The Painted Boy (32 page)

“When I said no more violence,” Jay said, his voice still mild, but carrying to all parts of the street, “I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t enforce the rule.”

He looked away from where Cruz lay, his gaze taking in one side of the street, then the other.

“Everybody clear on this?” he asked. “Anybody breaks these rules and I’ll know. Don’t think I won’t. You even fart, and I’ll know. And you don’t get three strikes. Mess up once, and you’re gone. Anybody have any questions?”

All the gangbangers had slipped away now except for Cruz, who was still trying to catch his breath.

“So no more fun?” a voice called from one of the rooftops.

Jay looked up to the crow boy standing there.

“You need to hurt people to have fun?” he asked.

The crow boy shook his head.

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, do you?”

Jay turned away and walked over to the pool hall. He ignored El Tigre’s body, just as he ignored Cruz, but he was still aware of them, just as he was aware of everything on the wheel that was this piece of the desert. He knelt down by Maria’s body and brushed the hair away from her eyes. Then he reached out with thumb and forefinger and gently pulled her lids down.

He realized that she hadn’t done this just for the barrio, or to keep Rosalie safe. She’d done it as much for him as well. So that his guardianship wouldn’t be tainted with El Tigre’s death.

Would he have been able to take El Tigre? Before, he wasn’t sure. The dragon part of him had power, but he had no fighting skills. But now . . . now he could snuff out even a creature as powerful as El Tigre without breaking a sweat.

Now, when it was too late to help Maria.

He became aware of Rosalie jumping down from the makeshift bandstand and approaching. Picking Maria up, he cradled her against his chest as he turned to face Rosalie.

“She . . . she’s dead, isn’t she . . . ?” Rosalie said.

Jay nodded.

Rosalie’s eyes glistened. She reached out with a trembling hand, but Jay pulled back so that she couldn’t touch Maria’s body.

“No,” he said. “You don’t get to feel remorse now.”

Rosalie gave him a surprised look. “What do you mean?”

But Jay had already stepped away into
el entre
and she was only speaking to the air.

 

 

Malena Gracia turned in her lawn chair to look at Señora Elena.

“You should have taken my bet,” she said, “though I’m glad you didn’t.”

Elena shook her head. “I still don’t—”

“Gamble on people’s lives. I know. You already said that.” Malena hesitated, then added, “Are you going to let him just take her body away like that?”

“Why would I stop him?”

“The question is, could anybody stop him?” Malena said. “But that’s not what I meant. Shouldn’t Maria be laid to rest here in Santo del Vado Viejo, with the rest of her kin?”

“She has no kin except for me, and I’m not dead yet.”

Malena hesitated again, then said, “Maybe not, but you look like you’re standing right at La Santa Muerte’s door, ready to join this foster daughter of yours.”

“I . . .” Elena sighed and fell silent.

Malena didn’t press her. She looked across the street to where El Tigre’s body lay, marveling again at how all it had taken to lay him low was one five-fingered being and the sharp blade of her knife. But the humans living in this barrio would never really know what she’d done. If they did, they’d make her a saint.

Her gaze shifted to the ruin of the
bandas
’ motorcycles and low riders, all those fancy machines. That was something you didn’t see often—a cousin who could talk to the elements and get them to do a favor like this for them. She was going to have to study up on the Yellow Dragon Clan, see what else they were capable of.

Elena shifted in her chair and the plastic creaked ominously in its aluminum frame.

“I didn’t think it would be like this,” she said finally.

Malena turned away from El Tigre’s body to look at her. “Be like what?”

“That I would feel the way I do. Letting go of my responsibilities . . . I thought I would feel only relief. That this great weight would be lifted.”

“And it hasn’t?” Malena asked.

“Yes and no. The truth is I never really thought it through.”

“I don’t understand.”

“While Flores stole the potency of the medicine from me, he never took away the medicine itself. I could still feel the land and every being that lived in it. But that
is
gone now. It all went to Jay.”

