The Tortilla Curtain

voice. He made his living in Hollywood, doing movie trailers, his voice rumbling across America like a fleet of trucks, portentous, fruity, hysterical. Millions of people in theaters from San Pedro to Bangor churned in their seats as they watched the flashing images of sex and mayhem explode across the screen and felt the assault of Jack Cherrystone's thundering wallop of a voice, and his friends and neighbors at Arroyo Blanco Estates sat up a little straighter when he spoke. “I'm as liberal as anybody in this room--my father chaired Adlai Stevenson's campaign committee, for christsakes--but I say we've got to put an end to this.”
    A pause. The whole room was riveted on the little man on the dais. Delaney broke out in a sweat.
    “I'd like to open my arms to everybody in the world, no matter how poor they are or what country they come from; I'd like to leave my back door open and the screen door unlatched, the way it was when I was a kid, but you know as well as I do that those days are past. ” He shook his head sadly. “L. A. stinks. The world stinks. Why kid ourselves? That's why we're here, that's why we got out. You want to save the world, go to Calcutta and sign on with Mother Teresa. I say that gate is as necessary, as vital, essential and un-do-withoutable as the roofs over our heads and the dead bolts on our doors. Face up to it,” he rumbled. “Get real, as my daughter says. Really, truly, people: what's the debate?”
    Delaney found himself clutching at the thing in his pocket, the bloody relic of that innocent dog, and he couldn't restrain himself any longer, not after the onslaught of Jack Cherrystone's ominous tones, not after the day he'd been through, not after the look on Kyra's face as she slumped across that narrow bed with her son and her terrified pets. His hand shot up.
    “Delaney Mossbacher,” Jack Jardine crooned.
    Faces turned toward him. People craned their necks. The golden couple beside him parted their lips expectantly.
    “I just wanted to know,” he began, but before he could gather momentum someone up front interrupted him with a cry of “Louder!” He cleared his throat and tried to adjust his voice. His heart was hammering. “I said I just wanted to know how many of you are aware of what feeding the indigenous coyote population means--”
    “Speak to the question,” a voice demanded. An exasperated sigh ran through the audience. Several hands shot up.
    “This is no trivial issue,” Delaney insisted, staring wildly around him. “My dog--my wife's dog--”
    “I'm sorry, Delaney,” Jack Jardine said, leaning into the microphone, “but we have a pending question regarding construction and maintenance of a gated entryway, and I'm going to have to ask you to speak to it or yield the floor.”
    “But Jack, you don't understand what I'm saying--look, a coyote got into our backyard this morning and took--”
    “Yield the floor,” a voice called.
    “Speak to the question or yield.”
    Delaney was angry suddenly, angry for the second time that day, burning, furious. Why wouldn't people listen? Didn't they know what this meant, treating wild carnivores like ducks in the park? “I won't yield,” he said, and the audience began to hiss, and then suddenly he had it in his hand, Sacheverell's gnawed white foreleg with its black stocking of blood, and he was waving it like a sword. He caught a glimpse of the horror-struck faces of the couple beside him as they unconsciously backed away and he was aware of movement off to his right and Jack Cherrystone's amplified voice thundering in his ears, but he didn't care--they would listen, they had to. “This!” he shouted over the uproar. “This is what happens!”
    Later, as he sat on the steps out front of the community center and let the night cool the sweat from his face, he wondered how he was going to break the news to Kyra. When he'd left her it was with the lame assurance that the dog might turn up yet--maybe he'd got away; maybe he was lost--but now all of Arroyo Blanco knew the grisly finality of Sacheverell's fate. And Delaney had accomplished nothing, absolutely nothing--beyond making a fool of himself. He let out a sigh, throwing back his head and staring up into the bleary pall of the night sky. It had been a rotten day. Nothing accomplished. He hadn't written a word. Hadn't even sat down at his desk. All he'd been able to think about was the dog and the gnawed bit of bone and flesh he'd found in a hole beneath a