Thin Air

"So now there are the leftover Micks, who run the police force, and us, who run the city."

I looked out the car windows at the lackluster tenements covered with graffiti.

"Not too well," I said.

"No, not well at all," Santiago said. "For we ca

"They weren't actually my Indians," I said.

Santiago turned forward in the seat and rested his head against the back of it and closed his eyes. He took a long drag on his cigarette and slowly let the smoke out. The smoke hung in the car. Some other time, I thought, I'd discuss the dangers of second-hand smoke with him. Right now I was being quiet, waiting for him to get where he was going.

"I have worked very hard," Santiago said, "to unite these people in their common interest."

The car turned right past a burned-out store front. There was no longer any glass in the windows, and the front door hung ajar on one hinge. Leaves and faded parts of newspapers had blown in and piled up against the back walls. Diagonally down one of the dark side streets I saw the church where I had talked with the priest who drank, and I realized that we were now twisting through the narrow streets of San Juan Hill. Behind us, the black Lincoln had come up close.

"But…" I said.

"But I am hindered by…" He paused. His head back, his eyes still closed, he seemed searching for words. Finally he shrugged and continued.

"Your man Luis Deleon, for instance, is such a person as hinders me."

I looked at Chollo. He nodded. I knew this was going somewhere and now we were nearly there.

"This is a feast, Senor Spenser," Santiago said, exaggerating the "Senor," in mockery of me or himself, I wasn't sure which.

"This is like the carcass of a great whale. There is enough for many sharks to feed. There is no need to fight. But Luis… he is young, he cares nothing for larger questions. He and his people say San Juan Hill is theirs."

Santiago shook his head sadly.

"As if one could own a slum, or would wish to," he said.

"Who owns the rest of the barrio?" I said.

Santiago turned back toward us. He smiled brilliantly.

"I do," he said. "But it is not such a slum, and I am a beneficent owner."

"Yeah," I said. "It looked great till we got in here."

"Give me time, Senor. I have not had enough time. I have spent much time putting down unrest and eliminating troublemakers."

"Except Deleon."

"Si."

"How come he's still in business?" I said.

"He presents a challenge. He is himself a dangerous man." He looked at Chollo. "Volatile?"

"Same in English," Chollo said.

Santiago looked gratified.

"Volatile, and well armed. He has a large, well armed following also. And where they live… it is a… how do I say…?"

He looked at Chollo, making a looping gesture with his hand.

"Laberinto?" he said to Chollo.

"Maze," Chollo said.

"Exactly. It is a maze in there, tu

"But it could be cracked," I said.

"By someone resourceful enough who found it worth the cost," Santiago said. "So far I have not."

"But I might," I said.

"Perhaps."

The car stopped at an intersection, then turned left. We passed an abandoned gas station, the pumps gone, the glass out, and the doors to the repair bay gone. Inside, a group of men gathered around the empty pit where the lift used to be. They were boisterous and excited. Above their excitement were the sounds of animals.

"Dog fight," Chollo said.

"Si," Santiago said. "They put them in the pit and they bet."

"Fun," I said. "What do the dogs get out of it?"

"The wi

We drove on. At the top of the small rise, at the intersection of two silent streets, we stopped. Across from us was a complex of three-storied, flat-roof tenements. Most of the windows were boarded up, though in some there were small openings as if someone had cut a square in the plywood. The clapboard siding on the buildings was probably painted gray once, but it was now peeled down to its weatherstained wood, warping in many places. The windowsills were begi

"Those four buildings," Santiago said, "are Luis Deleon's castle."

The alleys between the buildings had been closed off with plywood so that the four buildings formed a kind of enclosed quadrangle. I wondered if Lisa was in there. If she were, it was a different living arrangement than she'd had in Jamaica Plain in the squeaky-clean condo with the Je

"If he has the Anglo princess," Santiago said, "he has brought her here."

"But you don't know if he has her," I said.

"It pains me to say this. I know almost everything that happens in Proctor. But this I do not know."

"We need to know," I said. "And we need to know under what circumstances."

"Circumstances?"

"We need to know if she's there because she wants to be, or she's been kidnapped," I said.

"You think an Anglo woman would not wish to come here, with a Latin man?" Santiago said.

"They tell me she would have once," I said. "I need to know if she did now."

"Take more than love for me to move there," Chollo said.

Santiago shrugged. Beyond the derelict tenements, eastward toward the ocean there was a loud clap of thunder, and after it, the shimmer of lightning against a dark cloud that piled high above the roof tops. The rest of the day remained vernal.

"Vamanos!" Santiago said to the driver.

"Let's go," Chollo translated for me.

"I sort of got that one," I said. "Especially when we started right up."

Chollo said nothing. But his eyes were amused.

"What do you think?" Santiago said, facing back toward me.

"You figure if Deleon were out of the way, someone could unite all the Hispanic people into one effective block?"

"Yes," Santiago said. "I do."

"And whoever did that could control the city and the dead whale would be all his."

"Not a pretty way to say it, but this also is true."

"You got anybody in mind to play Toussaint L'Ouverture?"

"Of course it is me, Senor."

"So if I took Deleon out for you it would be a considerable favor."

"You believe you could?"

"If I have reason to."

"You are a confident man."

"I've been doing this kind of work for a long time," I said. "But I need to know what the situation is in there."

"And if I were able to tell you?"

"I wouldn't believe you."

"Be careful what you say to me," Santiago said.

"Nothing personal," I said. "But you know as well as I do that you could crack that place in an hour. You don't do it, because you are working really hard on being the hero of Hispanic Proctor, and you don't want to screw it by blowing up same of your own people. On the other hand, if you could find a few tough gringos to come in and do the job…" I shrugged my best impression of an eloquent Latin shrug.