he rolled up his sleeves to show off his tats, blue webs that climbed up his arms.
Big Boy wanted to walk away, disappear like Nanda had, but now that he was so close to this man who had just walked out of her apartment, he was determined to get some information from him.
“Are you from Las Vegas?”
“Yeah, and who wants to know?”
“Big Boy.”
“You ain’t that big. Nobody’s big, we’re all the same size. Ain’t nobody can outrun a bullet.” Then he laughed as he saw Big Boy’s face turn pale. “Want a cigarette?”
“Nah, that’s okay.”
“Ah, yeah, Nanda. Now, there’s a girl, if you know what I mean. Now, she’s big in all the right places.” He laughed again, gruffly. “Right, Big Boy? Is that what you want? Some action?” The guy sneered, then reached into his pocket to take out his car keys. “I gotta go,” he said. “Ain’t got no time to be talking to big boys who are full of shit. Is Franco your PO?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Been on the streets all my life. Tell that son of a bitch he owes me. He owes Chano, and I ain’t forgot.” Then he climbed into the Olds, and Big Boy stood watching the car creep down the street, thinking how Nanda would have looked sitting next to Chano, smoking a cigarette.
Months went by, the whole summer, and other girls joined the boys at Harmon Park—Ernestina and Yvette and a few others who were loud and bossy and played hard to get, but let themselves be caught in the end. Atalia visited Big Boy and told him to stay away from Harmon unless he wanted to get involved with narcos and floozies who did it with everybody. No matter what she told him, Harmon Park drew Big Boy like a magnet, leering at him with memories of Nanda, soft, fleshy breasts, rich warm places inside her he’d like to get to. Sometimes tears crawled down Big Boy’s face late at night as he thought of Nanda disappearing like a puff of smoke, and everybody moving on with their lives, as if it didn’t matter at all. Maybe she was living in Las Vegas—dancing at a casino. But she was too young for that … or maybe she was dead. When Big Boy said the word dead in his mind, he flinched, as if he had been hit in the face. Dead, her body lying out some-where in the desert. Big Boy closed his eyes tight to block out the thought.
On the anniversary of Nanda’s disappearance, Father Leo called Big Boy into his office.
“Stop moping around about that girl,” he said nonchalantly. “I know you’re trying to figure out where she is. If I were you, I’d drop it. Clean heart, remember? I think you need another confession, you’re way overdue. Confession on Saturday, at 2 p.m. Be there.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Oh, by the way, Franco says you’re almost ready to be released from probation, and I told him you were totally repented—no more shoplifting at Woolworth’s. Right, Big Boy?”
“Right.”
“You don’t want to follow in the footsteps of Chano—you know, the guy who visits Nanda’s family sometimes.”
Big Boy looked up at Father Leo, surprised that he knew anything about Chano. Maybe he had visited him in prison, or heard his confession. Then he saw Father Leo smile broadly, as if he had just caught Big Boy sneaking a sip of wine from the chalice. He pulled open the drawer on his desk and reached in, taking out a silver chain with a small cross. He watched Big Boy closely, saw the fear in his eyes as the boy glimpsed the chain he had given Nanda in Father Leo’s hand.
“I want you to give this to Ernestina,” Father Leo said quietly, leaning close to Big Boy. “You understand, don’t you?” He waited, dangling the chain in midair between them.
Then he sat back as Big Boy took the silver chain from his hand and dropped it in his pocket.
“Confession on Saturday, don’t forget,” Father Leo said.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
MEGAN ABBOTT is the Edgar Award–winning author of Queenpin, The Song Is You, and Die a Little, as well as the non-fiction study, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hard-boiled Fiction and Film Noir. She is the editor of the collection A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir. Her fourth novel, Bury Me Deep, is loosely based on the Winnie Ruth Judd “Trunk Murderess” case from 1930s Phoenix.