Jerking his head up, G.o.do fixed the man in his eye. McBee. Hillbilly stock, grip like a pipe wrench.

"-not impose on you. I'll just head on downtown here, if this is the way."

A station wagon had pulled to the curb a little ways on. A broad-faced man in a ball cap stared back over his shoulder at them.

To McBee, G.o.do said, "Don't look at me that way."

McBee took a clumsy step backward. "I didn't mean-"

"Who the f.u.c.k are you, look at me like that? I served for you, a.s.shole."

McBee put up his hands, another step back, quicker. "Look-"

"f.u.c.k you, white trash."

McBee dropped his hands, now clenched into fists. His crabbed eyes turned fiery. "You go ahead and wallow around on the ground there, piggy. Go on. I did your uncle a favor, I lost half a day's pay for the privilege. I'm done being nice." He spat, then stormed off.

G.o.do struggled to his feet, bellowing, "I don't owe you, honk. I paid. I paid big." Turning toward the man in the station wagon, he reached to the small of his back, gripped the gun, and held it up above his head. "You feelin' me here, Elmer?" The fat-faced man jumped in his seat, threw his car in gear and sped away, tailpipe belching smoke. A Latina dragging a pigtailed child on the far side of the street stopped to stare until her eyes met G.o.do's, at which point she scooped up the toddler and hightailed off. G.o.do glanced over his shoulder, trying to get a better look at the skulking dog. But there was none. The palms remained, the listing wall, the Dumpster dripping trash bags. No dog.

G.o.d help me, he thought.

He put the gun away, then began plodding home. Within twenty steps the fluidity of time failed him, the seconds like daggers, every footfall an ordeal. The pain in his leg shot down into his heel and up into his spine and he gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, closed his eyes, walked.

As traffic pa.s.sed, he tried to let the whisking hum of the tires against pavement lull him into a trance. Every now and then, though, peeking up, he saw drivers staring, pa.s.sengers too, gazing at the pock-faced stumbling madman and he wondered: Who are these creatures? What world do they come from? He laughed. That was it-they came from Mars or the moon or Mys.p.a.ce, instructed by their overlords to annoy the f.u.c.k out of anything that moved. He could hear their voices tripping away inside his brain, beamed in by radio wave, echoing things he'd heard before, things other creatures, all heartfelt eyes and misty smiles, had said when he'd ventured out.

Things like: "Welcome home."

Things like: "Thank you."

Things like: "Support the troops!"

Except the troops don't need or want your support, thank you very much. They don't want the b.u.mper-sticker bravado, the teary moms sporting Yankee Doodle ribbons on their watermelon t.i.ts, the brainwashed kids with the scrubbed little grins and roadkill eyes. The mascara wives bearing heart-attack ca.s.seroles and lukewarm beer or s.h.a.g-a.s.sing off to bed for a little marital poon that can only go screamingly haywire. One trip to the VA, listening to the other guys rotating back, taught you that much. The troops respectfully request that you and your gung-ho support kindly f.u.c.k off. The troops do not recognize you as human.

Better yet: "Bring the troops home!" Yeah? Permission requested to saw off your head, the better to s.h.i.t down your neck. What the f.u.c.k do you know about it? You know nothing-because you don't want to, you want to wax indignant, you want to blame the same old crew, the greedy preening stuffed suits you blame for everything. You want to say the magic word: peace. Well f.u.c.k you. f.u.c.k peace. f.u.c.k a home that has to be shared with the prissy likes of you.

Someone called his name.

He turned toward the sound. A vintage Impala, tricked out like a showpiece, had pulled to the curb, pa.s.senger-side window rolled down. A pair of chavos of chavos in the car, both watching, waiting. The faces, yes, he knew these two. in the car, both watching, waiting. The faces, yes, he knew these two.

"Hola, chero. The f.u.c.k you been?"

The voice conjured a name: Chato. The other one, behind the wheel, was Puchi.

"Need a lift?"

The next thing he knew he was in the backseat, the black vinyl upholstery cool and tight. A whiff of reefer, sweat disguised with Brut. He could make out Puchi's eyes in the rearview. He wore an A's cap with the brim c.o.c.ked up in front, a gray hoodie. He seemed bigger, bulkier than G.o.do remembered. Weights, maybe. Prison?

