Page 96 of Hunter's Hidden Camera
“Stop the car, bro!”
I tap on the brake pedal and pull over to the side of the road, on a block populated by rundown apartment buildings.
Manny is scary. “So what’s the plan?! We’re just gonna drive around like assholes and hope we get lucky?!”
“I don’t know what else to do.” I shrug.
“You don’t have any other information?” asks Manny. “Just what this homeless chick said? Something about Christmas?”
“Yes.”
Manny shakes his head. “If you’re right and Oscar is in a lot of trouble, we don’t have time to drive up and down streets like we’re joyriding.”
“Hey,” I say, “I’m open to whatever you want to do. I just can’t think of any other options. We can try calling my brother again, but I don’t think he’s going to pick up.”
Manny releases a big sigh. “Fine. Drive.”
I head towards the mountains. Several minutes later, we’re in a neighborhood near the base of the mountains, around where I live. The further up we go, the houses get bigger, more opulent.
“Daaaaamn,” says Carlos from the backseat. “These houses arenice.”
“They ain’t nice,” says Blanca. “They’re tacky.”
“You think they’re tacky ’cause you don’t got no money, girl.”
“Even if I was rich, I wouldn’t live up here,” Blanca says. “Nothing but old white folks who look at you funny.”
Carlos chuckles. “Girl, you live in an all-Mexican neighborhood, and peoplestilllook at you funny.”
Manny laughs. “True that.”
I can hear Blanca hit Carlos. “Shut up, Carlos!”
I drive all around, making left turns and right turns at random or whenever Manny tells me to. It’s like we’re just following our hunches. We all carefully observe every house we pass, looking for the SUV that took Oscar or the one Nash was driving or anything that may communicate “Christmas.”
“Pull over,” says Manny.
I do so. “‘Sup?”
“We’ve been out here a half hour.” Manny closes his eyes. “I just want to stop and think for a minute.”
Carlos leans forward. “Manny is like that. Sometimes he just wants to think. And then an answer comes to him. It’s like magic.”
It looks like Manny is meditating.
I say to Carlos, quietly, “Can I borrow your phone?”
Carlos unlocks his phone with his password and hands it to me.
I still have the small sheet of paper with Patricia’s contact information on it, including her phone number. I dial. I step out of the car and close the door behind me.
“Hello?” says Patricia.
I say, quietly, “Patricia, it’s me. Hunter.”
“Oh, Hunter, are you all right? Where are you?”
“I’m okay. How is Jo doing?”
