The third degree, p.3
The Third Degree, page 3
Suddenly both girls jumped, startled by the sound of a slamming door. They turned and saw a very small, very old woman walking away from a red Honda. She wore a plain house-dress, and her white hair was caught back in a bun. As she came toward the house, the red car drove back up the dirt road. “I sure hope that’s not Grannie Santos,” Roberta said.
“Why?” Mollie asked.
“Look at her, Mol,” Roberta urged. “She’s one of the old bats who was praying to the spaghetti sign!”
CHAPTER 4
“Madre de Dios! Es un milagro!” cried the old woman when she spotted the girls on the porch. Raising her skinny, wrinkled arms to the heavens, she fell to her knees. “Gracias, Madonna!”
Mollie and Roberta hurried down the steps and helped the woman to her feet. “We’ve come to see if we can find Jaime,” Mollie said.
“Yo se. Yo se,” the woman said happily. “I knew the Madonna would answer my prayers when I asked her for help. But so quickly! It is a miracle!”
Roberta and Mollie exchanged glances. Mollie fought down the impulse to make a crack about the singer Madonna always being sort of fast. “I’m Mollie, and this is Roberta,” she said instead. “We’re Jaime’s friends.”
“Soy la abuela de Jaime, his grandma,” the woman confirmed. “I call the number Jaime left behind, but I never think you will come. Gracias. Muchas gracias.”
“You’re welcome,” said Mollie as they walked back toward the porch together. “Can you tell us exactly what happened?”
In broken English, Yolanda Santos explained that Jaime had gone to visit his grandfather, who lives in the Lost Camp Nursing Home. “Cesar, mi esposo, my husband, es loco. He has old-timers’ disease. He came back from their fishing trip. But Jaime, he no return.”
“And he doesn’t know what happened to Jaime?” Roberta questioned.
“Cesar forgets,” the old woman said sadly. “He doesn’t even recognize me anymore.”
Mrs. Santos settled into a wicker chair on the porch. “Jaime wanted to see our land again one more time because I am thinking to sell it. He bring his fishing pole and also his rope. All morning he is practicing to use the lasso the way my son Guillermo teach him. He hopes to find that animal from the carnival … how do you say it?”
“The wallaby?” Roberta offered from her seat on the steps.
“Sí. Sí. He take a backpack with him. I make him a sandwich to eat while he looking.”
At that moment Pirate came bounding up the porch steps. The white cat hissed and ran away. Pirate ignored the cat, went directly to Yolanda Santos, and licked her hand.
“Hola, doggie,” said the woman, petting him. “Is your dog?” she asked Mollie.
“Sí,” Mollie replied. “Did Jaime tell you he was staying overnight?”
“No,” Mrs. Santos said with assurance.
“Maybe he told you and you forgot,” Mollie suggested delicately.
“No.” The old woman’s dark eyes grew darker. “No olvidó nada! I am not like Cesar. I do not forget things.”
“Have you called the police?” Roberta asked.
“No. The sheriff here is no good. He work for the rich people only.”
Mollie looked at the sky. It was getting dark. There was no sense looking for Jaime until the morning. “Is there a motel nearby?” she asked the old woman.
“No motel,” said Mrs. Santos, getting to her feet. “You will stay here. I have big empty house. All the children are gone. Lots of room for you. Come.” Without waiting for them, she led Pirate inside.
“What do you think?” Mollie asked. “Should we stay?”
“We’d save a lot of money, and we’d be here if Jaime showed up,” Roberta replied. “She seems real nice. So she prays to spaghetti signs.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Mollie said, pulling open the screen door.
Mrs. Santos whipped up a delicious meal of fried plantains, fresh salad, pork chops, yellow rice, and black beans. Even Pirate was honored with his own pork chop. After dinner Mrs. Santos showed Mollie and Roberta to a neat bedroom with two high-posted twin beds. Then she bid them, “Buenas noches.”
Mollie looked at the bookcases in the bedroom. Sport trophies, art awards, old photos, and high-school yearbooks filled the shelves; loving mementos of the Santos children, now all adults. “I guess you never really realize how fast time is passing,” Mollie mused.
