Saint Death

by Marcus Sedgwick

  Five is the turning point; the moment of truth, five is the only real test in calavera; this is the skill: to decide, when dealt a five, whether to draw another card, or not. The spent cards dance past Arturo’s mind and they are laughing and jeering, taunting him and they will not be quiet and in desperation, he takes a card.

  He draws five, and loses.

  The fat guy has broken his losing streak with an eight, and laughs at the nervous guy, whose nerves suddenly return. El Carnero looks calmly across at Arturo and Arturo lifts his head and sees the man who will have Faustino killed, and the man who he will probably get to do it, staring at him.

  Raúl lifts his hand and makes it into a gun. He pulls back his thumb as a hammer and then drops it, mouthing something as he does, mouthing the same thing he did earlier, in the street in Anapra.

  Now Arturo knows what it is.

  —Estás muerto.

  That’s what he said, that’s what he’s whispering now as he blows imaginary smoke off the tip of his forefinger, like a little kid.

  —Estás muerto.

  Arturo has only forty dollars left. He’s through. He doesn’t look at them as he speaks.

  —I’m out—he says.

  Without waiting for anyone to say anything, he gets up and walks away from the table, thirty dollars poorer than when he sat down two hours ago, and two hours closer to Faustino’s death.

  He pushes through the sweating heave of the bodies, all dancing, all dancing, all dancing closer to the moment at which their vanity is finally displayed to them, and half stumbles out into the street.

  He does not know what to do.

  He cannot go back to Faustino. He cannot tell him he had over seven hundred dollars in his hand, and blew it. He cannot tell him he blew it because he panicked when he realized he’d sat down with El Carnero.

  Instead, he crosses the street and sits on the step of the barber’s, which is now in total darkness, uncaring that the creatures at the door are looking at him from time to time.

  They soon get bored.

  Arturo does not know what to do, and yet, there is something.

  * * *

  No one knows where she came from, not really. Some say she came from Europe, and others say she came from South America. Some say she came from Mexico all along, though it wasn’t called Mexico then. But everyone agrees on one thing: she does not discriminate. She opens her arms to all; she welcomes everyone in and will answer anyone who calls for her aid. Arturo knew of her before tonight. He knew her by sight. He saw, like everyone else, how there are more candles in the market than before, candles shaped like her. And figures, small ones and large ones, for sale on those same market stalls. He has seen those figures more often than before in the parades on Días de los Muertos; along with all the dark and sexy Catrinas and eternally laughing skeletons, along with all the little sugar skulls to be eaten, she’s been there, waiting.

  And tonight, he got down on his knees, and he prayed to her.

  He knows his mother is dead. He does not know how, or who did it, or where her body ended up; she was simply one of the missing; that’s all. Tonight, Arturo prayed to Santa Muerte to somehow bring her soul some peace, and he lit a candle, a black candle that Faustino told him means protection, so maybe that’s good.

  But there was something else, something that Faustino did not know about. As he knelt before the shrine, it seemed to Arturo crazy that people who desperately need money would leave money behind on the Skinny Girl’s altar. He didn’t care much about the pesos, but there were dollars there too. Dollars. Dollars, which, as Faustino called Don’t be long over his shoulder, Arturo slipped into his shoe.

  It seemed to him that Santa Muerte was telling him to take the money, that she knew he would need it tonight, not just a pathetic seventy dollars, so he quickly picked up the two largest rolls of green American money and slipped them inside his shoe.

  He’d stood, looked Faustino in the eye, wished Doña Maria a good evening and thanked her for letting them use the shrine, and he had told himself that Santa Muerte must have wanted him to have the money.

  He slides the two rolls out of his shoe now, and unfurls them. He counts eighty-three dollars. He has forty left of what he came with. One hundred and twenty-three. Enough for one hand, maybe two, if they’re going easy on the bank, and yes, Santa Muerte wanted him to have it.

  That is one possibility, but there is another.

  The other possibility is that he stole money from desperate people, who gave money to their dirty saint in their hour of need. That he stole money given to Santa Muerte. That he has tried to cheat death herself.

