The Poe Consequence

by Keith Steinbaum

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Face couldn’t sleep, attentive to the troubling shadows clinging to his room and his thoughts. The claustrophobic grip on the Alvarado Street Diablos had affected them like tightening fingers on their collective throats. From the time he checked in to the gang, death had been an unavoidable part of his surroundings, but nothing compared to the current state of affairs. So many brothers had died in such a short period of time that he now received news of another fallen camarada as more of an expectation than a bombshell. Loving each other means dying for each other if necessary. Taking a bullet, or a beating, or a knife in the gut for your gang is noble and right. But a fucking heart attack ain’t no sacrifice. Nothing noble about it when there’s nobody to plot against and attack.

  Heart attacks had taken the Lobos down, too, and that changed everything. Without them to blame, nobody knew where to point the finger anymore. Looking back, he sensed all the trouble started the night of Apache’s anniversary, when that kid’s old man got killed in the drive-by. Something about that circumstance triggered a strange chain of events that had culminated in many deaths, starting with Swat. Face remained the last surviving Diablo from the drive-by car and wondered if his own death approached. The murder of that kid’s father seemed like an evil curse, sticking to his psyche like crusted blood to a knife. Face threw back his sheets and walked to the refrigerator for a beer. He needed to sit in the dark and think. He wanted to feel good again. He revisited a triumphant moment, when love and revenge bonded together in a common cause, a united passion for the sake of the person who meant more to him than anybody in the world—his sister.

  * * *

  Assault with a deadly weapon. That’s what the judge called it when he sent nineteen-year old Alejandro “Face” Torres to a correctional facility, far away from Alvarado Street, for the near fatal beating of a North Rampart Lobo. For six months he followed their rules and dressed in the clothes they gave him, counting the days until his release. But the time he served meant little compared to the ass-kicking he handed out to the drug dealer who got his cousin hooked on crank and then had her blow or fuck him in exchange for more. That attitude changed, however, when he heard the news about his sister. Those final eight weeks catapulted him into moments of maddening turmoil and sleepless nights. Guilt and agony replaced the hands of the clock, turning each hour into a painful, crushing reminder that when people who depend on you for protection are left alone, any minute away could bring tragedy. The animals that hunger for their own pleasures take advantage when the smell of blood is fresh.

  He continued to replay the conversation about his sister in his mind. Trap, a newly arrived Diablo, approached him before dinner looking concerned.

  “Hear anything from home, Face?”

  “Four fuckin’ months away, what do I know, cabrón? You tell me. Qué pasa?”

  “Nothin’ about your sister, man? She okay?”

  “What the fuck you talkin’ about, Trap?”

  “You mean…oh, shit, man, I thought you knew.”

  Face squeezed Trap’s arm like a pair of pliers. “Know what? What? Fuckin’ tell me, God damn it!”

  A supervisor looked up from a table nearby. “Hey, you two, split up and get over at separate tables. Move it!”

  Face wheeled around. “Gimme another minute!”

  “Who do you think you’re talking to, Torres?” the supervisor shouted. “I said, now!”

  Face looked back at Trap, eyes burning. “Spit it out, motherfucker!”

  “Your sister, man, she was…raped!”

  The word spread through Face like a frenzied virus. His mind went numb. Time seemed to stop, and for a moment he forgot where he was. He didn’t want to believe what he’d just heard. He seized Trap’s shoulders, shaking him like a cigarette machine that doesn’t give back the change. “Who told you that?”

  “Hawk!” Trap answered with a rush. “He was buyin’ some weed. Dude told him he heard a Lobo braggin’ about it at a party. Name was Viper.”

  “Viper?” he repeated, searing the name into his brain like a branding iron. “I’ll kill him!”

  “There was another one,” Trap said. “Pinchi Lobo was sayin’ somebody else was with him. Hawk didn’t get his name.”

  The angered supervisor approached, stopping within one foot of Face and Trap. “I said split up and go to separate tables! You’ve got five goddamn seconds to move!”

