Page 38

Big Guns

Hector’s stomach growled, and Brenda switched the overhead light on. The sun was setting and their kitchen was growing dim as she set the pupusa on their worn table. Hector smiled at the dish. He remembered when his mother taught his little Italian how to make it, gesturing with him occasionally translating while Brenda struggled to learn the language. Brenda knew Hector, just back from San Salvador, would be homesick. He turned his smile to her.

He often thanked his lucky stars that he had stopped in front of Brenda Palumbo’s sun lounger on the beach that day. He and his buddies had sat in the shade, behind their sunglasses, sipping their Coca-Colas. Finally, once they’d zeroed in on their targets, they had jumped down from the stone wall, peeled off their shirts, and nonchalantly sauntered by the tourists. His friends had stopped at the party girls; the ones holding coconuts filled with rum and juice and topped with tiny paper parasols. Hector had kept walking, his shirt on, hiding his scars.

When Hector had joined the gang, it was a ritual that new members had the gang tag tattooed on their forearm. But Hector’s mother worked two jobs in the downtown core—a hotel housekeeper during the day, a cook at night—so her sons, sus hijos, would have a better life. Her plan did not include gang membership, so Hector couldn’t very well come home bearing a mark that confirmed her worst fear had come true. When he had refused to be tattooed, the gang leader had ordered he be branded—with a garden rake. They had heated the prongs in a fire, tied him down, and placed the rake’s iron tentacles against his rib cage. And then they had done it on his other side. Still, Hector preferred the strips of seared skin to having that blatant label of ownership on his body. And although Hector never took his shirt off in public, he knew he’d made a wise choice.

Now, as it grew dark outside, he watched Brenda at their kitchen stove—she was his other wise choice. His buddies had flashed their smiles at the girls with delicate gold chains strung across their flat, tanned tummies and jutting hip bones. But Hector had bypassed them, somehow drawn to the only girl on the beach in a one-piece bathing suit, dressed as though she was ready to swim a race, eating potato chips, crumbs sprinkled on the navy-blue fabric, and reading a book. A textbook, at that. Things had worked out well enough for some of his buddies, but none of them had ended up with anyone like Brenda Palumbo.

Hector had won the jackpot that day on the beach.

“Tell me what the husbands said,”

she now prodded as she sat down.

This was why Hector flew home: to see what Brenda thought. Some guys in his line of work were impulsive and got themselves into trouble. Hector liked to think things through. Another reason he wasn’t a good fit for gang life, where the men who tried to tell him what to do were as smart as his shoes. Plus, it didn’t seem like Hank, Larry, and Andre were in any hurry to leave, with his mother feeding them three home-cooked meals a day plus snacks.

“They didn’t come right out and admit it, but they stole the money.”

“Hot dang!”

Brenda slammed the table. “I knew it.” She high-fived Hector. “I knew something was up with them from the get-go. Why would anyone want to kill three duds like them?”

Hector filled her in on the rest of what he’d been thinking about. Hank and his buddies were anxious to move on to the next stage of their plan. Right then they were probably sitting on his mother’s plastic-covered sofa—Hector tried to convince her he’d buy her a new one if anything happened to it, but that piece of furniture was her pride and joy, and she was keeping it pristine. His mother believed once you have something, you take care of it until you die. Hector had to admit, it was a good ethos to be raised with, especially when it came to marriage. At his mother’s house, the husbands were living proof of what happens when couples stop taking care of each other. But now Hector knew they were also sitting on millions of dollars.

Brenda spooned her homemade salsa, almost as good as Hector’s madre’s, onto her plate and said, “Padma is bringing in the big guns from Mumbai.”

“To do what?”

“Well, she wants to confirm that Hank and your other customer, Dave—the dead guy—really stole the money. And if they did, she wants these guys to get it back.”

“How are they gonna do that?”

“I would imagine they’ll look through the surveillance videos for proof the husbands worked together. She said the lead investigator is a forensic accountant. Maybe they’ll look at the husbands’ banking activity. Their deposits and such.”

“Oh! I didn’t get to this part yet.”

Hector knew Brenda was going to love this twist. “The wives aren’t getting any insurance money. The husbands canceled their policies.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

Brenda grabbed the table with both hands. She looked like she’d won the lottery. “Oh my God. This just keeps getting better! How did you find that out?”

“Hank told me. He wanted me to know the wives can’t pay me to actually kill them.”

“Why’d they cancel?”

“So there’d be less chance of an investigation. Not bad thinking, really.”

Hector paused for a moment and then said, “Did you ask your dad? Are the police looking into it at all?”

Brenda shook her head, then pushed her food to the side of her mouth. “He said they ruled the explosion was caused by faulty maintenance on the boat, and careless smoking. So no criminal charges. Case closed.”

Brenda chewed for a moment, then said, “I wonder if the wives have realized that yet—that there’s no insurance.”

“If not, they’ll find out soon enough.”

Hector took a drink. “As far as the wives know, I killed their husbands, and they still owe me a hundred grand. If they don’t have the money, they must be shittin’ their skorts.”

Brenda smiled. “Did you say ‘skorts’ on purpose?”

Hector raised his eyebrows. He loved impressing her. “I did.”

“Cute. I didn’t know you were so up on women’s fashion. Did you give them that speech—”

“—I gave them both. The you don’t want to do this and don’t make me make you regret this.”

Hector nodded and took another bite.

Brenda said, “You’re right. They’re probably shittin’ their skorts right about now.”

Hector added, “They should be.”

They ate in silence. Then Brenda asked, “Where do you think the money is?”

Hector swallowed. “My mother said they’ve been talking about offshore accounts.”

She cut through her pupusa with her fork and asked, “What are you going to do?”

“Same as always. I’ll watch the bad people fuck each other over, and then I’ll do what’s right for us.”