One More Body

by Josh Stallings

  I WOKE AGAIN when Dr. Miller entered my room. The drugs they gave me kept me calm, slightly buzzed but not high. “I just wanted to let you know, I checked and there wasn’t a dog in the wreck.”

  “What about the cop?”

  “They told me you were alone.” He studied my face, looking for my reaction. I gave nothing up. Less he knew about what and whom I cared about, less leverage he had. “We can talk about it if you like.”

  “What’s to talk about? Gone is gone. Dead or run off, but gone for sure.”

  “All right. Fine.” He looked sad. Walked out. Left me alone.

  ANGEL IS TUCKED into my leather jacket, her floppy puppy ears dance in the wind. Her warmth is pressed against my belly. I feel a rare, strange peace. Angel is her full hundred plus pounds. I feel hot sand under bare feet. Angel moves down to the surf. The water is blood red. Just beyond the breakers, Kelly stands in a white rowboat. She is whole. Alive. I would do anything to hold her. Angel leaps into the red water, paddles out and gracefully climbs into the boat. Kelly cries out but her words are lost to the roar of the sea. I run after them, splashing, diving, swimming. With every wave crest I see they are getting farther and farther away, until finally I lose sight of them. I stop swimming and let myself sink. Blood red covers my vision. I sputter. I gasp. I let go and drift lower.

  “MOSES, CAN I call you that?” We are in Dr. Miller’s office. He has my police file on his desk.

  “Sure, Doc, why not?” I construct my face into some facsimile of a calm smile. He scans my file, looking from it to me as he reads. I keep my head in neutral. One of the gifts my monster of a drunken mother gave me was the ability to shut my head down, go numb and not let the bastards see you hurt. You let them know what hurts, they just keep doing it.

  “You have done quite a lot of what most would call violent acts.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you consider yourself a violent man?”

  “Yes.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “Feel?”

  “Feel, yes. How do you feel about the violence you have been involved in?”

  “Does my answer change when I get out?”

  “Yes and no. You are under a 72 hour evaluation. I need to assess if you are a danger to yourself or others.” He looks at me a long time, then takes a note. I let the silence stretch. “The LA Times called you a hero. Are you a hero?”

  “No. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Heroes have choices?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It says you saved six teenage girls from being trafficked in the sex trade. By any measure, that is heroic.”

  “Papers, reporters, they write all colors of crap.”

  “You didn’t rescue the girls?”

  “It wasn’t that simple.”

  “Ok.” He looks over my file. “Times also said you joined the Marines at 16. Lied about your age?”

  “They shouldn’t have printed that. Personal.”

  “But it is true? You were in Beirut?”

  “I was there.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Marines say Washington wants you to go kill, you go.”

  “The question is, why did you join the Marines in the first place?”

  “It was a train out of town, good as any other.”

  “What about your childhood, parents?”

  “Look, Doc, you wanna find out if I will hurt myself or others? Odds are I will. But I’m not crazy. There is a thirteen-year-old girl named Freedom, she’s out there in the hands of a pimp. Every moment I sit here she gets farther away from who she was.”

  “Are you sure about this girl? Could she be a fantasy? Guilt, pain, alcohol and narcotics . . . do you find it odd that you are searching for Freedom?”

  “She is real. Do your fucking homework. Ask Detective Rollens.”

  “Who?”

  “Rollens, LAPD detective? She was in the car wreck with me.”

  “You were alone.” The floor started to open under my feet. I sank back into the chair.

  “Please, call Detective Lowrie, LAPD, Hollywood Division.”

  “Is he a friend?”

  “Just call him.”

  SIX P.M., NO word from Lowrie. Group therapy was a three-ring circus: clowns, ballerinas, lion tamers and me, the human beast. I kept my head down. Turned inside. Tried to sort out the last days. Where the fuck was Rollens? Why had she left me here? Was she real? Was any of this? Maybe I was on the beach and this was a vivid dream. You hang around the nuthouse, you’re bound to catch some crazy.

  BOBBY WOKE ME. I felt half-assed normal. Or sober, rather. Lately the norm was stoned. This actually felt good. The cotton had been swept from my brain. “Mo, you got a visitor.”

  “Cop?”

  “He said you asked for him.”

  LOWRIE HAD DEEP bags under his eyes. The man didn’t sleep. Instead, he closed cases. Looking me over, he shook his head sadly. “Do me a favor, McGuire, forget my name.”

  “Good to see you too, old man.”

  “I had a long talk with the head of Internal Affairs yesterday. Wild guess what it was about?”

  “Me?”

  “Bingo buffalo. Bastard wants to know why I hang with an outlaw degenerate like you. Told him you were my C.I.”

  “Buy it?

  “Hell if I know.”

  “How badly am I screwed here?”

  “Took down a couple of highway patrol boys. True?”

  “I was drunk.”

  “When aren’t you?”

  “Now.” I held out my hands. They were steady, not a tremor in sight. “Why is I.A. interested in me?”

  “You tell me. Horseshit is what this is.”

  “Do you know a detective named Rollens?”

  “Who’s he?”