“You have
nothing
?”

“Only the memory of how it felt.”

Malena reached out and took her hand. She looked again at El Tigre’s body.

“That is a terrible price to have had to pay,” she said.

A price she didn’t think she would ever have had the courage to pay. Because how do you continue after such a loss? To be a part of everything and then to be trapped only within the confines of your own skin.

She thought that perhaps Maria had got the better part of the bargain.

 

 

Rita looked over the silent crowd as Jay stepped away into
el entre
carrying the body of Señora Elena’s foster daughter in his arms. She knew the five-fingered beings who had come to see Malo Malo were stunned by what they’d witnessed, but the cousins were all oddly quiet as well. She didn’t blame them. That trick with the choppers and low riders was something she’d never seen before, either. She turned to the band.

“You should play something,” she said.

Ramon’s only response was to put down his trumpet and jump to the ground, pushing through the silent crowd to where Rosalie stood.

“Like what?” Anna said.

Rita shrugged. “Do I look like a music director? You’re the musicians. Do whatever it is that you do. But those people down there, they need something real to focus on. Give them that, and if they’re lucky, they can probably convince themselves that none of this ever happened.”

She turned to the edge of the stage but Anna caught her arm before she could leave.

Rita looked down at where Anna’s hand gripped her upper arm until the guitarist let it go.

“Seriously,” Anna said. “Who the hell are you?”

“Does it matter?”

Before Anna could reply, Rita jumped down and made her way through the crowd. When she reached El Tigre’s corpse, she picked it up by the scruff of the neck as though the body had no weight. She tossed the body inside the pool hall, glanced at where Ramon was comforting Rosalie, then turned her attention to Cruz. He scrambled to his feet.

“Traitor,” he said, and spat on the ground.

Rita could only shake her head. “Why? Because I drank beer and tequila in El Conquistador, shot a few games of pool? That was supposed to make me loyal to you?”

Cruz nodded.

“You’re
serious
?”

When he nodded again, Rita laughed. A snake’s tongue flickered from between her lips. Then for one moment she let the illusion of humanity fall and a rattlesnake’s head took the place of her own.

Cruz stared at her.

“Did you ever really think I was one of you?” she asked.

“I . . . I . . .”

“Here’s the deal, Cruz. The new boss in town seems to be antiviolence, so I can’t hurt you the way I’d like to, but if I were you, I’d make tracks and put as much distance between Santo del Vado Viejo and wherever the hell you end up. You know, before he comes back and makes an exception for you.”

“Why would—”

“You think he’s never going to find out whose idea it was to make Maria one of your Queens?”

“It was supposed to be—”

Rita cut him off. “Doesn’t make any difference what was supposed to happen. It’s because of you that Maria got into
la vida loca
. You think he won’t figure out who made her life a bigger misery until she finally held a knife to your gut and you had to back off? I don’t know if even a continent is going to be big enough to put between the two of you.”

“Bitch. You’re going to tell him.”

She shook her head. “I won’t have to. The stink of what you’ve done lies all over the barrio. When he gets back and starts to sift through the history of this place, he’s going to know.”

“I’ll—”

“You won’t do dick, if you’ve got any kind of brains left in that tattooed head of yours. Now run along like a good little gangbanger. Chop-chop.”

Cruz hesitated until she let the forked snake’s tongue slip out between her lips again. Then he backed away until he could slip out of sight. Rita listened to his footsteps receding before she crossed the street to where the two old ladies from the lizard clans sat in their lawn chairs.

“I’m sorry about Maria,” she told Señora Elena.

Elena nodded. “Thank you.”

“I had no idea she had anything like that planned.”

“Neither did I.”

“Are you going to be okay? Do you need a hand getting home or anything? Because you’re not looking so good.”

“I will survive. It’s what we’re good at, isn’t it? Whatever inconveniences the five-fingered beings bring into our world, we find a way to go on as we always have.”

