Silent Joe

by T. Jefferson Parker

  SILENT JOE

  A Novel

  T. Jefferson Parker

  For Fritz and Flo, who have known me longer than I've known myself, but still invite me into their home and meadow

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  .

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  Drive hard, Joe. Mary Ann's blue again, so I want to be home ten."

  This from the boss, Will. Will Trona, Orange County Supervisor, First District. Mary Ann is his wife.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Talk while you drive. Are you carrying?"

  "The usual."

  Will was on edge again. Lots of that lately. He sat down beside me like he usually did. Never in the backseat unless he was in conference. Only in the front, where he could watch the road and the gauges and me. He loved speed. Loved coming out of a turn with his head thrown back against the rest. He'd always ask me how I did it, go that fast into a turn and keep the car on the road.

  And I always gave him the same answer: "Slow in, fast out," which is the first thing they teach you about curves in any driving school. A car can do things most people think are impossible.

  We headed down from Will's home in the Tustin hills. It was evening in the middle of June, the sun hanging in a pink haze of clouds and smog. Lots of new mansions up there, but Will's house wasn't one of them. Supervisors make a decent salary, plus some perks. Orange County is the most expensive places in the country. Will's place was a tear-down by the new standards of the neighborhood. Just old and plain, nothing wrong with it besides that.

  In fact, it was a good house. More than good. I know because I grew up in it. Will's my father, kind of.

  "First stop is the Front," he said, checking his watch. "Medina's finally peeking out the windows again."

  He talked without looking at me. Leaned back his head, eyelids half down, but his eyes moving. He usually looked like he was disappointed with what he saw. Like he was judging it, trying to find a way to make it better. But there was also something affectionate in his expression. Pride of ownership.

  Will reached down between his feet and snapped open his leather briefcase. He took out the black calendar, set the briefcase back on the floorboard, then started scribbling with a pen. He liked to talk while he wrote. Sometimes it was to himself, and sometimes it was to me. Growing up with him since I was five, working nights for him since I was sixteen, I've come to know when he's was talking to me or talking to himself.

  "Medina's getting a second chance. He registers five hundred illegal aliens to vote, they tell a Times reporter that they're illegal, but they're allowed to vote in a United States election. Allowed to, because Medina told them they could. And they all voted for me, because Medina told them to. Now, what am I supposed to do with that?"

  I'd already thought about it. I checked the rearview as I answered. "Distance yourself. Five hundred votes isn't worth the scandal."

  "That's shortsighted, Joe. Mean-spirited and stupid is what it is. I get the whole Latino vote thanks to Medina, and you think I should toss him overboard? Who taught you to treat your friends like that?"

  Will's always teaching. Testing. Revising. Arguing it out. Saying things to see how they sound, to see if he believes them or not.

  I've learned to see some things Will's way. Other things I'll never learn. Will Trona made me what I am, but even Will can only do so much. I'm less than half his age. I've got a long way to go.

  But one thing Will taught me is to make up your mind fast and put the whole weight of your being behind that decision. Instantly. Later, if you have to change your mind, put all your weight behind that decision. Never be afraid to be wrong. Will hates only two things: indecision and stubbornness.

  So I said, "You need the Latino vote to carry the First District, sir. You know that. And those votes won't go away. They love you."

  Will shook his head and wrote again. He's a handsome man, build, strong in the neck and deep in the chest, with hands that got strong and dark working summers in construction, helping himself through school after Vietnam. Black hair combed back, gray on the sides, blue eyes. When he looks at you it's the same expression he gets in the car, head back a little, almost sleepy, but the eyes are alert. And if he smiles, the lines his fifty-four years frame it in a way that convinces people that he knows and likes them. Most of the time, he does.

  "Joe, pay attention to Medina tonight. Mouth shut, eyes open, might actually learn something."

  Mouth shut, eyes open. You might actually learn something.

  One of Will's earliest lessons.

  He closed the calendar and slid it back into the briefcase. Click shut. Looked at his watch again. Then he leaned against the headrest lowered his eyelids halfway and watched the white middle-class boulevard of Tustin become the barrio of Santa Ana.

  "How was work today?"

  "Quiet, sir."

  "It's always quiet in there. Until there's a fight or a race riot."

  "Yes."

  By day, I'm a deputy for the Orange County Sheriff's Department work the Central Jail Complex, as do all new deputies. I've worked tl four years now. Another year, I'll qualify for reassignment to patrol start becoming a real cop. I'm twenty-four years old.

  I became a deputy because Will told me to. That's what he was. he got elected supervisor. Will told me to become a deputy because he thought it would be good for me, and because he thought it would be useful for him to have a "kick-ass son" in the sheriff's department.

  Down on Fourth Street, not far from the jail where I work, there's the Hispanic American Cultural Front. It's Jaime Medina's outfit. HACF does good things—distributes money and goods to the Hispanic poor, offers scholarships and stipends for needy students, expedites immigration, shelters families in crisis, all that.