Chato, a few years younger and riding shotgun, turned around in his seat so he and G.o.do were face-to-face. An angry whitehead wept pus just beneath one heavy-lidded eye. He wore a hairnet, his coif meticulous, black and sleek and combed straight back, while on his neck three tattooed letters appeared: BTL. Brown Town Locos. It was the name of the clica clica he and Puchi belonged to, the one G.o.do had danced around the edges of before enlisting. The name seemed a relic from an ancient time. he and Puchi belonged to, the one G.o.do had danced around the edges of before enlisting. The name seemed a relic from an ancient time.

Chato held out his fist till G.o.do b.u.mped it with his own. "My brother from another mother. Long time."

True, G.o.do thought. Two years at least. An eternity, given what happened in between. Chato had been a mere mocoso mocoso, a little snot, back then.

"Iraqistan. Musta seen some serious s.h.i.t. Bet you waxed your share of raghead motherf.u.c.kers, am I right?"

The kid was wired and his breath smelled and G.o.do had to resist an impulse to reach out and rip the hairnet off.

Puchi chimed in, "Wondered when we'd see you around, man. Heard some things, didn't know what was true, figured we'd wait till we caught you out and about."

G.o.do waved his hand idly toward his face, as though to conjure its pitted ugliness in a gesture. "Malacara," "Malacara," he said, figuring that explained it all. he said, figuring that explained it all.

"Yeah, but you're not all picoteado picoteado from squeezing your zits," Puchi said, slapping Chato's shoulder. The kid glared back venomously. "And it's not like we're gonna mock you, homes. Not the way it is." from squeezing your zits," Puchi said, slapping Chato's shoulder. The kid glared back venomously. "And it's not like we're gonna mock you, homes. Not the way it is."

G.o.do tried to picture what that meant-The Way It Is-wondering if it bore any resemblance to Some Serious s.h.i.t. The effort to make more sense of it foundered as they pa.s.sed the fenced confines of a vast construction site, rising in tiers up a broad bare hill. Baymont, the neighborhood was called, that or Hoodrat Heights, depending on who you talked to. Boon-c.o.o.na-Luma. Ho Hill. At least, those were the names thrown around before G.o.do left for basic.

He'd heard the story in bits and pieces after that, following the hometown news from afar, how some developers had wanted the whole hill condemned, war-era federal housing never meant to be permanent but grandfathered in, city council deadlocked on eminent domain. So a local fixer, former honcho with the firefighters union, hired some bent ex-cop to torch the whole neighborhood, burn every home to the ground. The plan was to blame it on some arson freak, this patsy they let die in the fire, and for all practical purposes it succeeded, though the players turned on one another when the bent cop got exposed. Not that that stopped anything. What was left of the neighborhood wasn't worth rebuilding. The condemnation vote finally pa.s.sed and the developers lined up like trick-or-treaters. Then some of the local stakeholders, good old boys whose families ran things here, they began wrangling over secondary spoils; the construction unions demanded a local-labor rider in any contracts; the town's greenies hired a lawyer and challenged the EIR; the Building Department red-flagged every plan submitted, slowing things to a crawl; then the bottom fell out of the housing market and the mortgage crisis. .h.i.t, financing dried up. So here it was, a vast plot of nothing, stalled in its tracks before the first shovel bit dirt. Two years now and counting, old houses torn down, nothing new built back up. As for all the families who'd lived here? Don't ask.

Across the side of a panel truck parked just inside the project perimeter, some tagger had written: Rio Mirada-Where your hopes come to die Rio Mirada-Where your hopes come to die.

"You heard about the big bad cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k, huh?" It was Chato, following G.o.do's eyes.

G.o.do snapped to. "Some. Here and there. You know, the news." He didn't remember coming this way during his trek with McBee from the trailer. Were they driving back a different route? "I watch a lot of TV," he added sheepishly.

Puchi said, "We were hoping for work, man. Whole town was. Lay some brick, pound some nails, whatever. Then the buzzards showed up. Everybody gotta have their slice of the pie. And if they don't? n.o.body gets nothing."

"n.o.body," Chato chimed in solemnly.

G.o.do, still staring out the window, said, "So what is it you two do? For work I mean."

Puchi said, "Happy didn't tell you?"

"Happy?"

"You seen him, right?"

"This morning, yeah. First time, actually. Why?"

Puchi and Chato traded glances up front.

G.o.do said, "What's the big secret?"

"We're in the moving business," Puchi said.

Chato laughed, a snide little wheeze.

"Great punch line." G.o.do felt his temper inching toward red. "Guess I missed the joke."

"It's a trip, man," Chato said, unaware. "Check this out: We got no license, the trucking company, I mean. It's so f.u.c.ked up, it's like, backwards, you know? Like permission to steal. Yuppies never see it coming."

