Surviving Santiago (23 page)

“Was that the musician, Papá?” My teeth chatter.

Papá turns his head slightly in my direction. “A paramilitary gang. As I suspected. One that recruits boys, too.”

Paramilitares?
Not “for the military” but “paramilitaries.” Gangs that support the military dictatorship but aren't
part of the military. I realize that's what Papá's article was about, the one Frankie read in his office. Frankie took notes, and I believed he was on our side. Tía Ileana said he was on our side, that he worked for the “NO” vote.

How could we have been so stupid?

And yet . . .? Over my father's sagging shoulder, Frankie's eyes connect with mine. With his free hand, he pulls out the folded article and slowly hands it to me. Still holding my father, I shake it open. In the dim light I can read only the title: “
GUERRA: VÍCTIMA DE LAS DROGAS? O DEL FASCISMO?
”

“Go ahead. Kill me,” my father says. “But take her home. I'm sure she can keep her mouth shut. She's obviously been doing it with me for the past month.”

“Have you ever asked her? Or are you too busy poking your nose into places you don't belong?” Frankie takes a single step toward us. “I love her. We're running away together.”

“Excuse me? You never told me this plan, Frankie.” I hold one arm in front of Papá's face. This was supposed to be a camping trip. With all of us. And fun. Not some
Romeo and Juliet
remake, where everyone's family hates each other and they all die in the end.

Frankie points the tip of the knife at Papá. “You, communist, you don't even want to live. You tried to get a gun to kill yourself.”

My tears start out warm but freeze in the blast of
wind. “Sorry, Papá,” I whisper. “I shouldn't have said anything.”

“That's it,” Papá says. “The people have voted. Leave me here for the vultures.”

“No! I'll stay with you. I didn't mean to betray you.” I raise my voice so he's sure to hear me. “I love you, Papá.” I press his body to mine to keep both of us warm, to let him know that I do love him and want him to live. I measure his breaths, to see if there's any fight left in him, or if there's no more hope.

Frankie stands in the ankle-deep snow, half his body glowing in the headlight, the other half in total darkness. The hand holding the knife shakes. My chest throbs. I hear each of my heartbeats. I wonder if Frankie's going to run away by himself now, leaving Papá and me to freeze to death. Or if someone else is coming to kill us, like that Rambo guy I overheard him mention on the phone in the apartment.

“Frankie,” I say, tightening my throat muscles to keep my voice from wavering, “do you really love me?”

Frankie steps back into the darkness. I can't see him anymore.

I try again. “I thought we were the ‘Mastertarium,' you know, meant to be together. And I was everything that's good in your life.” The chords play in my head. “How could you say you love me and then do this?”

Frankie's voice is almost a whisper coming from
nowhere. “I need you, Tina. I do love—”

I don't wait for him to finish. “If you really love me, Frankie,” I call back into the night, “put the knife away and take my father to the hospital.”

After a minute that seems like an hour Frankie appears in front of the headlight, folds the knife, and slips it into his jacket pocket. His face is now dry but a whitish film covers both cheeks. “Hold tight to the old man,” he says as he puts his helmet back on and slides onto the seat. He starts the engine, circles, and turns the bike down the mountain road. The rope and bungee cords lay lifeless in the snow.

C
HAPTER
21

I
nside the city, a section of blanket over Papá's head on his left side falls away across my arm. With his clumsy hand, he reaches for Frankie's belt.

I put my mouth to his ear. “Hang on, Papá.”

“Got it,” he says. There's a flash of light in his hand, a streetlamp's reflection. Afterward, he goes limp in my arms, as if the light has left his body.

It takes less than an hour for us to get from the mountains to the hospital in our neighborhood, the same hospital where Frankie dropped off some X-rays two weeks—an eternity—ago. Everything that happens next is a blur—the hospital staff taking Papá away on a gurney, me calling Tía Ileana, her arriving pale and shaken and holding me for what seems like forever.

While we wait to hear whether Papá's going to be all right, I walk outside, back to where Frankie dropped us off. He's still there, sitting at the curb under a streetlamp, his motorcycle parked next to him. He has a roll of paper towels and a plastic basin, and he's trying to wash the back of his leather jacket.

“Who the hell is Romeo?” I ask, though my hands keep shaking.

Frankie glances up. “No one.”

“You're lying.” I shove my hands into my sweatshirt so he won't see them. “Someone ordered you to kill us. That uncle you talk about all the time?”

Frankie grimaces. “Just your father. And I was only supposed to kidnap him. The others wanted to get information from him first.”

“And me?”

“You weren't supposed to come along. You weren't even supposed to be at the apartment today.” He dips a paper towel into the basin. “I thought I'd have you home before everything went down.”

