by Mark Wheaton
Deborah exited. Michael waited until the door was closed a full minute, then rang Father Chavez.
Having discussed heady things at the construction site, Luis didn’t mind switching to other matters as he gave Sebastian a ride home. He learned that his father had been homeless for a while, moving from an apartment he was evicted from to a shelter to the streets to a worse apartment to another eviction to time in jail to time on LA’s skid row.
“I waited to die,” Sebastian said. “I was so sure it was going to happen, and I didn’t mind. But somehow my heart kept beating. Eventually, I realized that God wasn’t done with me. He still had a task for me on earth. I stayed at a shelter for a while. Did whatever construction came along, even if it wasn’t carpentry. I’m as good with a shovel as I am with a hammer. I finally met a guy on a crew who let me stay in a room in his house. I was there eight weeks. Enough time to save for my own place in MacArthur Park. He was an angel to me.”
“Did you attend Mass?” Luis asked.
“Not at all,” Sebastian admitted. “I went to AA meetings and found God on my own. It wasn’t hard at all. He was waiting with his arms outstretched. As if he’d been across the street staring at me and I couldn’t see him.”
“And the work is regular enough now?” Luis asked.
“The work? Yes. Good pay? Not so much. We’re always getting screwed. But then I met this one guy who is on retainer for a couple of restaurants in Hollywood. He does electrical, plumbing, you name it. When he has a job, he comes to me first. Worked seven-day weeks four weeks in a row for him. Made a thousand dollars.”
Luis did a quick calculation in his head. If his father worked ten-hour days, that broke down to $3.50 an hour.
“That’s great, Dad.”
“I’m not rich, but I am happy doing the work. When I’m not working, I start thinking, and that’s when I want to take a drink and have to lean on God. When I’m working, particularly when it’s somebody who treats me with respect, I don’t need that drink at all.”
They went quiet for a while, Luis wishing he had something to say to break the tension, but nothing came. By the time they were most of the way to MacArthur Park, there didn’t seem to be any point, and he remained quiet.
“Up at that corner is fine,” Sebastian said, indicating a spot on the park’s southwest corner. “I’d invite you in, but I have nothing to offer you.”
Luis pulled the car up to the curb. MacArthur Park was one of the least safe places in the city after dark—bodies of homeless junkies were routinely fished out of the lake—so he didn’t feel great about dropping his father off there. But his father had convinced him of one thing over the past couple of hours: that he was a survivor first and foremost.
“Why don’t you come by St. Augustine’s this Friday night?” Luis offered.
“I told you,” Sebastian replied. “Not into Mass. It’s about my relationship with God. Not a building or its priests. No offense meant.”
“I know,” Luis said, nodding. “It’s a spaghetti dinner to raise money to send the kids at St. John’s to see the Space Shuttle.”
“To see it go up?” Sebastian asked, surprised. “Isn’t that in Florida?”
“No, Dad,” Luis said. “They brought one out here. Put it in a museum. The kids can go look at it up close and dream about being astronauts.”
Sebastian laughed. “In that case I’ll be there. Thanks for the ride.” He climbed out of the car and was about to close the door when he turned back to Luis. “And you’ll talk to Osorio? And your friends in the police?”
About Nicolas.
“I will,” Luis said, wondering if he meant it.
“I know you miss him,” Sebastian said. “And I can see how angry you are about it still. But don’t let that anger take over. When you do, that’s when there’s no room left for God.”
With that, Sebastian closed the door and headed away. Luis watched him go for a moment, thinking on his words.
He was pondering this when his cell phone rang. The hour was late, but the caller ID was from UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica. He answered and was surprised to hear the voice of Michael Story.
“Father Chavez, I need a favor. It’s a matter of life and death.”
VII
When Michael was done explaining exactly what he needed done, Luis couldn’t say no fast enough.
“What you’re asking me to do is not only illegal,” Luis said into the phone, “it’s also morally reprehensible.”
“People have died for what’s on that key drive,” Michael said. “They’re not going to let me go near the crime scene. But a priest who is there on behalf of the waitress’s family looking for personal effects?”
It disgusted Luis to hear the words. “Forget it, Michael. This is where you go too far.”
“I’ll call the police on the scene myself,” Michael said. “They’ll know you’re coming. They’ll let you in.”
“No way. And didn’t you say you’d been fired?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Luis thought they were done and was about to hang up when Michael jumped back in. “What if all this is Oscar?” Michael asked.
“You’re grasping at straws, Michael. Hanging up now.”
“I’m not saying it is, but he’s got connections all over this city. If it’s not him, why’s he got you telling me to get off his back? You don’t think the two things are connected?”
“I don’t. I’m sorry you got shot up, but—”
“Jesus Christ,” Michael said, reacting to something unrelated to Luis’s words.
Luis rolled his eyes. “What? You got a new angle you’re working on?”
“Got a text from one of the officers on scene. The waitress’s kids were with a neighbor, but they were too upset to be at home. So they were taken to their church. Guess which one?”
Luis was stunned. He was almost back to St. Augustine’s, but the tone in Michael’s voice made him miss his turn. “No way.”
