The Mercy of the Night

by David Corbett

  Why, Skellenger thought, can’t we just shoot them?

  “What set it off, Arian? What made you lash out like that?”

  “I don’t . . . I mean, look. Don’t you . . .” He crossed his arms, face knotted up. Whatever thought briefly afflicted him morphed into a shrug.

  “One of our guys picked you out, positive ID. Now there’s backup from other witnesses. There’s no if here. No jiggle. No maybe.”

  Take heart, Skellenger thought. The kid still wasn’t saying it, I want my . . . He’d stopped short, flirting with it, sure, almost asking. But asking didn’t get you there. The kid was a two-time loser, he knew the drill: you signed the waiver. This point on, you want a lawyer, you don’t wonder, you don’t whine. You stop the questions and say it. But he was taking his time. He wanted to see what kind of hand he held. Wanted another peek at his hole card.

  “You know how this works, Arian. I’ve got a job to do, you’ve got a job to do, doesn’t mean we can’t work together. This is your third strike and that’s death. That’s checkout. And what are you, twenty? Poof, gone. There’s no play here. Unless you step up. You do that, you step up, I can help you.”

  Count it: One. Two. Wait for it, wait for it . . .

  “Let me help you.”

  The kid did the chair dance, this way, that. “Know what? I don’t—”

  “That’s not gonna walk you out of here, Arian. Look at me.”

  “I’m just—”

  “Look at me.”

  The head tilted back. The drowsy eyes lifted.

  “This is heavy, what you’re looking at. But it doesn’t have to come down all on you. You weren’t the only one there.”

  A murmur, “Damn straight.”

  “So we can stop the pretend. You were there.”

  “Whoa whoa, I just—”

  “Don’t go back, Arian. Go forward. Press ahead. You were there. So were the others. There’s video.”

  “I ain’t seen no video.”

  “It’s been all over the news. Trust me. There’s video. You’re on it. No question. The point: you’re not alone.”

  The kid shrank back into the chair. His own private nature channel: cuttlefish folding into a niche. “The fuck I care.”

  The fuck you should. “I said go forward, Arian. That’s the play here. Listen to what I said: you weren’t alone.”

  “I heards you. Damn.”

  “Good. Because I’ll tell you what else the video shows. Your buddy in the next room, Damarlo? He did one serious cucaracha on that fireman. Of all the guys who were there, he stands out. Not you. Him. You know what I’m saying.”

  The heavy-lidded eyes tracked up again. Houston, we have cognition.

  “Let me fill you in on a little secret, Arian. Looks like the thing that did the fireman in was one good shot to the throat. Right here,” stroking his Adam’s apple, “and Damarlo, he’s the one letting the guy have it to the head, the neck.”

  Arian squinted, thinking it through, assessing angles, calculating. Then: “There was this other guy.”

  “Hang with me for a minute, Arian.”

  “White guy.”

  “Stay focused.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Arian?” Skellenger snapped his fingers. “I’m talking about Damarlo. After everybody ran off, when you two were alone—he’s your buddy, Arian, I’ve checked out known associates, yours and his both—when you two had time to talk, what did he say?” He held out his hand toward the next room, as though feeling for some kind of vibration, lowering his voice for the next bit. Their secret. “You saw him connect. Boom, to the throat. You saw what it did. Was he jacked up? Proud? Take credit? ‘You see how I nailed that fireman fuck?’”

  The kid just sat. Skellenger had to check twice to make sure he was breathing. But ever so subtly, behind the eyes, the dusty clockwork moved.

  “Third offense, Arian. For you. Not just any offense. Murder. That’s twenty-five minimum no matter what. More likely life, no parole. Given who died, death penalty’s not out of the question.” You could call Verrazzo a lot of things, fact remained he was a firefighter, which meant PC 190.2 applied, though “in the performance of his duties” was a bit of a stretch. “That what your life, after today, after I leave this room—that what the rest of your life is worth?”

  Quiet, almost a whisper: “There was another guy.”

