Seguin looked off. “I’m not saying Mejicanos have got the monopoly on morality. Everybody plays racial politics in this city, Ivan. But even these days good and evil can stand stark naked before us, and you can choose which one you’ll embrace.”
“I realize you pay bigger for the consequences of your actions, Marasco, given the bureaucracy and egos you have to deal with. But that don’t mean I skate along either. I have to answer in the ’hood.”
Seguin threw the unused cigarette into the gutter. “But you can walk away, Ivan. Absalla, Los Domingos, all of ’em. But the next immigrant that gets knocked in the head, the next kid shot for his bike, and it’s me that gets the call. If not in the Rancho, then somewhere else in the city. I’m trying to keep the blacks and browns from tearing each other’s hearts out, and still find time to go after the perp.”
“I don’t have an answer for you.”
“No shit.” He put his hands back in his pockets and went in the opposite direction.
Monk hailed a taxi. Several Bell and Yellow Cabs scurried about the precinct, their drivers used to the newly released having no means of transportation. Waiting for a bus this time of the evening in this part of town you’d have better luck seeing the next appearance of Halley’s Comet.
He rode absorbed in his own thoughts over to the house on Madden, running over and over the rant from Seguin. It had been disjointed but there was a kind of sense to it. His friend, if he could still use that word, had been expressing an anger with a core of desperation.
But the more he tried to understand, the more it seemed to grate on him too. Seguin was acting like it was only he bearing the weight of these murders. Hell, Monk was the one facing a trial and a possible prison term if he couldn’t find some shooters. He said it was a tough row to hoe being a Chicano cop—try being a black private eye who’s everybody’s favorite kick toy, Monk reasoned.
He wanted a cigar, a shot of rum, and then would like to drape his body all over Jill’s hot, muscular form. He’d called, but she was out. Anyway, he needed to do this other thing.
The small back house was of course padlocked and plastered in plain sight with police yellow tape with the usual written warnings about tampering. But the front house, belonging to the landlord, had the porch light on.
After the usual introduction, which always ended with him showing his license and handing over a business card, Monk was pleasantly surprised he didn’t have to also hand over any cash to solicit a little conversation. It helped that the two occupants had been out the night of the shoot-out, so they weren’t all hyped-up about Monk’s reappearance.
“Oh, no, Mr. Monk. I haven’t seen young Burroughs since, oh, four days ago. The day he left for that funeral.” Mrs. Freeman was in her seventies. Her son, a bookish man in slippers and a paisley print satin robe, was in his forties and lived with his mother, the talkative Mrs. Freeman had informed Monk to the son’s visible consternation.
The mother was a retired timekeeper who’d worked for some thirty years at the now no longer existant Arden Dairy processing plant that had been on Slauson near Vermont. At that time, there had been a Sears just east of Vermont on Slauson that Monk’s mom and dad would take him and his sister to on their birthdays to pick out new bicycles. He still dreamed of how he and his friends, Herman, Carl, and Dimitri, used to pop wheelies, flying off a raised rectangle of plywood, on their Stingrays with the tuck-’n’-roll banana seats and chrome sissy bars.
The older woman made references to the son, Hinton, working on the periphery of the record industry—at what exactly wasn’t made clear. On a built-in sideboard, several liqueurs were arrayed, including Drambuie, Prunella, and a long, slender bottle of Midori.
“Have either of you seen anybody around here? I mean except for that same night of the shoot-out?” He savored the rich coffee she’d insisted on brewing and serving in the delft china cup and saucer.
“Except for the police lingering around.” The son sat opposite Monk, legs crossed, casually dangling the biography of Paul Robeson he’d been reading over the arm of the club chair.
“Yes, that’s what I meant. The night I was here the men I spotted drove up in a black Isuzu Trooper.” Both the son and the mother gave him an unknowing stare. “You know”—he made a boxlike pantomime with his hands—“a sport utility truck, sits up high. This one had silver trim.”
“No, we haven’t seen anyming like that,” the son said curtly. He’d been annoyed at the first sight of Monk. Maybe he didn’t like having his reading interrupted.
