Walkers

Chapter 19

The Boyle Heights district to the east of downtown Los Angeles was in its third or fourth incarnation of the past fifty years. First there had been the original old families who grew rich when Los Angles was young. They moved on in the 1920s to Bel Air in the north and the Palos Verdes peninsula in the south. Then came the Jewish immigrants. They worked hard, prospered, and left for the greener lawns of the San Fernando Valley and Beverly Hills. The middle-class Mexican-Americans were next, and after World War II they migrated east to the suburbs of the San Gabriel Valley. The once-proud Boyle Heights district now decayed under the sun, populated by poor Cubans, recent immigrants from Mexico, and uncounted illegal aliens.

Glen and Joana rode down a pleasant-seeming residential street in the Camaro. In the twilight of the June evening, the stucco houses, with their red tile roofs and arched windows, looked comfortable enough. The lawns in front of the houses had bare brown patches, but they were not piled with trash. The pavement was in good repair, and the small stores were brightly painted with the off-beat pastels typical of Mexican buildings. With the palm trees lining the street rustled by the soft summer wind, it was hard to visualize the grinding poverty of the people who lived here.

Glen stopped at the corner of Brooklyn Avenue and checked the number written on a slip of paper against the street addresses. "That should be it," he said.

He pointed across the street to a two-story wooden frame building painted burnt orange on the side that faced the street. On an enameled metal sign advertising Coca Cola were printed the words Perez Liquor.

"A liquor store?" Joana said.

"That's the address you got from the nurse."

Glen parked the car and they got out. Up the street, under a sputtering mercury-vapor light, a group of young Mexicans was gathered around a Plymouth Fury with stylized flames painted on the hood. They watched silently as Joana and Glen crossed the street to the small liquor store.

The store's one large window had been boarded over with plywood, which now carried the multicolored graffiti of the neighborhood gangs. Los Avenidas, Gato Negro, Hombres Locos, Calle XVIII. There were the lists of names in the distinctive angular printing style of the barrio, some of them X'ed out and scrawled over with the heavy insult, puto. For those who knew how to read it, it could serve as a bulletin board of community activities, telling who was on the street, who was moving into what territory, and who was likely to be in trouble.

Joana and Glen walked into the cramped little store. Shelves were lined with bottles of liquor and wine. There was a big refrigerator for beer and soft drinks, and a few canned goods, potato chips, and candy bars. The proprietor, a balding man with an overhanging stomach, was talking in rapid Spanish with a single customer, a stocky man with a white scar on his nose. They fell silent as the anglo couple entered.

"Hi," Glen said.

There was no response.

"This is 250 °Charles Street?"

The customer gathered up his purchase, a six-pack of Miller's, and edged away along the counter. Theproprietor eyed Glen from behind lowered lids.

'No se."

He had another exhange in Spanish with the customer. Joana picked out the word migras.

"No, no," she said, "we're not with the immigration service."

The proprietor studied them suspiciously. "Yousure?"

"Absolutely," Joana said. "We're looking for the grandmother of a friend."

"That's right," Glen confirmed. - The proprietor said something else to the customer, who kept as much distance as possible between him and the young couple and hurried out the door.

"Okay," the bald man said, "who you looking for?"

"It's an older woman," Joana said. "Her name is Villaneuva. Her granddaughter Ynez gave us thisaddress."

"Villanueva? The old bruja?"

"I think that's the one we mean," Joana said. "Does she live here?"

"Not here," the proprietor said quickly. "Upstairs. "She's got a room in the back."

"How do we get up there?" Glen asked.

"You wasting your time. The old bruja don' talk to nobody."

"All the same, we'd like to try," Joana said. "Is there a stairway?"

"Okay, but I think you're crazy. Go out and around the side of the building. There's some stairs. Go up them, and she's in the room at the top. Don' say I told you how to find her."

Joana thanked the man, and she and Glen went back out on the street. They followed a weed-grown alley between the store and a shoe-repair shop and found the flight of wooden stairs leading up to a door on the second floor. Joana started up, with Glen right behind her.

The door was weathered to driftwood gray, and fitted crookedly in the frame. A cold wisp of wind curled around Joana's neck and she shivered. She and Glen looked at each other and exchanged uneasy smiles.

Glen knocked. The sound was curiously dead, as though there were nothing behind the door. They waited, hearing only the traffic noise from Brooklyn Avenue. Glen knocked again.

"Go away!" The voice from the other side of the door was thin and papery.

"We've come to see you," Glen said.

"I don' want to see anybody. Go away."