  “I’ll get to that. For now, we’re talking about Damarlo.”

  “I’m just tryin to say—”

  “And I’m telling you to listen.”

  Death stare. Death from within. “Damarlo, like, he’s my—”

  “I know. He’s your friend, your road dog. But there are times—and this is one of those times, Arian—when there is no such thing as a friend. Out there, you weren’t alone. In here, you are. He’s not going to serve your time. That’s on you. Assault’s one thing. Murder? He has no right to make you fall that hard, not for something he did. Not right. He’s a man, he’s got to take responsibility. Not your job to take it for him.”

  Skellenger sat back, deciding to let it settle in, let it work. As he waited, the crushing fatigue hazed his brain like smoke, and through that fog he assessed the various layers of damage—this ploy for the pelt of Damarlo Melendez, the rotten in it. There’d come a time to own that but now, like the chief said, this case was political, it was poison, the city teetered on a goddamn riot, and for now the shadow of all that fell across the kid they called D-Lo, parked in the next room, and that was just the way it was. The evidence goes where it goes. Quicker the better.

  The kid’s gonna hang, he thought—along with the rest of the idiots, sure, but Damarlo would get the loser end. And guess what? I’ve got no problem with that. I won’t lose a minute of sleep over the sorry little fuck, and I couldn’t hate him more.

  So it goes. Heave the black man.

  Arian looked over at the notepad on the table. “Tell me, you know, what it is you want.”

  It should have felt better. “I can’t take dictation from myself, Arian. Has to be in your own words.”

  The kid nodded, dreads bouncing. “Okay.” Squaring up. Eager now. Clear of mind, if not conscience. “Can we, maybe, like, go back over what we kinda just talked about, though? So I get my head right?”

  Skellenger smiled. “Sure.” Maybe Rosamar was right, the kid was borderline illiterate, but that didn’t make him stupid.

  “And my end, what’s that? You gonna cut me outta this, yeah?”

  “I can’t make promises, Arian. That’s how it works. But I’ll talk to the prosecutor they assign to the case. I’ll go to bat for you, do my best. That I can promise.”

  The kid took that in. “And the other guy, white dude, one who jumped in late.”

  “One thing at a time, Arian.”

  “But you and me, we’re gonna get to that.” Not a question. More like a dare.

  “Arian, I want to help you. I told you that. But you’re gonna have to trust me.”

  That’s the crackers.

  47

  Parked at the ferry building and weary in every way he could name, Tierney slumped behind the wheel of the Honda, trying to ignore the smell of cold fries and fermenting slaw, remains of a late lunch, rising up from the backseat as he stared through the fogged-up windshield across the strait.

  He’d driven around the past hour or two, looking everywhere, no luck. He still felt vaguely jilted, the way she’d run out at the restaurant, leaving him there to fend for himself like a dope. But he also feared the other two, Escalada and Mancinas, had managed to accomplish what he hadn’t. Find her.

  He pictured the two of them chasing her down, trapping her in some blind alley, grabbing her as she kicked and fought and screamed her lungs out—like putting a headlock on an explosion, wasn’t that how the cops described it?—forcing her into the car, hu
stling her off someplace. To Navarette, or Nefarious Mom. Never to be heard from again. Same movie, different ending. Whatever else might be said for the girl, she had a knack for vanishing.

  Glancing over at his London Fog crumpled up in the passenger seat, he considered making a pillow of it so he might lay down his head and rest awhile—not long, a minor nap in the history of naps—but instead he caught the distinctive murmuring throb of his phone, saw it flashing like some tiny, petulant robot inside the breast pocket.

  He dug it out, checked the incoming number, flipped the thing open.

  “Mr. Matafeo.”

  “How soon,” Grady said, “can you get down to the pork store?”

  The police, Tierney thought, they’ve picked up Jacqi. “Anytime, I guess.”

  “Now?”

  He glanced at the dash clock. “Sure. What’s—”

  “You heard about the Verrazzo thing.”

  A slight deflation. “Sure, who hasn’t?”

