Faye Kellerman

by Street Dreams

  They paused long enough to give me ’tude and defiance, but then they probably figured I wasn’t worth the effort. They ambled on, Dreadlocks spitting a couple of inches from my foot. Koby looked over his shoulder, his eyes fuming. When he started to turn around, I took his hand and pulled him forward.

  “Here we are.” I opened the boarded door, and still holding Koby’s hand, I dragged him inside. We stood in a small anteroom with peeling stucco walls that held a rack filled with flyers and pamphlets of services. Through an archway, I saw a communal dining room. There was a lone desk, the woman behind it around fifty and completely round with clipped kinky hair of gray-and-black knots. She wore a white tank top and was sweating profusely. It was hot inside and the lethargic ceiling fan didn’t help much. She eyed us suspiciously. Again, I took out my badge.

  She read it, then scowled. “LAPD? Someone should give you driving lessons. You’re in the wrong district, sister.”

  I ignored the hostility. “I’m trying to locate a runaway.” I took out his picture. “He’s twenty-four with Down’s syndrome characteristics. Black, obviously. Originally, he’s from my district in Hollywood. His retarded girlfriend was gang-raped. He was beaten up and tossed in a trash can like garbage. No one has seen him since and that was around nine months ago.”

  She listened to me, then turned her eyes to Koby. “I don’t see your ID.”

  “He’s not a cop,” I told her. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  Instantly, her eyes narrowed as she studied my face. There was disapproval of me, of course, but also an ever so slight softening in her expression. I had seen it in other blacks before—that by dating Koby, I might be more trustworthy than an average white cop.

  “What do you want?”

  “For the last three months, I’ve been trying to find this kid on my off-hours. I’m going through the lists and this place popped up. I’m just asking if you’ve seen him. And if you haven’t, do you know of other places where I should look?”

  She took in the picture. “You already looked in L.A.?”

  “Everywhere. I was thinking that because he’s black, maybe he perceives himself safer here.”

  “That’d be a switch.” Her laugh was bitter. “Comin’ here for safety.”

  “I’m grasping at straws. What smells so good?”

  “The kitchen.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the location was through the doorway behind her. “Cookin’ up supper.” She glanced at Koby, then returned her eyes to me. “What’s your business in a nine-month-old crime?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  She crossed her arms and waited.

  I took a deep breath. “His girlfriend gave birth to a baby girl. She threw the kid away in a Dumpster. I retrieved the baby. I think the kid deserves to know both her parents. Especially since this poor boy was frightened away. He’s not indigent. There’s a trust fund for him. If I could prove he’s the father of this baby, the kid might get some money, too. Lord knows, she deserves it.”

  “And you’re not gettin’ any finder’s fee?”

  Cynical eyes.

  “I’m not getting a dime,” I told her.

  She laughed contemptuously. “Just your average nice white do-gooder cop.”

  I held my ground. “They exist.”

  She glanced at the picture. Then took it and studied it in earnest. “Lemme show it to Urlene.”

  I said, “And you are …”

  She hesitated. “Cerise.”

  “Cynthia Decker.”

  I held out my hand. She gave me a limp-fish shake, then regarded Koby. “You don’ talk?”

  “Just here for the ride,” he answered.

  “You said it, bro’. ’Cause all yo’ be gettin’ is a ride.” She stood up—her lower torso encased in black stretch shorts—and tramped through the archway into the kitchen.

  I threw my hands over my face.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Koby whispered flatly.

  But his eyes were roiling like storm clouds. He was slipping.

  We lived in a liberated and somewhat libertine age and the vast majority of the time our skin tones were as relevant as vestigial tails. So when it happened, it was always like a dash of cold water, this thinly veiled hostility. Koby got the worst of it from white men; I got it from black women.

  Your men aren’t enough? You’ve got to steal our men, too?

