by Sam Reaves
Having located the Kroger’s, Abby didn’t want to drop the Poza Rica entirely; it was convenient for miscellaneous items, and any outpost with a friendly face was worth maintaining. On her way home from campus she detoured to cross Jackson Avenue, hoping Natalia and not her sullen brother would be on duty.
Nobody was on duty, apparently; when she stepped inside she saw no one behind the counter. She saw no customers, either, but voices came from the rear of the store, behind a closed door. Abby took a basket from the stack by the door and made her way down the first aisle. As she got closer to the back of the store, the voices resolved enough for her to distinguish that somebody was speaking English, and he was not happy. “I’ve got fucking FBI agents coming around,” a man said.
As Abby lingered at the cooler, milk in hand, she was unable to hear the reply, which was much softer. Abby put the milk in her basket and made for the vegetable bins along the side wall. “I hope they throw you and your whole God damn family out of the country,” the first voice said.
She reached the door in the corner just as it burst open and a man she knew came storming out. She pulled up short, and she and the man stared at each other for a couple of frozen seconds. He said, “Who are you?” in an aggressive tone.
“I’m a customer,” Abby said. “Who are you?” She had just identified him as the man she had seen with the blonde at the Azteca restaurant; what was his name?
“I own this place,” the man said. He was scowling at her, starting to move again, but obviously trying to place her. “You’re not Mexican,” he said.
Abby couldn’t come up with an answer to that, and she was staring after him as he strode toward the front of the store when Natalia came through the door from the back. “Abby!”
Abby stared; Natalia’s eyes were glistening with tears. “What’s going on?”
Natalia shook her head, wiping tears with her fingers. “Oh, nothing. I’m glad to see you. How are you?”
At the head of the aisle the man had halted and was looking back at Abby. “You’re with the paper, aren’t you?” he said, pointing at her. “I saw you with Quinton.”
“I’m not with the paper.” Abby almost laughed.
He advanced a couple of steps back toward her. “Sure. OK, you want a story, here’s the story. I was dumb enough to rent to a Mexican criminal and he’s been running his rackets out of this place. But that’s over now. Him and his whole criminal brood are going out on the street. Back to fucking Mexico, if I have anything to say about it. Write that.” He spun and stalked toward the door, clipping a shelf with his shoulder and sending packets of rice to the floor.
Abby looked at Natalia, who exhaled heavily. “Sorry, Abby. Bad day at the office.”
“I can come back some other time. I just needed a couple of things.”
“No, no, no. Don’t worry, we’re open. Get what you need. He’s just . . .” She shook her head. “Long story,” she said, heading for the register. “Take your time.”
A man had appeared in the doorway at the rear. He was Mexican, gray haired and balding with a salt-and-pepper moustache, in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He wore a deep frown. He watched Natalia for a moment and then looked at Abby and nodded once. “Hello,” he said softly, and pulled the door shut.
Abby made a hurried pass through the store, grabbing the few things she needed. When she put the basket on the counter Natalia smiled at her, apparently recovered. She gestured toward the parking lot. “That was Mr. Frederick, the landlord. He’s not real happy with us right now.”
“Legal trouble?” Abby started emptying her basket. “Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“No, that’s OK.” Natalia shot a look toward the door at the rear and lowered her voice. “My daddy did something he shouldn’t.” She had started to ring Abby’s purchases up but now she halted. “I’m afraid he’s gonna go to jail.”
“Oh, no.” Abby stared in dismay. “Oh, Natalia.”
Natalia shook her head, tight-lipped, then wiped a tear with a finger. “I’m OK.” She went back to ringing up the items. “We just need a good lawyer, Daddy says.”
What leapt to Abby’s mind was that the local supply of lawyers had been abruptly reduced. “I’m gonna take the SAT again in a couple of months,” said Natalia, managing a smile.
Why not, thought Abby, let’s do it. “You want some help with the math?”
“Oh, that would be great. Would you really do that?”
“Sure. Let me look at my schedule and figure out a good time, OK?”
Outside in the parking lot voices were raised. Natalia’s eyes flicked toward the door in alarm. “Luis,” she breathed. She dashed from behind the counter.
