Back to Blood: A Novel

by Tom Wolfe

  Nestor was unnerved by the Chief’s expression. He was sitting at his desk and barely even looked up when Nestor and the Sergeant walked in. Now he did look up and aimed his forefinger like a revolver at a couple of straight-back chairs side by side directly in front of his desk.

  “Have a seat,” he said in a not particularly hospitable way.

  Straight-back chairs… the office was on a corner and had big windows with a view of… not much of anything. It was a lot smaller and less imposing than Nestor had pictured it in his mind.

  The Chief leaned back in his big swivel chair and just gazed at them without any expression for a moment, and that moment stretched out s t r e t c h e d o u t… Nestor became acutely aware of just how big the man was… and how dark his face… and that plus the Chief’s dark-navy uniform made Nestor hyperaware of the whites of his eyes. He looked powerful enough to be a whole other order of Homo sapiens. A cop’s Heaven of gold stars, four on each side, ran along each side of his collar, making the Chief’s mighty neck official.

  Finally the Chief spoke. “You two have any idea what’s been going on with your little YouTube performance over the past six hours or so?”

  He hadn’t even gotten the “or so” out of his mouth before the Sergeant, eyes ablaze, broke in, “I’m sorry, Chief, but that wasn’t any ‘little performance!’ That was the performance of my duties! And some… bastard… tries to do me in by posting a… a… a tampered version of that uh uh uh illegal video on YouTube!”

  Nestor was stunned. ::::::For God’s sake, Sarge, you’re crazy! You’re a two-legged case of insubordination.::::::

  The Chief was stunned, too. What kind of impudent—whereupon he leaned across the desk and roared in the Sergeant’s face, “You’re telling me the thing is a fake? That it isn’t even you? Or somebody put words in your mouth? Or some bastard’s trying to do you in? And somehow he can fake your voice and have you ranting like some goddamn Ku Klux Cuban cracker? Who is this fiendish bastard, Sergeant? I’d really like to know!”

  “Look, Chief, I’m not saying what I’m saying. That thing on YouTube’s not what I was saying… you know? I’m saying the bastard posts what I’m saying but he don’t say he’s cut out the part that made me say what I’m saying!”

  Roaring: “Shut up, Hernandez! Nobody gives a good fuck about what you’re saying you said. What you said is on the fucking world wide web, and you made yourself very clear, and you got any idea at all what that racist YouTube segment a yours has blown up into? Do you know how many other sites, blogs, and news outlets have picked up the fucking video?”

  “It’s not any segment a mine, Chief—”

  “What’s the matter with you, Hernandez? You deaf? You dense? You don’t know what shut up means?”

  The “Hernandez” is a left hook to the ribs. Jorge Hernandez is no longer “Sergeant.” That gets his attention, more than the scolding. He’s sitting straight up, rigid in the straight-back chair with his mouth open, while the Chief says:

  “I’ve been getting calls and e-mails, texts, and fucking tweets, ever since six o’clock this morning, and the goddamned thing hadn’t been out for more than a couple of hours at that point—and these e-mails and tweets are not just coming from Overtown and Liberty City and Little Haiti. They’re coming from all over the goddamned world! I get shit from France like ‘You, with all your pious talk about human rights and freedom and the rest of it—and now we see what American criminal justice is really like’—that’s the kind of shit I’m getting, Hernandez, and what I’m getting—”

  Hernandez—the guy is too much! He tries to break back in! “Look, Chief, they can’t say that, because—”

  He never completes the sentence. He’s paralyzed by the look on the Chief’s face. The Chief doesn’t say a word. He gives an ominous smile, the sort of me-beating-the-shit-out-of-you smile that says, “You little faggot! Any time you want to take this off the official level, just say the word, and we’ll step outside and I’ll wrap your ascending colon around your head like a turban for you.” Chastened, the Sergeant shut up.

