Taming Cross

I almost believe him, but I know instinctively there’s more. My father is an excellent liar, but I can see his nostrils flaring; that’s his tell.

“Mom deserves better than that shit.” I stare at him for a moment, at his regal features. He is handsome. This is the face of a governor, and looking at him that way—as the son of a bitch politician I know he really is—I can’t even summon disappointment over what an awful father he is.

I’m turning to go when suddenly I remember an important question. I’m panting as I turn back around, but I take deep breaths and try to take advantage of the way my mind zones out when the pain gets this bad. When I speak, I sound almost normal. “What did she look like? Mis— Meredith Kinsey.”

I’m surprised when he opens a mahogany cabinet and scoops up something, holding it out in his closed palm like a butterfly. It’s a picture—wallet-sized. It looks like a mug shot, the kind TV reporters use. It’s worn. He snatches it back and uses a Ray Bans sunglasses cloth to wipe it of his fingerprints before handing it to me.

His face is stern. “Keep this to yourself, Cross. And don’t ask me for anything else—ever.”

“Whatever,” I mutter as I walk out.

I make it down the front porch steps and to my bike before the pain is bad enough to bring me to my knees. Sometime later—minutes? hours?—I feel a gentle hand on my back and look up, praying for Renault. Instead it’s a Southeast Asian man with kind eyes wearing a butler’s suit.

“Can I help you, Sir?”

I take the hand he offers and use all my willpower to get back to my feet. I grab onto my bike’s seat. “Where’s Renault?”

“Renault DeFritsch?” The man’s eyes widen. “He died four months ago.”

That’s the last thing I remember clearly before waking up on my bed a day and a half later. I lie here for a moment, breathing deeply, wondering if there’s anyone on this godforsaken planet more miserable than I am.

One name comes to mind: Meredith Kinsey.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Sisters don’t think the bombing was for me, but I know it was.

I know Jesus Cientos, and I know his tactics. The man is a pyromaniac. He has a love affair with hand grenades. He has half a warehouse filled with nothing but grenades, manufactured for the U.S. Military, smuggled into Mexico by Jesus’s soldiers. I’ve seen the explosions before, a few times. I’ve watched them from behind the bullet-proof windows of Jesus’s silver Escalade. I’ve watched them rip apart half a house, even seen the massive fireball from an exploding gas station.

Juan and Emanuel are the surprise. That Jesus would his nephews out so young. That they would agree to target me. I should know better, but my heart makes it hard to accept.

The explosion on the west side of St. Catherine’s killed a woman. Her name was Henrietta, and she was walking on the gravel path beside the clinic, toward the market on Flag Street to buy food for her twelve-year-old son.

I think about her, about Juan and Emanuel and Jesus, as I lie on my cot at night, in the wide, hot, high-beamed attic where I sleep beside Sister Mary Abalitta. The sounds of Sister Susan snoring, of Sister Daniella turning the pages of a paperback under the covers, of the box fans spinning in the two pushed-open windows…they ought to be familiar, soothing, but after what happened yesterday, nothing can soothe me. I clutch my rosary and pray to Mother Mary for strength. I should talk to Sister Mary Carolina again; she didn’t believe me the first time. She is too good to give me up, and I’m too afraid to leave the clinic.

I wonder, as the sun comes up, what Jesus will do to me if he gets his hands on me. It wouldn’t be sex—that much I know for sure—but it could easily be something worse. I hurt his pride and his reputation when I ran, and I guess it’s still hurting, even after almost nine months. That’s the only reason he would strike now. Here. At the one place in the state of Durango that all of the cartels have promised to protect.

I curl over on my side and listen to the thunder rumbling in the distance.

CHAPTER FIVE

I haven’t seen Suri since three nights ago, but Lizzy’s been here twice. The first time, I guess I was in my pain trance, the one I learned from Akemi, a Zen master in downtown Los Angeles, during my fight with Dilaudid. The second time was a few minutes ago. She left a note on the door and texted me the same thing: Cross, quit hiding from me. I want to talk.

I feel like an ass**le for not calling, but I know I won’t—not yet. I don’t want to talk about what happened the other night with Suri. I don’t want to talk about what happened with my parents, or about Renault. Don’t want to talk about Cross Hybrids or Hunter West or the wedding.

I have enough conscience to feel guilty for neglecting both my longtime friends. Suri deserves an in-person apology, and Lizzy deserves some face time. I just don’t know what to say to them. Suri, for all the reasons anyone would guess, and Lizzy because…fuck, I don’t know. She’s living in some wedding fairy land, while I’m in bike shop purgatory. It’s not that I’m not glad for her. I am. I’m glad she’s getting the happy ending she deserves. I just don’t feel like I have a lot to offer anyone right now, and besides that, it’s too much effort.

I wait around the house another twenty-four hours to see if I get another pain attack. Another neuralgia episode, as they’re really called. When nothing new happens and I don’t feel quite as tired, I get back on the Mach and ride over to the local library. I’m glad that I’m at least having an easier time of it today.

I used to have wireless internet at the shop, but I didn’t pay the bills while I was in rehab and since coming home, I haven’t felt like getting it turned on. What’s the point? I pretty much know I have a pile-up of work orders, people wanting custom jobs, and I also know I’m not open for business at the moment.

I feel a little tug of guilt as I get off the bike and stride up the stairs of the two-story brick building. It’s true, I miss working on bikes—and the money—but I can’t do it one-handed. Not without some help. And help would lead to pity.

I pay one dollar for a temporary library card and sit down at one of the black plastic computer desks on the back row. I pull my little photo out and put it on the table. I haven’t looked at it but once or twice, just for a second or two as I loaded and unloaded it from my pockets, but here under the fluorescent lights, something about her face strikes me, like a chime inside my chest. Missy King. Meredith Kinsey. The mistress. The whore.

Her smile looks genuine. It makes her green eyes tilt up at the edges. Her pinkish mouth looks innocently happy, slightly playful, and very familiar, as if she knows the photographer well; as if they’re friends. I scowl down at the image. This girl looks young. Eighteen at most. I wonder, not for the first time, if my father made up the name he gave me. This girl, with her prim white button-up blouse and straight white teeth, is probably the daughter of a California senator.