"See what coming?"

"Here we are, man." Puchi slowed to a stop and dropped the tranny into park, the Impala's 427 throbbing in neutral. They were out in front of the trailer park. How, G.o.do wondered, did we get here so quick?

Puchi turned around in his seat. "Good to see you, my man. Maybe now, with Happy back, we'll see a little more of you."

Chato added, "He talk to you about that?" He seemed eager, too much so. The kid was pasmado pasmado, all tics and quirks.

Puchi cut him off with a glare. "Come on, let the man out. Got someplace I need to be."

Just as suddenly as he'd found himself inside the car, G.o.do now found himself standing on the gravel roadbed. A gust of wind off the river blew grit in his eyes. Chato c.o.c.ked his hand into a pistol and winked. "Later, masturbator."

The black Impala rumbled off. G.o.do watched the six tail-lights recede, remembering another car, another time, another two vatos vatos up front. Him and Happy. up front. Him and Happy.

The car was Tia Lucha's, the weed under the seat G.o.do's. They were coming back from a house party in Vallejo, this girl he had a moon-howl crush on, name of Ramona Sanchez. A fly morena morena, long straight hair, heartbreaker eyes, smart but not stuck up, little cue-ball t.i.tties but an a.s.s that said Step Right Up. G.o.do stood there in the kitchen, nursing the same beer for almost an hour, slick but not too, cracking jokes, teasing, asking about her people. If she was bored she hid it well, leaning back against the wall, smile to knock you over.

Meanwhile, Happy sulked, too bashful to chat up a girl of his own, too angry to just hang, enjoy himself. He stood there chain-smoking, clutching the neck on a fifth of Jack, scaring the lipstick off the pigs, never mind any girl worth looking at. Finally he went out back to chill with Puchi and the boys. G.o.do checked in on him now and again, made sure he didn't get into it with anybody he couldn't handle.

As the night idled away, G.o.do drifted in and out of the house, keeping track of Ramona, see if anyone else was. .h.i.tting on her, not too obvious, slipping into the bathroom for a rail with Enrique, Cap'n Crank, catching a b.u.mp later on, just enough to keep the edge on his cool.

When he caught her gathering her things off the couch, he strolled on up, helped her with her jacket, asked if he could walk her out. Her girlfriend was there but that was fine, G.o.do had a knack with chaperones. At the curb he asked for her number, wrote it on his palm with her eyebrow pencil. She shot him that knock-down smile as they drove away, and he told himself: Wait a couple days, then call her.

No more romance on the agenda, he got tanked. Tequila shots, chased with beer, a few more b.u.mps of crank. Sprawled on the couch, he rocked out to the music in hammered bliss: Zurdok, "Abre los Ojos." Molotov, "Karmara." Control Machete, "Si Senor." The music made him think of Roque, Tia Lucha's precious, her favorite, the mother killer. Hand him his due, the kid had chops. But what a truly perfect day it would be, he mused, when that gifted little twerp woke up and had to look life in the eye: fuego, sonrisas, realidad y dolor eye: fuego, sonrisas, realidad y dolor.

Fire, smiles, reality and pain.

Si senor ...

A little after midnight, Happy appeared. All he said was, "Gimme your keys, manudo manudo."

G.o.do scored the pot on the way out, an ounce to mellow his drift, copped from Puchi, the crowd's preferred mariguanero mariguanero.

That was what the Brown Town Locos were good for, crank and weed, that and stealing s.h.i.t. b.u.mming papers off him too, G.o.do rolled a number, toking away as Happy drove. The night was cold and still. No moon. The bud turned him philosophical.

He said, "You know, cabron cabron, way you act, women gonna think you're a mariquita." mariquita." A f.a.ggot. "Gonna think you learned to f.u.c.k in jail." A f.a.ggot. "Gonna think you learned to f.u.c.k in jail."

Happy's hand sailed across the car, s.n.a.t.c.hing the doob away. "Who are you now, the prince of p.u.s.s.y?"

G.o.do reached over to grab back his blunt. "Don't be dissing my girl, cabron." cabron."

Happy fended him off. "Zorra flaca." "Zorra flaca." Skinny s.l.u.t. Skinny s.l.u.t.

"I mean it, f.u.c.kface."

G.o.do tried again to snag back the joint, Happy dodged the grab. G.o.do persisted. A blur of hands, then Happy launched a crackback elbow, landing the blow square and hard. A clap of searing white, G.o.do reached for his nose. A dollop of blood stained his pants. His eyes watered from the pain.

