Playing for the Devil's Fire Read online

  Playing for the Devil’s Fire. Copyright © 2016 by Phillippe Diederich. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in case of brief quotations for reviews. For information, write Cinco Puntos Press, 701 Texas, El Paso, TX 79901 or call at (915) 838-1625.

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Diederich, Phillippe, 1964- author.

  Title: Playing for the Devil’s Fire / by Phillippe Diederich.

  Description: First edition. | El Paso, TX : Cinco Puntos Press, [2016] |

  Summary: Thirteen-year-old Boli lives in a small pueblo near Mexico City, a landscape destroyed by drug crime, where one day a severed head is found in the plaza, then Boli’s parents leave town and are not heard from, then a washed out masked wrestler turns up and Boli hopes to inspire the luchador to set out with him to find his parents.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015024951 | ISBN 9781941026311(e-book)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Coming of age—Fiction. | Criminals—Fiction. | Mexico—Fiction. |

  BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Violence.

  JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Drugs, Alcohol, Substance Abuse.

  JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Emigration & Immigration. | JUVENILE FICTION / People & Places / Mexico.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.D54 Pl 2016 | DDC [Fic] —dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015024951

  Book, illustration and cover design by Antonio Castro H.

  FOR FINN

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  1.

  It was a hot Sunday morning when we discovered the severed head of Enrique Quintanilla propped on the ledge of one of the cement planters in the plaza.

  Father Gregorio had just finished mass. His congregants shuffled slowly out of Nuestra Señora del Socorro. The men, dressed in pressed polyester slacks and shirts and shiny cowboy boots, put on their western hats and gathered in groups while the women waited under the ovals of shade cast by the small bay trees near the fence.

  Mosca, Pepino, and I ran to the opposite side of the church where the ground wasn’t paved and the hard dirt was perfect for playing marbles. Mosca had been bragging all morning about the devil’s fire marble he’d won the day before from some kid in his neighborhood. The devil’s fire was a legend—el diablito rojo. None of us had ever seen a devil’s fire marble before. I thought it was a myth, one of those lies older kids tell to tease the younger ones. But Mosca was one of the best marble players in Izayoc. And he wasn’t a liar. If he said he’d won a devil’s fire, it had to be true. I wanted to see it. Pepino wanted a chance to win it.

  Mosca was my best friend. His real name was Esteban Rodríguez, but he was short and tough and fast and had big round bug eyes like a fly. That’s how he got the nickname. He didn’t always come to church because he didn’t have a mother and his father left town after the brick factory closed, crossing over to el Norte. Now he worked at a meat plant in Kansas.

  Pepino moved quickly around Mosca and patted my shoulder. “Make your line, Boli.”

  That’s what they called me: Boli. It’s short for bolillo. Since my parents own a bakery, I guess it makes sense. I don’t mind. It’s better than my real name Liberio, which is so old fashioned.

  I marked a straight line on the dirt with the heel of my shoe. Pepino tore a branch from a bush and started to draw a circle, but Mosca stopped him. “I’m not playing for the diablito rojo. Just so you know.”

  Pepino dropped the stick. “You chicken or what?” He was older than Mosca and me. He had bushy eyebrows and small eyes and a big fat nose like a potato, but we called him Pepino, I’m not sure why. He didn’t play marbles anymore. I guess he was coming out of retirement because of the devil’s fire.

  “No chingues,” Mosca said. “I’ll play, but I’m holding on to the diablito for a while.”

  I couldn’t blame Mosca. I’d hold on to it too, maybe forever. When you won a marble like that, you had to hold on to it for a bit, let the news spread. How else were you going to build a reputation?

  “Entonces,” Pepino said. “At least let us see it, no?”

  “It’s in my house.”

  “Liar.”

  That’s when we heard a woman scream.

  We ran to the front of the church. The men were making their way across the street to the plaza. The street vendors had abandoned their carts at the center of the square and gathered around one of the planters that divided the plaza into the shape of a cross. The man who sold the lottery tickets raised his head over the crowd and yelled, “It’s el profesor Quintanilla!”

  This was Izayoc, which in Nahuatl means the place of tears. It was just a small pueblo in a tiny valley in the Sierra Nanchititla. Even though we were only a few hours west of Mexico City, where the State of Mexico meets the states of Michoacán and Guerrero, we were hidden from the world by a pair of huge cliffs, El Cerro de la Soledad at the south and El Cerro Santacruz in the north. Nothing ever happened here.

  Until now. This was one of those moments everybody would talk about for months, maybe years. I wasn’t going to let it pass me by. I ran after Pepino and Mosca, but just as I was about to cross the big iron gate of the church and cross the street, my mother grabbed my arm.

  “Liberio!” She pulled me back to her side. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To see. It’s el profe Quintanilla.”

  “This is not for your eyes.” Her voice seemed to splinter into a zillion pieces. My sister Gaby was standing behind her, an arm around my grandmother who was looking up at the sky, her face covered by a black mantilla. My mother and Gaby were staring at my father. He was standing in the middle of the crowd. He turned and gave us a sad nod: up and down real slow as if relaying a secret message, letting us know it was true, that it was el profe Quintanilla’s head.

