria handed Tyler the phone and said, ‘Here, please, you call the cops, I can't breathe!'

Just as Tyler punched out 911, they heard a shattering
boom
! as Mr Alvarez's shotgun went off, but it was immediately followed by hoots and shouts of hilarity. Tyler could only guess that Mr Alvarez had either missed the hoodie he was aiming at, or else he had simply fired his gun into the ceiling to try and scare all the hoods away.

‘Oh, God,' said Maria, pulling at the sleeve of Tyler's T-shirt.

‘
San Bernardino nine-one-one, what is your emergency
?'

‘All of these guys have broken into the store, they're wrecking the place. The owner has a shotgun and we just heard it go off !'

‘
What is your location, caller
?'

Tyler was about to tell the emergency operator where they were when the shotgun went off again, with a different sound this time, more muffled,
boooomfffff
! as if it had been fired into a pillow. There were more triumphant whoops, and this time they heard one of the hoods scream out, ‘Got him! Got the bastard! Fucking-A, man! Got the bastard!'

Maria stood up and called out, ‘Papa!'

Tyler grabbed at her arm and tried to pull her back down again. ‘Sshhh!' he told her. But she twisted herself free and went back out of the office door and into the store. Tyler heard the hoods whooping and whistling again, and then he heard Maria scream.

‘Papa! Papa! Oh, God, you've killed him! You've killed him you monsters you've killed him
you've killed him
!' Her voice rose higher and higher in a hysterical scream until it sounded almost like a piercing whistle.

In response, the hoods started laughing and cat-calling and mocking her. ‘You've killed him you monsters! You bad bad monsters! Look at my poor old daddy with his guts hanging out! No candy for you, you naughty monsters!'

‘Hey!' jeered one of the hoods. ‘Maybe we can learn her to
like
monsters!'

‘Yeah, maybe we can give her a monster good time!
Monstaaaahh
!'

‘Come on, baby, how about it, pretty baby? Come on, baby your Papa can't help you now! What you crying for? Ain't no use in crying, is there? You know what they say … no good crying over spilt guts!'

There were more whoops and guffaws and Tyler heard Maria screaming, ‘Get off me! Don't you touch me! Get off me, you monsters, let go of me!'

Tyler slowly stood up. His heart was beating so hard against his ribcage that it was painful, as if somebody were rhythmically and viciously punching him from the inside. He could hardly move. If these hoods had already killed Mr Alvarez, and simply laughed about it, why should they have the slightest compunction about killing
him,
too?

But he couldn't leave Maria at their mercy. What kind of person would he be if he let all these hoods attack her, and continued to hide? They knew that he was here, anyhow, because the first few hoods who had forced their way in had seen both of them.
Once they've finished with her, they'll probably come after me, because they don't want any witnesses.

Oh dear God help me
, he thought. Right at that moment he wished that his father were there beside him, because he knew that his father would beat the living hell out of these hoods.
But Dad isn't here. It's just me
. And then he heard Maria scream again, and a roar of approval from the hoods. He could guess what was happening and he felt sick to his stomach as well as frightened.
Please God, don't let me be the only one who can save her, because I know I can't save her and they'll probably shoot me, too
.