  But because of this misunderstanding about when Medina's almost-citizens could vote, the DA is considering closing down the place on charges of conspiracy and election fraud. They raided the HACF building last week for records. Front-page picture of guys in suits lugging cardboard boxes to a van.

  Will shouldn't have been going there, with an investigation pending. And he's good friends with the DA, Philip Dent—one more reason to keep his nose clean while the investigation played out. But Will also represents Medina's district on the Board of Supervisors, a district you can't win without the Hispanic vote and Hispanic dollars. Another political pinch, one of the thousands in any supervisor's life. Sooner or later he'll have to take a stand, because, as Will taught me early on, politics is action.

  "Joe, Jennifer is going to have something for us. While I'm talking to Jaime, put it in the trunk and lock it."

  "Yes, sir."

  I turned left off the boulevard, checking the mirrors again, looking out at the zapateria on one corner, the bridal store on the other with all the white-laced mannequins in the window. I stud
ied the cars behind us, the people on the sidewalk. I was a little nervy myself that evening. Something in the air? Maybe. Maybe nothing that obvious. Even with the windows up and the air conditioner blowing you could hear the Mexican music jumping from the discoteca. A polka on mescaline. A dark-faced man in a white cowboy hat and boots stopped at the curb to let us turn, maybe recognizing Will Trona's car, maybe not, his face a walnut deadpan that had seen everything and was no longer impressed by any of it.

  Then into a dirt parking lot in the shade of a huge pepper tree, facing the back door of the HACF headquarters. We stepped into the pleasant heat and Will, dressed in his usual trim dark suit and carrying his leather briefcase, led the way in.

  The back doors were locked so Will rapped hard.

  "Open up, Jaime! La Migra!"

  The door cracked open, then swung all the way.

  "As usual, you're not funny," said Jaime. He was a slender young with stooped shoulders, tortoiseshell eyeglasses and khaki trousers looked two sizes too big. "The racists raid me and you run away."

  "So now I'm back. Let's do business. I'm in a hurry."

  Medina turned and walked down the hall, Will following, then me.

  They went into the office and Jaime shut the door behind then acknowledging me for the first time with a hurried nod as the door shut. I was use to being ignored, prefer it. With a face like mine, you don't people paying attention to you. One of the first things Will taught me was that people were far less eager to gawk at me than I thought they were. He said that most people were afraid to even look. He was right. That was nineteen years ago, when he first took me into his home.

  I went down the hall, through a set of saloon doors and checked workroom. There were six stations: desk, phone, stacks of papers three chairs at each for clients. American flag on one wall, Mexican on the other, travel posters, soccer posters, bullfight posters.

  Quiet.

  No clients since the raid.

  No workers since the raid, except Jennifer, the assistant director under Jaime.

  "Good evening, Miss Avila." I took off my hat.

  "Mr. Trona. Good evening."

  She came over, offered her hand and I shook it. She's a black-haired beauty, thirty, divorced with two. Smooth fingers. Wearing a man's cotton shirt tucked into her jeans, small waist, nice straight shoulders, boots. She changed to an apple red-lipstick a few months back, after a year of cinnamon brown.

  "Will must be here."

  "They're in Jaime's office."

  She looked past me down the hall, just a reflexive glance, then walked back to her desk. Jennifer is taken with the boss. This is one of the many secrets I'm not supposed to know. The world is layered with them.

  She said, "That thing for you is over by my chair."

  "I'll get it, thank you."

  It was a U.S. Open tennis bag, a big black one with a blazing yellow ball on it. Heavy. I carried it back out to the car and set it on the asphalt while I disarmed the alarm and opened the trunk. Then I set it in and spread a blanket over it, locked the trunk again, set the alarm.

  Back inside I got a magazine from the lobby, then rolled a chair into the hallway and sat outside Jaime Medina's office.

  Medina: You've got to talk to Phil Dent, man. . . .

  Will: I know him, Jaime. I don t own him.

  Medina: Right. . . that's not your job, my . . .friend. . . .

  Jennifer walked past me, fresh with scent, and leaned into the office without knocking.

  "Coffee, beer? Hi, Will."

  "Coffee, please."

  She whisked by me without a look, then back again a minute later with a couple of mugs in one hand and a carton of milk in the other.

  She went into the office. Will muttered something and all three laughed. She came out and shut the door and looked at me like I'd just gotten there.

  "Anything for you, Mr. Trona?"

  "Nothing, thank you. I'm fine."

  She walked past me and back to her station.

  I spread the magazine across my knee but didn't look at it. My job is to watch and listen, not read. Mouth shut, eyes open.

  I heard the traffic on the boulevard. I heard the air conditioner hum. I heard a car go by with a subwoofer that you could feel in your chest. I still felt a little wrong about things, but I didn't know why. Maybe it was just Will's mood rubbing off on me. I often catch myself adopting his feelings. Maybe because he adopted me as his son. I heard Jennifer dialing a telephone.