  And then, just like that, my mother released my arm and covered her mouth with her hand, her fingers trembling over her painted lips.

  El profe’s head had been severed clean across the neck, just over the Adam’s apple, so there was very little neck. His black hair was slicked back the way he used to wear it in class when he taught us civics and lectured on history or marched us in parade before the flag on patriotic fiestas. Except for the big black flies buzzing and crawling into his nostrils and ears and his open mouth, he looked just like when he was alive, his glazed eyes staring up at the empty bell towers of the church across the street.

  He looked sad.

  The men removed their hats. Everyone crossed themselves.

  My father shouted, “Someone get the authorities.”

  Ignacio Morales, the big fat man who owned the Minitienda, a smal
l grocery store near my house, flipped shut his cell phone and shoved it back in his pocket. “Captain Pineda’s not answering.”

  “He’s probably sleeping it off,” one of the street vendors said.

  Father Gregorio, still dressed in his elaborate chasuble, came forward and carefully plucked a folded piece of paper from el profe’s mouth.

  “What is it, Father?” Don Ignacio asked.

  “A note.”

  “Well?”

  Father Gregorio lowered his head and read the note in a trembling voice: “He talked too much.”

  2.

  The gate at the Secundaria Vicente Suárez school was closed. The groundskeeper sat on a chair inside, his big straw hat pushed back on his bald head, his arms crossed. He smiled, showing us his rotten teeth. “Haven’t you heard, niños? El Profe Quintanilla is dead.” He slowly ran his thumb across the front of his neck from ear to ear. “They cut off his head.”

  Classes were cancelled for three days. I ran home, changed out of my uniform, grabbed my shoeshine box, and went to the Minitienda to meet Mosca. Three days without school meant three days to polish shoes and earn some cash. The feria was coming to Izayoc in a few weeks. Mosca and I had to make some serious money.

  A lot of us hung out at the Minitienda on Avenida Porvenir, one of the old cobblestone streets between my house and the plaza. Don Ignacio was cool with that. He didn’t have a problem if we brought bottles to redeem the deposits or just hung out on the narrow sidewalk in front of his store, even if we didn’t buy anything.

  I set my shoeshine box down and sat on the sidewalk when Edwin Contreras walked up. He was seventeen, fat, and wore clothes that were too small for him. He was always hanging around: all talk and no action. That’s why he got the nickname Zopilote, the vulture.

  Zopilote’s parents owned Dos Caminos, a big open restaurant with a palm-thatched roof. It was on the outskirts of town near the new highway. On weekdays, it was popular with truckers, and on the weekends people from Izayoc would spend the afternoon there drinking and eating seafood cocteles and grilled meats.

  “What’s up, pinche Boli? No work?”

  “At least I work, no?”

  “Take it easy, güey. I was just saying. You look bored. Where’s your girlfriend?”

  “Shut up.”

  He laughed and walked into the Minitienda.

  Zopilote was a fool. His father resented him because he never helped with the restaurant, but his mother gave him money. I actually felt sorry for him. He was always alone. Everyone laughed at him behind his back, but he didn’t seem to care. He was a jerk, always acting like he was too good for the rest of us.

  He came out of the store with a caguama of Carta Blanca and leaned back against the wall. The big bottle looked huge in his hand. “Too bad I’m wearing sneakers, otherwise I’d ask you for a shine.”

  I glanced at his shoes.

  “They’re the new Nikes,” he said and took a long drink of his beer.

  “They’re fake.”

  “What are you talking about?” He looked at his shoes and turned his foot to examine the logo. “My mother got them in Toluca.”

  “Real Nikes don’t have that stitching around the logo like that.”

  “Bullshit.” He turned to the side, holding his beer between his arm and chest, and texted someone on his smart phone. Then he grinned at me as he put the device back in his pocket. “It’s the latest model. You can’t get them around here. Or even in Toluca.”

  A group of girls was walking toward us on the opposite side of the street. They were still in their school uniforms—blue skirts, white blouses and tall white stockings, their black hair in braids and ponytails. They stopped to look at the fabric in the window of Telas y Novedades Virgo. The store belonged to Bonifacio Cruz. All the girls in town, including my sister Gaby, bought material there to make their quinceañera dress. My father always said Don Bonifacio had a sweet deal. Unless people were willing to make the trip to Toluca, they had to buy from Don Bonifacio.

  “Check it out.” Zopilote pointed to the girls with his beer. “Here they come, Boli. Get smart.” He stepped away from the wall and squinted. “Ay güey, that one looks like Ximena.”

  It was. Ximena Mata and her best friend Regina Martínez and three other girls from the secundaria. Ximena was a princess. She never braided her hair like the other girls. She kept it loose so it sailed across her face whenever the wind blew. She had high cheekbones and sleepy eyes. I swear that was what drove us all crazy. That, and how she wore her stockings rolled down and always kept her uniform blouse unbuttoned down to the middle of her chest.