  “Get down there, connect with Cal Katsaros. You two guys’ve met, right?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “He’s been retained by the family of one of the kids caught on the video.” The sound of shuffling paper came through the phone. “He wanted me but I’m already booked on this thing—Chepe Salgado? Guy’s a one-man employment program, worked his last assault beef, got two witnesses to turn their stories around, lawyer thinks I can fly. The kid Cal caught is named Melendez, Damarlo Melendez. Got any conflicts?”

  “Not that I know of.” Tierney turned the key in the ignition, revved the trusty four-cylinder. “Except, you know, Jacqi Garza. She’s caught up in that mess too.”

  Grady sighed. “Girl’s a fucking tar baby. Let her go. While you can.”

  “Grady—”

  “And you said that was a favor. This is work.”

  For a fleeting moment he recalled the misbegotten offer he’d made her at the restaurant, bringing in some samurai lawyer, making sure she didn’t get ripped to shreds on the altars of law and politics and public pissology. With me, of course, as savvy go-between, investigator if called upon, tutor in the twisted logic of justice. “I didn’t say the conflict was professional in nature.”

  “Remember, bucko, she’s a minor. Comes her turn to crap all over this thing, the family’ll be driving the bus. Way you told me before, you and the family, there’s issues.”

  Tierney wiped at the fog smearing his windshield. “True dat, as the children say.”

  “So you’ll do this, hook up with Cal? By the way, it’s on your license, not mine, bills go through you. May turn out we all line up together—four defendants, kids on the video, mount a joint defense—but for now it’s each man for himself. Till we get a little further into it, see what adds up.”

  Tierney didn’t relish the prospect of going head-to-head with Grady, but he liked Katsaros. Most lawyers could hear a dollar bill hitting the snow, and acted like that was their virtue. Calimaco Katsaros still possessed something like a conscience. And with the infamous Mike Verrazzo murdered, this Melendez kid was about to get his own chance to be ripped to shreds.

  “Yeah. Sure. I’m on my way.”

  “Swing by here first, pick up the yearbooks I got. From Stallworth High, St. Catherine’s too, just in case. Go back a few years. I’m guessing you’ll want to have your boy ID some witnesses, kids who were there.”

  Tierney smiled. Nice juke, pick and roll. “I thought this wasn’t a joint defense.”

  “It’s a favor. You can do me back down the road.”

  “Understood.”

  “I figured it was. See ya in a bit, yeah?”

  Tierney closed his phone but held it for a second, tapping it against his chin.

  That was that then. As you from crimes would pardon’d be / Let your indulgence set me free. He could tell Cass when he got home that night. Didn’t matter what happened or how he felt about it. From here on out, Jacqi Garza was on her own.

  And yet he knew what Cass would say, lying in bed on her side in the lamplight, arm cocked, head in her hand, watching him: Just how do you feel about it, bucko?

  48

  Cass sat alone in a corner of the living room, paper plate on her lap, not hungry, just trying to blend in.

  They called themselves the Sonora Hill Light Brigade but most people knew them as the Ho Patrol. Genteel vigilantes. Once a week they donned canary-yellow T-shirts emblazoned with a bright red interdit sign and spread out across town to the various corners where the girls worked, hoping at least to scare off johns. They passed out handbills, too, info on HIV testing, child care, diversion programs, treatment centers. Lonnie Bachmann’s Winchinchala House.

  Before trooping out for the outreach they gathered for an early potluck, meeting here, a hilltop Victorian with Julia Morgan accents, tricked out to resemble a bohemian farmhouse. It belonged to a woman artist named Sam Beery, who’d gained local notoriety not just for opening the most impressive gallery downtown, a rehabilitated storefront renamed Beautiful Wreckage, but for transforming the entire block from a one-stop drug jump and hooker strip to a genuine neighborhood.

  Force of nature, people called her. That and bitch on wheels.

  Cass recognized several faces from the farmers’ market, benefits around town, the local art scene. All women, a tight-knit cadre—the smart, the committed, sprinkled with well-meaning nut jobs. She felt a little like the stepchild at a baptism.