“Wait,” the mother offered, looking at the old Oriental carpet as if a replay were pooling in its designs. “I did see that black, oh, I don’t know what you called it, truck, jeep … something.”
“When was this, Mrs. Freeman?”
“The day before all the excitement.” The son gave her a look but she pretended not to see it. “It was parked out front for a while, then drove off. I was going to call the law but it seemed like the two in it were just talking, so I didn’t want to start no trouble for just that. Anyway they drove off and that was that. At least then.”
“And this truck doesn’t belong to Keith 2X, ah, Burroughs?”
“Not as far as I know. He drives some small car or another.” She looked questioningly over at her son.
“Some kind of Toyota, I think. I don’t know much about cars,” he said disdainfully. He placed the book in his lap, but Monk wasn’t heeding the cue.
“Could you see the people in the truck?”
She pushed out her bottom lip. “Not really. I made a thing of going out front like I was checking on my flower bed, but I couldn’t really tell. ’Cept—” She halted herself.
“What?” Monk prodded gently.
“Well, now, I ain’t saying it was so, but I think the one at the passenger window, he’s the one I could see better. I think he was a Mexican fella. That’s what made me remember him.”
A sour look curled Hinton’s lips. Could be his unctuous mother was another burden like not being able to read when he wanted to.
“Don’t misunderstand me, I think it’s fine to have all kinds of friends. Lord knows they’re moving in all over the place, even ’round here.” She broke off again, straining her sight past the walls.
“You tell the police this?” Monk wanted to know.
“No. Nobody asked me about the black … Izod, you called it?”
“Maybe we should call them and let them know.” Hinton sniffed loudly. “That Detective Fitzhugh left his card too.”
“As a good citizen you should.” Monk put down his cup and saucer. “I appreciate your time, Mrs. Freeman, Mr. Freeman.”
An anemic “Alright” escaped the son’s tight lips and he didn’t bother getting up as Mrs. Freeman opened the door for Monk. Outside, he walked west along Hyde Park Boulevard to Crenshaw Boulevard and found an intact pay phone. The device was next to a closed furniture store specializing in red velour and free layaway.
Monk had asked Curtis Armstrong, proprietor of the Alton Brothers Automotive Repair and Service, whose business shared a lot with the donut shop, to fetch the Ford. The car was tucked away there but getting back to it this evening was a tertiary concern.
“Hey, jailbird.” Kodama said breathlessly.
“Just getting back in?”
“Yeah, debated the president of the Lydia Homeowners Association over at Temple Leo Beck. I kicked his ass, if I might be so humble.”
“Right on. Can you come get me?” Two male teens in pants big enough to clothe rhinos slowed up as they neared him. One leaned into the other and whispered something. They walked a little farther and lingered on the sidewalk. Monk feigned ignoring them, and finished talking to Kodama.
“Wanta blunt?” One lisped as Monk started to walk past.
“I look like I got time for weed?”
“You got all the time to talk to us,” the larger one rasped, stepping close.
Monk also stepped closer; negotiations were over. He tossed
the towel he’d wrapped his belongings in to the ground. He’d left it outside in the bushes while talking with Mrs. Freeman. “Well, young fellow, what’s it going to be tonight? Maybe your friend has a roscoe, and maybe you do too. But I’m going to be on you ’fore you can draw yours and I can assure you I ain’t been around this long because the baddest thing I do is drink tea at three. I got business to take care of, and you’re in my face for no good reason.”
The one he was talking to just stared, openmouthed and sullen. “Let’s hat,” he said to his friend after a stretch. Horniness had a way of giving you a certain something extra, Monk reflected on his way to the corner to wait for Kodama.
She leaned on the chair, Monk pulling her dress up over the wonderful mound of her thighs. The black lace panties were a heady contrast to her tan skin. His throat constricted with passion. Monk reached his hand between the part of her legs to rub his woman.
He stepped closer, pulling her sheer undergarments down across her rear. Kodama reached back, taking hold of him while she gyrated. “If only the good burghers of the Valley could see you now,” he said, delirious.
