“Oh.” Lupe was disappointed.
“You going to get changed, Papi?”
Lupe looked up to see a gorgeous girl standing in the doorway. Though she couldn’t have been much older than Lupe, her curvy body, skintight dress, and long shining locks made her look like she’d stepped out of a music video.
Papi hadn’t moved. He was still looking at Lupe. Finally, he slowly stood. “Sí, mi amor. Well, Señorita Dávila, duty calls. I hope you will join us at my block party on Saturday?”
“What’s the occasion?”
“My birthday, and more importantly, raising money for my old barrio.”
“Sure,” she threw out casually, though she had no intention of going. She didn’t go to parties in Vermont; she certainly wouldn’t go to one here.
Besides, she had work to do.
July 7, 1:00 P.M.
Javier
JAVIER PRESSED THE elevator call button again and again as the doorman looked at him with an amused grin. Padre Sebastian sometimes teased him about his type-A personality. He could imagine Sebastian’s voice: You only need to press it once. Doing that won’t make it come any faster.
Javier smiled at the thought and forced his hand down by his side. The priest kept him sane, made him feel safe. When they had met two years ago, it was the first time an adult had actually listened to him, cared about what he thought and felt. It was easy to give up the drugs then. Well, not easy, but to have someone actually believe in him gave him a reason to change.
Finally the bell dinged, the doors started to open, and he pushed his large frame through the opening as soon as he could fit, his focus on the conversation he planned to have with Carlos. He ran headlong into someone coming out of the elevator.
“Ay, perdón, I didn’t see—” He stopped as he looked into the face of the girl from Parque Central, the one who had been with the police chief, the one who’d faced off with Marisol. The girl who was lit from inside.
What was she doing here?
He saw a flash of anger in her blue eyes as she shifted out of the way. “Yeah, buddy. Next time—” She looked into his face and he thought she recognized him, too. They stood there staring at each other until Javier coughed. She must think I’m an idiot, he thought. Say something! “It was my fault. Please excuse me.” That’s it? That’s all you have to say?
A small smile teased up the ends of her full, pink lips and she hesitated for a moment. Javier could feel his pulse behind his face. Did the AC in the lobby just go out or something?
“Yeah, well, you and I seem to always meet in doorways.” With that, she pulled her arms in and slipped past him. He jumped aside too late when he realized he was still blocking the door, though he had to admit he was glad he hadn’t gotten all the way out of the way when he felt the gentle brush of her dress against his hand as she passed.
He just caught a glimpse of her back as she stepped through the door, the sun making her hair shine like quartz. The security guard keyed the penthouse, and just before the metal doors clambered shut, he saw her look back at him over her shoulder.
Damn.
He stood there and almost lost his balance as the car jerked and began to move. He braced himself on the wall. He hated elevators. All small spaces really. They felt like the end of a bad high. The metal walls closing in on him as that feeling of being trapped and moved against your will rose from your gut. He thought of the girl, of her half smile and the freckles sprinkled across her nose like cinnamon, and his breathing started coming in slower, though another part of his anatomy stood at attention.
The elevator doors opened and Javier stepped into Carlos’s apartment. He heard voices in the next room and then Carlos stepped through the door in full Papi Gringo gear—big black sunglasses, oversize baseball cap placed just so, and massive diamond studs glinting from his ears. He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Javier and a smile spread across his face. Suddenly the reggaeton star was gone and the guy he knew from the neighborhood appeared. Javier couldn’t help smiling back.
“Javi, hermano, I was just about to head out when the guard called up and said you were here. I couldn’t believe it. What the hell you doin’ in my neck of the woods?” They hugged warmly, the scent of expensive cologne rising off Carlos’s jacket.
“Looking for you, hombre.” He stepped back, held Carlos at arm’s length. “Damn! You’re looking good. Fame agrees with you, Papi Gringo.”
Carlos brushed off the compliment. “Ay, it pays the bills, right? It’s amazing what money can buy.”
