by Hart Hanson
CONSTANT TRUTH
Six hours later a nurse wheels me to a pleasant, well-appointed waiting room with comforting furniture and wood paneling and indirect light and a view south to the ocean. This is where the hospital shunts grieving celebrities or their families when they are forced to confront the cruel reality of mortality in their heretofore charmed lives.
Such is the nature of the real Los Angeles.
Secret oases.
Hideaways.
Sanctuaries and harbors.
You are standing on a sun-blasted desert street with smog in your lungs, squinting through your sunscreen and sunglasses and sun-blasted desert grit, wishing you were back home in wherever it was you came here from in the first place, and then you turn down this corridor, descend three steps, follow this wall past a mural and through a gate, and find yourself in a courtyard where goldfinches and orioles warble and fountains tinkle and amber-colored iced drinks are brought to you by beautiful, exotic people and you think you’ve died and gone to heaven.
That’s the real reason they call Los Angeles the City of Angels. You constantly find yourself standing at the right hand of God, amazed by the beauty in the world. Los Angeles is supposed to be all facade, but it’s exactly the opposite. It’s not until you’ve burrowed into the city’s deep nooks and crannies and bolt-holes that you find the real there that is there. A lot of people never get that: if you think there’s no here here, it’s because you never found your way through the looking glass.
Despite my current surroundings and my pleasant Vicodin buzz, I was trying (and failing) to run through the relaxation exercises my VA shrink gave me when, finally, the door opened and my lawyer entered. As always, my heart rolled over in my chest at the sight of her.
What am I, fifteen years old?
Let me tell you about Connie: her full name is Constanta Candide, which translates, according to Lucky, as Constant Truth, which would typically be ludicrous when applied to a lawyer, but in Connie’s case, the translation is accurate. Hippocrates would have labeled Connie’s humors as Choleric with Sanguine overtones, meaning—well, let’s just say that combo results in a particularly turbulent potpourri of conflicting impulses that can make a person alluring but distant.
In flat shoes—which are the only kind she’ll wear because high heels are, I quote, “a way to hobble women”—Connie is approximately five feet two inches tall, which barely brings her up to Delilah’s shoulder. Connie downplays her looks, unsuccessfully in my opinion, by wearing her dark hair in what she calls a lob—which means a bob that stops at the chin—and rimless glasses in an effort to look severe.
I first met Connie in San Diego when she called me up as a witness for the defense in a court-martial involving a shipboard altercation in which an E-3 (male) was struck in the face, with intent, by Connie’s client, an E-9 master chief petty officer (female), both parties serving in the US Navy. The petty officer’s guilt was not in question because she admitted striking the E-3, but extenuating circumstances could mean the difference between a stint in military prison, followed by the end of her naval career, and a temporary slap-on-the-wrist demotion and an amusing but respectful new nickname. The extenuating circumstances involved whether or not the petty officer was fending off a sexual assault. This is exactly the kind of case Connie loves.
At the time of the proceedings Connie was a full-on naval lieutenant 0-3, while I was ostensibly an army chief warrant officer W-3, which meant that as a commissioned officer, Connie outranked me.
“Mr. Skellig, could you please inform the court what you were doing on board the USS Elrod at the time these events occurred?” Connie asked me at the court-martial sentencing hearing.
“I am not at liberty to say,” I said. (Yes, it’s cliché, but that’s the language a guy like me is advised to employ at times like these.)
“You are not at liberty to say why you were on board the ship?”
“I’m not at liberty to confirm that I was aboard Elrod.”
“Really? Why?”
“Well, now we’re whirling around in some tightly coiled circular logic.”
“Can you give us a general idea?”
“I cannot.”
Connie looked at the court-martial board. Three of them shrugged. Four willed themselves to be invisible to one another and the brave three who had shrugged.
“Mr. Skellig . . . have you been sheep-dipped?”
“I am not familiar with that term,” I lied like a lying-dog liar.
“It refers to military personnel whose security clearances have been upgraded so that they can be seconded to the CIA or other government agencies for detached duties.”
The odor of sheep-dip upon me must have filled the entire hearing room if a fairly inexperienced Navy lawyer like Connie had picked it up.
“Are you even really a chief warrant officer?” she asked. “And I will remind you that you are under oath.”
I said nothing, which told Connie what I was (sort of and inaccurately).
“Lieutenant,” a rear admiral advised Connie, “let’s assume this is an area the witness is not authorized to discuss and move on as though he is exactly what he says he is.”
She looked at me. I shrugged.
“Tell me, without confirming whether you were there or not, in your own words, what happened,” Connie suggested.
“If the petty officer broke the turd’s nose, then she did absolutely the right thing and the turd deserves a big chicken dinner.”
“Big chicken dinner?”
Showing off, the rear admiral informed Connie that big chicken dinner was military slang for bad conduct discharge and that turd was self-explanatory.
“I’m sure the board appreciates your willingness to do its job and mete out justice, Mr. Skellig, if that’s your name—”
“It’s my name,” I said.
“—but if we could get back to the reality that you were an eyewitness to what the petty officer did . . . ?”
