Hard Bite

by Anonymous-9

  She felt my eyes on her and looked up at me ten feet above. Swinging the bag off her shoulder like it was heavy, she stopped, waiting for me to speak, but I didn't. She cocked her head. "Is that a wheelchair you're sitting in?"

  "If that's what it looks like, it probably is."

  She smiled, slow and slightly amused. "Want me to come up?"

  I was pretty sure then, that she wasn't an actress. "Okay by me," I said.

  And that's how I met Cinda.

  ***

  She drives us back to my place and I can tell by the set of her mouth that she's bothered. "You did it again," she says.

  "You know what I do. Of course I did it again."

  "Oh don't give me that shit. You weren't planning this. You just took off all of a sudden. While cops are all out looking." She looks askance at Sid. "Make him get in the back. He smells like a garbage can."

  I ease Sid off my lap. He was pretty carefree back at Neptune's Net, dribbling shrimp juice and cocktail sauce all over himself. I hadn't bothered with napkins, but to be fair, the bikers weren't bothering either. But I don't think Cinda will accept that explanation, so I stay quiet.

  "What is this now, a binge you're on?"

  "No. Just opportunity knocking."

  "And you didn't even bother to tell me first?"

  "Do you call me up when you're going to work?"

  There's a pregnant pause and she lets out a sigh. "Guess not."

  While we peck at each other twilight befalls the glittering shore of Santa Monica. Ahead, the Ferris wheel at the Pier twirls in the air and a thousand lights twinkle into the distance.

  "It's too beautiful a night not to talk," I try.

  She turns her head and gives a sad little smile. "I think you're right. I just hate feeling like if you get picked up, I'll have no way of knowing."

  "The police let people make calls don't they?"

  "They trace them. I'd be nailed as an accessory."

  "Tell you what. Let's set up a throwaway phone just for voicemail. If the cops trace it they can't connect it to anybody. It'll be like our safe phone for each other."

  "That might be okay." She looks at the darkening sea. "Ever thought you might kill somebody who… you know… didn't do it?

  "An innocent person?"

  "Mmm hmm."

  "Couldn't happen."

  I get the arched eyebrow in response.

  "Research. Fact checking. Due diligence. I'm not a psycho, I'm a vigilante. Tracking people down who need to pay for murder. It's a worthy cause."

  She cogitates on that and says simply, "You don't hit women, I know that."

  "Innocent people either. That's for barbarians."

  "You're a strange man."

  I get a kiss. It lasts until Sid barges between us, jealous monkey.

  We watch the lights of the pier, go home to make love our style, and fall asleep.

  ***

  I wake up from the dream, dripping flop sweat. But it's not a dream, it's a remembrance. It really happened. Cinda sleeps beside me, her brunette hair waving over her face, the pillow. Sid sits on his haunches at the end of the bed, watching me with eyes dark and glittering. He recognizes the dream. He can't know, but he knows anyway.

  Knott's Berry Farm, California. Me, my wife and our daughter are returning from brunch at the IHOP. If you're seven years old, it's the only place to eat. Nothing else will do, according to our Heidi. I decide to skip the parking ordeal at Knott's main entrance, and use the smaller lot around the corner, on Western.

  We stroll to the crosswalk, two lanes on each side, not much traffic. On the other side of the street, beyond the bright yellow entrance buildings, the Pony Express roller coaster goes by. Wheee! Loop-de-looping to the sky, the Xcelerator beckons in lurid pink. Heidi tugs on my arm. "Snot's Hairy Farm!" she shouts. My wife laughs, right behind us.

  From the corner of my eye, a black BMW comes toward us. Fast. Can't he see it's a crosswalk? "GET IN FRONT OF THEM," the father in my head commands."This is really going to hurt," the self-preserving force in me answers. I lunge in front anyway, the BMW plows through, throwing my daughter onto the sidewalk, leaving my wife unharmed. I'm caught on the hood. Tires smoking, the Beemer carries me down the block until he gets the bright idea to slam on the brakes. I hit the pavement, plop, and he guns over top of me, shattering my neck, crushing my left arm and feet, and squashing my large intestine to mush. I curl in the street, breathing the white-smoke exhaust from a fishtail getaway .

