Free Bruja Brouhaha by Rochelle Staab

up the tot, spat into the child’s hair, and rubbed the gob in. Then she darted into the shop with the little girl in tears.
    I turned to Nick, surprised and repulsed. “What was that about?”
    “She spat on the girl to protect her from the evil eye.”
    “The evil eye? I called the child adorable.”
    “You called her
adorable
but you didn’t block your envy by touching her. The compliment triggered the evil eye.” Nick spoke like I had ignored a well-known fact.
    “Why would she take my compliment as envy?”
    “Some cultures believe compliments mask envy with a wish for harm. Babies and young children are the most vulnerable. Touching erases the envy. Some people use spit.”
    I pretended to spit on my hand then patted his head. “You’re so smart. I promise not to insult any more children today.”
    Two shops down we came to a botanica with a handmade sign in the window:
Protección de la Maldición.
Curse protection.
    Nick stopped. “Talk about opportunism.”
    Oscar Estevez waved through the botanica window and came outside. With his shoe polish–black pompadour, black chevron mustache, and blackened eyebrows, I likened him to an old-school cowboy bandit with a bad dye job. His beer gut pushed at the black buttons on his long-sleeved white shirt. Heeled cowboy boots brought him close to my height.
    He raked his eyes over my body, then cocked his head at Nick. “What are you doing here?”
    “We came down for a late lunch.”
    “You can forget Fidencio’s,” Oscar said, pointing down the block. “A fire gutted the place last night.”
    I stepped off the curb to look, and saw yellow police tape cordoning off the sidewalk on the next block. Black soot covered the bricks on the front of Fidencio’s restaurant. The windows were boarded.
    “What happened?” Nick said.
    “Grease fire in the kitchen. The cook blamed it on the hex. My protection spell business tripled this morning. I sold out of protection oils and candles before noon.” Oscar smirked. “Lucia did me a big favor by scaring the shit out of everybody. She’ll probably lose her business because of it. Maybe I’ll buy her out.”
    “She won’t sell,” Nick said.
    “So you say,” Oscar said. “But she and Paco should have left the neighborhood a long time ago. The old man was losing friends with his anti-gang crap.”
    Nick spread his hands. “The man just died, Oscar. Have a little respect.”
    “Respect?” Oscar shrugged. “Paco wasn’t the beloved old
santero
he pretended to be. I’m not the only one thinking good riddance.”
    A punk with a shaved head and goatee sashayed to the botanica door. The muscles on his arms and chest, covered with tattoos, popped beneath his black T-shirt. He lowered his sunglasses, spit on the sidewalk, and eyed at Oscar to go inside.
    “Customer,” Oscar said. “Later, Nick.”
    After they disappeared into the shop, I said, “Tough guys or just crude?”
    “Oscar caters to the criminal element Paco and Lucia didn’t want in their shop—the gangs and drug cartel members who worship Santa Muerte for protection from the law. There.” Nick pointed through Oscar’s window to a statue of a skeleton shrouded in a cloak of play money, with the scales of justice in one hand and a globe in the other. “Santa Muerte, the saint of death.”
    “Is Oscar in a Santa Muerte cult?”
    “He feigns neutrality, but he plays up a resemblance to Jesús Malverde, a twentieth-century Mexican bandit often worshipped with Santa Muerte.” Nick pointed again, this time to a crude bust of a caballero with the same black-buttoned white shirt, black hair, brows, and chevron mustache Oscar wore. “Malverde was Mexico’s Robin Hood, the saint of drug traffickers. Oscar collects everything he can find on Malverde. C’mon.” Nick took my hand, tugging me up the block. “Lupita’s Taco Truck should be right around the corner.”
    “Truck food?” I said, skeptical.
    Food trucks were big business in Los Angeles.