Heart of the World (2 page)

The snow would fail; yes, it would fail. The life-bringing rain would fail. The cooling river would fail. The root crops and the cotton and the maize would fail. The Elder Brother could not protect them from their folly now. If the Younger Brother stole all the Mothers from the earth, everything would die. Everyone would die. The earth would die.

The small man stood still as the iguana stands, stunned by the heat of the sun. He watched as though his eyes were the eyes of a swooping condor instead of the weak eyes of a half-blind man. He felt the violation of the Mother in his stomach, in his liver, and in his heart.

Never before had they come to the sacred mountain. He did not know what to say. He did not know the right thing to do.

PAOLINA

She moved down the hallway in a gaggle
of other teens, but she traveled in a lane of her own. She wasn't with the three blond girls a step ahead, and she wasn't with the two Goth kids who lagged behind. The boy nerd beside her was beside her for only a second, and that instantaneous brush was due to the two arrogant jocks that gave him a shove in her direction as they passed.

She moved with grace, with a rhythm all her own, like she was dancing to a syncopated beat no one else could hear. Oh, she wasn't as slim as she wanted to be, but who was? The way she put it, she had a butt like a Latina, and who'd want to have one of those flat-ass Anglo butts anyway? She wasn't very tall either, just five-two, and that was a disappointment, but a lot of the boys liked short girls better and it gave her more options in the boyfriend department, because the short boys didn't want beanpole girlfriends. Not even the harshest critic could find fault with the shiny dark hair that brushed her shoulders in the front and hung two inches longer in the back. When she flipped it away from her face, the way she did while bent in concentration over the drums, her dark brown eyes sparkled.

Paolina Fuentes. Paolina
Rolddn
Fuentes. She didn't use the name “Roldan,” not ever, but she had started thinking of herself as Paolina Roldan Fuentes, using “R” for a middle initial instead of leaving the line blank. Paolina Roldan, that had a rhythm. Her mother hadn't given her
middle name, and Paolina thought it was because coming up with two names for an unwanted child would have been twice the chore. Children who were wanted had middle names, beautiful, lyrical names like Melissa or Guinevere, names you could sing. She didn't like the name Paolina, didn't like its harsh choppy syllables. None of the teachers even pronounced it right, and Fuentes, well; she wasn't a Fuentes at all. She didn't have anything to do with Jimmy Fuentes. He was the father of her brothers, not her own father at all.

Roldan was her true name, and that's why she'd decided to take it as her middle name. In Colombia, she would have three names: her own name, Paolina, followed by her father's name, Roldan, and then her mother's maiden name, Silva. Three names, but her father's would be the most important. He had three names, too: Carlos Roldan Gonzales, but most people simply called him Roldan. Everyone in Colombia knew who you meant when you said Roldan. She smiled as she came to her locker. It was like a magic word. He was like a movie star, a man who needed only one name.

She knew what they said he'd done, but she didn't believe it, and anyway, she didn't care. He was handsome; she knew that. He was good-looking and probably kind, too. He was a legend; he was important, somebody like the men they read about in world history. She wondered if he was thinking about her, thinking about his daughter the same way that she was thinking about him, wondering what she was really like the same way she wondered about him. When she imagined him thinking about her, it made her feel as warm as one of the baby chicks that waddled under the heat lamps of the biology lab. He must think about her a lot, because he sent her presents.

She glanced quickly right and left, considered reaching toward the back of the high shelf where she kept her latest treasure hidden. She wanted to feel its smooth surface, to touch it and wonder where it came from, but there wasn't time to do the thing justice, to appreciate the magic of the gift. Somebody might stop and ask questions.
Where'd you get that? You steal it? Lemme see it
. She didn't want anybody else touching it, smearing her father's fingerprints with greasy cafeteria hands.