  In a softer, calmer tone, the Chief said, “And what I’m getting is nothing compared to what the Mayor’s getting. It’s a goddamned shit flood over there. This thing has gone viral. This isn’t some picture from thirty-something feet away of police officers who look like they’re standing over some poor bastard on the ground and just whaling away at him with their billy clubs and you don’t know why and you don’t know what they’re saying. This time the camera was up close and right on top of the two of you, and it picked up every word you said, and not only the words but the expressions on your faces when you said them, and your faces said it all, louder than your words.”

  The Chief paused in a… significant manner. He stared, not very pleasantly, at the Sergeant and then the same way at Nestor. “Either of you two ever been in a play? You know… onstage?”

  Neither of them said a word. Finally the Sergeant shook his head no, and Nestor did the same thing.

  “I didn’t think so,” said the Chief. “So it wasn’t some great job of acting. The two a you put on a genuine exhibition of racial bigotry for the whole fucking world, didn’t you, a nice sincere exhibition.”

  The Chief was glowering at them, but now it was Nestor who was desperate to break in. ::::::But this is totally unfair! You didn’t pay attention to what I actually said! You can’t just lump me together with the Sergeant! Don’t you have any idea of what started this whole thing? You’re not some clueless work-a-daddy who looks at the thing and thinks it all began with two Cuban cops throwing that big black hulk flat out on the floor and then calling him this and that just for the fun of it?!:::::: And then Nestor’s rope broke:

  “That’s not fair, Chief”—his voice started rising on the way to a scream—“because all I said—”

  “You, too, Camacho! Shut up! Both a you listen and listen carefully to every word I say.” The Chief paused. He seemed to be debating whether or not to let Nestor really have it. He must have decided no. When he resumed, his voice took on a tone of blunt reasoning. “Look, I know the video cut everything that explains what drove you to that point. I know the urge to kill some punk who’s just tried to kill me, because I’ve been there a hell of a lot more than you have. I know what it is to wanna bury the motherfucker with every jab you can get out of your mouth. I’ve been there, too. But you two had to ring the fucking gong, didn’t you. You had to come up with the worst brand of bigotry in America today. You had to come up with a goddamn thesaurus of the insults guaranteed to hurt black folks’ feelings the most. And I’ve been there, too. Me, I don’t take any a that shit anymore, and I’ll break every bone in the body of any fool who directs it at me, from the humerus to the hip socket to the hyoid. I guarantee I will fuck up any cracker who tries to put that shit over on me.”

  Nestor was dying—dying—to cry out. ::::::But it wasn’t me! I didn’t say anything wrong!:::::: Two things held him back… One, he had a live fear of the Chief and what he might do. And two, if he started trying to pin the blame on the Sergeant… he’d be ostracized—by these guys, the brotherhood, the police force, Hernandez, Ruiz, even americanos like Kite and McCorkle from the Marine Patrol, and yeah, even the Chief. ::::::I won’t take this kind of abuse from my dad, my papi, anymore, but I’ll take it from this big black man at that desk. Cops are my whole life, the only people I have now. And what if sixty seconds from now it turns out that the Chief’s bone-crushing anger is just the build-up to canning us, me and the Sergeant, firing us, dumping us like a couple of dead fish gone high?::::::

  The next words out of the Chief’s mouth were “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna fire you, I’m not gonna demote you. I think I know you two guys. You’re two cops…” He paused, as if to let that sink in. “Whatever else you are—and you’re probably a stone-cold irredeemable racist, Hernandez—you both have medals for valor, and they don’t just get handed out to improve morale. But what we’ve gotta do in the short run, it’s not
so understanding and forgiving of human frailty.”

  He smiled slightly when he said “human frailty.” It was his first affable smile since he began this lecture. Okay, thought Nestor, ::::::but what is supposed to be amusing about “human frailty,” unless the Chief wants to show that he knows he was using a bullshit expression? And who was “we”—or was it just another one of these bullshit words politicians like to use by way of saying, “You’re not just looking at one man here, you’re in the presence of the Power”?::::::

  “We’re going to have to relieve you from duty,” the Chief said. “As I said, this is what we gotta do in the short run. It’s not a permanent thing. You’ll be paid as usual.”

