In spite of her father’s instructions, Janeal did not help Veronica with the meal that night, nor did she put on acceptable shoes. Instead, she skipped dinner entirely, because it took her nearly three hours to write the letter that she would need to leave behind for Jason, the letter explaining what she had chosen to do, and why. Though she had waited patiently to pull him aside and speak with him face-to-face, the elders had not left his company since arriving for the evening meal, and she didn’t dare mention Sanso or the money in front of them.
“We can talk at any time of the night,” he told her when she asked to speak with him privately, resting a hand on her arm. “But these men need my attention now so they can get back to their families.”
But the clock ticked on, and she knew she’d be lucky to see Jason before the weekly Monday night poker games ended. If he was able to participate tonight. Sometimes he got so busy he couldn’t make it to those.
Uncertain as to when Sanso’s “lackeys” would show up, Janeal knew she couldn’t wait any longer to be ready.
She decided: she would go with Sanso tonight. To save her father, she’d leave him.
A small voice in the back of her mind told her she was only doing what she really wanted to do. She had found her excuse to leave the camp and could claim her escape would help her father rather than hurt him. She could finally justify her own desires without admitting another truth: that she wanted Sanso’s money, that she was attracted to his bad-boy persona, that she—
Janeal silenced the voice.
Though most of the carnival trailers stayed in Albuquerque through the week, the kitchen trailer came back for cleaning each weekend and was parked behind the garages where they had access to running water and room to make a mess without offending anyone. The large structure stored her father’s rarely used Lexus, the equipment the kumpanía needed to make auto and machine repairs, and gasoline in drums for other vehicles.
She and the other cooks often let the trailer sit for a day or two before rolling up their sleeves and scrubbing the thing down.
Tonight, though, Janeal cleaned off one of the greasy prep counters, decided that her creepy encounter with Mrs. Marković was only an unfortunate sign of the old woman’s imminent slide into dementia, then wrote her way through three drafts of inadequate explanations for why she had gone off with Sanso before finally settling on one that made sense.
Whatever the short-term fallout with the DEA might be, they at least wouldn’t kill Jason Mikkado. Nor would Salazar Sanso. She believed this, she wrote to her father, or else she would not have gone.
The pull of the money and a life outside the kumpanía was an afterthought that she didn’t mention.
She became so engrossed in the explanation that she didn’t notice she was losing daylight until the rear door of the trailer flew open and a high-beam flashlight cut through the rank interior.
“What are you doing in here?” Robert stepped in, accompanied by Katie.
Janeal scrambled to pull her letter together and fold it. She crammed the papers into her back pocket. She had to get back to the community house, where she and her father kept their rooms.
Robert noticed her gestures—his eyes went to her pocket, the broken pencil, the wads of discarded paper on the floor—but he didn’t say anything.
“You keep disappearing,” Katie said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Janeal muttered, frowning at Robert. She wasn’t willing to confide in him again after the way he responded to her this afternoon. “I needed some space.”
“Or a darn good hiding place from gajé bandits,” Robert said. “But I don’t think the perimeter of camp is your best bet.”
Janeal turned to throw a comeback in his face but held her tongue when she saw he was not teasing her. She looked at Katie. She was not poking fun either. Had Robert told her the story? Did they believe her?
Did she care?
“What time is it?” she asked.
Robert looked at his watch. “It’s after ten.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do? Poker game with the men?”
“Most of them went to watch a tournament in Rio Rancho. Didn’t want to go.”
She wished he had. The stack of bills she had taken earlier in the afternoon was in her room now. Five thousand dollars. She’d get it when she went back to leave the note for Dad.
Robert was looking at her, perplexed. He leaned against the counter, crowding her. “Katie and I want to hear more about what happened to you last night.”
The direct request made Janeal slightly angry. Hadn’t she told him enough? What else did he want to know?
“I was out of line this afternoon,” Robert said.
“No, you weren’t,” Janeal said, though she thought he had been.
“Oh, he was,” Katie inserted. “He told me what he said. He was an absolute dork.”
Janeal cleared her throat, worried that Robert might have also mentioned her accusations about the two of them. She was considering clearing the air when Robert jumped back in, maybe to prevent Janeal from opening another can of worms.
“Did you find the money?” Robert asked.
“I did.”
Katie put a hand over her mouth. Robert seemed surprised.
“Where is it?”
Janeal frowned at him. “Now you want to know.”