Abby followed her to the door. When they went out into the parking lot they saw Jud Frederick and Luis standing face-to-face, in confrontation. Frederick was a head taller but Luis was giving nothing away. Today he was in low-slung jeans and an oversized T-shirt, with a baseball cap on his head, the flat brim cocked slightly to one side.
Frederick jabbed Luis in the chest with a finger. Luis brushed his hand away and lunged forward to knock the taller man back with a two-handed shove. Frederick staggered but kept his feet, and took a swipe at Luis that knocked his cap off. “God damn beaner punk. Keep your hands off me.”
“I’ll fuckin’ take you apart.” Luis squared for the fight, fists raised.
Natalia wailed and ran to throw her arms around Luis, pleading in Spanish. Her brother tried to shove her away but she held on. They spun in a clumsy dance and Natalia switched to English to scream at Frederick. “Please, please just go away. Don’t hurt him.”
Frederick leveled his finger at Luis. “I know what you’re up to, you fucking Mex gangster wannabe. It’s over, you hear?”
Luis sent Natalia staggering, freeing himself, but he didn’t advance on Frederick. “I’ll put you in the fuckin’ ground.”
Frederick didn’t seem to want the fight any more than Luis did; he was backing toward his car. “You’ll be in jail before you know what hit you, asshole.”
Abby watched, stunned, as Natalia herded her brother toward the store and Frederick’s car went squealing out onto Jackson Avenue. Luis shook free of Natalia and his eye lit on Abby. He barked, “Are you with him? You here to spy on the Mexicans, are you?”
Abby stiffened. She was speechless for an instant and then she bristled. “I’m not with anybody,” she said. “I’m here because your sister was nice to me, and if that bothers you, maybe you’re the one with the problem.”
Luis glared at her. Abby waited for a reaction, rigid and unblinking, but he swaggered past her into the store. She watched him until he disappeared down an aisle. She exhaled, astonished at her own sudden anger. A little weak in the knees, she shook her head.
Natalia was staring at her. She said, “I’m sorry, Abby.”
Abby put a hand on her arm. “Don’t be sorry for me,” she said. “Just tell me what I can do.”
Natalia wiped tears, took a deep breath. “Help me learn math.”
“That I can do,” Abby said. “That I can do, for sure.”
“Nobody ever showed me this before,” said Natalia. She looked up from the paper, wide-eyed. “I wish I’d had you in high school. Mr. Jenkins was hopeless. It was like he was only talking to the kids who already knew it. The rest of us, it was like, good luck.”
Abby smiled, gratified. “Here, I’m going to e-mail you the link to this web page. See if you can work through all these problems before the next time we meet, OK?” She turned the laptop toward Natalia.
They were in Abby’s study, papers spread across the desktop, the view beyond the window tempting the occasional stray glance. Natalia had been timid and hesitant at first but Abby had been able to tease out the strands of what appeared to be a reasonable grasp of the basics of algebra and geometry.
Natalia nodded and closed her notebook. “Yeah, sure.” She looked at Abby, hesitant. “I feel like I should pay you something.”
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“No, we made a deal. You get above five hundred in math on the SAT and you owe me a good Mexican dinner.”
“All right.” Natalia sat back on the chair, closed her eyes, and exhaled. “I have to get back to the store.” She opened her eyes and stared out at the greenery for a moment. “My father had to go to Indianapolis to see a lawyer.”
Abby let a few seconds go by in uncomfortable silence. “What’s going on with that?”
Natalia’s head drooped. “I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry. None of my business.”
“No, it’s OK.” She turned big, wide eyes to Abby, brimming with tears. “I think my daddy’s in a lot of trouble. A bunch of FBI guys came and took a lot of stuff out of his office. I think it’s about the documents.”
“What documents?”
“He helps people. He helps them get documents.”
“Ah.”
“Like . . . fake documents, I think. You know? Drivers’ licenses and stuff.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And he got busted. I don’t know what we’re gonna do if he goes to jail. We already had enough trouble with my brother.”
“Luis?”
