The inside door opened slowly and seven Salvadoran children, most of them in T-shirts and shorts, emerged onto the porch with their hands on their heads. They ranged in age from about four to thirteen. Three of the youngest were crying and the older ones were plenty scared. The one who looked about thirteen had his hair buzzed down to the scalp and was already wearing wannabe gang rags: a plaid flannel shirt and a baggy pair of denim shorts that extended well below the knees and were hanging halfway off his butt. He was apparently trying to connect as a junior with one of the gangs in the area, possibly the Salvadoran’s Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS-13, the largest gang in the world.
“What happened in there?” Flotsam asked him.
“My big brother got shot,” said the boy in good English.
“Who shot him?” Jetsam asked, his shotgun held at a ready angle across his chest.
“I don’t wanna say,” the boy said.
“Where is he?” Flotsam asked.
“He ain’t here,” the boy said. “He got in his car and went to the hospital.”
“Where was he hit?” Flotsam asked, figuring it was probably a gang drive-by.
“Here,” the boy said, taking a hand down and touching his left buttock.
“How old is he?” Flotsam asked.
“Eighteen,” said the kid. “Can I take my hands off my head now?”
Flotsam nodded and said, “Which hospital did he go to?”
“I dunno,” the kid said. “He was really mad and swearing and everything, so he didn’t wanna talk to nobody.”
“Is your mother home?” Flotsam asked.
“No, she’s at work.”
“Did one of you shoot him?” Jetsam asked.
“None of us kids,” the boy said.
“Then who shot him?” Jetsam asked.
This time the kid burst into tears and shook his head. “I can’t tell you,” he said, looking toward the bungalow.
“Is the shooter in the house?” Flotsam asked, elevating the muzzle of his pistol, ready for anything.
“Uh-huh,” the kid said, and now he really started bawling.
Hollywood Nate and Snuffy Salcedo, along with a second team from Watch 3, deployed near the front porch with their pistols drawn. Flotsam said to them, “The shooter’s inside.”
Then Flotsam and Jetsam quickly gestured for all of the kids to move from the porch and onto the tiny patch of grass that passed for a lawn. Flotsam nodded to his partner, who nodded back, and Jetsam entered the bungalow quickly with the stock of the shotgun tucked against his hip, followed by Flotsam.
Jetsam yelled, “Police officers! Step out of the bedroom with your hands on your head!”
No answer, but they could hear the television going.
Flotsam crouched, his pistol extended in both hands and moved out of the kill zone. He said, “Now, goddamnit! Come out now!”
Still no answer.
Jetsam advanced in a semicrouch. The gloom of twilight made it hard to see clearly into the darkened bedroom where the television was playing, but they could hear Spanish-speaking voices delivering their melodramatic lines with lots of intensity and plenty of volume. But that was all they heard.
“Come out!” Flotsam ordered again.
Jetsam, his back to the wall and still inching forward, craned his neck, and peering around the doorjamb, he found the shooter.
She was sitting where she always sat, on a lumpy Barcalounger with her legs up, intently watching an old TV that sat on top of a chest of drawers. The antenna wire ran from the TV set to the window, where presumably it led to a roof antenna.
A rusty old.32 caliber revolver was lying on a table beside her, next to a telephone.
Jetsam said, “Bro, get in here and check this out!”
Then he entered the tiny room, moving quickly to the table, and picked up the revolver, with Flotsam right behind him.
She hardly looked at them but seemed to concentrate harder on the program, where a shirtless man on a tropical beach at night was kissing a voluptuous woman who sighed and said, “¡Carlos, Carlos, mi amor!” He answered with, “¡Isabel, mi vida!”
“Dude,” Flotsam said. “She’s like, a hundred years old.”
As it turned out, he wasn’t far off. At first glance, she seemed mummified. The ancient Salvadoran woman was the color of mocha coffee with curdled cream. Her hair, what there was of it, was a patch of colorless frizz. Her milky eyes were sunken deep within their sockets, and her eyelids looked like crumpled tissue paper. Her crusty lips hung open, baring blackened gums and a few amber teeth. She wore a faded cotton dress large enough for two of her, and fuzzy Donald Duck bedroom slippers. Her bare arms and legs were brittle sticks, and her crinkling flesh was parchment-dry and looked too delicate to withstand the slightest human touch.
Jetsam said, “Bro, what we got here is the über oldster of Hollywood.”
“¿Inglés?” Flotsam said to her. “¿Habla Inglés?”
The old woman glanced at him with her milky eyes and shook her head and went back to watching television.
“Get Snuffy in here,” Jetsam yelled to the cops now milling around on the front porch.
After a moment Snuffy Salcedo entered the bedroom, looked at the woman, and said to the surfer cops, “Are you kidding me?”
Then he squatted beside the Barcalounger and talked to her. She answered softly in a surprisingly strong voice but never took her eyes off the television program while Snuffy delivered a series of questions.
After she gave a few short answers to him, Snuffy said to Flotsam and Jetsam and Hollywood Nate, “Her name’s Irma Beltrán. She’s the great-grandmother of the kids, and she thinks she’s either ninety-eight or ninety-nine years old, she can’t remember which. But she’s having a big party here on her hundredth birthday and there’s gonna be pupusas and curtido and tres leches birthday cake. And we’re all invited.”
Flotsam and Jetsam looked at each other, and Jetsam said to Snuffy, “Ask her who shot the kid.”
“I already did.”
“Don’t keep us in suspense, dude,” Flotsam said.
“She shot him,” Snuffy said.
“Maybe she’s covering for somebody,” Jetsam said hopefully. “Maybe for the kids’ father?”
“She’s very definite,” Snuffy said. “She shot him.”
“Ask her if it was an accident,” Flotsam said. “I’ll bet it was an accident.”
Snuffy spoke to her again and listened to her answer and said, “Nope. She said she shot him on purpose.” Then, enjoying the surfer cops’ discomfort, Snuffy said, “Want me to read her the Miranda rights? A felony bust will look good on your recap.”
Ignoring the wisecrack, Jetsam said, “Ask her why she shot him.”
“I already did,” said Snuffy. “She shot him because he wouldn’t stop talking on the phone when she’s trying to watch her favorite novela.”
After a moment of deliberation, Flotsam said, “So what’re we gonna do with her?”
“This is one shooter I ain’t handcuffing,” Jetsam said. “You touch her and she might crumble into pieces. Maybe into powder. You’ll need a dustpan to pick her up. Maybe we better call a supervisor.”
“Aw, shit!” Flotsam said. “Ask her if maybe she was just sorta trying to scare him away from her telephone and cranked one off sorta in his general direction, and it sorta accidentally nailed him in the ass.”
Snuffy Salcedo spoke to her again and listened to her answer, and then turned to the other cops and said, “She says she always hits what she aims at. And would the big policeman please move away from the television set because she thinks Carlos is very handsome and this is a really good part.”
Flotsam stepped aside so Irma Beltrán could see what Carlos was going to do now that he had Isabel lying helpless on the sand in a swoon from his blazing kisses. Isabel’s right breast was partially exposed now and that even got Jetsam engrossed in the program.