Frankie drops the cassette and runs to the phone. The clear plastic case shatters.
“Aló.”
My watch is in the pocket of my jeans, lying on the floor, but I estimate thirty seconds.
“Yes, sir, I’ll be right there.”
I count off another twenty seconds.
“What call?” he says into the phone. “You must have dialed the wrong number.”
“Oh, yeah, Frankie,” I shout. “Someone called while you were gone, but they hung up.”
Frankie says, “No, sir, I’m alone. It was just the TV.”
I clamp my mouth shut. Am I not supposed to be here?
It seems like forever before Frankie speaks again. “You said between ten and eleven. It’s not even seven. What happened?”
Another long pause.
“What about Rambo? Our meeting?”
A shorter pause. “Yes, it was her.”
My heart speeds up. I hold my breath, listening. “Her, too? Why don’t I take her home?”
Rambo? A meeting? This doesn’t sound like a sick father.
I blink and hug myself tight. No more fooling around. He has to take me home.
“That’s, uh, going to be hard to handle. Especially if I have to wait for Rambo.” More silence, then Frankie says, “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”
In the next instant, he appears beside me, clutching his T-shirt. “Can you be any more stupid, Tina?” His face reddens.
“What do you mean?” Acid burns my throat.
“Get dressed. Now.” He yanks his undershirt over his head but doesn’t tuck it in.
The phone call—I should have never picked it up. “Wait! I’m sorry!” I reach for his shoulder, but he jerks away. “Are you taking me home?”
He bends down and flings my bra in my face. It makes me ashamed of my nakedness. “Dress warm,” he says. He throws the rest of my clothes at me on his way to the stereo, where he slams Ride the Lightning into the CD player and turns up the volume on “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
While he puts on his turtleneck and leather jacket, he jerks his body to the song’s rhythm as if performing some kind of bizarre ritual—as if he went out for condoms and joined a cult instead. I expect the people in the next apartment to bang on the wall or call the police.
As soon as I’m dressed, he shuts off the music and pulls a dark gray wool blanket from a closet. “Come on,” he says. When I don’t move right away, he clamps his hand around my upper arm and drags me out of the apartment.
“Stop! You’re hurting me!” But he doesn’t let go. His jaw is clenched. “What’s going on?” I ask over and over.
No answer. He snaps his fingers while we wait for the elevator. My heart pounds so hard my whole chest aches.
Outside, the night is damp but not cold. I don’t know why he told me to dress so warmly. He hands me a rope, several bungee cords, and the blanket, then hurls the plastic crate from his moto and one of the helmets into the bushes next to his grandmother’s building. My arm still aches from where he grabbed it. He puts on the other helmet, leaving nothing to protect my head except the hood of my sweatshirt. I fumble with the things he handed me. I really have to hold on to him now. He guns the engine.
I expect him to take me to Papá’s house, but we speed north. “You’re going the wrong way!” I shout over the engine. He acts as if he doesn’t hear. We still have time before my curfew, but if he’s taking me on a surprise trip, it’s not a nice surprise.
We race past the lights of downtown into a rundown neighborhood, through dark poblaciones lit up only by the cantinas’ neon signs, passing gangs of kids and stray dogs. My head feels strangely light without the helmet. My scalp and ears go numb in the raw wind. Frankie pulls up to a one-story cinderblock police station.
We’ve been busted. I should have known better than to ask him to get weed for me—a boy I barely knew at the time, in a foreign country with tough drug laws. I feel like I’m going to throw up, right on his leather jacket. How will I tell Papá and Tía Ileana?
Frankie jumps off and clutches my arm. “Leave that crap here,” he says, pointing to the rope, cords, and blanket. I drop the stuff to the ground. His helmet makes a hollow thunk on top of the pile.
A uniformed man stands in the doorway under a floodlight. They shake hands.
Shake hands, like they know each other?
The man is stocky, with olive skin and short black hair under his cap. His pants have several dark spots on one leg.
“We’ve been waiting for you. Where have you been?”
They do know each other! My breath catches.
“Slightly delayed, sir.”
“Is this a setup, Frankie? Are you friends with these cops?” He doesn’t look at me. I pat all my pockets, to make sure I don’t have any illegal drugs, not even a stray seed.
“And who’s she?” The carabinero looks me up and down. I’m sure he sees that I can’t stop shaking.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Frankie says. My legs wobble as I follow Frankie and the carabinero inside and down a narrow hallway.
The man unlocks a heavy metal door and flicks a switch. A single overhead bulb lights a low-ceilinged room with bare cement walls and floor. A table has been pushed to the side. A chair lies broken beside it. Rags are piled near the back wall.
A moan rises from the pile of rags.
I know that voice.
I scream.