Jumped In (17 page)

I tell her what's going on. I tell her I'm looking for Luis and I need a photo of him to copy and hang on some phone poles. I need some ideas for how to get the word out that Luis is missing. I need people to help look for him.

She doesn't hesitate. “Yeah, of course, Sam. I've been worried about him. Let's get to work.”

I tell her I need to get past the security guard.

“Mel?”

“The dude is a beast.”

“Are you kidding me? Mel's a teddy bear.”

She grabs my arm and barges in the door. “Hey, Mel, look who I caught loitering outside the building!” They joke around a bit, and Julisa tells him she's supposed to take me to see Carter. He says, “Yeah, sure, Julisa. No prob. You take care, now.”

“Give my regards to your mom, Mel. She's in our thoughts.”

“That means a lot, kid.”

Just like that, we're on our way to Carter's office.

We tell Carter what's going on. He says he's working to locate Luis's mom, but hasn't had any luck. “Let's get that photo.”

Julisa thanks him and says, “Well, I'm headed back to class. I'll see you in a couple days, Sam.”

What the hell?

“See you, Julisa,” I say, feeling betrayed, wondering why she changed her mind.

Carter grabs Luis's photo out of the big picture binder he uses to nail kids when there's a crime against school humanity and the witness isn't able to match a perp's name to his face. Everyone's picture is in there. Carter makes a photocopy and calls Mel to escort me back out of the building.

I ask Mel about his mom. He tells me his mother is a beautiful and loving woman, and he and his family are just sick about her bursitis condition.

“But Mom?” he says. “She won't let us turn this thing into a pity party. She won't have none of that. She just takes it like a champ. Makes me love her even more, which is near impossible.”

I get past the gates with the picture of Luis.

But no ally.

I head up the road toward Pac Highway.

 

GREGORY, MENDEZ, AND DÍAZ

“
H
EY
, G
REGORY
,
WAIT UP
!”
Julisa shouts, establishing ours as a last-name-basis partnership. She runs a block up the hill to join me.

“You
in
, Mendez?” I ask.

“Yeah, I'm in. I told you I was. I just didn't want to advertise my truancy to the vice principal.”

This is nuts. Miss Perfect, Julisa Mendez, is skipping school.

And it's my fault.

“What do you know about Luis?” she asks.

“I know that Thursday morning—the day before the slam—was the last time I saw him. He wasn't in school after lunch. So it's been a week. I've made phone calls to his place. Cassidy has too. No one answers. I went over to his apartment. He wasn't home. There were a couple suspicious-looking guys hanging out there. That's about all I got. How about you?”

“I barely know him,” she says. “We just met in class this quarter. A couple weeks ago, he started saying
hi
to me every day. We chatted a couple times. Small talk. He's a sweet guy.”

Julisa and I are two kids who don't know each other, setting out to search for a kid we barely know.

“You sure you don't have anything else?”

I shake my head. “That's why I got the picture from Carter.”

“It's a start.”

“There is one thing, I guess. One time when I was over at Luis's place, this pissed-off cholo came by looking for Luis's brother. When he left, he mentioned this other guy, Cristián. He asked Luis if he was gonna go to Cristián's place.”

“When would he have gone to Cristián's?”

“Sometime in the last week. Maybe this week?”

“Any way to find Cristián?”

“Nah.”

“Think, Gregory.”

I wanted to do this without him because he's a fucking loose cannon. But I know we need him: “Carlos Díaz.”

“Who's that?”

“This sophomore thug who knows Luis. He might know what's going on but he was suspended after the big fight, and I never saw him back in school.”

“He might be back by now. Wait here.”

Julisa's not the goody-two-shoes I thought she was. What she is is an ass-kicker, 'cuz in a minute she's found Carlos and snuck him out of school. And she's already talked him in to taking the bus to Burien to check in with his uncle. The guy is a member of Luis's brother's gang. Frankie's gang. So he's gonna see if he can track down either Cristián or the brother and find out what's going on.

