January Justice

by Athol Dickson

  She kissed me gently. I didn’t pull away, but I didn’t do much to encourage her, either. I seemed to watch it happening from a distance, as if some other man was standing there. Certainly not Haley’s man.

  When it was over, she touched my cheek again. “I need you here tonight, Malcolm. I need someone with me.”

  “‘Someone’ sounds a lot like anyone.”

  “No, it’s you I need.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong, Olivia. You told me once you lost someone. Is that what’s hurting you so much?’

  “Can’t you just stay with me?”

  I shook my head. “Not the way you want.”

  “Then let’s just say good night.”

  I watched her pass through the gate and waited until I heard the sound of her front door open and close, then I got into the Aston Martin. The gun had been digging into the small of my back all evening. I reached back, unclipped the holster, put the weapon in the Aston Martin’s glove box, and drove away.

  Heading northeast on Washington Boulevard through Venice, I remembered the softly yielding warmth of her lips on mine. Her kiss had been foreign, yet familiar. Her kiss had made me ache for Haley, for the way my wife used to touch my cheek before she kissed me, exactly as Olivia had just done. It seemed a cruel coincidence that Olivia would touch me the same way.

  I told myself to focus on the facts. I reminded myself that her real name was Maria Olivia Delarosa Sotomayor. I reminded myself that there was a chance Olivia was the woman Doña Elena had seen on the night of the home invasion, that the family resemblance between Olivia and her mother could easily have confused a woman drunk on Chablis, especially in a darkened bedroom. I told myself I was too smart to let my guard down because of the way a woman touched my face. Olivia was playing a dangerous game, whatever it might be. Castro had died. I had almost died.

  But when I had spoken harshly about her mother, Olivia had nearly broken down. I had no doubt at all that my words had truly hurt her. If Olivia was capable of betraying Doña Elena’s trust, of participating in a kidnapping attempt or a murder attempt or whatever the ultimate goal had been during the Montes’s home invasion, why would it pain her so deeply to hear her mother described as that same kind of monster? The simple answer was usually the correct answer, and the simple answer was, Olivia had reacted to my words the way any decent, loving daughter would. She was no sociopath. She had reacted with genuine shame and sorrow. Her response couldn’t have been an act, because she had no idea I knew she was Alejandra Delarosa’s daughter. On the contrary, Olivia had done her best to conceal her pain, and that effort at concealment could only mean the love and shame she felt was real. I still didn’t know what Olivia was doing, but I knew in my gut she was no criminal.

  I made a U-turn at McLaughlin Avenue.

  Driving back to her apartment, I decided it made sense to come clean. I would tell her that I knew who she was, and she would explain what she was doing, why she had moved into Doña Elena’s life with an assumed identity. There must be a good reason, some angle I hadn’t figured.

  I turned onto her street and parked in the same place in her driveway. I got out of the Aston Martin. I noticed the frosted glass gate was standing open. That was strange, because I had definitely closed it after her.

  I followed the narrow walk to Olivia’s front door. My hand was raised to press the doorbell when I heard a muffled bumping sound, and then somebody’s voice. A man’s voice. I pressed my ear against the door. There were definitely voices, more than one, and they were male.

  Standing back, I thought about it. Could be a television show. Could be a friend or neighbor. I checked my watch. It was barely ten o’clock. A little late for visiting on a weeknight, but not out of the question.

  I heard the bumping sound again, and then a woman’s voice, probably Olivia’s. I couldn’t make out words, but there was something in the tone I didn’t like.

  I stepped off the small porch and slipped between the wall and a hedge to peek in through a window. The plantation shutters inside the apartment were closed. I moved to the next window. From there I could see into a dark room, maybe a study or a den, although the details were unclear. On the far side of the room, a door stood open. Through it I could see into another well-lit space. The living room. I couldn’t see anyone, just a wall of cabinets on the far side and an upholstered chair.

  I heard one of the male voices again, but louder. I heard the woman’s voice. It was definitely Olivia. Definitely not the television.

  A man walked past the open door. The last time I had seen him, he was aiming an M9 at me on a lonely road in the Santa Ana Mountains.

  41

  I had left my gun in the Aston Martin’s glove box. A stupid, stupid thing to do. Just as I began to turn away from the window to go back for it Olivia screamed. It was the kind of noise a person makes when there’s so much pain you can’t hold anything back. There was no time to go back for the gun. I had to get inside right away.