Joana leaned closer to the door. "Senora Villa-nueva, your granddaughter Ynez at the hospital sent us. She said she spoke to you."

There was a shuffling sound from inside the room. A bolt slid back and the door opened inward about six inches. A puff of stale air, sour with the smell of old age, escaped. The inside of the room was in shadows, and it took a moment for Joana's eyes to adjust so she could see the woman peering up at them from the doorway. She was not more than five feet tall, wearing a loose black sweater and a long skirt that hung limp on her thin body. Her face was as wrinkled as a walnut.

"Senora?"

The old woman said nothing.

"I'm Joana Raitt. This is my friend, Glen Early."

"I know who you are." The old woman's eyes were lively and bright in their deep sockets. "Come inside, if you must."

She backed away from the door. Joana and Glen entered, closing the door behind them. The room contained a sofa-bed covered with a gray military blanket, a wooden table with paint of several colors showing through the worn places, three mismatched chairs, and a cheap black-and-white television set on which a game-show host capered without sound. An old standing lamp with a forty-watt bulb gave the only illumination. The room's single window had a dark green shade tacked to the frame.

The old woman sat down at the table. Joana sat across from her. Glen started to take the third chair.

"No," the old woman snapped. "Not you. You have no business with me." She pointed a bony finger at the sofa-bed. "You sit over there."

Glen looked surprised for a moment, but did as he was told.

For a full minute Senora Villanueva and Joana sat facing each other, not speaking.

"What is it you want of me?" the Mexican woman said finally.

"I–I'm not sure," Joana said. "Let me tell you my story first."

"No. I know all I have to know of your story. You are surrounded by death. You live in the midst of death. That is your story. Just tell me what it is you want of me."

"I guess what I want is for you to explain it to me. I don't understand what is happening to me. Or why."

There was another silence. The old woman's wheezing breath was the loudest thing in the room. At last she said, "You have walked in the land of the dead."

"Yes." Joana shivered, although the room was hot and stuffy.

"You were called before your time. You did not belong there."

Joana leaned forward, intent on every word.

"You traveled too far. You saw too much. The dead want you back."

Like an echo in her mind, the words spoken by the terrible voice in the tunnel came back to Joana. You cannot go back now! You have come too far. You can never return!

"That's what I felt," she said softly, "that they did not want me to come back."

"But you did in spite of them. You were called back to life by someone who loved you."

Joana glanced over at Glen. He was sitting very straight on the edge of the sofa-bed, his head cocked to hear what was being said.

"I did come back," Joana said. "But now-"

"Now they have come for you. The dead have come to claim you."

Joana's throat was dry. She could only nod her head in answer.

"You have shown courage, young woman. You have fought them, even though they are very powerful. The dead."

"I want to live," Joana said. "I'm young."

"Everyone wants to live, child. Even the very old."

"Of course. I'm sorry."

"Never mind 'sorry.' The young always think they will live forever."

Joana saw compassion in the bright, deep-set eyes, and smiled.

"But you must watch, always watch. Cuidado. Take care. Your struggle is not finished."

"There will be more of them?" A sob caught in Joana's throat.

"Yes. You were warned. You were told how many will come for you."

"I was told? I don't understand."

The old woman looked at her. Joana could read nothing in the wrinkled face. Then, again, an echo from the tunnel of the dead: You may win once, not likely twice, most rarely thrice, and four times- never!

"Four? Does it mean there will be four?"

Senora Villaneuva lifted and lowered her head in a silent assent.

Joana's mind raced ahead. The woman in the car, the maniac, the girl on the cliff. Three of them. She had fought three of them and won.

Four times-never!

Could she stand another of the dreadful walkers without going insane?

"You can see these things, Senora," she said. "Do you see my fate? Will I survive the fourth walker?"

"That is not revealed to me," said the old woman.

Joana felt the cold clutch of despair. "Is there nothing I can do? Must I walk in fear the rest of my life, wondering when the next of these creatures will come after me?"

"It is true you must walk a dangerous road," the old woman said. "But there is hope. The dead have many powers, but there are things they cannot do. Only the fresh dead ones can walk. And even then their bodies will decay and finally crumble. When the four have come, there will be no more."

"The fourth walker, the last, when will he come? Can you tell me that?"

"I cannot."

Joana turned away. She wanted to cry.

"This much I can tell you," the old woman continued, "None will come after the Eve of St. John."

Instantly Joana was alert. You must return by the Eve of St. John.

"I have heard that name. What is it? What is the Eve of St. John?"