After swapping her biology text for her history book, she banged her locker shut, spun the dial on the lock, and hurried through the second-floor hallway of Cambridge Rindge and Latin, the buzz of fellow students
echoing in her wake. She didn't hear it really, because she didn't care what Karlene whispered about Jimmy B. or what Gigi shrieked about the goddamn test in biology. She didn't even care what Gigi said about Diego, and what anybody said about Diego used to be vital. Now, with so much going on in her head, so many possibilities circling each other like caged animals, she couldn't be bothered about Diego. He was such a child, really, always thinking about who to hang out with, and who he could con into buying him a beer, like it was important.

She touched the pocket of her low-slung jeans, tracing the outline of the letter, and felt a secret shudder of anticipation. She could ask Diego what he thought about it, but why should she? It wasn't like he was going to make any decisions for her. She absolutely hated that, the way everybody thought they could boss her around. At home, her mom, and here, any guy you called boyfriend thought he could tell you what to do like you were some kind of slave. Maybe the Anglo boys weren't like that, but the Latino boys, man, they took pride in it: If I tell my girl to jump off the roof, she better jump off quick, she knows what's good for her.

Now she wished she'd taken the time to touch the secret talisman in her locker. It would keep her safe; she knew it would. Following the letter's instructions wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't like these people were strangers. It wasn't like she was doing something she'd promised she wouldn't, like drinking Diego's stupid beer or smoking pot or taking one of Andrea's hyper pills. And, besides, in every adventure there was some level of risk. You don't work up the nerve to audition for the band, you never make it. No pain, no gain. It wasn't like she couldn't walk away.

Probably it was just another letter or another present, a new and different method of delivery. She'd say thank you to whoever brought it, and maybe she'd have time to write a thank-you note. That's what she told herself walking down the hall, but there was another hope inside her, that her father would be there in the flesh, that he'd come and fetch her, that he'd carry her away to some new existence she couldn't even imagine, some fairy-tale-princess world where she'd be in charge. She remembered the dark, high-ceilinged rooms in Bogota, the elegant home of the man who was her grandfather, a house with carved mantels over blazing fireplaces, with more rooms than she could count, with hushed, cool hallways, and a garden fragrant with pink roses. Captivated by memory, she must have slowed her pace.

The thin voice sounded right in her ear. “Hurry up now, you'll be late.”

Jesus. Everybody thought they could boss her around. Even the dried-up prune of a gym teacher, thin as a stick, no breasts at all, with a stupid whistle hung around a neck as scrawny as a chicken's. Even she could boss Paolina Fuentes around.

Paolina Roldan
.

She gave the gym teacher her sweetest, most submissive smile and raced down the hallway to her last class of the day.

CHAPTER 1

Cold
.

It was as bitter a January morning as New England could spew. Gray clouds blocked the weak sun like heavy curtains and I smelled snow that had yet to fall, an unseen edge of white in the icy sky. Numb gloved fingers tugged my scarf so high it touched the tip of my nose. Breath fogged the air.
Cold
. But the exterior iciness was nothing compared to the chill I felt inside.

The apartment building at 47 Orchard Court Road was wedged tightly between two taller buildings. A dingy street, Orchard Court Road. No orchard, no courtyard, the pretentious name all that remained of some past glory, or more likely, a come-on for the unwary buyer or desperate renter.

I checked my watch, then shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my parka. Six thirty and barely a glimmer of pale sunlight. Sunshine would have been a relief, cutting the edge of the cold. Snow would have been a relief. Anything but the endless gray and the bitter cold, cement parking lots staring at stunted trees, everything shaded in grays and browns, as though all the color had seeped out of the city along with the warmth.

Mission Hill isn't Boston's finest neighborhood. Split by Hunting-ton Avenue with its battered green trolley cars, stretching south to Jamaica Plain and east to Roxbury, it's at best working-class poor, at worst
subsistence housing. It's hard to park in Mission Hill. Too many abandoned wrecks, some immobilized by the infamous Denver boot. After circling the area for twenty minutes, I'd found an iffy slot for my battered Rent-A-Wreck across the street from the housing project and trudged uphill. Whether the car would still be there when I returned was a question best to ignore.