“Man, I wouldn’t know.” He smiled. “Look, I didn’t realize you got somewhere to go. I don’t want to keep you.”
Carlos waved the comment away and led Javier over to the couch. “Sit, man. Mi casa es tu casa.”
Javier looked around at the swank penthouse, glimpsed a dark-haired, curvy girl walking on sky-high heels in the next room. “No, man. My casa ain’t nothing like this.” The leather of the couch sighed with him as he sat back.
“So, how you doin’, hombre?” Carlos asked as he took a seat across from his friend.
Javier shrugged. “Bad freaking week.”
Carlos crossed himself. “No shit. I mean, Vico and now Memo? That’s messed up.”
Javier sat up again and leaned forward. “That’s why I’m here. I wanted to talk to you about los cangrejos.”
“And then there were three.”
“It just feels like too much to be a coincidence, tu sabes? That’s why I wanted to talk to you. You’re the most together. Besides, I don’t have a clue where to find Izzy these days.”
“Yeah, I heard he’s MIA. I’m sure he’s okay, brother is just trying to get clean.”
“True.” Javier disappeared himself when he got clean. Isn’t that what Marisol was trying to tell him? “I thought you might be able to help me figure things out.”
Carlos sighed. “I don’t know how I can help, man, I wish I did, but Vico and Memo? They were into some bad shit.”
“True, true. My mother said some weird shit about how the mothers ‘had nothing to do with it.’ I’ve been racking my brains about what ‘it’ could be. And something about the last cangrejo birthday party is nagging at me.”
Carlos smiled. “Man, remember those? We had some fun, for real.”
Javier smiled, too, visions of cake-fueled bike races and laughing until their sides ached. “Yeah, they were fun. Why did they stop?”
“I don’t know. Probably ’cause I moved and Memo’s mother thought we were”—he did air quotes—“‘bad influences’ on her son. He was afraid of the rain that fell. We only toughened him up.”
Javier pictured Memo shuffling from foot to foot at the church. “Well, kind of.”
They laughed, but it diminished like air from a balloon as thoughts of Memo’s death invaded.
“I’m glad your parents took you out of the neighborhood. I wish my mother had gotten me out. Hell, she still isn’t out.”
Carlos leaned forward. “You want me to help her? I could give you some money and you could get her an apartment here in Isla Verde, or something.”
Javier looked at his friend and felt a pressing on his chest. Since becoming famous everybody wanted something from Carlos: money, for him to listen to their mixtape, women wanted to date him. So for him to make that offer … well, Javi knew how much that meant. He coughed to hide the catch in his throat. “Carlos, bro, that’s so generous—”
“Don’t say another word. That’s what we do for each other.”
Javier thought of seeing Vico’s sister at the church. “Maybe if you helped Vico’s family. I saw Marisol at the church and she said something about losing the house?”
Carlos threw his hands up. “I could have killed Vico.” When he realized what he’d said he made a quick sign of the cross. “May he rest in peace, of course, but when his mom was sick I gave him enough to buy the house outright and he just used it to buy product to sell. Left Marisol and their dying mother to fend for themselves.”
Javier shook his head. Vico always did seem determined to dig an even bigger hole to bury his life in. “You’re too good to us, hermano.”
Carlos waved the words away again. “We’re brothers, man.”
Javier thought about that for a minute. “Carlos, do you remember anything about that last party?”
“I’ve had to go to about a thousand parties this year alone for work. I can’t remember what happened at the one from last night. Why?”
“I don’t know. I feel like after that night … my life went off the rails.” He didn’t want to talk about the shadows, as if just talking about it would call them back. “I remember my mom getting mad at us for something … I guess what I’m asking is, do you? Did we do this somehow? What happened to Vico and Memo?”
“Nah, man. Are you kidding? We couldn’t even take a shit without our mothers finding out. We were powerless, hombre, totally powerless.”
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s not like our little kid gang meant anything, right?”
