The Mercy of the Night

by David Corbett

  It should’ve been funny, wicked funny. Once again: say this. Easier this way. Better for everybody. Especially, you know, us.

  She felt her phone buzz in her pocket. A text. She brought it out, checked the screen:

  Call the Bachmann woman. Get her to tell this Tierney person to leave us alone, before he bothers Richie.

  Yes, Mother. We must protect our men.

  “Check it out. Greetings from Momzo. Anything you want me to pass along?”

  Skellenger didn’t take the bait. “I’d turn that off if I were you.” He gestured for her to step away from the door. They were done. “Works like a GPS when it’s on. Better yet, get rid of it, buy a burner, use that. Because we’re gonna clone that one there. Warrant’s getting written up now. Every text, every call, we’re gonna know about.”

  19

  With a little creative surfing on the Internet and a pretext call or two, Tierney learned that Richie Garza worked for Sanitation and Flood Control, what used to be known as the Sewer Department. A half hour later he was getting directions down a dogleg of tight, low-ceilinged hallways to the bar screen area, where Richie ruled his own peculiar corner of the netherworld.

  Tierney glanced through the square portal of an unmarked door, saw no one behind the service desk within, and tried the knob. Open. He ventured in.

  A placard reading “Wall of Weirdness” marked a series of white wood shelves chocked with curiosities filtered from the city’s wastewater by the mechanical screens meant to protect the treatment pumps. He’d read about this display in his web search—it was a common feature on field trips from the local middle schools—and yet, even forewarned, he wasn’t quite prepared for not one but seven Barbies in various incarnations (Mexican, Harley-Davidson, Naked), all a little worse for wear, plus a vast and varied collection of cell phones, dentures, backgammon tiles, sunglasses, dog collars, shuttlecocks, knives. Reportedly they’d once found a live, twenty-inch hardhead catfish in the catch basin. At least twice, a fetus.

  A brass hotel bell lay on the counter and he tapped the plunger once, resisting the impulse to bellow out, “Front!” He was about to try again, louder—the heavy thrum of the chopper pumps was everywhere, even here, though the stench of organic matter, as they liked to call it, seemed a bit less tart inside than out—when someone bellowed, “Hold on,” and shortly came forward from an office in back.

  Tierney marveled at the resemblance. Taller, of course, and a few years older—black hair combed straight back on the sides, a rakish dangling forelock, long-sleeve shirt buttoned to the collar and cuffs to hide his tats most likely—but put him and Jacqi side by side?

  “I was wondering if you might help me out. My name’s Tierney. I’m hoping to find your sister.” He slid his card across the counter.

  Richie Garza glanced down but didn’t reach out to pick it up, just nodded heavily. “Heard you might come around.”

  Tom-toms pounding, Tierney thought. Pony soldier come. He offered an easy smile, took in the room. “Intriguing workplace. Real chick magnet, I bet.”

  “I don’t have nothing to tell you.”

  “Have you seen Jacqi lately?”

  Richie stood there, hands on the counter, gazing at the card. “I don’t see her much. She’s not welcome at my place.”

  “Because . . . ?”

  “She’s a fucking thief.” He picked at a ragged bandage circling one of his knuckles, eyes flitting up to Tierney’s face just briefly, then whisking off again. “Kicked her back to Mom, but she don’t come around there neither.”

  “That’s what your mother said. Her and Pete.”

  Tierney watched for the response. Richie nodded a couple more times and finally picked up the card, like he didn’t know what else to do. Still not looking up.

  “Mr. Navarette,” Tierney said.

  “I know who you mean.”

  “I didn’t realize how close he is to the family.”

  Richie tapped the card against the counter. “Look, from what I hear, my mom’s already—”

  “I’m up here, Richie.”

  So simple a trick, but there: Richie glanced up at last and met Tierney’s eye. Like he’d been frog-marched to the blackboard. Like his shirttail of a soul was sticking out.