  My wife and child lie together on the sidewalk as people run to help, a dozen cell phones dialing 911. Too late. My wife holds our child as she slips away. On the sidewalk. Snot's Hairy Farm. Under the smiling California sun as riders scream with delight. My Heidi slips away.

  The dream fades as Cinda's pager beeps on the bedside table. Sid grabs it and hands it to her.

  "It's a regular," she yawns. "He's worth two hundred, I better go."

  Chapter Seven

  Hurtling back down the freeway, Doug picks his cell phone up on the first blip. It's Claire, her voice a tinny rasp coming through the tiny speakerphone. "Coroner's ready to autopsy Hector Stamos and Juan Doe."

  "I'm about twenty minutes away." Ahead, traffic comes to a standstill and the nearest off-ramp that could have saved him whizzes by. "Scratch that. I was twenty minutes away. I'll be there as soon as the traffic clears."

  "Don't worry, I'll give you a full narrative when you make it."

  Doug flips on the MP3 with Miles Davis and John Coltrane Kind of Blue. Music so chill it put nervous adrenaline in the deep freeze. Good music for refection. His mind drifts over images of the past...

  Unlike a lot of law-enforcement types, Doug never wanted to be anything but an officer of the law. The Sheriff's Department is the natural segue for lots of wannabe firefighters, and they see it as a comedown. For every thousand guys who want a spot fighting fire there is one job in the county. A thousand to one odds.

  Back when Doug was a toddler, a big uniformed man picked him up in wraparound arms and gave him a drink of juice in a squad car. Doug was squatting with his mom in a shooting gallery flophouse along with other heroin addicts. He'd been without a meal for days and likely would have died of neglect had the place not gone down in a bust. The big policeman took him to a place with food, toys and a bed. A place where people smelled nice and spoke kindly.

  The silver lining to all this was an early PhD in the streets. He'd already heard every lie, every con, every scheme possible from his parents before turning legal age. It was hard to put a con over on Doug, even his first week on patrol. The younger the criminal he busted, the better. He told it straight when he got a teenage delinquent in his car. He told them they still had a choice in life. He described the direction they were headed in and where it would lead. Occasionally, he made headway.

  He's brought back to the present by exiting the 5 freeway at Main. The Crown Vic jounces over downtown's infamous potholes. Funny how the sunshine streets of LA change the minute you get in the 213 area code—from pleasantly sunny to baked glare. A guy needs eye protection just to look at the asphalt. Doug turns onto Daly Street, in chronic disrepair even though the passing mom-and-pop burger stands, tired storefronts and an 18-minute Laundromat must pay taxes like everybody else. The worn commercial strip finally gives way to little clapboard houses, built back when this had been a nice neighborhood, before the 5 chopped it in half.

  Doug pulls into the entrance of the County of Los Angeles, Department of Coroner. The sign says, Law and Science Serving the Community. He turns right, past the stately main building with its grand, 1915 facade of red brick and Corinthian columns, and keeps going to a squat yellow and brown structure, so un-idealistic it doesn't even rate a sign. Its identity is stenciled in muddy green letters on the outside wall: 1104A, Medical Examiner Forensic Laboratories.

  The lot is jammed with precisely parked and gleaming Crown Victorias, white in color with the distinctive coroner's logo on the side showing a microsco
pe, a beaker, a set of scales and a medical symbol. Designed in 1966 at the suggestion of LA's original celebrity coroner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. The doctor was famous for his work on the Manson family murders and the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

  But celebrity history is for tourists, not working detectives. Doug checks in and heads to the basement. The pungent smell of plastic-wrapped bodies, disinfectant, body odor and air freshener brews a noxious perfume: "Eau de Coroner" by those who know it well. The smell permeates everything.

  Claire is in the large room, "the body shop" as Doug calls it on the outside. It's bright in here, even the floor is white tile, plumbed with drainage. It's the kind of room meant to be hosed down from ceiling to floor at the end of the day. Claire is engrossed in watching the coroner's every move over twin autopsy tables. The bodies delivered a few hours ago have been removed from their bags and rest on full-size metal trays, placed side-by-side, each on their own table.