“It meant something. But something good, you feel me?” He paused. “You never answered my question. Can I help get your mom out of the barrio?”
“You don’t know how badly I want that. But there’s no way she’d move. She’s totally sunk her roots in, no matter how bad the neighborhood gets. She pretends she’s Susie Homemaker.”
“I hear you.” Carlos stood up. “If she changes her mind, you call me.” He pointed his finger at Javier.
Javier stood. “Promise.” They fell into a hug. “Thank you, man,” he whispered in Carlos’s ear.
“For you, anything.” Carlos slapped him on the back, straightened his jacket and suddenly he was Papi Gringo again.
How the hell did he do that? He slipped the star persona on and off like a jacket. “Well, I better let you get back to your business,” Javier said, pointing to the doorway where the hot girl waited.
“Like I said, it’s a living.” He smiled and walked with Javier to the elevator. “You’ll let me know if Izzy turns up, yes?”
Javier nodded. “You, too.”
“It’s weird, you’re the second person in the last fifteen minutes to bring up all this shit.”
Javier stopped. “What? Who was the other?”
Carlos pressed the elevator button. “Some reporter chick. Though, if you ask me, she looked too young to be a reporter. Hot though, in a natural, gringa kinda way. She did have a decent-sized culo.”
Javier tried to sound calm. “What was her name?”
“Lupe Dávila.”
Javier’s heart started to pound, hard. He wondered if Carlos could hear it. “She’s the police chief’s niece, Izzy’s cousin. Did you know that?”
“Man, I don’t know. I did the interview as a favor to my lawyer.”
A phone started buzzing in Carlos’s jacket pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. “I gotta go, man. Great seeing you, though.” The elevator doors rattled open. Carlos made a gesture that echoed the cell phone at his ear. “Call me anytime, Javi. I mean it.”
Javier smiled and stepped into the elevator. With all they’d talked about, he couldn’t stop thinking about Lupe. The gringa with the Latin name.
As the doors closed on Carlos’s apartment, Javier could see smiling images of himself multiplied in the mirrors around him.
The lights flickered on and off as the elevator lurched downward. Javier was just thinking it was like a disco when they clicked off and stayed off. His breathing started coming in faster every second he stood in the elevator’s blackness. When he heard the insect-like buzz of the fluorescent lights start to come to life again, he let out a long breath.
In the first flicker of the lights, Javier glanced over his left shoulder, and a dark shape loomed behind him, its edges ragged like it had been torn from the fabric of his nightmares.
The lights clicked off again and he sank back into darkness. A scream rose in his throat, the back of his neck twitching.
The lights came back on and stayed on.
Javier spun around, searching the mirrors’ reflection for the shadow behind him.
There was nothing there.
He was alone.
When the door clattered open on the first floor, he pushed his body through the narrow opening as soon as he could fit, and tore through the lobby. Outside, he drew in gulps of the heavy, salted sea air, and looked around him at the busy Isla Verde Avenue.
People walked dogs along the sidewalk.
Cars buzzed by on the expressway a block away.
How could it look so normal?
Why did it feel like he’d just shared the elevator with a small piece of hell?
July 7, 1:50 P.M.
Lupe
LUPE CHECKED THE time on her cell phone again. “Twenty-five minutes? How long does a freakin’ bus take in this country, anyway?” She was the only person sitting at the bus stop waiting for the A-5 to Old San Juan and it was about three degrees hotter than Hades. She began to wonder if everyone else knew something she didn’t. Maybe the entire bus service had been canceled and no one had told her. How much money could they make with a seventy-five cent bus fare, anyway?
She had to admit, though; she was doing something right. Not only had she talked to Papi “call me Carlos” Gringo in complete sentences, but he seemed to accept her as a real journalist. Then she remembered the selfie she took in the apartment. She pulled up the photo app and opened the most recent shot. There she was, the big white apartment with the ocean out the window … with Papi Gringo over her shoulder! She actually squealed as she posted it with the caption Just hanging with Papi Gringo. No big thing. At least she hadn’t lied to her cousin Tere about one thing; she really was introducing northern New England to his music.
