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“DID YOU KNOW about it? What they did with my boys?” Diego’s voice purrs and his open gaze invites confidences. He, Ramón, and José sit in the kitchen of Ramón’s house with a bottle of rum on the table. They each have already emptied several glasses before addressing this subject.
Ramón wants to avoid talking about it. The others have always seen him as weak. He knows this. But what if they knew that he had killed to save their children? They would think him a man then.
“Look at the position they’ve put me in. I could kill Lola.” José squeezes his hand shut and open several times before taking another gulp of his drink. “The Russians. When they find out, they won’t trust me. Then what?”
“And you?” Diego again levels his gaze at Ramón.
Ramón had started drinking long before the other two arrived. Since Guillermo’s death at the tannery, he seemed to have taken over his brother’s fondness for the rum. His plaid shirt is damp with sweat. He knows he stinks.
“How did they get the money they needed?” Diego asks. Ramón sees in his eyes an avenging angel who has come to punish him for murdering his own brother. He wants to confess, but all he does is shake his head. Helping the women with the money was nothing.
“Women,” José says. “I slapped that bitch around when she told me.”
“Me too,” Ramón says. “Rosita, I mean.”
The other two look at each other, bemusement on their faces. “Sure you did, hombre,” Diego says.
They don’t believe him. They don’t believe him! He is a man. Strong. His wife does what he tells her to. “I killed him,” Ramón blurts.
“Who?” José asks, his voice dull. He doesn’t look up from the table.
“Guillermo.”
“Ah, hermano.” Diego sits back and passes his hand over his eyes. “The Monteros killed him. The way they’re trying to kill us by stealing our boys.”
I have girls, Ramón thinks.
Diego rises and pulls Ramón from his chair. Here he comes, the avenging angel.
“You must be tired after such a long day at the tannery,” Diego says. His hand slips on the slickness of Ramón’s arm until it finds purchase at his elbow.
“I did. Rolled him over,” Ramón says.
“Sure, hombre.” Diego tugs at him to get him moving. “Come, go to bed. We’ll close up here.” He leads Ramón to the hall and gently pushes him toward the bedroom.
Do they not hear him? He sways in the dark hallway, confused. Maybe he hasn’t spoken aloud. That happens sometimes to him. Or maybe . . . He stumbles to the closet in the bedroom. Guillermo’s Spanish shoes are gone. Perhaps they had never been. That’s it.
All is normal. Thank God.
Ramón returns to the hall and stops outside the bedrooms of his daughters. “Virginia,” he calls softly. “Alma, Margo, Papi’s here.” There is no answer.