  He stands, and walks back across the street.

  SECOND GAME

  He’s thinking of his mother as he walks back toward the bar. Why she should invade his thoughts now is not clear to him, he only finds images of her in his vision; her hair, her smile. Her arms. Her warm arms.

  He was eleven years old. He went to school one morning, one morning during that brief time when he and Faustino went to school. Meanwhile she went to work in the maquiladora, as usual, where she should have spent the day in a factory assembling a small part of a television set that would be sold north of the border and bear the words Made in America.

  She never made it to work. The company bus broke down, a mile from the plant. It happened all the time, so no one complained, they just got out, and began to walk, and trot, because time was moving. While others ran, Arturo’s mother was feeling ill, and could not, and because she was three minutes late reporting for her shift, they turned her away. The last time she was seen was by some of her fellow workers, setting off to make the long walk home.

  She never made it, while the TVs she should have made were loaded into boxcars to join others rumbling on the Union Pacific line, like they still rumble now, every night, right past Arturo’s shack. He rarely thinks about his mother. Not now, not these days. She’s gone and he knows she’s not coming back, just one of the disappeared women of Juárez, one of the thousands.

  He thinks about what Faustino said: that wild story about American money financing the Sinaloa cartel against the CDJ. That was the time when the missing was at its worst. Girls, young women just being fed into the horror machine of the drug wars and the murders, playthings of men too wrapped up in the narco life to know they were already dead, that what they did to those women would be done to them the next day, or the day after.

  * * *

  Arturo nods to the guys at the door, and enters.

  It seems El Alacrán has not been waiting for him; things progress exactly as they did before. He goes to the bar and with more of Faustino’s pesos buys another bottle of beer, and then he heads back to the game.

  It’s still just the three of them, while the other tables are packed. Arturo knows why now: most people are too scared to play calavera with the jefe of Los Libertadores.

  Arturo remembers what Faustino told him; what El Carnero had told him. Nothing is what it seems. If he had remembered that, he might have thought twice about sitting down with the old, bald guy to play cards. He looks strong, he’s not as old as all that, but he’s stocky, maybe even a little overweight. He looks nothing like the boss of a pandilla, but then, Arturo thinks, maybe it’s the best disguise for such a man. And by avoiding tattoos, he’s been smart; whereas Raúl displays his affiliation to Los Libertadores right across his sinful face. For better, or worse.

  El Carnero looks up as Arturo approaches, and Arturo decides to get the first word in.

  —Needed another one of these—he says, waving the beer.—¿Can I?

  He indicates the empty seat.

  El Carnero doesn’t reply to that, so Arturo sits down. Instead he asks—¿Where you from, niño?

  Arturo’s heart quickens. He thinks just as quickly. It cannot be that El Carnero knows who he is. He cannot know that he is a friend of Faustino. And until tomorrow night, he cannot know that Faustino has stolen a thousand dollars from him. He briefly thinks ab
out lying, but knows it is best to tell the truth where the truth cannot hurt you. There is less to remember that way, whereas if you lie, you have to remember every damn lie you told.

  —Anapra—Arturo says, trying to sound like it’s kind of a boring question.

  —¿Anapra?

  El Carnero turns to Raúl, who’s sitting in one of the empty seats now, though he’s not playing.

  —You were in Anapra today. ¿Right?

  Raúl nods, looks toward Arturo. He is an arm’s length away. He could reach out now and snap Arturo’s head off with one hand.

  —Yeah—he says.—¿Maybe you saw me?

  Arturo shrugs.

  —I guess so. Maybe. Or maybe not. ¿You know?

  Raúl laughs. Arturo doesn’t like it.

  —Smart kid—Raúl says, to El Carnero, and Arturo wonders what the look that passes between them might mean. Then Raúl points two fingers right at him.

  —¿What do you do in Anapra, niño?

  Arturo shrugs again, fighting the urge to get up and run, run hard.

  —I work for some guy. Auto shop.

