January Justice

by Athol Dickson

  “Did he tell you why he thought that?” I asked.

  Meredith said, “Not exactly. We were talking about New York Times best sellers, and how some producers were optioning self-help titles these days, which we thought was kind of crazy, because, I mean, a picture has to have a story, you know?”

  “I’m just a driver, Meredith. I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Haley told me a few things, you know. You’re just a driver the way Streep is just an actor.”

  “What was the connection between this conversation about options and the sales for Doña Elena’s book?”

  “Well, Homer, that’s her manager’s actual name, if you can believe it. Homer. He said he had just sold the rights to Beyond Survival, and I said I had no idea how they could make a decent picture out of it, and he said the only way it worked was with a bait and switch. You let the writers blue-sky a story that touches down in one or two places that have something to do with the book’s premise, but basically the book people read and the movie you make are two completely different things.”

  “Most films I’ve seen that were supposed to be based on novels are like that.”

  “Well, exactly. That’s what I said. But Homer, if you can believe that name, he said novels and nonfiction are different, because sometimes you get a moneymaker from a novel nobody has ever heard of, but just try that with a nonfiction premise. It won’t work. That’s what he said. With nonfiction, you’re not optioning a good story; you’re optioning a million actual nonfiction readers, minimum. At least you’d better be, or the film will go straight to rental.”

  “I assume you pointed out that Beyond Survival was a New York Times best seller with a million readers.”

  “Well, exactly. And he laughed.”

  “Laughed?”

  “I think he was laughing. With Homer you can never be quite sure.”

  “He didn’t think the book sold that many copies?”

  “Exactly. Otherwise, why was Homer laughing?”

  I did a little more research. Beyond Survival had been published by Victory Books about twelve months after the kidnapping and murder. According to the State of California’s records, Victory Books was owned by DET Holdings LLC. With a little more digging, I learned that the president and secretary of DET Holdings LLC was originally listed as Doña Elena Toledo.

  I ordered a copy of the book and had it shipped overnight. It arrived at ten the next morning. I took it out to a chaise longue on the patio along with a cup of french roast and sat down to read. An hour later I put the book down and started rubbing my temples.

  Beyond Survival was a collection of pep talks culled from those motivational posters they hang on the walls in sales offices. The chapters had one-word titles like “Dreams,” “Achievement,” and “Challenges,” with taglines like “To avoid failure, wake up every morning determined to succeed.” There were many references to Doña Elena’s “ordeal,” and how she had used “the force of personal willpower” to survive and escape from her abductors. Details of what that actually meant were almost nonexistent.

  I thought about the woman I had met, sitting behind a wall of glass in the hills above LA, cushioned in white upholstery, hair done perfectly and face perfectly made up, a bottle of Chablis under her belt and another bottle on the way. It seemed obvious the book had been ghostwritten to capitalize on the kidnapping. It was callous and opportunistic, and Doña Elena should have been ashamed of herself. But it was Hollywood, where any publicity was good publicity if you could turn it into more publicity. In fact, Doña Elena’s was a much more tasteful path to stardom than some had recently taken. Film yourself having sex. Pretend somebody else leaked it to the Internet. Pretend outrage. Become famous for being famous. Star in your own reality show. Start a clothing line. A perfume line. A housewares line. Attention shoppers, meaningless sex and random violence now selling on aisle six. Get it while it’s hot.

  I rubbed my throbbing temples harder. When that kind of shameless self-absorption was celebrated and rewarded, it made me wonder if my tours in places like Bosnia and Afghanistan had been worth the sacrifice. So many good marines dead or maimed forever… I wanted to believe we had fought for a country and a people who still cared about old-fashioned ideas like dignity and honor and integrity. I wanted to believe in a culture that made heroes out of those who served their fellow man unselfishly.

  It was one of the reasons why I wouldn’t let Haley’s reputation be destroyed. In a world where sleaze and mockery and infidelity were celebrated, she had risen to a kind of hero status through very hard work, discipline, constant refinement of her talent, and an unfailing allegiance to her own code of honor. In a world where self-interest and pleasure seeking were default settings, she had never thought of her wealth and fame as hers alone. I had watched behind the scenes as she had built hospitals, orphanages, shelters, schools, factories, farms, and shops for people all around the world, and not one of them was named for her, not one of them had been mentioned by her publicist, not one had made the headlines as “a Haley Lane production.”

  I cared about defending Haley’s legacy because I loved her. But I also loved Haley for her legacy. She had been living proof that marines weren’t the last Americans who were “always faithful.” She might have blushed to hear me say it, but Semper Fi had been her motto, too.

  I rubbed my temples again and considered the injustice of a woman like that dying before her time. My thoughts might be true, or they might not, but they were certainly not excellent or noble or praiseworthy. I tried to focus, to think about something good. I thought about the bottle of Glenlivet in the kitchen, but it wasn’t even noon. I decided time was nothing but a relative concept. I got up and went inside for the bottle.

