Sunset Park

four more days of work, and then, late on Friday, just after wrapping up the final trash-out operation of the week, as he walks away from yet another empty house and heads for his car across the street, he spots two men leaning against the front and back doors of the red Toyota, two large men, one Anglo and the other Latino, two very large men who look like defensive tackles or professional bodybuilders or nightclub bouncers, and if they are bouncers, he thinks, perhaps they are employed by an establishment called the Blue Devil. The wisest course of action would be to turn and run, but it is already too late, the men have already seen him approaching, and if he runs now, he will only make things worse for himself, since it is altogether certain that they will catch up to him in the end. It’s not that he is a small person or that he shies away from fights. He stands at six-two now, he weighs one hundred and eighty-seven pounds, and after years of working at jobs that have asked more from his body than his mind, he is in better than passable condition—well built, muscular, strong. But not as strong as either one of the two men waiting for him, and because they are two and he is one, he can only hope the men are here to talk and not to demonstrate their fighting skills.
    Miles Heller? the Anglo asks.
    What can I do for you? he replies.
    We have a message from Angela.
    Why doesn’t she give it to me herself?
    Because you don’t listen to her when she talks to you. She thought you might pay more attention if we delivered the message for her.
    All right, I’m listening.
    Angela is pissed off, and she’s beginning to lose her patience. She says you have one more week, and if you don’t come through for her by then, she’s going to pick up the phone and make that call. You got it?
    Yes, I’ve got it.
    Are you sure?
    Yes, yes, I’m sure.
    Are you sure you’re sure?
    Yes.
    Good. But just to make sure you don’t forget you’re sure, I’m going to give you a little present. Like one of those strings you tie around your finger when you want to remember something. You know what I’m talking about?
    I think so.
    Without warning, the man hauls off and punches him in the gut. It is a cannonball of a punch, a punch so colossal in its force and so devastating in its effect that it knocks him to the ground, and as he is knocked to the ground the air is knocked out of his lungs, and along with the air that comes bursting through his windpipe there also comes the entire contents of his stomach, his lunch and his breakfast, remnant particles from last night’s dinner, and everythingthat was inside him a moment ago is now outside him, and as he lies there puking and gasping for breath and clutching his belly in pain, the two large men walk off to their car, leaving him alone in the street, a wounded animal felled by that single blow, a man wishing he were dead.
    An hour later, Pilar knows everything. The bluff was not a bluff, and therefore he can no longer hold out on her. They are suddenly in a dangerous spot, and it is essential for her to know the truth. She cries at first, finding it impossible to believe that her sister could act like this, threatening to put him in jail, willing to ruin her happiness for the sake of a few measly things, none of it makes any sense to her. It’s not the things, he says. The things are only an excuse. Angela doesn’t like him, she’s been against him from the start, and Pilar’s happiness means nothing to her if that happiness is connected to him. He doesn’t understand why she should feel such animosity, but there it is, it’s a fact, and they have no choice but to accept it. Pilar wants to jump into the car, drive over to the house, and slap Angela across the face. That’s what she deserves, he says, but you can’t do it now. You have to wait until after I’m gone.
    It is a horrible solution, an unthinkable solution, but the only one left to them under the circumstances. He must leave the state. There is no alternative. He must get out of Florida before Angela picks up the phone and calls the police, and he mustn’t come back until the morning of  May twenty-third, when Pilar turns eighteen. He istempted to ask her to marry him right then and there, but too many things are happening at once, they are both miserable and overwrought, and he doesn’t want to pressure her or confuse her, to complicate an already complicated business when so little time is left.
    He tells her