Free The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho by Anjanette Delgado Page A

neatly in the closet, the only clean thing in the whole apartment, not even worth taking along to wherever she’d begun to move her things to.
    â€œIris, stay here. I’m going to get some large trash bags to haul all of this stuff out to the Dumpster.”
    â€œWhat about the, um, stuff? Should we call the police?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œLet’s call the police!” chirped Henry.
    â€œWe’re not calling the police, Henry! And don’t touch anything. I’ll be right back.”
    Three hours and eight large, dark green trash bags later, Iris and I had cleared it all out, and Gustavo had changed the lock to Ellie’s apartment and left a message on her cell phone telling her that her things would be next to the recycling bins on my side of the building for the next forty-eight hours, after which they’d be thrown in a Dumpster. He also told her that I’d found her drugs and that if she didn’t pay back every cent she owed me—eight hundred and fifty dollars in total for the current month’s rent—I’d take them to her mother. It was a gamble. I’d flushed it all down the toilet, and calling her mother (whose number she’d listed as her emergency contact) was a weak threat meant more to scare her into not questioning my dubious eviction practices than to get her to pay me the money she owed.
    Still, I figured I’d get her out of the unit with a minimum of trouble, and then, once things calmed down a bit, I’d find a way to let her mom know what was going on with her child so she could get her some help. The pot was bad enough, but I was sure those dark, ugly rocks were worse, and I couldn’t stand silently by and let whatever Ellie was doing kill her. I just couldn’t.
    â€œGustavo, thank you so much for rushing over on your lunch hour. I couldn’t have peace until that lock was changed.”
    â€œIt’s no problem, Mariela. They weren’t even expecting me at the hardware store today. I’d asked for the day off to take Abril downtown. Planned to make a day of it, accompany her on her errands, take her to lunch, save her the hassle of coming back on the bus. But it must’ve been something I said because she changed her mind about having me drive her, got upset, and accused me of wanting to control her,” he said, shaking his head, his face contorted in confusion.
    Iris and I looked at each other, but Iris lowered her eyes and busied herself taking the Windex from Henry, who didn’t understand why he was only allowed to help clean with a wet rag and not given the fun pump with the blue liquid to use, as if he were “a little kid.”
    We opened all the windows to let a little fresh air circulate through the space and went down to my place.
    â€œSo Abril took the bus?” I asked Gustavo, unable to imagine anyone passing up a ride for Miami public transportation.
    â€œI don’t know. I’m not going to think about it, and Henry knows why,” he said.
    â€œBecause nobody can understand women,” said Henry very seriously upon hearing his cue.
    After Gustavo had swallowed the black coffee I had made for him and gone back to work, Iris told me, “Even I don’t understand that girl. You’d think she’d let herself be helped.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    Iris gestured toward Henry, who was listening intently, so I turned my TV on to some cartoons for him and followed her into the kitchen so we could continue our shameless gossiping while I made sandwiches and more coffee for us, and some oatmeal for him.
    â€œI think she’s found Henry’s father,” whispered Iris.
    â€œWhen did she lose him?”
    â€œI’m not sure. You know she used to live down here in Little Havana about eight years ago.”
    â€œYou mentioned it once.”
    â€œShe was eighteen or nineteen and living here with an aunt. Then she went to New York City to be near her