  From the trash can in the kitchen came a slight smell of something that had started to rot. I made a face and bent to pull the drawstring on the plastic trash sack. Gradually, as if someone had lowered a screen into my head to project a memory upon it, I realized I was looking down through the open door of Haley’s trailer, and standing below me was a man who held a waiter’s tray, and on it were two covered plates, silverware, cloth napkins, and a half bottle of pinot noir. It was dark inside my mind, too dark to see his face, but at long last he was there. And something else, one detail that seemed particularly true: the overwhelming scent of rotting fish.

  My stomach roiled. I gagged on the memory of the putrid stench, which was far worse than anything in the kitchen trash can. I went to the telephone and pulled a card out of my wallet. I dialed the number, and then a voice on the line said, “Russo.”

  “It’s Malcolm Cutter, Detective.”

  “Okay. What?”

  I imagined him on the other end of the line, listening with an expression of disdain. It obviously pained the man to have to speak with me, one of the butchers of Laui Kalay. I wondered how long he would keep my secret.

  I said, “I just remembered something you need to know. The guy who brought the meal to Haley Lane’s trailer that night.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I can’t remember his face. Maybe that will come. But I do remember something strange. There was the smell of rotten fish.”

  “You saying the food was spoiled?”

  “No, that can’t be it. We wouldn’t have eaten anything that smelled as bad as I remember.”

  “Okay then, what?”

  “I don’t know. I just flashed on a real strong memory of rotten fish, and this guy standing outside in the dark with a tray full of food.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I told you, I can’t remember.”

  “Black? White? Short? Tall?”

  “It’s more of an impression than a mental picture.”

  “No details to identify the guy? Nothing else?”

  “If I remember more,” I said, “I’ll call you.”

  “You better.”

  He hung up.

  27

  My stomach still felt queasy. It was as if the
putrid smell was inside my nostrils, even after all that time. Some people say memories of scents go deeper into the subconscious than sights or sounds could burrow. I belched and nearly vomited. I swallowed several times. I went back into the kitchen and splashed some Scotch into a water glass, and I drank it in one gulp. It burned the nausea away and replaced it with a cozy feeling. I figured if a little Scotch could do that, a little more could do it better. I poured myself three fingers and took the glass and the bottle out to the chaise longue on the patio. I lay there drinking and looking up toward heaven as the palm leaves overhead swayed in the ocean breeze and gulls wheeled and soared and small tufts of clouds sailed inland. Haley filled my thoughts, and I tried to remember it made no sense to be angry with a God who thought it best to take her from me. I tried to remember I might as well be mad at gravity.

  It felt like late afternoon when I awoke. The bottle and the glass were gone. I stood and went into the guesthouse. The glass had been washed and replaced in the kitchen cabinet. The Scotch was capped and sitting on the counter. There was a lot less liquid in it than there had been that morning. My head was killing me. At least the headache helped distract me from my ribs, and all the rest.

  I fell onto the sofa and sat there staring at the carpet. Why? Why had they murdered her? Did it have something to do with the other violence swirling all around me, with Guatemala and the disappeared? Was it something I hadn’t considered, something caused by factors or events completely unknown to me? Or was it random, like Castro’s irrational desire to see me dead?

  I tried to focus on the new memory, to summon details beyond that dark profile and the stench of rotting fish. I wanted to see the man’s face, hear his voice, get some kind of hint that might lead me to him. I indulged myself in thoughts of violence, of putting my hands on him and causing as much pain as possible. But as I thought about the fleeting memory of him and that strange, awful smell, a kind of dread rose over me. I recognized the feeling. It had been a constant companion in the hospital. Instead of satisfying fantasies of revenge, my memories stirred familiar fears of being powerless, the heart of insanity.

  It seemed I wasn’t strong enough for vengeance. Not yet.

  I decided to return to the sweet distraction of the Doña Elena’s kidnapping and Toledo’s murder. And what had I learned? Not much. I had managed to get beaten senseless and nearly killed. The two-hundred-thousand-dollar mystery remained. I had no idea where to look next for Alejandra Delarosa. I had looked through every connection in her file, had visited her previous neighbors, her employer, her church, and her landlord, but nobody knew anything. At least, no one was willing to tell me anything. And after months of straining to get past my mental block, when a memory of Haley’s murderer had finally returned, the only detail was an awful stench.

  I wondered if the smell was even real. Maybe it was just my mind playing games, just another residual hallucination, a metaphor aptly expressing itself. Maybe it was my subconscious saying, ‘You stink, Cutter. You’re rotten to the core.’ And so I was right back to thinking about losing Haley, and the fear began to come again. That helpless feeling.

  Suddenly I was angry. I stood up. It was time to put a stop to this so-called recuperation.

  I shaved and showered, and fifteen minutes later I was in Haley’s Bentley headed south. After a half-hour drive along the Pacific Coast Highway and the 5, with unobstructed views of the sparkling ocean most of the way, I arrived at the north gate of Camp Pendleton. I explained to a Marine guard that no, Captain Bud Tanner wasn’t expecting me, but he should put a call in to the chaplain anyway.

  Five minutes after that, I was in Camp San Mateo, 62 Area, home of the Fifth Marines, the most decorated infantry regiment in the Corps. After his last deployment to Afghanistan with the Fourth, Tanner had been reassigned there for some reason.