  From the lilting crisscross of voices in the room she picked out a vaguely familiar accent—a woman named Katya or Katrina or Karolina, local character, Slovak or Czech, ran a dance studio—arguing with two other women around the coffee table.

  “No, no, no, listen to me. You not understand. This is not problem.” Ease knot probe limb. “Race I don’t care. Affordable housing, I care.”

  “I meant your comment about welfare.”

  “No, listen, please. I explain. I have this boy, black boy, beautiful dancer, he come to my studio. I want him teach. Very good with the little kids, this boy. ‘I hire you,’ I say. ‘I pay you, help you open checking account, saving account.’ Know what he say? ‘My family no want me have checking account. No want me have paycheck. I am have this girl, this girl, this girl. I get them babies. For welfare.’”

  To disguise her eavesdropping, Cass glanced up at a nearby collage. Ancient bits of clockwork, ribbon, and plumage seemed in free fall across several singed and smoke-darkened pages of sheet music, with a single line of script along the bottom, wickedly faint: Without the moral high ground, how am I supposed to look down on you?

  “That was my point,” one of the other women said. “The way you talk about this sounds, well, racist.”

  “No. Cannot be racist. Is true.”

  Cass thought: What was I thinking? That’s it, I’m outta here.

  Suddenly, from nowhere, a hand touched her shoulder. She jumped in her chair.

  “Sorry.” The hostess, the artist. “Didn’t mean to spook you. You’re the nurse.”

  Cass rose like a hoisted flag. “I suppose I am,” she said. “The nurse, I mean.”

  The woman’s face had a mesmerizing plainness—moonscape complexion, missionary eyes, throat leathered by years of sun. She wore her white hair long.

  “Sam,” she said. “That’s me.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re shy.”

  “Not really. Just . . .”

  A red wine smile. “Shy?”

  “New.”

  “And very tall.” Fanlike laugh lines. Sam Beery held out one of the yellow T-shirts. “Hope this fits.”

  “Thank you.” Taking the shirt, not looking at it. Not sure she wanted it.

  The older woman, all wise smile and rude stare, tucked a hand inside Cass’s arm. “Come on. Let’s head for the kitchen, just you and me. Get away from the intellectuals.”

&nbs
p; The kitchen smelled of ginger and basil and mildewy sponge. They sat alone at the pinetop table, picking at the last of the lasagna, green beans, flan. Cass felt cornered, not unpleasantly. Sam Beery sat cross-legged, seemingly transfixed.

  “So you moved here from Berkeley.”

  “Couple years after the shipyard closed, yeah. Had a little saved up, wanted to buy, this was pretty much it given what I could put down. Quit my job at Alta Bates, got a position in general medicine here. When I got my OCN, transferred to oncology.”

  “That must be hard.”

  “What about you,” Cass said, not wanting to get into it. “You came here when?”

  “Later than you, ’01. Fell in love with the weather—best kept secret in the Bay Area, I thought. Great place to grow roses.” A shrug. “Just, you know.”

  “The crime.”

  “And the good old boys, the corruption, the inertia. City hall’s a cesspool, when it’s not a joke.”

  “Guess we should’ve done our homework.”

  “We’re doing it now. That’s what this is, homework, the new social contract, citizen engagement—hoo rah.”

  “Sounds vaguely, I dunno, right wing.”

  “Oh please. Yeah, we’ve got our cranks and crazies. I try to weed them out but sometimes you just need the bodies. Mostly we’re just sick of everything being so hard.”

  “I was joking,” Cass said. Kinda.

  “Anyway, back to you—you’ve lived up here on the hill that long, just a couple blocks away. Never connected, the group here, the gallery.”

  You, Cass thought, that’s where this was going. Never connected with you.

  “I kinda keep to myself.”

  “Not an option anymore, unless you want to kiss your equity good-bye.” She reached out, fussed with an egg roll so it lay parallel to the others left behind on the plate. Studied it a second. “So what brought you here tonight?”