“Mmmmmm,” Roberta agreed absently as she lay stretched across a bed, petting Pirate, who was curled up on the floor below her.
“What are you thinking?” Mollie asked, plopping down on her own twin bed.
“I was just thinking about Jaime. Wondering where he is now, if he’s okay.”
“At least he was prepared,” Mollie pointed out. “It sounds like he knew he was going to be gone for a while.”
“If you mean, at least he probably brought his insulin, it’s okay. I know about his diabetes.”
“I wasn’t sure,” Mollie said. “He asked me not to tell anyone.”
“He asked me, too,” said Roberta, looking up at Mollie.
“Are you guys getting serious?” Mollie asked. “I mean, is this, you know, love?”
“I don’t know.” Roberta rolled onto her back. “I’ve never been in love. I’m not exactly sure how it’s supposed to feel. I know I like Jaime a lot. He’s different from other guys. He doesn’t say much, but he’s smart. And he’s got these natural manners. He’s kind of …”
“A gentleman,” Mollie filled in. “He’s considerate.”
“Yeah,” Roberta said. “He respects me.”
The girls were quiet for a while as they got ready for bed. Mollie pulled on her oversized T-shirt and combed out her hair before slipping into the soft sheets.
Roberta wore a long cotton nightgown. She climbed into bed, pulled the covers up, and then kicked them back again.
“Are you okay?” Mollie asked, reaching toward the switch on the nightstand between them.
“Uh-huh,” said Roberta. “I’m just a little restless, I guess.”
Mollie snapped off the light and closed her eyes. She was half asleep when Roberta’s voice awakened her.
“Damn!” Roberta muttered.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s these crickets! They’re keeping me up. I don’t know how people sleep in the country. It’s too noisy.”
“I love the sound,” Mollie said, propping herself on her elbows and listening. Mollie was originally from Iowa. Chirping crickets were a comforting sound from childhood. “To me it’s like what people who live on the beach feel. They say they love listening to the surf while they fall asleep.”
“Hmmph,” Roberta snorted. “I kind of feel that way about sirens. You know, fire sirens, police sirens, car-alarm sirens. It seems like in the city there’s always a siren blaring somewhere. I like distant fire sirens the best. It means the fire is far from you, it’s being taken care of, and it’s not your problem. You’re cozy and safe in bed. If you blasted a fire siren right now, I’d nod right off.”
Mollie laughed lightly. “Hey, whatever works for you.”
“You know, I was thinking,” Roberta went on. “Jaime told me he was mad at his father for not coming home. He could have gone with his mother to visit him in Tulare, but he wanted his father to come to him. It was one of those strange male things. I told him he was making too big a deal out of it, but he was pretty ticked off. Maybe he just wanted to go off by himself to chill.”
“Maybe. But why wouldn’t he have told his grandmother?” Mollie objected.
“Grandma is nice and all,” said Roberta, “but let’s face it, she still might have forgotten. Somebody who prays to billboards has got to be tuned in to their own private radio waves some of the time.”
“I know what you mean,” Mollie agreed. “Well, we can’t do anything about it now. In the morning we’ll just have to—”
Suddenly Pirate got to his feet and ran to the window. He let out a low whine, and his fur seemed to bristle.
“What is it, Pirate?” Mollie asked.
“Mollie, Pirate is bright, but he doesn’t speak. I don’t think he’s going to tell you.”
“Shhh!” Mollie said. Off in the distance was a low, steady rumble. “Do you hear that?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Is it thunder?” Mollie wondered, throwing off her blanket. Crossing to the window, Mollie saw only the white moon shining in a starry, cloudless sky. She petted Pirate, who continued to whine.
“Maybe it’s a tractor-trailer,” Roberta suggested as she joined Mollie at the window.
Looking out, they could see the occasional lights of cars pass on Route E. “Whatever it is, it’s getting louder,” Mollie realized. “And it’s getting closer.”
Then, all at once, they saw it. “Holy—” Mollie gasped.
Out on Route E, in a blaze of light and sound, forty to fifty motorcycles roared toward the town of Lost Camp.