"It is the night of nights for all creatures not of this earth. It is the time when spirits fly and dead men walk. It is a night of sorcerers, a time of witchery. In my language it is la noche de medio-verano. Midsummer Night."

"Midsummer Night!" Joana repeated. "Of course." She looked at Glen. "When is that? I know it's soon."

Glen frowned in concentration. "June 23, I think. That would be Monday."

Joana turned back to Senora Villaneuva. The old woman nodded slowly. "Monday."

"Then, if they have not taken me by Monday, that will be the end of it?"

"The dead will have no power over you after the Eve of St. John."

Joana breathed a great deep sigh. She felt almost as though she were already free. Then she saw that the old woman was still looking at her. In the dark, shadowed eyes was a warning.

"Is there something more I should know?" Joana said.

"I have nothing more to tell you. It is time for you to go." The thin old voice had turned cold.

Joana rose uncertainly. Glen came over to stand beside her.

"Wait a minute," he said, "there is a lot more you can tell us. What will this last of the walkers look like? How will we know him? What can we do to stop him?"

Senora Villanueva rose from her chair and drew her shriveled body erect. She turned her gaze on Glen, and sparks glowed deep in her eyes.

"I said I have nothing more to tell you. Nothing that will help you now."

"But you do know more," Glen persisted.

"Yes."

"What, for God sake? What else do you see?"

"I see more death," the old woman said, her voice suddenly loud in the closed room. "I see a friend who is not a friend. I see fire and blood. No more than that."

"No more? What do you mean, no more?" Glen's voice rose dangerously. "Why do you give us riddles? We need facts, dates, times."

"Glen, please-" Joana began.

The old woman stepped closer to him. She stabbed a finger up at him. "Facts, is it? You want facts? Very well, young man, I can give you facts. I can tell you the day on which you die. I can tell you how you die. And there is nothing you can do to change it."

The silence in the room was sudden and stifling.

"Well? Do you want these facts now, my so-eager young man?"

Glen's face went pale. He was sweating. Finally, in a voice barely audible, he said, "No."

The old woman continued to stare at him. Slowly she lowered her finger from his face. "You choose wisely. There is no greater curse than to know when and how you will die."

Glen stood as though paralyzed. Joana nudged him and he came out of it and started for the door.

"Senora, how can I thank you?" Joana said.

"I want no thanks."

"Then at least let me pay you something." She started to open her bag.

"Money? Money has no meaning for me. Go now. I am tired."

Joana and Glen left the dim, musty room and walked down the flight of stairs to the alley. When they reached the street they stood for a moment breathing in the clean night air. The solid pavement, the palm trees, the boys around their flame painted car, all seemed part of a world apart from Senora Villanueva and her dark little room. It was a familiar world, a world of life.

They crossed the street and got into the car. Glen started the engine, then turned to Joana.

"What do you think?" he said.

"Think?"

"About the old lady."

"I believe her. What other choice is there?"

Glen put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. "I don't know. She might have been setting you up."

"Setting me up for what? I offered her money, she wouldn't take any."

"Not this time, maybe. That's the way con games work. They hook you in by giving you something for nothing, then they come back with something even better, only this time it's going to cost you."

"Glen, pull over."

"What?"

"Just pull over and stop the car."

Giving her a puzzled look, Glen eased the Camaro over to the curb and stopped. He put the shift lever in park and turned in the seat to face Joana.

"Now what is all this about a con game?" she demanded.

He shifted in the seat uncomfortably. "Well… what do we really know about this old woman, anyway? Some girl, who we don't know either, claims she has mystic powers of some kind. It's all kind of hard to swallow."

Joana stared at him. "Glen, I don't understand you. You didn't say anything about having doubts before we came. You were just as eager as I was." A thought hit her. "Wait a minute, did you think it was part of the con game when she offered to tell you when you were going to die, and how?"

"I…" Glen turned away and looked out through the windshield. "No," he said in a different, subdued voice. "I believed she could do it. God help me, I still believe she knows."

"Then what…?"

"I was scared, Joana. Scared right down to the soles of my feet. When we got out of there and onto the street again and everything looked so ordinary, so unthreatening, I was ashamed of myself. A part of me could not admit that a little old Mexican lady had pointed a finger at me and scared me more than anything ever before in my life. I had to deny it somehow. I had to prove I was strong, so I started running off at the mouth and couldn't stop."

Joana pulled his head down and kissed him. "You are strong, Glen. You're strong and brave, and you're the man I love. Can we go home now?"

He laid a hand on her cheek and looked deep into her eyes for a moment. "Joana," he said, "you are a hell of a woman."