So Díaz is off to Burien. Mendez says she's gonna go home to scan the photo into her computer and make some posters. I tell her I'll help her, but she says I should try Luis's apartment one last time to make sure we don't do a bunch of work for nothing.

We plan to meet at Bob's 99 Cent Burgers in a couple hours. Before we split up, I give them my cell number just in case. They give me theirs and now I've got three names in my contacts list.

 

SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR

I
TURN MY BODY IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION
and head up toward Pac
H
ighway into the glare of the one wet ray of sun managing to force its way through the black clouds.

Back to the Glen.

South past the Taco Bell.

Past the 7-Eleven, up 220th.

Past the cheap motels, past the rusty bikes and the plastic slide and the
Little Mermaid
, and up to door number five.

I'm relieved as hell that the two scary guys from last time are nowhere to be seen.

I knock and knock and knock—
dammit!
—and knock until my knuckles are raw.

I turn to go.

I'm halfway to the front gate when I see them.

Where'd they come from?

They're staring at me again. But this time they look seriously pissed.

On the way over here, I had convinced myself these guys had nothing to do with Luis. That they weren't really looking at me the last time. That I was imagining things.

But now one of them points right at me. And the other one takes a step my way.

I take a step toward the gate.

They take a step toward the gate.

I walk slowly and fake-confidently toward the gate.

They walk faster toward me.

I'm not imagining. I walk faster.

They start jogging.

I run.

They run.

“Stop, kid!”

This is it.

I'm gonna die.

I book toward the gate but they're on me.

I feel the imprint of chain-link fence on the side of my face as one of them bounces me off it. I spring back, onto the ground.

They're on top of me. One of them is on my back. The other one is pushing my face into the mud. I'm wriggling for my life and they're yelling, “Hold up! Hold up! Who are you? What you doin' around here? Snoopin' around all the time! And what do you know about Luis?”

Holy crap! They're after him.

“I don't know,” I try to say.

“What? Speak up!”

“I don't know anything about Luis!”

“What are you doing coming around here, then, knocking on his door? Do you know where he is? What's going on? And his mom? What do you know?”

“I don't know anything,” I manage to say with my face still mostly in the ground. “We worked on this project for school. Then he quit showing up. That's all I know. I'm coming around here because I'm worried about him.”

“Serious?”

“Yes!”

“Aw, dude … Tre, get off the man's back.”

He starts helping me up and brushing the dirt off my coat.

Tre says, “We're sorry, man. You just scared us, is all. Luis and his mom aren't around. Nobody knows anything. We thought … See, we was trying to get your attention and you take off running like that.”

The guy that's not Tre says, “Man, that's some suspicious behavior! You got to work on that.
Serious
. All we're thinking is you're messed up in something bad and you know something about Luis. You okay? We didn't hurt you, did we?”

“Naw. I'm fine.”

“We got mud all up on your coat. I will wash that mess up for you right now.
Serious
.”

They introduce themselves. Tre and Quintel. They tell me how long they've known Luis and his mom and how, along with Leticia, they organize the Viking Glen trick-or-treating and the block watch and all that kind of crap.

“We look out for each other around here,” Tre says. “So we been trying to figure out what's going on with Luis and his mom. And worryin'. That's why we overreacted on you. We straight?”

I feel like a complete racist dumbass for what I'd been thinking about them. For the reasons I ran. “Yeah, that's fine. I'm sorry I ran away from you.”

“No problem. Come around here anytime, Sam. You should go meet old man Graves. Luis and his mom check in on him all the time, so he's pretty worried.” Tre points up the stairs. “Apartment twenty-three.”

 

BANANA BREAD

I
KNOCK
.

There's yelling.

“Hold on! Hold on! Don't go away! Graves is coming! Not in the
grave
yet—ha-ha!”

