Part 20 (2/2)

Their hot breath nipped at my neck. They clipped at my heels. I couldn't look back, I was too afraid. They laughed a deep gut laugh, the kind men share around suspended pigs as they hack them to pieces. I breathed in some spit and choked. My heart raced as I ran, arms pumping pistons. I hoped something would come down and pluck me from the concrete, lift me up, away from the men with no faces. A kite-the one I had almost given Ricky for Christmas-whipped into view. It shot across the blue sky, and then dipped from side to side over rooftops. I traced the string down until it met with a tiny fist. Ricky's skin was dark like it got during summer, hair s.h.i.+ny like wet tar. I ran toward him. The men kept chasing me, their fingertips pinched at my s.h.i.+rt, callused hands brushed my neck, my arms. Tiny bolts of electricity ran through me and I wanted to close my eyes. Blood gushed across my temples. ”Hey pretty boy with the golden hair,” they chanted. But before I could surrender to their rough hands, I glanced at Ricky, who smiled and held his finger to the sky. I stopped, looked up, and found a baby, a tiny grey baby-Mary-flying at the end of the string. The baby danced in the wind, swooped above our heads, her thin arms outstretched. The men could not touch me; a force field held them back. Ricky tugged on the string and the baby seesawed down like a leaf, drifted into Ricky's arms.

I found a newspaper at the foot of my bed. It was Thursday, February 9, 1978. I didn't know time could move like mud. I located a story about Luciano Jaques, Emanuel's older brother, who was fourteen and had testified that his brother was lured from their shoes.h.i.+ne spot by the promise of making thirty-five dollars an hour to help move movie equipment. The hope was that in two days they'd be able to make a total of four hundred dollars. But it didn't make sense, I thought. No one pays that kind of money. He should have known. That's when it hit me. Maybe Emanuel did know; maybe he understood that the man wanted something more.

Emanuel's brother went on to describe what Saul Betesh wore that afternoon: long denim overalls, no s.h.i.+rt, just bare skin and light brown boots. James was wearing almost the exact same thing the day I found him whitewas.h.i.+ng the inside of his garage. The fine hair on the back of my neck tingled.

From the get-go, one of the accused, Robert Kribs, pleaded guilty. The Crown attorney told jurors, ”The treatment received by Emanuel Jaques at the hands of his murderers is nothing short of a horror story.”

The phone rang. It rang at least ten times before I figured I had been left home alone. I swung my Jell-O legs out of bed and held on to the banister all the way down the stairs to get to the hallway phone.

”h.e.l.lo?”

”Meet me at James's,” Manny said.

”What for? Manny, I don't-” I was speaking to the dead tone of the phone pulsing back.

I was feeling slightly dizzy but the sensation was slowly coming back to my legs and feet. It didn't matter how I felt, because it wasn't like Manny to hang up the phone. I knew I'd have to hook up with him, figure out what was so urgent.

I pulled a pair of jeans over my flannel pyjamas, stuffing the pants down. I stepped out into the laneway through our garage. There was a s.h.i.+ne in the alley that looked like wet stones. The quiet of winter would last until the Festa do Senhor Santo Cristo, five weeks after Easter. Then our garages would be cleaned, scoured, and washed with water and bleach, ready for tables to be set up for the feast, and all the neighbourhood would gather to talk about back home. I wondered if Ricky felt like Portugal was his home now, if he ran into his mother's outstretched arms, like it was the place he should have been all along.

My head was still groggy when I arrived, and I could barely lift James's garage door over my head. The electric heaters were on full blast, hot orange glowing off curly coils. It must have been a hundred degrees in there. ”Manny?” I wasn't very loud. I waited for a sound. Cups and beer bottles and plates were piled up in a bucket on the floor. When I kicked the bucket, a veil of black lifted; flies were all over the place. ”Manny?” I hoisted myself up the ladder to the loft. I stood up in the tallest part of the loft s.p.a.ce, where the peaked roof joined. It looked smaller to me, more crammed than I remembered. The sheets on James's mattress were all rumpled and smelled of jeans that had been worn too long. When was the last time Manny had washed them? I had stopped bringing James food weeks ago. Instead, I delivered what I could to Agnes in her bas.e.m.e.nt.

”Antonio?” Manny called, the metal clang of the garage echoing.

I didn't answer right away. I listened to hear if he was alone or if James was with him. There was some rattling around, and then Manny was climbing the ladder. His hair was the first thing that appeared. A great big smile greeted me.

”What are you doing up here?” Manny said.

”You alone?”

”Yep.”

”Why aren't you at school?”

”I faked a sore gut and got sent home.”

Manny climbed up to the top and sat at the lip of the loft entrance. He stuck the corner of his coat collar in his mouth and sucked, dangled and swung his legs into the garage below like a kid on a swing.

”What's up with you?” I asked him. I wasn't used to Manny being happy.

Manny's legs kicked wildly. ”They've sold their house.”

”Who?”

”Amilcar's dad.” His grin was eating at his face as he climbed down the ladder.

”Your brother's going to freak.”

”She'll be far away in Portugal. She wasn't his first and I'm sure he won't be crying too much before he's banging another one.”

”You told me he had made plans. You said after they got married and got a place of their own you'd go over and hang out. You said-” I could tell I was spoiling Manny's moment, so I stopped.

”James said he'd leave me a couple of drop-off addresses around someplace. It's a pigsty in here,” Manny said.

I lay on my stomach and watched him scrounging through the piles of old rags and empty paint cans.

”I guess we didn't realize how much Ricky used to do around this place, keeping things tidy,” Manny said. ”My mom says he'll be happy back in So Miguel, back with his mom.”

”You think that's for real?”

He found a cl.u.s.ter of brown paper bags, the kind we would fill with candy at Mr. Jay's, and swiped them up in a fist. ”What do you mean?”

”You think they're lying about Ricky?”

”I don't know. They kind of lie about everything.” Manny stuffed the paper bags in his pocket. ”I gotta go.”

”I miss Ricky,” I said. I wanted Manny to hear me, but when he didn't respond, I shouted down, ”Hey, I need to speak to James.”

”What for?”

”He needs to stay away from us.”

Manny lifted the garage door. ”Agnes was bad news. It'll all work out, you'll see.”

”Do you know where he is?”

”Can't help you. He told me he'd be here by early afternoon. Come to think of it, that was yesterday. h.e.l.l, doesn't look like he's been here for a couple of days.” Manny returned to the table and started shoving a note into his sock. ”I almost forgot,” he said, taking a deep breath. ”You've been stuck in the land of zees the last couple of days. I bet you don't even know that I've been dropping off your homework. It was like you were drugged or something. It was a good time to be knocked out, though. Guys have been going around bas.h.i.+ng h.o.m.os.”

”What does that have to do with me?”

”I'm just saying.”

”I'm going to check on Agnes.”

”I just told you. Agnes is gone,” Manny said. He lit a cigarette and squinted his eye from the smoke. ”Disappeared right after Ricky got s.h.i.+pped home.”

”What do you mean, disappeared?”

”Poof!” Smoke billowed from his mouth as he waved his fingers in the cloud like a magician.

”Something's not right,” I said under my breath, hoping the answer would click. I started to climb down the ladder. ”Does James know?”

”I thought you didn't give a s.h.i.+t about James.”

I pretended I didn't hear him.

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