by B. J. Graf
“Be specific, Eddie. This is San Diego. You can’t turn around without hitting a Fuentes or a Sanchez.”
Proximity to death hasn’t killed off your racism either.
“Did you kill this Fuentes?” I said. “Or look the other way when somebody else did? Like one of your Zeta compadres?”
“Sure,” he answered, scratching the dry skin on his left forearm where the I.V. was attached. “I killed him if that’s what you want to hear. What you gonna do about it now? Arrest me?” The glimmer in his eyes matching the crooked grin that split his face.
The anger drained away and all I felt was this sick empty feeling. Putting on my hat, I stood up.
“Where you going?” he said. “If you’re a match they’ll be back any minute to schedule the donation. You do it, I’ll swear to anything you want.”
I paused at the door. “The deal was I’d give blood, and you’d give me some straight answers. Not obvious bullshit.”
“I said I’d answer your questions. I didn’t say you’d like the answers.”
“You do you,” I said. “But when you code blue? Don’t call me.” I turned to go.
“I’m sorry,” my father said. His voice even sounded like he meant it. “We always end up fighting, you and me. Oil and water. Why is that? You’re my son.”
An apology from a man who never apologized for anything. My feet stuck to the floor.
My mother grabbed me and held me back. “Eddie, don’t be that way. Your father’s sick.”
Excuses - the old refrain. I could actually feel my heart harden along with my spine. “Listen to me, Mom.” I leaned in and held her face in both my hands. “He’s sick, but not the way you mean. He has a gun in his mouth, and he likes the taste of the metal. Run. Come live with Jo and me.”
My father’s laugh was a hacking smoker’s croak. “You can’t run from who you are, Eddie. We’re blood. That’s all there is. You think that girl you’re with now is going to stay with you? Haven’t I taught you anything? People with money marry people with money. Sooner or later, she’s gonna flush you down the toilet.”
I clenche my hands into tight fists so he wouldn’t see them shake from the anger flooding through me.
“I hope I am a match,” I said. “Because this is me walking away.”
I rested my hand on my mother’s shoulder. “Think about my offer, Mom.” I left her sitting there by my father’s bedside as the old man turned the air blue with profanity. As I walked back the way I’d come, my father’s ranting turned to a desperate whine. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I’ve always been proud of you. I have.”
Funny how words I’d always longed to hear could hurt worse than a nail through flesh. When I didn’t turn around, my father’s verbal abuse resumed.
But his voice grew fainter and fainter until I’d turned the corner and the distance finally buried the now muffled abuse.
Tick-tock, tick-tock - another hour gone, but I had learned something. I shivered despite the warm breeze that hit me when I exited the hospital. The old liar in the hospital bed had no idea who Lee was. Or Fuentes. So the Piedmont referenced in Lee’s vlog, the Piedmont still in the crosshairs of a killer at large, couldn’t have been the burnt out addict who sired me. As I headed to my car, I could almost feel the target settling on my back.
CHAPTER FORTY
I put the car on autopilot for the ride home. Lee’s digitized voice was the refrain I couldn’t get out of my head. Piedmont – it will end as it began. But if I was the Piedmont in Lee’s vlog that meant not only was I in the crosshairs, the connection between the deaths of Britney Devonshire and Lee ran through me. How?
Every cop has a mental list of perps most likely to carry a beef. I ran through mine, but none of them seemed likely to be tangled up in this. So how? Had I set the dominoes tumbling simply by refusing to write off the Devonshire girl’s death as an accident? Had my stubbornness been enough to trigger Lee’s murder? And ensure Frank’s death as well? Each green and white exit sign flashing past my window felt like a slap. That sick empty feeling in my gut grew denser, pulling everything into it like a black hole.
Jo was asleep when I got back around three a.m. Still stretched out on the couch, she wore a shirt of dark blue silk, but her long legs were bare. All About Eve was playing on the wall screen. Without make-up in that light, Jo’s face looked like a teenager’s. I waited for Bette Davis to buckle her seat belt for a bumpy ride and turned off the movie. The sudden silence woke Jo. She yawned and stretched.
