Cry Mercy

by Toni Andrews

  Even I had heard of the Bloods. “The Tiburónes are powerful enough to want to piss off a big L.A. gang like the Bloods?”

  “Not really.” He shrugged. “Which is one of the reasons I don’t think those BB guys are really Bloods. Either that or the Tiburónes are crazy stupid.”

  “Who runs the territory we’re in now?”

  “No one, man. This street, the whole thing, is neutral, everything south of Edinger, all the way to South Coast Plaza. You maybe see a little action, a couple of places on Warner, but not much.” He nodded around at the walls. “First thing Flaco did, when he hooked up with Mami, was move her out of the barrio.”

  He got up and stretched, then looked at his watch. It was an expensive one that Hilda had bought for him. He called out in the direction of the doorway, “Hurry up! I want you out of here before I leave to go talk to the Hombres.”

  “I’m coming,” said Gus from the stairs. He came into the kitchen with his backpack, now looking considerably fuller, and dragging a duffel bag. “And I’m an Hombre. I should go to the meeting.”

  “I’m not meeting with everyone,” said Tino. “Just key people.”

  Gus wrinkled his brow at a term that must have come directly from one of Grant’s business lessons, and Tino clapped him on the back. “Ready to go, hermano?”

  “No,” said Gus, but he slumped toward the door, making more noise with his feet than was necessary. Tino followed us to the curb, where he gazed apprehensively at the Malibu, its baby-blue paint the same color as the sky.

  He turned to Gus. “I better not hear you tried to pull any shit, jumping out of the car at an intersection, something like that. You hear me?”

  Gus gave an infinitesimal nod, and Tino went on. “Give me your cell phone.”

  “Tino—”

  “Just give it to me.” He held out his hand, and Gus fished the cell phone out of the knapsack. “The pager, too.”

  Gus handed it over, and Tino returned to his perusal of the convertible. Sighing, he fished in his pocket and pulled out a pair of keys attached to a rabbit’s foot chain. After a moment’s hesitation, he handed them to me.

  “Not a scratch. You got that?”

  I nodded, careful to keep my expression solemn. I wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the car or Gus. And, truth be told, it didn’t really matter.

  7

  “Look, he likes you.” Sukey paused in the act of adding another log to Hilda’s outdoor fireplace. “See, I told you he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Don’t laugh at him, I warned her silently.

  I won’t. It is pretty funny, though. He’s actually shaking.

  She was right. Gus’s expression of pure terror when the French doors had opened and Cupcake had galloped onto the patio had afforded me a certain spiteful glee. He hadn’t had time to extricate himself from the chaise longue where he’d been slumped before the dog was practically on top of him.

  Gus had scrambled backward so suddenly that the chair had nearly toppled over, and Cupcake had decided the newcomer was playing a game. Barking joyously, he’d climbed up on the lounge, resulting in the chair tilting even farther. The two had ended up in a heap, with the dog, who probably had ten pounds on wiry Gus, on top.

  I’d called the big mutt off, but he’d been staying close to Gus ever since, hoping his new playmate would start another game. Once he’d more or less recovered his dignity, Gus had tried to appear nonchalant, but he was obviously afraid of dogs. Or at least dogs the size of Volkswagens.

  Cupcake now had his head almost in Gus’s lap, his whole back end wagging furiously. I could see the whites of Gus’s eyes and felt a mean little twinge of satisfaction. The kid had been a pain in my ass since the moment I’d pulled away from the curb in front of Teresa’s house. He’d complained, sulked, whined and argued. I’d had to press him again—twice, because I’d been too specific the first time—which I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t promised Tino I’d get him to Hilda’s. Before Sukey and Cupcake showed up, he’d been bitching because neither Hilda nor I would let him have a beer.

  “Good dog,” tried Gus. “Maybe you want to lie down now.”

  The words lie down, if spoken with tone of authority, would normally generate instant compliance in Cupcake. Gus’s tone was so tentative that it sounded more like a question than a command, and the dog ignored it.

  “He just wants you to rub his head a little,” coaxed Sukey. “Right between the ears. Go ahead.”

