Genesys X

by B. J. Graf

  “We know, Eddie,” Shin repeated in that patient voice. “Enrique was Paco’s older brother. It was an ambush – revenge, Azteka style. Salazar smashed up your place so Ramirez could shoot you when you came down to investigate.”

  “Not just shoot,” I said. “The knife.”

  Shin glanced at Jo and then just tipped his head in a shallow nod of acknowledgement to me. We both knew the Aztekas’ M.O. Shooting was just the appetizer. They’d planned to deposit my severed head on the steps outside Nokia P.D. The meds were kicking in now, dulling the pain but simultaneously making it harder for me to concentrate. There was something I was forgetting. Something important.

  Shin picked up a little carton of juice on the table next to the hospital bed and started to peel off the plastic wrapping from the attached straw.

  “There’s more bad news. We had to let Pink go. His high-priced lawyer got him out on bail.”

  The stream of profanity I let loose only rattled my head more. “How… could that bottom-feeder af-ford …high-priced lawyer?”

  “He can’t,” Shin said.

  “Who?”

  Shin shook his head. “The lawyer’s on retainer for the Aztekas. And here’s the thing, Eddie. He’s not just repping Pink and Salazar. Salazar is talking. He confessed.”

  I stared at Shin. Salazar had run around my place like a crazed squirrel as he tried to hide his face from the cameras. But once arrested, even a junior Azteka would know enough to keep his mouth shut. Even before his lawyer told him to. Why hadn’t Salazar?

  “The D.A…. cut him a deal?” My words slurred a little. Or did he figure attempted homicide gave him street cred? And better tattoos.

  “You’re not getting the full picture yet,” Shin said. “Salazar confessed to getting the nano-bot off Raymond Lee in exchange for drugs. He gave the bot to Pink. On Ramirez’ orders.”

  “What?!” My throat went dry. This was not happening.

  Shin nodded. “We’ve been looking at the case from the wrong end of the telescope, Eddie. According to his sworn testimony, Salazar is Ray’s dealer. Lee was making noises about going to the police. So, according to Salazar, Ramirez took out Dr. Lee. But it was you he really wanted dead.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  They released me from the hospital the next day. The crime scene team was just packing up as Jo and I pulled into the drive behind our house around ten-thirty: They nodded as we passed them on our way in. A blue-suiter stood guard at the door. Taking no chances, Jo had put in the call to her brother Craig on the ride home and ordered a joint security and clean-up team.

  I bobbed my head to the uniformed officer. Even that took energy I didn’t have. I felt weak as a newborn kitten.

  “Probably be a good idea to stay someplace else for a while,” Shin had said when we left the hospital. “Until we know what’s what with the Aztekas.” I glanced around at the mess in our living room. He might’ve been right.

  The damage to the house was even worse in the light of day. The place looked like I felt. Broken glass crunched under every step. The home theatre wall film had been ripped off its organic mount over the fire place.

  Hot spots embedded in the walls had been damaged along with the visible security cameras, so home holo-functionality was down, as was our default access to the web. We had only glove-phones.

  At least the acute throbbing on the left side of my head had turned into a dull faint ache. I poured a glass of orange juice and tossed back two extra-strength aspirins.

  “I’ll pick up the cats on my way back,” Jo said, heading for the front door. She’d packed up the felines and left them with a neighbor. All except for Woolsey the big tom. He’d hidden somewhere even Jo couldn’t find him. “Is there anything you want from the store?”

  I shook my head.

  “Rest up, Eddie. The team will be here in fifteen.” The door closed quietly behind Jo.

  Very gingerly I bent down to retrieve the now dented frame of a digital photo. The glass over the photo had shattered. The blow from Salazar’s bat had broken the photo’s digital function too. The photo was of Jo and me – a goofy romantic shot we’d had taken on our first date down at the Santa Monica pier. Jo and I stood frozen in the now damaged picture.

  Jo - the Aztekas had smashed her house and pointed the gun at her head. But it was me who’d pulled Jo into their crosshairs. Frank and now Jo. Protect and Serve. I felt like a total chump.