It's like the door is made of paper, I can hear him so well. The old man opens up. He's little. He must weigh a hundred and ten pounds or something. He might be a hundred and ten years old, too. He has a bald head and a huge toothy smile. The sweet smell of banana bread smacks me in the face.

“Hey, friend, state your name. Speak up, now.”

“Sam Gregory. I'm a friend of Luis Cárdenas.”

“In that case, come on in!”

We shake hands. I can feel every bone, he's so skinny.

I walk into the tiny cluttered apartment and see pictures of Jesus and Martin Luther King and all these leaders on the wall. The Kennedys, Rosa Parks, Cesar Chavez. There's a bunch of other important-looking people I can't name. And pictures of people who must be Graves's family. There are newspapers everywhere and clippings on the fridge and coffee table.

“Where's Luis?” Graves asks me.

“I was hoping you would know.”

“My daughter came into town and took me to the ocean for a few days. I just got back this morning. They tell me Luis and Leticia have been gone for a week. Not sure what's going on there. I do know they'll check in when they get back. They never let too long go by without a visit.”

A buzzer goes off.

“My bread! Can I interest you in some of my hot banana bread? It's award-winning bread, son.”

“Sure.” I haven't eaten all day. It takes him about a year to get into the kitchen and cut the bread.

He talks the whole time. Tells me about when he was in the hospital after breaking a hip. Leticia helped him use the facilities when he couldn't get a nurse to answer the call. “She was visiting the hospital. Just walking by. Didn't know me from Adam,” he says. Leticia realized he didn't have any family around so she checked up on him every day while he was in there. “We been friends ever since,” he says. “I even pulled strings with the manager to help her get the apartment. We're that way. Helping each other out.”

Graves pulls the knife out of the bread and tears off a sheet of foil.

“So you're friends with Luis?” he asks.

“Yeah. We worked on this project together.”

“Real smart boy. He drops in and we talk about the state of the world. Mostly I do the talking. Sometimes he disagrees with me and I give him a piece of my mind.” Graves laughs. “We get into it but we fight fair. I give him some bread or my famous coconut cookies. He fetches my mail. Runs to the store for my eggs and coffee. Looks in on me every couple days.”

“I haven't seen him for over a week. I'm looking for him, though. I think I better get going, Mr. Graves.”

“Not without your bread.” He carefully wraps the big hunk of bread, folding the foil into hospital corners. He hands me the piping-hot package and a smaller piece wrapped in a paper towel.

“There's one for the road.”

“Thanks, Mr. Graves. You need anything?”

“No, son. I'm fine.”

“All right.”

I start to head out but he says, “Wait. I take that back. I'm not fine until I know what's going on with Luis and Leticia. So what I need is for you to keep on searching. And call me if you find out anything.”

“Will do. What's your number?” Again with the cell phone. I type in
Graves
and add him to my contacts.

He pats my shoulder and says, “See you again, son.” He says it like he really wants to.

“See you,” I say back.

I head out and rip into the foil because Graves's bread is so good and I'm so hungry. The whole thing is gone before I'm two blocks away.

 

BOB'S

W
HEN
I
GET THERE,
Julisa's sitting at a table behind a big stack of bright orange flyers with a decent photocopy of
L
uis's mug on them. She's marking up a map. Chewing on some onion rings.

“Gregory, grab some sustenance.”

I dip a ring into some tartar sauce and take a seat. I tell her about Graves and Quintel and Tre. I tell her we're not the only ones worried about Luis.

Carlos bursts through the door and sits beside us.

“You got anything, Díaz?” Julisa asks.

“My cousin said he was at Cristián's and Luis was a no-show.
Vatos
were real pissed. But it's nothing new 'cuz it's been a long time since Luis hung with anybody. The crazier thing is nobody's seen Flaco in a whole week. That crew is tight and nobody knows nothing.”

I tell him to keep on asking around. He seems gung-ho to help out.