“What’s the news?” That concerned face again.
“Nothing good.” I leaned down to kiss her, then gave Jo the brief rundown of my visit to the hospital, editing out the ugly bits.
She nodded and squeezed my shoulder. Wordlessly, Jo sat up, pulling her knees in toward her body as she patted the soft cushions of the couch in front of her. I sat down, leaning my back against her smooth legs, feeling the cool silk of her shirt brush against my skin as she started to knead the knots out of my shoulders and neck.
“I did something bad,” I said. “Can you forgive me?”
Her fingers barely skipped a beat before continuing their rhythmic kneading. “What’s the offense, and how do you plead?”
“Guilty. By reason of insanity. I just invited my mother to come live with us.”
Her fingers stopped altogether.
“Even though, your mother, being your mother, turned you down.” She paused. “Right?”
“Naw, she’s moving in next Tuesday.”
Jo landed a playful punch to my shoulder.
“Ouch.”
“That’s what I love about you, Eddie.” She continued her massage. “One of the things. Underneath all the macho bluster? You’re kind. That’s rarer than you know.”
One of the things I love about Jo is she thinks I’m better than I am. But that scared me too. Screw my father and everything he’d said in the hospital. I pulled one of Jo’s hands away from my shoulder and kissed the palm.
“Hmm.” She kissed my neck. Jo playfully pushed me away with her feet and turned around, leaning against me this time. She placed my hands on her thighs, under the long silk shirt. “Maybe we should do something bad together.”
And all the thoughts of Lee and Fuentes and my part in this tangled up mess were put on hold as Jo pulled me upstairs to the bedroom.
* * *
When I woke with a start, the clank of the garbage truck moving down the street rattled away. For a second it was just another day. The sun was rising, working its ancient magic, light once again turning the flat black silhouettes of dawn into the three-dimensional world.
But the skin on the backs of my forearms prickled. Neither the sun nor the clanking garbage trucks had ripped me from sleep. The silent flashing red of my phone confirmed my internal alarm.
So did the home security system. Its silent alarm had triggered. Someone without clearance was trying to gain entry. I listened on high alert. But the house was quiet. My phone vibrated. The security company - asking for authorization to send a car or stand down.
“What is it?” Jo’s voice was still sleepy.
“Probably nothing.” I zipped my fly and pulled up all the security cameras. They flashed onto the wall screen opposite the bed.
We had cameras on every door and window plus the driveway behind the house. Houses on the canals are tightly squeezed together. Anyone approaching from the sidewalks out front is highly visible. There was nobody at the front door.
But the screen covering the back was black. Pitch black. A short of some kind? No. The kitchen camera went dark next. I activated the stealth alert to the security company.
When I holstered my Glock, all sleepiness left Jo’s face.
The door to the bedroom was steel reinforced. “Stay here,” I said, locking it behind me.
Glock out, I headed downstairs.
The back door gaped open. The entry code panel was smashed. The blow that smashed it had to be what had woken me. Black spray paint drip
ped down over the lens of the retina scanner. The empty can lay just inside the door.
The sharp acetone smell of the spray paint lingered near the dripping mess which blocked out both retina and thumbprint scanners. Paint still wet. The perp Picasso could still be inside.
Back-up was on route. But a squad car would take ten minutes to get here. Minimum. This was Jo’s home. My home. Jo was upstairs. I clicked the laser function on my Glock to hot.
There’s a reason cops call doors vertical coffins. Even with back up, there’s always a blind spot as you move through. My back-up was ten minutes out. Glock out, I went back through the house the way I’d come. Pivoting the gun in an arc in front of me, I cleared the room. Nobody. The next doorway – the same procedure – the same result.
Crack! Smashing glass and metal sounded from the next room.
As I rounded the corner into the living room, the pungent odor of aftershave mingled with adrenaline and stale sweat hit my nose.
“Police,” I yelled, “Freeze!” Wheeling around, I aimed at the blur of black and white streaking past.
