Dragon Fruit Read online

‘Unh.’ Luckily, I didn’t have to pretend to be fuzzy headed. I was so dizzy with pain that I felt like I dwelled in a world stuffed with gauze.

  ‘And that kid she hangs out with – is he gay? I don’t get it. What’s that all about?’

  Jesus. I couldn’t decide how to respond, but luckily the answer was provided for me. ‘Pull over—’

  I shoved open the door with my good arm, but even so, the pain made me squeal. Then I vomited up everything I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours, a surprisingly large amount.

  When I’d finished, I continued to drool into the dirt at the side of the road.

  ‘Here.’ Hot Wheels reached over and handed me a Kleenex. ‘Must hurt like fuck.’

  ‘I think we better get to the hos – the hos—’ I managed to pull the door closed, and leaned back against the seat. ‘I don’t feel so good.’

  Hot Wheels and I became close very fast. That’s what happens when you’re lying on a gurney, your brain swirling with medication and pain, and someone at least a little sympathetic is holding your hand.

  ‘My boyfriend, Del, he’s a detective,’ she said in a conversational tone. ‘We’re tight, know what I mean?’

  I stifled a giggle. Damn drugs. ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘We’re going to get married, we just haven’t decided when.’

  It wasn’t hard to understand what Del Wasson saw in her, the more sober part of my brain remarked to itself. Sylvia was pretty, but more than that, she had the body of a Greek goddess. Del didn’t seem like the marrying kind, but what heterosexual male wouldn’t lead Sylvia Sanchez on, in any way he could think of, just to keep her around?

  ‘You have a cute accent, Sylvia. Where are you from?’

  ‘Zapata Texas. You don’t wanna go there, believe me. My mom and her boyfriend moved out here about five years ago, and all of us kids followed.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Zapata.’

  ‘No?’ Sylvia laughed. ‘I don’t know why not. It’s famous for the white-collared seedeaters.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I’m not shitting you. It’s this dumb little bird.’ She patted my wrist. ‘Personally I wouldn’t cross the street to look at it. But thousands of people come to Zapata just for that. Can you believe it? They come from all over the world.’

  ‘Wow. So you got brothers and sisters?’ I was thinking more clearly now, on track, rowing toward my objective with a steadier stroke.

  ‘One sister and one brother. My sister and me, we don’t get along.’

  ‘How about your brother?’

  ‘My brother? Steve, he’s a cop too.’ Sylvia gathered her long black hair at the nape of her neck. ‘Steve’s all right I guess. He introduced me to Del.’

  The nurse, a woman in her fifties who looked like she wanted to go home, sit down with a cup of decaf tea and switch on PBS, walked into the curtained-off space. ‘Yes, it’s a dislocation,’ she announced. ‘The doctor will be here soon.’

  ‘Oh man,’ Sylvia said. ‘When they fix it, that’s gonna hurt.’

  Hot Wheels stayed long enough to enjoy the mayhem. Then she took off, after I told her I had someone coming to get me. Sylvia was Steve Sanchez’s sister, and I didn’t need her to drive me home and find out where I lived.

  ‘Miss Jaymie?’ Gabi parted the blue-flecked gray curtain with two hands and peered into the space. ‘You don’t look so good.’

  She walked up to the bed and eyed my arm in its brand new sling. Then she turned her attention to what I guessed was a class-A shiner, as my right eye was squeezed shut. Finally she took in my outfit, right down to the shredded tights.

  ‘The bobcat attacked you, right? You told me you saw one last week in your yard.’

  I grunted. I wasn’t in a talking mood.

  Florence Nightingale reappeared. ‘Good to go?’ She didn’t wait for my reply.

  ‘Fill these prescriptions on the way home. You’ll want the pain meds, believe me, when the sedative wears off. The doctor has prescribed an antibiotic too. Those scrapes on your legs look nasty, and he didn’t want to take a chance with infection.’

  I nodded and swung my legs over the edge of the bed as I rose to a sitting position. ‘When can I get back on skates, nurse?’

  Gabi gasped. ‘Probably never.’

  ‘Gallows humor. I like that.’ The nurse smiled. ‘Didn’t the doctor explain it to you? Once you’ve dislocated your shoulder, it’s far more likely to happen again.’

  ‘And anyway you are too old.’ Gabi snorted. ‘I wonder when you are going to grow up, Miss Jaymie.’