  Not wanting to look afraid in front of a bunch of women, although Hilda had fled to the house’s interior and her housekeeper, Estela, had gone home for the day, Gus lifted a hand and placed it oh, so carefully on the enormous skull. “Here?”

  Sukey didn’t have to answer, because Cupcake lifted his chin in order to push his head more firmly against the hand. Gus gave an experimental scratch, and Cupcake moaned with pleasure. The motion became more deliberate, and the big dog sighed and lowered his head against Gus’s knees. I could see the boy’s shoulders relax. “Good dog,” he repeated. This time it sounded like he actually meant it.

  I was annoyed to still be sitting there, my whole day gone, but Tino had called and said his business was going to take longer than expected. Hilda had looked so aghast at the prospect of being left alone with Gus—Estela took one look at the boy and decided it was time to dust the insides of all of the closets—that I hadn’t had the heart to abandon her, even after Sukey showed up.

  I craned my neck to see if Hilda was still in the kitchen. She liked to joke that the only thing she was any good at making for dinner was reservations, but Estela often put something together that could be warmed in the oven or heated in the microwave, and Hilda could at least manage a salad. She’d asked Gus what he would like to eat, but he’d only shrugged and mumbled. Even my suggestion of pizza hadn’t raised a flicker of interest. I’d told Hilda she should just make dinner for herself, and Gus, if he was going to be an asshole about it, could just go hungry.

  “But I told Tino I’d take care of him,” she protested. “What will he say if I can’t even give him a decent meal?”

  “Tino just wants the kid out of Santa Ana until he gets his gang business resolved. I don’t think he expects you to do anything other than provide a bed and a roof.”

  “Yes, that’s what he said,” Hilda said. “Grant offered to take him, and I should have kept my mouth shut. But oh, no, I had to stick my nose in the middle of it.”

  “It’s not too late, you know. Tino would understand if you called Grant and asked him to pick up the kid.”

  She shook her head. “No, then Tino would just be running over there every five minutes, making sure he was okay. I thought it would be better to have Gus here, where his brother could keep an eye on him. Of course,” she added, asperity in her tone, “I thought Tino would actually be here.”

  Now the sun had gone down, and there were lights in the windows of the breakfast nook. It was starting to get too cool on the patio, even with the fireplace going, and I decided it was time to check on dinner.

  “I’m going to go see if Hilda needs any help. It’s probably almost time to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry,” said Gus.

  He’s lying, said Sukey, the telepathic comment unnecessary. It had been more than nine hours since the breakfast Gus hadn’t even finished, and teenagers’ stomachs needed regular feeding.

  “Even so, I want you come in and sit at the table. You don’t have to eat,” I told him.

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  Gus’s tone was starting to make me feel as if I were chewing aluminum foil, and I didn’t bother to answer him.

  You can always press him, Sukey’s voice sounded in my head.

  To eat dinner? Let the little fucker starve. The silent sound of Sukey’s laughter filled my mind as I opened the French doors and headed into the kitchen.

  “Ten minutes,” said Hilda the moment I came around the corner. “I don’t need any help.”

  “
You sure?”

  “It’s calming me down,” she said. “Ten minutes and I’ll be perfect.”

  “Okay.”

  Back on the patio, Sukey was sitting in the chaise opposite Gus. Cupcake had transferred his attentions to her, and the kid looked relieved. “Rottweilers are really very gentle, if they’re well-trained. They were bred to herd sheep, you know,” she was telling him.

  “I thought they were all like, you know, attack dogs. Like in The Omen, man, when they were possessed by the devil, and that kid was making them eat people and shit.”

  Trust Sukey to finally get Gus interested in something.

  “Well, they are often trained as guard dogs,” she admitted. “The Romans brought their ancestors to Germany as war dogs, trained to fight in battle right alongside the soldiers.”

  “No shit?”

  “Nope. And Cupcake here was trained as an attack dog. He just doesn’t attack unless someone commands him to.”

  “Will he, like, kill someone?”