The black and white blur coalesced into a lanky guy in baggy jeans and oversized white tee. He held a metal baseball bat over his head – frozen before he could deliver the second blow to one of the cameras he’d smashed moments before. There was a spiderweb of cracks through the floating glass tabletop too. My home computer was toast.
He slowly turned around to gawk at me. The face, excepting his dark eyes, was entirely concealed by a black balaclava.
A drawing of the wings of a headless angel covered the front of the oversized Ed Hardy tee he wore. The brand was a favorite of both the AzteKas and the Zetas. But they usually accessorize with a nine-millimeter – or an AK.
“Put the weapon down on the ground,” I said. “Slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
His baggy black jeans puddled on the floor as he knelt in slow motion, setting the metal baseball bat down on the ground. No telltale bulge of a concealed firearm in the pockets.
I walked over and kicked the bat out of his range. And ripped the ski mask off his face.
A twenty-something Hispanic face. A stranger’s face.
He had a goatee and wore a green bandana with the number 7 tucked over his dark hair. The green, the number 7 and the headless angel tee told me his life story. All I needed to know anyway. He was from the Loco 7’s – a Venice chapter of the AzteKas tied into the Juarez Cartel down south. But not a shooter. He was missing those distinctive gang tats.
From far off in the distance sirens wailed. Back-up.
The sound startled Headless Angel. His eyes darted around the room, ricocheting between the barrel of my Glock and the back door. He went for it, sprinting past me for the door.
I could have shot him. But he wasn’t armed, and I didn’t want another hearing. So, I sprang after him. Grabbing the tail of his shirt, I yanked hard.
The banger spun around and threw a right at me, wide, and missed. I slugged him hard, once to the gut, followed by a sharp righ jab to the nose with my Glock.
His head snapped back. Blood gushed. He fell backwards to the ground and lay panting. I reached for my cuffs with my left hand. And remembered I didn’t wear them at home. I pushed my right foot into his neck. Pinning him to the ground, I reached for his belt.
Headless Angel froze as I lifted and started to turn him round. He looked up, but not at me. At something over my shoulder. Not something. Someone. He smiled.
I rose and pivoted right. Fast – but not fast enough.
The bullet skimmed my side, shredding its bloody wake in red.
Headless Angel seized the moment. He grabbed his bat and slugged me. I heard my ribs crack. The impact slammed me back a couple steps, lifting me onto my heels.
Shooter stepped in and hammered me with the butt of his gun.
I fell backwards, dropping my Glock, the wind and sense knocked out of me. With each breath a searing pain shot through my chest.
“Cameras.” The shooter’s voice was calm as he delivered orders to the junior banger. “Ahora.”
I struggled to pull air into my lungs. My sides screamed. My gun. I forced myself up onto my elbows.
This second guy, the guy with the gun now pointed at my heart, slowly shook his head as he kicked me back down. The flat black eyes of a practiced killer stared through his balaclava as he stood over me. Sleeve-tats blanketed the arms under his tee shirt. A gun, the barrel pointed out, was inked on his forearm – mirroring the real steel pointed at my head now.
Headless Angel raced around the room like a squirrel on speed, pulverizing every visible camera, plus smart home control panel, family pictures, and anything else he could smash. He wrenched the large contemporary painting off the wall and dropped it onto the floor.
Once the cameras were smashed, Shooter calmly peeled off his own ski mask. A black tear was tattooed by his right eye. He wanted me to see him. He wasn’t planning on leaving any witnesses. He moved the gun closer to my head.
But Headless Angel had missed the auxillary cameras, concealed and protected behind bendable metal glass barriers.
“Facial recognition match.” Close-ups of all our faces floated free in the room. “Carlos Salazar,” boomed the mechanical voice. “Age 22.” Under the mug shot of the little guy with the bat his priors scrolled: B&E, vandalism.
Headless Angel saw his own face before him. He squealed again and raced around the room. Trying to avoid the cameras, he scrambled to find his mask. Fingers fumbling to yank it back on. Futile.
Shooter slipped his own balaclava back down over his face. Too late.