“Look, I’m trying to apologize.”
She picked up the wads of paper on the floor and threw them into a soup pot. She pulled a box of matches out of a drawer next to the stove and lit one, then tossed it into the pot.
“How much is there?” he asked.
“A million.”
“A million!” Katie echoed. “All those what-ifs you asked us this morning— he told you there was that much? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I said plenty.” Amusement poked a hole in Janeal’s irritation.
Katie was shaking her head. She put her hand on Robert’s arm and leaned toward him. “If this gajé has threatened the rom baro’s life—”
“He won’t be able to do anything to my father.”
“How do you know that?” Katie asked.
“I’ve taken care of everything.”
“What do you mean? Tell us what happened.”
The discarded drafts of Janeal’s letters burned out within seconds. Janeal didn’t have the time to explain everything to them, and even if she did, she didn’t know if she wanted to. She squeezed past them in the close space and tried to reach the door.
“Janeal,” Katie pleaded. “Please don’t go. Tell us what we can do to help.”
“Nothing.”
“Where are you going?”
“She’s going to go put gas in her car and drive away to New York now.” Robert’s remark was not a question, and Janeal saw something between fear and accusation pulling down the corners of his mouth. “Or was it Greece?”
“Of course she wouldn’t. She loves her father too much to do that to him, don’t you, Janeal?”
Janeal’s eyes were still locked on Robert’s. Could he have guessed she’d leave him? Did he want her to?
“She’s going to give that money right to whoever wants it so that her father will be fine, we’ll be fine, the whole kumpanía will be just fine. Isn’t that right?”
Janeal lowered her eyes. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“How complicated?” Robert challenged. When Janeal tried to exit, he stepped out and gripped her wrist. “Why don’t you explain it to us?”
Katie stepped between them and touched Robert’s hand, silently urging him to let Janeal go. He did.
From the rear door of the trailer, Janeal couldn’t see or hear anything that was out of order in the camp. If she was lucky, Sanso’s people wouldn’t show up until after midnight. She could spend those hours alone, pacing in her room, or . . .
Janeal looked at her friends. Robert still seemed angry, but Katie—she had paled and looked at Janeal with such concern that Janeal decided to explain her dilemma. In two short minutes she gave them the condensed version.
Katie didn’t believe the possibility that anyone in the kumpanía had ever done that sort of appalling business with Sanso; Robert did not voice an opinion on the matter. Janeal interpreted his silence as knowledge. She explained her fear of what the government might do to her father when he produced neither Sanso nor the money at their command; she was in greater fear, though, of what would happen to her father if Sanso did not get his way.
“I’m going to go with him,” she said, barely loud enough for them to hear. She didn’t look at either one of her friends.
“You can’t,” Katie whispered. “Janeal, what if he kills you?”
“I don’t think he will,” she said.
Disgust wrinkled Robert’s face. “Why not? Because you’ve already talked it through with him? Made your little plans?”
Janeal turned on him. “I’m doing what I need to to save Dad’s life!”
“How does going with that animal help your father?” Robert asked. “This is what you want, Janeal, and it has nothing to do with your father, or with us, or with anyone else in this community.”
“This man will kill him; don’t you get that? If you think I’ve got some selfish idea in mind—”
“Now why would I think that, Janeal? What did he promise you in exchange for turning the money over to him? A cut? A fancy car? His bed ?”
Janeal put her hand on her stomach as if he had punched her. She could not decide if she was more hurt that Robert thought so badly of her or that he seemed to be driving her away.
She kept her response under control. “If I go with him, I could lead the DEA to Sanso myself when the time is right. They can recover their money, and the kumpanía will get its pardon. That would be worth it, don’t you think? And the kumpanía might let me return. I might even come back a hero. Certainly Dad—”
“You don’t know what that man might do to you,” Katie repeated.
“I can handle him.” She said it with more confidence than she felt.
Robert turned on the flashlight and pushed her aside to jump out the back of the trailer first.
“What are you doing?”
“I think the rom baro ought to have a say in what you decide, considering that your friends don’t.”
Janeal’s temper flared. “You can’t go to him! You know he won’t let me do this.”
“Exactly! And doesn’t that matter to you?” Robert shot back. Katie finally stood, looking distressed and reluctant to put herself in the middle of this standoff.
“You’ll get him killed! Doesn’t it matter to you that he stay alive? If Sanso doesn’t get that money—”
“Don’t be naive, Janeal. This is a DEA problem. Let them own it. You don't have to. Neither does your dad.”