  I tried the window, but it wouldn’t budge. I moved back to the front door. It was unlocked. That was stupid.

  Once I was inside, it was easy to understand their voices. The man said, “Just tell me where it is.”

  Olivia said, “I’m telling you the truth.”

  I slipped along the entry hall. I couldn’t see them yet, but the hall seemed to open into the room where they were. At the end of the hall, I knelt. I heard the bumping sound again and recognized it now that I was closer. It was the sound of a fist slamming into a body. I heard Olivia grunt, and then she moaned. Moving quickly I peered around the corner and then pulled back. I thought about what I had seen.

  It was just the two of them, Olivia and the man with the gold medallion around his neck. Olivia was seated in a ladder back chair. Her mouth was bleeding. He was standing with his back to me. His weapon was holstered in plain sight at his belt. The Other One was somewhere else in the apartment, probably searching for whatever they were looking for. There was the sound of another blow, another grunt, and more moaning.

  “I hate this,” said Medallion. “It’s unnecessary. All you have to do is tell me where it is.”

  She said, “I don’t know what you want. Please…I swear I don’t know.”

  Another blow. More moaning. I needed to stop him

  On a semicircular table against the far wall of the hallway stood a ceramic vase. It would have to do. I rose, slipped across the hall, and hefted it. Moving fast, I entered the living room. Medallion’s back was still toward me. I threw the vase against the wall beside him. It shattered loudly. He turned that way, and I took two steps and kicked him hard in the small of his back. He crashed into a small table beside a sofa. I was right behind him, going for his sidearm. If I could get to it before the Other One came running, there was a good chance Olivia and I would survive.

  Medallion rolled, putting his body between me and his weapon and using the momentum from my kick to keep moving away. I scrambled after him. He got a hand on his pistol. I hammered a fist into his forearm. He grunted, his hand dropping away. He swung a leg up between us and kicked me hard in the chest. I turned in the nick of time. His kick glanced off, but the ribs he had cracked the last time we met felt like a hot knife in my side. I ignored the pain and piled onto him again, the two of us wrestling on the floor for the gun. He jammed the heel of one hand hard under my chin. I got a grip on the weapon. I pulled it from his holster, but he had my wrist pinned with his other hand before I could bring the gun to bear. He slammed my chin with his free hand again and again, every blow whiplashing my head back toward my shoulders. I felt a blackout coming. Then for some reason, he stopped.

  I realized Olivia was there, bleeding and beating him with a table lamp. She lifted it high for another blow, and then the Other One was behind her. He hit her head with the muzzle of his M9. She dropped to the floor. He started to swing his weapon toward me, but I rolled, coming away with Medallion’s gun. We both fired at once. Incredibly, we both missed.

 
I sat up and aimed as the man ducked and ran. I had him lined up just as he was about to disappear around a corner, but Medallion kicked me in the hip. It threw my aim off, and my second round hit the Sheetrock a foot behind the fleeing man. Medallion kicked me again before I could aim the gun at him. The impact rocked me, and the gun flew out of my hand. I reached around, picked it up, and swung back toward him, but he was already up and out of sight in the front hallway.

  The blows to my chin had left me groggy; otherwise I might have made it to the hall in time to stop him. Instead, I stood in the open front doorway, listening as the two of them ran away into the night. A few seconds later, I heard an engine roar to life, and then tires squealing. I closed the door and locked it, then went in to Olivia.

  She was conscious, lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling. There was a bruise shaped like an open hand on her cheek. One eye was beginning to swell.

  I knelt beside her and said, “Tell me where it hurts.”

  She tried to smile. “Everywhere.”

  I felt behind her head where the Other One had hit her with his sidearm. She wasn’t bleeding much.

  I said, “Can you sit up?”

  “Don’t want to.”

  “We need to find out if you can move.”

  She rolled to her side, pushed herself into a seated position, and then kept going until she was on her feet. She swayed a little, but it didn’t look as if Medallion had broken any bones. I stepped close, slipped an arm around her back, and helped her to the sofa. I eased her down and then dropped to the cushion beside her, wincing as the cracked rib sent another spike of pain across my side. I took out my cell phone.

  She said “Who are you calling?”

  “The police and an ambulance.”

  “Could we talk about that first?”

  “Okay…”

  “I’ve got some, uh, some pending legal issues. They could come up if the police get involved.”

  “You don’t want to report this?”

  “I’d rather not, if that’s okay.”