  Doug takes a deep breath he's instantly sorry for and steps inside. The plastic bags over Hector Stamos' hands are long gone, just like Claire promised. Plastic bags are avoided because they accumulate moisture, destroying evidence. Lecturing the capable Dr. Claire on this point at a crime scene could have earned him lifelong-enemy status at the coroner's and he feels a surge of pride and relief—13 years of marriage and he's actually learned something about male-female relations.

  Claire looks up. "We did a saliva washing." Doug comes closer as the coroner measures bite marks on both bodies.

  "Anything on the clothing?"

  "A few hair samples."

  "Any more on this one's ID?" Doug indicates the extremely mutilated corpse, found in Hawaiian Gardens.

  "Nothing on this end." You?"

  "Nope."

  A final answer hangs unsaid in the room—that the man is probably an unidentifiable alien, as so many are in the LA dog-fighting underground. Unless someone steps forward—next of kin or significant other—his body will join the ranks of the five-thousand-plus unclaimed persons already in this basement.

  Claire moves away from the subject, "How did notification go?"

  "Nothing unusual. How those bites looking?"

  The coroner glances from one cadaver to the other. A small, wry smile plays on his lips. "Claire told me your hungry dog theory." He suppresses a snort. "It makes as much sense as any. The jugular bite is smaller, but still consistent with an animal bite, so presumably it was done by one of the two dogs that were present at the Hawaiian Gardens CS."

  Claire waves a tiny hand in Doug's general direction. "No blunt force trauma, no gunshot wounds, nothing to show human participation. How about you—any evidence of robbery?"

  Doug shakes his head. "Nothing to suggest murder, either. Your opinion on cause of death?" Claire looks expectantly at the coroner.

  "The death certificate could state 'blood loss through animal bite on the neck,' or I could just put down 'undetermined' if we want to wait for toxicology. What's your call, Doug?"

  "There's no reason to believe drinking or drugs was involved. No bottles, no drug paraphernalia, the guy was a regular working man. For all we know, he stopped at the park to take a leak in the bushes before hitting the freeway and ran into trouble. All that cash in the car sort of bothers me, but the brother says they're often paid in cash. No foul play determined... so we're done here?"

  The coroner draws a conclusive breath, but Claire interjects. "There's just one... it's kind of..."

  The coroner cocks an eyebrow.

  "If this guy's a bricklayer, why does he have such smooth hands?"

  All eyes on the fine, uncalloused hands of Hector Stamos. The image of Ramon Stamos flashes into Doug's mind, the man's physique hardened by manual labor. He wishes his partner were here. Leone was excellent at connecting the dots on this kind of thing.

  The coroner jumps in. "You're not the only one who wears gloves at work." He looks to Doug for support. "Right detective?"

  Doug's about to answer in the affirmative when the hair rises on his scalp for the second inexplicable time that day. What the— "Let's wait for toxicology," he answers, and in his mind, he thinks it sounds lame.

  "Undetermined, then," the coroner replies curtly. "Until Toxicology. We'll be in touch."

  ***

  Doug pulls the Charger up in front of his Los Alamitos ranch-style, turns the windows down, stops the engine. The serene night air wafts in with a hint of night- blooming jasmine. It's one of his favorite things about Los Angeles—the night air in jasmine season, growing everywhere, as common as dandelions in the north, and when it's in bloom the nights are perfumed. In his business, it helps defuse the noxious whiff of death.

  Warm glow in the windows signifies Tabby and the kids are all there, probably playing a game, or singing along with Rockband on the Wii. It doesn't matter so long as they're all involved, doing something as a family. Shrieks of laughter escape the house. Doug almost sighs. He knows how corny and impossible the thought is but… if they could only make it last forever.

  Another lungful of jasmine and it's time to go in. First, he calls inside the house. Tabby has the cordless right beside her. "Hi Doug." In the background. "Daddy! Is that Daddy? DADDY'S HOME!"

  "Have you eaten?"

  "No."

  "I made lasagna."

  "With the parmesan and your mother's meat sauce?"

  "Is there any other way?"

