Illegal

EIGHTEEN

Lying facedown under a palm tree, Tino's chest was on fire. Moments earlier, Rey and his two idiot friends had ripped off the duct tape, removed the bags of cocaine, and dumped him.

Tino touched his chest, ran a finger around his back. Red and blistered, the tape shredding his skin. He felt dehydrated, disoriented, hungry. It seemed to be midday, the sun high in the sky. City noises. Traffic. Horns.

Where am I? Where is my mother? What is this place?

He got to his feet, blinked against the glare. Used hypodermic needles were scattered on the ground. The sound of splashing water. A large pond, a lake really, with a shooting fountain. He scrambled to its edge, drank from the water, which tasted of rust and algae. On a nearby path, two black women in nurses' uniforms stared at him, eyes alarmed, as if they'd just seen a mouse in the cupboard.

He tied the drawstring of his torn sweatpants and got to his feet. Not far away, towering skyscrapers gleamed in the sunlight. The tallest buildings he had ever seen. He must be in the United States, but where?

He wanted to get moving. What if Rey and the other two came back? What if La Eme was looking for him? Or the Border Patrol?

Stiff and aching, he walked along a path that ran past a row of palm trees. A filthy, bearded man in ragged clothes lay snoring alongside a metal shopping cart filled with junk. The man smelled of piss and vomit. Hands folded together on his chest like Tino's abuelo in the funeral home. Between the man's knobby fingers, an open bag of potato chips. Tino carefully pried the bag from the man's filthy hand. A grunt, a snort, and the man opened runny eyes that seemed to look in different directions.

"Fucking little greaser!" The man reached for a broom handle under his cart and swung wildly.

Tino ran.

Wherever he was, it was a scarier place than La Rumorosa with those narcotraficantes. Running along a path, he saw a boathouse at the edge of the lake. A park, he realized. A park in the middle of a city. He came to an intersection of two busy streets and read the signs. Alvarado. Wilshire.

He chose Wilshire. Ran past a sign for Westlake Avenue, another for Bonnie Brae. Kept running. Past big buildings and parking lots. Burlington. Union. Loma. Feeling stronger with each block flying by. Believing if he ran far enough and fast enough, he could find his mother. Knowing the foolishness of the thought almost before it was formed.

He heard a noise overhead and looked up. A helicopter with police markings. So low and so loud he was certain it had come for him. The Border Patrol? Or the F.B.I.? They knew about the cocaine. He saw the markings on the helicopter: L.A.F.D.

Los Angeles Fire Department.

Los Angeles!

The helicopter veered toward a huge building, hovered, then descended to its roof. A sign in front of the building: Good Samaritan Hospital.

Tino remembered his mother reading him the story of the Good Samaritan from a Bible with pictures. Robbers attack a man walking along a road. They beat him and take his clothes and money. No one will stop and help the man. Someone from the Samaritan tribe comes along. He bandages the man's wounds, takes him to an inn, feeds him, and gives him money. And Jesus says that's how you get to live forever.

A really nice story. Except the stuff from the Bible never happens in real life. In real life, if you're lying by the road, bleeding, someone comes along and steals your shoes.

My Reeboks!

Tino untied his laces, pulled off his right shoe, removed the insole. There was the crumpled card his mother had given him. "J. Atticus Payne, Esquire." A very important man. One of the biggest lawyers in Los Angeles.

"If anything bad happens and I am not there, go see Mr. Payne."

Tino studied the address. Delano Street. He had no idea how to get there. No money. No papers. But his mother had taught him to be brave.

" You're my little valiente."

He looked left. Looked right. Then he started walking.

Cars went by, but few people were on the sidewalk. When he spotted an Anglo woman, he asked in English where he could find a bus station, but she stepped off the curb to avoid him.

Two hours passed. The sleepless night began to take its toll. Fatigue crawled up his legs. Hunger gnawed at his gut.

A police car rolled past. The cop eyed him, suspiciously. Tino fought the urge to run. The police car kept going.

He stopped in front of a small, neat house and watched as a man with hands stained the color of carne asada fertilized a flower bed. The bed was filled with plants taller than Tino. Stems topped by purple and orange flowers shaped like birds' beaks.

"Flor ave del paraiso," the gardener told him.

Birds of paradise.

Beautiful. Tino had seen them once before, surrounding the house of a rich family in Caborca.

The gardener wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and offered cold water from a cooler. When Tino told him he was hungry but had no money, out came a chicken tortilla wrapped in foil. And then another. The gardener was from Loreto in Baja. He had been here seven years without papers, and that made Tino feel better. He showed the man the card of Mr. J. Atticus Payne, Esquire.

"Van Nuys. I can tell you how to get there," the gardener said, proudly. "The subway station is within walking distance for a strong boy."

"I didn't know there was a subway here."

"Most gabachos do not know, either."

The gardener gave him directions to the Wilshire-Vermont station, with instructions to ride to Universal City. There, he would take a bus to Van Nuys. The gardener could not tell him exactly which bus to take, but a smart boy can figure it out. Then he gave Tino money. Winking, he said there are no toll collectors on the subway, so save a dollar twenty-five and buy a Coca-Cola. Use the rest for the bus.

Tino thanked the man and headed toward the subway station. Soon, he thought, he would be speaking to one of the most important lawyers in all of Los Angeles. A good man who had helped the poor mojados cooked in that trailer truck. As he walked, Tino grew more confident. J. Atticus Payne, he concluded, must truly be a Good Samaritan.