  Face wanted to tear the asshole into pieces. Had this been anywhere else outside the facility he would have hurt him in a big way. But he only had three weeks to go before his release, so he wasn’t about to blow it now. Payback couldn’t come soon enough. Viper was a dead man. And when he found who the other one was, he’d be dead, too.

  Face returned home intent on grilling his sister about everything that went down that night, but his tearful mother begged him not to talk about it. “She made me promise I wouldn’t tell you,” she said. “She knew you’d do something crazy.”

  Face shouted in anger at his mother’s reaction, knowing her to be nothing but a weak-willed woman who put everything in God’s hands.

  “The first few days…” Shaking her head and making the sign of the cross, his mother continued. “She just stayed in bed. Didn’t eat or speak much. But she’s all right, thank God.”

  Face stormed past his mother, almost knocking her down. “I wanna talk to her. She’s gotta tell me everything that happened.”

  “No, Alex, please. If she wants to talk about it, let her do it. She’s so close to graduating. Don’t make her go through it again.”

  “And pretend nothin’ happened while I was away? Fuck that shit, Ma!”

  “She’s like you, you know that? Determined. Strong. She’s the one acting like nothing ever happened. She goes to her job, comes home and studies. This is her chance to do something good with her life. Don’t you want that for her?”

  His mother’s reasoning made him reevaluate his thinking. His sister deserved a better life than what this death trap of a neighborhood had to offer—a chance to escape the jungle of city streets and the vicious animals that roamed them. But he remained a part of these streets, shaped and represented by the laws of the ‘hood, and nothing was gonna stop him from payback.

  Face had been obsessed with the image of Viper dying a slow, painful death at his feet. But the news he received from Hawk three weeks later wasn’t good. “God damn it!” Face shouted. “Viper’s at Ironwood?”

  “Es verdad, Face,” Hawk replied. “Been there over a month. Asshole couldn’t even jack a fuckin’ car without shootin’ someone’s ass.”

  Face almost took his anger out on Hawk, turning away before his emotion got the best of him. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Ironwood State Prison was miles away in Riverside County. Hell, that Lobo culero, that asshole, may as well have been on the moon.

  By a stroke of luck, however, the moon got a lot closer a few weeks later.

  Leticia Chavez was Cherry’s older sister. She also belonged to Tank, a beefy, thick-chested member of the Diablos. Leticia was a part of the Diablo familia, and before Tank, she’d been another ruka, a gang chick, who had a sexual history with Face. Tank and Leticia wanted to get married one day, but Face remained close to her, sometimes reminiscing about their wild times together. He felt saddened when Leticia told him about Tank’s arrest for drug dealing, but when he heard where they sent him, his sympathy transformed into an inspiration.

  “We was gonna go to Vegas,” she told him. “Get married, you know? Stay in a fancy hotel.” Sitting on the curb with Face in front of her apartment, Leticia lowered her head and cried. “He was only gonna sell that shit one more time. He messed up.”

  “What the fuck happened?” Face asked.

  "Pinchi marrano” she said in a quiet voice, using a gang term for a policeman. “Undercover. Tank went fuckin’ crazy. Knocked him down and started kickin’ him. Then another pig shows up. Tank shoots him and runs, but he don’t get nowhere.” />
  “That marrano, did he die?”

  Leticia stared at the ground, shaking her head.

  “Don’t think so.”

  Face closed his eyes, aware of the consequences for Tank. “That’s a Ten-Twenty-Life, Leticia,” he said, referring to the California penal code which imposes, in part, the probability of a life sentence for assault with a firearm on a police officer. “He ain’t comin’ out.”

  Leticia’s tears turned into sobs. “I…I know.”

  Face remained silent, taking Leticia into his arms as she buried her head in his chest.

  “Where’s he at now?”

  At first she struggled to answer. “Ironwood,” she whimpered.

  Face pulled away, his body stiffening.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Ironwood?”

  “Yeah, Face. What’s wrong?”

  His mind raced as his eyes lasered into hers, searching for a reason to believe. And hope.

