Surviving Santiago (30 page)

T
ía Ileana and Berta are baking a cake when the three of us burst in, lugging all our stuff. Berta drops her wooden spoon. “Not another one, damn it!”

My aunt marches into the living room, a spatula still in her hand. “Chelo, this is not safe for Berta and me.”

Papá clears his throat. “You were the one that met him.”

“Because you were working. Instead of looking after your daughter like you should have.” She points the spatula at him. “
Your
daughter.”

Frankie starts for the door, duffel slung over his
shoulder. “I'm out of here. I'm not staying with a bunch of
mari
—”

“Frankie, shut up!” I grab the other end of his bag and pull him all the way into the guest bedroom. He's too shocked to fight back—or maybe he thinks I still have his knife. I slam the door behind me and trap him between the door and me. “Want to be safe here? Or out on the street with everyone trying to kill you?”

“You heard her. They're kicking us out,” he says.

“I'll take care of it.”

I help him take off his leather jacket and make him sit on the bed. Then I sit next to him and trace the sharp edge of the bruise with my finger. He shrinks backward. “Does it hurt?” I ask.

“A little. I put ice on it last night.”

“Okay, don't move until I come back for you. And keep your mouth shut.”

I walk back into the living room—to Tía Ileana holding the phone. “Who're you calling?” I ask.

“Your mother. That boy's the last straw. I'm sending you home before there's any more trouble.”

“No!” I cry. “We can't give up. You said so yourself.” I look at Papá, who's seated on the sofa, eyes focused somewhere beyond the window. “Tell her to let me stay, Papá. It's your decision.”

Tía Ileana speaks up next. “Your father has a special report to finish by this evening. No matter that he belongs
in the hospital right now, not running around Santiago to round up hired killers.”

“Papá?” I wave my hand in front of his face to get his attention. Then I crouch beside him, blocking his view of the window. I stare into his eyes behind his glasses—the whites a dull yellow, and dark circles underneath. Above his gray and brown stubble, his face is ashen. “You promised we'd help Frankie get out of the country. Remember?”

He shakes his head slowly, like he doesn't remember. Like he doesn't intend to keep his promise. Bracing himself against my body, he stands, grabs his cane, and limps out of the room.

I take Papá's place on the sofa. Where he sat is still warm. If they send me home, where will Frankie go? Will Rafael and his goons kill him? Will his gang kill Papá? I know one thing: This endless war between families will go on without me. And if half of me is Papá and his world, it's a half I'll have to cut away forever.

Somewhere behind me and over the hum of the kitchen fan I hear a gurgling noise, like water flowing through a clogged drain. Doors open and slam shut, followed by a high-pitched moan. And then Frankie's voice.

¡Qué carajo!

“Excuse me. I need to check on Frankie.”
Make sure he's not climbing out the window to escape.
I stand and straighten my sweatshirt.

I pass the closed door to Berta's bedroom, where Papá must be resting. The door to the guest room is ajar. And the voice isn't coming from there but from the bathroom.

“Frankie?”

“In here. I need an ice pack, now.”

“Are you all right?”

“Hurry!” he shouts. I hear another moan, a retch, a splash. “Easy, Mr. Aguilar.”

I run to the kitchen, dump an ice tray into a fresh towel, and run the towel under the faucet. “What's going on?” Tía Ileana blocks my path into the hallway.

“Papá's sick!”

She steps out of the way. I open the bathroom door and hand the ice pack to Frankie, who bends over my father. Papá is on his knees beside the toilet, Frankie's arm around his chest. Frankie has pushed the sleeves of his sweater above his elbows, and he presses the ice pack to the back of my father's neck.

“Frankie!” My legs buckle. I grip the doorframe.

He looks up at me. “Withdrawal, Tina. I'm trying to keep him from having a seizure.”

“Just bring me a drink, kid,” Papá chokes out. His voice echoes inside the bowl.

“No, Papá!” I scream. “Your liver will explode.”

“Already did.”

Frankie speaks up next. “Come on, man. You can quit. I've seen you. You're not weak, like . . .”

Your father?

I feel Tía Ileana's presence behind me. I turn my head. She and Berta stand next to each other, their eyes wide.

Papá lifts his head, squints, and glances around. Sweat runs down his face. “How nice. A crowd to watch me vomit.”

“That boy,” my aunt sputters.

“I'm not hurting him, ma'am,” Frankie says. “I know what I'm doing. I helped my father detox, like, five times. And at home, too. No money for—”

Tía Ileana interrupts. “Chelo, you're going back to the hospital.”

“No.” Papá swallows, gags. “Must . . . finish . . . report.” He dives for the bowl. My insides tighten.

Frankie raises his voice above Papá's heaves. “He can't go back. They'll kill him. Nine thirty tonight. This guy Rambo—he and I are supposed to pull him out of the hospital bed and carry him off to some secret location. My uncle is going to meet them there to find out what he knows—”

“About all the bad stuff your gang has done?” I ask. I reach for my father's glasses, sitting next to the sink, and hand them to Tía Ileana. She wipes them off with a tissue she takes from the front pocket of her chinos.

“And everything else my uncle and his friends have done over the years.”

