Into the Beautiful North(65)

“You will like it here,” Rigo said. “Los Yunaites is our kind of place.”

They parked in the Gaslamp Quarter downtown, and Rigo took him to Croce’s for some jambalaya and corn bread. They sipped Heinekens and ate in peace. Tacho was trying to make the moment last, so he wouldn’t have to face the inevitable farewell. Rigo understood. He knew Tacho had to get on with it, though. It wasn’t like they’d gotten engaged to be married. He checked his watch. He slid his cell phone across the table and nodded.

Tacho took the phone and called Aunt Irma. She had gotten Matt’s phone number from Nayeli’s mom. “Tell them not to go anywhere until I talk to them,” she ordered.

Tacho punched in Matt’s number.

A gruff male voice answered.

“?Qué onda?” it said.

“Uh… Matt?” asked Tacho.

“He gone out, ese. Bye.”

“No! Wait!” Tacho shouted. “Is Nayeli there?”

“Nayeli? Who jou think Matt go out with, pendejo?”

“Oh.”

“Hey, is this the maricón?”

“Oh, no,” Tacho said. “Not you.”

“I am Atómiko.”

“God hates me after all,” Tacho replied.



Rigoberto dropped Tacho off at the visitors’ center on Mission Bay. He wasn’t into teary good-byes or big kisses. They slugged each other on the arms, and they pushed each other a couple of times, and they threw a wide back-slapping abrazo. They could have been celebrating a football win.

Rigoberto leaped into the BMW and jauntily sped to the freeway ramp. Tacho strutted around happily, in case Rigo was watching in the mirror. When the big black land-shark had vanished in the traffic, Tacho sat on a bench and held his head in his hands. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t a teenage girl; he wasn’t Vampi or anything. Damn! He wiped his eyes. He walked down to the water, then he walked back.

He called Matt’s house on the pay phone.

The girls erupted in screams and bellows and shrieks and sobs.

Tacho had to smile.

In about fifteen minutes, a battered old pickup truck pulled into the lot. A terrifying Aztec covered in devil tattoos got out and glared at him. His T-shirt bore a dreadful occult symbol and the inscrutable words FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM. Whatever that was, it couldn’t be good.

Tacho wasn’t sure what was going on. Was he going to get bashed? Oh, shit. He wasn’t as good a fighter as Nayeli.

The heavy-metal monster slouched toward him. The girls had given El Brujo a password. He didn’t understand it, but they said Tacho would. They said to find a boy with blond spikes. Mostly, it was old ladies and moms with strollers. Just this one guy.

El Brujo walked up to Tacho’s bench.

He looked around, not making eye contact. He crossed his arms.

He said: “Yul Brynner.”





Chapter Twenty-five



Poor Matt Johnston. He had never heard such shrieking, seen so many girlie tears. You’d have thought some freaking movie star had arrived in the duplex. Or the Queen of England. Ha! The Queen! He rubbed his gut. They actually butted him out of the way to get at the dude. And who wore spikes in their hair anymore? What was up with that?

He was stretched out on Carla’s rattan couch.

“They run you out?” she said.

“There’s too many of ’em,” he replied. “Like, where was I gonna sleep, right? There’s three chicks and two dudes in there! Where’s ol’ Matt going to crash?”

He toked deeply out of the Phish bong she had set on the wooden spool table.

“Baked goods,” she said.

They snorked and horked as they laughed.

“Jes’ like Grandma used to make!”

Matt answered his own question: “Ol’ Matt’s gonna sleep with Carla.”

She glommed on to the bong and baked for a full minute.

“You. Know. It. Babe,” she choked.

“I mean, dude!” He gestured to the heavens. “Illegal aliens!”

“Whoa.”

“Am I right?”

“Build a fence.”

“Right?” He reached out. “Pass it, man! Don’t hog it! Damn.”

Gurgle-gurgle-gurgle.

The smoke filled the house with a blue haze. It smelled like a fire in a rope factory. Carla held up a pink stuffed pig and made it dance on the table. This reduced her to snorts of hilarity. Matt’s puzzled face only made her laugh harder.

“Whatever, Carla,” he said. “I’m spilling my guts here.”

“You Grinch,” she scolded.

He apparently didn’t hear her. “Fly Like an Eagle” was cranking on her lil’ bookshelf stereo.

“I oughta call the freakin’ Border Patrol on ’em!”

He laughed. She laughed.

“Oh, wow!” she noted.

“The trouble with illegals,” Matt announced, “is that they get in and settle like they own the place. Then, like, you never get rid of ’em.”

“Like, Spanish an’ shit.”

“You got that right.” He nodded. “Red, white, and blue, right? These colors, uh, don’t… run.”

Pause.