Hector rubbed his sore knuckles. The telephone message machine was harder than he had thought. He picked it up and, turning it over like a turtle, discovered that its face was cracked.
“Uh-oh,” Hector said as he raised the receiver to his ear. The telephone was dead. Instead of the long buzz, he heard a faraway ocean sound with a lightning charge of static. He checked the plug: the line was plugged into its socket. He pressed a series of numbers: nothing but a faraway sound like the ocean. He gave Mando a sorrowful look and remarked, “We’re doomed, ese. If those guys show up.”
Mando placed the telephone to his ear. His index finger jumped on his telephone number in Los Angeles. The sound of ocean carried through the wire to his ear. Mando dropped the telephone, the cord corkscrewing to the floor.
“You broke it, carnal,” Mando said.
Hector pressed the message machine and a slow, moaning heh, heh, heh of laughter bounced off the apartment walls. The laughter made Hector shudder and Mando bite a fingernail from fear. Hector smacked the message machine again and banged it against the wall.
Hector walked over to the window that looked onto the chiropractor’s house. A yellow light was on in the kitchen and a column of smoke was rising from the chimney. Hector could make out music—the faint squeak of violins and an operatic voice that sounded like choking. He wished he had stayed in Los Angeles; wished he’d never said to his mother, “I’m dead bored.” Right now, he and Mando could be playing soccer at the community center or kicking around the city with a fistful of sunflower seeds, bellies sloshing soda.
Hector sighed, pounded his scraped fist into his palm, and threw himself on the couch. He thought for a moment, thumbnail to his mouth. He thought of Bertha Sanchez, knowing that no one could be hit by her and still live a normal life. He would give anything, his front teeth included, if only Bertha were on their side.
Hector got up and scurried into the bathroom. In the shower Uncle’s T-shirts and underwear, all gray as cement, hung drying among strips of negatives curled like vines. Hector searched for the negatives of the robbers. Once he found them, he unclipped them from the hanger and returned to the living room, where he raised them to the lamp: the ugly mug of the robber with thinning hair glared at him angrily.
“Let me see,” said Mando as he sat next to Hector. He winced as he studied the negatives.
“Listen, Mando, we’re not in danger. I mean, are they really gonna come and get us? No way, dude.” Hector pounded his fist into his hands and jabbed at the air. He was trying hard to convince his friend. “There are laws against adults hurting minors.”
“There are?”
“Yeah, sure there are.”
“But Hector, these guys don’t care about laws.” Mando’s voice sounded like the voice of a scolded child. When Mando lowered his head, the shadows under his eyes deepened. He stood up and paced the living room. He kicked a brown bean bag chair and asked, “How we gonna get out? We’re upstairs.”
Hector didn’t answer Mando at first. He surveyed the apartment. The only door leading out was the front door. There were plenty of windows to jump from, although the second-story jump would probably hobble them.
“We’re faster, and we’re smarter,” Hector finally said. Mando wasn’t satisfied with that answer. He kept pacing the living room, head down.
Hector picked up the negatives and studied the images. He concluded that the robbers—the one pictured in the negative at least—were out of shape. They couldn’t possibly catch him or Mando, he thought to himself. “Listen, if they come after us we’ll run behind Dr. Femur’s house and meet at the corner where Uncle’s window fell out.” Hector waved Mando over to the window. He pointed and said, “We’ll go behind those trees and—” Hector stopped abruptly when he saw two figures waving at them: Freddie Bork and Huey “Crybaby” Walker, both smiling and laughing “heh, heh, heh.” Hector looked at the negative, then at Freddie, whose laughter was jiggling his belly. Three times he looked from the negatives to the men outside and then backed away from the window. He turned to Mando and said, “This is it, Mando. Just throw something if they get in.”
Immediately there was a bang, a big shoulder bouncing against the front door. Hector rushed to the kitchen, looking for something to throw at them. He picked up the salad dressing hoping the vinegar would sting the robbers’ eyeballs. He ran down the steps and, after unscrewing the cap from the bottle, opened the peephole. The banging stopped. “Listen, you’ve got the wrong kids.”
“We’ve got the right ones,” Freddie growled. “Ain’t you the straight-A students?”
“No way, we only get C’s,” Hector answered back.
“The paper said you were a straight-A student.”
“Listen, I’ll tell you where the negatives are if that’s what you’re after. Honest, they’re not here.” The bottle of salad dressing was poised.
“Where are they?” Freddie edged toward the peephole and looked in.
“Right here,” Hector said and sloshed Freddie’s bloodshot eye with the Super Bowl salad dressing.
