HE SAT IN GRACIELA’S LITTLE APARTMENT on the undersized couch, listening to the rattle of the air conditioner and the babble of the television. Graciela worked in the compact kitchen making something, he didn’t know what. When his phone rang, Flip saw it was José.
“That son of a bitch,” José said to Flip. “That hijo de puta!”
Flip was still. It had been hard to leave the warehouse and harder still to come home with Graciela knowing what happened next. They told him not to worry. They told him José would be taken with all the others. But he had known, he had known, and now José was on the phone. “What’s happening?”
“That bastard boss of yours sold us out!”
“Alfredo?”
“Yes, Alfredo! That shit-sucking bastard told the cops. They were all over the warehouse when we came to get the stuff! Who knows what else they know! I can’t get through to anybody.”
“Where are you now?” Flip asked.
“I’m on the road with Angel and Fernando. Where are you?”
“At Graciela’s,” Flip said, and immediately regretted it.
“Meet me at the apartment. Ten minutes. Meet me right now. We have to figure out how to work this.”
“I don’t know what I can do,” Flip said.
“Just meet me!” José said and killed the call.
Flip felt the tremors threatening. His stomach was cold. He sat woodenly on the couch hearing nothing but his own heartbeat. Then he called the detectives. Their phones both went to voice mail.
“Who was that?” Graciela asked from the kitchen.
“José. I have to meet him.”
“Now?”
Flip nodded stiffly. “Now.”
“But I almost have dinner ready.”
He got up from the couch and went to Graciela. He put his arms around her and held her tightly for as long as he dared, because if he held on too long he would not let go. “I’ll be back,” he said.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. I’ll be back. I need to borrow your car.”
“You don’t have a license.”
“I know how to drive. Just let me borrow it.”
Graciela left the two-burner stove reluctantly and found her keys in her purse. “Don’t wreck it.”
“I won’t.”
Flip went down to the street and got into the car. It felt strange to have a steering wheel under his hands. For a seemingly endless moment he just sat, afraid to turn the key, afraid to go. He started the car.
José’s Lexus was in the parking lot when he got there. He saw no one in the pool, but a floating lounge kicked around at the edge, abandoned and caught in the circulating current. He held the keys to the apartment in his hand, the sharp edges digging into his skin. Every step to the second floor was an effort. At the door time expanded again and it seemed a long while before he put key to lock and let himself in.
The three of them were in the living room. José was pacing. “It’s about fucking time,” José said. “I thought they got you, too.”
“I’m here,” Flip said.
“Angel, Fernando, wait outside,” José commanded the two big men. “If you see anything, you holler out. Go.”
Flip stood aside to let them out and shut the door behind them. José was pacing again.
“That motherfucker Alfredo must have told them everything,” José said. “Now they’re all over the family. Nobody’s answering their phones. It’s just you and me now, Flip.”
“If the cops know everything, then they know about this place,” Flip said.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but maybe not. I didn’t see anybody when we came.”
José threw himself down into a chair and ran a hand through his hair. He was sweating badly and it showed through his shirt. A vein stood out prominently in his forehead.
“What do you want me to do?” Flip asked.
“You’re gonna help me deal with the situation,” José said. “We’re gonna start with your boss. They might come to get us, but we’re gonna let them know what happens when they fuck with the Indians.”
Flip came closer to José. Already he was breathing shallowly and too fast and he worried that he might faint if he kept on. He wished he was wearing his wire, but there had been no time for that. The only ones who would know what was said were him and José, and maybe it was better that way.
“I’m putting a green light out on Alfredo,” José said. “You understand? And you’re gonna do it.”
Slowly, Flip told himself. He forced himself to keep from hyperventilating. Now he was within an arm’s length of José in the chair. “I don’t have a gun,” Flip said.
“I have one. Or you can borrow Fernando’s. Yeah, you can borrow Fernando’s. Just walk up to that motherfucker and pop!”
“Alfredo’s my mother’s fiancé,” Flip said.
“Fuck that!” José exclaimed. “I don’t care who he is! He’s dead.”
“I can’t do it,” Flip said. He put his hand in his pocket.
“What do you mean, you can’t do it? I just told you to do it. And when I tell you to do something, it gets done. You understand?”
“I won’t go against my family.”
“Flip, you stupid bastard, I made you!” José rose from the chair and speared the air with his hands. “You have a family right here and I’m telling you to do a green light!”