  About a month ago, Koby had taken me to a party hosted by one of his friends. It was 80 percent black, 15 percent Hispanic and Asian, and a few stranded whites. By subconscious design, we Caucasians wound up talking together. We swapped stories and formed a consensus. It was easier to deal with hostile women any day of the week. Women sniped with words, men shot with guns.

  Of course, Koby’s attraction to me had little to do with my being white and very much to do with my being Jewish. Even more important, I had never been married. Although Koby wasn’t Orthodox like Rina, he was well rooted in tradition. He was born into the Jewish priest class—Kohanim—and I found out from Rina that Kohanim cannot marry divorced women without giving up their priesthood. Which didn’t translate into much; it was a symbolic thing that most American Jews couldn’t care less about. But I knew Koby and I knew he cared—the reason he had asked me soon after we met if there had ever been an ex-husband in the picture. It was obvious he was looking for something more than a casual lay.

  Cerise came back a few minutes later. “Yeah. It’d be like I thought. He’s been here, but not for at least four months.”

  I was utterly flabbergasted. “He was here?”

  “Didn’t I just say that?”

  “Oh my God, he’s alive!” I grabbed Koby’s arm and broke into a smile. “I can’t believe it!”

  “I don’t know if he’s alive. I haven’t seen him in months.”

  “You made my summer!” I was grinning. I took her hand and pumped it. “Now it’s just a matter of finding the right spot. Did you talk to him at all?”

  “Girl, we get over a hundred souls walkin’ through that door every day of the week.” She pulled her hand away and shook it up and down. “I jus’ remember him ’cause he got that Down’s face. I’ll tell you one thing. He looked a lot older than that picture.”

  “But you think it was him.”

  “I knowed it was him. He ate in our kitchen for mebbe two months.”

  “Did he ever talk to anyone?”

  “Now, how would I know that? He never talked to me. Just ate his food and crawled back under the cracks. That’s where all these people are from, Miss Cop. The cracks.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

  “Into another crack.”

  “Any other shelters around here?”

  “I thought you said you had a list.”

  I pulled the slip of paper out of my purse and showed it to her, pointing to a specific address about five miles away. “This was going to be my next stop.”

  She shrugged. “It’s as good as anything I can help you with.” She stood up again. “I got business. You can let yourselves out.”

  As she walked back to the kitchen, I saw her shaking her head. I took Koby’s hand and laced his stiff fingers with mine. “C’mon, big boy. Let’s get out of here.”

  He didn’t answer me, and that was always a bad sign. Something ugly was brewing inside his brain, and if it was going to erupt, I felt we should be in a safe environment. I pulled him back to the car—still there and still intact.

  “Uh, you have the keys,” I told him.

  He reached into his pocket and unlocked the doors. We got in and his autopilot took over, turning on the motor, pulling out of the space, finding the freeway on-ramp. I gave him directions to the next shelter. He barely seemed to process the information.

  He wasn’t kidding when he said he had “dark moods.” I’d gone through this before, and as requested, I had left him alone and let him work them away. But today we were together and neither of us had an escape valve.
>
  I said, “It’s over, Koby. Let’s move on—”

  “Pigs!” he spat out.

  “That’s why none of them are worth a second thought.”

  “They call me a nigger?” He pointed to himself. “I am black. They are niggers!”

  I blew out air. “I know it’s okay for you to use the N-word, but please don’t. We whites have a problem with it.”

  “It is what they are! Ignorant swine!”

  “At least, Cerise was helpful.”

  “If she’d been white, you would have called her a bitch!”

  “I’m trying to be charitable.”

  “Your knee-jerk liberal roots are showing,” he growled out.

  “Okay. She was a bitch! And the two boys were punks. But punks come in all colors.”

  “But it has to be my own people to hurl such insults.”

  “Not at all. Look, Koby, we’re spoiled. We hang out in Hollywood, where anything goes. I mean, just yesterday night when we went to the Twenty-four/seven café at two in the morning, at one table there was that bull dyke pouring her heart out to a drag queen. Then there was that Asian girl with blue hair talking to her leather-clad, pincushion white boyfriend with around a zillion pierces. Then there was that Chasidic guy doing a deal with that porno producer—”

  “We don’t know for sure he was a porno producer.”

