Bridge of Shadows Page 4

  “Pray for all of us. Get out of here. Don’t let them see you.”

  As she heard the rumble of a gurney’s wheels approaching the door, she followed Gato’s insistent pull on her hand to take her home.

  Chapter 3

  October 26, 1996

  Dr. Ana Maria Ross Gutierrez

  Gato left her somewhere between El Tony’s and La Clínica, where she didn’t know; he was with her and then gone. She walked the rest of the way alone, with the ambulance’s strobing lights marking her path for her, and through the bright windows of the clinic saw Rafael pacing. He looked like he’d had lots of practice.

  “Ana!” He frowned when he saw her enter, blanched when he saw the blood soaking her pants. She held out a hand to stop him from rushing at her, dropped into a convenient soft chair that creaked only a little, and closed her eyes.

  “It’s not mine,” she assured him. “I’m tired. What time is it?”

  “Three a.m. Listen, Ana, we should close. You need rest.”

  No question he was right. She was a habitually bad sleeper; the last three or four nights had been impossible. She might have squeezed in ten hours for four days if she was lucky, but she figured the total for far less. Rafael’s suggestion made her think of scented candles and warm bubble baths, of deep and dreamless sleep.

  “I have to go to the hospital,” she said aloud. “Check on Rá—my patient. Thanks for holding down the fort. Any problems?”

  “Two cops came looking for you. X told them you were out delivering a baby. They liked that one.” Rafael had the smile of a mischievous kid. “I think they were looking for your testimony on some drug-related thing.”

  “Which one?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. Go on, I’ll restock and finish here.”

  “I—yes. Okay. I need to change.”

  Rafael nodded and started working. She felt a rush of affection for the boy, thought, Maybe I should marry him, and hauled herself wearily out of the chair and through the clinic to a door marked NO PASEN. She unlocked the door and stepped into a gloomy, narrow vestibule with green walls and peeling beige linoleum. There were fifteen steps to the second floor, though her legs insisted it was more like fifty; she flicked the switch at the top of the stairs and turned to the right.

  She was home.

  It might not have been a condo, but it was cheap; she stayed close to the clinic, was never late for work, and had few transportation expenses. The arrangement had become available as she’d moved out of Pete’s house in Dallas; it was supposed to have been temporary, but she liked it, liked the solitude and the security. The sparseness of the rooms suited her, too. She’d left the old-fashioned hardwood floor bare and gleaming, softening the stark emptiness with thick, colorful Mexican rugs next to the couch. Comfortable, unthreatening furniture.

  As she passed the plump-pillowed couch, she picked up the remote control and clicked on the television, set perpetually to Univision. She liked to hear voices, especially late; many times she left it on all night while she slept.

  From the next room her brother yelled her name. Not now, she groaned inside; she wanted to lie down, prop up her aching legs, sink into the cushions as if they were a lover’s arms.

  But she never ignored Gabe when he called her. She supposed that was unhealthy.

  “Aquí,” she said, and went toward his door.

  Her brother Gabriel sat at his usual post, in front of a bank of cheap black-and-white monitors. He was a small man, but his wheelchair made up in presence what he lacked in bulk; it was a low racing model, with angled wheels, the canvas back and seat a bright tie-dyed yellow and orange.

  “So you didn’t die,” he said bluntly, and looked over his shoulder at her. He must have been able to tell how much blood there was on her clothes from the monitors, because he didn’t even blink at the sight of it. “This time. Don’t do that again.”

  “What, save a life?”

  “Leave the clinic. You know the rules, Ana. Let them come to you. One of these days you’ll get hurt pulling that shit.”

  He was rocking his chair back and forth, an unconscious motion like other people tapped their feet.

  “Papa Gabe,” she said with a sigh. “I’m going to get cleaned up and go to the hospital, I’d like to find out what happens to him.”