  The face was lean and finely boned like Jacqi’s but harder edged like the mother’s, a little darker too. A constellation of tiny black birthmarks dotted his cheeks, his brow. Eyes like knots.

  He favored his right leg with his weight, not standing square, ready to swing from his left, though both arms looked relaxed. A kind of edgy lassitude about him, and despite the lithe build you could tell he lifted. Plus his hands were banged up, maybe from the free weights, maybe from wrench work in tight places, maybe something else.

  Tierney said, “Your sister could use a little help. I’m just trying to do my part.”

  Richie almost guiltily broke off the stare-down. “Yeah. Everybody wants to help poor Jacquelina. ’Cept it’s not your job.”

  “Funny how many people keep telling me that.”

  “Don’t listen to them neither?”

  “Look, I don’t like bothering people. But I’m truly, honestly worried about your sister.”

  Richie puffed out his cheeks, like he was straining to be polite, or there was just too much to think about. Tierney wished there was a way to pop open his head, get in there, dig it out, lay it out on the counter between them so they both could marvel at it. Something for the Wall of Weird.

  “Look. I gotta get back—”

  “There’s something in Jacqi’s file I’ve been puzzled by.”

  Like before, with Navarette, there seemed no point in restraint. Richie Garza was telling him loud and clear, don’t bother dancing around the issue. Go straight at it. One thing he’d learned over twenty years in the law: no second chances. You get one shot at a witness. Unpack him. And if that meant picking the scab off Jacqi’s secret, bringing up the letter from Cope, he’d make it up to her somehow. Besides, the truth wasn’t the problem. Fear was the problem.

  Or, as Lonnie put it, secrets are for users.

  “Near the end of the trial, after your sister testified, Victor Cope wrote to the judge and said that Jacqi’d told him that she’d had a run-in with one of your friends.”

  For the first time, Richie shifted his weight to the other foot. Maybe he led with his right after all.

  “Know what? We’re done.”

  “Any friends of yours ever express an interest in Jacqi?”

  Ripple in the neck muscle. Fistfight eyes. “You’re a sick twist, know that?”

  “Just a question. If it never happened, fine. But then why get defensive?”

  “How’d you like something like that said about you? Going around, putting that shit in people’s heads. Who d’ya think you are, Dirty Harry?” A quaver in his voice, despite the hard eyes. “Yeah. Sure. Clint Eastwood, that’s you.”

  “How come everybody sees me as the problem? Instead of the one guy willing to stick his neck out, help your sister? What’s that about?”

  “The story’s a crock, asshole. And I’d lay odds my sister told you that.”

  “What friend are we talking about, Richie? What’s Pete Navarette got on you?”

  “Look, Eastwood, there’s nothing to say. You wanna talk about sticking your neck out? We stood up for her more than anybody knows.”

  “Why don’t they know?”

  “Cuz it’s nobody’s business but ours.”

  “You mean yours. You, Richie. You stood up. It’s your business. Why?”

  Richie turned a little one way, then the other, unable to move. Show him the way out, Tierney thought. Make him the hero.

  “How did you stand up? What did you do? Your sister cares about you—that came through loud and clear when we talked. What did Navarette make you do?”

&nb
sp; Richie met Tierney’s eye. “You’re on city property.” Struggling to say it quietly. “You been told to go.”

  “Why won’t your sister come home anymore?”

  “You’re asking the wrong guy.”

  “I don’t think so. I think I’m asking exactly the right guy.”

  Richie’s whole face compressed, like it was all he could do to keep himself in check. Come on, Tierney thought, you’re right there.

  “No.” A whisper, a headshake. “No.” He turned, started walking away.

  “Richie, come on. I know it’s hard.” It felt like a tremor buckling the floor. Failing. Failin’ Tierney. “Help me help your sister.”

  Hand on the doorframe to the back office, over the shoulder, “Tell me how hard it is, Eastwood,” then he stepped through the opening, closed the door behind him.