  Sukey gave me a troubled look. We really didn’t know what Cupcake would do. The transfer of ownership from his previous master had been done in a rush, and Sergio, the asshole in question, had neglected to give us the voice commands, all of which seemed to be randomly selected. We’d since learned a few, and not in particularly convenient circumstances.

  Nail file would make Cupcake block someone by standing in front of them, growling and snapping. The word bumblebee would cause him to grab someone by the arm with his teeth and grip them just tightly enough so they couldn’t escape. And piston elicited a takedown followed by a throat hold—a spectacular but, so far, nonfatal move.

  We hadn’t stumbled across a kill command. Yet.

  “I don’t know if he would—” Sukey started.

  A cell phone played the opening bars of a Bob Marley tune. Gus’s expression, which had become almost pleasant, returned to a scowl—he’d probably been reminded that Tino had instructed Hilda and me not to let him use our cell phones. We wouldn’t be able to keep him away from Hilda’s house phones forever, but he didn’t feel comfortable enough yet to sneak off and make a call.

  “Hi, Grant!” Sukey seemed relieved at the interruption and turned her back on Gus. “No, I’m at Hilda’s. We’re getting ready for dinner and last time I checked, there was enough for an army. You want to come by? I’ll tell her….” She headed in the direction of the French doors, Cupcake trailing in her wake.

  Gus didn’t seem any more thrilled to be alone with me than I was to be with him. He sighed for about the thousandth time.

  “When is Tino gonna get here, man?”

  “Soon, I hope.” I didn’t want to stay for dinner but couldn’t see how I was going to get out of it.

  Gus looked at me. “What are you, anyway?”

  I froze. “What do you mean?”

  “You ain’t Tino’s woman, but he let you drive his car. And he brought you to Mami’s. Tino don’t bring nobody to Mami’s.”

  I relaxed a tiny bit.

  “I like your mother.” I’d said it to change the subject, but it was true.

  “She liked you, too.” I was surprised, both at what he’d said and that he’d said it at all. I’d hardly had time to make an impression at Teresa’s house, and Gus didn’t seem too interested in making friends with me.

  “But the way Tino was talking to you at Joaquin’s, it was like—” he shrugged “—like you were backup or something. If he thought he needed backup, why’d he bring a woman? Why not bring Gordo? Gordo’s his teniente.”

  “Because Gordo’s got more important things to do than help me talk some sense into my burro of a little brother.”

  Tino stood at the edge of the patio, framed by the light streaming from the dining room. I’d never been so glad to see him.

  “Come on, we’re eating,” he said.

  I expected Gus to start whining about his lack of hunger, but he got up and headed into the dining room without comment. He was probably more relieved at Tino’s arrival than I was.

  “Hey, it’s the Newport Bitch!”

  I was actually comforted by both the strident voice and the insult—Jimbo only gave rude nicknames to those he liked. Sunday nights were too quiet to pay someone else to tend the bar, so the man himself was holding court for his small audience.

  “Hey, Jimbo.” A draft beer arrived on the bar in front of me at almost the exact moment I settled onto the bar stool.

  “This is on Butchie.” Jimbo nodded toward the opposite end of the bar, and I turned to see one of my favorite local fixtures. Butchie had sold Sam his gas dock and boat rental business when he retired.

  “Thanks, Butchie. How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you around for a while?”

  “Oh, I’ve been staying with a friend a few nights a week.” Butchie indicated a tall man with a full head of white hair sitting next to him. “You know Roger, don’t you?” He clapped the man on the back, and he turned toward me.

  “No, I don’t think we’ve met.” As the man got up from his bar stool and took a couple of steps toward me, hand extended, I recognized him.

  I was right—we hadn’t met. I just knew those impossibly blue eyes, although I’d previously only seen them in a different face.

  “Hi, I’m Roger Falls. And you are…?”

  “Mercy Hollings.” As I shook his hand, I waited for recognition and, possibly, disapproval to flood his features. But his expression remained cheerful.

  “I’m sure I’d remember meeting such a pretty girl. But I’ll bet you know my son, Sam.”

  I managed not to stammer. “Yes, I know Sam. He looks a lot like you.”