“Yeah. He got in trouble in Indianapolis. He was hanging with some gang guys and got arrested last year. For selling drugs. He got probation, so he was lucky. And he came back here. But he still goes to Indianapolis a lot, and I think he’s hanging with the same people. I’m afraid he’s gonna get hurt, or go to prison.” Natalia was staring out the window, tears tracking down her cheeks. “My mama can’t run the store herself. Her English isn’t good enough. And I don’t know if I can, either. Not if I want to go back to school.”
Abby sat dismayed and helpless, watching her fight for composure. “Well. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. But I think you should plan on going back to school. Prepare for that, and if things work out you’ll be ready.”
Natalia nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know. There’s nothing else I can do.” She flashed Abby a smile. “I didn’t make this mess.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Natalia pushed away from the desk but halted. “Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to invite you to something.” She took her purse from the floor and dug in it. “You gotta come to the LUCES benefit.”
“The what benefit?”
“LUCES. It’s an organization. It stands for, lemme see, ‘Latinos United for Cooperation, Enterprise and Success,’ I think. See, luces means ‘lights.’ It supports stuff, like job programs and English classes and things like that. And they have this benefit every year. There’s music and food, and there’s a raffle and a silent auction and stuff. It’s a lot of fun, and a lot of white people come, too. I’m supposed to sell tickets, but I’ll give you one for free.” Natalia pulled a ticket out of her purse and offered it to Abby.
“When is it?”
“I think it’s like a week from Saturday.”
Abby saw no way to refuse gracefully, so she took the ticket. “Sounds like fun. But I want to pay my way. What is it, twenty dollars?”
“You don’t have to. You can be my guest. To pay you for the lessons, OK? Please?”
This girl is going to go far with that smile, thought Abby, giving in. “All right, thanks. For that you get an extra ten minutes of tutoring. Let me see you solve these equations.”
“Five thousand? Come on, Ray. I wasn’t born yesterday. A 2005 Ford Focus with a hundred and forty thousand miles on it? And that Carfax report? Anything more than four would be taking advantage of this young lady’s innocence.”
Ray was an affable man with a good head of black hair and a walrus moustache to match his walrus physique. He gave Abby a rueful look. “You said you were from Manhattan? I think it was Lisa Beth here who talked the Indians into giving it away for twenty-four bucks.”
“If the Dutch had had me on their team,” Lisa Beth said, “I’d have gotten it knocked down to twenty, for lack of infrastructure. Now what do you say?”
Abby smiled sweetly, content to be a bystander. She had been watching Lisa Beth at work on her behalf for an hour and had learned a great deal about the process of purchasing an automobile and about female empowerment.
Ray sighed and looked at Abby. “Can you do forty-five hundred?”
Abby would have given him the five thousand, but she knew better than to open her mouth. She looked at Lisa Beth, who winked at her. “Forty-two, Ray. Or we walk.”
“You’re killing me, Lisa Beth. Forty-two five.”
Now Lisa Beth looked at Abby and raised her eyebrows. “Um, that’s fine,” said Abby.
Half an hour later she was the somewhat apprehensive owner of a slightly road-weary but fully functional automobile. She sat behind the wheel, the engine ticking over. “You can go to the BMV on Monday,” said Lisa Beth, leaning down at the window. “It’s cocktail hour. Let’s go get a drink to celebrate.”
“I don’t know,” said Abby. “I don’t want to get busted for drunk driving on my first day.”
“Come on, the Azteca’s a hundred yards down the road. One drink and we’re done. Meet you there.”
Abby managed to cover the hundred yards without incident. The test drives had been a little nerve-racking at first but she had quickly gained confidence. Traffic in Lewisburg was not especially harrowing. She parked and got out as Lisa Beth pulled in beside her.
The place was nearly empty; two old men sat at the end of the bar and a solitary woman was tucking into an early dinner at a table. The hostess who had seated them on their previous visit was behind the bar. Lisa Beth ordered a margarita, frozen with salt on the rim. Abby settled for a grapefruit juice.
“Suit yourself,” said Lisa Beth. “One drink won’t send you off the road.”
“I really appreciate your help, Lisa Beth. I would have been happy to go on walking three blocks for a gallon of milk. But the Poza Rica doesn’t have bagels or pasta sauce.”