The sun was blazing above, baking her bare shoulders in her sundress, and she regretted not using some of the shopping cash her uncle had given her to take a cab. It was still early in the summer, though, and she figured she would take the bus again instead and save the cash. Her uncle would absolutely kill her if he knew she was traveling around the island on the bus … and if he knew where she’d been … and who she’d talked to … alone. But if she hadn’t come she wouldn’t have gotten to meet an actual celebrity.
“Damn, it’s hot out here.” Her voice sounded loud despite the constant thrum of traffic on the street in front of her. She leaned out and looked to the left again, wondering if miraculously the bus had appeared and was making its way toward her. She heard a car idling to her right, in the driveway to Papi Gringo’s apartment building, the engine revving. She sat up straighter and felt a bristling along her hairline. Ugh. She was just waiting for the catcalls. She kept her eyes locked in the other direction as if she could make the bus appear. One more minute of revving and she was going to turn around and rip this guy a new one.
“Perdóname, Señorita Dávila?”
What? Her head whipped over to the right and she saw him, smiling out the window of a beat-up sedan.
He was calling her.
By name.
That damn heat rose up behind her face again.
“What?” Not the answer one normally gives a handsome guy who politely calls you by name, but this was not a situation that was natural to her.
“I just came from my friend Carlos’s place.”
Lupe just stared at him. Jeezum, he was handsome.
“You know, Papi Gringo.”
She shook her head awake. “I just met him.”
“Since we keep running into each other, sometimes literally, I wanted to at least let you know my name.” He smiled again. His teeth were impossibly white. “I’m Javier, Javier Utierre.”
Javier. She said it over and over in her head. “I’m Lupe Dáv—guess you knew that already.”
He just looked at her as the traffic buzzed by and she looked at the sidewalk, the road signs, anywhere but at him.
“Buses are slow here.”
She smiled. “You think?” His eyes were squinti
ng from the sun, his lashes dark and thick, but there was a paleness in his skin that wasn’t there earlier, like he’d aged in the last half an hour.
“May I give you a ride somewhere, Señorita Dávila?”
“Lupe.” She said it as if her mouth wasn’t under her control anymore.
“Lupe, can I give you a ride somewhere?”
She shook her head again. Did she think that would clear it like an Etch A Sketch or something? And why did this guy think she needed his help again? “No. I’m just going to Old San Juan. I can get there myself.”
“I’d be happy to drive you there.”
Lupe couldn’t help herself, for a second she wondered what it would be like to sit next to him, what he smelled like, what his thigh felt like pressed against hers.…
“I can’t.” She felt like she had to say something to explain herself. That was a first. “My tío taught me never to take rides with strangers.” Great, now she sounded like she was ten and her tío told her what to do. Well, her tío told everybody what to do.
“He’s a wise man. You’re lucky to have him.”
“I am.”
“How about I ride the bus with you?”
“What? Why? You have a car.” This guy really made no sense to her.
“Well, my tío taught me not to let ladies ride the bus alone.”
She felt that angry heat rise behind her face again. “Well, I guess you and your tío have never heard of feminism. I can handle myself.” Lupe turned to look down the street again. Part of her was afraid the bus was coming and that only pissed her off more.
“Good. Then you can protect me,” Javier said, and then he was backing the car up the driveway, leaving Lupe to sit at the bus stop, her mouth hanging open.
What the hell? What was with this guy? She was horrified to find herself primping her hair. What was wrong with her?
She heard shouting coming from Papi Gringo’s building and looked up to see Javier running down the driveway. “¡Espera, por favor!”
Lupe looked back toward the road and was shocked to see the bus door open in front of her. When had that happened? Probably when she was busy trying to figure out what this guy’s story was. Javier was standing by the side of the door, gesturing for her to go in first.
Five Midnights Page 8