“I’m gonna take the Fifth, Lieutenant,” I answered sorrowfully.
“Taking the Fifth doesn’t mean what you think it means,” Connie informed me and, by extension, the seven-member court-martial board. “When you’re a witness, you implicate yourself by refusing to testify and risk being held in contempt.”
I asked which amendment was the one that allowed me not to answer, which Connie did not find amusing, and my implied security clearance did not stop her from whipsawing and smacking that board around until I ended up in the brig on contempt charges. But three days later it was Connie who came and got me out of that brig, drove me from San Diego all the way back to her cottage at the butt end of the Venice Canals (talk about a hidden-away slice of heaven), and provided me a few pro bono lessons in self-implication.
Why did Connie take pity on me? Because I’m okay-looking, physically fit, because I did the right thing when I stood up for the petty officer, but most of all, I like to think, because she was determined to plumb the depths of my irresistible aura of mystery.
That first weekend together, I told Connie what I could, which was that my service career had been quite wide-ranging, working for or with every branch. Connie wanted to know what I intended to do when I left the military and I told her what I thought was the truth at the time: I intended to use my politician mother’s contacts to get into politics with the express intention of making things better for veterans returning to the world. She said she liked the fact that both of us were interested in making the bigger world a better place.
Connie had joined the Navy to get her American citizenship, her mother being an illegal alien from Culiacán, in the state of Sinaloa, which is in Mexico. The Navy put Connie through law school, in return for which she gave them five solid years of service, mostly as a prosecutor, during which time she met me. Now she works for a white-shoe law firm in Century City.
“
I want to help Latinos. Run for governor. Supreme Court. Senate. President. Something gigantesco like that.”
Now you have increased insight into my relationship with LAPD detective Delilah Groopman. Yes, there are sexual sparks between me and Delilah; you weren’t imagining that. In the regular course of events, Delilah and I would have given it a shot. (Delilah has confided in Connie that the only things that keep me from being a solid eight out of ten are that I’m under six feet tall and the fact that I’m besotted with Connie.) But Delilah and Connie have been BFFs ever since Delilah was assigned to protect Connie during a contentious trial that garnered Connie a raft of death threats from anonymous persons of the racist persuasion. As a result, Delilah knows exactly how I feel about Connie and how Connie feels about me, so the vibes between us remain dampened and repressed.
Are you wondering what happened to my political ambitions?
After mustering out, I went to work as an adviser on veterans’ affairs for a congressman whose heart was most definitely in the right place. Working for him, I got a solid, firsthand look at how good ideas and the best of intentions drown in the swamp of political necessity and realized that it would be years before anything I did in the political arena brought any benefits to actual veterans.
By that time, I’d smuggled Lucky into the country through Canada. He was bouncing around from cash job to cash job and obviously needed something more stable. I realized that the best thing I could do was start a small business where I could hire him on a cash-only basis, so almost exactly one year ago, Oasis Limousine Services was born. Which is about the same time I made the gigantic mistake of asking Connie to marry me.
“Listen, Gringo,” Connie said. “I already explained to you my political ambitions. I can’t have a gringo husband and half-gringo babies. Nada personal. It’s the same reason I don’t take drugs or dirty dance in public or send you pictures of my tetas even though I’d like to. Big picture, right?”
It was never the same between us after I proposed. It had put too much pressure on the relationship, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t unring that bell.
Until the perfect excuse to spend time with Connie presented itself: I was being questioned with regard to a homicide and needed a good lawyer. And Connie was the best.
It started out very promising with a hug and three (count ’em!) kisses ranging from my forehead to my nose to the very corner of my lips. But by the time she peered at the sewn-up gash on the top of my head, she’d remembered that we were no longer a couple and pressed down on my shoulder to keep me from rising.
“¿Estas vivo?” she asked, utilizing her full-on professional-lawyer tone, letting me know she was showing concern not for me, her wannabe fiancé, but for a mere client.
I took the hint and kept it professional. Instead of saying, I love you, let’s get married immediately, I said, “How soon can you get them to let me go?”
“Not before they transfer you to the county jail.”
“When’s that?”
“Two hours.”
“But I don’t want to go to jail.”
“Not an uncommon reaction.”
“I didn’t kill anybody. In fact, I prevented somebody from getting killed.”
“Several shots were fired from an as yet undetermined number of weapons,” Connie stated in her loveless lawyer voice. Whereas questions from Connie draw you in, statements of fact are her way of keeping you at arm’s length.
The exact opposite of Delilah.
“Nine shots from two separate weapons,” I said. “The Slavic-looking zit kid fired at Avila twice, the first of those bullets striking and killing the bodyguard. The Goth boy dropped his gun in the middle of a somersault before he could get a shot off. Did they find that gun?”
Connie nodded, signaling me to keep talking and leave the questions to her.
“I discharged the late bodyguard’s weapon three times into the ceiling, and the Slavic kid shot four times into the ceiling as they fled the premises. Nine bullets in total. Three guns. Not complicated.”
“I’m sure you’ll be proven correct,” Connie said. “But currently the forensics narrative is muddied. Furthermore, there’s an espectador inocente with a bullet through his liver and corresponding buckets of confusion about how that occurred, and several witnesses point to you as one of the people who discharged said weapons.”
