Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The - Junot Diaz [56]
Beli might have felt as though the crone had thrown boiling oil on her but she still had the ovaries to spit, Cómeme el culo, you ugly disgusting vieja.
Let’s go, Elvis One said, twisting her arm behind her back and, with the help of his partner, dragging her across the park to where a car sat baleful in the sun.
Déjame, she screamed, and when she looked up she saw that there was one more cop sitting in the car, and when he turned toward her she saw that he didn’t have a face. All the strength fell right out of her.
That’s right, tranquila now, the larger one said.
What a sad ending it would have been had not our girl rolled her luck and spotted José Then ambling back from one of his gambling trips, a rolled newspaper under his arm. She tried to say his name, but like in those bad dreams we all have there was no air in her lungs. It wasn’t until they tried to force her into the car and her hand brushed the burning chrome of the car that she found her tongue. José, she whispered, please save me.
And then the spell was broken. Shut up! The Elvises struck her in the head and back but it was too late, José Then was running over, and behind him, a miracle, were his brother Juan and the rest of the Palacio Peking crew: Constantina, Marco Antonio, and Indian Benny. The grunts tried to draw their pistols but Beli was all over them, and then José planted his iron next to the biggest one’s skull and everybody froze, except, of course, Beli.
You hijos de puta! I’m pregnant! Do you understand! Pregnant! She spun to where the crone had held court, but she had inexplicably vanished.
This girl’s under arrest, one grunt said sullenly.
No she’s not. José tore Beli out of their arms.
You alone her! yelled Juan, a machete in each hand.
Listen, chino, you don’t know what you’re doing.
This chino knows exactly what he’s doing. José cocked the pistol, a noise most dreadful, like a rib breaking. His face was a dead rictus and in it shone everything he had lost. Run, Beli, he said.
And she ran, tears popping out of her eyes, but not before taking one last kick at the grunts. Mis chinos, she told her daughter, saved my life.
HESITATION
She should have kept running too but she beelined for home instead. Can you believe it? Like everybody in this damn story, she underestimated the depth of the shit she was in.
What’s the matter, hija? La Inca said, dropping the frying pan in her hand and holding the girl. You have to tell me.
Beli shook her head, couldn’t catch her breath. Latched the door and the windows and then crouched on her bed, a knife in her hand, trembling and weeping, the cold in her stomach like a dead fish. I want Dionisio, she blubbered. I want him now!
What happened?
She should have scrammed, I tell you, but she needed to see her Gangster, needed him to explain what was happening. Despite everything that had just transpired she still held out the hope that he would make everything better, that his gruff voice would soothe her heart and stop the animal fear gnawing her guts. Poor Beli. She believed in the Gangster. Was loyal to the end. Which was why a couple hours later, when a neighbor shouted, Oye, Inca, the novio is outside, she bolted out of bed like she’d been shot from a mass driver, blew past La Inca, past caution, ran barefoot to where his car was waiting. In the dark she failed to notice that it wasn’t actually his car.
Did you miss us? Elvis One asked, slapping cuffs on her wrist.
She tried to scream but it was too late.
LA INCA, THE DIVINE
After the girl had bolted from the house, and after she was informed by the neighbors that the Secret Police had scooped her up, La Inca knew in her ironclad heart that the girl was fun-toosh, that the Doom of the Cabrals had managed to infiltrate her circle at last. Standing on the