CHAPTER 24 #2
Hector laughed. “You’re just like him.”
Diego felt sick to his stomach. “Who?”
“Oscar!” Hector said, taking another swig and shifting on the stool to face him with a gleeful expression.
“Cool. Call him up. Let’s party.”
Hector shook his head and cackled. “Wish I could, if only to see his expression. I bet he’d shit himself!”
Diego grinned. “He doesn’t live around here?”
Hector averted his gaze.
“My grandma thinks he’s in Mexico or something.”
Hector faced the bar again, wrapping his hands around his glass. “We used to take a lot of trips down there.”
“Business trips?” Diego asked while nudging him. “I’ve run a few of those myself.”
Hector revealed yellow teeth as he cackled again. “We made so much money!”
“Hey, how else are you gonna get by in El Paso? So is he still down there or what?”
Hector shook his head. “Last time I saw him, he was running from the Border Patrol.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah. We’d gotten pulled over. I mean, there were a lot of them. Like somebody tipped them off or something. I don’t know. I was high outta my mind. A bunch of pigs started circling the van and Oscar—ese was always loco—he wanted to run.”
“From the cops?”
“I know, right? But we had like five bricks of coke they were probably gonna find, and the van was in his name.”
Diego was so close to the truth now that he was practically salivating. “So what happened?”
“Oscar hit the gas, but there was more cops down the road. They had it blocked, so he jumps out of the car and takes off running.”
“What about you?”
Hector held up his hands, putting on an artificially innocent tone. “Hey man, I’m just a hitchhiker he picked up along the way. I don’t know nothing about no drugs!”
Diego forced himself to laugh. “The cops buy that story?”
“No way. I ended up doing ten years.”
Diego sucked in through his teeth. “Harsh. What about my old man?”
Hector shook his head. “Last time I saw him, he was running for the hills with the cops shooting at him.”
Diego’s stomach sank. “And then what?”
“They stopped shooting.”
He waited for the other man to say more. Hector finished his drink and tried waving the bartender down again.
“What are you saying?” Diego prompted. “That he got away? Or that they got him?”
“I don’t know,” Hector answered cagily. “They threw me in the back of a patrol car.”
“And you went blind? You must’ve seen something.”
Hector shrugged. “A bunch of cops stood around in a circle, looking at something on the ground.”
Diego’s pulse started to drum in his ears. “Maybe they were into rock collecting,” he spat.
Hector laughed half-heartedly, his smooshed face uncertain. “Yeah.”
“Did you see any of them run off, like they were still chasing him down?”
Hector shrugged and tried to get the bartender’s attention again. “It was a long time ago.”
“Did you ever hear from him after that?”
“No.”
“So what the fuck do you think they were looking at on the ground?” Diego snarled. “His body?”
Hector glared at him in annoyance. “That’s what they said.”
“Huh?”
“That he got himself killed.”
“So you do know what happened to him.”
“Hey, they said if I didn’t cooperate and keep my mouth shut, the same thing would happen to me!”
“You couldn’t have mentioned that part of the story sooner?” Diego spat. “Huh? You never thought to swing by his mother’s place to let her know that her son had been killed?”
Hector’s face twisted up. “Don’t shoot the messenger!”
“How about I beat the shit out of him instead?”
“Listen here, you little punk! I don’t hafta—”
Diego grabbed Hector by the throat and swung his arm around, throwing him to the floor.
He saw red after that. The next thing he knew, someone had him in a choke hold and was dragging him out the door.
Diego hit the ground outside, gasping for breath.
The bouncer was standing over him, a finger pointed in warning.
“You better stay down!”
Diego began pushing himself up.
“Don’t make me hurt you!”
“Hey!” Ricky ran over, putting himself between Diego and the bouncer. “Leave him alone!”
A judo throw wasn’t gonna cut it this time. The idiot was going to get broken in half. “Forget about it!” Diego snarled, regaining his feet. “I’m fine.”
The bouncer was eyeing Ricky warily. He must look like a kid to him. Which by association, cast Diego in a whole new light.
“You guys get out of here! Right now. Before I call the cops.”
He wouldn’t. Not after letting a minor inside. The bouncer didn’t want any trouble. Neither did Diego.
“Come on,” he said, limping toward the car. Why did his right leg hurt? He vaguely remembered kicking Hector in the stomach. Repeatedly. That probably had something to do with it.
“I’ll drive,” Ricky said as they hustled to the car.
Fine with him. Diego’s head was spinning, and not because of that choke hold.
“What happened in there?” Ricky asked as they tore out of the parking lot.
“I’m too late,” Diego grumbled. “Oscar is already dead.”
Ricky stared at him in shock. “I’m so sorry!”
“So am I.” Diego curled an arm around each side of his head and bent over, groaning.
He felt like he was losing his mind, except this time there was no escape.
The only recourse he’d had—the only way to make this right—had been taken away, leaving him with maddening rage and torturous pain.
How was he going to survive that? He couldn’t even kill himself!
Lorenzo had crossed that option out when taking his own life.
Diego wouldn’t put his mother through that again, or anyone else he cared about.
So what the fuck was he supposed to do now?