  Medina: There's all that tobacco settlement money, man . . . like a billion plus you're—

  Will: That billion isn't mine, it's the county's, Jaime. I can't hand it over in a pillowcase. Didn 't the ninety help?

  Jennifer: Get Pearlita.

  Medina: Every bit helps. But what am I going to do when it's gone and watch this place go straight to hell? We need the money for operations, Will. We need it for job training, for lawyers, for food, man, we need for. . .

  Jennifer: Okay, okay. Yeah, he's here right now.

  Medina: ... we can't even do anything when some poor pregnantLatina gets run over and killed a block from her apartment. We can’t do anything when a Guatemalan kid gets shot to death by fascist Newport Beach cops. We 're handcuffed, man, dead in the water.

  Will: It's awful what happened, Jaime. I know it is.

  Medina: Then help us find a way to help them, Will.

  I heard Jennifer put the phone back in its cradle. She turned my way but I didn't look up from the magazine.

  Will: You helped me find Savannah, so maybe Jack will take care of you. And the Reverend will put in a good word for you and the Front. I have already.

  Medina: We need more than good words, Will.

  The office door opened. Medina, face pinched, led us down the hall and shook hands with both of us at the back door. Jennifer walk outside, left the door open behind her.

  Will gave me a nod. I went to the car, started the engine and hit the air conditioner. I could see them in the side mirror, Will in his dark suit and Jennifer in her jeans and boots and crisp white shirt, standing in the light of the open door. They talked for a while. Will set his briefcase on the asphalt.

  Then he shook her hand like Will's shaken a million hands: an open-palmed reach and clinch, the left hand coming forward to enclose yours while he leans his head back in a posture of welcome and possession as he smiles at you.

  "I love you," she said.

  I couldn't hear anything over the air conditioner, but it was easy to read her apple-red lips.

  Will reached into his pocket and handed her the money that I'd counted, rolled and rubber-banded for him, about the size of a half-smoked Churchill: just a couple of grand to help out some of her friends.

  "I love you," he said back.

  We drove out of Santa Ana and into Tustin. Will directed me to Tustin High School, had me pull up alongside the tennis courts. Not much tennis action by then, just two of the courts being used.

  "Joe, fetch that tennis bag out of the trunk and take it over to the middle court. Leave it on the bench."

  "Yes, sir."

  When I got back we sat in silence for a minute or two. Will checked his watch.

  "What's in the bag, Dad?"

  "Silence."

  "Is that an answer or an order, sir?"

  "Reverend Daniel at the Grove," he said.

  The Grove Club is never called the Grove Club by its members, just the Grove. It's hidden in the south county hills, off the 241 Toll Road, then up a winding private drive and past a gate staffed by two armed guards, usually moonlighting deputies. You can't see the Grove from any public road. A canopy of enormous palm, sycamore and eucalyptus trees obscures aerial views. It has never been pictured in a newspaper or on the TV news.

  I took the first few miles of the 241 at ninety miles an hour. The electronic marquee said "Take the Toll Road—Because Life is Too Short!" The marquee was the only light out there in miles and miles of dark hills. Just a couple other cars in sight.

/>   Politically, Will fought all four of the toll roads because—although public has to repair them, maintain them, and pay exorbitantly high tolls to drive on them—they're privately owned. The profits go into the pock the Toll Roads Agency. TRA sounds like a public outfit, but it's not----- a consortium of extremely wealthy developers who are raising buildings along the toll roads before the asphalt is even dry. In south Orange County, you can watch half a city go up overnight.

  There's more to the story. The TRA guys got the State Assembly to stop maintaining certain public highways in Orange County. The highways go unrepaired and unimproved through the year 2006, which guarantees customers for the toll roads because the unrepaired highways are dangerous and clotted with traffic six hours a day.

  Anyway, Will lost that battle but was half glad that he did, because you can drive seriously fast on the spanking-new toll roads. We use them all the time, due to Will's hatred of traffic and love of speed.

  Once I got past the first toll plaza I opened her up past one-twenty and Will leaned over to get a good look at the speedometer, then sat back.

  He chuckled. "Yeah, Joe."

  Six months ago Will and his fellow supervisors voted themselves allowance increase of two hundred percent, which allowed him to lease a BMW 750IL. The stock engine gets 330 horsepower out of 12 cylinders. It's a good car, fast but not quick, wakes up at sixty, stable at 160 corners beautifully for a big sedan. Off the line it's not going to blow your hair back—a Saleen Cobra clobbered me at a traffic light last week.

  "Ah," he said quietly. "This feels good."

  I pushed the throttle through the kick-down switch and the car hesitated for a fraction of a second, then barreled up to one-thirty-five, then one-forty. This model was built with a kill switch at 155 mph, but Will had me install a Dinan chip to override the governor. The chip also brought horsepower up to 370. Will likes to listen to the muffled shriek of that engine under full acceleration, and so do I. When the German horses running hard, nothing beats them for an honest ride.