  I couldn’t wait for Craig’s clean up crew. Digging out a broom, I started to sweep up the mess. Each brush of the broom hurt. I welcomed the pain.

  When the promised cleaning crew arrived fifteen minutes later, I let them in and watched as they began their efficient clean-up operation. Feeling both underfoot and out of place, I surrendered the broom and headed outside to the deck, carefully lowering myself onto the chaise longue. The hot sun beating down from its position directly overhead made me feel drowsy. I closed my eyes and must have dozed off. I woke with a start when one of Jo’s cats began winding around the legs of the chaise longue, yowling and nudging. Woolsey, the black tom built like a bull dog, had come out of hiding.

  “Where were you when the bangers were here, huh boy?” I chuffed his fur, then pushed him off my lap.

  Woolsey strutted back and forth, nudging my hand with his head.

  “Alright.” As I got up to let him back into the house, I heard the front door open behind me.

  It was Jo, back from the market with the cats in tow as well. I must have been asleep for at least a couple hours. She cast me an appraising glance when I offered to carry groceries into the kitchen. “Let your ribs mend.”

  “I’m fine. Those meds they gave me really work.” I helped her carry in the cat carriers and released the furballs.

  While I’d slept, the clean-up crew had cleared out the broken glass and put paintings back on the walls that didn’t need repairs. The security team was starting in on the walls that did, rewiring the smart home features, patching and painting the drywall. Drills whined and there was a sharp tang of new paint in the air. But there was still a lot to do.

  “Shame about the house,” I said. “It’s gonna cost a fortune to get things back to normal. Even with Craig’s crew, the place is a war zone.”

  Jo waved away my apology with a dismissive little wave of the hand. “You’re okay. I’m okay.” She smiled at Woolsey. “The cats are fine too. We can always replace stuff.”

  People with money. I nodded. I wasn’t one of them.

  I watched Jo’s face as she spoke, almost tuning out her words. Jo’s skin and that white blonde hair glowed. She was so alive, so smart and beautiful. If things had gone the other way-I didn’t even want to think about that. But I had to.

  “Maybe you should stay somewhere else - just for a while,” I said.

  “Me?” Jo closed the kitchen cupboard and turned around, leaning her back against the counter. “Don’t you mean us?”

  “The Aztekas aren’t after us.”

  “We can talk about it later,” she said.

  I shook my head. “Jo.”

  She came over and laid her hand gently on my arm. “I know you worry about me. Her hand exerted just the slightest pressure as she squeezed my flesh. “Don’t. I’m a pretty good shot.” She kissed me. “Thanks to you. And I’m not letting those thugs drive us out of our home.”

  Jo started to put groceries in the subzero. “Or spoil my news.” Jo smiled a sly little grin.

  I gave her the point, deciding to try again when I felt stronger. “Good news?”

  “The city’s lawyers settled the Ramirez suit out of court today.” Jo continued in a breathless rush. “For two point five K.” Two hundred fifty thousand - we both knew a typical settlement was in the seven figure range.

  I stared at her. Opened my mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

  Jo nodded, and in a giddy voice said, “I know, right? It’s incredible. That figure’s practically an admission of how groundless the suit against
you was.”

  “Nobody said anything to me. Not Capt. Tatum, not Espinoza. Not Shin.”

  “They probably don’t know yet.”

  “And you do - how?”

  Another dismissive toss of her head. “The judge in the case had a little too much Pinot Noir over lunch yesterday with one of the partners.”

  I stared at her, gleefully relaying the story. While I’d been napping, one of her partners must have phoned Jo to tell her the good news. Forces well beyond my control were in play, and my whole future had been a tasty little morsel of gossip shared over a casual lawyer lunch, nothing more. Piedmont Sr. had been right about one thing. Jo was part of a world I didn’t belong to and never would.

  “I thought you’d be thrilled.” A muted note of disappointment played under her words. “Now that there won’t be a public trial over the original shooting, the demonstrations will stop. The L.A.P.D. will want this investigation to go away quietly. You’re home free. We can put this whole business behind us.”