“St. Augustine’s. You know her? Carrie Meallaigh.”
Luis felt horrible. Of course he knew her. She was a Sunday regular, eleven-o’clock service. Sometimes she came with her best friend, Mary something, who also had a couple of kids. He’d even spoken to Carrie recently when she’d asked about summer camp at St. John’s for her oldest son.
His horror at the situation quickly turned to anger. Was this God? Was this how he put something in front of Luis now? Or was this merely how the world worked when one ministered to thousands of parishioners?
“So, it’s not a lie,” Michael said. “You’re the family’s priest.”
Luis hung up the phone and pulled the car to the side of the road. He climbed out and stared heavenward.
Why?
This he needed to know. Did God know he was going to refuse Michael and put a parishioner in the way of a bullet? Of course not. That wasn’t God. That couldn’t be God. But the fact that he found himself even asking the question made Luis realize how far gone he was, how abandoned he felt.
But in this moment he had to choose. Would he stand there and feel sorry for himself? Or would he do what he knew he’d have to do from the moment Michael had said it?
He climbed back into the car and rang Michael. “I’m on my way to the scene.”
“I already called ahead,” Michael admitted.
Santa Monica was cordoned off, and traffic backed up for several blocks as it was diverted through the neighborhood. Luis parked at a meter and simply walked the half mile down.
As he got closer, he saw the media vans, then the reporters providing coverage for the eleven-o’clock news, then the police line. He approached the first officer he saw, explained who he was, and was let in a moment later. He worried that the cameras might turn his way, given his collar, but no one seemed to notice.
Luis had been to crime scenes before, but none like this. Though he understood there was only one fatality, it looked like a massacre.
How could one perso
n do all this? he wondered, eyeing the shattered glass, splintered tables and bullet-riddled walls.
He’d expected to see blood, but there wasn’t much. A few marked-off spots on the sidewalk outside, another pool near the window. But then he saw a stain easily a foot in circumference and knew he was gazing at the spot where Carrie Meallaigh had left this world. It had the same haunting emptiness as the place where his brother had died. The same futility. The same uselessness.
Why, God, why? Luis asked, knowing he’d receive no answer.
He was handed shoe covers and gloves by a forensic tech and told that Carrie’s purse was under the counter. He went behind it, found the bright-orange bag with fringe hanging off that he recognized from Mass, and held it tightly in his hand. He then knelt and prayed for her, hoping she would find peace and that, eventually, so would her children. The crime scene, bustling with activity a moment before, went silent as others prayed as well.
When he was done, Luis ducked low to find the key drive Michael had described, almost panicked when it seemed to be absent, then managed to extract it with his index finger. He palmed it, not daring to slip it into his pocket until he was out of the restaurant.
“Please extend our condolences to the family,” an officer told him. “Maybe it helps them to know we got the guy who did it.”
But did you? Luis wondered.
As he made his way to the car, he called the parish and told them he had Carrie’s purse. He then hung up and called Michael. “Where are you?”
Fifteen minutes later Michael was in the front seat of the parish car, turning the key drive over in his hand.
“Is the owner alive?” Luis asked.
“So far,” Michael said.
“What’re you going to do with that?”
“Well, I need to get to a computer that no one’s looking at. Somebody knew where Naomi would be when they killed her. That same somebody knew my whereabouts when they took a shot at me.”
“You’re sure they were aiming at you?” Luis asked.
Michael shrugged this off. “If not me, then the man I was meeting with. Whatever the case, for safety’s sake I have to assume my phone and my computer are compromised.”
“There’s a computer at the parish,” Luis suggested.
“Yeah, the last thing I want to do is bring this down on your head. But I have an idea. Drive to Bel Air. Helen moved to a spot on Outpost, but she’s still having work done on the old house, and she’s working out of her home office there. I need one of her old laptops.”
Luis was skeptical but wound his way through the sleepy neighborhoods up to Sunset Boulevard regardless. He crossed the highway, dodging the construction, and pulled through the gates leading into Bel Air.
The Storys’ old house was impressive by any standard. With a large grassy front yard, a patio, and pool in back with a view beyond, it was the polar opposite of the homes of the congregates that Luis was accustomed to visiting. Even dimly lit with scaffolding up for painters and no furniture to speak of, it was still a palace.
Michael retrieved a spare key from the garden and moved to the back door. “Never told Helen about this one.”
As soon as the door opened, an alarm sounded. Michael hurried to the box to switch it off, but the combination didn’t work. “I guess Helen changed the code. Borrow your cell?”
Luis handed his phone over. Michael called the alarm company and had them turn it off.
“At least I’m still on the authorized name list,” he said, handing the phone back to Luis.
Michael led Luis up the stairs to Helen’s old home office. Though it was filled with boxes, there remained a desk, chair, and two plugged-in laptops next to a phone charger that made the space seem even more temporary than it was. Michael booted up the first one and took a key drive from his wallet.
“Moment-of-truth time,” he said.
Luis watched as Michael inserted the drive into the USB port. A prompt appeared on-screen asking if he wanted to download its contents onto the laptop. Michael agreed, and the transfer took only seconds. When it was done, he selected the “Downloads” folder and gasped.