  “So they tell me.” The eyes sparkled with innocent good will. I wondered whether Sam had never mentioned my name, or if Roger had forgotten it.

  I searched for something to say. I hadn’t been around a lot of people with Alzheimer’s and didn’t know how to act. Roger seemed perfectly alert, and was tanned and healthy-looking. His slight stoop seemed more a product of leaning over to talk to shorter people—which would be just about everyone on the planet. He had to be six foot eight.

  Butchie rescued us. “Roger was kinda under the weather a little while back, but he’s been feeling so good lately that I thought a trip down to the beach today would be nice. We even got a sail in—Sam took us out for a while this afternoon. Good wind today.”

  “By God, yes!” Roger enthused. “Blue water sailing—nothing like it. You ever see Sam’s boat?”

  “It’s beautiful,” I told him, sincerely. “I took my first sail on that boat.”

  “Did you? Tell you what, I’ll talk to him about doing it again. Great weather this time of year…” He faltered for the first time, and I wondered if he really knew what time of year it was. He went on, sounding more confident. “I’d enjoy having a beautiful woman on board, and I’d bet Sam would, too.”

  He tilted an eyebrow and canted his head to one side, as if to say, “Don’t you agree?” I’d seen Sam execute that exact mannerism a thousand times.

  “Won’t you come sit with us?” Roger gestured toward the other end of the bar. I hesitated. I only had to shift about five stools to be next to him, but I had a feeling Sam would show up any minute. I was starting to lose the all’s-right-with-the-world feeling I’d gotten when I first walked in the door and heard Jimbo’s squawk.

  But I couldn’t think of an excuse, and besides, I’d wanted to meet this man for a long time, so I moved the few feet and resettled.

  “Another beer, innkeeper.” Roger nodded at Jimbo, who looked at Butchie.

  “You haven’t finished your last drink, Rog.” Butchie pushed over a glass with something red in it. Sam’s father looked at the glass and grimaced, then winked at me.

  “Cranberry juice,” he said, lowering his voice in a mock-conspiratorial voice. “Not at all a fit drink for a sailor, not at all.” Despite his words, he took a sip. “This old fart—” he nodded at Butchie “—claims that beer interferes with my medication or
some such nonsense.”

  “According to Sam, the doctor says you can have one beer or one glass of wine a day,” said Butchie. “And, far as I know, you ain’t had it yet. So go ahead, Jimbo, give the man a beer so he’ll quit bitching.”

  “Thank you, barkeep,” Roger said as Jimbo placed a mug in front of him. He took a long draw. “Ah, there we go. Nectar of the gods.”

  I relaxed a bit. Despite the strong resemblance, Sam’s father had a quality I seldom saw in his son. It was a sense of fun. Not that Sam was incapable of being lighthearted, it was just that he always seemed to be holding something back, as if he were watching and waiting. I supposed the same could have been said of me.

  “Where is Sam?” I asked.

  “He’s fueling up the Reef Runner,” Butchie supplied. “They usually fill up earlier, but they were doing some engine work—took them a little longer than they thought.”

  I nodded. The Reef Runner was one of several charter fishing boats that did overnight runs. I often saw it returning to the harbor in the late mornings or early afternoons, decks filled with life-jacketed men, a few of whom proudly held up tuna or mahimahi. According to Matt, the Reef Runner’s captain, at least a quarter of his customers got seasick, but most came back again anyway. Although the gas dock normally closed at sunset, the commercial captains all knew where to find Sam if they needed fuel after hours.

  “You know Sam?” asked Roger, and I saw Butchie wince.

  “Sure,” I told him. “Sam’s a great guy.”

  “Yes, he is. I’m damned proud of that boy. Damned proud. I’m glad he’s found something he likes to do, too. He needed something low-key, after that terrible time in Iraq. Bad business, that. Sam blamed himself, but I never believed—”

  “Roger,” said Butchie sharply, “don’t go boring Mercy with all that ancient history. Drink your beer.”

  Iraq? Bad business?

  Roger looked flustered but obeyed Butchie, taking another swig from the mug. “Sorry,” he said. “Was I repeating myself?”