  20

  Sitting alone against the wall in the hospital cafeteria, Jacqi cupped her hands around a small ceramic pot of tea and, feeling warm for the first time in hours, inhaled the twiggy smell. So tired. Maybe she could nap here. Maybe she could sleep forever.

  Her phone thrummed, a text:

  I told u 2 contact the Bachmann woman. Tierney saw Richie @ wrk. Happy?

  Like that, her skin turned cold again. Yes, Mother. She thumbed the delete pad, watched the text vanish in a swirling woosh. I’m thrilled.

  Secretly, she was beginning to like Tierney again. You had to respect a man who could get Momzilla that jacked. But Richie. Jesus. As if things weren’t bad enough.

  She still caught herself sometimes turning suddenly at the shadow of a stranger in the corner of her eye, wondering if—maybe, finally—it was him. The freckled boy with the cockeyed face, the slanting smile. He’d come back from the nowhere that had swallowed him whole. No doubt he had stories to tell, but that could wait. For now he’d just walk up, brush the hair off her face, stammer hello. And she’d reply: Hey, Eastwood. Where the hell you been?

  Tierney waited a full twenty minutes for Richie to reappear. When that didn’t happen he found his way back through the maze of hallways and stepped out into the tangy air—like someone had mopped out a gargantuan outhouse, courtesy of several tipper trailers, brimming with haulage for landfills, backed up to the reject pond.

  He crossed the parking lot, glancing across the acres of sprayfields, beyond which the green-gray spines and scarps of the Mayacamas range beckoned fragrantly. He was thumbing the bob to unlock his car when both doors opened on a Mercedes SL sitting a few spaces down.

  The men were Latino, impeccably dressed, well-groomed—no garish boots, no bolo ties, no throwback sideburns. The driver called out, “Mr. Tierney.” Barest trace of an accent.

  Somewhere, Tierney thought, there’s a textbook that explains in excruciating detail precisely what to do in a situation like this. Deny your identity? Bolt for the car? Put up your dukes?

  He put his hands in his pockets and smiled. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

  The driver was the smaller and better looking of the two, dapper and trim. The other guy wasn’t exactly a lug, his suit tempered that impression, but it seemed pretty clear he tagged along to punctuate whatever the first one said.

  “Can I share a word?”

  Tierney glanced skyward. A dozen crows uttered piercing caws from their perches on nearby power lines. O heavens, let the devil wear black. “As long as the weather holds, sure.”

  The smaller one squared himself. “I understand you’ve been making inquiries. About Jacquelina Garza?”

  Tierney resisted a chuckle. In-kwy-reez. “I’m trying to find her, that’s correct.”

  “What you been doing is harassing people. Her mother at her house this morning. Now her brother inside here.”

  How quickly word travels, Tierney thought. “That’s not how I’d describe things.”

  “And that ain’t exactly up to you, is it.”

  The smaller one shouldered a little more into his jacket. Now that he stood closer, Tierney could make out the shiny whitish scars on his chin and throat, evidence of more than casual acquaintance with the angry end of a knife. And yet of the two he did the talking. That said a lot about somebody. Tierney wasn’t quite sure whom.

  “Look, no disrespect, but who are you guys?”

  “We were asked by the family to have a word with you.”

  “The family or Pete Navarette?”

  The two men glanced at each other. The big one’s eyes retained their bearish emptiness, but the smaller one looked off, put his hands on his hips. “Look,” he said. “We’re trying to make this, you know, not complicated.”

  “That’s great. I’m trying to make it professional. Either of you have a card?”

  “Man, you are just not—”

  “What is so damn threatening about someone being interested in Jacqi Garza?”

  “The family’s interested. They’re taking care of it.”

  “They have a strange way of showing it.”

  Finally, the big one stepped forward. Tierney pointed to a vapor lamp on a pole nearby. “You guys know about the cameras, right? City’s got them damn near everywhere now. The cops have monitors in their cars. They can scan and zoom in, peg a license plate like it’s a billboard. Impressive, in an Orwellian kind of way.”

  He had no idea if there were cameras here, but the big guy looked up. The smaller one, the driver, kept his eyes locked on Tierney. “You misunderstood.”