“I admitted firing three times into the ceiling.”
“There is an alternate account.”
“From the skateboarder whose life I saved? Or the bodyguard who didn’t do a damn thing but hit me on the head when it was over?”
“You mean the celebrity owner of a major company? Or the trusted member of his security detail?”
“Connie. It’s blackmail.”
“You are contending that Bismarck Avila is blackmailing you.”
“First with a carrot made of expensive Scotch, then with a stick made of confusion about what happened.”
“Blackmailing you for what?”
“Avila’s exact words were that he wants what he wants.”
“Obviously, he wants you to kill someone for him.”
“That’s alarmingly specific. Why go straight there?”
“It’s not like you’ve never killed anybody, Michael.”
“Only for the United States Army! When it was my job!”
“It’s possible you developed a taste for it. What was once your job is now your hobby.”
“Are you doing that thing where you pretend to be the prosecutor to emphasize the dire nature of my situation?”
“Tell me what Avila wants from you.”
“To drive him places. In a limo.”
I have to admit that when I said it out loud it sounded maniacal.
“Avila says he’ll pay three times my current hourly rate and buy Oasis for three times market value.”
“Three times market value! So he’s offering you a box of Skittles and a car-wash coupon.”
“Hey!”
Connie must have felt bad because she stopped making cruel distancing statements and started asking questions.
“Is Avila making you some kind of mollifying preemptive offer before you can blackmail him?”
“For what?”
“Did you see him do anything probative or incriminatory?”
“I already went through this with Delilah.”
“And?”
“I saw him pick his nose with his thumb.”
Connie covered her eyes dramatically, as though she was thinking deep thoughts, then said, “Accept Avila’s offer.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Take the job, then quit in a week, after Avila gives the police a statement that gets you off their radar.”
Connie removed my cell phone from her purse and waggled it impatiently. Her suggestion was smart and simple and pragmatic. I didn’t like it.
“After you make the call and your client’s memory of the situation legally adjusts, I’ll take you home and pro bono this consultation.”
The way Connie said pro bono cheered me up. I took the phone and called Bismarck Avila to accept the job. Meanwhile, Connie called Avila’s lawyer and told him what steps to take immediately so that Delilah Groopman wouldn’t send me to county jail, which is an awful place filled with bad people.
Two hours later, I was a free man.
PRO BONO IS THE BEST BONO
Connie’s cottage is tucked away at the northeastern edge of the Historic Venice Canals, one of the increasingly rare funky remnants of California beach-town Bohemia. Surrounded by a collection of architectural boxes, stubborn throwback cabins, and upscale whimsy, Connie’s cottage enjoys a view of two toy bridges under which people paddle and pedal and row in toy boats along the canals, drinking chilled wine or artisanal beer under well-trimmed palm trees that clatter
slightly in the breeze off the beach just two blocks away. Tonight we sit out on Connie’s canal-side deck, under Fellini lights, breathing in the salty tang from the ocean while Connie serves delicious curly pasta in marinara sauce washed down with the perfect balance of a robust red and legally prescribed painkillers.
Because life, at that moment, threatened to approach perfection, and Connie, like a Navajo blanket weaver, would have none of that, she spiked the mood by grilling me about Tinkertoy and Ripple. Connie entertains grave concerns about both of them, especially Tinkertoy, because Connie knows in torturous detail exactly what befell Tinkertoy in Iraq.
Tinkertoy was a buck sergeant convoy mechanic and driver in the Army infantry. She served three tours in Iraq. Halfway between Abu Ghraib and Fallujah on Route Michigan, a band of Naqshbandi insurgents attacked Tinkertoy’s convoy, during which fracas Tinkertoy was exploded, bludgeoned, kidnapped, and scheduled for video execution. To while away the days before her beheading, Tinkertoy’s captors broke all four of her limbs with a hammer, tortured her sexually, and raped her tortuously.
I was part of the sheep-dipped extraction team who extricated and reclaimed Tinkertoy a long three days after her capture, by which time something deeper than flesh and bones was broken (of course), and her subsequent erratic and self-destructive behaviors (of course) placed her before a board (of course) and got her dishonorably discharged (you cannot be serious!).
At that point I was still a congressional aide and, aggravated by Tinkertoy’s situation, informed Connie. Connie sailed in, had Tinkertoy’s dishonorable discharge transmuted to an honorable discharge, and then tried to help Tinkertoy find a job and an apartment. Another reason for me to get out of politics and into a chauffeur’s cap. When I established Oasis Limo, I hired Tinkertoy to be my mechanic.
“I don’t like Tinkertoy living in your crawl space,” Connie said.
“It’s not a crawl space.”
Tinkertoy lives in a windowless utility area accessed beneath her workbench through a three-by-three plywood hatchway with rope handles. Anyone who notices the panel at all assumes there’s a water heater or electrical panel back there. I think of Tinkertoy’s room as a monk’s cell. She sits back there, eating food out of cans and watching game shows on TV, muttering the answers in pig Latin so the TV won’t think she’s helping the contestants cheat.