  “She. Black, on the short side. Lost her niece.” Lowrie thought it over, but shook his head. “Said she knew you. Used your name to get close to me.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  There it was. I was well and truly fucked. Rollens, or whoever she was, had played me. The juice I thought I had with the cops was gone. I was an ex-con with two strikes in the middle of a snarling clusterfuck.

  I gave Lowrie everything I could remember about Rollens and Freedom. He wanted to know if I thought the girl was really out there.

  “My gut says yes. I don’t know. Rollens definitely vibed cop, or ex-cop. She’s the only string I can see in this rat’s nest.”

  “Do you know why I like you, McGuire?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Yeah, neither do I.” At least he was smiling when he said it. Lowrie told me he would do some digging into Rollens, look into the vice connection. I thanked him. He shrugged it off. “McGuire?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Take it easy. Undertow in the city is getting rough.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Step lightly. Keep your size thirteens off people’s chests if you can help it.”

  WHEN HE WAS gone, I took a long, scalding shower. Switching to ice cold, I felt my skin coming alive. In my room, I did twenty push-ups. I was puffing hard. Was a time I did a hundred just to get my heart rate up. I ran laps around the nurses’ station. The crazies watched me pass like a ghost train. The floor was cold under my bare feet, but it was better than trying to run in paper slippers. The blood pumping felt good. After several sit-up reps, I gripped my gut and wondered where the hell it had come from. I guess I knew where and how I had become this hunk of soft flab. Why eluded me. Fuck it. Why was for suckers and bleeding hearts.

  Fuck why.

  Why was a rearview mirror. Somewhere out there was a bitch who’d set me up. Somewhere was the son of a bitch who killed Angel. Somewhere there might be a little girl being passed around like a Friday night party favor.

  Fuck why.

  More push-ups. More running. Another long shower. Let the heat loosen my exhausted muscles. It was time to get the hell
out of there.

  DR. MILLER LET me into his office. He had me sit while he finished up some paperwork, then looked up at me.

  “You look good, Moses. How do you feel?”

  “Better. Ready to go home.”

  “You know, I think therapy would do you good. You don’t have to be in so much pain.” He was serious. I didn’t laugh. I needed his signature to get free. “Do you know anything about evolution?”

  “I stay out of politics.”

  “Science.”

  “That too.”

  “With early humans, the biggest, most brutish male was made the tribe’s leader. As hunters and warriors, it made sense. But then agrarian culture came along and society needed cooperation. In that model, three men could join up and take the strongest down. Those who could cooperate, negotiate, became the new leaders. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes. Maybe it’s time I evolve. You could be right.” I knew it was bullshit, said it anyway. Down where I live, the brute rules. Cooperation is another way of saying surrender. Tell the motherfuckers holding a teenaged girl you want to negotiate, you wind up in a ditch.

  MY JEANS AND t-shirt were torn and bloodstained, but they had thought to wash them. My Docs were a mess, leather jacket torn and scuffed. Hell, guys in Beverly Hills spent beaucoup bucks for this look. The twenty stitches holding my forehead together was the finishing touch.

  Lowrie had convinced the highway patrol to drop any assault charges. An insanity defense would have cleared me anyway. I thanked nurse Bobby. He told me I didn’t need to come back, I could make it if I would only find a higher power. I thanked him and split before his twelve-step pitch.

  I was free for all of twenty feet before they nailed me.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Give us the room.” They drove a couple of doctors and nurses from the break room. Deloris and Carbone. Both men looked like lifetime government employees.

  “Do you have ID?” I asked.

  “We heard your bullshit story about a fake cop from your loser of an LAPD detective pal,” Deloris, the older one, said. He stank of cigarettes and coffee.

  Carbone, the younger, sweeter-faced cop handed me his shield. “Sorry about my partner.” His shield looked legit.

  “Internal Affairs? What the fuck?” That earned me a cuff on the back of my head from Deloris. “I don’t work for LAPD, I don’t have to say fuck all.” I was still bold from the feel-good pills.

  “Thousand acres of Federal land two miles from here. Bodies go missing.” Deloris said.

  Carbone moved between us. “We need your help.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Deloris shoved me toward a chair with sudden strength and ferocity. “Sit.”

  I stepped back, but didn’t go down. He looked surprised. He was used to people going down when he pushed. Bullies hate being wrong.

  My fist clenched.

  “Go ahead, McGuire, swing. Give me a reason to sink you.”

  “Deloris?”

  “Fuck him, Carbone. Fuck. Him. He talks here or we take him, now.”

  The younger cop shrugged and gave me a weak smile. “You want to tell us what happened, Moses?”

  “Starting where?”

  “The beginning, dickweed.”

  “Why are you here?” Deloris shoved me again, harder. I stumbled, righted myself and turned on Carbone. “Son of a bitch touches me again? I’ll take his head off and we can speak through my lawyer. Or you will pull a body dump and see what I tell you from the grave. Sack up and deal it, fuck the outcome.”

  “Nobody is dumping anything. We just want the truth. We hear a story about an LAPD badge in Mexico and military ordnance going off in our county, we investigate.”

