Nine-year-old Miguel Ledo rode to County General in an ambulance with his mother and father. The ride itself was exciting enough, but Miguel did not like the idea of going to the hospital. That was where they took people and never brought them back. And they had doctors there who were always poking at you where you didn’t like it and jabbing needles into you. Miguel insisted that he felt fine, except for the burns on his hands, and wanted to go home to his own bed, but as usual none of the grownups paid any attention.
Miguel’s mother, her tears still flowing, and his father, trying hard to appear macho, were occupied with their feelings of relief. Their little boy, whom they had seen with their own eyes lying dead, was given back to them. How it happened and why could be talked about later. This was a time for giving thanks.
They arrived at County General only a few minutes ahead of the reporters and the cameras. An ambitious employee at Channel 34 had passed along the story to the news director of Channel 5. He gave it to their radio station, and within an hour every news department in town was hot after the boy who came back from the dead.
The parking lot and the streets bordering the hospital were soon jammed with cars, camera vans, reporters, and curious pedestrians. It was a slow news week, and Miguel Ledo’s resurrection was a big story.
Inside the hospital, Alberto and Maria Ledo listened as a heavyset doctor with a tiny brush mustache told them about their son.
“He is a very, very lucky boy. From the looks of the burns on his hands and the soles of his feet, enough electricity went through him to kill a mule. But aside from those burns, which should heal in a couple of days, he seems to be all right.”
“Seems to be?” said Alberto.
“His vital signs all register positive.” The doctor’s eyes flicked away for a moment.
“There is something else?” the father asked.
“Only a slightly delayed response in some of the neural reflexes.”
“Is that bad?” asked Maria.
“I don’t think so, but I’d like to make some more tests. If he could stay overnight — ”
“Is he sick?” Alberto demanded.
“I wouldn’t call him sick,” the doctor said, “but there are questions — ”
“The hospital is for sick people,” Alberto said flatly. “My boy is going home with us.”
“Well, of course it’s up to you.”
“That’s right. Thank you, doctor. Can we take him now?”
The doctor started to say something more but decided against it. “I’ll have him brought down.”
The crowd waiting outside, which had heard a half dozen versions of what happened, none of them accurate, burst into applause when Miguel and his parents came through the door. Lights blazed; reporters and cameramen moved in. Police from the Hollenbeck Division cleared a path for the family to their car, which a friend had driven from the banquet.
“How does it feel to have your boy back?” was the question asked over and over as the Ledos pushed through the clusters of reporters.
Patiently, the parents answered as they made their was through the crush. “Fine. It feels good. Real good.” What else could they say?
A woman from Channel 7 with stiff blond hair thrust a microphone at them. “There are stories that a man who was at the banquet tonight brought your son back to life. Would you comment on that?”
“Our boy is alive,” Alberto said. “A man helped, yes.”
“Was the man McAllister Fain?”
“I think that is his name.”
“What exactly did he do to revive Miguel?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. My boy is back with us. That’s all that matters.”
“That man worked a miracle,” said the mother. “A miracle.”
A policeman moved in front of the Ledos and spoke to the crowd. “Come on, folks, make way. These people have had a rough night, and they’re tired. We’re all tired. Let’s go home.”
Reluctantly, the reporters fell back, and Miguel and his parents were deposited in their car. A police car led them to the neat stucco bungalo in Alhambra where they lived. The officers discouraged the media people from hanging around, and the family was at last able to relax and feel what had happened to them. Several times during the night one or the other of the parents tiptoed into Miguel’s bedroom for reassurance that the boy slept peacefully.
• • •
In the morning they awoke to learn just how much their lives were changed. Alberto’s employer, who owned the Apex Furniture Mart in San Gabriel, insisted he take the day off with pay. Alberto was uncomfortable staying home on a workday, but his boss meant well, and he could hardly turn the offer down.
The reporters returned with the first light and wanted to know everything about the family. They took pictures of all of them inside and ouside the house. They interviewed the neighbors and the people in the little market at the corner. When they ran out of family and neighbors, they interviewed one another.
As soon as they had a chance, Alberto and Maria put on their good clothes, dressed Miguel up, and drove across town to Holy Name. The reporters piled into cars and turned the trip into a motorcade. When they arrived at the church, Miguel, who until then had been enjoying the attention, did not want to get out of the car.
“Come along,” said his father. “I don’t want to stand out here all day.”
His mother examined the boy’s bandages. “Do your hands hurt, Miguelito?”
“No.”
“What is the matter, then?”
“I don’t want to go in there.”
“It is our church. You have been there many times. Today is a special day for us. It is a day to give thanks.”
“I don’t want to go in.”
Alberto’s patience began to fray. “We will talk about what you want later. Now we are all going in.”
Maria gave her husband a disapproving look, but the tone of his voice made its point with young Miguel. The boy climbed reluctantly out of the car, making more now of his injuries than he had before.
The cameramen and reporters gathered around for the surefire scene of the grateful family going into their church. Some of them went along inside and filmed Maria placing flowers at the foot of the Virgin and lighting a candle for her personal saint, McAllister Fain.