  “I can’t help Tank, Leticia,” he said, “but he’ll always be a Diablo, ain’t that right?”

  “Por supuesto, of course.”

  Face held his silence. After a few moments he asked, “You hear what happened to my sister?”

  Leticia looked down into the street. “Yeah, I heard. I’m real sorry, Face. How’s she doin’?

  Face ignored the question. “Sorry enough to help me do somethin’ about it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Lobo piece-of-shit who did it, he’s where Tank’s at.”

  Her eyes opened wide. “Sí? Ironwood?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “For a long time. Like Tank. You understand what I’m sayin’?”

  Leticia nodded her head. “Tank likes your sister. Thinks she’s real classy.”

  “They known each other a long time,” Face said.

  She reached out for Face’s hand. “Broke his heart when he found out what happened to her.”

  “I need his help, Leticia.”

  “You can’t go see him,” she said. “You got a record.”

  “Yeah, I know that. When you gonna see him next?”

  “Can’t do it tomorrow but the next day is good. What do you want me to tell him?”

  A tired smile appeared on his face. “I knew you’d help me, Leticia. Gracias.”

  Leticia stroked his face with her hand. “We got your back, Face. What do you want Tank to do?”

  “I want him to kill a Lobo named Viper,” he answered. “That’s the one who…” Face paused a moment before continuing. “It was him and somebody else.”

  “Viper,” she repeated.

  Face peered into Leticia’s eyes, wanting to make sure she’d remember his final message. “Tell Tank to do the right thing,” he said. “Tell him it’s a chance to honor my classy sister.”

  * * *

  Face drove to Leticia’s house when she returned from Ironwood. She had called him that evening, telling him she had a message from Tank that needed to be told in person. Sitting in the parked car, she said that Tank would take care of Viper, but he first wanted a favor in return.

  “You know that pawn shop near the freeway?” she asked. “Across from the park?”

  “What about it?”

  “Tank borrowed his mother’s necklace and pawned it there. Been in the family a long time. She got it from her own mother. It’s a gold crucifix with red and yellow stones on it. That’s how he got the money for the meth.”

  Face shook his head in disbelief. “What do you mean, he ‘borrowed’ it? He fuckin’ stole it.”

  “No, that ain’t it,” she exclaimed. “We was gonna get it back after we won some money in Vegas. His old lady wasn’t gonna ever know. Shit, she only wore it for special days. Now she ain’t even talkin’ to him.”

  “He wants me to get it back, right?”

  “Yeah. He told me to tell you when you take care of his mother’s neck, he’ll take care of Viper’s.”

  “What if it ain’t there no more?”

  “Tank got the man to promise him he’d hold it for three weeks,” she explained. “We was gonna give him the money he asked for and everything would be cool.”

  Face understood how much she depended on him. His feelings were no different; he depended on Tank.

  “I’ll figure somethin’ out,” he said.

  She smiled at Face. “Tank told me to give you another message.”

  She leaned over, placing her head against the side of his, allowing her lips to feather his ear. Reaching down between his legs, she started stroking his genitals. “Tank knows I’m a hot-blooded woman,” she whispered. “So do you. I gotta have it sometimes, baby. Real bad.” The gentle caressing turned into feverish rubbing. “He says to keep me happy.” Staring at Face with eyes looking dreamy and half-closed, she murmured, “C’mon, Face, make me happy.”

  The rapid swelling in his crotch gave Leticia the answer she wanted. Lowering her head, she unbuckled his pants and stroked the fire in his penis with her tongue and fingertips. Face leaned back in his seat, surrendering to the ecstasy of the moment. As he raised his hips, Leticia slipped his pants and underwear down to his ankles, maneuvering her way back up to his mouth, kissing him with a passion that excited him even more. Easing her way on top of his lap, she lifted her dress, inviting Face to gaze upon the furry nakedness of her sex. Gripping his stone-hard erection, he slipped in easily through the velvety liquid of her warm flesh, allowing his excitement to build through her moans and whispers. Within moments after what must have been her second orgasm, Face came, too, ushering in the gradual ebb of rapid breathing inside the limited confines of the front seat. A fleeting escape, of the kind that make pleasures of the flesh unique and often unavoidable, provided the comfort they sought, and consoled them for the moment from their own feelings of despair.