  I pulled into the parking lot outside the rust-and-ochre-colored, two-story building where Tanner’s office was located. A female sergeant held the door for me as I entered the building. I checked the registry on the lobby wall and followed the numbers to his office.

  Tanner was at his desk when I walked in. He stood immediately and came toward me with his hand out. “Good to see ya up and around, Gunny.”

  “Thanks, Captain,” I said, taking his hand. It was good of him to call me that, since they had busted me to private.

  I looked around the office. I had seen Bud Tanner in a hooch in Afghanistan and a room in a stateside hospital mental ward, but this was the first time I had seen him in his own element. The office was larger than most I had seen in the Corps. In addition to the desk and chair, he had a credenza, a bookcase, and a couple of chairs for visitors facing the desk. The walls were made of painted concrete blocks. He had one window, which opened toward the parking lot, and beyond that a complex of low buildings, including Capodanno Chapel, where the chaplain led worship services three times a week. Near the chapel I could see another building where marines were trained with computer-simulated weapons to kill the enemy. Eternal life and sudden death stood side by side. I supposed it was the way of things.

  At the other end of the room were a sofa and two occasional chairs, all upholstered in stiff-green vinyl. In front of them stood a low coffee table with a Formica wood-grain top. On each end of the sofa were two other small tables. A Bible and a box of facial tissues sat on one of the smaller tables. A pitcher of water and three glasses sat on the other. Tanner waved a hand toward the sofa and chairs, and we sat down across from each other.

  He said, “How you been?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.” He indicated the stitches on my forehead.

  “I got into a little more trouble.”

  “Something to do with what happened before?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  He leaned back and crossed his right leg over his knee. “Tell me.”

  I began at the beginning, with Valentín Vega and Fidel Castro and their story about wanting to clear the URNG. I told him about the friction with Castro, and the encounter at Crystal Cove with the two guys in the black Suburban. I described my meeting with Doña Elena and Congressman Montes, and I told him about the file Olivia Soto brought over the following day. I mentioned all the calls I’d made and the interviews I’d conducted in search of Alejandra Delarosa, at the apartment building and benevolence society in Pico-Union, the travel agency, the church, and the landlord’s office, and the beating on the sidewalk in front of the café. Then I told him about my trip into the mountains and the attack. He listened to it all without asking any questions until I got to the attack.

  He said, “There were only two of them?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you had a sidearm?”

  “I, uh… I actually left it in the vehicle.”

  Tanner stared at me a moment, and then he said, “I’m beginning to understand why we’re having this conversation.”

  I had nothing to say.

  He said, “Did you want them to kill you?”

  I continued to be silent.

  He uncrossed his leg, put his other boot on the ground, and leaned toward me. “You should have killed those guys, Gunny. No question. No contest. But you let them flank you and put three rounds in your vest. Why is that?”

  I stood and went to stare out the window. The color of the hills had begun to change to golden hues. From my time at Pendleton, I recognized the effect of a Pacific sunset. “I’m not thinking straight, Bud. I haven’t been since the thing with Miss Lane.”

  “How do you feel about the fact that those guys didn’t kill you? Disappointed?”

  I stood there and said nothing.

  “Are you drinking much these days?”

  “A little.”

  “Did you drink last night?”

  “A little.”

  “And earlier today?”

  “I need it to stay calm.”

  “What do you want from me, Gunny?”

  I tur
ned to face him. “I don’t know. Advice. Therapy. Something I can use.”

  “I’ve already told you everything I know.”

  “It’s not working.”

  “Really? So God isn’t getting the job done for you?”

  “I’m talking about that thing you said in the hospital.” I closed my eyes, shutting off the view of glowing hillsides. I spoke the Bible verse he’d taught me. Whatever is true, whatever is excellent… think about such things.

  He said, “Solid advice in every circumstance. What about it?”

  “It helped a lot at first, but it’s not working anymore. I keep thinking it and saying it, but everything is getting worse.”

  “It’s not a magic incantation. I’m not a wizard, and God’s not a genie. You don’t just say the words, and everything gets better.”

  “Lighten up a little, Bud. I’m just looking for some help.”

  “I’m sorry. Have a seat, will you? It hurts my neck to sit here looking up at you.”

  I went back to the chair across from him and sat.

  “Okay,” he said, “what is it you want to do?”

  The thing I wanted was impossible—Haley back, everything the way it was before—so I didn’t bother to answer his question. Instead I said, “You say I’m supposed to think about what’s true, but how am I supposed to do that when the truth keeps changing all the time?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken there. The truth never changes.”

  “Miss Lane was here. That was true. Then I let somebody kill her. Now she’s not here, so it’s not true anymore.”

  “You’re talking about a truth. I’m talking about truth. Listen, this is important. You’re talking about rain. I’m talking about water. You’re talking about wind. I’m talking about air. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  “It’s about faith, Malcolm. You have to have a little faith that this world isn’t everything or all that matters. That there’s a plan at work beyond our understanding. That’s what makes things true in the final, absolute, unchanging sense. Like air exists even though the wind isn’t blowing to prove it. Like water exists whether there’s rain falling or not.”