By the time the Arroyos have stopped screaming at each other and Fernando has broken Timo's nose for being a smarta.s.s and squared off with Ramon in a no holds barred fistfight that has Timo hiding behind the legless couch, by the time the fight is over and Timo has gone for a doobie to kill the pain of his throbbing nose and found everything trashed and told his brothers and they've run to the garage and found that a half kilo of crank is missing and Ramon has gone for his little chrome .22 automatic, by that time the guys have cleared the neighbor's yard, ridden to the Senior Taco in the P&X shopping center, and ordered sixteen tacos with fries and milkshakes.

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They know being a rat sucks, but the Arroyos are gonna know who robbed them and if they don't do something those crazy f.u.c.kers will. Paul's ready to do it. It was his idea they rob the place, if someone has to rat the Arroyos, it's him.

But as they're talking and waiting for their food, Andy gets up and makes the call. Not that he still wants revenge for the stolen bike he's leaned against the phone booth, but he does want to make the call himself. He just can't help it. Finding the school picture of Alexandra when he was digging through Timo's s.h.i.t was too much; the little photo clipped from a large sheet of them; Te quiero, Timo written in the corner in red ballpoint, in her own hand.

So he dials 0 and asks for the cops and anonymously reports a disturbance at 1367 North P Street. Some kind of fight or something.

The cops know that address. Small town heat that they are, they like nothing more than to bust the chops of the local spic hooligans. So they send a couple cars right over there.

Paul has just grabbed the last taco from the pile in the middle of the table and peeled off the grease stained orange paper and crunched into the taco, biting it in half, when a few blocks away the cops arrive at the Arroyos' just in time to see Ramon stepping out the front door, tucking the bright silver .22 into his waistband.

They don't bother telling him to drop it.

The Sketchy House They roll their bikes up the driveway as if they live there, Paul flipping his new Buck knife open with the edge of his thumb the way Jeff showed him, the razor edged blade slicing clean through the hank of yellow rope, the crooked gate creaking open on rusted hinges before creaking closed behind them.

George loops one of the loose rope ends around the gatepost to keep it from swinging open. He peeks through a wide crack between the gate's warped planks and watches the street. No one comes out on their front porch to gaze across the street. No bright lights shine out from the cracks between curtains as someone looks from their kitchen window. The street is TV time quiet. Everyone parked in front of the tube watching Magnum P.I.

He turns around. Andy is lining up the bikes, turning them so they face the gate, enough room between them so that they can all jump on and start riding without being on top of each other.

Paul is at the side door. He turns the k.n.o.b. Shakes his head. George joins him. The window peeking into the garage is covered on the inside. Tinfoil and black duct tape.

Hector has gone around the rear corner of the house, trying the back windows for one that's unlocked.

He stays low so the tall crest of his mohawk can't be seen from any of the other backyards. The guys wanted him to wear a cap or something over it. f.u.c.k that. Thing takes almost as long to do as his sister's hair. Besides, these old houses off Junction Avenue have huge yards and tons of big trees that are like a hundred years old or something. No one is gonna see s.h.i.t. What the guys really wanted was for him to cut it off. They're uptight that if someone gets a look at them going in or out the mohawk is gonna get them all busted. Sure, there's only a couple other guys in town that got 'em. And he's the only Mexican. But that's the point. Looking different is the point. Having your appearance spit in people's faces and p.i.s.s them off is the point. Cut off the hawk and it's like caving in. f.u.c.k that.

And where the f.u.c.k's an unlocked window for f.u.c.ksake?

He's checked the whole back of the house, tried the kitchen and bedroom and livingroom windows and they're all locked. Normally, you could slip a jimmy into the crack between the sliding gla.s.s door and the jamb, but the owners have a piece of 1x2 laid flat in the door's guide slot or whatever the h.e.l.l it's called. Pop the lock and try to open the door and it'll just get jammed against the stick.

And, man, it's a mess in there. Boxes and s.h.i.t piled all over. Stuff that just looks like garbage. A s.h.i.tty old couch and a lamp. Not even a TV. What kind of stuff they supposed to find in a place like this?

f.u.c.k it. Not his problem.

He peeks around the corner into the narrow s.p.a.ce that runs between the far side of the house and the fence. One of those little louvered bathroom windows is cranked open. He goes back around the other side of the house and gets the guys.

He tells them what the deal is, and they all look at Andy.

Andy keeps his hands in his pockets, his right hand fingering the twenty sided die.

The Worst Thing That Happens Bob Whelan stands at the foot of the stairs, sipping coffee and looking up at the door to his older son's room. He thinks about going up and kicking the foot of George's bed and getting his lazy a.s.s up and dressed and out to the job site with him. Been weeks since the kid's come out for a day's work. It'd do him good to get out there and make a couple bucks instead of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with his pals all day.

Cindy shuffles into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Barely looking at what she's doing, she gets a mug from the cabinet, fills it with coffee, rips open two packets of Sweet'N Low, dumps them in the mug, pours in a drop of milk and stirs it with her index finger before taking a big swallow.

She looks at Bob at the bottom of the stairs.

--You should go get him.

He shrugs.

--Not gonna force him to make money he doesn't want to make.

She reaches under the XL T that reaches halfway down her thighs and scratches her stomach.

--If you want his company all you have to do is ask.

Bob walks away from the stairs.

--Not about wanting his company. Doesn't matter. He'd rather mess around with Paul and Hector.

She picks up the coffee pot and tops off his cup for him.

--So take Andy. Andy would love to go.

