She took in her father’s eyes, but couldn’t quite hold them. “Probably not in the same way that you two do. But I think after my experiences last year, I’ve shown myself to be a good fighter.”
“Cynthia, you are as tough as they come. Like I told you, life has thrown you some bad curveballs, and you cope far better than I do. But you’re also a good girl. Compassion isn’t always the answer.”
“You think I’m sheltered.”
“Of course, you’re sheltered.”
“How can you say that after what happened to me?”
“Nobody could have survived what you did. I’m so damn …” Decker’s eyes turned moist. “Honey, all I’m saying is you need to recognize threat. You have to ask yourself, if you had been in Koby’s position, would you have ducked in the passenger’s seat or would you have taken out your gun and opened fire?”
“I gave him the gun, you know.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She was quiet, giving the question some honest thought. “The best I can come up with is I’m almost positive I would have done the same thing. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
“Now can I have the phone, please?”
“No, you can’t.” Again he drilled into her eyes. “Koby’s bought you a whole lot of goodwill.”
“So let me call and thank him.”
“No, because right now, I’m going to buy you a set of balls.”
Silence. Cindy blinked, staring at her father. “I’ve done okay for twenty-eight years without them. What on earth do you have in mind?”
Decker answered her question by starting the Porsche. It roared, then purred. He peeled rubber, going south onto Wilton until he hit Olympic. Then he went east toward downtown L.A. “Somebody tried to kill you, Cynthia. Aren’t you curious?”
She didn’t answer. The question was rhetorical.
Decker said, “Am I correct in assuming that you still have no idea who perpetrated the hit-and-run against Belinda Syracuse?”
“Yes. I don’t have a clue.”
“It’s an open case?”
“So far as I know.”
“So let’s junk that because we haven’t any leads. Now Sarah Sanders’s rape is a different story. Tell me about the guy you hauled in.”
“Germando El Paso.”
“Yeah, him. Do you know where he is at the moment?”
“In County lockup.”
“You checked.”
“Not me, personally. I think Brill made the call.”
“But as you stated so succinctly, El Paso’s buddies aren’t locked up. Refresh my memory. Tell me about them again.”
She rubbed her forehead. “Germando gave us two names— Joseph Fedek and Pepe Renaldes. Fedek’s whereabouts are unknown; Renaldes has an address.”
“What’s the address?”
“I don’t remember off the top of my head. I wrote it down in my notes.”
“Where are your notes? At home?”
“They’re in my locker. Go back to the station house and I’ll—”
“No, I don’t want you going back there. Do you remember the area he lives in?”
“Oh gosh … let me think. I remember he works for Do-Rite Construction.”
“No good. We don’t want any third party involved.”
This time, she gave him the full force of her eyes. “The DA told me that Renaldes is strictly off-limits because El Paso talked without an attorney present. If I talk to Renaldes, I could mess up a future indictment for Sarah Sanders’s rape case.”
Decker glared at her. “And you give a solitary shit what this little prick has to say when there’s someone out there who’s trying to blow your head off?”
Cindy looked at her lap. “Phrased in that manner, I suppose not.”
“What area?” Decker repeated.
“Okay … okay … uh … I have this recollection of Exposition Park. If I could just dash in and check my locker, I could—”
“Cindy, you’ve been temporarily relieved. You don’t go near the station until they tell you to come in.” Decker spoke through gritted teeth. He hit Western and headed for the freeway on-ramp. “Okay. Exposition Park. Near USC or … ?”
She closed her eyes. “Maybe Forty-second Street. Why does that sound familiar?”
“It’s a musical, Cynthia.”
“Yes!” Cindy lifted a finger in the air. “Yes! Brilliant!” She grinned. “Exactly! It wasn’t Forty-second, it was Thirty-second and Broadway, because I remember thinking that his address sounded like a musical!”
“Specific numbers?”
“Can you congratulate me first?”
“Congratulations.” He turned left onto 10 East and ripped pavement. The Porsche’s engine sang. “Numbers?”
She twirled a strand of hair with an index finger. When she spoke, she had to shout over the roar of the engine. “You know, Renaldes could be listed.”
Decker took out his cell phone.
“I’ll do it,” Cindy told him.
“No, I will.”
“Dad, you’re going ninety on the freeway!”
Decker ignored her and called up information.
“You’re crazy!” Cindy shouted. “I have a maniac for a father.”
“I can’t hear! Quiet!”
“Oh God!” She slumped in her seat. “I wish I were a Catholic. Then I could cross myself.”
Decker hung up the phone and put it back into his pocket. “He wasn’t listed. Let’s try again. Specific numbers?”
Cindy sighed. “I seem to remember a six or a seven in the beginning.”
“So that means three numbers if we’re talking around Broadway and Thirty-second.”
“Yeah, you’re right. It was a three-number address. I think it was an even number.”
“That narrows it down. I’m five minutes away. Let’s just poke around. See if something jogs your memory or maybe we’ll happen to come across a shot-out bronze Nova.”
“I will be happy to go along with whatever plans you’ve devised, including leaning on scumbags like Pepe Renaldes, should we find him. But not until you give me the phone and let me call Koby.”