I blew out a breath, raising another cloud of steam, and considered when it might have been, that elusive last time I'd been warm. Two nights ago, in bed, when problems had seemed contained and controllable, the usual work dilemmas, a due diligence for a small insurance firm, a store clerk who might or might not have a hand in the till. I'd been debating what kind of car I could buy with considerable urgency and limited means. And arguing with Sam Gianelli, who's been a source of joy and consternation in my life for years.

I'd been in bed, blissfully warm but not asleep, when he'd entered the room with hardly a squeak of the floorboards. He'd removed his shoes at the front door, a thoughtful act, perhaps. Isn't it odd how you can read any motive into any act when there's hostility as well as attraction? Given the hour, I'd read deceit: Sam didn't want me to realize how late he was coming to bed, didn't want me to wake. If he'd been deliberately noisy, I'm pretty sure I'd have found an unkind reason for that as well.

Face it, the past month or so the only place Sam and I have been comfortable with each other has been in bed. That's always been our strong suit, the meshing of bodies, the pulsing rhythm of stimulation and release. Chemistry. Who knows what sparks that thing between men and women that brings them together in the night?

The phone call had interrupted a long-standing yet oddly silent argument. At least it was a silent argument on my part; maybe Sam never thought about it at all. I mean, how can you tell? It bothered me all the time what he did for a living, if you can call working for the Mob a living. Once he'd talked to me openly about getting out. Once, he'd tried to make a clean break. But when his father got sick, he knuckled under and went back to being Daddy's bright-eyed boy. Maybe that's what he would always be, never my companion, always his father's son, and I didn't think I could live with that. And I wasn't sure I wanted to live without it. So, really what could I say?

If he were a teenager, I'd have said, “Where've you been?”

If he were a teenager, he'd have said, “Out.”

Lawyer friends always tell me not to ask the question if I don't want to hear the answer. I guess that's why instead of arguing about the big thing, the great white whale of our on-again, off-again relationship, we wind up arguing so viciously about the small things, and maybe that's what we'd keep doing until the small things drove us apart. Again.

Monday night, the phone interrupted us and I was momentarily grateful for it, despite the lateness of the hour.

I recognized the voice straight off, but it spoke such rapid-fire angry Spanish that I had to tell Marta to slow down twice before I could follow the flow. It's not that she doesn't speak English, it's that she won't. Not to me.

“Lemme me talk to her, right now.” Her voice was slurred and rough and I thought she'd been drinking again. Sam raised his eyebrows and muttered something under his breath.

“¿Sabes que hora es, Marta?”

“I don't need you telling me anything, not what time it is, and certainly not how to take care of a daughter.” She muttered something under her breath, too, and of course I heard it, and it was distinctly unflattering, something about the red-headed bitch, which is what she often calls me.

“Why don't you call back when you sober up?” My hand was moving the receiver away from my ear when I heard an increase in volume along with a change of tone.

“
Por favor
, I
must
talk with her. I need her to— She promised me.”

“Marta, Paolina isn't here. It's Monday night. Look in her room.”

The woman's called me before when she's forgotten where her daughter is. Once she'd scared the hell out of me when Paolina was sleeping over at a girlfriend's and Marta'd forgotten all about it.

“She's not here.”

“Did she leave a note on the refrigerator?”

“What you think? I'm too drunk to know where my daughter is? Always,
always
, she says she'll be with you when she isn't here.”

The conversation slid downhill from there, down a steep and ugly slope.

I'd slept that night convinced that Paolina was visiting Aurelia or
Heather or Vanessa or any one of a number of girls I'd heard about or met, a classmate at the local high school, certain I'd have been informed as usual if my “little sister” had skipped school. Tuesday morning, before seven, I'd made fruitless calls to the girlfriends. Then I'd gone to the high school and found that the man charged with tracking down AWOL students was himself AWOL, and Paolina hadn't turned up for classes Monday at all.

Now it was Wednesday,
Wednesday
, for chrissake, and I was jumping every time my cell phone rang, nervous as a cat. All my paying jobs had been put on hold, my argument with Sam was simmering, and I was out in the cold at 6:30 A.
M
., determined to strike before my elusive target could leave for work.