“What—!” Freddie had one palm pressed against his eye as his other hand dug in his pocket for a handkerchief. Hector sniffed a sweet pungent scent and looked at the bottle drooling an oily liquid. He touched his finger to the lip of the bottle and smelled it. The smell was sweet, and the taste sweeter than he expected when he raked his finger across his lower front teeth.
Hector put his eye to the peephole and saw Freddie licking his fingers, nodding his head and saying, “It has a pleasant tang, but maybe a little too much sugar.” But when Freddie raised his gaze and focused on the door, he became menacingly enraged. He hiked up his pants. He growled to himself as he lowered his shoulder and charged.
Hector moved away and grimaced when Freddie’s body banged with a terrifying noise. The door held. The door held a second and third time.
Hector retreated to the top of the stairs. Mando was on his knees trying to piece together the telephone.
“What are you doin’?” Hector asked.
“Tryin’ to call home.”
“Forget it, Mando.”
Mando sighed and rose to his feet, a screwdriver in his hand.
Hector searched the apartment for something to slow down the robbers. He spotted an empty aquarium, which was brimming with marbles. “Help me,” Hector told Mando. Together they hoisted the aquarium into their arms and brought it to the stairwell. Hector tossed a handful of marbles down, and they ricocheted against the sides of the walls as they clacked down the steps. He then moved Uncle’s bowling ball into position, their atomic weapon if they needed one.
When the banging stopped, Hector became suspicious. From the window he searched the yard. He couldn’t see or hear anything. He could make out, however, the choking voice coming from Dr. Femur’s house. The opera singer was letting loose her cavernous lungs.
Mando hunkered down next to Hector and asked, “Do you see anything?”
Just as Hector answered “No,” Freddie’s face appeared out of the dark. It was shining in the glare of the streetlight. He was hanging on the telephone wire, moving hand over hand toward the apartment.
Hector and Mando shot up to their feet. Hector’s eyes fell upon Uncle’s cane, propped in the corner. He snatched it up, and returned to the window. Mando picked up the answering machine.
Freddie swung hand over hand toward the apartment. He was laughing and taunting, “Okay, you straight-A students, here comes the new teacher.” Freddie was now under the eaves, his feet searching for a foothold on the ledge. “What’s the capital of Egypt, my little friends?” Freddie continued to taunt.
From below, Huey bellowed, “Cairo.”
Freddie answered, “That’s good Huey. But let’s give the boys a chance.”
Hector opened the window and announced, “I’m making a citizen’s arrest.”
Freddie laughed and, with a meaty hand, grabbed the eave and pulled himself onto the ledge, where he tottered for a moment. But he regained his balance. He kicked the window and glass crashed to the ground. “Oops,” Freddie laughed, “I hope your uncle has renter’s insurance. Now what’s the capital of Poland?”
“Warsaw,” Hector answered and poked the curled end of Uncle’s cane under Freddie’s chin. Freddie fell backwards, arms flailing and screaming. But he managed to grab the telephone wire. Hector jutted the cane out the window and started poking Freddie’s underarms, tickling them as the cane ran like a saw under his arm. Freddie laughed long and hard, causing his pants to wiggle down a bit. Freddie dropped, his fall broken by a hedge and a climbing rosebush. He got up slowly, brushing his hands free of mud, muttering as Huey helped him to his feet. He pulled a rose thorn from the tip of his nose.
“What’s the capital of California?” Freddie asked angrily.
“For you, San Quentin, ese,” Hector snapped smartly.
Mando threw the message machine, which crashed on Huey’s foot. Huey leaped about, cussing, as the machine on its last juice moaned, “Is Rick there! I wanna talk to Rick!”
Freddie poked his shoe at the message machine and muttered to himself, “Who’s Rick?” Returning to glare at the boys, he yelled, “We’re not done with you!”
The pounding started again on the front door, a double whammy of bodies that splintered open the door. Huey kicked the door and Freddie entered asking, “Okay, what’s the capital of Argentina?”
“Lima,” Mando answered.
“You’re not straight-A students. It’s Buenos Aires,” Freddie growled through his panting. A trickle of blood ran from the tip of his nose. His hair was mussed and his eyes were more bloodshot than ever. “See what’s wrong with today’s youth?” he asked Huey. “They don’t know their geography. They don’t know how to show respect to their elders.”
Freddie and Huey raced up the stairwell, legs churning. Hector and Mando turned over the aquarium, and the marbles spilled with a great clatter. Freddie and Huey slipped and landed face forward on the steps. They cried out and tumbled and rolled to the bottom. They lay still for a second, a silence filling in, and slowly moaned back to life. They looked up, eyes spinning groggily.
“That was pretty good,” Huey muttered. With his hand on his chin, he opened and closed his jaw like a drawer.