  I groaned as I got to my feet. ‘I just did. I feel like I’m ninety-two.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ The smell of ammonia inside Gabi’s station wagon was as bracing as a dose of smelling salts, and my druggy haze was clearing.

  ‘To my apartment and do not say no. I am not gonna drop you off at your place, not tonight.’

  ‘But Dexter—’

  ‘You want me to go get your dog? That one is OK, for a dog. He can stay at my place tonight, if it makes you feel better.’

  ‘Dex has the dog door. I guess he’ll be all right. But I need my own bed.’

  ‘No and that is final.’

  I rolled my head to look over at her. The set of Gabi’s chin, profiled in the dark, told me there was no point in protesting. ‘I get up early,’ I warned.

  ‘Huh. Not as early as me.’

  I let out a long breath and gave in. The truth was, my shoulder was beginning to throb like a sonofabitch, as Mike would have said. Mike … I need you, I thought. Please, give me a call.

  ‘My cell’s in my bag, Gabi. Check it for messages, would you?’

  ‘Sure. Let me do that while I drive the car. Then the police will have a good excuse to pull me over. Then they will find out I got no driver’s license ’cause I got no papers, just like they thought. Then they will impound this car and I will have to let them keep it, ’cause it will cost more money than it is worth to get it outta the pound. That is what already happened to four people I know in Santa Barbara, Miss Jaymie.’

  ‘It’s an injustice,’ I mumbled. ‘Tomorrow, I’ll fix it.’

  FIFTEEN

  Maybe the drugs had worn off. Whatever the reason, I woke up at two in the morning and found myself staring at Gabi’s shadowy bedroom ceiling. Against all my arguments she’d insisted on sleeping on the couch and giving me her king-size bed.

  ‘A big bed for a small person,’ I’d said as I’d edged into the tiny bedroom.

  ‘Sometimes I like to sleep sideways. You don’t always wanna sleep in the same direction, you know?’

  ‘Not really.’ But I’d been happy to stretch out between the fresh lavender-scented sheets.

  I’d dropped off in seconds. That was back around ten p.m. Now I was wide awake. But not because of the drugs, I realized. Because of Gabi. Something was wrong.

  She hadn’t smiled once. And there was pain in her eyes.

  I knew my personal assistant/office manager pretty damn well. She was almost always positively positive. Not last night.

  I rolled my head in the direction of the window. Gabi had installed black-out drapes. But the glare from car headlights – bright for a moment, then fading away – seeped in around the edges.

  There was a constant thrum downtown, even in the middle of the night. I could hear a soft rumble from the freeway. Somewhere nearby, a car door slammed.

  Then I heard another sound: a soft beep-beep. I listened and heard a faint clatter. Gabi was up, moving about in her kitchen.

  I rose up on my good elbow and sucked in my breath as a dagger of pain pierced my opposite shoulder. I swung my feet to the floor.

  Gabi had left a voluminous housecoat for me at the end of the bed. I slipped it on and managed to tug up the zip with my good hand.

  ‘Miss Jaymie, did I wake you up?’ Gabi was seated at the small kitchen table. She also wore a big puffy robe. Hers was covered in candy canes. The two of us looked like a pair of overstuffed t
eddy bears.

  A cup of cocoa sat on the table before her, and she’d wrapped both her small hands around it. ‘Miss Jaymie, is something wrong?’

  ‘You didn’t wake me up.’ I slid into the plastic-covered kitchen chair opposite her. ‘But yeah, something’s wrong.’

  ‘What? Do you need to go back to Emergency?’

  The alarm on my friend’s face and her concern touched me. I knew she’d do anything for me. Anything as long as it made good sense, of course.

  ‘Gabi. Tell me what’s wrong. I haven’t seen you smile once.’

  She tried a smile. It was ghastly. ‘OK. Maybe I can’t smile.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not what?’ But her face fell. ‘You are injured, Miss Jaymie. This is a bad time to talk about it.’

  ‘No, this is a good time. Because pretty soon I’m going to have to take another pill.’

  ‘I am gonna fix you some cocoa in the microwave.’ She pushed back her chair, got up and busied herself at the kitchen counter.

  ‘Look,’ I said as she placed the steaming mug before me. ‘If you don’t want to tell me tonight, fine. But you know you’ll tell me sooner or later.’