“I can’t,” Flip said.
“I gave you everything! This place? Mine! Graciela? Mine! Opportunities? All mine! You belong to me!”
Flip had the knife out and open before José could see. Flip stabbed him twice quickly, low in the body, beneath the ribs. José made a sharp exhaling sound and then Flip stabbed him again in the side of the neck.
José fell back in the chair and Flip was on him, stabbing over and over. He did not stop when José scrabbled at him with weakening hands, or when a shower of misting blood sprayed in his face. José was masked in it, drenched in blood, and Flip’s right hand was covered to the wrist. A gurgling sound came from José’s throat.
Now Flip stepped away, his shoulders heaving with great, sucking breaths. He was filthy with José’s blood, his jeans soaked and the front of his shirt smeared where José tried to fight him off. Flip looked at the knife and saw that crimson had sunk into the deep lines of the carved handle. The blade was spotted. He wiped it on his leg and put it away.
Angel and Fernando were still outside. Flip lifted the edge of the blinds and peeked out at them. They were watching the courtyard. He went to the front door and turned the deadbolt.
Immediately there was a knock. “José? José, what’s going on? José!”
Flip retreated to one of the bedrooms. One of them, either Angel or Fernando, was kicking the front door now. Flip went to the window. Iron bars crossed the pane.
He remembered something about his keychain and he fumbled with it, his hand blood-slicked and already growing tacky. A small key to go with the door key. Flip threw open the window and fitted the small key to a lock on the bars. They came open.
The front door crashed open as he snaked through the open window. He fell onto a walkway that traversed the back of the building, linking one apartment to the next. Flip left a bloody smear on the concrete as he scrambled to his feet and ran for the far staircase just as quickly as he could.
“Stop!” someone shouted from behind. Flip did not stop.
He flew down the steps two at a time and dashed for the open street at the end of the lot. Then he was around the corner of the building. José’s Lexus waited and, beside it, Graciela’s car.
Flip had her keys in his hand. He crossed the nose of the Hyundai when a shot rang out. A stinging, burning pain sprang up in the back of his leg and suddenly he could not put weight on that foot. Another shot turned the Hyundai’s windshield into a field of spider webs.
Fresh blood poured down his leg as he got behind the wheel. Flip could feel it dripping into his sock and the spreading warmth beneath him told him it was soaking into the seat. He turned over the engine, crashed the shift into reverse and laid twin rails of black rubber out of the parking lot and into the street. A passing car clipped the bumper and went skidding out of control.
Another bullet struck the side of the car and then another. Flip put the Hyundai into drive and stomped the accelerator with his good foot, skirting the other car. In the rear view mirror he saw Fernando in the street with a gun, but no more shots came.
He knew where he was going and how to get there and he did not let up on the gas. Stop signs and lights streaked past, but he didn’t slow for them. By the time he saw Graciela’s building he felt dizzy. The floor mat was thick with his blood.
Flip hopped the curb on the right-hand side and brought the car to a stop. He stumbled out of the driver’s seat into the street and then dragged himself to the sidewalk. The entrance to the building seemed a mile away. He levered himself up on the leg that would hold him and half-walked the rest of the way until he could fall against the door. His fingers were going numb as he sorted out the right key and inside there were stairs to navigate. He was leaving a trail behind him, wet and wine-colored.
When he made it to the second floor he had just enough strength to knock. He collapsed with his forehead against the cool wooden floor. The door opened and Graciela was screaming, pulling him onto his back, touching his face.
Flip tried to push himself across the threshold, but there was no more left. A ringing started in his ears and blackness played at the edges of his vision. “Graciela,” he whispered.
Graciela was bawling into the phone. It was too late for that, Flip wanted to tell her. He’d left too much of himself along the way. Just be with me now, he thought.
“Graciela.”
“They’re coming, baby. You’re going to be all right.”
“Graciela, I’m sorry,” Flip murmured. More black now, closing over him. He couldn’t feel his pulse beat in his leg anymore.
Graciela held his head in her lap. “Don’t talk, Flip.”
“Take care…” he said.
“Flip, don’t talk.”
“Take…”
“Flip? Flip! Flip!”
He heard her yelling as from far away. He couldn’t see at all. Her touch faded. Flip tried to form a thought, but it wouldn’t happen. He felt his heart beat slower and slower.
Flip didn’t know why he’d been afraid. Dying was easy after all.