“Enrique Ramirez. Age 31,” droned the mechanical voice as the floating close-up of Shooter’s image froze. Two priors for armed robbery and GBH. One arrest for manslaughter. My murder could earn him another tattooed tear, but he wouldn’t be mourning.
Ramirez shrugged and took slow aim at my head. “Por Paco.”
Ramirez. Enrique Ramirez. For Paco. Paco Ramirez. I was looking at a relative of the baby banger I’d shot three weeks ago. I kicked his legs out from under him.
A shot rang out. Blood and brains splattered me. But not mine. I rolled.
Jo stood in the doorway, arms out the way I’d taught her, both hands on the Glock I’d given her last summer.
And Enrique Ramirez’ faceless, lifeless, body fell where I’d been seconds before.
Salazar screamed and rushed Jo. I tackled him first and heard his knee pop as his fell. I grabbed the bat. His hands reached for his ankle. The knife was just a blur as I smashed the bat down on his head.
His head hit the floor, out cold.
“Eddie!” Jo ran towards me. Her hands were shaking. Our eyes met for a split second. Then I saw the knife sticking out of my upper thigh. Blood gushed. And the world went dark.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
When I came to, I was lying in a hospital bed. Jo sat in the adjacent chair, holding my hand. A young blue-suiter with sandy hair stood guard outside the door.
My chest pinched with each breath, and my head felt as big as a beach ball. I sat up, or tried to, a little too quickly. Searing pain shot through my side. I eased myself back onto the pillows, sucking air through clenched teeth.
“He’s awake,” Jo said.
“I’ll get the doctor.” The uniformed officer hurried off.
“I’ll say this,” Jo said as soon as he left. “Life with you is never boring, Eddie.” Her tone was light, but her hands were trembling.
“I did tell you to stay in the bedroom.” Jo was alright. I mouthed a silent prayer of gratitude and squeezed her hand. Even that pressure made the room pulse.
“I never was good at taking orders.” She rose from her chair and sat facing me on the side of the bed.
“Lucky for me. I owe you. Big time.” Gingerly, I lifted the blanket. My chest was taped and my thigh was covered with a thick bandage. “One more inch to the left and no more talks about having little Piedmonts.”
J
o leaned in and hugged me tight.
The sound of a throat clearing made us separate.
“I’d say get a room, but you already have one.” It was Shin standing at the door, a thin smile on his face. The doctor, a middle-aged Asian guy a head shorter than my partner, strode towards me. Dr. Trahn – I silently pieced together his name letter by letter on his security badge as he neared me.
“You lost a lot of blood, Detective,” Dr. Trahn said. “Not to mention concussion and two cracked ribs. We took a bone splinter out of your lung too.” The doctor took a pre-loaded needle-free syringe out of a vacuum pack and shot the pain meds into the pocket between my lip and cheek. “Don’t try to swallow.”
The bitter meds filled my mouth. The cold bright hospital light flared brighter and made me squint.
“We gave you something to regenerate the tissue faster too,” Dr. Trahn said, pinning my shoulder to the bed with a gentle but firm hand. “You’re mending quickly. But we’re still keeping you overnight for observation.” He entered a few notes on his digital med-pad and left. Shin stayed, taking a seat in the chair Jo had vacated.
The meds made me nauseous. I focused on the faded blue green diamond pattern of the curtain surrounding the bed. The diamonds throbbed with every breath.
“Enrique Ramirez,” I said. My mind was racing, but it was hard work to force words out of my mouth. “He’s….”
“…dead,” Shin said. “And as for Salazar, it’s a solid bust, Eddie. We have their retina scans and prints from your smart house. Not to mention the blood. Not all of it was yours.”
“Aztekas,” I said with difficulty.
“We know,” Shin said in the reassuring tone he used to calm victims at crime scenes. “Salazar is looking at conspiracy to commit homicide, assault and GBH just for last night. Plus, he’s a person of interest in the Zeta-AzteKa war.”
“No…” I said, frustrated that I couldn’t get my mouth to force words out fast enough. “Ramirez. Paco - Ramirez...”