Speak of the Devil by Allison Leotta Page B

Although the gang had managed to build a reputation as the most violent gang in America, almost none of the MS-13 members owned cars. Or houses. The people driving by had been born with all the advantages in life. Gato wanted those things.
    “Why’d you make me stop?” Rooster asked.
    “Save your shit for Buena.”
    “That puta .” Rooster spit on the ground. Gato nodded sagely. After Buena’s initiation, Rooster would never be able to look at her the same way again. The initiation often killed the spark a man felt for his girl. But it made the men closer to each other. It made them family. In the end, that was what they all craved. Family.
    Gato’s mother had been a schoolteacher in El Salvador. His father had worked in the gold mines, until there was a workers’ strike. Although he’d been a small boy, Gato vividly remembered the police dragging his father from their home. They never heard from him again. The family continued to live in the two-room apartment in a poor section of Soyapango. The concrete building overlooked bluffs going down to polluted rivers. It wasn’t uncommon to see a body sprawled on the slope, having been thrown off the balconies by the gangs who controlled the neighborhood. Gato had the job of going to the communal fountain every day and carrying home clean drinking water. After his father disappeared, Gato’s mother worked to support the family, but her teacher’s salary never stretched far enough. When Gato was twelve, he and his mother made the dangerous crossing into America in order to find work and send money back home. They got to Langley Park, Maryland, where his mother’s brother lived. His mother enrolled him in school and got a job as a nanny. A few months later, she was killed, hit by a car while crossing the street.
    Gato’s uncle allowed him to continue living in the house, but Gato was barely tolerated there; he certainly wasn’t loved. His only real friendship was with Psycho, in his seventh-grade class. Psycho’s “family” was MS-13, and the gang welcomed Gato. The thirteen-second beating Gato took to be “jumped in” was worth the friendship and sense of belonging he got in return. Eight years later, Psycho and his band of homies were the only real family Gato knew.
    A small voice whispered in Gato’s head. Maria-Rosa could have been your family.
    He strangled the voice, then shoved it into a dark corner of his brain. He wouldn’t listen to it. He couldn’t. He slung his arm around Rooster’s shoulder, and they walked down the road, together.

16
    McGee didn’t think it would amount to much, but if Anna wanted him to do a walk-and-talk around Langley Park, he would. He spent the day walking up to civilians and talking to everyone who didn’t run in the other direction. Some people were known to be helpful to the police, and he made a point of visiting them. Some folks he picked at random. He showed everyone the police sketches, and brought a Spanish-speaking officer to help translate.
    He learned that Diablo had developed quite a reputation.
    “He’s a gangster,” said a man pushing a shaved-ice cart. “I heard he chopped up a bunch of kids in El Salvador and sent their arms and legs to the police chief’s home. The government don’t bother him no more.”
    “He’s the Devil,” said a lady working at Señor Pollo. “If he touches your skin, it’ll rot.”
    “I hear he makes the gangs shake down local businesses,” said the manager at Pollo Campero. “Not me, no sir. We’re fine.”
    No one admitted any direct knowledge of the gang, or having seen “the Devil” in person. Late in the afternoon, McGee stopped at the pupusa truck at the Sunoco on Carroll and Piney Branch Road. The smell of fresh dough and savory meat mixed with the scent of gasoline and exhaust. Through the window at the side of the truck, McGee could see the cook, flipping stuffed pancakes on the grill. The man had a nasty quarter-sized burn on his forehead. It was still