“No.”
“Dad—”
“Not a chance!”
“Daddy, he’s worried about me. And frankly, I want to talk to him.”
“No.”
“If you don’t give me the phone, I’m going to leave at the next stoplight.”
“We’re on the freeway.”
“Daddy, give me the friggin’ phone now!”
“Now that’s conviction!” Decker smiled at his daughter and handed her the phone. “Finally.”
36
Gray skies hovered over the awakening city as the Loo parked the Porsche curbside. We were in an area of high crime, and the lone sports car sitting on the empty block just cried out, Jack me! Chop me! I asked him how comfortable he felt leaving his baby without backup, and he showed me his Beretta. At that point, I gave up. The man was on his own private mission, masquerading as my avenging angel.
It was an immigrant neighborhood, mostly Hispanic, and while the inhabitants weren’t steeped in dire poverty, most of them were surely poor. Because the area predated its current population and there had been wealth a time ago, there remained some magnificent old mansions built with the kind of detail that failed replication. But most of those estates had been bought up by the nearby university and were used for graduate-study centers. The rest of the architecture was a mixture of old and older, of fixer-uppers and buildings in serious disrepair. There were several turn-of-the-century Victorian houses replete with gingerbread, scallops, and curlicues, but the dwellings sagged under age, waiting for that expensive face-lift. There were also some Arts and Crafts bungalows with shingled sides and roofs, and spacious front porches. But the majority of the single-family houses were broken stucco boxes with little to offer except protection from the elements. Even those were preferable to the rows of dingbats—lifel
ess, square apartment buildings without charm that were shedding stucco chunks like a diseased leper molting facial features.
I thought about asking Decker what his game plan was. We couldn’t very well start by ringing doorbells. He suggested we take a walk and shake out our legs. While we ambled down the wrong side of the tracks, we poked around exterior mailboxes, read labels on newspaper deliveries, and scanned the directories of apartment buildings. Nothing came close to Renaldes. After an hour of fruitless effort, I told Dad that this was ridiculous.
“Patience.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s just hang for a while.”
“Dad, we don’t even know if we’re on the right block.”
“I think we’re close.”
“You’re in denial.” It was six-thirty and I was sleep deprived. Thinking had become hard work. “You know, construction crews start pretty early.”
My father looked at me.
I said, “In my area, we get loads of Hispanic guys waiting on street corners or by paint stores, hoping to be picked up by the boss man.”
“I thought you said this guy had a steady job.”
“I said Renaldes had listed Do-Rite Construction as his current employer. I don’t know how long ago he might have worked for the company. Or even if he worked for the company at all. I never got a chance to check it out, because my superiors in title told me to back off. But now I’m thinking that if Renaldes listed Do-Rite as his employer, he probably worked construction with other companies, too.”
Decker didn’t answer me.
“Why don’t we drive around—”
“I wanted to get this guy while he was sleeping.”
“Daddy, we don’t know where he lives!” My father could be incredibly thickheaded sometimes. “I think it would be a better use of our time if we found some crews and asked about Renaldes. You’d have no trouble convincing anyone that you’re a West Side contractor looking for hands. You’re fluent in Spanish and you’re driving a flashy car.”
“Contractors drive Porsches?”
“The ones who work in Brentwood certainly do.”
“I thought they drove trucks.”
“Both.”
“I’m in the wrong business.”
“Didn’t Mom try to tell you that a long time ago?”
Decker flashed me a sour look.
“Contractors and real estate agents: They drive Porsches, Mercedes, Beemers, Jags. … It’s all part of the image. Can we talk about my idea now?”
“Coming in, I didn’t see any work crews.”
“We didn’t look for any crews. Besides, it’s later now. Let’s go hit the lumberyards or the paint stores and see if we can’t get something going.”
My father tapped his toe, unwilling to comment.
“It’s a good idea, Decker,” I told him. “Much better than anything you have. You know, Daddy, I’m the one who was shot at and was yanked off active duty. Plus, I haven’t slept in over twenty hours. If you don’t start pulling your weight, I’m going home.”
My father slipped his hands into his pockets. “Point well taken.”
“Thank you. So do we go or what?”
Decker took out his keys. “I guess we go.”
Using the ruse that Pepe Renaldes owed my father, the boss man, a considerable sum of money—something that the men we talked to found very easy to believe—we came away with a half-dozen addresses in the right neighborhood. All it took was two hours of our time and two hundred bucks in twenties. Neither one of us had that much play cash, so Dad withdrew money from his ATM. I asked him if he really thought it was worth the effort, and he retorted by asking me exactly how much did I think my life was worth? He was overstating the case, but after his lecture on threat, I felt it best not to challenge.
The first address didn’t exist and the second one was a Kinko’s. The third was one of those squashed stucco houses. That looked promising, although the occupants’ last name was Martez. Inside were a mother and her two sullen teenage daughters, who were polishing their toenails, mixing the smell of acetone with the odor of bacon grease. She insisted that there was no Pepe Renaldes in residence, but since she was less than convincing, Decker searched the house. She let him do it because Decker was big, and Decker was authoritative, and Decker must have said something to her in Spanish that scared the bejesus out of her.