  —¿Yeah?—says Raúl.—¿What’s his name? I could do with my truck getting looked at. Maybe he can help me out. There’s this noise under the hood.

  El Carnero taps the table with the calaverita.

  —Raúl, not now. We’re playing cards. ¿Aren’t we? ¿We’re playing cards, right?

  He addresses this to Arturo, and waits for an answer.

  —Yeah. I’m in.

  Raúl slides his chair back a bit and El Carnero holds the stone out to Arturo once more, who once more refuses.

  —¿No?—El Carnero laughs, shaking his head.—Maybe later then.

  Arturo tries not to give anything away. He wants to give nothing to this man, not even an emotion, not even a thought. As it stands he has given him, and the other calavera players, a total of thirty dollars. That’s all. He intends to get them back, and many more with them, but it will all depend on the first hand.

  Arturo expects the bank to be a hundred dollars, and it is. He pulls out a hundred from his shirt pocket like he’s got five times that amount on him, and drops it into the middle of the table, and he keeps his eyes open as his cards come down and he’s praying to Santa Muerte, Please, please, please.

  He sees that the Bony Lady is playing games with him. She could have given him calavera, just to show she’s on his side, that the cards have returned, that things are going to be good.

  Instead, she gives him a five, and he must decide. The five again, the turning point, the moment of truth. La hora de la hora. He lost on the five, got wiped out. He took a card when he should have sat.

  ¿Why a five on the first damn hand? he thinks, but he knows why. She’s testing him. He stole from her, no—no, she wanted him to have it. But he cannot know which of those is true and, in the meantime, she’s going to test his faith.

  He’s holding a queen and a five and that makes a count of five.

  Take a card or sit? Arturo did not see the previous hands; there is no way of knowing what lies in the discarded pile.

  He must guess. Or he must trust in Santa Muerte, that she is going to be good to him. He took a card last time and blew it. So maybe this time he should stick with the five. He’s about to put his fingers over his cards to show he doesn’t want another one, when he stops. That’s no way to play calavera. That’s not how luck works; just because it was wrong last time doesn’t make it wrong this time.

  He takes a card. It’s a four.

  El Carnero takes a look at the two cards he has dealt himself. Since Arturo drew, El Carnero knows he must have had five or less with his first two cards. He then dealt Arturo a four, played face up for everyone to see. But that four in itself means nothing since only Arturo knows what he’s already holding; a five, and with that four, he has the magic nine. He cannot be beaten. At worst, someone else might have nine and they will take back their money and replay the hand.

  The nervous man and the guy with the scar have nothing.

  El Carnero takes a card, and frowns. He shows a total of seven and Arturo reaches across the table and pulls four hundred American dollars toward him. It’s all he can do to stop himself from screaming, but from joy or fear, he really cannot tell.

  Two more wins like that and he will have the thousand. He doesn’t stop to think about what two losses will do, and he takes the next bank offered: another hundred.

  El Carnero watches him steadily. He deals the cards slowly and when he has, Arturo peeks at his and sees a natural nine.

  —¡Calavera!—he says, flipping them over and then the fat guy laughs and says—¡Me too!

  The hand is drawn and they all take back their money, and Arturo knows that’s how it’s going to be. She’s going to make him suffer, she’s going to test his faith, she’s going to make him sweat for it.

  They play on, and it’s just as he thought.

  He wins two hands, loses two. His stack of dollars creeps higher and then higher, and then he almost loses everything, and still he has to keep an empty face, for it will not do to let them know that he is desperate.

  Raúl never once takes his eyes off him. Arturo can feel it, he can physically feel that he is being stared at, and that that stare is a menacing one. Life in the bar goes on. The fight that’s been brewing blows into life and then the thugs on the door come and help one of the guys pound the other into a bloodied mess on the floor. The music is growling now, low and even nastier than before, and the girls on the bar are dancing hard, and they move and turn and bend and the men below them howl like hungry wolves. Arturo sees none of it.