“I guess. Me, I’m going to find myself some breakfast. Think I’ll go gringo this morning. Bacon and eggs. Home fries. You want to join me?”

“Not today, thank you.”

Rita nodded. She glanced at Malo Malo. The band was playing some old Sonoran
ranchero
, the guitarist leading the band; their lead singer was still trying to console his girlfriend. She saw Lupita approaching and gave her a wave before setting off down Camino Presidio.

She was feeling a little buzz from how everything had actually worked out for a change, and knew that talking to the little jackalope girl was only going to bring her down. As she walked, she wondered what Malo Malo was going to sing about now. With Jay on the job to clean up the barrio, they’d pretty much have to come up with a whole new repertoire.

 

 

“Why would he do that?” Rosalie said into Ramon’s shoulder. “Why would he say that and then just disappear?”

Ramon held her close and stroked her hair.

“I don’t know, Rosie. We were pretty harsh, the last time we saw him.”

“It’s not what you said, it’s what you did,” a familiar voice said.

Rosalie stepped back from Ramon to see Lupita standing nearby. There was something different about the little jackalope girl, but it took a moment to figure out what. Then she realized that every other time she’d seen her, Lupita seemed to almost vibrate with restless energy. All of that was subdued now.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “What did we do?”

Lupita shook her head. “It’s not my story to tell.”

“I think I know what she means,” Ramon said. “It’s about Maria, right? She had something like this planned all along, but we just assumed she’d joined the enemy. We never gave her a chance to explain.”

“You mean
I
didn’t,” Rosalie said. She turned to Lupita. “Is Jay coming back?”

“I don’t know. He’s awfully mad about what happened to Maria. Did you see how big his dragon is?”

Rosalie and Ramon shook their heads.

Lupita shrugged. “Well, at least he’s got it under control. For now.”

“Did Jay go back into that magic desert we were in last night?” Rosalie asked.

Lupita nodded.

“Can you take us there?”

“No. I mean, I could, but I won’t. He wouldn’t have left if he didn’t want some privacy. We need to respect that.”

“But—”

Lupita glanced at the stage; Anna was starting the band off on yet another traditional instrumental. The Malo Malo fans pressed up against the stage appeared restless. This wasn’t what they’d come to hear.

“You should go play with your band,” Lupita said, turning back to Ramon and Rosalie. “After all they’ve seen this morning, those kids could use something familiar and fun to bring them back down to earth.”

“I guess,” Ramon said. “But—”

“Go ahead,” Rosalie told him. “I’ll be okay here.”

“I’ll stay with her,” Lupita said when Ramon still looked dubious.

The two girls watched Ramon make his way back through the crowd to the stage. The kids parted for him when they saw him coming. Some reached out and touched his arms and shoulders as he went by.

“He has something special,” Lupita said.

Rosalie nodded. “But he never puts on airs.”

“That’s part of what makes him special. Malo Malo is going to go far.”

“If it goes on at all,” Rosalie said.

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Ramon always says that the band is like alchemy, a perfect mix. He doesn’t want to be in a band where any member can go and just be replaced. It’s always been everybody or nothing.”

“And with Margarita gone . . .”

Rosalie nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Ramon was onstage now. He conferred for a moment with Anna and Hector, then Anna went over to the drum kit and said something to Chaco. He gave a nod and started a complicated rhythm on the snare, his gaze on Anna. She nodded, then turned to Ramon and the band jumped. The audience roared their approval.

“Well,” Lupita said, “you could always tell him that if he lets the band fall apart, it’s like he’s letting the Kings win.”

 

 

It was all Cruz could do to not break into a run. He felt like he had spiders crawling up and down his back until he finally rounded the corner of the pool hall. He stood there for a long moment, hand on the adobe wall, telling himself to calm down, just calm down, man. But it wasn’t working. He took off again at a fast walk—fast enough to get his ass out of there, but not so fast that anybody watching might think he was running away like some little girl.