While his parents prayed, Miguel remained silent, almost sullen, avoiding the statue of the Virgin and the tragic eyes of the crucified Jesus. His father glanced at the boy with a worried look, but Maria nudged her husband back to their prayer.
As they left the church, Miguel seemed to regain his usual good spirits. He laughed and talked eagerly to the reporters, proudly displaying his bandaged hands. He posed happily for pictures while Maria looked on smiling and Alberto consulted his watch.
Back at their house, it was more of the same, with friends, relatives, neighbors, reporters, and strangers filling the little bungalow to a point where Alberto found it hard to breathe. While Maria prepared nachos in the kitchen, a gray-haired man in a powder-blue blazer motioned Alberto aside and handed him a business card.
“Mr. Ledo, my name is Hollingsworth. I’m with the Prime-Vita Company. You’ve heard of us?”
“No.”
“Too bad. We’re in the health-products field — nutritional aids, vitamins, dietary supplements.”
“Good for you.” Alberto was looking past the man at the crowd filling up his house and eating his nachos.
“I have for you a proposition that could mean several thousand dollars, with options for more if things work out.”
“What proposition?”
“I’d like to use your boy in our newspaper ads and in a television spot.”
“You want Miguel to say he eats your stuff, that’s why he’s alive today?”
Mr. Hollingsworth chuckled. “Actually, he wouldn’t have to say anything. We’d just use his picture, and the copy would say a little about him and about Prime-Vita products. If the people want to make a connection, that’s all right with us.”
“It’s not all right with me.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want my boy in no commercials for phony vitamins an’ your other junk.”
“Now just a minute, Mr. Ledo — ”
“I ain’t got a minute. I think you better get out of here.” He turned to the crowded room and raised his voice. “The rest of you, too. My family and me want some time alone. Please go.”
After considerable milling around, the crowd thinned, and at last they had all gone. Alberto went into the kitchen and took a cold Coroma from the refrigerator. He popped the top and drank down a third of the bottle. Maria came in, and they sat down together at the kitchen table.
“You were not very nice to the people,” Maria said in Spanish.
“They were making me tired. Do you know what one of them wanted? He wanted to use Miguel to sell his vitamins. That’s when I told everybody to get out.”
Maria touched her husband’s hand. “It is all right. I am glad we are alone.”
“Yes. I will be happy when they find some new miracle.”
“This is a miracle, Berto,” Maria said in a hushed voice.
“Maybe.”
“No, really. We have seen a true miracle from God.”
“That is not for us to say. It all happened so quickly. That man, that McAllister Fain — we don’t know who he is.”
“He is a saint.”
“I don’t understand what happened … what he did.”
“Maybe we are not meant to understand it. We have our little boy back.”
“Yes. Yes, we do.”
“Be happy with me, Berto.”
“I am. I am happy, only …”
“Only what?”
“I don’t know. This thing troubles me.”
A crash out in the living room brought them to their feet. Alberto was the first to reach the room, with his wife right behind.
A table lamp had fallen to the floor, knocked over by Miguel. The boy seemed not to notice as he drew feverish patterns on the painted wall with a Magic Marker. The designs were strange, angular forms in a pattern that looked like writing but was not.
“Miguel!” cried his father. “What are you doing?”
The boy whirled toward them, and for an instant his face was the face of a stranger. Then his eyes cleared, and he looked from one of his parents to the other. His lips quivered, and he began to cry.
Alberto stared at the scribblings on the living-room wall. “What is this? You scrawl graffiti like some cholo? And on your own wall? Have you gone crazy?”
Miguel began to cry louder, and Maria swept the boy into her arms. “Ai, Miguelito, it’s all right. Tell him it’s all right, Berto. He has had a difficult time.”
Alberto stood frowning for another minute at the strange marks on the wall. “Sure, okay, it’s all right. Now let’s clean it up.”
• • •
While the Ledo family scrubbed at their living-room wall, Mac Fain sat with Jillian Pappas in a dark back booth of the Jalisco Tavern on Alvarado Street. Barry Lendl stood talking into a wall-mounted pay phone with his hand cupped over the mouthpiece as though worried that someone might listen in. The only other customers were two Mexicans in their early twenties playing a listless game of pool and a weathered old man sitting at the bar.
“This place smells like a toilet,” Jillian said.
“We had to come somewhere to talk,” Fain told her.
“You saw what it was like at my apartment — the phone, the people hammering at the door.”
“You’re famous,” Jillian said. “You’ll have to get used to it.”
Lendl came back to the booth and sat down, looking pleased. He ignored the glass of beer in front of him, as did Jillian. Only Fain was drinking.
“I called my office,” the agent said. “We’re on our way. You saw the noon news on Channel Thirty-four?”
“I saw it,” Fain said. “And the article in the Times. I made page one of Metro again. No pictures, though.”
“It was too late for the deadline,” Lendl said. “But wait till you see the Herald.”
“Famous,” Jillian said softly. She picked up her beer glass, tasted it, and set it down.
“Besides the Times,” Lendl continued, “we’re in the Daily News and the Orange County Register. They want you for talk shows on KABC and KIEV. Channel Seven’s interested for an Eye on L.A. segment.”
