Don't I Know You? by Karen Shepard Page A

language.
    He was thinking. “The window,” he said.
    â€œWho was it?” Steven asked.
    They’d never talked like this with one another. Manuel glanced toward the door. It stayed closed.
    â€œ Hijo ,” he said. It sounded like he was going to say something else, but then he didn’t.
    He sat up straight. His jacket was an old winter one, too warm and too small. His big wristbones poked out of the sleeves like Frankenstein’s. He looked right at Steven. “I was there; you’re right. But there wasn’t no one with me.”
    Steven’s face, his neck, the top of his head got hot. “You’re lying,” he said.
    Manuel kept his eyes on him and shook his head. “Just me, hijo .”
    Steven felt five years old. Tears were starting. “So what were you doing there then?” His voice was wrong. “I could tell Detective McGuire,” he said.
    â€œYou could do that,” Manuel said.
    â€œWhy’re you lying to me?” Steven said.
    Manuel looked at the space where the coffin had been. He rubbed his kneecaps with the heels of his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said.
    â€œYou don’t lie to me,” Steven said. He’d meant it to sound fierce. It came out something else. More tears. His stomach again. “You like me.”
    Manuel nodded. “I do,” he said.
    Steven couldn’t stop crying. He hit his cheek with an open hand. He did it again.
    Manuel reached over and held his wrist. “No, no, no, no, no,” he said. He sounded like a train.
    â€œI can’t tell you nothing,” he said. “But you gotta trust me. It wasn’t no one did those things to your mama.”
    Manuel’s big brown hand was around his own skinny wrist.
    He put his other hand on the back of Steven’s neck and pulled him in. The top of Steven’s head butted him in the chest. He smelled of his little girls and the lobby. Steven looked at the floor between their feet. The door opened. Steven could hear the sounds of the front hall clearing out.
    â€œDon’t go,” he said.
    â€œNo, man,” Manuel said, his hand rocking Steven’s neck. “For sure, I won’t.”
    H is father said that Steven needed to “talk to someone.” Steven figured getting through an hour with anyone would be easier than arguing with a father he didn’t know at all.
    After, he told his father that the lady had been good. He wasn’t lying, but he knew he wasn’t going to tell her about what Manuelhad said, and if he wasn’t going to talk about that, he didn’t see the point of talking at all. He told his father that he didn’t want to see her again.
    His father asked him to think about it.
    He said he would.
    T he week after the funeral, a couple of days before they were leaving, McGuire called off the uniform guy. “No more notes,” he said. “Seems like our guy’s gonna leave you outta all this.”
    Tell him about Manuel, Steven thought. But he didn’t.
    â€œLet’s go get some weed,” Juan said. It was like he’d been trying really hard to be good while they focused on more important stuff, but now that the uniform guy was gone, it was permission to be normal again. They’d gotten stoned twice. But it was normal to act like they did it all the time.
    They went to the head shop on Columbus. It was between two brick buildings, a narrow alley with a door and a roof. A small Indian woman sat at the back end of it, unable to push her chair more than a few inches from the end table she used as a desk. She used a watch calculator to save space. The walls were lined with sheets of pegboard. Feather and bead earrings, bracelets, and necklaces hung from metal hooks. Cellophane packages of incense. Dark brown bottles of oils and stuff. Scarves and hats hung on clothespins from the ceiling. Nickel and dime bags of pot in small manila envelopes. Everything was small. It was