  “C’mon, he was something sleazy. The point is, we were the most conventional couple in the place. Yaakov, there are places in the good old USA where I wouldn’t take you on a bet, and it’s not just the Deep South or rural Texas. It’s lovely areas with pretty little homes and green lawns and posters in their windows that say, ‘The South shall rise again.’”

  His jaw was still clenched. “Your bigots do not excuse my people’s stupidity!”

  “No one’s making excuses. It’s just that stupidity comes in all colors, including the white liberals in the West Side. God, Koby, you remember the party Mom gave for Alan’s birthday? The looks on the guests’ faces when they met you. Man, if their smiles had been any more frozen, I could have chipped them off with an ice pick.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Yeah, it was especially fun when Mrs. Hauser handed you her dirty wineglass and asked for another chilled Chardonnay, even though all the hired waiters were white, wearing tuxes, and carrying trays.”

  He waited a beat before he spoke, taking in the memory. His eyes darkened. “Yes, that was uncomfortable.”

  “Koby, you were seething.”

  “She was very apologetic.”

  “She was apoplectic!”

  He pressed his lips together. “What does that mean?”

  “‘Apoplectic’? It’s an old word for a fit … like a seizure. But now it means someone in a snit. And she certainly was in a snit. In fact, she was horrified because the worst thing in that world is being ‘aware’ of color. And of course, they’re all very aware of color. They think it’s great that Jan raised a liberal daughter, but they wouldn’t want it for their own, believe you me.”

  “They’d be even more horrified to find out you’re not a liberal.”

  “On social issues I am.”

  “You’re a cop, Cynthia. With cop ways of doing things and cop opinions.”

  “Definitely. I have a big problem with anyone who breaks the law.”

  “We’re in agreement. So that is why I don’t make excuses for those jerks.”

  “I’m not making excuses; I’m just thinking this out. Even my dad, who truly adores you, even he had a reaction when he first met you.”

  “Your stepmother didn’t.”

  I hesitated for just a moment. “I don’t want this to be construed as a criticism of Rina, because I think she’s a great person. But to Rina, the world is divided into two categories: Jews and non-Jews. If you’re Jewish, you’re in; if not, you’re not. You’re Jewish, ergo you’re in. She may be color-blind, but she has her standards. Sammy could bring home the most beautiful, brilliant girl, and if she wasn’t Jewish, heads would roll.”

  I exhaled and shook my head.

  “We all do it … this us/them thing. With me, it divides between law-abiding citizens and felons. Even in your field, where there isn’t supposed to be any bias, I bet biased decisions are made all the time. If a kidney is available, can you honestly say to me that they consider a seventy-year-old in the same way that they consider a twenty-year old?”

  “Maybe not.” He switched on the stereo, turning up the volume to drown me out. Ska with a booming bass line blasted through the speakers of Rina’s Volvo.

  I turned off the receiver. “Definitely not,” I continued. “Young people get preference, you know that. And why? Why is one life worth more than another life? Now, suppose the seventy-year-old was a major cancer researcher and the twenty-year-old had Down’s syndrome. Then who’d get the kidney?”

  “Yes, yes, you prove your point, Cindy. You should be a lawyer as well as a cop. That way, you can legally defend your self-righteousness. Can we now stop talking and listen to some music?” Again he turned on the receiver full volume.

  I sat back in my seat and looked at the roof of the car. We rode with the music blaring for about a minute until he abruptly turned it off. The stillness was thick.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I placed my hand on his knee and dropped my voice to a soothing lilt. “Yaakov, those two kids were punks. And you know how I feel about punks. And I didn’t particularly like being thought of as your bitch for sale. But there’s this side of me that says there’s something sad about them. Their self-esteem must be in the toilet, their images of themselves so low that they can’t possibly conceive of a healthy, good-looking white woman falling in love with a black man who isn’t a pro athlete, a badass rapper, a movie star, or her pimp. To them, it’s as absurd as a blue sun.”

