After we broke into Andrés’s house, the loot was split, but my mother and I saw none of it, except the gray wool suit. The next week I found myself burnishing the lacquered floorboards of another fine home. Another Saturday, and then another. I went on three jobs with my father and his crew. I understand now that money must have been tight. He had four sons to support. We’d just finished a two-week job on a house when Felipe came by with the van. I remember thinking it was strange that they hadn’t given the place time to cool. I thought I understood the hustle. I asked my father about it.
“Shut up,” he said. “Don’t ask questions.”
We drove through the dark streets. I sat in the back, felt the van swaying. I had no idea where we were going, but when I got out, I knew immediately where I was. I looked at my father, horrified, expecting some kind of explanation, but he just shrugged. Crazy things happen in the city. They boosted me over the wall, into that garden where I’d played as a child. I could see through the glass window, the high bookshelves against the far wall, the elegant leather sofas.
They were too rich and too trusting. Their watchman was asleep in a rickety wooden chair. I opened the garage door from the inside and the man woke with a start. My father stepped in and broke his jaw. Felipe dragged him into the garden and tied him to a tree. The watchman sat there, blindfolded and gagged and bleeding, while we disassembled the house. Their possessions were so familiar it was like stealing from myself.
It was terrifying and logicaclass="underline" the riskiest hit of all. I led Felipe and my father around the house like a tour guide: don’t forget the microwave and the blender my mother loves so much. And, in here, the clock and the old engineer’s nifty calculator and the television with its remote control. There was something beautiful in our silent artistry. Everyone would be a suspect. The gardener, my mother, my father, me. Whichever members of the crew had worked on the house. And the watchman tied to the tree, bleeding into a rag.
The van was full. It was time to go. The watchman’s chin was slumped into his chest, his breathing heavy. I felt the conviction that he too was one of us, and it disgusted me. It could have been anything: a stray light that shone on him or a spasm in his face that made me think he was smiling. I kicked him. He snapped to attention, seeing only his blindfold. He struggled against the tree. I hocked something viscous and unclean on his forehead. The color of money.
My father called me, and we disappeared.
She left Carmela’s and I followed her. She got on the bus at Manco Capac. She wore her uniform, as clean and as white as a high summer cloud. She didn’t notice me behind her, sat across from me innocently, not even looking in my direction. I closed my eyes, felt the rumble of the bus along the potholed avenue. The ticket collector sang the route: La Victoria, San Borja! La Victoria, San Borja! Between the standing passengers, I could still catch glimpses of her. No one sat in the empty seat beside me. Then she stood. She got off, and I followed.
I knew the way, of course, to my Saturday home, where I once kept my mother company and did my homework on the garden terrace. The space my father and I had violated, nearly sacrificing her livelihood. But she had always been safe there. And, worse, I had too. They’d welcomed me into their looted house, consoled me when I cried. You’re too old for that, Chino. Look, they didn’t steal the books. The old engineer with his generous heart, trying to make me feel better.
I trailed a half block behind her now, an expert in my clumsy green shoes. She walked along the sidewalk and I tracked her, marching down the very center of an empty street. “Ma!” I shouted. “Ma!” She half-turned, and then sped up at the sight of me. I rushed to keep pace with her. “Ma!” I shouted again. “Ma, it’s Oscar! It’s Chino!”
She stopped beneath a flowering tree and stepped out into the street. “Hijo?” she said. “Is that you?”
I hadn’t seen her since the velorio. I had left her to bury the old man without me. She had held his hand and watched him die. She had put him in the earth and covered him.
“It’s me, Ma.”
“Chino!” she cried. “You scared me!”
“I’m sorry, Ma.”
“Your nose, Chino?”
I pulled off my red nose, let it drop to the ground.
“And your shoes? What’s all this?”
I stepped out of the clown shoes and kicked them toward the sidewalk. “I’m writing a story, Ma. For the paper.”
She nodded, not understanding.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated.
“Where have you been, Chino?”
“Here and there,” I said. I took off my wig. “I’m here now.”
She took me in her arms and stroked my hair. She kissed my forehead and wiped the paint from my cheeks. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve been to Carmela’s, but I didn’t knock.”
“You should have,” she said. “Will you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Did he ask about me?”
It was a travesty, my wanting to know, but I did. She held me tighter. My face paint was running, coming off in white streaks on the sleeve of my suit. “He missed you, Chino,” she said.
I felt the warm, salty wet of her cheek against mine. It felt good to be held.
“I missed you too,” my mother said.
“I won’t leave you,” I cried. But a shiver passed over me. I knew in my heart that the clown was lying.
third avenue suicide
They’d been living in the apartment for ten days when David was first asked to disappear. This was the arrangement, what they’d agreed upon, and he would do so without complaint. His things were put away, hidden in the corners of the closet, or under the bed, or in the bottom drawer where Reena’s mother was unlikely to look. His razor, his boxer shorts, his guitar, his cameras. “Your man things,” Reena said, joking. He liked the way she said it. David kissed her and walked out of the apartment and into the street. The August heat had broken, and the breezy afternoon intimated the coming fall. I’m a good boyfriend, David told himself. It was no sacrifice at all. He loved her. He sat on the curb across the street from their building, smoking cigarettes and watching for Mrs. Shah.
He’d seen Reena’s mother in pictures many times and once in person at Reena’s dance performance the previous spring. Mrs. Shah didn’t know Reena had a boyfriend. She didn’t know they’d been dating for two years, or that they’d just moved in together. And she could not know. These were the rules of the relationship, Reena said. When I’m ready, I’ll tell her.
Her father had not known either. He’d passed away in April, not knowing.
When you’re ready, David said, nodding. He wanted to be patient. Not to pressure her.
Now he waited and wondered exactly how long he would have to be outdoors. A breeze carried some candy wrappers toward the park at the top of the hill. Some older men stood on the corner, thumbing through a newspaper they’d laid out on the hood of a parked car. One of them nodded at David. A game of baseball was under way in the middle of the street. A spindly-legged kid swung wildly at a tennis ball, launching fly balls high into the air.
David bought a paper at the bodega and read the sports. He smoked two cigarettes. The men dispersed and regrouped on another corner, caressing beer bottles in brown paper bags. The call from the Yankees game spilled out of a car stereo. David had forgotten to watch for Reena’s mother. He’d missed her emerging from the train station, or toddling up the hill. Instead, he read the paper cover to cover, news that bored him thoroughly, as an hour passed, and most of another. He walked around the block and sat down again. The afternoon edged toward dusk, and suddenly there was Reena in front of him, grinning. “She’s gone,” Reena said. “Are you coming up?”