being the Player have seemed two parts of the same whole. Yes, he divides his time between training for Endgame and helping the syndicate. Yes, sometimes he wields his weapons in defense of the Olmec people and sometimes to preserve his family’s turf. But he’s been taught that these are the same: that Playing is a sacred family duty. That in return for their centuries of Playing, for the sons and daughters they’ve sacrificed to the cause, the Tlaloc family deserves compensation—they deserve respect and power.
But now, he wonders.
Perhaps he’s mistaken two duties for one. His family, his business, his bloodline … is it possible these are extricable after all, that commitment to one doesn’t necessitate commitment to all?
Alicia doesn’t like what she knows of his duty, because she thinks it’s about intimidation and corruption, greed and crime.
If she knew who he was beneath that, the solemn oath he’s sworn, the harsh gods he serves, she might think differently.
Or, he considers, she might not. Endgame is still about violence—war and blood. Alicia has no love for such things, and doesn’t want them for him, in any form. She wants to make his life beautiful.
She introduces him to Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and Stravinsky, to the love poems of Pablo Neruda and the folktales of nineteenth-century Russia, all beautiful things she’s learned to love through ballet. He asks her, “How can you say ballet has blinded you to the world when you’ve seen so much?” and she says, “I want more.”
He plays Mudra for her, and Almas Inmortales and Sanguinaria and Hand of Doom, all his favorite metal bands.
“Ugly,” she pronounces the music, her word for anything she doesn’t like.
But for love of him she listens, watches carefully the look on his face as he turns up the volume and thrashes to the beat of the noise. It is ugly, and full of rage, and this is what he likes about it. This is the music that plays in his head and heart; this is the sound of his life.
“There’s no room for bullshit in this music,” she muses. “Nowhere to hide.”
“Exactly.”
She gets it; she kisses him, and though he is supposed to have left for the gym twenty minutes ago, though he’s already missed his last three weight-training sessions, he kisses her back, and knows he’s not going anywhere, not anytime soon.
So what if he’s neglecting some of his duties? Alicia’s only in Peru until the end of the summer. Everything else can wait for three more weeks.
Even Endgame. He hopes.
No one approves.
“Look who’s coming—it’s the invisible man!” Tiempo crows, as Jago joins his friends for a game of dudo, which he hasn’t done since he met Alicia. She’s taking an exam in her Spanish class—he spent all night helping her study, but still, he misses her for the two hours she’s not at his side.
“We thought you disappeared on us, Feo,” Chango says, shaking his cup of dice. Everyone in Juliaca plays dudo, from the little kids on the street to Jago’s great-grandmother. Jago has been playing it with his buddies ever since they were young enough to be betting with chocolate coins. Now they use real ones, and Jago almost always cleans up.
Once in a while, he suspects his friends of letting him win. They’ve known each other for more than a decade, yes, but he’s still a Tlaloc; their parents work for his. He tries not to think about it.
“Finally ditch la gringa?” José teases.
Jago scowls at them. “Don’t call her that.”
José holds out a cup of dice for Jago. “You blind? That’s what she is, Feo.”
“She’s Alicia,” Jago says. “And I’m not ditching her.”
“She probably ditched him,” Chango says. “Or she’s getting ready to.”
Jago has been looking forward to this afternoon, imagining that he would tell his friends how everything looks different now, how the world has changed—but now that the moment is here, he doesn’t know what he was thinking.
Chango, Tiempo, and José have fought with him—they would die for him—but they’re not interested in hearing about his feelings.
“How come you never bring her around, Jago? She embarrass you?” José asks.
Chango elbows him. “We embarrass him.” Chango has always been the smartest of the three.
“No way is that true,” Tiempo says. He, on the other hand, has always been the most loyal. “Tell him that’s not true, Feo.”
“That’s not true, Chango.”
“So you’re keeping her your dirty little secret because …?”
“If you ever found a girl who could stand your ugly face, you’d know why Feo wants to keep her to herself,” Tiempo says. “See, little boy, when a man and a woman really like each other—”
Chango rears back. “Shut your mouth, cojudo, or I’ll ram these dice down your throat.”
Tiempo only laughs. This is how they talk to one another, this is how they have always talked to one another, and Jago never saw anything wrong with it, until now.
Or, not wrong, perhaps; just less than. They know one another so well, love one another so much—why can they only communicate in jokes and insults?
“So what does Mama Tlaloc think of your gringa—sorry, Alicia?” José asks.
Jago shifts uncomfortably. “She doesn’t know about her.”
Now they’re all laughing. “Your mother knows everything, amigo,” Tiempo reminds him. “She just takes her time. Remember when we broke her bathroom window and blamed it on the gardener? And she pretended to buy our story?”
Jago doesn’t like to think about that. What his friends don’t know is that before his mother fired the gardener, she had him beaten bloody. His pain is on your shoulders, she told Jago. This is what happens when you’re too cowardly to tell the truth.
“She bided her time,” José remembers, shaking his head in admiration. “Waits six months, then—”
Chango slaps his hand against the pavement. “Bam. The Tlaloc hammer comes down. At the worst possible moment. She makes us all cry in front of the Laredo sisters.”
José smiles, sighs. “Ah, the Laredo sisters …” He tuts his finger at Jago. “What I remember most about the Laredo sisters is that you kept both for yourself. Always so greedy, Feo.”
“My point,” Tiempo says loudly, “is that you can bet everything that your mama already knows about your gringa, and you might want to deal with it before she does.”
“Or get rid of the problem,” Chango says, with what could almost be genuine concern. “You know how these tourists work, Feo. You’ve dated enough of them.”
“You’ve