  “He who?” Gabe asked, and spun his chair to face her. It was still a shock for her to see the whole of him, the strong, muscular body and the legs that ended in round stumps at mid-thigh. It had been only three years since she’d gotten the call—Your brother’s been in an accident, it’s bad. Only three years to get used to seeing the shadow in his eyes, the anger that flared unexpectedly from that gentle smile.

  “Nobody you know,” she lied. Gabriel was only two years younger than she, and they’d fought their way through the same high school; he’d remember Rámon Cruz, and not favorably. Gabe was that rarest of, birds, a Chicano bom of ghetto poverty who’d become completely conservative. He didn’t blame the Anglos for his problems, not even the drunk Anglo who’d crossed the median on the freeway to smash head-on into Gabriel’s car. It was, Gabe always said, God’s way of telling him to get off his ass.

  But that was proving more difficult than it seemed. There wasn’t a lot of market for disabled football players, or even disabled football coaches. He’d been working for Ana at the clinic for nearly a year now, watching the monitors, waiting for trouble to summon the police. Boring work, but steady.

  She wondered sometimes if he hated her for it

  “You’re bullshitting me,” Gabe said. “Oh, by the way, Mama called today. She wanted to make sure you were coming for lunch tomorrow. I told her yes.”

  “Yes? Gabe, no—”

  “Yes. Tomorrow, mass and then lunch. You can do this, Ana. Mama expects it. Oh, and Tía Yvonne, too. She’s coming, too.”

  “Great. Who else?” Ana could already picture the chaos that it would turn into—her aunt Yvonne would bring her three uncontrollable children, she’d be expected to coo over them, and Mom would lecture her again about finding some nice chicano boy and having babies.

  “Just Sister Teresa.” Gabe grinned at her expression. “Oh, come on, she’s not as bad as all that.”

  “She’s a nun,” she said. “I can’t stand nuns.”

  As she left the room, she heard Gabe say, just loud enough to hear, “Why? You practically are one.”

  In the bathroom, she stripped off her bloody clothes and put them in a cold-water soak, threw herself into a brisk hot shower, and let her muscles go peacefully limp for ten minutes before she forced herself to move on. As she was toweling her short dark hair, she wondered if Rámon had really been serious about Aztlan. She’d heard others talk about it, of course, some starry-eyed MEChA students and some ineffectual dreamers, but nobody who’d actually be likely to do anything about it. Take over Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, California? Turn them into models of a long-vanished Aztec homeland? It sounded like science fiction to her, but there was no denying the sincerity in Rámon’s eyes. Or in a lot of other people’s when they spoke of it to her. Fanatical dreamers were the most terrifying people in the world.

  There was something to be said for throwing the Anglos out, though. No more politicians promising help to immigrants with one hand and shooting them down like dogs with the other. No more la migra to protect Anglo fortunes. No more of one percent of the El Paso population—the wealthy white one percent—dictating the culture of the city.

  And no more Pete Ross.

  As if she’d conjured him up, she remembered his body, his skin a rich pale cream, and the taste of him came back with shocking suddenness. She didn’t still love the man. She couldn’t. It was just that her brother was right; two years without sex wasn’t good for anyone.

  It was shameful. It was wrong. She knew Rafael liked her, knew even Rámon wouldn’t turn her away, but there was really only one man she wanted.

  And she wouldn’t let herself have him.

  Scrubbed, fresh, clear-eyed, she said good night to Gabriel and took the freight elevator down to street level, where her car was parked. It was a rattletrap of a Pinto plagued with oil leaks and balding tires, but it was her own, and she didn’t really need anything more. Her money, what little she made, went back into the operation of La Clínica. She unlocked the car door and got in, started it up with a roar and a puff of white smoke that rose majestically into the clear desert air like a loose balloon. Rafael was still inside the building, and she waved to him as she drove past the front door.

  One of these days she’d ask him upstairs. Maybe. She wanted to do it tonight, just to forget her ex-husband, but she couldn’t ask him to stay and she had to go see Rámon. Some other night, she promised herself. Oh, sure.

  Fate being what it was, she knew it would never happen.

  Nothing that good ever happened to her.

