Uniforms. Damn.
Game. Damn.
In my mind, my commitment to soccer had ceased as soon as Jem wasn’t able to make practice anymore. Apparently, I’d forgotten to share that assessment with the other fifteen players and their families.
I should have taken up Mrs. Toca’s offer to watch the kids. I could make up an emergency excuse. Like I didn’t have an emergency excuse.
Ma’am, there’s an escaped fugitive I have to kill. Just tell the kids to work on their passing.
But I heard the team yel ing behind her, and the primal fear closing up her throat as she pleaded, “Coach .
. . ?”
“I’l be there in five minutes.”
“Oh, okay,” her voice quavered. “Thank God. I mean, we’l see you in five minutes.”
She either hung up or a child broke the phone.
Seventeen minutes later I was on the field—which again had dried out just enough to avoid canceling practice. It was as if God had declared divine protection over this small patch of ground, and scheduled His Flood around practice times, just so I could get my twice-weekly punishment.
Except for Jem, the whole team was there—fifteen miniature tornadoes who’d been cooped up indoors since the last time I’d seen them, two days ago, and were desperate to unwind every ounce of energy at my expense.
A few mothers waited impatiently on the field. No doubt I’d made them late for their manicures at Patricia’s.
I circumvented their disapproving looks by brandishing the soccer shirts.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Trouble getting these.”
In fact, the plastic bag ful of neon-orange clothes had been sitting in my truck for a week, but the distraction worked.
The kids yel ed, “Uniforms!” and mobbed the bag like Somali refugees. The mothers had to retreat or get trampled.
“First game Saturday against Saint Mark’s!” I cal ed to the mothers as they left.
My grumpy inner voice: And I hope you have fun without me.
The kids were running down the field holding bright orange tube socks from their ears like streamers. The Garcia twins were tackling each other. Laura and Jack were playing leap-frog.
I blew my whistle. “On the line!”
Nobody got on the line, but the chaos moved into a tighter orbit around me. I was making progress.
“I’ve been practicing my kicks, Coach!” Paul told me. “My dad said you were teaching us wrong!”
“That’s great, Paul.”
Kathleen pointed at me and giggled. “You look like a cat’s been sleeping on your head!”
“Scrimmage!” the Garcia twins screamed.
“We’ve got to do some dril s first, guys,” I said.
“Scrimmage!”
Pretty soon the whole tribe had taken up the cal .
I relented.
We went eight on seven. Jack took Jem’s place as keeper.
Two scrimmages and twenty-seven water breaks later, the rain started coming down—just in time for the end of practice.
I blew my whistle. “Circle up!”
To my surprise, the whole team responded. They sat in a circle around me on the wet grass.
“The game is at ten on Saturday,” I said. “What time is it, Laura?”
“Ten on Saturday!”
“Who are we playing, Paul?”
“Saint Mark’s!”
Two right answers in a row temporarily stunned me.
One of the Garcia twins tugged at my sock. “Where’s Jem? Is he sick?”
“He’s . . . out of town.”
“He’l be here, right? He’s our best goalie!”
I blinked, and wondered if they’d been practicing in some alternate universe last time.
“I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t add that I probably wouldn’t be there, either. “Listen, just play your best.
Practice your kicks. Saint Mark’s is supposed to be a good team, so don’t be discouraged . . .”
“We’re gonna win!” Paul yel ed, and bounced the bal off Maria’s head. She didn’t notice.
“Yeah!” said Kathleen. “Best coach ever!”
Jack gave me his best loyal dog bark.
“Okay,” I said. “Wel . . . your parents wil be here soon. So . . . let’s clean up the equipment.”
The team spirit was too good to last. They gave a cheer and went screaming en masse toward the playground.
I watched them go. Then I stared down at the extra uniform in my plastic bag. I’d saved Jem his favorite number: 13. I’d saved him the yel ow goalie vest.
Somewhere during the night, I’d decided not to cal Maia’s. Despite the time crunch, I had to go in person.
I had to talk to Jem, face-to-face, find a way to tel him what was going on. He deserved to know.
It would be better not to bring the uniform. The kid wouldn’t be playing in Saturday’s game. Even best- case scenario—no way.
I shouldn’t waste another minute on soccer. I’d lost half the morning and done nothing to help Erainya. I needed to get Ralph Arguel o working on my problem. Now. Immediately. Then I needed to get to Austin.
But I took the time to walk the rainy field. I col ected the bal s the kids had kicked to the far corners of creation. I locked up the supply shed. And I stayed at the playground until my last player got put safely in her parent’s car.
“Vato.”
Ralph Arguel o held out his arms. His gold-ringed fingers and white guayabera shirt and fan of black hair across his shoulders made him look like the Brownsvil e version of Jesus.
He pul ed me into a bear hug, which disconcerted me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever touched Ralph before, except maybe for the time I’d pul ed him back from kil ing our high school footbal coach.
