The Escape Diaries (28 page)

           
His
friend was a tall kid with grasshopper arms and legs, thick glasses, and a pony
hawk like a woodpecker crest. He was checking out my boobs with such
single-minded focus that I actually blushed. Eddie Arguello scowled at him and
said, “Rico—go get the pretty girl something to drink.”

           
Rico
shrugged and stalked off.

           
I
took a deep breath, crossed my fingers, and asked. “Are you by chance related
to a Luis?”

           
“Luis
Ruiz? My cuz. But don’t come around claiming you’re carrying his baby,
sweetheart, because he’s
muerto.
”

           
“When
did he die? What happened?”

Eddie patted the
tabletop and I hopped up beside him. “Why you want to know about Luis?”

“I have my
reasons.”

“No offense,
girl, but I don’t even know you, and I don’t think the Arguellos have a
light-skinned branch of the family. So why are you coming around asking about
my cuz?”

I racked my brain
for a convincing reason.
My teacher assigned a research paper on dead guys
named Luis? The guy lent me bus fare and I wanted to pay him back?

Instinct
belatedly kicked in. Eddie was street smart enough to be suspicious of nosy
strangers, but he was still a teenaged guy running on surging hormones. So I
turned my face up to the sun, arched my back, locked my hands behind my head,
and stretched. Let the sweatshirt do the talkin’.

The sweatshirt talked.
Eddie was definitely listenin’.

“I’m sorry,” I
said. “I guess you’re a little too young and emotional for this kind of thing.
Maybe that cute friend of yours would know something about Luis.”

“Who, Rico? That
dope don’t know
nada
about
nada.
And I’m a month older than

he is.”

“Still, I think
Rico is tough enough to handle—”

“
Rico,
tough?
’Scuse me while I laugh so hard I puke. He still sleeps with a teddy bear. You
think
I’m
not tough?”

I put my hand on
his arm. “Yeah, you’re tough, Eddie. And you’re cute. And you’re built like The
Rock. What do you press—two hundred? You’re smart too, refusing to talk
to me. I mean I could be anybody, right? An undercover cop or something. But
obviously it’s upsetting for you to talk about your cousin. I understand.” I
started to get up.

 
“Whoa—c’mon, not so fast. You
want to know about my cuz, I’ll tell you. I was just worried that
you
couldn’t handle it, ’cause the Luis stuff is kind of sick.”

I fluttered my
lashes. “I think I can take it. If you hold my hand.”
I was utter slime.
What next, getting preschoolers hooked on lollipops?

Looking pleased,
Eddie took my hand. “See, Luis kicked it about three—wait—almost
four years ago now. It was cruel, babes. They dumped his body down by the canal.
He was all carved up. Cigarette burns, other stuff you don’t want to know.”

           
 
Black spots swarmed in front of my eyes.
“Who’s
they
?”

           
“The
Posse probably.”

           
“That’s
a gang?”

           
“Yeah.
Or maybe the Cobras. Luis was mixed up in some serious shit.”

“Drugs?”

Eddie frowned.
“He swore he wasn’t. Not while he still lived with us anyhow. My mom is death
on drugs. Makes me pee on a stick every night before I go to bed. I’m the baby
of the family, stinking luck—the only one left at home for her to pick
on. I never touch even a aspirin, but she don’t trust me.”

He moved closer
and our thighs touched. I didn’t move away. “Sounds like your mom is way too
tough on you,” I said, operating on the theory that teenagers love hearing how
badly their parents treat them.

“Oh, man, you got
that right. Anyhow, Luis comes to live with us a few years ago. He’s illegal,
but he knows he’s safe with us. He’s like way old, almost thirty, but Mama
treats him like he’s my age. Be in by ten. No hangin’ with the bad ladies.”

           
 
He shook his packet of French fries at me
invitingly. I took one. Muffin suddenly lunged up out of the backpack like a
trout jumping to catch a fly. Startled, Eddie lost his grip on the bag and the
fries flew all over. Muffin began wolfing them down, a canine vacuum cleaner.
Eddie laughed and reached to pet Muffin.