  He was silent. But then ever so slowly, a small smile played upon his lips. “You’re in love with me?”

  I stared at him in amazement. “Um … let’s think about this. I spend every waking moment of my free time with you, and lots of my nonwaking moments, too.” I tapped his temple. “Duh!”

  He didn’t respond. We tooled down the freeway for a minute without speaking.

  At last he said, “Every morning I say Sha’charit—prayers to God.”

  “I know. Those little black boxes with the straps.”

  “Yes, tefillin.” He licked his lips. “In the prayers, there is always Shemoneh Esrei—the silent devotion to God. You take three steps backward; then you take three steps forward and start. But before you step forward … this is the chance for personal prayer, for personal requests.”

  A small smile.

  “I used to ask God for things—for money, for a raise, for a better position, for a new car at a price I could afford, to help me win the lottery, to let me meet lots of loose women.”

  I punched his shoulder lightly. “Did He help you out?”

  “Not with the lottery, but very good with the women.”

  I punched him again, but harder.

  “Silly things.” He let out a laugh. “But now … now I don’t ask for things. I just say, ‘Thank you, God, for sending me Cynthia.’ That is it.” A pause. “I don’t tell God this at prayer time, but I do also say thank you to Him for giving me the privilege of having sex with you—”

  I broke up into peals of laughter. “That’s terrible!”

  “No, it’s not!” He glanced at me with serious eyes. “I look at you and I say I can’t believe I am having sex with this incredible-looking woman! All my friends are jealous, even if you are a cop. They think you look like a supermodel.”

  “Oh please—”

  “Except you have this big, beautiful, black-girl ass. Tight and round and—”

  “You talk about my ass with your friends?”

  He smiled sheepishly. “It comes up in natural conversation.”

  I whacked him. “You’re awful.”

  “Not at all.
” He grew serious. “My friends make fun of me. They say I am moonstruck. They say I am pussy whipped. They say, ‘What has happened to you, mon? What is wrong with you … that you let a woman bring you to your knees?’ But what do they know? They have never brushed their lips against yours. They have never felt your soft touch in the middle of the night. They have never held you … body and soul united … lost in rich ecstasy that lifts even the most ordinary man to a momentary king. They have never had a true union of Kiddusha—of holiness between two people who are destined, who are bashert.”

  His voice had become a whisper.

  “God has made this shiddach … this match. Only God could make such a match. I am … hopelessly in love with you, Cynthia Rachel Decker.”

  I absorbed his words, trying not to cry, but I couldn’t hold back. My eyes watered up, but I managed to wipe them before tears rolled down my cheeks. Waiting until I could find my voice, and when I finally did speak, I was choked with emotion. “I’m hopelessly in love with you, too, Yaakov Elias David Ben Aaron Hako-hen Kutiel.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “That’s quite a mouthful.”

  “Blame my father.” He cleared his throat. “I think we have a long, long future together.” He tapped the wheel nervously. “At least, that is what I want.”

  This time, the tears escaped my eyes. We rode a few minutes in silence, both of us drinking in the moment. For twenty-eight years, it had been just me, myself, and I. But now, in all honesty, I couldn’t remember what my life had been without him. Being that dependent on someone was terrifying. Being that dependent on a man was utterly terrifying!

  “If you have doubts, I will wait as long as you want,” he told me. “I only wish to make you happy.”

  He had misinterpreted my silence. Still, I held back. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  He didn’t answer. Disappointment crushed his face, darkening his expression. It was time to take the emotional plunge, a scarier dive than I would have ever imagined. But if I blew it now, I knew I’d regret it for the rest of my life. I took a deep breath and began to stroke his leg. “Yaakov, I have no doubts whatsoever. What you want is exactly what I want—a long future together … our entire future together actually. But I’ll tell you this. If you break my heart, I’ll kill you.”