Neal Pollack

“I had to! Before the ambulance had even arrived, another car drove up, this one full of Mexican cowboys with their pistols drawn. One guy, a little skinny guy, his eyes all mean, he looked right at me and pointed his gun at Beto and just shot him point blank. I felt like Jackie Kennedy, gathering bits of his brains into my lap. I was screaming—finally!—and crying, and he made this motion with the pistol for me to go, and I did. I just ran and ran, scattering pieces of Beto all the way to Quique’s apartment and stayed holed up there, terrified and traumatized, until the day of Beto’s funeral.”

When she and Quique finally made it back to her apartment, they found the place had been tossed. All of her records and books were on the floor, clothes torn from the bar in the closet, the mattress gutted. The refrigerator leaked a foul smell from a puddle underneath.

Destiny just sobbed and sobbed.

“My god

what did they want? Do you know what they wanted? Did Beto keep anything here?” Quique asked, his voice shaky.

She shook her head.

“Are you sure?”

Beto hadn'’t even kept a change of socks there. Destiny realized all she had of him now and forever was the Sain't Dimas cross from around his neck.

Later, at Mariano’s church before the family arrived for funeral services, the priest, his stone face wet, opened the casket so she could have a last look. Destiny, wearing a men’s suit for the first time in her life, looked down at her lover. Beto was in pieces, like Sain't Dimas himself, with a forearm in Jerusalem and a tibula in Istanbul.

A noise from the front of the church revealed Beto’s family, a mournful Virginia leading the widow and a gaggle of children. Stern-faced men, no doubt armed, flanked them on both sides. Mariano immediately snapped shut the casket and Destiny stepped back, disappearing into the shadows.

The only other thing she remembered from that day was Mariano’s prayer: Sain't Dimas, from great sinner and criminal, a moment of mercy turned you into a great Sain't. Remember me, poor sinner like you, and maybe greater sinner than you

Zoe parked her boxy Nissan in front of a Western-wear store on 26th Street with a garish yellow awning and snakeskin belts draping one of the windows. Across the street was La Caverna, as anonymous as ever.

“You ready?” she asked.

Destiny nodded and pulled the car door open. She could smell the carnitas from the corner.

“You’ve really never come back?”

“Never,” Destiny said.

“See, I just don’t get that, because you weren'’t in danger. Unless, of course, somebody thought you knew something

?”

Destiny sprinted ahead, sick of Zoe’s baiting. Upon seeing Destiny, the same cross-eyed bouncer from years before grinned and called her by her old name: “La Mora! Dońa Mora!” There was a flurry of activity then, with men stepping up to bow and kiss her hand and queens popping out of nowhere, screeching and jumping up and down. Zoe struggled to keep Destiny in sight, though she was easily the tallest person there, her head high and steady.

Inside La Caverna, Destiny saw the same Mexican man, now white-haired, serving drinks. But the place was different: cleaner, pain'ted. There were color posters of all the new queens framed on the wall. She was stunned to see her own face staring back at her from above the bar, in the center of a sort of Wall of Fame of famous queens who’d started at La Caverna.

Destiny clutched her heart, unexpectedly moved. Then she saw that Virginia was still there too, sitting on a stool behind the bar, taking money. The woman, now an old crone, flinched when she saw Destiny. The crowd parted like the Red Sea.

A few feet behind, Zoe battled to keep up. “Con permiso, con permiso,” she repeated as the waters closed in on her. Then the crowd crushed around Destiny when she and Virginia hugged across the bar, the old woman shaking from so much emotion.

“Listen, I’m with Destiny, really!” Zoe yelled, reaching so that she caught Destiny’s arm with her fingers for a second. But no one could hear her. The shouting and whistling was thunderous. The DJ immediately injected a battery of percussion into the club, the clattering beginning of a salsa roundup they’d later learn he’d titled “Destiny’s Cuban Fiesta Mix.”

“Destiny! Destiny!”

Zoe was just about to give up hope of ever reaching her when suddenly a gunshot rang out. Then another and another. She leaped through the mob and yanked Destiny by the arm, pulling and pushing through the masses of sweaty human flesh until they were back outside, breathing the carnitas -infused air of 26th Street.

“You’ve gotta tell me the truth!” Zoe demanded, leaning up on her toes to get in Destiny’s face.

“The truth? What the fuck are you talking about?” Destiny asked as she jerked her arm away and straightened her dress. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What the