  I picked up the cup in both hands. ‘Mmm. My god, that tastes good.’

  ‘Abuelita, from Costco. And I put some other things in it too.’ She cleared her throat. ‘OK. Are you sure you are ready to hear?’

  I put down the cup. This was a first: I’d never once seen Gabi reluctant to speak. ‘I’m ready. Don’t worry about me.’

  ‘Angel.’ She stared down at the table top. ‘It is about Angel, Miss Jaymie.’

  ‘Angel? Did something bad happen to him?’

  She shook her head back and forth, her eyes still on the table before her. ‘No. Nothing bad happened to him. He did something bad.’

  The bastard must have cheated on her. I couldn’t believe it: Angel had seemed like such a loyal guy.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Gabi. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Do?’ At last she looked up at me. I saw a mixture of anger and sadness in her eyes. ‘I am not gonna see him again. Never. Because if I see him, I maybe will kill him.’

  I nodded. ‘I’d do the same in your shoes. A man who cheats so soon in the relationship, he—’

  ‘Cheats?’ Her eyes blazed. ‘That would be easy! I would just go and tell the woman she has to leave town.’

  ‘Well then, what are we talking—’

  ‘Miss Jaymie!’ Gabi jumped up from the table and swung out her right hand for emphasis. Her hand collided with her mug, and hot chocolate splashed in an arc across the room. ‘Miss Jaymie, Angel – he told the cops about Chucha! He was the one!’

  I stared at her. I tried to stop the words that came to my mouth, but there was no way. ‘The fucking bastard! Why the hell did he do that?’

  Then I jumped to my feet too. I suppose my shoulder hurt, but I didn’t feel a thing. ‘I need an explanation, and I need it now.’ I knew I was transferring my fury to Gabi, and that wasn’t fair.

  Tears streamed down her face. ‘Yes it is my fault ’cause I told him all about Chucha. I never shoulda done that, I am so sorry!’

  I had to do something, anything, to remove Chucha’s image from my mind: her slack face and that gleaming white bandage covering her skull. I went to the sink and turned on the cold tap. Again and again, I splashed the frigid water onto my face.

  ‘Miss Jaymie.’ She handed me a clean dish towel. ‘Miss Jaymie I’m gonna retire.’

  ‘Retire?’ The cold water had calmed me down a little. ‘You’re fifty-one years old.’

  ‘OK, not retire. What do they call it? Resign.’

  I made a disgusted sound and tossed the towel on the counter. ‘Like hell you will. I need you too much. Now, explain it to me. Why did Angel do that? He seemed like such a good guy!’

  ‘He wanted to get Chucha deported, that is why. Miss Jaymie, he knew Chucha didn’t have no papers, but he did not think they would hurt her. He feels so, so bad about that.’

  ‘And so he fucking should.’ I spread my hands. ‘I still don’t get it, Gabi – why?’

  ‘I do not wanna make excuses for him, OK? All I can say is what he said to me. Angel said he did not want Chucha to find the little girl.’

  ‘But Chucha is Rosie’s mother!’ Again I felt my temperature soar.

  ‘Angel, he had a very bad mother, very mean. She would hit him with a big stick. He thought Chucha, ’cause she’s a man and a woman too, she would be a bad mother. He thought the people who will adopt Rosie, they will be much better for her. And he says the little girl, she is the most important one.’

  ‘Of all the damn stupid—’ I halted. There was no point in expending any more energy on Angel, I knew.

  ‘Miss Jaymie. Angel, he told me he wants to come and talk to you.’

  ‘Don’t let that man near me.’ I stabbed a finger at her. ‘I mean it, Gabi. I don’t want to see his goddamn face.’

  I couldn’t fall back to sleep. My mind churned like a slot machine. At five I got up and dressed.

  ‘Miss Jaymie, what can I do?’ Gabi knotted her robe around her waist.

  ‘I’m going to walk home.’

  ‘No you can’t. The nurse, I heard her say keep quiet for three days. If you have to go I will give you a ride.’

  ‘I need to walk off this anger, Gabi. I’m not going to be good for anything till I do.’

  She raised her arms and let them fall at her sides, kind of like a penguin trying to fly. ‘OK. But you have your phone, right? I’m gonna sit here. Call me when you get home, I am not gonna move from this chair till you do.’

  It was pitch black outside. I walked west along Gutierrez, then turned up State. A police car cruised past me and slowed.

