Emiliano needs to make at least two thousand pesos every month. Half of what he makes he gives to Sara so she can pay the monthly bills for cable and their cell phones. The other half goes inside the fake Bible on his desk, his savings for a down payment on Paco’s brother’s motorcycle. Once he gets the motorcycle, he can make twice, maybe three times what he’s making now. He can also take Sara to work and pick her up again afterward. Riding those buses is too dangerous. He doesn’t want what happened to Linda to happen to his sister.
Emiliano’s heart jumps when he turns into the alleyway to the nightclub. There in the parking lot is Armando, walking toward a black Mercedes. Armando waited for him like he said he would. The day is looking good.
“Emiliano Zapata!” Armando practically shouts when he hears the rattle of the bike. “How are you?”
Emiliano dismounts and pushes the bike toward Armando. From the corner of his eye, he sees four garbage bags bulging with empty beer cans. “Good to see you.” He stretches his hand out to Armando.
“Hold on,” Armando says, shaking his hand. “I have to get something from the car.” He clicks the car doors open and retrieves an envelope from the glove compartment. “Come on in. You want a beer?”
“No, thank you.” Emiliano told Armando once that the Jipari code prohibited drinking, and now Armando jokingly offers him a beer every time he sees him. “I just need to get a purse from Doña Pepa.”
“How about a cup of coffee? Doña Pepa made a fresh pot a little while ago.”
“Maybe some water.”
“You got it.” Armando is wearing white chino pants and a soft black T-shirt that makes his biceps bulge. Emiliano knows he likes to work out. They go through the back door into Taurus’s small office. “Pepa! Emiliano’s here!” Armando shouts through the door that leads to the nightclub. He opens a small refrigerator next to the desk and takes out two bottles of water. He gives one to Emiliano. “Sit for a second,” he says. “I got a proposition for you, like I told you.”
Emiliano sits on a brown ottoman next to the sofa. “I wanted to ask you something too.”
“Yeah? One second.” Armando gets up and disappears into the darkness of the club. A few moments later, he returns and sits again. “I wanted to make sure Pepa was okay. The other day I found her on the floor. She blacked out. She really shouldn’t be working, but she insists on coming in. She says she’d go crazy with nothing to do at home. She used to take care of my father when he was a kid, and he’s sixty-eight, so you do the math.” He raises his bottle and drinks. Emiliano does as well. “So, you go first. What did you want to ask me?”
“I was wondering about all those beer cans you throw away every day. I could take them to the recycling center and we can split the profits.”
“The recycling center. That’s, like, on the other side of town. You’re going to bike all the way over there?”
“It’s not a problem.”
Armando studies Emiliano for a few moments and then laughs. “Okay. They’re all yours.”
“Sixty-forty?” Emiliano says. He knows you should always ask for a little more than you expect to get.
“Me sixty, you forty. Right?” Armando asks.
“The other way. I’m doing all the work. You’re just throwing the cans away now,” Emiliano responds in his best poker voice.
“All right,” Armando says, laughing. “You’re tough. But listen, I need a favor from you.”
Doña Pepa hobbles in with something folded in newspaper. Emiliano stands and she hands him the package. “Here’s the purse, Emiliano. I hope your buyers like it.”
“If it’s like the other three you made, I’m sure they will. As many as you can make, I’ll find the best buyers for you.”
“Those little beads are a big strain on my eyes,” Doña Pepa says, blinking. “And my hands are stiff always. But I like keeping them busy. And the money is for Memo to buy one of those little computers. He loves those Piparis. He’s been talking about that thing where he gets new shoes for weeks.”
Emiliano nods, deciding not to tell her that it’s Jiparis, not Piparis.
“You go home now. You’re only supposed to work until twelve,” Armando says to Doña Pepa, concern in his voice.
“Just have to do the women’s toilets.” Doña Pepa walks away slowly.
Emiliano finishes the water in his bottle. “You said you had a proposition for me.”
“That’s pretty impressive, that little business you got going.” Armando nods in the direction of the newspaper package. “You like doing business, don’t you?”
“I like making deals. It’s about the only thing I’m good at.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t put yourself down. You’re the best high school soccer player in Juárez, maybe in all of Chihuahua. I’ve seen you play. You’re a natural-born leader. You singlehandedly got this city its first state championship.”
“Thank you.”
“How are your grades?”
“Nobody’s perfect.” Emiliano shrugs.
Armando laughs. “Listen, here’s my proposition. My father saddled me with taking his car, the Mercedes out there, to the repair shop. It’s supposed to be just an oil change and tire rotation, but the dealership is going to find something wrong with it, because that’s what they always do. So this morning—it came to me when I saw Pepa wrapping the purse—I said to myself, ‘Emiliano is going to come to pick up that purse. Why not help him and myself by giving him a little money to take the car to the dealership? He needs the money and I need the time.’ What do you think?”
“What exactly would I do?”
“You drive the car to the dealership on Mariscal. You wait there, watch some TV on the big screen in the air-conditioned room they got there, drink all the sodas you can drink, and then bring the car back here and go on your way a little better off financially than you started. Say, five hundred pesos better off.”
Emiliano tries not to react, but it’s too late. Armando sees the surprise in his eyes. “It’s probably, what? Twice what you’re going to make today after you sell all your things?” he says.
“A little more,” Emiliano admits.
“So?”
“Why? Why so much for doing nothing?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to be at the dealership for at least two hours, maybe three. Three hours of my day is worth five hundred pesos. And I get to help you out a little. I know you can use the money.” Armando reaches into a pocket and takes out a shiny brown wallet. He opens it and offers Emiliano five crisp bills. “Take them. This is for three hours. And if it’s more than three hours, I’ll give you one hundred for each hour after that. If by some miracle it’s less than three hours, you still keep the five hundred. And I don’t care if you use the car afterward to do everything you were going to do on that antique you call a bicycle.”
“I don’t have a driver’s license,” Emiliano says.
Armando takes a card out of one of the wallet’s compartments. “If a cop stops you, show him this and ask him to call me. I’ll take care of it. You got nothing to worry about. And the insurance on that car is probably more than you’ll make in your lifetime.”