  * * *

  As a true mamacita, Leticia radiated sexuality, and Face intended to use her kind of persuasion to their advantage. He instructed her to go inside the pawnshop and work her magic while he waited in the park across the street. He figured that unless the store owner was a maricón and liked men, a certain “arrangement” could be made. Leticia knew the game and said she would do it for Tank. After pacing along the perimeter of the park several times, Face watched as she left the store and crossed the street. As she approached him, he saw by her disappointed expression that she didn’t get the necklace.

  “You don’t got it?” he asked.

  “No,” she answered, her eyes full of anger. “I don’t fuckin’ got it.”

  “Was it still there?”

  “Yeah. He showed it to me. It’s in a wood box up on a shelf.”

  Face breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “You see a camera?” he asked, having instructed her to look for one just in case.

  She nodded. “It’s up in the corner. Behind the counter where the jewelry is.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I did just like you wanted me to,” she said. “Told him my ex-boyfriend stole the crucifix from my mother and she was real sad. I leaned forward a lot, just like this.” Face stared at the generous exposure of Leticia’s sizable breasts. “He was checkin’ ‘em out real good,” she said. “Just like you, baby.”

  Face smiled, keeping his eyes on the prize. “You got great tits, chica.”

  Leticia looked down at her cleavage. “Yeah, well, they got me nowhere today.”

  “Did you try comin’ on?”

  Leticia leaned over to Face, allowing the upper part of her tank top to reveal her nipples. “Please, mister, I ain’t got the money. Can’t I do somethin’ to get it back?” Straightening up, she said in a low voice, “No. Just bring me the money.”

  “How come the necklace ain’t bein’ shown with the other shit?” he asked.

  “I guess he’s still holding it for Tank,” she said. “Three weeks, remember?”

  “How long we got?”

  Leticia’s expression darkened. “Two more days.”

 
“Two fuckin’ days?” Face shook his head in frustration. “How much money does he want for it?”

  She looked at him with a pained expression. “Seven hundred dollars.”

  Face realized he had two choices, each presenting a distinct dilemma. He could attempt to steal the necklace, knowing he’d be recognized and sent away again if caught on camera, or he could take seven hundred dollars of the almost nine-hundred fifty he’d earned from his neighborhood car repairs; the same money he’d saved toward an eventual down payment for an auto repair shop. The two-sided coin of his decision offered either risk or pain. He needed time to think.

  He continued wrestling with the answer as he sat on his bed in the sticky heat of a late, airless night. Above all else he wanted Viper dead, but if he stole the jewelry he’d face the likelihood of another stay at a correctional facility, or maybe jail. As a brother and a man, however, his spirit already felt imprisoned by his inability to exact revenge for what happened to his sister. As long as he knew Viper’s corpse wasn’t rotting with the maggots, he’d have no peace of mind. But what if he failed in his attempt and got sent away without retrieving the necklace? Tank might decide killing Viper wasn’t worth the trouble.

  The other option he weighed involved his hard-earned savings. The thought of sacrificing his money to buy back the jewelry pained him, knowing the long hours he’d worked for that ticket to a better life. He wouldn’t be much past where he started, delaying his plans to leave the gang and neighborhood behind. One other thought, however, had him worried and feeling pressured for time. What if Viper or Tank got transferred to another prison?

  Deep in the silence of that early morning hour, when previous sleeps prevented any prior observation, Face noticed a dim light appear under the doorway of his sister’s room. He thought of what his mother told him, how she studied at all hours of the night working for her degree. He reflected on earlier times, how she came to his defense when his father talked shit to him, or how she tried to protect him from the inevitable beatings. His decision didn’t seem difficult anymore. He owed her big time, even at the loss of his money and dreams.