by Toni Andrews
“Backup car?”
“They park on the street outside the Rendezvous. Make sure no one comes inside and interrupts the meeting. Also, they can, like, carry in a message if it’s an emergency, but someone from the Hermandad gotta search them first.”
I nodded and sat back in the seat, taking very deep breaths. I could press him to stop the car and let me out. I didn’t have to do this. It wasn’t too late.
But we were already pulling onto Main Street, and within a few blocks we pulled over and Tino stopped the engine. I looked at my watch. It was a couple of minutes before eleven, and there were only four other cars parked on the block. From what Tino had told me, there would be two cars from each gang. That meant the Tiburónes and the Hermandad were already here.
The truck’s door opened, and one of the Hombres walked over to where two men stood on the sidewalk, next to a doorway with a set of stairs leading up. A sign above the doorway said Rendezvous Ballroom in fading neon. Without any discernible greeting, the Hombre got in line next to the other two men.
“Are we going in?” I asked. Not that I was in a hurry,
“Be patient. We go last, because I asked for the meeting.” He pointed. “See, those guys are from the Hermandad. They’re going first.”
Three men got out of a black Escalade and approached the trio next to the doorway. One by one, they held up their arms and submitted to what looked like a very thorough pat-down by two of the waiting men, including the guy from the Hombres Locos. I shuddered—I would have to go through the same gauntlet before I could get in that door.
It wasn’t too late, I repeated silently. I could still back out. I swallowed to keep from speaking, afraid anything I said would contain a press.
As soon as the three arrivals had finished being searched and filed up the stairs, a second car door opened. The three men who got out looked, to my untrained eyes, identical to the first group—leather jackets over bulky sweatshirts and black jeans—but I knew to look for the red bandanas.
“Hijos de putas.” Gordo’s shoulders had tensed as the men crossed the street. “Couple of them were trying to jack a car off Grand, right down the block from the auto body shop. I tell you that?”
“After tonight, they’ll know to stay out of that neighborhood,” said Tino. “Stay cool, Gordo, and it’s all gonna come out like we talked about. You’ll see. Trust me—Mercy can talk anyone into doing anything.”
Gordo grunted, and I thought I discerned skepticism in the sound. I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t spoken five sentences since we’d met.
The second trio were searched and disappeared up the steps. “Come on, we’re up.” Tino opened his door, and Gordo did the same. I put my hand on the door handle but couldn’t seem to pull it. I looked up to find Gordo’s expressionless face staring in at me. He opened the back door and stood back. I saw the three men, two of whom were waiting to search me, and wondered what they were thinking about my hesitation. Crap. It took me a second, but I managed to swing my legs out of the car and stand up.
When we walked over to the doorway, Gordo raised his arms and let the Tiburónes and Hermandad goons begin the search. Tino nodded for me to go ahead of him, and I took a step forward.
“You brought a gringa?” sneered the one with the red bandana, the shorter of the two.
“None of your business,” said Tino without rancor. “Just do your job.”
“Hey, man, just asking. I rather pat her down than you.” He grinned at me, and I repressed a shudder. “Turn around, Mami, Paco’s gonna feel you up.”
I resisted the temptation to compel him to attempt a few anatomically impossible acts, took a deep breath, turned my back and raised my arms. I was trembling and knew Paco could feel it. He settled his hands on either side of my waist and leaned forward to speak into my ear.
“I’m going to enjoy this.”
“Just check me for weapons like you would anyone else.” The press was subtle enough that I didn’t think the other men would notice. Paco patted me down thoroughly but without groping, and I managed not to gag. I stood back as the Hermandad representative finished with Tino. I half expected them to find something, even though I’d watched him remove his guns and knives, and turn off his cell phone. Everything was in the Malibu’s trunk, and I had the feeling Tino was feeling pretty naked without his usual complement of firepower.
“I need you to point out which men are the leaders so I know who to hypnotize first,” I said as we filed up the stairs. I was pretty sure that the guys waiting at the top weren’t going to be as accepting of my presence as Paco had been, and I would probably need to press quickly.