“I hate these kids,” Freddie said as he rose to his feet and rubbed the small of his back. He pointed a finger and growled, “Go ahead, make my day.”
“All right,” Hector snapped and let the bowling bowl go. It bounced off one side of the stairwell and then the other, gathering momentum.
They didn’t watch to see what happened, but they heard screams and a body slapping to the floor. Hector and Mando retreated in a hurry to Uncle’s bedroom. They moved a dresser in front of the door and then the mattress. Hector spied Uncle’s Nikon on the nightstand. He grabbed it, ripped off the lens cap, and brought it to his eye and focused.
“We could jump from the window,” Mando suggested.
They peeked out of the window and shivered at the thought. On this side of the house, the drop was more than three stories onto a concrete patio. At Dr. Femur’s house the music was now even louder, a choking and wailing of opera singers.
“I got an idea,” Hector said, snapping his fingers. “We’ll hide and when they come in, we’ll blind them.”
“What, with more salad dressing?”
“No, this,” Hector said and, aiming at Mando, pressed the button of the camera. The room filled with a bright flash that made Mando stagger, rubbing his eyes.
“Híjole, I can’t see anything,” Mando cried. He stretched out his hands. “Help me, Hector.”
“You’ll be okay in a sec’,” Hector said and advanced the film. He then spotted a pile of old record albums, the ones that his mother told him to return to his uncle. “Then we’ll smash ’em with Santana!”
Hector searched the room and his eyes fell on a tape recorder. “Hey, Mando, we can even record our own funeral.”
“That’s not funny,” Mando said.
Freddie and Huey were now at the door, cooing, “Boys, we’re not here to hurt you. We just want to talk. Be friends, you know, maybe become partners.” There was a silence and then Freddie continued. “You like money, don’t you? We’ll split what we have.”
Hector had turned on their tape recorder and, taunting Freddie, “Hey, dude, listen to yourself. You’re corrupting Today’s Youths.” He played it back for Freddie, who was furious. “I’m going to tear you to pieces, punk,” he growled.
Hector laughed.
“Don’t get him mad, Hector,” Mando warned.
“Yeah, you’re right.”
When the pounding began on the door, Hector turned off the overhead light and picked up a five-pound weight from the closet and started beating the light switch. He beat it until the switch was broken. The robbers would have to search for them in the dark. Next, he moved Uncle’s Mexican flag from the wall to the middle of the floor.
Mando drew the drapes over the window. The bedroom was now completely dark. Hector and Mando hunkered down together. Their hearts boomed as the door slowly gave way and the dresser fell over like a beast. Huey pushed an arm through, then a leg, and finally his whole body. Freddie followed. He was breathing hard as he stepped over the mattress. They walked in the dark, bumping against each other. Freddie mumbled, “Come on, kids, make life simple for us.”
For a moment, Freddie and Huey stood motionless, trying to pick up the sound of breathing. Hector felt for sure that they could hear their heartbeats. Hector touched the Nikon around his neck and prayed that it would work.
When Huey took a step, Hector felt a book on the floor. He tossed it in the far corner, which made Freddie and Huey spin around and start after the sound. When they stepped on the flag Hector yanked it hard, sending the intruders sprawling. As they fell backwards Hector and Mando jumped up, their hands loaded with records. They pummeled them with records, which cracked and shattered on their heads.
But when Freddie staggered to his feet, Hector raised the camera, aimed and shot a blinding flash at Freddie. His hands went to his eyes, and Hector smacked him one.
Freddie again staggered to his feet, and Hector flashed the camera at him. Mando kicked him in the shin and Huey, who was starting to cry, crumbled to the floor.
Hector, remembering a Bruce Lee movie, screamed like a monkey and slammed his fist into Freddie’s solar plexus. Freddie doubled over, moaning, “I hate kids, especially these two…” Hector gave him a karate chop on the back of his neck.
Freddie dropped like a bundle of laundry and Hector searched the closet for something to tie Freddie up with. He found a pair of pants—Uncle’s old hippie bell-bottoms. He jumped on Freddie, who was out like a light, and tied his arms behind his back while Mando used a rope of exposed film to tie up blubbering Huey.
Hector looked up scared when he heard hurried footsteps climbing the stairs.
“Don’t tell me there are three of ’em,” Hector said to Mando.
Hector rose to his feet, his heart thumping like the back legs of a rabbit. For a moment, he thought of Bertha Sanchez and gathered all the strength in his body. This is it, he thought.
When a figure showed up in the doorway and stumbled over the mattress, Hector flashed the camera and without even asking, “Hey, who are you, dude?,” he punched the guy in the stomach.
“Híjole,” the voice groaned while he dropped to his knees.
“Ooops,” Hector said as he turned around and searched for Mando in the dark. “It’s Uncle.”