It was He who answered. No mask. He smiled poignantly. A smile that said I’ll always love you but my promises are in the pawnshop. He was a sad, handsome little devil. He looked at the Redeemer like an electrician who’d come when the lights weren’t broken.
He’s with me, Vicky said, and he knows your father.
They were all in a living room full of wood-and-red-velvet furniture — nostalgia for a finer form of pretense. An antique apiece and a drink apiece. The mother in the armchair, vodka on the rocks in hand, sloshed; the perverse twenty-year-old little brother at one end of the sofa, whisky on the rocks in hand, sloshed; the father in a high-back armchair, brandy and coke in hand, episcopally sloshed. You could sort of see that they were scared, but could more clearly see their ennui. We never know how much we actually hate one another, the Redeemer thought, until we’re locked in a room together.
Which one’s the patient? Vicky asked, eyeing the range of red-faced tremble-handed possibilities.
The ex-lover pointed to a door:
Her.
Vicky shot him a profoundly scornful stare, nodded and went to open the door. At the back of the room, sitting on a bed, a woman in a blue dress sat holding a teacup. She was wearing makeup but it couldn’t hide the sneer of someone who swallowed bile every day as tho it were water. Vicky observed her from the doorway, the Redeemer from the living room. She took two steps in, put her hands on her hips, observed the woman a little longer, turned and closed the door.
There’s nothing wrong with her.
You didn’t even examine her, he said.
Stop rationing her booze, that’s what she needs.
The silence that ensued would have been awkward in any other room, but in that one each member of the family merely clutched their drink a little tighter before sinking back into a slight stupor. The Redeemer sensed this was his moment. He approached the father and crouched down.
Remember me?
The man made an effort to wrestle his way out from the bottom of the bottle, finally found his pupils and focused on the Redeemer.
You once got some photos back for a friend of mine.
The Redeemer smiled.
Exactly. I’m dealing with something less serious now, but I need some information. You know who the Las Pericas house belongs to? Place no one’s lived for years?
The man seesawed behind his eyeballs, forward and back, as he thought it out. Except for a hand faintly jiggling his ice, the rest of his body was still.
The Fonsecas, he said. Tied up in some legal mess, I think, but far as I know, it’s theirs.
Yes, it’s theirs, the mother interrupted from the depths of her vodka, for as much good as it does them.
Thassaway it is with those sorts of families. Now it was the perverse baby brother who spoke in a whiskified slur. Don’t matter how many houses they buy, they only know how to live in crappy-ass shacks.
The Redeemer felt his fist wanting to bust the kid’s nose, in part for that remark, but more because he wanted to bust the monster’s nose regardless. This was the first time he’d seen him in the flesh, tho he knew what a class act this little shit was. He and some other silverspoon whose family had a funeral home had been caught snapping shots of each other with the bodies they were supposed to prepare: posing as if kissing or slapping the corpses, drawing moustaches on the dead, sticking hats on them. Then some other kid they’d showed the photos to started telling people and it was about to blow into a big scandal when the Redeemer stepped in and disappeared the pics. The funeral home kid got a slap on the wrist; the little shit, not even that.
One more thing, Vicky said to the whole family. In case this is spread by mosquitos I’d recommend you stop wearing perfume; they’re attracted to it.
No one said a word, nor did anyone except the ex-lover make a move to stand when Vicky and the Redeemer headed for the door, but Vicky put up a hand in front of his face and said That’s far enough.
Back in the car, the Neeyanderthal said Bet they offered you a drink in there — and me out here like a dumbfuck.
On the way to Las Pericas the Redeemer saw a corner flowerstand peeking out above the hunkered-down city and thought of Baby Girl, alone, injured, growing cold in that house, no one to talk to her. He stopped, said Wait for me, got out, and bought flowers. There were no Day-of-the-Dead marigolds but they had gillyflowers. Now that he thought about it, that stand never seemed to close, even on holidays or the darkest nights.
They arrived and the Redeemer got out to speak to the Unruly, but she didn’t need convincing because she’d seen who-knows-what in Vicky’s authoritative eyes, so all Vicky had to say was Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.
She even reached out to tuck a strand of hair back behind the Unruly’s ear and tho she didn’t smile, she didn’t flinch either.
They stayed in the car and smoked while Vicky worked. The Unruly smoked, too, leaning up against the doorjamb. They finished one cigarette. Lit a second. Finished the second and lit a third and that was when she came out. Vicky gave the Unruly a pat on the back, which morphed into some sort of sororal squeeze; she leaned in a little more and whispered to her. Then headed for the car.
What’d you just say? asked the Neeyanderthal.
That we women need to look out for each other. No one else is going to do it for us.
What did she die of? asked the Redeemer.
This shit. Vicky waved vaguely at the world outside the car. But she must have gone days without treatment to die like that. By the way she held her hands you can tell she couldn’t stand the pain in her joints, and from the blood in her mouth and nose it’s clear the symptoms advanced to late-stage with no meds.
So was that why they had her locked up?
She hasn’t been dead long, but that girl was sick for days before they got to her.
Did they do anything to her… after she died?
Vicky stared straight ahead a few seconds without saying a word. She looked tired.
They didn’t fuck her, if that’s what you’re asking, but they did something. That shitbag Dolphin put her underwear on inside out.
He had no idea who from but knew at some point a message would arrive. And when it finally did, he realized right away who was running the show on the other side of the corpse.
What’s up, Friend? Meet you on the corner over by Casa Castro.
There was only one person who called him Friend with a capital F: the Mennonite.
The two of them had met on a job they worked together, in a place a long way away from the place the Mennonite called home. They were going to pick up a body. The deceased was a family friend, which was why when the Redeemer arrived he found the man attempting to stitch up a finger.
No way am I handing him over like this, as if he was off to just anywhere.
The Mennonite was standing on the corner like a tree that had sprouted out of the sidewalk. These days he no longer wore the denim overalls and straw hat but the workboots and plaid shirt were still there. His red beard spilled out the sides of his facemask.
They hugged and the Redeemer asked:
So. What brings you way over here? You never used to leave your land.
Well, you know. Unhappy people aren’t the problem. It’s people taking their unhappy out on you.
I do know. Yeah.
The Mennonite had left the land of his kith and kin on his own, and had adapted to the world of those always in a rush — silence and simple toil replaced by engines and cement. But at least back there he’d had his people nearby. Now, not even that. Who knows whose toes he must have stepped on, why he had to strike out on another path. Still. It was time to get on with it.