CHAPTER 5
“Ay! Vete de aqui! Ahhhyeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Mollie’s eyes popped open before eight o’clock the next morning. “What’s that?”
Roberta was already at the window. “Grandma is totally crackers,” she observed.
Rushing over to Roberta’s side, Mollie witnessed Yolanda Santos hopping around in her dirt driveway like a boxer as she screamed and hurled tomatoes at a rapidly retreating man in a gray business suit. “Maybe she needs our help,” Mollie said.
Roberta shot Mollie a look of disbelief. “I don’t think so. It appears to me that she’s doing a most excellent job of taking care of herself.”
“Guess so,” Mollie said. “What did the guy do?”
“I heard his car pull up, so I looked out the window. I thought maybe it was Jaime. Instead I see this character looking spiff in his Mr. Businessman suit. He was all smiles as he was coming toward the house, but the minute Yolanda spotted him, she flew down the porch like a bat out of hell. She’s pretty light on her feet for an old babe.”
“Some forms of insanity make you very strong,” Mollie recalled.
“Yeah, well, I’d say she’s got some form of the crazies, all right. Maybe we should just grab our stuff and split.”
Mollie shook her head. “She’s not going to hurt us. Look at the size of her.”
“I don’t know,” Roberta objected. “Remember those old ladies in Arsenic and Old Lace. They had all those bodies buried in the basement. You can never tell.”
Mollie was already pulling on her jeans. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go find out what that was all about.”
When the girls stepped out of their room, they were greeted by the pleasant smell of breakfast cooking. “Buenos días, señoritas,” the old woman called to them from the open kitchen just off the living room. She was cheerful and completely unruffled.
“Buenos días,” the girls replied.
“Sit, sit,” Mrs. Santos said. She set down two plates of eggs full of peppers, onions, and herbs. In the middle of the table was a plate full of thick-cut bacon, a pitcher of orange juice, and a round loaf of homemade bread. “Huevos rancheros,” she said, pointing to the eggs.
“Wow!” Mollie said, taking a seat. “This looks great.”
“Yeah. What a way to start the day,” Roberta said.
Mrs. Santos joined them at the table. “Eat up, eat up.”
Mollie swallowed a forkful of eggs. “We saw you out front this morning,” she told Mrs. Santos. “Who was the man?”
The old woman rolled her eyes, then laughed. “Don’t worry. I throw tomatoes at him every time he come by here. He expects it. That’s why I keep the tomatoes on the porch. The green ones are very hard. They hurt. The red ripe ones make a big mess.”
Roberta and Mollie laughed. “But why do you do it?” Roberta asked as she buttered her bread.
Mrs. Santos scowled. “Because he is a bad man, and I do not want his bad energies near my house. Sick people make sick those around them.”
“What’s he done?” asked Mollie.
“He is a banker,” the old woman answered, as if this fact alone were enough to explain everything. “When my Cesar become sick, I have to put him into a nursing home. It break my heart, but there is no other choice. Cesar wander off, he do strange things. I no can control him. But nursing home is very expensive. So I go to the bank for a loan. Everybody is so happy to see me down there. They nearly stuffing the money in my hand. Just sign this. Just sign that.”
Mrs. Santos went on to tell the girls that the bank lent her the money against the equity on her house. Although she had never missed a payment, the bank was now demanding more money. The reason they gave was that the real-estate market was so bad, her house was no longer worth what it had been at the time of the loan. According to banking regulations, they claimed they were entitled to more money each month.
“No es posible,” said Mrs. Santos. “I have my pension from the school. I taught mathematics for forty years. And I receive some social security. But Cesar’s savings have all gone to the nursing home. I have no more money left to give the bank.”
“Is that why you’re thinking of selling some of your land?” asked Mollie, recalling their conversation of the day before.
“Sí. I get some extra monies from leasing that land. Only two hundred a month. I would do better to sell it. But I feel sorry for the man who lives there. Mr. Gemulka, his house burn down. He need somewhere to put his trailer. He used always to come visit me. Lately he no come. I should go down to check on him.”