  He wasn’t a bad kid, for I.A., so I told him what I knew. A sanitized version of the truth. I started with Rollens coming to Mexico. I omitted killing Xlmen, and the amount of drugs I had been ingesting. I may have painted a less savage picture of how I questioned the pimps. They went through the story again and again. After an hour of going back and forth, Deloris had had enough.

  “This is crap, McGuire. Fake cop? You bought it without checking? Crap.”

  “Her I.D. was real, or good. She dropped a solid name.”

  “Yeah, fucking Lowrie. Solid piece of shit. Not one thing is right in your fairy tale. Why the hell were those gangbangers after you?”

  “I don’t know who they are. Truth. We can keep dancing all day and I still won’t.”

  “Screw him, he knows diddly. I say we bust him. Obstruction, or battery of an officer. Plant a gun, whatever. Let him sink under the weight of three strikes. I need a smoke.” Carbone waited for Deloris to leave before he spoke.

  “You’re staring at a life sentence. He will push it if you give him a chance. Me, I don’t want that. I get it. A fake detective offered you a get out free card, you jumped. I get it. So you knock a few heads, step on the wrong toes and wham bam here you are. You want a real deal? Tell me the truth about the guys who came after you and I can wipe your record clean, my word.”

  “This is about the drive-by, right? Why?”

  “That and Rollens, or whatever her name is. Bring her in. Help us find out who is trying to blow you up. Do that and maybe I get a judge to clear you.”

  “Maybe?”

  “It is always maybe . . . when a cop’s telling the truth.”

  “I’ll give you that. Ok. Let’s wait for bad cop to get back. I don’t want to repeat myself.” I waited in silence. Carbone tried small talk. Talked about the Dodgers, some bullshit about a pitcher they dropped a fortune on. Like I gave a fuck. Bunch of fat rich men walking around a field that had once been the home of Mexican farmers. Chavez Ravine was stolen to make Dodger Stadium. Poor people lost their homes, then paid heavy to park there and watch rich men play a silly game. So, no, I didn’t give a fuck. I let the silence hang.

  When Deloris returned, I spoke calm but firm. “Cards up time. You boys got shit on me.” If they’d found my drugs or guns, they would have used them against me. “Your threats are bullshit. My people—white people—know I’m here. So fuck your disappearing threats.” Neither of them looked happy to see my new resolve. “Here is my deal, take it or I lawyer up. You back off, and I will find who tried to take me out. If I find the bitch who set me up, she’s yours. I do either of these things, you wipe the books clean. And I want it in writing before you get zip from me.”

  “Fuck us and I bury you.”

  “You’ll try.”

  “No, McGuire, I will sink you.”

  “We need to know your plans, what’s your next move.” The serious expression on Carbone’s baby face made me smile.

  “I’ll call when I need something from you,” I said and walked out. Deloris may have wanted to knock my head around, but he wanted what I could find out more.

  GREGOR WAS LEANING against his Chrysler 300. Windows tinted black, rolling 22s. It was an Armenian chariot. Gregor had on his greatcoat, one arm pinned up where he was missing the limb. Rain had blown in and his collar was up. Ray-Bans hid his eyes. “Boss.” He nodded like I had just seen him yesterday.

  “How’d you know I was here? Lowrie?”

  “Who? The cop? No. It was a woman, no name.”

  “She knew I was getting out now?” I looked around, wondering if I was being watched.

  “No. She told me where you were. I called the hospital, nothing nefarious there.”

  “Nefarious?”

  “Come on.”

  “Nefarious? Word of the day?” He almost smiled. Almost.

  We drove across the Valley, headed south down the 101. I told Gregor my real story, leaving nothing out. He nodded when I told him I had taken Xlmen off the boards.

  “Little fuck had it coming, and more. Sorry I didn’t see it.”

  “Agreed. He wasn’t worth a tenth of one Mikayla.”

  We were in Glendale when I finished talking. He pulled over on a side street. Through the windshield the swollen LA River
was rushing high on its cement banks. Rain danced on the Chrysler’s hood.

  “Blew a pimp’s ear off?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Broke another’s foot and kneecapped him?”

  “Yes. Leading somewhere with this?”

  “Bullshit intel, Boss. You, me, we been tortured. We know, enough pain a man will tell anything, true or not.”

  “I didn’t torture . . .” I couldn’t finish it. He was right. Not one piece of information had been solid. Rollens told me her Vice contacts had seen Freedom on the East LA track. Suspect intel in retrospect. The punk by the river said he had seen Freedom in Titan’s car. No proof he ever saw her. Jeremy Greene? He would have said his mother was a man just to get me to end the pain.

  Gregor let me do the math. He looked out the window, impassive. Then he spoke, eyes still out the window. “You sure it was military ordnance took you down? Tracers? You can get that on the net.”

  I thought it over. “I saw a tube out of the back window. I know the sound of an RPG. I’m sure.”

  “More than a pissed pimp. One more piece don’t fit; why is I.A. looking into a gang hit or a fake cop? Both are way off their corner of the LAPD.”

  “Where the fuck were you when they were interrogating me?”

  “Where were you, Boss?” He reached in my breast pocket and found a prescription bottle. Before I could say boo he was out of the car. He sailed the anti-anxiety pills into the rushing current.