“You go to the Poza Rica?” Lisa Beth’s look was suddenly intent. “Oh, of course, it’s just up the street from you. You know Miguel Menéndez then, do you?”
“The owner? Seen him, that’s all. I’m tutoring his daughter in math.”
“What a sweetheart you are. Was she in on the monkey business?”
“The fake documents? I don’t think so. She did mention her dad’s legal troubles.”
“Legal troubles, my God. That man’s going to go away for a long time.”
“For forging documents?”
“Honey, it was a lot more than that. Cheers.” The drinks had arrived and Lisa Beth devoted herself to the first swallow. She set the glass down, leaned forward, elbows on the bar, and lowered her voice, putting her head close to Abby’s. “I told you about that, remember? The tax fraud case? That man scammed the government for more than a million bucks.”
“You’re kidding. What did he do?”
“He filed tax documents with phony names and addresses and got refunds. He stole people’s personal data and filed for unemployment and got the state to send him their benefits. The Mexicans all trusted him because he helped them get papers, helped them navigate the bureaucracies. And all the time he was gaming the system for his own benefit.”
“Oh, God. Poor Natalia.”
“I’m afraid she’s going to have to kiss Daddy good-bye for a few years. There’s a son, too, apparently. I don’t know that he was involved at all.”
“I met him. I saw him fighting with what’s-his-name, that Frederick guy.”
Lisa Beth drew back, a theatrical gesture of surprise. “My goodness, you have a way of being on the scene, don’t you? You should be in my business. What were they fighting about?”
“Frederick was accusing the son of being a gangster. They were about to start throwing punches, but the daughter separated them.”
“Hmm. I’ve never heard anything about the son.”
“Natalia told me he had gotten in trouble in Indianapolis for running around with a gang.”
“Oh, that’s always good news for a family. You know, I hope this doesn’t get ugly. So far there hasn’t been much in the way of anti-Mexican agitation around here. But with this murder, on top of Menéndez and his scams, it makes me nervous.”
They brooded together for a moment, staring at a lurid rendition of an Aztec warrior in a beaked eagle headdress hanging on the wall behind the bar, mariachi trumpets bleating merrily above their heads. A door behind the bar opened and two men came out of an office. One was a Hispanic man somewhere in his forties and the other was Jud Frederick. When Frederick saw Abby and Lisa Beth he stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “What now? You gonna dig up the parking lot looking for bodies?”
Lisa Beth gave him a contemptuous look. “Chill, Jud. We’re here to have a drink. Believe it or not, I’m not always on the job.”
Frederick’s eyes flicked back and forth between Lisa Beth and Abby. “Right. And your girlfriend here just happened to wander into Menéndez’s store the other day. Lisa Beth, you’d be funny if you weren’t so pathetic. You think you’re gonna win a Pulitzer catching me in code violations? Nobody gives a shit. And as for your intern, or whatever she is, her cover’s blown. Stick to making copies, OK, sweetheart?”
This last was addressed to Abby, who watched, speechless, as Frederick went out the door. Lisa Beth said, “Well. Somebody’s getting a little touchy.”
At the end of the bar one of the two old men said, “You gals with the TV?”
Lisa Beth gave him a withering look. “Does this look like a TV face to you?”
Evan’s father bowed, obsequious, and swept a hand toward the double doors that led to the dining room. “Right this way,” he said, eyes twinkling behind the rimless glasses. “He’s waiting for you.”
“But I don’t want to,” said Abby. “I’m not hungry.”
“But he’s waiting for you,” said Evan’s father. “He’s expecting you.”
“No!” Abby tried to turn and run, but her legs wouldn’t move. Evan’s father grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her toward the double doors, and Abby wanted to scream but she couldn’t. Evan’s father pulled her with an iron grip, and with his free hand he shoved through the left-hand door, and then they were in the dining room and there sat Evan, waiting for her at a table in the middle of the room, in the heart of a ball of flame. He was blackened and faceless, his skin beginning to split, the fat bubbling up from beneath, and as Abby writhed and strained to cry out, Evan leaned forward, his limbs contracting, and then slowly pushed away from the table and stood up, blackened, peeling, smoking, but intent on her. He took a step toward her, out of the heart of the flames, and reached for her.