  “That Ximena’s a real doll,” Zopilote said. “Look at how she swings her hips when she walks. “Qué nalgas, no?”

  Then we heard the pounding of a deep bass at the opposite end of the street. A late model black Ford Expedition Max with pitch-black windows and spinning silver rims was coming slowly down the hill.

  Zopilote gawked. “That’s a fine truck right there. One day I’m gonna get one just like that, but red with gold rims. Or a pickup.”

  The sound of the cumbia got louder as it got closer. When it passed, the bass shook all the windows on the street.

  “For real, cabrón. You all think I’m wasting my time, but I’m making friends in important places. That’s how it’s done. You’ll see.”

  I had never seen the truck in town before. As a matter of fact, only Don Bonifacio had one like it, but his was a Suburban. It was green and old and he didn’t even drive it anymore. This was a brand new Ford with California plates and wide, low profile tires. It was so low to the ground, the bottom almost scraped against the cobblestones. When it reached the girls, it stopped. The girls pushed each other and laughed, covering their mouths with their hands. Ximena smiled. She never smiled.

  “I bet you they pick up those whores,” Zopilote said.

  The girls jostled and giggled, but Ximena was a statue, staring straight at the side of the truck. I wished to God I could see who was inside. The whole scene made my stomach shrink.

  Then the Expedition started moving again. The girls made a tight circle and watched it bounce slowly down the hill.

  “Pinches putos,” Zopilote said. “If I had a troca like that, I’d be taking those girls on a joyride to the countryside.” He took a long drink of the big bottle and moved his hips forward and back a couple of times. “You know what I mean?”

  “Who was that?”

  “Who cares?”

  The girls split up. Ximena and Regina started up the hill toward us.

  “My father says the new highway’s going to change our little town,” Zopilote went on because that was what he did. He talked and talked and didn’t care if anyone listened. “As a matter of fact, my jéfe says he’s going to expand the restaurant and might even open a hotel right there where the new highway meets the road into town. But don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.” He took another long pull at the bottle. “It’s a time of prosperity. If we play it right, we’re gonna be rich. You’ll see, cabrón. Pretty soon you’ll see me in a new troca just like that one. Or maybe a better one Ya verás.”

  Regina held on to Ximena’s arm as they came up the block. Both girls were older, seventeen. Regina was friends with my sister Gaby. She was talking, but Ximena didn’t seem to be listening. Ximena was like that. She had this look as if she couldn’t be bothered with what was happening around her, but not in a bad way. It was as if she belonged in a different world and was waiting for life to take her there.

  I had a thing for Ximena. I’d had it for a couple of years, ever since I was in fifth grade and she was in ninth. We were paired together on a school-wide history project about the Niños Héroes. When the teacher complimented us and named our group one of the winners, Ximena turned in her seat and locked eyes with me. I smiled. She kissed the palm of her hand and blew, sending that invisible kiss straight to my heart.

  “They’re coming.” Zopilote was all excited. “You know Ximena has a
badass crush on me. She’s just a little shy.”

  Regina waved as they crossed the street. “Hola, Boli.”

  “What’s up?” I said. “It’s nice that they gave us some time off to mourn el profe, no?”

  “Can you believe it? Pobrecito.” Regina covered her mouth. “Gaby said you were there when they found his head.”

  “It was pretty gross.”

  Ximena turned her eyes away. She reminded me of a cat.

  Regina said, “He was my favorite teacher.”

  “Who was that in the troca?” Zopilote asked.

  Regina shrugged. “A couple of guys.”

  “¿Gringos?”

  “No, qué va.”

  “It had California plates.”

  “I didn’t notice,” Regina said. “They said they’re from Uruapan.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” Zopilote said.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Ya, it’s not your fury I want, mi amor.” Zopilote pressed the beer bottle against his chest. “It’s your love.”

  “I’d rather be dead,” she said.

  I laughed. Ximena rolled her eyes. Regina released her arm. Ximena walked into the store.

  “Don’t be cruel,” Zopilote said.

  Regina turned to me. “Why do you hang out with this idiot?”

  “I’m not. I’m waiting for Mosca.”

  “Maybe we’ll see you later,” she said. “Tell your sister I said hello.”

  Zopilote watched her go into the store. “She likes me.”

  “You’re crazy, güey.”

  “You’re too young to understand these things.”

  “Seriously, pinche Zopilote. It’s like you live in your own world.”

  “Chill out, Boli. When you’re ready to learn about life, let me know. I’ll be happy to give you lessons. Gratis.”

  Then the girls came out of the store. Zopilote and I watched Ximena’s smooth brown calves shining in the sun as they walked up the street.

  A few minutes later, Mosca showed up.

  “What happened? Where’s your box?” I asked.

  “I’m done.” Mosca nodded at Zopilote. “There was a group of men drinking at El Gallo de Oro. I shined all their boots. A hundred pesos.”