“They have him on drug trafficking charges!”
“According to Sanso.”
“Well, why else would the DEA have pinpointed my father for the job? And why would he have agreed to go along with their plan?”
“For the money? I don’t know, Janeal, but I do know that this isn’t something you need to shoulder alone. Let the government protect their own.”
“They will. Don’t you get it? Don’t you have any idea how Sanso might have found out about the sting in the first place? They will protect their own, and my father—your rom baro—is not one of them!”
Katie surrounded Janeal with a hug. She squeezed, her brows aligning to express her worry. Instead of accepting the sympathy of her friend, though, Janeal felt herself tipping over the edge of a cliff. She decided to let herself fall.
No one understood her, not even these two, who had so gradually been shutting her out of their circle that she hadn’t noticed until today. It no longer mattered to her that they didn’t understand, that they didn’t need her.
Janeal pulled out of her embrace and shot a withering look at Katie.
And Robert! If he really did intend to inform her father of what she had done, of what she now planned to do, she had better get to the meetinghouse ahead of him. She jumped out of the trailer and broke into a jog.
“Janeal, wait.”
She did not want to. She heard Robert’s foot grind the dirt as he pivoted to follow her. She ignored his attempts to reason with her and Katie’s pleas that she slow down. Instead, she turned her mind to how Robert might head her off once they got within sprinting distance of the meetinghouse. She would probably have to let him go straight to her father.
She, on the other hand, would go straight to her car keys. She’d pull out of camp and call Sanso from Albuquerque, have him meet her there.
As she anticipated, Robert sped toward the meetinghouse like a tattling little boy. For the first time, Janeal felt disgust toward her boyfriend. Katie could have him if she wanted. Janeal headed to the garage. She would need a few gallons of gas. Katie wavered, then followed Janeal.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” she said as she snatched a red canister off the shelf.
“Where will you go?”
“Nowhere that matters to anyone here.” She punched open the side door with the heel of her hand and headed for the meetinghouse kitchen. She kept her keys on a hook by the door. A mere hundred yards and the propane tank that heated their water supply was all that stood between her and her escape.
“Janeal, please.” Katie grabbed hold of the crook of Janeal’s elbow.
“What?” Janeal yanked her arm away.
The two faced each other in the darkness. Janeal registered the sounds of men shouting some distance away. She told herself it must be an argument over a card game in one of the far tents.
Katie dropped her eyes. “You’ll go, and he will have no spirit to lead us, Janeal. He’ll withdraw and leave the decisions to someone like Rajendra, and then—”
“My father is not a weakling. And if I don’t go, he’ll die.” Or be carted off to prison by the very government that had tried to provide him with a pardon. And then what? Then the kumpanía would be without a leader and she would be without a father and he would be without a family—and how was that better than what she was planning to do right now? “What will it take for you to hear me?”
Janeal rushed to the kitchen door, which Robert had left wide open. Inside, gas can in her left hand, Janeal snatched her keys off the hooks, dropped them into the pocket of her jeans, and turned to leave. The whole maneuver took her only three steps. Through the frame of the kitchen entry, she saw Katie still standing in the barren open space between the garage and the meetinghouse. She was looking away from Janeal, though, toward the shouting. The noise gave her pause. Hadn’t Robert said the men had gone to a poker tournament?
She didn’t especially care.
Janeal smelled smoke. The odor smelled chemical rather than woody, and she wondered briefly what would cause—
The sound of feet pounding in a dead run sounded from down the hall. Among the voices of men shouting, a woman screamed.
The door between the kitchen and the dining room swung open with such force that it hit the wall and bounced off. Robert slapped back at it as he headed for Janeal without breaking stride.
“Get out,” he yelled at her.
Janeal didn’t move.
“Go!” He reached her in the same instant and shoved her through the doorway so that she stumbled over the wide concrete step. She dropped the full gas can with a heavy thunk and it tottered, then ended upright. He grabbed her by the arm and nearly yanked it out of its socket.
“What are you—”
“Katie!” Robert was flinging his arm up to wave in her direction. “Katie, move !” She noticed him then and took a step in his direction.
“I mean run!”
Janeal had adjusted her feet to match Robert’s pace finally, and they raced toward Katie. “What happened?”
Robert put his head down and lengthened his stride. “Your friend’s people beat me to the punch.”