Little Deadly Things (11 page)

Jim completed summer school at Los Pobladores. In the fall, on the first day of classes, his attention was drawn to another freshman student, otherworldly and beautiful. She spoke with a Puerto Rican accent and walked with a limp.

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SCHOOL DAYS

EAST LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

A
t 7:30
AM
, Tuesday, September 6, 2022, two students emerged from the Hidden Scholar Foundation car. The girl with the black hair craned her neck to take in the neighborhood, and then walked slowly towards the schoolyard. The smaller girl walked with an expression that showed simultaneous determination and disinterest.

Across the street, a trio of older students slouched outside a diner. They watched the two girls with undisguised hostility, appearing to agree on a course of action with raised eyebrows and nods. Their postures radiated contempt, and patrons emerging from the diner gave them a wide berth.

They were bullies with a grudge. Any of the eleven hundred or so returning students knew to avoid the stocky, pock-faced leader of the three who called himself Padron, ‘Boss’, as well as his cohorts, Frank Chung and Jamie Ortiz. Their prey were students from the Hidden Scholar Foundation. Targets of opportunity.

Padron had dull obsidian stones for eyes, broad cheekbones, and generous lips set in a puffy frown. Chung was stocky, his head and eyebrows shaven. He had a pictogram tattooed on his left cheek, a triangle containing a lightning bolt, the symbol for high voltage. Ortiz was tattooed with a rosy profusion of adolescent acne. All three affected a retro look, wearing long-sleeved shirts buttoned at the collar and low-slung baggy pants.

Padron acted first. He broke off from his two friends, crossed the street, and jogged around the building to confront the girls as they walked towards the school yard. Chung and Ortiz peeled themselves off the diner’s wall and followed the two girls. They paced themselves to catch the girls in a pincer. Padron would approach from the front, they would close in behind.

A slight, tousle-haired boy stood outside of the diner with a companion. They also shared an easy familiarity and communicated with looks and gestures. The boy’s gaze lingered on the girl walking with pride and a limp. He walked towards them. The boy’s companion remained, comfortable where she was.

A mural that covered the length of the building drew the girls’ attention. It was a panorama that depicted the community’s history, starting with the arrival of forty-four
pobladores,
the original settlers of Los Angeles. It was a history of the city, of the neighborhood, and celebrated the birth of the high school. It was natural to walk past the colorful wall. Natural, but dangerous. That side of the building was windowless, perfect for muralists—and predators.

“Let’s go look,” said Marta Cruz as she turned towards the mural.

Eva Rozen dismissed it. “Who cares? Is painting. I want science lab.” Her speech carried a guttural cadence that marked her Slavic pedigree.

“Well, I want to see it. You have all year to see the lab.”

“You have all year for pictures.”

“Yes, but classes don’t start for a few minutes yet and we can look at the mural now. Let’s go.” Eva shrugged. She followed Marta to the painted side of the building. They were unaware of the eyes that followed their slow progress.

The fresco depicted a row of men and women dressed in rough-textured shirts and flowing robes, each settler pressed against the next. The figure in front held up a scroll with the words,
“Debemos ser libre”
—We must be free. At the top of the mural a large bird floated above a bronze-skinned man. He had the angular features of the area’s indigenous people. Other figures carried guitars and accordions, scientific devices and crops.

Eva gave the mural a cursory inspection. The Pollock and the Dalí prints in Coombs’s shop were more interesting. True, this art was more literal, but she returned to the works the antiquarian displayed in his office. Those were abstract, but somehow very personal.

Eva hung back and so was first to sense Chung and Ortiz behind them even as she saw Padron approach. She looked at Padron. Now her expression was equal parts disinterest and contempt. Marta Cruz’s face showed open curiosity.

Patron appeared momentarily taken, perhaps disappointed by the girls’ lack of fear. Then he said,
“Mira.”
Look. “A cripple and a geek.”

Chung and Ortiz took up station from behind, completing the pincer movement. Eva Rozen reached under her shawl and took out and shook a small squeeze bottle. Marta Cruz said, “What are you doing, Eva? Don’t make trouble.”

“
Oyé chica,
you got no trouble,” said Padron, sliding forward. “Just show some respect, eh? Time to pay up.”

Eva’s gaze fastened hard on Padron and then shifted to the others. She made a mental calculation of the distances and shook her head at the disappointing conclusion. As she took in the unfolding scene, she noticed the slight figure of a boy walking towards them. He had soft, unassuming looks and seemed to draw into himself as he walked towards the confrontation. He looked too young for high school. Eva wondered if he belonged in middle school. “Hey,” he called out to the girls as he approached. “Class is about to start. We’ve gotta go.” He appeared oblivious to the trio’s menace. To Padron, “How are ya, amigo?”

“I ain’t your amigo. You’re in the wrong place,
amigo.
You gonna pay some respect then you gonna get outta here. Empty your pockets,
amigo.”

“My pockets? Which one first?”

Padron looked hard at the interloper. “You funny?”

Eva calculated that Padron outweighed the newcomer by forty pounds and stood six inches taller. The boy drifted a few steps to the right, to Padron’s left, his weak side.

Eva saw what Padron missed. She looked at the thin boy. “I don’t need you to help,” she said. He’d need a miracle to do what she believed he was planning. Then, to Padron, “Go to be someplace else,” she said. Her accent and syntax helped her to sound bored.

Padron laughed and motioned to his friends. “Hey, Chung, Ortiz,” he said, “We got us a party.” They closed ranks.

Padron eyed the boy. “You a hero? That it, man? You gonna be a hero with no teeth.”