"Hijueputa..." Son of a wh.o.r.e.

He threw a punch. Happy dodged the blow, pivoting away. The wheel went with him. The car veered across the double line, then whipped into a spin as Happy overcorrected. An oncoming pickup veered to miss them, screech of tires, angry honk. They stalled out straddling the center divide-lucky, for a few seconds anyway. A cop, lurking on a side street maybe three hundred yards down, saw the whole thing. Not that the two of them noticed. They were back at it, wild drunken haymakers landing once in every five tries but coming fast and hard regardless, only stopping when the cop hit his strobe.

They froze. The red light swirled. Happy whispered, "Estoy chingado." "Estoy chingado." I'm screwed. I'm screwed.

He bolted, throwing open the door, leaping from the car, charging down the gravel roadside berm through weeds to the riverbank, hunting a way to cross. The cop spotted him, a voice calling through the squad car's loudspeaker for him to stop and the headlights now square on G.o.do, sitting there, too stupid from liquor and weed to toss the ounce stashed under the seat.

It would all play out like a tedious movie from there, the backup units blocking off the road, the chopper with its searchlight, the dogs. G.o.do would remember the back and forth at the window, the officer with his steel-gray crew cut, very professional, very polite.

"I'd like to know if you'll agree to a search of the vehicle."

By that point G.o.do was a fatalist. What would happen would happen.

"I can get a warrant, just a matter of time. I detect a distinct odor of marijuana, your pupils are dilated, your companion fled the scene. You were observed driving erratically-"

"I wasn't driving."

"You have gang tattoos."

That made G.o.do laugh. He looked at the backs of his hands: a dragon, a bat. "These?"

The cop leaned closer. "Let me explain something to you, son. Here's how it will go: I'm a decorated officer with twelve years' experience working this city, with expertise of particular relevance to the matter at hand, numerous multiagency task forces, narcotics unit, youth gang outreach. Am I getting through?" The two cops behind him grinned like jackals. "I say those are gang tats. Think any judge in this county is going to second-guess me?"

G.o.do's eyes burned. Fearing he might cry, he bit his lip, telling himself, Don't be a b.i.t.c.h. "I don't care," he whispered.

The cop accepted this remark with an oddly warm smile. "Thank you. That's consent. Please step outside the vehicle."

G.o.do watched as they tossed the car, thinking: sly motherf.u.c.ker. They found the pot but nothing else worth bagging and tagging, no open containers, no crank, no weapons. Half an hour later the dogs cornered Happy out among the sloughs on the river's far side, hiding in a patch of oleander. He and G.o.do were taken to lockup in separate cars. I'll never see him again, G.o.do realized. The weed was a California misdemeanor, no more than a fine for him, his bigger problem would be public intoxication and even that was just another minor beef-a lecture from the bench, community service, counseling. But for Happy, the pot was an aggravated felony. No matter what any lawyer tried to do, no matter what G.o.do said under penalty of perjury-the pot was his, no one else's, he'd paid for it, hidden it under the seat-none of it mattered. Happy wasn't a citizen. His case was heard in immigration court and he drew a hanging judge. Not only did he get deported; he was barred from reentry for the rest of his life. Exile, for an ounce bag of G.o.do's bud.

It took only one time, looking into Tio Faustino's eyes, for G.o.do to realize there was no other option. He had to go away, someplace strange and terrible. If he came back, he had to come back changed. And so he headed to the small featureless office downtown, where the man in the olive-green pants, the khaki shirt and tie, the famous high-and-tight buzz cut, sat behind his simple desk, Stars and Stripes on one side, Marine Corps colors on the other.

"I just got popped on a weed charge," G.o.do said. "That gonna be a problem?"

THE DULL CHIME SOUNDED BEYOND THE THICK DOOR. ROQUE cupped his hands, a gust of breath, hoping for warmth. A ten count, longer, then she appeared, dressed in paint-stained sweats, wiping her clay-muddied hands with a towel. Her eyes looked scalded.

"You're working," he said, remembering the debris from last night.

She forced him to endure an unnerving silence.

"I thought I'd check in on you. Make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine." Her voice barely a whisper.

Something in her reticence suggested shame. Given his own, Roque found this encouraging. "I was hoping we could talk. I hated leaving this morning, the way things stood."

Her eyes seemed focused on a spot several feet beyond him. "And how," she said, "would you say things stood?"

A sudden wind sent a shudder through the chinaberry tree, rattling loose a few pale leaves. "Can I come in?"