“It might get me a few more votes,” she whispered.
“Uh,” he grunted.
They made love with her bent over the chair, he entering her from behind. They had rented a room at the Snooty Fox on Western near King, not far from the LAPD’s Southwest Division. The motel was a tastefully appointed two-story business with clean rugs and airy rooms, an upscale “hot sheet” rendezvous. But a quickie was not what the parted lovers had planned for tonight.
Later, Kodama stood naked before the sink counter, pouring liberal amounts of VSOP into two plastic cups. Monk, also nude, the crevice between his pectorals slick, walked up to her and put an arm around her waist. He pulled her close and licked her ear. She watched him in the mirror.
“I guess this isn’t a good time to talk about the charges against you.” She had some brandy.
“Sure, then maybe we can talk about whether there will ever be permanent peace in Rwanda.” He pinched her butt, and lifted his measure of the booze to his mouth.
“This is serious, Ivan.” But she had turned, wrapping one leg around him.
“Is this what they mean by gafflin’ ya?”
“Uh,” she grunted, taking him in her hand, working her grip up and down on his stiffening penis.
They eventually got into the bathroom and Kodama shoved Monk against the tiles in the shower, warm water pelting them from the shower head. She bit his shoulder, near the area where a ricocheting bullet had caused a chip along his collarbone. She worked her way down, her tongue and mouth eventually working between his legs.
“Good goobyldywook,” Monk managed between pangs of pleasure.
Kodama started to giggle. She put a hand against his thigh to steady herself. “Wait, didn’t Grady on Sanford and Son used to say that?”
“I believe I understand how he invented the phrase.”
After some time she stood, and latched her leg around him again. He got his hands up under her and hoisted her aloft. They made love again: in the shower, against the bathroom door, the Home Depot wood paneling, and finally wound up entangled, sitting on the floor, Monk’s back against the bed. The couple lay exhausted and entranced with the rhythm of each other’s bodies.
“I got rug burns,” he complained on the way back home. He reached over and caressed the inside of her leg.
“God, how would you be if you were away for a year?” She stopped at a light and kissed him.
“Crazy, baby, crazy.” The Saab pulled into the driveway. He was looking back, down the slope from the house. In the night, Silverlake Reservoir shimmered like hope just out of reach.
“I think too much sex must addle your mind.”
“Who said I had enough yet?” His hands went under her dress and tugged on the lacy material.
“Damn, honey,” she murmured. She helped get them off. Monk kissed her, his finger buried beneath the dress. Deftly, he reached across her and unlatched the seat so it reclined flat out. He put the gear shift in fourth position to give him room and, her legs spread apart, bent his head toward her moist patch.
Coming closer, the musky smell of her vagina filled his senses like a ripe fruit of hypnotic properties he couldn’t wait to taste. He was engulfed, gloriously lost in an experience one part of him wished he would never find his way back from.
She sighed, thrusting her pelvis into his face. His hand worked along the underside of her rear, he kissed and nibbled on her inner thighs.
In the world outside the car, beyond the calm black skein of the Reservoir, the hard boys were waiting. Bad night was falling, and the other part of him, the part that needed more than this woman, the part that wanted discernable patterns and an accounting for murder, was hungry to confront the lurkers.
Let it come, some distant train’s whistle cajoled him from a track spanning the cosmos. The leather of Kodama’s heels rubbed along his upper back and he worked his tongue in slower and slower motions. She shuddered, her fist pounding the side of the seat.
Let it come, let them all come. He wanted to taste the sweat and fear, for it would destroy him or he it.
Nineteen
“Quite an assortment of artifacts,” Fletcher Wilkenson commented. He stood, hands in his rear pockets, looking at the various objects tacked about Monk’s office from his travels as a merchant marine. At the moment, he was touching a Maori figure on top of the filing cabinet.
“Thanks,” Monk replied. The older gent had left several messages for him while he was in jail. He’d forgotten to tell Teague to call him. When he’d gotten in this morning he’d called him to ask him to come over. Monk was still deciding how much Wilkenson really knew about his former boxing disciple, Jokay Maladrone.