  The emergency room at Columbia East was having a normal Saturday night, too; Ana stepped out of the way of a speeding gurney propelled by white-coated interns and nurses, a resident shouting orders alongside. A drunk bumped into her from behind and mumbled a confused apology as he sank down the wall and went to sleep. In the far corner of the utilitarian room someone vomited; a harassed nurse grabbed a mop and shoved it at an intern.

  She remembered being that intern, mopping up vomit and far less lovely substances late at night. She remembered gunshot wounds, the shredding effects of head-on-collisions, bad back-street abortions. Not so many of those these days, in more liberal times, but there were still a few old women with their potions and hooked knives. Good Catholic girls didn’t show their faces at abortion clinics; at least one of the church groups took photos of everyone who went in or out of the doors. Some of them still considered it safer t
o trust a wrinkled old bruja with a coat hanger than their own families.

  That brought back memories, too many of them. She swallowed and put her mind on something else. As she turned toward the crowd at the nurses station, she caught sight of the man she knew as Miguel standing against the far wall, his hat tipped down low over his eyes, his hands hanging limply at his sides.

  After a second he pushed away and came toward her.

  “Walk with me, Doctor“he said. “Just a friendly walk.”

  “I’m fine here.” She didn’t like the look in his eyes. “How’s he doing?”

  “They tell us nothing. You can find out for us.”

  “I—” Whatever excuse she’d been about to make vanished as he took hold of her arm; his fingers were brutally strong, and she knew she’d never be able to break that grip if it ever locked around her neck. “Of course.”

  Miguel nodded, satisfied. The cruel pressure on her arm eased.

  “His name is Luis Villarreal.”

  They’d have given a false name for him; everyone recognized the name of Rámon Cruz, especially the police. Before she could ask anything else, Miguel turned and went back to his post against the wall. Scattered around the room she spotted other men she thought might have been at El Tony’s. She got the cold feeling that they had arranged themselves that way, with the milling patients and families in the cross fire, for a reason.

  If it came to that, would any of them shoot?

  We’re going to war, Rámon had said. He’d meant it.

  She swallowed hard again and went in search of someone on staff willing to do her a favor.

  She found that favor in the frantically energetic person of her best friend from high school, Maria Flores. One or two quick words, and Maria understood the situation—Ana did not have privileges at Columbia East, at least not currently, due to some bad blood with the chief administrator, and to be caught poking around patients was strictly forbidden.

  But not for Maria, who was always eager to break the rules.

  “He was half a dead man,“Maria said, hiding her mouth behind a cup of hot coffee. Her eyes darted around, searching for listeners; she made Ana nervous just standing next to her. “They say his name is Luis, but I remember the face.”

  “But they don’t know who he is?”

  “God forbid!” Maria took a sip of coffee, made a face, and drank again. “I used to hate coffee, you know, but you got to drink something around here. I remember him from high school, you know. I did him, remember? I think I told you about it later. We were in his car, that cherry red Chevy with the hydraulics—”

  Maria had been one of the school’s wild kids, like Ana herself—they’d both dressed in traditional cholla style, oversized men’s suIt’s and slicked-back hair, watch chains hanging to their knees. Nobody messed with them, because they were crazy.

  Maria had been the first one in school Ana knew to attempt suicide with pills. Hard to believe she was a registered nurse these days, straightened out and married with three children. But old habIt’s died hard. Like not ratting on your brothers. Like Rámon Cruz, who seemed to stir up old loyalties just with a glance.

  “You won’t say anything?” Ana ventured.

  “No.” Maria eyed her narrowly. “You neither, chica.”

  “You know it. I don’t forget the rules,” The conversation could have been twenty years old, straight out of the high school locker room. “He’s my brother, I don’t screw him over.”

  “Once a cholla, always a cholla. Stay here. I’ll find out the news.” Maria dumped her coffee out in the water fountain next to them, handed Ana the empty cup, and walked down the wide green-walled corridor. Ana turned the styrofoam in her fingers, staring at the pale brown drops that chased inside, and wondered how long it would take to get home and get some rest. Hours probably.