By the time we hit the fourth address—a dingbat apartment building—it was almost ten and the hopes of finding Pepe Renaldes in bed were fading fast. It was a two-story building of brown stucco, fronted by a patch of straggly lawn that had a couple of full-size palm trees dropping premature palm nuts. The little black balls littered the sidewalk and poked into the soles of my shoes. The place had no lobby, but it did have a directory—twelve units with number four looking very promising because the occupants were listed as R and nothing else. This little bit of Heaven was toward the back and secured by iron grilles on the front door and windows. As we approached the unit, I could hear ferocious barking in the midrange level coming from inside. I had reservations about dropping in, but Dad had other ideas.
“Okay,” he whispered. “You stay out of sight.”
“It’s got bars and a dog, Dad. How do you propose we get in?”
“You leave that to me.”
“You can’t push in the door. And even if you did, there’s a dog—”
“Just stay back and let me handle this.”
“Do you have another gun?”
My father smiled at me. “Aw … you care.” His face turned grave. “Stand over there, all right?”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Very much so.” He knocked on the door.
The dog went wild. I could picture my father charging in and the dog responding by going for his throat. I was naked without my gun and didn’t like that feeling at all.
We waited … thirty seconds … a minute.
Decker knocked again. He shouted something in Spanish.
The dog had worked itself up into a frenzy. There was yelling from above. Dad yelled back at him.
“You’re going to cause a riot,” I told my father.
“Nah, he’s just screaming for someone to shut the dog up.”
“Obviously, no one’s home.”
“Or sleeping. If he was out last night, Cin, he might be sleeping late.” Dad knocked again.
The dog kept up its vocal pyrotechnics.
Dad pounded this time.
“Let it ride—”
“You want to take control of your destiny or leave it to assholes?”
I exhaled. Dad gave the door another thrashing. “Last time,” he announced.
The dog was barking itself hoarse.
Ten seconds … twenty.
The dog quieted—a bark or two but without real feeling behind it. To my utter shock, I heard movement behind the door. My father pushed me out of the way. “Yo, Pepe,” he said. “Soy Miguel.”
I couldn’t understand the rest of his speech. I caught words but nothing else. I thought about Dad with his Spanish and Koby speaking three languages. I could barely cope with my native one.
Muffled Spanish came from behind the door.
Dad responded, “Un hombre blanco—alto con pelo rojo. El la busca, hombre. El dice que usted le debe dinero. Yo no le dije nada pero el dice que tiene una pistola, amigo. Si me da cincuenta dolares y una cerveza, pienso que yo puedo hacerlo esperar.”
Silence.
I whispered, “What did you say?”
He shut me up with a movement of his hand and put his finger to his lips. A couple of perfunctory yelps from the pooch, then I could hear the clunk of the dead bolt being opened. Dad pushed me against the wall.
The image of a charging pit bull leaping at my father’s face became quite vivid.
“Give me your gun,” I told him.
“What?”
“Don’t argue!” I spat fiercely. “You told me to have convictions—I have them now. Give me your gun no
w or I’m going to yell police!”
He gave me his gun.
Slowly, the door started to open. Just a crack at first, then it opened a little wider. Immediately, Decker shoved full force with his body and the door flew open.
As expected, the dog sprang upward, but Dad had come prepared. He gave the canine a swift, hard kick in the cranium, sending the midsize pooch across the room and crashing into a table. Pepe was going in one direction, while the dog, a pit bull mix, was shaking itself off, readying itself for round two.
I jumped on Pepe’s back, squeezing my legs around his waist and encircling his throat with my left arm. I jammed the bore of the gun into the nape of his neck. “CALL THE DOG OFF!” I shoved the gun deep against his cervical vertebrae. “CALL IT OFF! CALL IT OFF!”
The pit bull started charging. Dad picked up an end table. I screamed and shot at the intractable beast, grazing its head but not deterring it an iota. Dad threw the end table, knocking it again on the head as Renaldes did a rain dance, trying to shake me off his back.
“CALL IT OFF!” I shot a bullet past his temple. “CALL IT OFF!” Another bullet past the other ear.
“Don’ shoot!”
“OFF NOW OR THIS TIME IT’S YOUR FUCKING HEAD!”
He finally started making overtures to the beast, calling him by his name, Fuego, cooing at him like a parakeet. Although Fuego was still pissed, he was disoriented from being slammed by flying furniture.
I was still holding on to Renaldes. “Put him in a closet!” I demanded.
“Get off—”
I zinged another shot past his ear. “EL PERRO IN THE CLOSET! NOW!”
At last my demand sank in. Pepe bent down, almost falling on his face under the burden of my weight, but somehow he managed to grab Fuego’s collar and lead him into a closet. As soon as the pit bull was secured behind the door, I jumped off, and at the same time, my father grabbed Renaldes by the throat. He pushed him down onto a tattered couch and tightened his grip. Renaldes’s face started turning a very unhealthy red. With his right hand, Decker motioned for his weapon. I gave it to him and he shoved it into Renaldes’s mouth. I do believe Pepe pissed in his pants.
Faye Kellerman Page 29