  Nestor looked at the Sergeant. The Sergeant had his lips compressed and kept clenching his jaw muscles. He seemed to have some knowledge about just what “relieved from duty” meant that Nestor didn’t have. Nestor worked up enough courage to ask, “Chief… could you tell me what that means exactly? We come in and do desk work?”

  “No,” said the Chief. “If you’re relieved from duty, you don’t do any work at all.” The Chief’s face was a stone once more.

  “You don’t do any work?” By the time he finished the question, Nestor found himself no longer looking at the Chief but at the Sergeant. Somehow he had the feeling—only that, a feeling—that the Sergeant would give him a straighter answer.

  The Sergeant was looking at the Chief with an almost impudent little smile.

  “No, you won’t be doing any work,” said the Chief. Same stony expression. “And you won’t be coming in. You’ll have to be available for calls at home from eight a.m. to six p.m. every day.”

  “Calls to do…” Nestor couldn’t pull himself together long enough to complete the question.

  “Not to do anything,” said the Chief. “You just have to be available for the calls.”

  Nestor looked at him blankly, catatonically.

  “And you surrender your badge and your service revolver.”

  ::::::Surrender?… my badge and my service revolver?… and do nothing?::::::

  “You might as well hand them over to me… now.”

  Nestor looked at the Sergeant, who was looking at the Chief with a resigned twist to his lips. He had known all along, hadn’t he? Nestor was worse than stunned. He was frightened all over again.

  Barely an hour after Camacho and Hernandez had left his office, Cat Posada brought the Chief a hand-delivered letter and arched her eyebrows in a way that says, “Oh ho! What do we have here?!”

  The Chief had the same reaction, but he didn’t show it until she had left the room. ::::::God, she is some kinda hot, Miss Cat Posada—and I’m not gonna take one step down that road.:::::: He looked at the letter again and shook his head and sighed. The return address was in the upper left-hand corner written in ballpoint pen, and the name was Nestor Camacho. He had never seen an officer relieved of duty begin his appeal barely one hour later. ::::::Bad move, Camacho. There’s nothing you can say that won’t make it worse.::::::

  He sliced open the envelope and read,

  Dear Chief Booker,

  Respectfully, can an officer relieved of duty give information he got before he was relieved of duty? Hoping that he can, please respectfully accept the following in the case of the teacher José Estevez who was arrested after an altercation at Lee de Forest Senior High School.

  ::::::The kid’s respectfulling me half-to-death, and he’s totally offing English grammar.:::::: But as the kid blundered on, he began to make sense. He was saying that the student whom Estevez had supposedly attacked, François Dubois, was the leader of a gang and that he and the gang had intimidated at least four students into giving false information to the investigating officers. He gave their names and said, “Two of them are sixteen years old, and two of them are seventeen years old. They are not ‘tough guys,’ they are not gang members”—he put tough guys in quotes, because he couldn’t come up with a more dignified term, no doubt—“they are only ‘boys.’ They are already afraid they are getting into serious trouble by false testimony. Our Department will get them to tell the truth quickly.” The grammar was getting bloodier and bloodier, but the potential of this information the Chief liked… a lot.

  He didn’t even bother to summon Cat Posada over the intercom. He just yelled out the door, “Miss Posada! Get me Lieutenant Verjillo!”

  Thank God he had Camacho figured wrong. He wasn’t making an appeal. He was just being a cop.

  Magdalena kept her dressy clothes at her official address, the little apartment she rented with Amélia Lopez on Drexel Avenue. Her declarations about turning her back on Hialeah and the Hialeah Cuban life had been many and open… and loud anytime she could shove them in her mother’s face. Yet there was still enough Catholic upbringing in her to want to keep up appearances. Suppose some old friend or relative… or her mother or father, although they wouldn’t dare… happened to use some outrageous sob story to prevail upon Amélia to let her into the apartment. She wanted it to look like she actually lived there. At Norman’s she mainly kept her white I’m-a-nurse dresses and some weekend-type clothes, jeans, matelot shirts, bikinis, tank tops, shorts, sundresses, cotton cardigan sweaters, and the like.