He rolls his eyes.

--Honey, if you'd been there the time I took him. That kid on a construction site is like the opposite of a bull in a china shop. Thought he was gonna kill himself, wandering around daydreaming.

--So give him a broom and have him sweep some stuff up.

--It's not like that. Can't just stand off to the side. You have to be on the ball and pay attention to what's going on around you. He'll be out there sweeping and thinking about math problems and Dungeons & Dragons and whatever else and end up under a grader or something.

--Take them both. George can keep an eye on Andy and you can spend some time with both of them.

Bob's cup bangs on the counter when he sets it down.

--I'm not trying to arrange quality time with my sons, Cin. I was just thinking George should be working a little more this summer and f.u.c.king around a little less. OK?

Cindy shakes her head and starts for the bedroom.

--Fine, Bob, whatever you say. I've got to get dressed for work. You want to wait a few minutes I'll make you some breakfast.

--I'll get something from the cater truck.

--Suit yourself.

He watches her disappear down the hall, looking at her legs, the bruises on her thighs from where she's banged them against the checkout counter at Safeway where she spends her days at the cash register.

He thinks about what it would be like if his wife didn't have to work. His mom never had to work. Well, she worked plenty on the ranch, but she never had to go and take a job outside the house. Not till pop lost the ranch anyway.

Could have been different.

He stares into his coffee cup and thinks about what he could have done to make it different.

--h.e.l.l with that.

He walks to the front hall, sits on the little bench Cindy found at a yard sale and stripped and sanded and stained so it would look nice in the house. He sets his cup down, pulls on one of his scuffed steel toes and laces it up.

Things could have been different. Doesn't mean they would have been better. Not for him. Not for Cindy. Not for the boys.

He stands and stretches and tries to remember how much gas is in the truck and whether he has any cash in his wallet to fill it up.

--Hey.

He looks at Cindy, coming toward him in her bikini pants and bra, running a brush through her hair, Andy's cesarean scar across her stomach, a good looking woman.

She taps the brush against his arm.

--I'm just saying, you could tell George you want him to come with you. It doesn't have to be a contest to see who says something first.

--It's not a contest.

--Well you sure act like it is. Both of you.

--Cin, the boy is getting older. I'd like to see him making some decisions on his own that don't involve riding his bike to the bowling alley or copping a few extra bucks so he can get someone to buy him a six pack.

She reaches up and loops her arm around his neck.

--Just because the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, that doesn't mean it'll grow the same way.

He pulls out from under her arm.

--What? Where the h.e.l.l did that one come from? That a Hallmark card?

--You know what I mean. Even if he's like you, you worked out just fine.

He looks at the wall, the series of pencil marks that rise up it, charting the growth of his sons.

--I got lucky.

He goes out the front door.

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--Almost through with that?

Paul doesn't look up, just folds the newspaper and places it on the table in front of his father's chair.

Mr. Cheney pours himself a cup from the Mr. Coffee.

--Don't have to give me the whole thing. Finish reading what you were reading.

Paul gets up and takes his cereal bowl and spoon to the sink and washes them and puts them on the dish rack. He picks up his own coffee cup from the table and starts for the kitchen door.

His dad is at the table, fingering the corner of the front page.

--You got in late last night.

Paul stops.

--Ya huh.

--Out with the guys?

--Ya huh.

--How are they?

--I'uh nuh.

Mr. Cheney takes a sip from his cup.

--What are you doing today?

Paul stands in the doorway, back to his father, shrugs.

--Summer almost over. Got any big plans?

Another shrug.

--Never see the guys anymore. Used to play over here all the time.

Paul walks.

--My head hurts. Goin' to my room.

Mr. Cheney moves to the door.

--Need anything?

Paul keeps walking. His father watches him disappear down the hall, then sits at the table and waits.

He hears it when Paul slips past the kitchen and into the garage, hears the automatic door swing up, and knows his son has ridden off on the bike he bought him for his sixteenth birthday in lieu of the car he really wanted.

He gets up and goes to the cabinet next to the refrigerator and squats to reach behind the stack of newspapers Paul hasn't taken to the curb for recycling in weeks, and takes out the jug of Delacort brandy hidden there. He holds it up and checks the level against the mark he made on the label last night. No change. He takes the bottle to the sink, pours half his coffee down the drain and replaces it with brandy, makes a fresh mark on the label and puts the bottle back behind the papers.

He swirls the coffee and brandy and takes a drink. Need to pick up a new bottle today. The Liquor Barn in Pleasanton this time. Haven't been there in a few weeks. Not that he's got anything to hide. Just n.o.body's business how he lives his life.

Unfolding the paper, knuckling his gla.s.ses higher up on the bridge of his nose, he reads the story about Ramon Arroyo being shot in the leg by police and he and his brothers being busted on an a.s.sortment of charges: stolen goods, drugs, weapons, resisting arrest.

Good lord.

He thinks about Caesar Arroyo, the boys' father. The squat bundle of calluses and muscle that he used to see swatting his boys' ears at soccer games when they didn't play up to his standards.

He'd tried to have a word with the man once. Walked over to him on the sideline and smiled and suggested to him that his boys might play better, have a better time if they didn't feel quite so much pressure. Caesar had stared at him, then waved one of his boys over. Ramon? Fernando? How long ago was this? Could it have been the youngest one? The one Paul had that trouble with?

The boy had come over and, staring Kyle Cheney in the eye, Caesar had slapped the boy hard. And stood there waiting until Kyle walked away, back to the adjoining field where Paul and George's team was playing.