Midnight Taxi Tango by Daniel José Older Page A

single trace of the girl. Nothing.
    â€œReza,” Charo says.
    â€œHm?”
    â€œYou want me to send you Miguel?”
    Miguel’s the biggest driver we got. No, that’s not true: Carbrera is the biggest driver we got, pound for pound. But that’s all lechón and batidos. Miguel is made of muscle. He’s on the legit end, doesn’t know jack about this side of things, in fact, so I guess all the other heavies are off on jobs. I used to think he was a wuss, all that muscle notwithstanding. He has an on-again off-again chick that he never shuts the fuck up about—Virginia? Vanessa? Vanessa—but outside of my team, there’s really no one else I’d rather have my back in a fight. Except Charo himself, of course, because sometimes sheer wrath will take you farther than any workout video or Tae Bo bullshit.
    â€œNo. It’s fine. I’m strapped and there’s nothing wrong—just us being paranoid. No te preocupes, Charo.”
    I’m sure he shrugs at this point, probably lights a Conejo. Then he says, “Suit yourself, Rez.”
    I roll down the window and let the Brooklyn night in.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    I usually clean the Vic to pass the time, but I ran her through thorough last night and once-overed her with a rag earlier, and now she’s immaculate, even by my standards. My suit pants are pressed and spotless; the perfect line runs down the center of each leg and stops just above my steel-tipped alligator shoes. The matching gray vest I’m wearing hangs just right over the Glocks tucked securely under each arm. There’s a dagger strapped to my ankle, and the bigger hardware in the trunk. May seem like a lot to you, but I still have some habits left over from the Bad Years and one of them is Never Be Outgunned. There’s a gold crucifix around my neck and a locket that Angie gave me that sometimes brings me comfort and sometimes nightmares. I never take it off.
    The radio’s playing old salsa, the good Cuban shit that’s so true and raw they can only play it late at night on one of those 88.whatever college stations. I take the cigarette out of my mouth again and replace it in its gold case, shaking my head. I’m not thinking about Angie.
    I’m not thinking about Angie.
    The doctor Charo made me go to said, “Try not to think about Angie so much.” Might as well’ve told me to try not to have an arm. But I try. The song wants to take me elsewhere, but Angie’s smile keeps wrenching me back. And then the emptiness her smile left behind. And then the frantic search. And then the feeling of gnawing desperation. And then giving up.
    And then giving up.
    Which I never really did, probably. Give up.
    On Angie.
    Even though Charo has told me to again and again.
    Probably I dozed off, because a muffled scream wakes me from some kind of dazed stupor.
    Fuck.
    I’m out of the car, breaking toward the doorway, accosting the night air for any hint of another scream, anything.
    It sounded like Angie.
    Everything sounds like Angie when I first wake up.
    On the porch, I stop. This is no way to move. I’m wide-open to attack. I’m barreling forward recklessly. This is not me. There may not have been a scream at all. My haunted head. There may have only been silence, like right now. I stand perfectly still on the front porch. Cars are passing on nearby streets. The Jackie Robinson isn’t too far from here; it cuts through that big old cemetery on the border of Brooklyn and Queens.
    No one is screaming.
    No one is screaming, but something skitters over my foot in the darkness of the porch, and I jump back so fast it almost sends me toppling down the stairs. One of my guns is out by the time I regain my footing; it’s pointed at where my foot was, but whatever it was is gone. It looked like a thing I hate more than death itself, a thing I would prefer not to even mention, thank you very much. And if it was that