Uncle rummaged through his closet for his old black telephone. It was there, languishing among his dusty baseball trophies. As Uncle plugged in the phone and dialed 911, his gaze remained locked on Freddie and Huey who were tied on the floor, moaning. He explained the scene to the dispatcher, hung up, and helped Hector and Mando locate an electrical outlet for a lamp they had moved into the bedroom.
Hector, still breathing hard from the excitement, turned on the lamp. A yellow light revealed the prone bodies of Freddie and Huey, their legs and arms bound in rags and Uncle’s old bell-bottom pants.
“I’m sorry I left you guys alone,” Uncle apologized. “I called you from Vicky’s. I didn’t get an answer, so I knew something was up.”
“It’s okay,” Hector said. He bent down and picked up the broken pieces of a Santana album. “Sorry, Unc.”
“Hey, no problem. It had a bunch of scratches anyway.”
Huey turned his face to Hector. Tears were running down his face, and Hector felt sorry for him. He bent down closely and asked, “Are you hurtin’ or something?”
Huey shook his head. He sobbed, “I’m going to miss the ski jumping.”
“And it’s all your fault,” Freddie said as he turned his wincing face in Hector’s direction. Unlike Huey, who was all sorrow and dirty tears, Freddie was alive and kicking with anger. He tried to scramble to his knees.
“It’s the other way around,” Uncle corrected as he pushed Freddie back to the floor with the heel of his shoe. “You’ve got no right to rob an armored car.”
“Sure we did. We were broke.”
“I’m broke too,” Uncle said.
“Me too,” Mando said. “Always have been.”
“Then let’s make a deal,” Freddie suggested with enthusiasm. “We can all split the money—one-fifth for each of us broke guys.”
“Forget it!” Hector snapped. “You ruined our vacation.”
When the telephone rang, the three of them jumped and yelled, “¡Ay, Dios!” On the fifth ring, Hector picked it up and heard a voice scream, “Is Rick there! I want to talk with Rick?”
Hector lowered the receiver onto the cradle. “Wrong number,” he told Uncle and Mando.
From a distance, they could make out the wail of police sirens. Hector could picture the police cars, gumballs turning and tires squealing around the corners. He pictured clean-shaven policemen, jaws square and tense, their revolvers heavy at their sides, the angel of death in each faceless bullet.
“Help me with this dresser?” Uncle asked. Shaking his finger at Freddie and Huey, he growled, “You two stay put! Or I’ll feed you to Hector and Mando.”
Hector snapped out of his police daydream when he heard his name. With Mando, he righted the dresser and moved it against the wall. They tugged the mattress back onto the bed, which gave Uncle a reason to change his sheets. The sheets were brown, same as all the furniture in the house. They were sweeping up when they heard the police cars, tires screaming.
The three of them looked out the broken window that faced Dr. Femur’s house. The music was still playing, the opera singer still choking on something.
Hector looked up at the clock: 11:47. “Time flies when you’re throwing pleitos,” he said.
The police got slowly out of their cars, fitting their nightsticks on their belts, and walked, not ran, up the stairs. To Hector’s surprise, they were not clean shaven. Their faces were heavy and tired, and one was chewing a wad of gum.
“In there,” Uncle said, hooking a thumb toward the bedroom.
The officers moved slowly toward the bedroom, but when they discovered two men tied up in there, they became excited. Their sense of duty even got a bit crazy when they learned that it was the two men involved in the armored car heist. They handcuffed them and yanked them to their feet. Huey’s face was wet with tears. Freddie’s face was dark with anger. He mumbled, “I hate these kids,” and the police pushed them from the bedroom to the waiting cars below.
Uncle explained the events to one officer, and Hector and Mando explained to another. The police stayed for a while, taking notes and confiscating Uncle’s negatives. They even took Uncle’s Nikon and the message machine which had recorded Freddie’s threats.
“Come on, man, my camera?” Uncle yelled, his hands running through his hair. “It’s my bread and butter!”
“You can pick it up tomorrow,” one officer answered and, looking around before he left the apartment, added, “This place is a mess.”
Uncle flopped his arms at his side and shook his head as he led the officer out of the apartment. He returned, smiling. The officer had returned the camera, minus the film.
Hector and Mando swept up the hallway of marbles and broken glass, and hauled the smashed aquarium to the side of the apartment. Uncle called Vicky and told her what had happened. He hung up and touched the front of his shirt. “Man, that’s funny. My heart’s beating hard just telling the story.”
Fifteen minutes later, Vicky was running up the steps in her high heels. Her face was strained with worry as she asked, “Are you all right? Hector? Mando?”
“Simón,” Mando answered. “Except I gotta cold.” He ran a finger under his nose and searched his pocket for a Kleenex.
She gave Hector and Mando a hug and then held open her palm and asked, “Whose marbles are these?”
“Ah, well, they’re mine,” Uncle said embarrassed. “From the aquarium.”
Vicky pressed a handful into Uncle’s palm, and put down a paper bag that held coffee, bagels, and cream cheese. Vicky looked around the apartment. “You must really like brown, Julio?”
“Pues sí. It’s the color of raza, qué no,” Uncle said, shrugging his shoulders.
The boys bit their lips, not wanting to let on that Unc’s ex-wife took off with everything that wasn’t brown.
Vicky poured them coffee and cut the bagels in half, slapping them with a layer of cream cheese. They ate their midnight snack standing up, Hector giving Vicky and his uncle a blow by blow account of what happened.
“Yeah, I tied the vato into a pretzel,” Mando bragged.
“¡Simón! And I karate chopped the other one,” Hector said. He yelled and chopped the air with his open-hand palm.
Mando turned to Vicky and said, “You shoulda seen us.”
Vicky put down her bagel. She was no longer hungry. She sat the boys on the couch, and cooed soothing words at Hector and Mando. “You’re such brave boys,” Vicky said, smoothing their hair. Hector and Mando beamed like babies in her arms while Uncle sat in a chair watching jealously. She sat with the boys and told them repeatedly that she was sorry about the “Today’s Youth” article.
The four of them—Hector, Mando, Uncle, and Vicky—stayed up all night. They cleaned up the house and patched the two broken windows with cardboard. They listened to Uncle’s old hippie music, danced, and then when they remembered that there was a five thousand dollar reward, they sat at the kitchen table drawing up plans for a real vacation.
“You been to Hawaii?” Hector asked his uncle.
“One time.”
“Was it fun?”
“Yeah, once I got out of the hospital. I broke my collarbone while surfing.”
“Forget Hawaii. Let’s go to Mexico, to la playa,” Mando suggested. He stuffed his face with another toothy bite of a bagel.
“Yeah, let’s all go to Acapulco,” Hector said dreamily.
“You mean me, too?” Vicky asked, winking at Uncle. “I have vacation time coming up.”
“Pues sí,” Mando said.
“Yeah, of course,” Hector added.
Uncle rested his hand over Vicky’s. Vicky smiled and turned her hand over, so that their fingers became interlaced.
The four of them dreamed of the beach-front hotel with the Pacific waves breaking at their feet.