“We were about to eat lunch,” he told me, leading me down the hal way. “You like Gerber’s tapioca?”
“Tempting, but I’m okay.”
Ralph grinned. His thick round glasses made his eyes float like dangerous little fish. “Change your mind, I can fix you up.”
“Ralphas, I need help.”
A few more steps into their home—past the tintype of Ralph’s great-grandfather who rode with Pancho Vil a; the tiny altar to Ralph’s deceased mother; Ana DeLeon’s framed Police Academy graduation picture.
“Ana told me,” he said, his voice even. “Come on. Meet my main chica.”
His den windows overlooked Rosedale Park, so close to the bandstand that in the spring the whole house must have vibrated with conjunto music from the annual festival. Marmalade wal s were hung with Frida Kahlo prints. Patchouli incense coiled up the blades of a potted yucca. eBay flickered on the computer screen. The bookshelves were crammed with Spanish poetry, homicide manuals and children’s stories.
In the center of the carpet, a baby sat suspended in a plastic saucer seat, her tray sprinkled with Apple Jacks.
She had a drool stalactite on her chin, tufts of black hair, and little wrinkled fists. I could tel she was a girl because her ears were pierced and fitted with gold studs. Then again, so were her dad’s.
She looked up at Ralph and grinned in a way I’m sure must’ve been very cute—though her expression struck me as not too different from an I’m-pooping-now look.
“There she is— mi bambina!” Ralph stuck his face down toward the baby, who squealed happily.
She kicked her feet. The saucer went whumpity-whump.
I decided I needed to sit down.
I pul ed a teething ring out of the crack in Ralph’s brown leather recliner and settled in, outside what I hoped was drool-flinging range.
“So—Erainya.” Ralph turned toward me, trying to suppress his parental euphoria long enough to focus on my problem. “Tel me about it.”
I fil ed him in on what his wife the police sergeant didn’t know—the fourteen mil ion dol ars, Stirman’s ransom deadline, my feeling that Stirman would kil Erainya whether I found the money or not.
Ralph picked up a jar of processed yel ow goop. He stabbed it a few times with a spoon. “You wil ing to kil , vato? ’Cause you go after Stirman yourself, that’s what you’l have to do.”
I didn’t answer. The baby was trying to pick up an Apple Jack with tiny, clumsy fingers.
“Don’t tel me,” Ralph decided. “I see it in your eyes, man. I don’t want to know. I’d have to tel Ana, entiendes?”
“Can you help me or not?”
He spooned some goop into the baby’s mouth. Most of it dribbled down her chin. “I got a name.”
I nodded, relieved but not surprised.
Ralph had spent years on the streets. He’d built a mil ion-dol ar pawn shop empire, occasional y branching out into less legal y correct businesses. Until he’d stunned the town by marrying a police officer, Ralph had known the disreputable side of San Antonio as wel as he knew the resale value of gold or used guitars.
“Guy’s name is Beto Falcone,” he said. “Pimps whores out of the Brazos Inn over on Crockett. He and Stirman used to do business, running fresh meat up from the border.”
“Ralph . . .”
“Falcone would know Stirman’s hiding places. Little persuasion, he might be wil ing to tel you. I got the number.”
“Ralph, Beto Falcone got whacked six months ago.”
Ralph stared at me.
“Couple of gang-bangers,” I said. “Kil ed him for thirty bucks in cash. Beto’s dead.”
Something shifted between us, like the fulcrum of a seesaw.
Ralph turned to his computer. He stared at his items on eBay—the new heart of his pawn shop business.
“Nobody told me.”
It was a statement I’d never thought to hear Ralph Arguel o say, right up there with I’m sorry and Let’s let him live.
“You’ve been on paternity leave,” I offered halfheartedly. “You’ve been out of it.”
The lenses of his glasses flashed.
He turned to his daughter. He held out his little finger for her to grab.
Other than the fact she had no teeth, she looked a lot like her dad when she smiled. Her glee was so complete it could’ve been innocent or diabolic.
“I’l make some cal s,” Ralph said. “Give me a couple of hours.”
“Be faster if we hit the streets.”
Phones were unreliable for the kind of information we needed. We both knew that. Hel , Ralph hated phones.
But I sensed his hesitation—his completely un-Ralph-like reluctance to move.
The baby was pul ing at his hand, trying to get the spoon.
“Haven’t set foot in the shops for months,” Ralph said. “Nowadays, I run my business from right here, you know? Some of the stuff I was into . . . I let it slide, vato.”
I didn’t respond.
“Ana and me—if we were going to stay together, something had to give. You understand?”
“And that something was you.”
He acted like he hadn’t heard.
He crushed an Apple Jack on the baby’s tray, made a line of brown dust. “From what you’re tel ing me, Barrow and Barrera stepped way over the line. They stole Stirman’s money. Now you’re tel ing me they kil ed his wife and kid, too.”
