Chapter 4

Elizabeth had just come home from work when three panicked knocks shook her apartment door. She’d snuck quietly to both deadbolts, making sure they were secure, when the door thumped again, startling her back and making her neighbor’s terrier yap across the hall. Her apartment wasn’t in the safest neighborhood in Boyle Heights, but any complex in Boyle Heights would prove just as risky for a white woman living alone. She hated relying on deadbolts and pepper spray, but eleven years ago, after high school, this place was all she could afford. Mr. Vanderzee had offered to put her up in a loft near work, in Bel Air, but only if she would cut ties with her brother. He had to know she never would, but every once in a while he’d throw the offer out to remind her of the kind of life she could have without Willem. But here, in Boyle Heights, Willem was close enough to keep some measure of tabs on, so she could live with being viewed by her Hispanic neighbors—most of the time coolly—as part of the two-percent minority.

The door banged again, and she swore if it was any harder the flaking paint on her walls would have floated to the floor. “Beth!”

Her heart sank in both relief and dread.

“Beth! Lemme in!” Willem pounded again, even as she unlocked the door. Before she could step away he crashed in, knocking her back against her shelf of cookbooks.

“Will,” she said, steadying herself. His pale blue eyes were bloodshot and glassy, his cheeks sunken, and sweat coated his pallid, shaved head. No matter how many times she’d seen him this way—more often than not the past two years—it felt like the first. But this time it wasn’t just the side effects of being high. This time he trembled with fright. And something—a sinking inside—told her that whatever he was about to ask of her would be more detrimental than any of his past favors. Even more so than the last, which had almost gotten her arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had already determined that was the last straw, but she hadn’t expected him to need something again so soon. Or to look this desperate when needing it.

He slammed the door behind him, breathing heavily, and looked all around them as though a million pairs of unseen eyes watched him, hiding in her vintage furniture and framed family photos. He blinked rapidly, as always. “They’re gonna kill me, Beth.” Tears hung in the corners of his eyes, lurking.

“Who?” she asked, keeping her distance.

“I’m in too deep this time.” He exhaled the sob she’d been anticipating, running a trembling hand over his moist head then down his face. His fingers stayed at his mouth, tapping, and to himself he whimpered, “It’s over.”

“Willem, look at me.”

He didn’t. And the side of her that would do anything for him wanted to take him in her arms until all his problems vanished. She wanted him better, she wanted him home.

“It’s not too late to clean up—”

“Fuck off, Beth.” He glared, and saliva collected in the corners of his mouth like it would on a crying baby. “I’m not here for a lecture.”

Elizabeth tightened her lips. “Leave.”

“What?”

“Leave. I won’t do this anymore.”

His sobbing turned apologetic, and his whimpers pathetic. He cowered before her, his clammy hands grasping hers. “Please…Beth. I’ll never ask for anything again.”

She shook her hands free, backing up.

“Your promises mean nothing. I can’t always bail you out. I love you and you know I’d do anything for you—hell, I’ve given up everything. But—”

“How? Working for that rich cock-sucker and living the good life? I’m just asking for a little of it.”

Her heart grew hot, and the swelling fire filled her. “Just a little? I guess I’m mistaken for thinking I’ve given you everything. And for what, so you can run out and screw up your life again, even worse than the last time? You’re not just screwing yourself, Will! You’re screwing me, too!”

“I know, I know.” His mood shifted faster than she could get a handle on it. “I know, Beth. But it’s different this time, I swear. I know you’ve given up a lot to help me—”

“What do you know?”

“I…know you’re happy with your life, and you’re always teaching me—”

“You think I’m happy?” She recoiled. Living the good life was one thing, but happy? “Will, what I am isn’t happy. I just make the best of what I have. You think I was happy taking over for Dad when he died, missing out on the normal life of a teenager so I could make sure my brother wasn’t out getting high, beaten, or arrested? Was I happy putting every cent I earned from the time I started working into cleaning you up?” She backed him into a corner. “Was I happy dropping out of nursing school when I had one semester left, just to take on more hours with Mr. Vanderzee so I could pay for your damn rehab?”

Her chest heaved in the silence, and Willem’s eyes held only a trace of fear. She sighed, dropping to the couch, and finished tiredly, “That’s not being happy. That’s being a fool. That’s holding to Dad’s dying request that I never give up on you. That I do everything to help you. So don’t say I should give you a little, when everything I’ve done is for you.”

She met his eyes, the color of a dawn sky; the life in them was barely there. “Has it meant anything to you, Will?”

“You’ve…always had my back.”

She shouldn’t have expected more. “Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

He shook his head. “Don’t say that.”

“Look. I don’t know what trouble you’ve gotten yourself into this time, but I can’t help. No more drug debts, no more jail bonds, no more medical bills for overdoses, and no more goddamn rehab. I can’t…” She paused, hating herself even as she spoke the words. “I won’t stick my neck out for you anymore. The truth is, my brother died a long time ago and I’ve been wasting money on a ghost.” She’d never spoken such harsh words to him before, and she couldn’t meet his eyes, even though she knew there wouldn’t be anyone real staring back.

“I never asked you to send me to rehab,” he said through his teeth.

“So all your ‘I’m cleaning up’ speeches were acts?”

With a shrug, he sniffed. “You…always came.”

The pain in her heart should have made her sob. “And it’s my fault,” she whispered to herself, finding it hard to breathe. The reality astounded her, the one she’d never let herself think, since she’d always believed one day, with enough help, hewould change. Just as her father had said only minutes before he’d passed: Don’t give up on him no matter what. Anyone can change. Turns out she had been doing all the wrong things to help him.

“There’s one last thing you can do to help, though, Beth. And I swear on Dad’s grave it’s the last thing.”

“Don’t swear on Dad’s grave.” She stared at the floor. She couldn’t look at him, this time out of mere disgust—with him and herself.

“I need a little money, that’s all.”

“Get out.”

“Beth, please. I mean it, they’ll kill me.”

A corner of her heart ached, telling her to jump up and save him. But the rest of her didn’t believe him. He’d said it before.

She was guiding him to the door when tears began fleeing his eyes again. “Louis Dimas,” he said. And then in a rush, “Jacob Maceno.”

She pushed him, staring. Vaguely, the names rang a bell.

“Martin Soto,” he finished with more reverence. For the briefest moment, when another tear fled his bloodshot eye, she saw a flicker of Willem—the old, real Willem. Martin Soto had been Willem’s best friend last year, the one Elizabeth had begged Willem to stop associating with—the one who always got Willem stuck in the same hole. But three months ago, Martin Soto had been shot, and the story had been all over the local news.

The other names, the ones that had pricked her memory: they were other murder victims from that same week—all young men and all shot in the head. Willem had actually shown a trace of sadness during that week. She’d hated those boys who called themselves friends of Willem, but the attachment he felt to them made her realize there were still some healthy human emotions remaining inside her brother. And those boys, no matter what life they got mixed up in, didn’t deserve murder.