  It so happened that on Friday she was inside her bedroom closet—inside her closet in the moral apartment—trying to get dressed in a furiously great hurry, clad so far in nothing but a thong, thrashing, thrashing, thrashing, panic-driven, among two closet rods’ worth of hanging garments, muttering louder and louder… “Oh, my God… I don’t believe this… it was hanging right next to that.” Thrash thrash thrash “Oh, shit… not even one… Chez Toi… What’s my—”

  “Dios mío, qué pasa, Magdalena?” And there was Amélia in the doorway, in her T-shirt and jeans. Magdalena didn’t even look up. Neither of them was shy about seeing the other stark naked or as near to it as Magdalena was now.

  “I can’t find anything to wear. Lo es qué pasa.”

  Amélia chuckled. “Who can? Where you going?”

  Amélia was a pretty girl from Peru, although not as pretty as she was… she had a round face with big dark eyes and miles of glistening dark hair. She was about Magdalena’s size but ever so slightly thick in the ankles. One thing about her Magdalena truly envied, however: Amélia was sophisticated, at least compared to any other nurse she knew. Amélia was twenty-six. She had graduated with a BA from EGU before even thinking about nursing school. Somehow she just knew things… she caught on to references… She was a real adult, at least in Magdalena’s eyes… a real adult a real adult a real adult—and Magdalena responded: “Some place called Chez Toi.”

  “Some place called Chez Toi,” said Amélia. “You don’t fool around when it comes to some place, do you!”

  “Have you ever been there?”

  “Me? I wouldn’t even try. It’s impossible to get a reservation, and the prices are insane. Who’s taking you? Let me guess… your friend Dr. Lewis.”

  “Yep.” Magdalena felt strangely glum about the admission and didn’t know exactly why. For whatever reason, she was becoming weary and embarrassed by this sexual bond with her employer. “You got it… but help me anyway, will you? I can’t find anything that’s gonna look right at a place like that. I just don’t own any fancy dresses.”

  Amélia went into the closet herself while Magdalena stood outside with her arms folded beneath her breasts. She began pulling back hangers rapidly, one after the other, at a machine-like pace clack… clack… clack… clack. Then she stopped and looked at Magdalena from deep in the closet.

  “You know what?” she said. “You’re right. You don’t have anything. If I were you, I’d go in another direction.”

  “What other direction?” said Magdalena. “Norman’s going to be here any minute.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Amélia. She emerged from the closet with a hanger bearing a short black skirt.

  “That? That’s just a plain cotton skirt. I got it at Forever 21. Only comes
down to here.” She placed the edge of her hand barely halfway down her thigh.

  “Wait a sec, and I’ll show you. You’re gonna look amazing!” She laughed in a slightly mischievous way. “You’re gonna love it!” She practically ran to her room, yelling over her shoulder, “And forget putting on a bra!”

  In no time she was back with a big smile on, holding what looked to Magdalena like a corset, but a corset made of black silk with two black silk cups at the top. Beneath each cup three rows of what looked like zippers ran to the bottom of the thing.

  “What is that?” said Magdalena. “It looks like a corset.”

  “It is like a corset, when you get right down to it,” said Amélia. “It’s a bustier.”

  “A bus-te-ay? Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of bustiers, but I guess I never saw anybody wear one.”

  “You just put that on with your black skirt—and you’ll look hot as shit!”

  “Are you serious?” Magdalena stared at the thing. “I don’t know, Amélia. They’ll think I’m a hooker.”

  “Bustiers are in right now. I could show you a dozen magazines.”

  “What do I wear over it?”

  “Nothing! That’s the whole point! At first it looks like some kind of lingerie. See all these little lines of fake zippers? But then you see it’s made of silk, and it covers you from the waist up just as well as a ball gown—more, if you’ve noticed what all the models are wearing these days.”

  Magdalena looked highly dubious. “I don’t know…”

  “Look, Magdalena, what do you want to look like, some cubana wannabe americana wearing a proper dress from the tag sale at the discount mall?”

  That brought Magdalena up short. She was speechless… running all the possibilities through her mind like a number cruncher. “I don’t know… I just don’t know…” She turned her hands into tight little frustrated fists. “And Norman’s gonna be here any second, and this Chez Toi is such a big deal.”