“Millions,” she said.
“Not millions,” I told her. “Listen to me, Luz. Not millions. It isn’t millions. Carlos is getting a couple hundred, and Arturo is getting some, and Mamá and Papá are getting some, and that’s all. The rest of the family isn’t getting anything.”
“Millions,” she said, blinking at me.
“No,” I said.
She looked at me, and I didn’t say anything else, and gradually I could see it sink in, until finally she said, “You not gonna share with the family?”
“Not a penny,” I said. “Not a siapa.”
“But they helpin’ you!” she exclaimed, and sat up straighter on the sofa, aiming her breasts at me.
I said, “No, they’re not. Carlos is helping, and Arturo is helping. What are the rest of those people doing?”
“They come to the funeral!”
I sat back and stared at her. “They came to the funeral, so I’m supposed to give them millions of dollars?”
“Everybody knows it,” she said. “The whole family knows it.”
“From you.”
“I tol’ a couple people, Barry, I’m sorry—”
“Felicio.”
“—I was wrong, but I tol’ a couple people, and they tol’ everybody else. Just in the family, Barry, I swear.”
“Felicio.”
“But this is what happen,” she said. “So Manfredo and Luis and the other Luis with the bad arm and José and Pedro and poco Pedro, they come to me and say, Where is he? and I say, At Carlos’s house, and they say, Luz, you can get a man to do things, get him to come out of Carlos’s house — see, they don’t want trouble with Carlos, they’re much afraid of Carlos — and I say, Why? and they say, If we gonna get millions if he’s dead how come he’s alive? and I say, You can’t mean you gonna kill him, and they say, Why not? He’s dead already; we went to the funeral.”
“Luz,” I said, “that’s completely wrong. Nobody’s going to get millions, and they aren’t going to get anything.”
“Not if the insurance find out you alive.”
“Not at all.”
“If it just Lola,” she pointed out, “they can tell her, You gotta give us the money. Some for everybody.”
I sat back and thought about that. I’m truly dead, and these lowlifes from the least-civilized branch of the family lean on Lola. Or if Lola isn’t around they lean on Mamá and Papá. And they’ll never believe there isn’t millions. Money from America. That’s what everybody wants, and this is how they’ll get it.
So now what? Here’s Luz, fidgeting, saying she’s sorry, falling out of her dress — already I know for sure she isn’t wearing underwear — and telling me I’ve got in-laws that plan to kill me for the insurance money.
I’m killing me for the insurance money! There’s no room in this scheme for freeloaders. I said, “So you’re here because you’re supposed to talk me into going outside, so they can kill me.”
“No, no, not now,” she said. “Barry, I come to—”
“Felicio, Luz, please.”
“Whoever,” she said. “Who ever. I come to warn you. What they plan they gonna do, tomorrow a couple of them, they go talk with Carlos at his place, make sure he stay there, and that’s when I come get you take me out for a beer. Then they do it. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
“They need to get trucks and guns and things,” she explained. “Shovels.”
“Shovels.”
“So they not ready today, but they gonna be ready tomorrow. So I come now, to warn you.”
“So I shouldn’t go out,” I said. “That’s easy.”
“Not that easy, Barry. Whoever! Not that easy. If you don’ come out, they gonna come in.”
“I thought they were afraid of Carlos.”
“But they want the money. So if you don’ come out, they come in by the river.”
“There’s razor wire out there,” I told her. “They can’t get in.”
“They know about the stuff in the water,” she said. “They gonna steal a boat, run it onto the ground, right over that cuttin’ stuff. Come in that way, it look like robbers. Kill you, kill Esilda, steal some stuff, Carlos never gonna know it was them.”
“Carlos will know,” I told her.
She shook her head. A nipple flashed and retired. “They think Carlos not gonna know. They think they smart, Ba — you.”
“Felicio.”
“Felicio.”
“Thank you,” I said. “They aren’t smart, Luz, they’re stupid.”
“Very stupid,” she agreed. “But they don’ know that. They think they smart.”
“Shit,” I commented.
What was I going to do? If I stayed here, they’d come after me. But where else could I go? The only other people I knew in all Guerrera were Arturo and Mamá and Papá, and if I went to them the cousins would find me right away. I don’t sound like a Guerreran, I don’t have any money, I don’t know anybody, where can I go? What can I do?
Is Luz telling the truth? I thought about that, and I believed she was. She wasn’t an actress, Luz, she was very up front; she let it all hang out in more ways than one. She was truly agitated and truly remorseful, and she was certainly enough of a bigmouth to have told everybody in Guerrera that Barry Lee wasn’t really dead, Barry Lee was making believe he was dead so he could get millions from the insurance company and share it with the entire Tobón family, that good old Barry Lee. What a great guy Barry Lee is. Let’s kill him.
I said, “What if I tell Carlos? Couldn’t he stop—”
But she was already shaking her head. “Carlos ain’ gonna stop them,” she said.
“Why not? He’s too smart to believe in all that money.”
“Millions,” she said.
“Luz, it isn’t millions,” I insisted, “and Carlos knows that. If I tell him what’s going on, he could talk to—”
“He ain’ gonna do it,” she said.
“Why not?”
“On accounta Maria.”
I looked at her. She gave me a very significant nod. Her legs moved. I looked firmly into her eyes. I said, “I’m not doing anything with Maria.”
“That don’ matter,” she said.
“You mean, he thinks I’m doing something?”
“He don’ know,” she said. “He don’ wanna know. He don’ ever wanna know what Maria do or don’ do or nothing. He woulda thrown you out already, but she want you here. So if somebody come take you away and kill you, that not Carlos’s fault. Not if he don’ know about it. But you outa the house, and that’s okay by him.”
“Maria,” I said. “Maria could—”
“Gone on a trip,” she pointed out. “Anyway, the cousins don’ listen to Maria.”
“Arturo,” I said.
“If Artie talk to the cousins,” she said, “they gonna think he want all the millions for himself.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “What the hell am I gonna do?”
“I’ll hide you,” she told me, and moved all of her parts and bounced this way and that. “It’s all my fault, Ba — Felicio.”
“Luz—”
“I gotta help you, Felicio,” she said, “because it’s all my fault, I opened my big mouth. I do that all the time.”
“Right,” I said. “Who told you about me anyway? Did Arturo tell you?”
She looked indignant, shoulders back, chest out. “What do you think?” she demanded. “I’m stupid, just ’cause I like to fuck?”
“No, no, I—”
“I figured it out,” she said. “Artie say all this silly stuff, you can’ talk and hear ’cause you got the curse and all that, I know what’s goin’ on.”
“Okay,” I said.
“But now what we gotta do,” she told me, “we gotta hide you. You come to my place in Napalma, we—”