  “It’s good news, Jo,” I said, pulling her close and breathing in the vanilla and lavender scent of her pale hair. “Really.” I held her against my chest for a few seconds. Till she broke away, nodding.

  “You sure? You don’t look happy.”

  “That’s just my face,” I said.

  “It’s a nice face.” Jo kissed me then took a seat on the sofa, her smile enigmatic as she tapped the seat next to her. “I have more news.” Jo kicked off her flats.

  I sank back into the white leather of the seat next to her, waiting. “Good or bad?”

  “Definitely good.” She curled up close to me but glanced around the living room. “You know you may be right about this place. We should look for a new house together in a few months. Someplace bigger.”

  My phone rang. The ringtone told me without looking it was my mother. I let the call go to voicemail.

  Jo’s phone pinged a couple seconds later.

  “Don’t answer it,” I said, kissing her neck.

  Jo glanced down at her phone. Her face paled. “Eddie, you need to take this.”

  I looked from her to to the text my mother had sent. And as Shin would say, the tiger rolled over again. The cancer had won. My father was dead.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I couldn’t lie to myself. My father’s death was a relief. There’d be no more screaming matches, no more bruises of purple and green suddenly blooming on my mother’s face.

  But I was surprised to feel a kind of hollow ache. Any hope for a real father-son relationship, however faint, had gone into the grave with him. And losing that sliver of hope I’d only half-known was there hurt a lot more than losing him.

  The rest of the day I buried myself in work. Shin held the fort at Nokia PD interrogating Salazar. I busied myself in the paper work, making sure the files on the Devonshire and Lee cases were up to date. The next day Jo and I drove down to San Diego to bury my father.

  Most of Eddie Piedmont Sr.’s funeral went by in a blur. Bits and pieces stood out though, like vivid shards of stained glass. Sky the color of bleached denim, frayed at the edges. Cut flowers, sun-wilted, laid out on neighboring graves. Digital faces, blinking portraits of the dead, smiled from the niches on their respective tombstones nearby.

  My mother’s face, pale and waxy under the white Sunumbra parasol Jo held for her. Like one of the wilted flowers.

  My mother and her older friends wore traditional black. Jo wore white. As did several others seated in the four neat rows parallel to the grave. When had white become fashion-forward for funerals? Was it after the big melanoma scare of 2032 or had the surge in Chinese immigrants once the CCP put the screws on Hong Kong and Taiwan fueled the Asian trend? I tried to remember.

  Most of the seats in the four rows were filled. I was surprised at the decent turnout till my glance round the faces confirmed most of the mourners were there for Mom. A few had braved the drive south for me, but I didn’t see anyone who was there for the deceased. Every person graveside, including my mother, was dry-eyed. I hoped when I died, I would have lived the kind of life that makes mourners at my funeral actually mourn.

  And there was Shin, a late arrival tip-toeing towards us. I hadn’t expected him to make the drive all the way down here. I caught his eye, and we both edged our way to the empty seats at the back.

  “Ashes to ashes.” The words of the priest were a low hum in the background – the way other people’s conversations sound in restaurants.

  I leaned toward Shin. “Did Salazar cough up something worth the drive?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about Lee’s vlog?” Shin whispered back. “That he mentioned you by name?”

  I turned face forward again. “Things happened so fast. My old man.” I sighed and told Shin about the emergency visit to the hospital. “I had to find out if the connection ran through him.” I jerked my chin toward the grave site.

  “Which it did,” Shin said. “Even if he didn’t know it.”

  Familiar faces in the crowd suddenly seemed far away – faces glimpsed through the wrong end of a telescope.

  “Salazar knew my father worked for the Zetas on occasion,” I said.

  “He confirmed it.” Shin ran his hand over his buzz cut.

  The attack against me wasn’t just about the Ramirez kid. This was tied into the gang war - Aztekas battling the Zetas over turf, peddling green ice, blue lotus and the marijuana that made its way into the storefronts behind the green crosses on every corner.

