Page 81 of The Slayer
“Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll figure it out.”
“How are you going to figure it out?”
“I have no idea,” Chuito admitted out loud to himself as well as to Marcos. “Give me a week. I have to deal with my agent. He’s driving me crazy about the pending UFC contract.”
“What if we don’t have a week?” Marcos asked him. “What if he steals more of my kids?”
“How many kids do you have?”
“I got nine at the shop. Most of mine have ink. Omar and Carlos were the only ones who didn’t, but Katie’s got three tutoring groups a week and most of them aren’t affiliated.”
“How many does Katie have?”
“Maybe fourteen or fifteen.”
“Mierda,” he whispered in disbelief, because that was a lot of teenagers. “On top of your nine?”
“Two are crossovers. They’re still in school, so they work with Katie when they aren’t helping me at the shop. And Omar was coming over to the house on Tuesdays, but now he’s fucking gone. I told Chu Jr. tonight to give him some herbal tea. Help ease the pain a little. He said Omar was bad off. You know Angel doesn’t fucking think of that shit. He doesn’t care about them.”
Chuito rubbed a hand over his face, because that was Victor’s version of first aid. Herbal tea was their internal code for bud. A little bud cured just about anything, according to Victor, and it was the only thing Chuito knew for a long time. Apparently it was the only thing Marcos knew too. He had never seen the other side like Chuito had, but theydidhave drugstores in Miami that sold things like Tylenol and Motrin in them. It might not get the job done like bud did, but it wasn’t a gateway drug either.
Chuito was 1,000 percent certain Katie hadn’t heard Marcos suggest marijuana to a fourteen-year-old.
“Youarestarting a gang,” Chuito observed, deciding like Marcos probably had that if the worst a kid who jumped into a gang did was smoke a little bud, then it’d be a miracle. “You’re acting just like Victor. He used to call us his kids too.”
“Motherfucker,” Marcos started in warning. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m serious,” Chuito pointed out. “You got a bunch of teenagers working for you. Loyal to you. Spying for you. This is sounding suspiciously like a gang.”
“I didn’t ask them to spy.” Marcos sounded slightly abashed. “Not really. They talk. I listen.”
“Now listen to me,” Chuito said slowly. “I don’t know how you and Katie are finding that many Boricua teenagers. There cannot be that many potential gang members in Katie’s classes at the high school.”
“They aren’t all Boricuas.”
“Coño.” Chuito groaned, because that meant Marcos was pissing off other gangs too. If he was rescuing Cubans, forget about it. The playing field in Miami was endless. “Are you stealing from the Bloods? Please tell me you aren’t doing that.”
“Anyone who wants to work can learn. I don’t care if they’re Latin Bloods. I’m over that. It’s not their fault Juan died. They were babies when it happened,” Marcos explained simply. “If they need Katie’s help, she gives it too. We’re trying to help them do something real with their lives. If they want to go to college, I want them to do that. Juan didn’t get it. I want them to have it.”
“Any kids with ink can’t come back to the shop,” Chuito said in the hard, firm voice of a crew leader. “They can’t come to the house either.”
“Suck my dick!” Marcos cursed, and then added, “Suck it hard, cabrón. I’m not abandoning them. Not for you.Not for anyone.”
“Marcos!” Chuito shouted back. “The ones with ink are spoken for. Youcan’thave them. Let them go. They shouldn’t have jumped in if they couldn’t handle it.”
It was harsh, but in their world, teenagers weren’t like the teenagers in Garnet. They were born with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Chuito didn’t make the system; he just learned how to survive in it.
“No,” Marcos said firmly, sounding unrelenting. “If these kids want out, I’m giving them an out. Angel or the Bloods or whoever wants them, they’ll have to kill me first. Good luck with that. I’ve taken care of plenty of Bloods in my time.”
“What about Katie?” Chuito asked him. “You don’t think Angel would come after her to hurt you?”
“She cares about these kids too,” Marcos said, before he added, “Besides, she promised me she’d go back to Garnet if something started to go down, and she’ll take tía with her.”
Chuito stared out the window to the trees behind the office. The few leaves left were withered and brown. It happened every year, but Chuito never got over the novelty of it. Every year, the leaves changed in Garnet right on schedule. They did the same thing until, for some cruel reason, life took them out. It was what nature programmed them to do.
Just like Marcos.
Even if his leaves changed, he was still a fucking gangster. He needed a war to fight. Something bigger than himself to bleed for.