  ‘You OK?’

  I was about to snap back. But then I met the officer’s eyes. I recognized him: Cranston. He was one of the cops working the restorative program for the homeless, a guy who actually gave a rat’s ass. ‘Yeah. Just going for a walk.’

  ‘All right. Take care.’

  Was the world turning upside down? A cop who cared, and a friend – Angel – who’d let me down.

  Let me down? What did this have to do with me? It was Chucha who lay in ICU with a broken brain.

  I needed to center myself. Or rather, get myself out of the center. And again, I thought about Mike. I needed to talk to him.

  I stopped near the train station and pulled out my cell. A reflexive action: after all, if Mike had returned to civilization by now, he’d have seen my one-hundred-and-one messages and called me back right away. Instead of leaving message #102, I tapped off the phone.

  The night was cloudy and a three-quarter moon rocked through the rough waves of the sky. Rain spattered my face, but I knew it wouldn’t amount to much. A real rain would have been a blessing, and tonight Santa Barbara was cursed, not blessed.

  I continued on, passing by the Moreton Bay Fig. I heard a series of long racking coughs. In the cold light of the street lamp, I could make out a dozen or more forms huddled into the buttressing roots.

  The largest individual of its species, the fig tree had boasted its own zip code back in the sixties. That’s when the hippies lived there. Now the fig provided an island of refuge to those without homes. At least, it provided a refuge on the nights the cops didn’t raid it, jostling the exhausted people awake just for the fun of it all.

  My mood continued to plunge. I knew I had to halt the freefall. I’d spiraled into depression once before, after Brodie had died. I couldn’t allow it to happen again, not with Rosie out there.

  I checked the time as I walked on up Montecito Street, towards Castillo. Five thirty-four. Only one person I knew would be up at this hour in the month of February. Zave slept five hours a night, and by now he’d be wide awake, busy strategizing the day’s nefarious moves.

  Yeah, Zave was pissed off with me. But he was a friend, wasn’t he? What were friends for?

  ‘Jaymie. What a sur
prise. Where are you?’

  ‘Castillo and Montecito, half a block from the freeway. It’s a long story, Zave.’

  ‘Is it? I’m not sure I have the time.’ His voice was reserved. ‘Besides, you and I don’t have that kind of relationship anymore, remember?’

  ‘What kind do you mean?’

  ‘The kind that accommodates long stories.’

  ‘We do. I say we do, Zave.’ My voice sounded desperate.

  There was a lull in the traffic on the overpass. I thought I heard him sigh.

  ‘Are you in real trouble, Jaymie? The life-threatening kind? Because if you are, then yes. Our connection covers that. Even so, the one you should be calling is the deputy. Right?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Zave. Maybe I shouldn’t have called. I’m OK, all right? Just out for a walk.’

  ‘Funny time for a walk. Funny place, too. See the Seven Eleven? I’ll pick you up there.’

  The sleek black Jag slid up to the sidewalk in front of the 7-11. I said goodbye to the old homeless guy keeping himself warm with a fifth. ‘I’ll drop off a blanket tomorrow,’ I promised.

  I slid down in the Jag’s bucket seat. I glanced once at Zave, then shut my eyes. ‘Thanks,’ I said in a small voice. ‘You’re a prince.’

  ‘And you’re a goddamn princess.’ He stepped on the gas and the car powered out of the lot.

  ‘A princess? That would be nice. I’d wave my scepter andthe world would be just the way I want it to be.’

  ‘Queens have scepters. Not princesses. Princesses wear starchy dresses and lots of pink. For some unknown reason, people fall all over themselves to do what they ask.’

  ‘That’s not me for sure. Nobody does what I want.’ Good grief. It must have been the pain meds. My eyes stung with self-pitying tears.

  Zave reached over and stroked my hair. ‘What’s with the sling, Jaymie? And that eye. Christ.’ His voice was a touch softer now.

  ‘I dislocated my shoulder last night. Playing roller derby.’ A tear rolled down my cheek, then another. It was maudlin. I turned my face to the side window, so Zave wouldn’t see.

  ‘Roller derby. Right. What, you think you’re sixteen?’

  ‘Why do people keep saying that to me? I’m as fit as I ever was. Fitter, in fact.’ Annoyed, I quit blubbering. ‘Where are we going?’