  “So, when they found out it was a Piedmont who shot Enrique Ramirez’ little brother…”

  Shin nodded. “The Aztekas figured it as part of a larger Zeta play. Don’t forget the car the kid was driving belonged to the older brother. Enrique Ramirez was their top enforcer after Nieto moved up in the hierarchy.”

  “Nieto who just got out of prison,” I said.

  Shin nodded. “According to Salazar, Nieto thought the Zetas had put you on payroll to take out his lieutenant. That you tried to. And shot the kid by mistake. So, Ramirez and Salazar paid you a visit in turn.”

  I kept my eyes so tightly focused on the green blankets of fake grass draped over the newly cut earth. My father’s dead and I’m still gettin fucked from his shit. I hoped there really was a hell, and he had just checked into it.

  Then Jo appeared at my side and handed me a white rose, and I was standing. Jo nudged me again.

  I stood there looking down into my father’s grave. I could have laser-cut that gaping hole with my stare alone. Shin, standing right behind me, leaned forward to whisper. “He’s gone, Eddie. You can’t kill him twice.”

  “No.” But monsters should stay buried. I dropped the rose on the ground outside the grave. Grabbing a fistful of wet black dirt, I tossed it on my father’s casket. The clods of earth made a dull thud as they hit the wooden coffin down in the darkness below.

  --

  Not longer after, the crowd began to disperse. On her way out, Dr. Tabandeh, my father’s oncologist, walked up to me, her stiletto heels crunching on the gravel.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. Shielding her eyes from the blinding sun with her left hand, Tabandeh held out her right for me to shake. “Your father fought the good fight.”

  I focused on the little beads of sweat blistering up along her hairline to keep from grimacing. “It’s nice of you to take the time, Doctor. I wouldn’t have thought my father made the most popular patient list.”

  A sly little smile crept across her face. “Well, to tell the truth, he was a bit difficult.”

  “You’re a diplomat.”

  Her smile transformed into a broad conspiratorial grin. “Maybe a bit. But not every patient agrees to donate organs or marrow either. It’s a tremendous help to my research.” Dr. Tabandeh smoothed her white silk coat-dress.

  I’d nodded again, but her words jolted me. It was strange to learn the old man had done something right for a change. Not enough to change my overall opinion of him, but still, a nice
surprise.

  Tabandeh nodded, running her hand through her short dark hair. “Actually, I came today to apologize.”

  I shot her a quizzical look.

  “For asking you to test the other night. Really, the chances of finding a match in donors who aren’t blood relatives are slim to none. I wouldn’t have put you through it if I’d known.”

  I stared at the doctor like she’d been speaking Hindi. “Are you saying I’m not my father’s blood relative?”

  A look of embarrassed shock flickered over her face. “I’m sor-ry,” she stammered. “Truly sorry for your loss.” Her ears had flushed bright pink at the tips. Dr. Tabandeh headed off to the left, then wheeled back around towards the cars. Taking short hurried steps across the manicured grass, she’d passed me again, her whole face burning red now.

  The row of black limousines stood waiting with their doors opened singly, or a couple at a time, like a string of crows about to take flight from a phone wire.

  I stood frozen in place until with robotic steps I followed Jo and my mother into the limo for the ride to the reception. What could Dr. Tabandeh have meant?

  “Mom,” I’d said, squeezing her arm after the behemoth ferrying us glided away from the curb. I relayed my conversation with the doctor.

  “What?” My mother’s eyelids fluttered in a series of rapid blinks.

  “Dr. T. said the blood test showed I wasn’t related to Dad. Not by blood. How’s that possible?”

  “Eddie,” Jo said. “This isn’t the time.”

  “There’s never a good time for most of the questions I have to ask.” I pushed the button for the privacy screen. The air between the driver’s seat and ours’ froze into a clear soundproof crystal. I repeated my question.

  I expected her to say the doctor had it wrong. That there must have been a mix-up at the hospital. Something like that. But she didn’t. She didn’t say anything.

  “Mom?” I shot her an incredulous stare. She quickly looked away. Her eyes stayed fixed on the landscape floating by her window as the car glided past another block. Her hands shredded the Kleenex she held into soggy bits.