“Sit down, will you, Fletcher.” He sounded stern, like his mother.
“Okay.” He sat before the Colonial desk, enjoying more of his coffee.
“When you gave me the ‘City of Promise’ manuscript, did you know I knew Grant?”
Surprise lighted the pleasant face as he held his cup midway to his mouth. “No. In fact, had I known, I might have been less forthcoming. Why are you telling me now?”
Monk told him of his relationship with the ex-cop, and the blowout he’d had with him. He found the retelling uncomfortable. Afterward, he said, “But I’m in this to finish, despite the ghosts this case might upset.”
“And of course to beat the manslaughter rap,” Wilkenson illuminated.
“Sure, there’s that,” Monk agreed, laughing heartily.
Wilkenson’s smile disappeared quickly. “But you can’t always let your pride or principle drive you too hard, Ivan. Sometimes the friendships you brush aside in the process don’t get replaced.” A haunted cast shaded his watery blues.
“Don’t you want to pay Dexter back?” The question had several layers of meaning for Monk.
Wilkenson played with his cup. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I wanted the ones who torpedoed the Rancho’s dream. If the goals had been realized, it could have been a model for the whole city. So yes, I guess I want the real manipulators to suffer a painful retribution in Teutonic hell. But frankly, Grant and Jakes are low on that list. They were messenger boys. If they didn’t do it, some other kind of delivery would have been made.”
He rubbed a hand through his short mane. “After I was forced out for helping my friend with her … problem, my marriage went bust. Not that it wasn’t rocky by then anyway.”
“Your wife wasn’t in the movement?”
“No, no, she was dedicated, Ivan. She was a staunch member of the Civil Rights Congress. She knew the deal. She herself had been pressured to sign a loyalty oath because she was a social worker for the county.”
“What happened?” Monk had a weird premonition like he was hearing a future past version of what could happen to him and Kodama.
Wilkenson rubbed his hands on his lower thighs. “After I was bounced out, th
ere was an article denouncing me in the Times. I’m pretty sure that was Parker’s doing. Our house got shot into, we got obscene phone calls at all hours.” He shrugged. “That didn’t scare Rena, she could take it.” Wilkenson brought the cup to his mouth then set it back down.
“She’d met another man. A man who would listen to her rather than rush off to the next meeting, or arrange a back alley abortion, or whatever else was more important than paying attention to his marriage … to my wife. So the new man was as fiery about the revolution as he was about her.”
Wilkenson’s body went slack. “So do I want revenge? My research backs up the claim your judge friend told you. Grant did encourage DeKovan to go ahead with the job training center.”
“To try and balance his sins,” Monk commented.
“Sure,” Wilkenson said quietly. “Of course the center was designed to fail without the infrastructure we’d worked hard to put in place. Besides, Jakes was the one who really enjoyed sticking it to a red.”
“Dexter still did it.”
“He had a family, Ivan. Better a man with half a conscience than one with a blowtorch and a dead soul.”
Monk made noise in his swivel. “You still wind up dead in a ditch. No matter how painful it was for the one found pulling the trigger.”
“Friends ratted on boyhood pals at HUAC. Men and woman hid or burned their Unemployed Council pamphlets and publicly denounced comrades they’d bled together with on strike lines, to keep their teaching jobs.” Wilkenson leaned forward, his hands clasped before him. “Who can say what any one of us will do to protect the ones we love?”
“You didn’t roll over, Fletcher.”
Wilkenson leaned back, an exasperated air huffing from his lungs. Involuntarily, he quickly glanced over his shoulder. “I was a contact for what the Communist Party used to call a closed or unavailable but operative member, you understand?”
“Not exactly,” Monk admitted.
Wilkenson adjusted his rangy frame in the chair. “I get into this in the preface of the book I’m writing now. In 1951 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Foley Square convictions. This was a move begun by Truman, Hoover, and their ilk to railroad Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act. You know what that is?”
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