Flashback

Now Leonard expected to hear something philosophical from his older Mexican friend, perhaps consoling, but instead Emilio said, “A local spanic girl, Maria Hernandez, was raped yesterday while on her way to school. She had a—doubtful—reputation, but her father and brothers and the local reconquista militia have vowed to kill the boys who did it.”

“The boys?” asked Leonard. His voice was so hollow that it seemed to echo in his own ears.

“A gang of eight or nine anglo boys,” said Emilio. “Almost certainly one of these flashgangs we hear about every day now. They did it so they could redo it over and over.”

Leonard licked his lips. “If you’re thinking Val… no, not possible. Not Val. As angry and troubled as he is… no, not Val. Not rape. Never.”

Emilio peered at his fellow academic and chess partner with sad eyes. “The girl—Maria—knew one of the boys who raped her. An anglo student from her school who likes to call himself Billy the Kid. A certain William Coyne.”

Professor Emeritus George Leonard Fox thought that he might be physically ill. He’d met very few of Val’s friends over the five years since Nick had sent his grandson to live with him, but the always smiling, respectful, courteous, and, somehow, Leonard knew from forty years of teaching, Eddie Haskell–devious Billy Coyne had been one who’d been to the house often.

“I think I have to get Val out of this city,” said Leonard. Emilio had moved his white pawn forward, starting the second game, but Leonard wasn’t focusing on it.

“Sí, it might be a good idea, my friend. Do you have the money for the airfare?”

Leonard laughed bitterly. “With fares now going for more than a million new bucks per ticket for a Los Angeles–to-Denver flight? Hardly.”

“His father, perhaps? He was able to pay the boy’s fare here five years ago.”

Leonard shook his head. “Nick used almost all of my daughter’s life-insurance money to buy that ticket.”

“But he was a policeman…”

“Was,” said Leonard. “He’s nothing more than a flashback addict now. I used to have Val phone him monthly, but now Val doesn’t want to speak to his father and Nick doesn’t return my calls when I leave a message. I think he’s forgotten that he has a son.”

“Are there other relatives?”

Lost in thought, Leonard shook his head again. “You know about my family, Emilio. Four marriages over all those years but only three daughters. Dara dead in that Denver car accident. Kathryn married that French Muslim and moved to Paris more than twenty years ago—she’s lost in dhimmitude there. Under the veil, as they say. I haven’t heard from her at all in fifteen years. Eloise calls me from New Orleans three times a year—always to borrow money. She and her husband are both flash addicts. Neither has a job. The three ex-wives I loved are dead; the one I learned to hate—and who always hated me—is alive and rich and wouldn’t take a phone call from me, much less my grandson from another wife.”

“So,” said Emilio, “the father.”

“Yes. The father. Val says that he hates his father—when he says anything at all about him—but it would still be for the best, I think. And it would only be for eleven months until Val goes into the army. This city is getting too dangerous for the boy.”

Emilio was looking at Leonard with a mournful expression. “It may soon be too dangerous for you as well, my friend. You should both go. Soon. Very soon.”

Leonard blinked out of his reverie, all thoughts of chess gone. “What are you telling me, Emilio? What do you know?”

The older man sighed, raised his ivory-handled cane from where it was propped against their table, and leaned his weight on it. “The forces of La Raza and reconquista are very restless. There may be an effort to seize all power in Los Angeles soon.”

Leonard laughed out of sheer surprise. The two rarely discussed politics per se. “Seize power?” he said too loudly. “Don’t the spanics already run everything in L.A. except a few neighborhoods? Isn’t it already a law that the mayor must be spanic?”

“Spanic, yes. But not true reconquista, Leonard. Not governing all of Los Angeles as a province of Nuevo Mexico. This is… coming.”

Leonard could only stare. Finally he said, “That would mean civil war in the streets.”

“Yes.”

“How much… how much time do we have?”

Emilio leaned more heavily on his cane, his doleful expression becoming even sadder. Leonard was reminded of his Cervantes and the Knight of the Woeful Countenance.