“I bet your uncle has a lot of friends.” Like the customs officials that hassled me. And maybe whoever gave Papá that bottle at the demonstration.

“And then they plan to kill him in a way that it looks like a suicide.” Frankie lowers his head, looks into Papá's face, into his gaping mouth. “You done, sir?”

Breathing hard, my father turns toward Frankie. Frankie wipes Papá's face with a damp washcloth. “Can you repeat what you just said? I missed it,” Papá rasps.

Frankie lifts my father to the edge of the bathtub, flushes the toilet, and lowers the lid. While he describes the plot again, Tía Ileana and Berta step away. I hear their raised voices in the kitchen.

“It's all on the tapes,” Frankie says. “And something else I should tell you now before you hear it there. I didn't mean to say some of those things about Tina. I couldn't let my uncle know that I cared about . . . that I'd fallen—”

Papá cuts him off. “I'm a guy. I know how that works.”

“Yes, but”—Frankie scrapes the top of his head—“I told him about you wanting to get a gun. I was going to put it in your drawer next to the bottle you hid there.”

Papá doubles over, retching. Frankie holds the washcloth to his mouth. One side turns pale green. “So she really did tell you,” my father says. “It wasn't just a bad dream.” He glares at me through the open door.

“Don't blame her, Mr. Aguilar. She was worried about you,” Frankie says while he pats Papá's face and lips
with the washcloth's clean edge. “She doesn't want you to die. No one in your family does.” He throws the washcloth into the bathtub.

A door slams on the other side of the apartment. Moments later Tía Ileana returns with a lemon wedge. She hands it over my head to Frankie, who gives it to Papá.

“So your uncle wanted to get me to talk.” Papá touches the lemon to his tongue and squeezes his eyes shut. “How was he planning to do that?”

“Whiskey. All you can drink and then some.”

“Had me figured out.” Papá's cheeks hollow out as he sucks the lemon.

Frankie adjusts the ice pack at the back of Papá's neck. Despite the lingering odor, I step inside the tiny bathroom and sit on the closed lid facing Papá and Frankie. “And you were supposed to go with that Rambo guy.”

Frankie nods.

“To help my father drink himself to death.” I guess they were supposed to work as a team—first beating people up and then kidnapping them for the professionals to kill.

“I should save people for once in my life. Not let them shoot themselves or die drunk in a pile of garbage.”

Papá coughs and clears his throat. “How did you get involved with these guys?”

“Two years ago.” Frankie licks his lower lip. “The government built some houses in our
comuna
, and my father applied for one. He got turned down. He was
barely working then, selling soft drinks at the bus station—when he wasn't passed out or too hung over.”

“So you have plenty of experience with hopeless alcoholics,” Papá says.

Frankie's eyes lock on Papá. “You're not hopeless, sir. You have a job.”

“One that pissed your uncle off immensely.” Papá drops the lemon, holds a trembling hand to his mouth, and burps. I rub his back, between his shoulder blades.

A worried expression crosses Frankie's face. He motions for me to stand and get out of the way. “You need to—?”

Papá shakes his head. “Go on, kid.”

“My mother told me to ask my uncle for help because he had connections in the government. He said he wouldn't help my family get the house, but he'd help me. He set me up with jobs, gave me money, paid for my sisters' school, and bought me the motorcycle when I was old enough to get my license.”

“Jorge Heider Bustos,” Papá says. “Army officer. Retired to start a courier service but kept on contract for special operations.”

“How do you know this?” I ask.

“The pictures on the walls. The papers I took out.” Papá raises his head, in the general direction of Tía Ileana. “Your office uses Speedy Couriers, right?”

“Sometimes,” Tía Ileana answers.

“Better find a new service tomorrow.”

C
HAPTER
30

B
erta leaves alone with the cake. Promising to wake him up in time to finish his report, Tía Ileana gives Papá his pills and convinces him to lie down on my bed. Frankie and I stand outside in the hallway and listen.

“Ooh, your poor bed.” Frankie gives me a half smile. “He doesn't smell so good.”

“I can deal with it.” I don't tell Frankie this used to be one of Papá's places to crash when he returned to Chile illegally and lived underground. He probably showed up plenty of times in not such great shape.

“But your aunt's cool. I never met a . . . a . . .”

“Lesbian.”

“Yeah.” He looks relieved.

“You probably have and don't know it,” I tell him.

Frankie scratches his head. “That's the weird thing. You have a subversive family. My family's for the government.”

“For now.”

“Right. For now.” Frankie pauses. “But when I was holding your father and he was sick. It was like all the times with my father trying to quit.”

I lean against the wall, hands in my sweatshirt pockets. “You knew exactly what to do.”

“I hope he beats this thing.”

“Me, too. But he was tortured. He has terrible nightmares. And flashbacks.”

“My father, he did it to people. And he had the same thing.” Frankie bounces his back against the wall. “But my uncle, he interrogated people and nothing like that happened to him.”

I slide one hand out and touch Frankie's upper arm, the way I still do with Max when we talk about the craziness in each other's lives. “I never met your father,” I say. “But, deep down, he must have a good heart like you have.”

“Yeah, maybe, once upon a time.” Frankie taps the nose his father broke twice. “He was weak but pretended to be strong. Now my uncle—he's strong.”