“When did you know Jim Westfall was having an affair with an unauthorized immigrant?”
He glares at me. My stomach coils into a knot.
“This is off the record,” he says. “I received a faxed birth certificate with his name on it, and when I crossreferenced the list of arrestees, Gina Ruiz’s name was on it.”
Mike — Agent Acacio — goes on to explain that he had suspicions about Westfall’s arrests. I fight back a grin. Gina managed one last strike before Westfall got her. I bet we’d like each other if we ever met.
“Look, we don’t make up the laws,” Agent Acacio says. “If Miss Ruiz is here illegally, she has to return to Mexico. But I don’t let my agents get away with abusing their power.”
“So you’ll still deport Gina?”
“If the court decides to repatriate her, then she’ll be returned to Mexico.”
“Doesn’t Westfall want to look for his daughter?”
His grip tightens on the steering wheel. I finally notice a wedding ring. “For some people, their kids don’t figure into the equation.”
“Let’s get something to drink. You like strawberry soda?”
Pricila thought about it and nodded. He seemed nice. Even though Mommy and Nana told her never to talk to strangers, they’d let Danielle take her and now Maya. He smiled when he looked at Pricila and he wore Converse shoes like her teacher, Mr. Neil.
“This nice lady here will keep your place in line. We’ll come back before your mom does, okay?”
Pricila knew she shouldn’t go.
“Here, leave this.” He reached for her backpack and helped her arms out of the straps. “We’ll bring something back for your mom too. That way she won’t be mad at us, okay?”
She looked up at him and then at the café at the other end of the station. As long as they came back, it would be okay. He held out his hand and she took it.
We arrive at the station with an agreement: I’ll take Pricila home until the court decides what to do with Gina. Agent Acacio will deal with Westfall. We’ll all go on with our business.
When the SUV jerks to a stop, I turn to Agent Acacio. “I’m sorry, but you know I’m going to talk to my editor after this.”
He shrugs like that doesn’t mean anything and then jumps out to jog around the steaming hood, but he doesn’t open my door. A father carries his daughter to the parking lot and people hurry out to a bus with a sign reading Mexicali in the front window.
I reach into my purse, wondering if I have time to call Jake to send a photographer.
At first he held her hand. Pricila tripped when he pulled her toward the doors, away from the café.
“This way, sweetie.”
“But the sodas are there,” she said, pointing to the café in case he hadn’t seen it.
“No, baby, there’re better ones this way.”
The cold stung her face when he pushed the door open. What if Maya came back before they came back? What if the lady didn’t save their place in line? Would Maya slap her?
Pricila wrinkled her nose at the smell of the buses parked alongside the building. She wondered which one she would ride with Maya and Baby Carmen.
He walked faster and she nearly tripped over her own feet to keep up.
“Where are the—”
“Not now.” This time he didn’t smile. He swooped down and lifted Pricila up in the air. Then he held her against him, one hand under her butt and the other forcing her head down. Her nose bumped against his shoulder and she froze with terror. She wished she hadn’t left with him. She wished she had stayed where Maya told her to.
They walked past the big fountain and yellow taxis.
She could hear him breathing and white steam puffed out of his nose. He started running and she squeezed her eyes shut, hoping he wouldn’t drop her; hoping Mommy would appear out of nowhere.
He stopped running and she heard keys jangling. A car door opened and he swung her inside. With one glimpse up at him, Pricila realized he didn’t look very nice anymore. She opened her mouth to scream but he slammed the door.
Something tells me to look up again. I feel it like a hand grabbing the back of my neck.
I do, and then Pricila glances up over the man’s shoulder. Suddenly all these broken pieces pull together in my mind to form a picture. The man driving around Santa Ana, offering rides to little girls. Pricila’s white coat.
The doors close behind Agent Acacio as he moves into the train station.
I’m out of the car. Everything in my purse scatters on the sidewalk. My feet pound the asphalt and tires scream as a driver hits the brakes to keep from running me over.
I leap up onto the sidewalk and my wedge boots give out under me. I fall sideways into a puddle of oily water. But I look up when I hear a yelp and then the slamming of a door. He sees me and then ducks into the dented Subaru backed into a parking space. My knee burns and my ankle screams but I get up and hobble the distance to his car.
“Stop! Stop!” I scream so loud it hurts my throat. He starts the car and I slam both fists against the hood.
He revs the engine and the car lurches forward. I lever myself up and my shins crash into the bumper. I snatch my right foot up before it’s pulled under the car.
I don’t have time to pray. My fingers hook under the hood. I see the top of Pricila’s head over the backseat. He didn’t even buckle her in.
I then meet his eyes through the windshield. He grins at me as he guns the car forward, and my first thought as I swing off the hood is that this is going to hurt.
But Agent Acacio shouts for him to stop, and knowing he has a gun, I think that the pain will be worth it.
Old, Cold Hand
by Lawrence Maddox
City of Orange
Jeannie is celebrating the rites of spring at Lake Mead this weekend,” Hudson proclaimed with a deep rumble, taking his eye off me long enough to pack his pipe. “Initiating the drunken mating rituals of the collegiate slut with like-minded male strangers, à la Girls Gone Wild, no doubt.”
I knew Jeannie. She wasn’t a good girl. She liked to spread rumors that she was bedding her professors. I guess in Hudson’s case, her immature bragging was true.
“The dickens of it is, Josh, I need to break into her room. Tonight.”
“I just don’t see you as the love-letter type, Hudson.”
“I’m not, damn you.” Hudson pawed his trim white beard. “The girl is crazy. She likes to play games that escalate. She sent me these.”
Hudson tossed a folder. I pulled out a sheet of paper with porno magazine pictures of a man and woman glued to it.
“Doggy style. Does that have importance?”
“No.”
The woman’s head had been replaced with the face of a teenage girl, the man’s with a gray-bearded geezer. “Hey, Wilford Brimley,” I said, recognizing the actor from the diabetes commercials. A voice bubble from the girl said, Do I get an “A” yet? Wilford Brimley replied, No talking in class!
It was signed, Studiously yours, Jeannie.
“That’s the first one,” Hudson explained. He didn’t seem embarrassed at all. I looked through the folder. There were a bunch more, each raunchier than the next.