“The Hermandad’s jefe is Chuco. He got a big scar on his cheek. The Tiburónes guy calls himself Gato. His real name is Felix.” In other circumstances, I might have found someone named Felix referring to himself as a cat funny, but not today. “He’ll be the one running his mouth.”
Someone had pulled a large round folding table into the center of the room, and nine metal chairs were arranged around it. The rest of the men were standing, waiting for us. They stared, faces expressionless. A feeling of unreality gripped me. The deserted ballroom looked like the set of a Tarantino movie, its shabby theatricality too contrived to be real.
But this was real, all right. The sheer physical presence of the men waiting at the table was tangible, like the buzz you hear near big electrical transformers.
I think I would have known Chuco even without the description. He had an intensity that drew the eye. He glanced at me for only a second, but I had the feeling he’d taken in every detail. My skin prickled. I realized I was looking at the top of the food chain, at least in this neighborhood.
“Tino. Gordo.” Chuco gave an infinitesimal nod.
“Chuco,” Tino responded, and Gordo nodded.
“I’m gonna assume you got a good reason for bringing an outsider.”
“Fuckin’ A.” The new voice came from one side, and I checked out its source. A muscular man in a black undershirt glared at me. I had time to register a jeweled earring in the shape of a cat before I returned my attention to Chuco.
Showtime. I focused on Chuco and pressed.
“I’m a professional negotiator. It’s okay for me to be here.”
Chuco narrowed his eyes and looked directly into my face for the first time. For a second I thought the press hadn’t worked. Then he nodded.
“A negotiator, huh? Okay.”
“What’s this shit?” Gato took a step toward me, and I felt, rather than saw, Tino move up on my left. “You just gonna take her word for it?”
I was about to direct the same statement at Gato when Chuco spoke up.
“I said it’s okay. You got a problem with that?”
“Yeah, I got a problem with that. A woman? And what’s this shit about her being a negotiator? We don’t need no fucking outsider, tell us what to do.”
“It’s okay for me to be here,” I cut in. I aimed my press at Gato, but I tried to let the influence spread to the two men who flanked him, too.
“But you say it’s okay,” Gato went on, still directing his comments at Chuco, “we’re good with that.”
“It’s okay for me to be here,” I repeated a third time, this time sending my press toward Chuco’s two companions. If a little bit of authority flowed over onto Gordo, who was standing nearest to them, so much the better.
“We ready to sit down?” asked Tino, and at a nod from Chuco, we all approached the table. Chuco sat facing the door, his tenientes on either side. The Tiburónes clustered to his left and Gordo and Tino to his right, leaving me to sit with my back to the door. I wasn’t too comfortable with the position but figured it was the least of my worries. Everyone looked at Chuco. I realized he was older than I’d first thought—in his fifties, maybe. His buzzed hair was peppered with gray.
He returned each person’s gaze, one by one. “Tino, this is your party. Why don’t you tell us why we’re all here.”
Tino cleared his
throat, and, for the first time, I realized he was nervous, too. I didn’t blame him. There was a look about the three Hermandad members, the tenientes as well as Chuco, that was, indefinably, more serious than any of the Hombres Locos or the Tiburónes. This was the major leagues.
“I want to thank Chuco for showing me the respect—” Tino’s glance flicked briefly toward Gato “—to agree to this sit-down. It does the Hombres Locos honor, and I appreciate it.”
Chuco nodded in acknowledgement. His two companions might have been carved from granite.
“I also want to thank Gato and the other members of the Tiburónes for setting differences aside and coming down here tonight.” Gato and his compadres glanced at each other but remained silent. Tino went on. “I hope that we can all come to an agreement that will guarantee peace for the Santa Ana neighborhoods in the future.”
I realized this was a rehearsed speech, and I thought he’d delivered it well.
“The reason I asked for the sit-down was because I’m planning to step down as the jefe of the Hombres Locos.”
“What?” Gato’s posture went rigid. “What’s that mean, ‘step down’? You quittin’, man?”