“Things sure happen fast once they start happening,” Fain said.
“That’s the way it is in this town,” Lendl said. “What we want to do now is move fast but make sure we pick the right offers. I don’t want you doing any shit. Excuse me, Jillian.”
She waved him off without comment.
“What I mean,” Lendl continued, “is you’re on fire now and we got to take advantage. God, I can’t hardly believe our luck.”
Fain peered at him. “Luck?”
“That kid last night coming to right when he did. If it happens while the paramedic’s working on him, we’re nothing. If he doesn’t come out of it at all, we’re in trouble with that crowd. Like they say, timing is everything.”
“Were you worried?”
“Hell, yes, I was worried. Those people carry knives. But we can forget that now. First thing is we got to get you out of that shit-box apartment. I’ll book you into a hotel we can use for a headquarters while we sift through the offers.”
Fain turned to Jillian. “How about that, honey? I’m sifting offers.”
“I’m thrilled,” she said, not sounding thrilled.
They heard the bartender say, “Back there,” and turned to see Ivy Hurlbut come toward them.
Ivy wore a “No Nukes” T-shirt and a pair of her squeaky-tight jeans. She carried a copy of the Herald like a banner.
“Take a look at this. You’re gonna love it.”
She moved the beer glasses aside and spread the paper out on the table. Three of Olney Zeno’s photos were printed across the page above the story of what happened at the Eastside Social Club banquet. The first photo showed the prostrate Miguel beside the overturned speaker, looking very dead. Maria Ledo stood over him, hands clenched, her face a mask of grief. The second shot caught Fain standing over the boy, arms outstretched, head tilted toward the ceiling. In the third picture Mrs. Ledo knelt beside her revived son, her face radiant with love and relief. Behind mother and son stood McAllister Fain, his hand raised as in benediction.
“Beautiful,” said Lendl. “Just beautiful. That boy Zeno does good work. You don’t even have to read the story.”
“I really like this one,” Ivy said, pointing to the third of the photos. “If you had a beard, you’d look like Jesus Christ. Maybe you ought to grow one.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Lendl said.
“I hate it.” When everyone looked at Jillian, she said, “I haven’t met your friend, Mac.”
Fain eyed her cautiously. “I’m sorry. Jillian Pappas, this is Ivy Hurlbut, the writer I told you about. Ivy, Jillian.”
The two women looked each other over without visible warmth.
“I read your story in the Insider,” Jillian said. “Cute piece of work.”
“Thanks,” Ivy said. “What is it you do?”
“I’m an actress.”
“Isn’t that interesting.” She returned her attention to Fain. “I talked to Bantam this morning, read ‘em the Times story. They’re gung ho for the project now. Ready to talk about a real advance.”
“Sounds good,” Fain said.
“That’s not all. The Insider is all over me. They’re ready to pay their top dollar for a page-one feature. The National Enquirer will double that.”
Barry Lendl held up a hand to quiet her. “I don’t think we want to do the tabloids right now. They got no dignity. Besides, we don’t need them. You weren’t here, Ivy, but I got an office full of people looking to buy a piece of McAllister Fain. We can pick and choose. One thing sure, there’ll be no more speeches for three hundred dollars.”
“Hey, you’re going to be rich,” Ivy said.
“Rich and famous,” Jillian put in. “Just like a fairy tale.”
Fain looked at her. “Is something bugging you?”
“Who, me? Heck no, I’m just going with the flow. Waiting my turn for an autograph.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” he said.
“I just don’t like this whole business.”
Barry Lendl jumped in. “What’s not to like? By some fantastic coincidence, Mr. Fain gets lucky two times, and people come to life when he tells them to. The families are happy. The press is happy. We’re happy. And the people who were supposed to be dead got to be happier than any of us. Everybody wins, nobody gets hurt. So what’s not to like.”
“It sounds like you’re turning him into some kind of franchise Messiah. Try our drive-through resurrection window. And you, Mac — I get the feeling you’re starting to believe it. I liked you better when you were doing card tricks and telling fortunes for lonely ladies.”
Ivy gave her a smirk. “This couldn’t be a little jealousy, could it? Boyfriend getting more famous than you are?”
Jillian turned on her. “I don’t need analysis from some scandal-sheet hack.”
“Cut it out, you two,” Lendl said. “We got to make some plans.”
Ivy looked at the newspaper photos again, shaking her head. “This really is wild. We couldn’t have staged it better if we tried. What do you suppose really brought the kid around? That CPR business the paramedics were doing?”
“Who knows?” Lendl said. “Kids bounce back from things would kill a grown-up person.”
“Wait a minute,” Fain said. “Just wait a minute, all of you.”
They looked at him, silenced by the commanding tone of his voice. He locked stares briefly with each of them, his pale gray eyes luminous in the gloom of the tavern.
“What is all this talk about luck and coincidence and paramedics and kids bouncing back?”
After a moment, Lendl said, “I don’t follow you.”
“Why is everybody so damned sure I didn’t really do it?”
“Do it?” Ivy said, blinking.
“Bring that woman and that little boy back to life. Why couldn’t I be the real thing?”