  “The situation’s rich in ambiguity. Look, I keep hearing the family’s taking care of things. But all I’ve seen so far is you two guys and all I’ve heard is—”

  “You’re hearing what you need to hear. From me, right now.”

  “Honestly? I’m not.” He held out his hand to count out conditions. “Until I hear a lawyer’s petitioned the court to amend Jacqi’s diversion—one. Two, until I’ve heard that order’s been granted and she’s been assigned a new facility. And three, until I hear she’s agreed to all that of her own free will”—and fat chance of that, he thought—“I’ll keep trying to find her before she winds up in jail. Or worse. Sorry, gentlemen, but that’s the best I have to offer.” He glanced face to face. “We finished here?”

  The driver nodded his pal toward the car. “We appreciate your taking the time.”

  “Not at all. Glad we could work this out.”

  For the first time, the little guy smiled. “Take care, Mr. Tierney. You’ve heard the expression ‘There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip’?”

  They got in their coupe, backed out of their space, and took off. Tierney waited till they were out of sight, beyond a turn in the access road, before feeling beneath his bumper, the most obvious spot.

  He found it almost instantly, near the bracket—God, they must think I’m dumb—small metal box fitted with a magnet, size of a cigarette pack. Sliding back the casing door, he found the tracking device cushioned in cellophane, a little number called the Ranger if he wasn’t mistaken.

  He cocked his arm, ready to pitch the thing into the reject pond, then got a better idea. If the tracker stayed put they’d figure out he’d found it, left it behind. Squatting down, he tucked it up under the grill of the car parked in the slot next to his, right behind a bumper sticker that read: “I Get My Exercise Pushing My Luck.” Depending on how closely Navarette intended to watch him, the trick might earn him a couple hours or a couple days. Regardless, if there was one thing this little episode had taught him, it was the importance of buying time.

  21

  At the hilltop Denny’s overlooking the freeway cloverleaf, Donny Bauserman pressed his tie against his paunch and slipped into the booth across from Teddy Buker.

  Bauserman glanced around, made sure no one was sitting close. “Did you see it?”

  Teddy’d come dressed in this woolly zigzag sweater, some souvenir from a doper ski shop. He stabbed a wed
ge of pancake, pushed it around in his syrup. “See what?”

  “You weren’t there?”

  “Where?” The kid made a face. “What are you talking about?”

  Bauserman and Teddy’s dad went back to the old days, the money days, when working for the city meant you were set. Ron Buker—master welder, stellar guy, solid worker—he’d joined the IBEW after the shipyard closed, became an inspector for the maintenance crews. He could’ve gone to work for the refineries for more pay but he liked the health-care package the union offered. Ironic, looking back. Ironic as in lousy.

  His boy Teddy grew up down south with the mom, then come eighteen got sick of the latest stepdad and swung up here. By then his old man had the cancer. Little by little, like nibbling fish, it was eating his liver away, and with the bankruptcy the health plan givebacks started out brutal, then got worse.

  By the time the IBEW had its shot, the well was dry. Ron would be leaning on his pension soon, but now voters in San Jose and San Diego had approved walk-backs on those, too. There was talk about putting the same thing on the ballot here, and lawyers in the Stockton bankruptcy were talking about going after retirement packages. Mayors all across the state were telling the legislature: without pension reform, we all go to court.

  Promises meant nothing. The whole world was scared and pissed and the future was a joke. A joke nobody could stop telling, even though it wasn’t funny.

  “You’ve heard, right?”

  Teddy wiped his lips with his napkin. “Jesus, Donny, what the fuck you talking about?”

  The waitress showed up, dropped a menu on the table. “I’m good,” Donny said, “just coffee.”

  She snatched back the menu and left. He waited till she was out of earshot.

  “Mike Verrazzo’s dead.”

  The kid looked up from his plate. Tunnel eyes.

  “Got jumped over near the high school. Pack of kids, I’m hearing.”