“Explain what you mean,” said Chuco.
“I mean I’m not going to be involved in the day-today operations no more. I’ll be retired.”
“Retired?” Gato snorted. “You don’t retire from no gang, Tino. What, you think you gonna get social security or something?”
“Let him talk, Gato,” said Chuco quietly, and the other man slumped back in his seat, arms folded. Chuco turned his attention back to Tino. “This ain’t exactly normal, Tino. Usually, someone only leaves the gang when they got to.”
“I know. They get sent up for a long time, or they get shot up so bad they can’t get around no more.”
“Or they’re dead,” Gato chimed in, sneering. “Like Flaco.”
Gordo made as if to get to his feet, but Tino put a hand on his arm, and the larger man settled heavily into his chair.
“Like I said, I know it ain’t normal. That’s why I wanted this sit-down. I got…I got an opportunity. It’s a hundred percent legit, and it ain’t in Santa Ana. But to do it, I gotta, like, separate myself from all this.” Tino’s gesture encompassed the table, the room, the entire city.
“So it’s like, ‘I got some opportunity—’” Gato’s scorn was tangible “‘—so fuck the barrio, fuck everybody, I’m outta here.’ That what you saying, Tino?”
Chuco held up his hand, and again Gato shut his mouth, but the look the jefe gave Tino was far from friendly.
“I said I’d let you talk, Tino, but it’s like Gato said. Sounds like you’re walking out on the barrio.”
“It ain’t like that,” said Tino. “That’s another reason I asked for the sit-down. I want to make sure the barrio’s taken care of, and that nobody—” he glared at Gato “—thinks that just because I ain’t jefe no more, they can take advantage, you know?”
“You can listen to his terms,” I added, directing a press toward Chuco. “It can’t do any harm to hear what they are.”
Gato made a derisive noise and opened his mouth to speak. I turned to him. “You can listen to his terms, too,” I added.
“We came all the way down here to hear what you got to say,” said Chuco. “We may as well hear it.”
Gordo shifted uncomfortably on my left. He was probably curious why everyone kept agreeing to everything I said. So far, I hadn’t done anything to press him directly.
Tino nodded toward me. “Mercy, please read the terms.”
I took out the printout that included Tino’s latest revisions and unfolded it. I paused and looked around at the men, and tried to encompass all of them in my intent. This would be my first attempt at a true group press. I wished Chuco and Gato were sitting next to each other, so I could concentrate my efforts on the two of them, but there were two other men between them. So far I’d had to repeat everything, which, I supposed, I could just keep doing if necessary.
Here goes nothing, I thought.
Returning my focus to the printed page, I read aloud.
“One. All members of the Tiburónes and the Hermandad will recognize Luis Vasquez Quintillo, known as Gordo, as the new jefe of the Hombres Locos.”
Chuco nodded, immediately echoed by the other two Hermandad members. I looked at Gato to see if my press had worked on him.
He shrugged. “I got no problem with Gordo.” I wasn’t sure if that meant he’d been pressed or not. If it didn’t, the next item on Tino’s list would probably tell me. I continued.
“Two. After Gordo becomes the jefe, the borders of the territory controlled by the Hombres Locos—”
Raised voices erupted downstairs, and I stopped and turned my head just as all of the men at the table got to their feet in unison. A couple of metal folding chairs clattered to the floor.
The Hermandad member who’d searched Gordo and Tino appeared at the top of the stairs and stepped into the room.
“What’s this shit?” said Gato. “No one’s supposed to come up here but us.”
“I told you to stay downstairs,” said Chuco.
“I’m sorry, Jefe, but one of the Hombres, guy named Jaime, says there’s an emergency. Something to do with Tino’s family.”
“Let the fuck go of me,” came a voice from the stairway. “I told you, it’s a fucking emergency.”
Tino started toward the stairs, but the man on Chuco’s right shot out a hand to restrain him.
“It’s okay, let him come up,” said Chuco.
“What is it, Jaime?” asked Tino, shaking off the man’s hand. “Is it Gustavo? I’ll fucking kill him—how’d that little pendejo get away from Grant?”