My fingers curl, as if on their own mission to strangle Frankie. “And then what? You'd show up at the house in a few days, like, ‘Sorry your father died, let's go camping this weekend'?”

“Something like that.” He sets the basin aside, a paper towel hanging from it. “We can still run away together.”

“Forget it.” I step away from Frankie.

He turns his head toward me, eyes pleading. “Look at the way he treats you, Tina.”

“Yeah?” I glare back at him. “He may suck as a father, but he's
my
father. I thought I made it clear that I didn't want him dead.”

“Sooner or later, he's going to drink himself to death.
Do you want to go through that?”

“I'll take that chance.” Maybe now that Papá knows how much I love him, it will be enough to save him.

“Look, Tina . . .” Frankie stands, facing me.

“What do you want? And why are you here? Instead of out there, you know”—I sweep my hand away from him—“killing people.”

“I never killed anyone.”

“You beat up that musician.”

“He was a druggie. And a subversive.”

I clench and unclench my fists. “I thought you weren't into politics.” I can't believe I fell in love with this guy, that I wanted to have sex with him. Without his jacket, he's not even hot—just a small-time gang banger worshipping his
momio
uncle and their beloved dictator.

He holds out his hands, palms up. “I'm not. Honest. It was a family thing. You know, like
Romeo and Juliet
.”

“Sounds more like
The Godfather
.” I look from his hands to his eyes. Under the dim streetlamp, they're wide open. Scared. “Papá was on your trail for what you did. So you had to go after him next.” I jab my chest with my thumb. “Through me.”

“It's a little more complicated, but yes.”

“Why didn't you just kill him before I showed up?” It would have simplified Mamá's marriage to Evan. And saved my summer.

“Because we don't go around having shootouts in the street here. At least not anymore. And your father has a ton of security.”

Mostly to protect him against himself.
But I don't tell Frankie. I've told him way too much already.

“We were looking for a way inside. To get at whatever weak points we could find.” Frankie scoops up his leather jacket, stained with Papá's blood and the remains of whatever he drank before speaking at an illegal demonstration. One Frankie found out about from a flyer at my house.

“You needed me to spill his secrets,” I say.

“But then I fell in love with you.” Suddenly, he grabs my hand. “Please run away with me, Tina.”

I yank my hand away and stick it behind my back. “No. This isn't some play from four hundred years ago. This is real life, and I'm staying with Papá.”

“Okay.” Frankie takes a few raspy breaths. “I lost the key to the apartment.”

“Don't you have a home? With some made-up drunken father?”

He doesn't look at me. Did I catch him in yet another lie, or is his home really as bad as he said?

“I need that key. Do you know where it is?”

I replay the moments before we left for the police station, when he dragged me by my arm and wouldn't answer my questions. At no point do I remember him
holding a key. “You probably locked yourself out.”

He sits again and hides his face in his hands.

“Don't you have someplace else to go tonight? So I don't have to look at you?” My chest aches, as if I've been crying for hours.

“I can go home. I should . . . get right with the old man while there's still time.” He runs his hands along the top of his head.

“Your father, you mean? He exists?”

“Yeah, and he's as messed up as I told you he is.” For a second, I want to touch Frankie, to hold him, to comfort him, but I know that it's all over. Forever. Even if he couldn't bring himself to do it, he was supposed to kill Papá, and me as well. His real name isn't Frankie Zamora, and I don't know who he is.

How can you love someone when you don't even know his name?

“Frankie?” I say after a long silence.

“Yes?” He raises his head.

“What's your name?”

“Francisco Zamora, but I like Frankie.”

“No, it's not. And that's why you made me stay in the apartment after I caught you with Sofia.” I step forward, slide my toe under the lip of the basin, and tip it over. “She called you
Pepe
.”

“Frankie es el nombre de mis sueños.”
And then he switches to English. I feel like I haven't heard him speak English in
a long, long time even though it's only been a few hours. “The name of my dreams.”

“And when you don't dream?” I ask as the last of the water soaks into the dirt.

He switches back to Spanish. “When I wake up and realize that I'll either be killed or my crappy life will just run out, like in the Minus World?” He sighs. “José Francisco Heider Villalobos.”

“For real?”

He nods. “You can report me to the police if you want.”

“Yeah, and they'll probably arrest
me
.” I turn away and walk back into the hospital.

C
HAPTER
22

Wednesday, July 12: 40 days until I go home

T
he hospital waiting room has chipped paint on the walls and layers of grime on the linoleum floor. The TV set in the corner emits white noise because programming ended at midnight. A pregnant woman moans and clutches her belly while an older woman—I guess her mother—squeezes her hand. At the other side of the narrow room, a young man stinking of beer slumps in his chair while holding an ice pack against his swollen jaw.