you know about it first.”
“Appreciated. Look, I’m not gonna wait and eat lunch. I’ll get something on the run. I’m gonna head out to New Mexico today.”
Luis didn’t expect it to work, but when the other guys started to walk out, he simply followed them. And when nobody stopped them, they kept walking. And when they were outside on Madison Street in the sunshine, and the cops who were entering the building ignored them, they split up and kept walking.
Miguel was in his pajamas eating toast for breakfast when the cops knocked on his door. He let them in, they asked him about Luis, and he lied. Then they asked him where his car was, and he knew he was fucked. They let him get dressed before they put the handcuffs on him.
Luis knocked on the door. Vanjii opened it. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt with the name of the store she worked for on it. She had been getting ready to head out to work.
Her first impulse was to close the door, but Luis pushed it open with his foot and stepped into the apartment. They stood there in the living room looking at each other.
“You gonna kill me?” Vanjii said, her voice breaking.
“What?”
She began to sob. “I don’t want to die …”
“What would I kill you for? Why would I do that?”
“You killed those other people … I don’t know …”
“You think I would hurt you? You’re scared of me?”
“… Yeah.” She looked so small, her face crumpled, tears and snot everywhere.
“You said you knew I loved you and you’d take that where you could get it …”
He reached out to touch her. She was too frightened to pull away, so she closed her eyes and cringed violently when he put his hand on her shoulder.
Jaimie came out of her bedroom “Vanj? What’s wrong? You okay?”
Luis turned like an animal and ran.
He walked, not trying to hide himself, not trying to stop the sun from burning him. He walked along Camelback until he reached Seventh Avenue, and then he headed south to En-canto Park. It was only a few miles, a distance that would have meant nothing to him in Santa Fe, but the heat of Phoenix made it seem like he was wading through hot water. When he reached the park, his head was spinning and his mouth was as dry as the ground.
He lay down in the shade of a tree and kept still until his vision came into focus. Then he moved around, looking for someplace to get water. The cops had taken all his money. He went up to people and asked them if they’d buy him some water; one guy gave him a couple dollars and told him there was a vendor at the children’s play area, Encanto Kiddie Land. He went there and bought a bottle of water and then lay down under another tree and drank it all.
He remembered how Vanjii had looked when she’d cried. He didn’t know it, but his own face now looked like hers had, twisted like it might come apart, bawling, snorting, so frightened. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t known she would be afraid of him. Who wouldn’t be afraid of him? He thought about the life he always pretended to himself that he had: cooking, listening to music, driving his car, reading books, talking to his friends, falling in love with Vanjii, taking care of his cat. And he thought about the life he really had: people scared, people hurt, people dead.
Vanjii was sitting on the couch and Jaimie was holding her while she cried. She kept trying to explain what had happened, but Jaimie’s head condition made it hard for her to follow because she couldn’t remember things. She just kept stroking Vanjii’s hair and saying, “It’s okay. Nobody’s gonna hurt you.”
Ruvin didn’t have to spend long in Santa Fe. He talked to the cops and asked if they’d let him talk to Miguel, but they weren’t Phoenix cops so they wouldn’t. Then he walked around the barrio, knocking on doors. Some people told him Luis didn’t exist, that he was just a ghost, a legend, a scary story for late at night. Other people gave him names and addresses. He was soon talking to Luis’s mother. She didn’t have much to tell him in terms of facts, but she gave him plenty of color he could use in his story. About an hour later, he was sitting in a living room