Jaime appeared at the top of the stairs, panting. “It ain’t Gus, Tino. It’s Teresa. She’s been shot.”
12
The emergency room at the San Gabriel Hospital in Santa Ana didn’t look much like the one at Hoag. There, one lost old man had warranted a newspaper reporter. Here, no one took any special notice of a gunshot wound. The waiting area was packed, the nurse behind the desk was harried, and the whole place smelled of antiseptic and fear.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have any information for you,” the nurse told Tino when we finally made our way to the front of the line.
“Listen, mujer, it’s my Mami back there, and—”
I interrupted him before he could reach over the counter and strangle the poor woman. “Let me.” I caught his eye, and he got my meaning and moved to let me stand in front of the desk.
“Tell us what you know about Teresa Pelón,” I said, pressing.
The woman turned to her computer and tapped on the keyboard. “She came in at 11:08, by ambulance, with a gunshot wound to the abdomen.” She looked up. “She went straight in. It doesn’t say where she is now, or which doctor is seeing her. They don’t usually update the computer file until the end of the shift, or if they get a break.”
“Is there someone you can call who’ll know something?”
“Maybe.”
“Do it.” She nodded and dialed. “Yolie? Hi, it’s Maria. You got a gunshot wound back there, a woman?” There was a pause. “Yeah, that’s her. What doctor? You know how she’s doing? Was she…sí, sí, gracias, Yolie.” She hung up and looked at us.
“She’s with Doctor Rashad. Yolie doesn’t know anything, but the doctor didn’t call for a trauma team or a crash cart.”
I considered pressing our way into the patient area, but thought about Tino, in his agitated state, pushing curtains aside and threatening staff, and decided against it. “If you don’t hear anything, call again in a few minutes. Okay? Let us know what you find out.”
“Okay.”
I managed to steer Tino back to one of the chairs. Gordo, Jaime and the other guys from the backup car hovered near the entrance, making the people waiting nearby distinctly uneasy. Gordo threaded his way over to where Tino was slumped.
“Jefe, you want me to go ov
er to the house, see if the neighbors know anything?”
“Yeah, but leave your guns off. You’re gonna run in to cops, asking questions.” Tino looked up. “Not that anyone’s gonna tell them nothing.”
Gordo nodded but didn’t move.
“Why you still standing here?” Tino snapped.
Gordo didn’t exactly shuffle his feet, but he looked uncomfortable. “I was wondering…” He stopped, and I saw him swallow.
“What the fuck, Gordo. You got something to say, say it.”
The big man lowered his voice, so that only Tino and I could hear. “The Hermandad agreed on me being jefe, right?”
Tino blew out a frustrated breath. “You were there, Gordo. Yeah, they agreed. The Tiburónes, too. What’s your point?”
“When do I take over? I mean, they already agreed.”
“You take over when I say you take over.” Tino was trying to keep his voice low, but he was agitated, and the statement drew a couple of quickly averted glances from other people in the waiting room. In this neighborhood, most of them probably knew who he was.
“Okay, jefe. I find out something, I’ll call.” He left, taking a couple of the men lurking at the door with him.
“It ain’t no coincidence, this happening just before the sit-down,” Tino said for about the twentieth time.
He fidgeted, unsure of what to do with his hands. “I tell you one thing, I’m glad Gus is with Grant. If I had to worry about him right now, I’d go crazy.”
“Have you called Hilda?” I asked.
“No. She’d just get all hyper, want to come up here.”
“She expecting you tonight?”
“No,” he said, then shrugged. “Maybe. I told her I’d let her know how the sit-down went. Maybe I better…”
He pulled the phone out of his pocket. Tino and Gordo had gotten their phones and guns out of the Malibu’s trunk as soon as they’d run out of the Rendezvous. For a minute I’d thought the guys in the Tiburón and Hermandad backup cars would misinterpret the action and open fire, but Chuco had been right behind us on the stairs and had signaled everyone to let the Hombres vehicles go.
