Read Online Panic Attack by Jason Starr - Free Book Online Page B

sick, she felt like she could trust him. But she didn’t like trusting some man she didn’t even know.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“You don’t gotta know,” he said. “If the cops come around, it’s gonna be better that way. Can’t talk about what you don’t know.”
She still didn’t like it, but she knew nothing she said was going to change Carlos’s mind.
“I don’t care what you do,” she said, “long as I get the money for my papi .”
    On the day of the robbery, Gabriela had to go to work for the Seidlers, another family in Forest Hills. Carlos didn’t want her to call him all day, or even later on. He’d said, “Don’t do nothin’ stupid, just sit by the phone and wait for me to call. Cops track calls and shit. We don’t want them seein’ we been talking the day the house got robbed. Comprendes? ”
    Not talking seemed like the right thing to do, but it was hard, working all day long, keeping all the wondering and worrying in her head.
Later, she came home and had dinner with Manuela and called her parents at the hospital in Ec ua dor. Her mother said that papi wasn’t doing very good, and then she put Gabriela on the phone with him. Gabriela could hear it in his voice, how sick he was. He just didn’t sound like the papi she knew. She kept telling him to hold on, that she was gonna get the money for him real soon. He told her don’t worry, he was gonna be fine, but she heard the lying in his voice. That’s the way her papi was, always wanting to be strong.
Manuela spoke to her grandfather, too, and after she was crying and said to Gabriela, “How come you told him you were gonna get the money soon? Where you gonna get it from?”
Gabriela hugged her daughter and said, “God is going to get us the money. You’ll see.”
Around eleven Manuela was asleep and Gabriela was alone, waiting for Carlos to call, even though they weren’t supposed to rob the house till the middle of the night, like two in the morning. She didn’t know how long it was gonna take to rob a house, but she didn’t think it would take too long. Maybe by three they’d be all done, but then how long would it be before he called her? Knowing Carlos, he’d want to do drugs after. She wished she had some heroin right now; that stuff used to keep her very calm.
She tried to watch TV, but it was too hard, so she spent the whole night just walking back and forth in her living room. She’d never seen a clock move so slow. It seemed like it took forever till midnight came, and then one and two o’clock came even slower. But finally it was time— the house was being robbed, and soon, hopefully tomorrow, she’d have her money and her papi would be having his operation and everything would be okay.
The only problem was she had a horrible empty feeling in her stomach, like something was gonna go wrong. She kept telling herself, Don’t think about that. That’s stupid. Nothing’s gonna go wrong. They’re gonna get the ring and the necklace and all the jewelry and sell it, and soon you’re gonna have the money for papi. She kept telling herself this, but she didn’t believe it. The bad feeling was still there; it wouldn’t go away.
At three thirty, she knew it should be all over by now. They should be out of the house, back at Carlos’s or wherever. Then how come he wasn’t calling her? He’d said he’d go to a phone booth after the house was robbed and call her with a calling card so the police couldn’t find out. Maybe he didn’t have a chance to make the call yet. Maybe he was just making sure they were safe and everything was okay; then he’d call her.
But when four o’clock came, Gabriela didn’t believe that Carlos had forgotten about anything. He and his friend were ripping her off, that’s what was happening. They weren’t going to split the money three ways. That had just been more of Carlos’s lies. They were going to split it two ways, and one of the ways wasn’t going to be hers. She didn’t know how she’d been so stupid, trusting a man who’d already lied to