           
“He
bites,” I warned.

           
“I
bite back,” Eddie said.

           
I
thought the fries might make Muffin sick and began scraping up the remnants.
“You said Luis was your cousin?” I prompted Eddie.

           
He
shrugged. “Some relation on my pop’s side. My parents are divorced, but you
still gotta take in family. So we give Luis the spare bedroom. What’s your
puppy’s name?”

           
I
hesitated, then chose something approximate-sounding. “Duffy.”

           
“Boy
or girl? You can’t tell with the furry ones, covers up their
cojones.
”

           
“He’s
a boy. You were saying, about Luis?” I prompted.

           
“Not
to speak ill of the dead, but Luis—I hated him on first sight. Skinny
little runt strutting around like his balls clanked. He said why he came to
Milwaukee was to kill this
gabancho
—bad man. Vengeance for
something that happened years ago. And after he kills him, he says he’ll be
famous and on TV and get to talk to Diane Sawyer. He’ll spill so much dirt on
the
gabancho
the guy’s name will be smeared for all time. At least I
think that’s what Luis said. Half the time I don’t know what he’s babbling
about. My Spanish ain’t too good and Luis’s English was fer shit.”

           
Eddie’s
pal Rico reappeared, holding a Sprite out to me, his gaze migrating from my
legs to hips to face. His eyes widened.

           
“Holy
crap! She’s—” His voice rose to a squeak. “Hey, you guys! She’s Mazie
Maguire! She’s here—the fugitive!”

For a big guy,
Eddie could move like lightning. He slapped his hand over Rico’s mouth. “Shut
your face!”

           
I
sprang off the table, poised to take off.

           
“You
are
her!” Eddie stared at me. “Whoa, Mazie, chill, okay? I won’t snitch
you out.” He clapped a hand over his heart. “I’m the president of your fan
club. You’re like, my hero!” He assumed a Rambo stance, arms cradling an
imaginary weapon. “You know when you took the prison warden hostage with your
AK-47 and led a mass escape from your cellblock? That was totally hard-core!”

“That’s
ridiculous! Where did you hear that?”

“It’s all over
the Internet.”

           
“Yeah,
and that bit where you took out three rent-a-cops and used a shoulder-mounted
rocket launcher to destroy a toilet factory,” Rico cut in, “that was like whoa,
you are totally the man!” He seized one of my wrists, turned it over and
planted a kiss on my pulse point. “I’d take a bullet for you, beautiful!”

           
“Half
the kids in this school would,” Eddie said.

           
“Yeah,
and the other half would sell her out for a quarter,” Rico said.

           
“
A
toda madre!
Fuckin’ awesome!” Eddie was grinning ear to ear.

           
“Uh-oh,”
Rico pointed toward the cafeteria. Through the windows we could see a tall
woman talking to one of the lunch ladies. The woman wore a pinstriped suit and
possessed the
I-do-not-take-crap
air of a crack administrator. “It’s the
principal,” Rico whispered. “Man, she’s got a bug up her ass about something.”

           
The
security guard with the mustache was at the principal’s elbow. Bear’s Janitors
slunk behind him, scrutinizing the cafeteria and exuding a kind of Secret
Service aura. I watched to see if they were going to talk into their lapels. In
a few seconds they’d shift their focus to the courtyard, and my flimsy
schoolgirl disguise was not going to survive their X-ray vision. Kim Jong was
already turning, walking toward the door leading to the courtyard.

           
“Who’re
the whack jobs?” whispered Rico. “They after you, Mazie?” Suddenly he was
darting back into the building. Planning to finger me for the reward, I
thought, snatching up Muffin, stuffing him in my backpack, and wheeling to run.
Eddie grabbed my arm.
         

“Just walk,” he
whispered. “Those guys didn’t see you yet. Put your arm around me. You’re my
hyna,
my squeeze.” His hand drifted south, cupping my rear.

           
“Stop
that,” I hissed.

