Fix shook his head. “The house we went to the night Lomer was shot.”
“I thought he got shot at a service station,” she said. That’s what her mother had told them, and if it was forty years ago, more than that, she still remembered it. Her mother had been fighting with Caroline. Whenever Caroline stayed out past curfew or said something really horrible to Bert or gave Franny enough of a slap to make her nose bleed, she took the opportunity to remind their mother that had Beverly been a decent wife and stayed with their father then none of this would have happened. If Beverly had stayed married to Fix then Caroline would have been a model citizen; her good behavior had been entirely within their mother’s grasp and she’d blown it by choosing to run off with Bert Cousins, so no one should be blaming Caroline for how her life was turning out. It was old news. By the point at which they’d come to this particular fight they’d been living in Virginia for longer than either girl had lived in Los Angeles, but the story of her alternative existence was Caroline’s trump card and she brought it out for every occasion. Franny remembered the time the three of them were in the car coming home from school, she and Caroline both in the plaid uniform skirts and white perma-press blouses of Sacred Heart. She couldn’t remember what Caroline had done that had started the fight, or why this fight seemed more serious than the others. But something that was said had made their mother tell them about Lomer.
“That’s right,” her father said to her. “He was shot at the Gulf station on Olympic.”
Franny leaned over in her chair and put her hand on her father’s forehead. His hair, which had been gray for as long as she could remember, had grown back a luminous white brush after the last round of chemo. Everyone talked about her father’s hair. She swept it back with her palm. “I really want to know what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice low even though no one was listening. No one in that room was thinking about them at all.
Fix, who had never been big on sharing, suddenly wanted to explain it to her. He wanted Franny to understand. “The house was so small we knew it wasn’t going to take any time to find them. There were three doors off the hall—two bedrooms, one bathroom. These places were all put together the same way. They were in the first bedroom. It was a father, a mother, four kids. They were on the bed together in the dark. We flicked on the overhead lights and there they were, all sitting up straight, even the littlest one. It was the father who’d been beaten. That’s not one you see a lot. Usually it’s the woman who’s taken the hit but this guy looked like someone had just scraped him up off the freeway, his lip had sliced open on his teeth, one of his eyes was already shut, his nose was everywhere. I can see his face as clear as I see you. It’s crazy how much of that house and those people I remember—their feet were bare, and all of them had their feet up on the bed. We started asking them questions and we got nothing, no response at all. The father was looking at me with his one eye and I was wondering how he was even upright. There was blood on his neck that was coming out of both of his ears. I would have thought the beating had popped his eardrums if it weren’t for the fact that no one on that bed seemed like they heard us. Lomer radioed in for an ambulance and backup. I kept talking to them and finally the oldest girl, maybe she was ten, tells me they don’t speak English. The mother and father don’t speak English but the kids do. There were three girls and a boy. The boy was maybe seven or eight. I said, ‘The person who did this, where did he go?’ And then they all turned mute again, the girl was staring straight ahead just like her parents until the little one, who was five or something like that, not so much bigger than Caroline was then, looked at the closet plain as day. She didn’t turn her head but she was very clear. The guy was in the closet. The older girl grabbed her wrist and squeezed the hell out of it but Lomer and I turned around and Lomer opened the closet door, and there he was, smashed into the clothes. It was a small closet, the kind people used to have, and everything they’ve got in the world was in there, including this guy. He understood the situation. He wasn’t going to make it past us. He had blood on his shirt and his hand was cracked up from beating the poor son of a bitch on the bed. I don’t think he spoke any more English than the one he’d come over to bust up. He’d stuck his gun in the pocket of a dress in the closet. Maybe he figured nobody would find it and he could come back and pick it up later. Right about that time the backup came in and then the ambulance. There were no Miranda rights back then, no calling in a guy who spoke Spanish. The family on the bed, they’re all shaking now and the kids were crying, like it was fine when he was in the closet and they didn’t have to look at him but now that he’s standing in the bedroom again they were all stirred up. His name was Mercado. We found that out later. He had a regular job beating Mexicans who’d borrowed money to be smuggled into the country and hadn’t made enough yet to pay off the debt. Nobody who had any money or any way to get their hands on money screwed these guys over. They beat people in front of their families, in front of their neighbors. That was the wake-up call, and if the money still didn’t come a week or two later they’d swing by and shoot you in the head. Everybody knew it.”
“You’re awake!” Patsy said, making Franny jump. Patsy took down the smallest bag, the antiemetic, which was already empty. The others still had a way to go. “Did you get some rest?”
“I got some rest,” Fix said, but he looked exhausted, whether from the chemo or the story or both. Franny wondered if Patsy didn’t see it but then maybe he didn’t look so different from anyone else in the room.
Patsy yawned at the mention of sleep, covered her mouth with a small gloved hand. “One day I’m just gonna stretch out in one of those chairs. I’m gonna pull the blanket up over my head and go to sleep. People do that, you know, the light bothers their eyes. Who’ll know that it’s me under a blanket?”
“I wouldn’t tell,” Fix said and shut his eyes.
“Are you thirsty?” Patsy patted the blanket on top of his knee. “I could get you some water, or there’s soda if you want it. Do you want a Coke?”
Franny was just about to tell her they were fine but Fix nodded. “Water. Water would be good.”
Patsy looked at her. “You?”
Franny shook her head.
Patsy went off to get his water and Fix waited, opening his eyes so that he could watch her go.