  She felt the heat of someone’s stare and looked up, startled.

  At first she didn’t see anyone she recognized, and then he snapped into focus: Pete Ross. He was thinner than she remembered. He stood next to the elevators, frozen in the act of adjusting his dark blue jacket—tall, lean, just a trace of gray frosting the light brown hair. He’d been too long without á haircut, as usual, and his white shirt looked rumpled and as tired as his face.

  Just visible under his jacket, the leather of a shoulder holster. She looked from that to his warm brown eyes, and turned away from his smile.

  He didn’t have the sense to leave her alone, of course. She stared fixedly at the doors where Maria had disappeared, willing her to come back. Too late.

  “Ana?” Just her name, spoken very softly. She didn’t look at him.

  “Peter.”

  It took him a second to overcome the coldness of her reply. “Good to see you, too.”

  “Why?” She allowed herself to look at him, now that she was certain she would present the right impression. “You think I want to see you?”

  She meant all of the levels of meaning, and he got every one. Not a slow man, Pete Ross. Not at all weak, either. It took a great deal of courage to continue to ask for this kind of rejection. For God’s sake, Pete, go away. Don’t make me keep hurting you.

  “Visiting a friend?” he asked mildly. She turned her face away.

  “Checking on a patient. I suppose you’d better get out there and drag a pregnant woman back across the border by her hair.”

  She had several seconds of silence to think about the cruelty of what she’d said. That hesitation was very much Pete’s style; it was impossible to have a good argument with the man when he considered everything you said. It gave him the appearance of—she hated to admit it—depth.

  Not just the appearance, Ana. She stomped the traitorous little voice down, hard.

  “Look, let me start over.” He moved so that he was back in her sight line again. Wrinkles at the corners of his eyes that she didn’t remember being there. Had it been that long? Was four years time enough for everything to change, or was it just that her memory was faulty? “I’ve needed to talk to you—”

  “I got your messages,” she interrupted. “We have nothing to talk about, don’t you understand that? Now please go.”

  “Ana—”

  She focused on him and shouted, “Leave me alone! Do you understand that, chingalo?”

  That had always been her secret weapon; Pete, like most Anglos, hated to cause a scene. Her raised voice attracted the attention of everyone in the hallway—patients, doctors/nurses, even a passing uniformed cop. She saw what she wanted to see—shock in Pete’s eyes, then an electric snap of anger, quickly banked. He stepped back. Inclined his head stiffly to give her the point.

  “Cheap shot, Ana,” he said. “But that’s always been your style. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  He turned away. She had a wild, weird impulse to grab him and make him come back so she could shout at him again, see the anger in his eyes. Ay, she thought, dismayed. Am I that bad? All I want is somebody to hate me?

  She wanted somebody to care. Hate was a kind of caring, wasn’t it?

  “Ay, is that him?”

  She’d forgotten to watch for Maria’s return; the other woman stood at her shoulder, staring at Pete’s retreating back. Both hands gripped her stethoscope.

  “Yes,” Ana sighed. “That’s him, the pig.”

  Maria nodded slowly, examining him with care until he turned the corner and vanished from sight. “He’s kinda cute,” she said, and reclaimed her cup from Ana’s tense fingers. “I’ll take you to see Rámon.”

  “No.” Ana felt a chill all of a sudden, a warning that made her heart beat faster. “Pete’s la migra, he wouldn’t be here for nothing. I don’t want to raise suspicions. You’re sure Rámon’s going to be all right?”

  “So they say.”

  Ana reached into her purse, tore off a piece of paper from a pad, and wrote her private phone number on it, no name. She handed it to Maria, who tucked it into her coat pocket.

  “Give him that. Tell him whatever he needs, call me.

  Maria raised one carefully plucked eyebrow. “Amiga, that’s a dangerous thing to do. You never know with someone like that. You get yourself involved, you could get hurt.”

  At least that would be something, she thought, and said, “Maybe it’s time I got hurt.”