“Mr. Gemulka!” Mollie choked on her juice. “Are you talking about Joe Gemulka?”
“Joe?” Mrs. Santos asked, puzzled. “No. His name is Stanley. He have a couple of sons, though. You know them?”
“Just by reputation,” said Roberta.
After breakfast the girls helped Mrs. Santos clean up. Mollie noticed that the old woman kept looking at the phone. “Why that Jaime no call?” she blurted out finally, her voice full with frustration and worry.
“We’re going to look for him right now,” Mollie assured her.
“Bueno. You give me a lift?”
“Sure. Where?” Mollie asked as she took a dried dish from Roberta and put it in the cabinet.
“To the spaghetti sign. I go pray for Jaime.”
Roberta and Mollie exchanged quick glances. “Why do you pray to that sign?” Mollie dared to ask. “Is it because Princess Rowena looks like the Blessed Virgin?”
“She does look like the Madonna, sí,” said Mrs. Santos. “But that is not why we pray. We pray because of the bowl of spaghetti.”
“Uh-huh,” said Roberta.
The old woman caught the irony in Roberta’s voice. “Do you mean you no see it?”
“See what?” Mollie asked.
“The face in the spaghetti! Our Lord and Savior’s face.”
“Well, we drove by kind of fast,” Mollie said.
“I will show you when we get there. You will see it,” Mrs. Santos assured them.
In less than a half hour Mollie, Roberta, Pirate, and Mrs. Santos were driving toward the spaghetti sign on Route E. When they arrived, three elderly women were already kneeling before the billboard clutching their rosary beads. “Now, look closely,” said Mrs. Santos as Mollie turned off the engine. “Do you see the crown of thorns? The sorrowful eyes?”
Mollie stared hard and long at the spaghetti. She glanced at Roberta and saw her squinting, too. “Sorry,” Mollie said. “I don’t see anything but pasta.”
“Me neither,” Roberta admitted.
Mrs. Santos took both their hands and squeezed. “Maybe it take time,” she said as she climbed out of the Jeep.
Mollie watched the old woman go to join the other worshipers. “Jaime’s grandmother almost makes me feel like I’m the one who’s wacky,” she said.
Roberta looked solemn. “You know what the Bible says, Mollie. ‘None are so blind as those who will not see.’”
“Do you mean you did see something in the sign?”
“Not a chance,” Roberta said. “I was just pulling your chain. This stuff is what gives Californians a bad rap. Mrs. Santos may be nice, but this business is completely screwy.”
“It seems that way to me, but who knows?” Mollie laughed and turned on the ignition. “Now let’s find Jaime.” The girls and Pirate drove back down Route E the way they came. They passed Mrs. Santos’s house and drove past an old Spanish cemetery surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Inside, old, tilted gravestones were decorated with plastic flowers and small homemade shrines.
Suddenly from behind them came the same roar they’d heard the night before, only not quite as thunderous. “The welcoming committee is back,” Roberta said.
In her rearview mirror Mollie saw the gang led by the bleached-blond monster she’d met at the gas station. The bikers quickly surrounded the Jeep, shouting and making obscene gestures.
“Morons,” Roberta muttered.
Then, one by one, they peeled off down the road at top speed. The last biker swerved in front of Mollie, forcing her to slam on the brakes. “Watch it! Jackass!” Mollie hollered out the window.
The biker flipped her the bird.
Mollie returned the compliment.
The biker laughed and pulled away. Once he’d caught up with his buddies, all the bikers suddenly stopped and lined up side by side, forming a barricade across the road.
“Any more bright ideas?” Roberta asked. “Don’t you know better than to pick fights with people who wear tattoos of Satan?”
Mollie winced. “The devil made me do it.”
“Very cute,” Roberta said. “If I weren’t scared out of my mind right now, I’d laugh.”
Mollie slammed on the brakes and threw the car into reverse. The coward’s way out seemed the best route. She wondered how fast Fathead could go in reverse.
“Whew!” Mollie said. The bikers were getting back on their motorcycles and slowly riding away. “Sorry, Roberta, sometimes I don’t think.”