Under the long list of items from Gennady’s memory stick were thumbnails of sixteen photos that had been downloaded, presumably by Helen, the previous year. They were each of Michael having sex with a woman Luis recognized from newspaper photos as Annie Whittaker.
“Aw, Christ,” Michael said.
Meaning, Luis extrapolated, that Helen must’ve seen these without Michael knowing it.
“She never said anything,” Michael said quietly, confirming Luis’s thoughts. “But she must’ve known the whole time.”
“Did you take them?” Luis asked.
“No, somebody who was trying to blackmail me did. I thought all that had been taken care of before he got the chance to send them. Guess I was wrong.”
Michael highlighted the photos and deleted the lot. He then emptied the recycling bin on the desktop. Luis figured it was a futile gesture at best but didn’t say anything.
“All right,” Michael said, sounding crestfallen as he went to open the first newly downloaded file. “Let’s see what Gennady had on these folks.”
“No, that’s fine,” Helen said into her cell phone. “Thank you for the call.”
Oscar watched her as she hung up, then came back to the sofa, where he was waiting with two cups of coffee, her expression unreadable.
“Who was that?” he asked.
“Alarm company,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Michael broke into the Bel Air house.”
“What the hell’s he doing there?”
“I don’t know. Might’ve needed a safe place to shower or something after the shooting. The company sent a car by and said there’s an ’84 Caprice out front.”
“That’s Father Chavez,” Oscar said. “My old partner-in-crime is now your ex’s partner-in-crime.”
“He knows you inside and out? This Luis Chavez?”
Oscar knew what she was asking. He put his coffee down and looked her in the eyes. “You can ask me if this is my doing if you want to,” Oscar said. “I won’t be offended, and I’ll tell you the truth.”
“I know it’s not you,” Helen said, putting her hand on Oscar’s leg. “You’re not that petty. Once you met him face-to-face, you knew automatically that you were the better man, and you stopped caring as long as you knew that I knew that, too.”
Oscar scoffed and kissed the top of Helen’s head as she nestled into him. “It’s sad how well you know me.”
“Nah. What did you say once? It’s nice to be known.”
“Yeah,” Oscar replied wistfully. “It can be.”
“You think your priest friend believes Michael that it’s some kind of conspiracy?” Helen asked.
“It’s hard to say. Luis is having some trouble these days. God’s not answering his prayers or something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Oscar said. “He feels this bond with God. God tells him to do this, do that, whatever. He discovered this connection after his brother died and it’s what keeps him on the straight and narrow. You think I’m a crook—well, Luis was the wild one when we were kids. If he was on the streets now, he’d run ’em. If he was in prison, which is more likely, he’d run that, too. But he got God.”
“He believes all that? That some guy in the clouds is talking to him?”
“You don’t believe in God?” Oscar asked.
“Maybe when I was little, but I haven’t in a long time. I never know what to say when the kids come home and their friends have talked to them about Jesus and the Bible.”
Oscar shrugged. “Much as I hate to admit it, Luis has done a lot of good in this city in the short time he’s been back. Now, if that’s God working through him, fantastic. If he’s got some crazy voice in his head that happens to be his conscience? I’m fine with that, too. The result is the same.”
“But what if the voice is gone for good?” Helen counter
ed.
“I don’t know,” Oscar said, shrugging. “It’s such a part of who he is. Without it, he’s missing a big piece.”
“Then I hope the voices in his head start talking to him again,” Helen said, sounding flippant.
“Don’t be so superior!” Oscar said, swinging Helen’s legs aside and pinning her on the sofa. “You hook up with one Latin gangster and suddenly you know all the secrets of the universe?”
Helen laughed and cupped Oscar’s face in her hands. “Maybe I do,” she said.
“Fine,” he replied, kissing her back. “Maybe you do.”
But even as they embraced, Oscar’s mind wandered to the Bel Air house.
What are you finding out there, Luis Chavez?
Luis stared at the contents of Gennady Archipenko’s drives. The numbers were huge, but Luis didn’t know what they meant. There were dollar amounts in accounts listed only by number linked to other accounts listed only by number.
“What is all that?” Luis asked.
“Currency exchanges and money transfers,” Michael said, writing a steady stream of dates and amounts on a nearby pad of paper. “These are all high-dollar amounts that required the approval of someone in the executive chain of command at the bank.”
“This Charles Sittenfeld?”
“Yeah. Currency exchanges are typically where a lot of money laundering slips through the cracks. People take advantage of fluctuations in the exchange rate between, say, the dollar and the euro to make a few bucks on occasion, but it’s hard to get away with it for long. The big money-moving through here, however, is being done with the ease of someone taking twenty bucks from their savings account and transferring it to checking. It doesn’t make sense.”
Luis looked at the numbers. There were tens of millions of dollars flashing across the screen. “Could it be fake? Some kind of smoke screen for something else?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Michael admitted. “A bank like this has to answer to the Treasury and even submit to congressional oversight. If they actually moved this much money around, they’d be caught. So either it’s some kind of dummy operation to hide something else. Or people on all levels are looking the other way. I’m pretty sure this is what Naomi found before she was killed.”