  He watches the cards come down to him and with every hand he prays to the bony girl and finally, finally, she starts to care for him again. He knows he has passed the test. She falls from the sky, she rises from the ground; wherever it is she resides, she stands behind Arturo now and directs every single card, and makes sure they all fall in exactly the right place, the right hands. She pays Arturo back for his faith, and he wins.

  He wins. He wins again. And then again.

  Sensing the luck has changed, El Carnero declares a bank of just fifty dollars. Arturo takes the hand and with it pulls two hundred dollars back toward him. That’s it. He’s done it. He doesn’t need to count the money as he goes. At any moment he knows exactly how much he is up and how much he is down and what is sitting in his pocket. With that two hundred, fifty of which was his stake, he has tipped over. He has one thousand and fifty dollars, and he looks at El Carnero and, as calmly as he can, thinks, Fuck you.

  Then he thinks something else. He has the thousand, and he’s going to leave. He has the thousand, and fifty more besides and Arturo thinks that he can keep that fifty. Inside, he smiles at the thought that he won and he even made a little extra for himself. He sees it as his fee for playing, and he knows Faustino won’t expect any of it. He’ll just be so glad to get the thousand.

  Then Arturo realizes something.

  Wait a minute, he thinks. I put up fifty to play in the first place. With this fifty, I’ve just broken even, and I came in here and could have gotten myself killed.

  The cards have been his, they’ve easily been his. The Skinny Girl hasn’t put a foot wrong; she’s been all-powerful and impervious to the threat of these savage men. He’s on a streak, and he knows it. It would be dumb, really dumb, to walk away.

  —¿You in?—asks El Carnero.

  Arturo nods.

  The bank is a hundred, and ten seconds later Arturo has made an extra three hundred dollars.

  Three hundred dollars. Even after Faustino’s thousand, he has three hundred and fifty dollars. It’s more money than he has ever had. Ever. He sees what he can do with it. He can buy some decent clothes, he can fix the roof, buy a heater, buy some oil. He could buy a girl a drink somewhere nice.

  —¿Who’s in?—El Carnero is asking, and Arturo is nodding.

  —Yes. I’m in—he says, and matches the bank of fifty.

&nbs
p; He wins again, of course.

  He plays again, he wins again, and he knows nothing as it happens, he knows nothing at all, save that he suddenly realizes he has won over three thousand dollars. Three thousand dollars, only one of which he has to give to Faustino.

  People crowd around the table, watching as a strange kid takes thousands of dollars off El Carnero, and the nervous guy and the guy with the scar across his head have dropped out now, but Arturo barely even knows that, as he plays on.

  He thinks about his mother, and he thinks about the shack. He thinks about Faustino and he thinks about Eva and the baby. He wants something more than he has, he wants to do better, he wants to live an easier life, a better life, and right before him, right now, is the chance to do it.

  Five hundred dollars will pay coyotes to get him to Los Angeles, just like Eva. He can get Siggy to tell him where to go and what to do. Siggy might even know some names, people he could stay with. If he has enough to cover the deposit on a room, he could rent his own place. He could get a job. He could work hard and find someone to love and take her to places like Western Playland.

  A couple more wins and he’ll have enough to do all of that, and maybe more, and Santa Muerte has been good and shown her goodness and repaid him for his faith, and then El Carnero says to the world in general—Two hundred dollars. ¿Who’s in?

  So Arturo says—I am.

  And he loses.

  It’s okay, he thinks. I still have over two thousand. Just don’t panic. You know how to win at calavera.

  But the skull is vanity, that’s all it is. It knows how to show us that everything is in vain, and all our pride and all our dreams along the way are nothing compared with that.

  Arturo loses. He loses again. He feels sick. He has less than fifteen hundred dollars and after Faustino has taken his thousand, Arturo knows he has risked his life for less money than he would need to pay coyotes to get him to El Norte. So he plays on, but his head is spinning and he cannot think so clearly as before and he loses by standing on a five and then sees El Carnero deal himself a four, a four, which would have given Arturo nine and ¿why, why, why, he thinks, why do they use two decks?