The boy inched towards Frankie and Ortiz. Padron followed. The three older boys were drawn into a tight bunch. The hero looked off to his left, into the distance. Eva followed his gaze, but saw nothing. The hero’s companion was hidden in shadows cast by the low angle of the morning sun.

Padron spoke again. “You gonna spit teeth, you don’t turn your pockets out now.”

The hero smiled. Likely, the smile was intended to look disarming rather than demeaning. The smile hid the years of accumulated frustration and rage. Behind the soft face, he boiled. His smile broadened.

Padron snorted. “What’s so funny? I don’t think you’re funny.”

The hero turned to the two girls and said, “I think you better get out of here. Maybe you should run into the school.”

Marta Cruz wore an expression of amusement and contempt. She gestured to her legs. “I’m supposed to run?” She rolled her eyes, shook her head, and spat out the next words. “Boys. All the same. All brave and no brain.”

Eva said nothing, her eyes still calculating distances.

Suddenly Padron wound back like a pitcher on the mound at Dodger Stadium. The hero watched calmly and ducked easily. “Get out of here,” he shouted again at Marta and Eva.

At that moment, the boy’s companion, watching from across the street, underwent a metamorphosis. Her ears pulled back and her lips drew forward. She dug her hindquarters into the ground, driving forward, front legs extending to double her length. Her body was low to the ground and she looked like a fur-covered missile, tipped with a toothy snarl. She hit maximum velocity in two strides and then covered the seventy-foot distance to Padron in less than three seconds.

She was in the grip of instinct and drive, a terrier’s lust for prey and a shepherd’s need to protect. Her tail was low to the ground for balance. Adrenaline flooded her, amplifying behaviors that had been hardwired into her species for millennia. Her lips drew further forward into an aggressive pucker. Sixty pounds of focused motion covered by a wiry tan coat. An unexpected white band circled her tail, the inspiration for the name to which she responded: Ringer.

Ringer’s nostrils flared and closed rapidly, forcing scent molecules to receptors deep in her brain. There two enormous olfactory bulbs sorted the smells of the group and passed commands directly to her muscles. Her specialized scent organs freed the slower fore-brain to calculate distance, velocity, and vector. The stink from the tallest of the targets, pheromones of fear and excitement from the girls, were as easy for her to read as a billboard would be for her two-legged companion.

Eva watched the dog. Six feet from Padron, Ringer’s back legs drove her up, propelling her full weight into the chest of the surprised leader. Eva thought the dog was grinning.

Some of the blow was cushioned as the canine joints flexed. Still, the force was enough to knock Padron hard to the ground. He landed on his back with a whoomp. His diaphragm muscle spasmed on impact and prevented him from drawing air into his lungs. When he opened his eyes, his view of the world was circumscribed by a set of canine teeth inches from his face. By the time Padron could draw his next breath, the encounter would be over.

Eva saw a smooth blur of motion as the hero turned to the downed Padron. He tensed his body and aimed a powerful kick at Padron’s ribcage.

Padrone rolled in pain. The Hero’s foot missed.

The momentum of his failed leg strike pulled him off-balance and he landed on his back, next to Padron. The two lay staring at each other. They both gasped for air, fish thrashing in the bottom of an angler’s boat.

Chung started to laugh. “Oh, man, this is too good,” he managed. Ortiz merely gave a half-grin and snorted. He nudged his friend and pointed to the prone hero. He said, “Hey, Chung, what we do about this
pendejo?”

“Let Padron do him when the two of ’em are finished with their little siestas,” Chung said. He turned back to Eva and Marta. “You still need to pay a tribute.” He folded his arms and glared at the two girls.

“Okay,” Eva said. “I got nice present for you.” Eva said. She thrust the small plastic bottle she’d taken from her pocket moments earlier and squeezed a stream of oily liquid into Chung’s eyes. It was a perfect opportunity, she had decided, to experiment with her new pepper spray. Could the effects of the local Habanero peppers compare with her treasured Guntar peppers? She observed that the heat from the southwest Indian peppers was more potent, but the Habaneros lived up to their reputation. They burned.

Science in action,
Eva thought with a grin.

Chung yelped in pain. Padron was still on the ground, his view of the action limited to the forty-two canine teeth directly over his face. Ortiz had stopped laughing and looked puzzled. By now the hero was up, fists clenched, his face a twisted in rage. Eva wondered if he was going to have a heart attack. The boy tensed to strike Ortiz, but Marta Cruz stepped between them.

“Stop. There’s no more fight. Let it go,” she said. Eva wasn’t sure whom Marta was addressing. The hero checked his motion and struggled to keep his balance. Ortiz stood, a bemused look on his face.

Marta turned and knelt at Padron’s side. He was still struggling for air. She knelt and grasped the front of his waistband and lifted his hips sharply several times, until his diaphragm relaxed and he could once again draw air in panicked gulps. Marta turned to the hero, and asked, “Would you ask your dog to let him get up?” The hero gestured, his palm extended as if he were a bellhop waiting for a tip. He brought his hand up ninety degrees, his palm facing inward like a backwards hello. Immediately, Ringer sat.

Marta turned her attention to Chung. She found a bottle of water in her bag and drenched his eyes, then turned to Eva. “What was that?” Marta asked.

“Pepper spray. I make.”

Marta handed Chung the water and told him to rinse but not rub his eyes.

“You didn’t have to spray him,” Marta said.

“Nobody attack me without hurt.”

Padron stood up, wary eyes fixed on Ringer. Ringer drew back her upper lip. Padron backed up a step. He caught Ortiz’s eye and nodded. They grabbed Chung and started to walk away. Padron turned to the hero, “You know what? I’d have kicked your ass except for that dog. Sometime, you and me? We gonna meet up again, no little girls to protect you.”