  "Hope not. I'm coming in through the garage."

  I'm coming in through the garage is code language between them to let Tabby know he's just come from the coroner, and wants to shower and change before greeting them. He never allows his wife or kids to embrace him with the smell of death clinging. The cleansing ritual is to sit outside for a while, breathing the clear night air. First, he cleans his mind of the dark things humanity has wrought that day. Then, he takes a shower, puts on clean clothes, and checks his attitude, before joining his family.

  He blows a kiss into the phone. "See you inside, baby."

  ***

  A night patrolman drives through Hawaiian Gardens slowly, with the windows down. The rain has long-since dissipated, the sun is down, and the streets are quiet. Even the trash lies motionless. Every patrolman in the vicinity has been looking for dogs that tore out one man's throat and half-devoured another barely twelve hours earlier. So far, no trace. Suddenly, the distant crash of trash bins down an alley. The officer slows at the curb, flicks his industrial strength flashlight on and pulls his weapon for good measure.

  He recalls the full briefing earlier in the day where the Captain instructed them not to take any risks but keep the dogs alive if at all possible—not just for identification but also to preserve DNA evidence that might still cling to their fur. However, if the dogs appeared aggressive and there was no other option, the order was shoot to kill.

  The officer walks deliberately down the alley, pausing as another crash sounds, until he catches two pairs of red eyes in his high beam. Two pits are going through the garbage. One trails a noose from its neck. The dogs snarl in harmony at the officer and he doesn't think long about the right course of action.

  Blam, blam. Blam, blam.

  Two taps apiece.

  Evidence be damned.

  Chapter Eight

  The toe tag reads "H. Stamos." To Mr. Burnham's unsentimental, career-mortician's eye, the deceased looks like any other young SoCal male of Hispanic descent. At this man's age, though, cause of death is usually a bullet wound, not a torn carotid artery. Nothing a little Naturo Plasto Wax can't hide. After 30 years in the death business, Burnham has to admit, whoever tore the carotid was neat. Neat and unerringly accurate.

  Hardly a drop left to drain the wizened undertaker thinks to himself, as he crosses the bright-white room, turns off the overhead UV sterilization lights and switches on an overhead bank of full-spectrum fluorescents—excellent for working with non-thermogenic cosmetics.

  Mr. Burnham spritzes a silicone-based solution over the young man's
face and neck, all the way to the collar bones. Sponging over the smooth, unwrinkled skin, he marvels at the refreshing lack of tattoos or piercings—until the intercom buzzes. It's the receptionist upstairs.

  "Mrs. Stamos, line one."

  Putting a cloth over his hand, he picks up the wall extension. "Good morning Mrs.—"

  "Caskets. Your website shows the brushed copper."

  "First may I offer my—"

  She makes a throaty noise and plows ahead. "It's in stock? You have it right there?"

  Good English. Faint Mexican accent.

  "Why yes."

  "I want to know—"

  "The almond velvet inside is hand upholstered, artisan finished."

  "Stop interrupting before you know my question. I want to expedite this."

  Mr. Burnham bites his lips. She's talking high-end. "Of course," he murmurs. "… the public viewing, funeral, the service..."

  "No. Nothing like that. He needs to fly to Mexico."

  "A Burial-Transit permit will—"

  "Good. Do it."

  "—have costs attached. He lets words dangle. Delicacies of mourning aside, no funeral home can afford to squander talk time on a low-budget customer. If she hiccups here, best to move her onto the fabric-covered pressboard. Or worse, cremation.

  "Take down this number," she retorts.

  "Pardon Señora?"

  "Just take down what I want and put it on the card." She rattles off a list of numbers including expiration date and CRV. "Start with the copper casket and bronze vault. I'll call back on his clothing." She hangs up.

  Frowning, Mr. Burnham consults a list of phone numbers for merchant credit card inquiries. An operator picks up. "Burnham and Sons," he tells her. "I have a telephone order. Opening charges are twenty thousand dollars." He repeats Mrs. Stamos' numbers.

  The customer-service operator clicks away at a keyboard. "That's a no-limit card, Mr. Burnham. Should I put it through?"