           
“If
you don’t got your hand on your
hyna
’s ass, you’re a pussy.”

           
“You
will
be a pussy, because I’m going to rip your balls off!”

           
An
ear-splitting clangor suddenly shattered the air and I shrieked. Then I
realized it was the school fire alarm. Rico shot out of the building, flashing
us a thumbs-up as hordes of kids stampeded out of the school, delighted at this
excuse to cut classes.

           
“C’mon,
girl—
echa la cookie
!” Rico whooped.

           
Three
marbles among thousands of marbles, we made our getaway.

           
I
hadn’t been planning on it, but when I unlocked my car door, Eddie and Rico
simply swarmed in with me, taking it for granted that they were invited, Eddie
in the shotgun seat, Rico in the backseat with Muffin. I pulled out of the lot,
carefully observing the speed limit, keeping a wary eye out for patrol cars and
dark green Lincolns.

           
“Who
were them guys?” Eddie asked.

           
“Bad
guys,” I said. “Janitors.”

           
Cackles
of laughter from the boys. When you’re that age, everything’s funny. You can’t
die. Major guilt pangs. I ought to pull over and kick them out of the car. If
they hung around me, they could be charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive.
Worse yet, Bear’s creeps might come after them. The trouble was I
needed
Eddie. He was my only source of information on Luis the Mysterious.

“If the cops stop
us, I took you hostage, got it?” I said, slowing as a light turned yellow.

“With what?” Rico
puffed out his scrawny chest, offended at the thought of being taken hostage by
a small female.

“My feminine
wiles.”

“Her femmy
wiles,” Eddie mocked in a high-pitched voice, turning around to high-five Rico.
“Dude, we are so totally pussy-whipped!” They both laughed like lunatics.

Rico found an old
pair of Labeck’s sunglasses in the back, reached over the seat and set them
over my eyes. “So what’s our plan?” he asked.

           
“No
idea,” I sighed. There was no safe place for someone who had the
recognizability quotient of the Pillsbury Doughboy. We couldn’t just keep on
cruising; the car was running on fumes, gas stations had surveillance cameras
inside and out, and some clerk was sure to spot me and call the cops.

           
 
Eddie banged out a hip-hop rhythm on the
dashboard. “The beach, homeys.”

           
“Forget
it,” Rico said. “We’re gonna stick out like penguins in a desert.”

           
“The
mall.”

           
“The
rent-a-cops bust kids hangin’ there during school hours.”

           
We
drove, the boys joking and horsing around, this whole thing a terrific adventure
for them, while I prayed that the car wouldn’t sputter to a halt in the middle
of an intersection. Rico started whistling. It was annoying. It was oddly
familiar. It was . . .

           
Eddie
joined in, singing the lyrics.

.
. .
Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks,

I don’t care if I never get back . . .

Escape tip #23:

When you’re in a slump,

the only thing to do is keep swinging.

—Hank
Aaron

           
The
Brewers versus the Cubs at Miller Park. I paid for our tickets and we waltzed
through the turnstiles without a snag. Nobody paid us the slightest attention;
we were just three shiftless kids ditching school for the ball game, an old,
honored Milwaukee tradition. We stopped at a booth and I used the last of
Luella Parkhurst’s cash to pay for protective coloration: a Brewers jersey and
cap.
 

           
It
was the third inning and the Brewers were down 1–0 when we filed into the
stands, found our nosebleed seats, and sat down. We had this section all to
ourselves, so I took a chance on freeing Muffin from the backpack. Delighted to
be out, Mr. Alpha Male strutted back and forth along the bleachers for a while,
then came back, hopped into my lap, and settled down for a nap.

           
The
stadium’s enormous retractable roof was rolled back, revealing a blue sky
studded with puffy clouds. I might have enjoyed the game if it hadn’t been for
the fact that any one of the thirty-five thousand spectators might recognize me
any second. The stadium was unusually crowded for a weekday because whenever
the Cubs played, hordes of Chicagoans drove up to Milwaukee, snagging all the
good seats and clogging up the freeways.