  “We need to get some medics over here. A blow like that to the head… You could have a concussion. Maybe a subdural hematoma. It could kill you or cause a stroke and leave you paralyzed. Besides, you’re an assault victim, and shots were fired.”

  “I’m okay, Malcolm. Please? It would be really bad for me.”

  “Want to tell me why, exactly?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know, but I’ll explain if you make me.”

  “I don’t want to make you do anything.”

  “I’m not wanted for murder or robbery or anything like that. They don’t want to put me in jail. It’s more of a civil issue, if that helps.”

  “If we don’t report this now, we can’t report it later.”

  “I know.”

  “Those guys could come back.”

  “I don’t think so. Not after the beating you gave them. They’re probably thinking there are easier ways to rape a girl in this town.”

  “You think this was about rape?”

  “Sure. What else?”

  “I heard the one who beat you ask where something is.”

  “Did he? I guess I don’t remember.”

  “What was he asking you about?”

  “I don’t know. It’s all kind of blurry.”

  Sitting beside her on the sofa, I thought about how close I’d come to telling her I knew who she was, to trusting that she would come clean about her relationship to Alejandra Delarosa. Now I’d almost been killed protecting her, and she wouldn’t even admit that the same guys who had tried to kill me in the Santa Ana Mountains had been trying to beat some information out of her. I told myself I was a sentimental fool.

  She laid her head on my shoulder. “I can never thank you enough for what you did, Malcolm.”

  I put the cell phone back in my pocket. I pushed her away gently and stood up. I walked to Medallion’s M9, which I had put down on a table to help Olivia to the sofa. I slipped it under my belt and said, “Do you have any first-aid supplies? We should look after that cut on your head. Then let’s get some ice on that eye.”

  I checked her pupils for uneven dilation. I crushed some ice and put it in a plastic baggie, then told her to hold it on her eye. I sterilized the cut on the back of her head and covered it with a little gauze and surgical tape.

  Olivia said she was afraid to spend the night alone. It was the one thing she had said that I believed, so I offered the spare bedroom at the guesthouse. She packed a few things, and half an hour later, we were in the Aston Martin, heading for El Nido.

  When we arrived, I pulled into the garage, walked Olivia over to the house, put Medallion’s M9 on the coffee table, and showed her the bedroom. After making sure she had towels and a fresh bar of soap and so forth, I headed back over to the garage to get my gun out of the glove box and cover the car. By the time I returned to the guesthouse, Olivia was asleep.

  In the kitchen I poured myself a Scotch. I walked into the dark living room, put both the M11 on the coffee table next to Medallion’s M9, and sat down to think. I didn’t have much new information to consider. I tried to organize everything into actual facts, the possibilities and informed guesses, and the complete unknowns.

  First, the facts. I knew Olivia was Alejandra Delarosa’s daughter. I knew she was a skilled mechanic with a good knowledge of high-end cars. I knew she was living under an assumed name. I knew she had been born in America and was a US citizen. I knew her father was a drunk and a civil engineer and was living in a cheap, virtually unfurnished apartment in a bad neighborhood in a city with one of the highest murder rates per capita in the world, while Olivia lived in a nice apartment just a few blocks from the beach and worked for a major movie star. I knew her mother was involved in a kidnapping and a murder and had claimed on camera to be a member of the URNG. I knew her father insisted that it wasn’t true. And I believed him.

  I also knew there were two guys who wanted something from Olivia badly enough to torture her to get it, and they were the same two guys who had tried to kill me. I knew for a fact they were well-trained professionals. I knew they carried the kind of sidearms issued to US military personnel and soldiers from allied Latin American countries. I knew they were Latinos, or at least they looked like Latinos and spoke Spanish. Strangely, though, they hadn’t spoken Spanish when they interrogated Olivia.

  I knew they had been following Valentín Vega when I first noticed them. Or had they? No, stick to the facts. For all I knew they had been following me from the start. So the exact nature of the connection between them and Vega was an open question. But I did know one of them had a thing for gold jewelry, and the other was trigger happy, since he had seemed ready to shoot me as early as our initial meeting at Crystal Cove State Park. I also knew they had stolen the Range Rover and my M11. I knew they had an affinity for large SUVs. I knew Doña Elena had reported seeing two men and a woman fleeing from her home on the night she shot Castro, and she believed the woman was Alejandra Delarosa. And that was about all I knew for sure.

  I took a sip of Scotch and moved to the possibilities and informed guesses.

  It was possible that Olivia Delarosa had indeed lived in Spain, received a degree in international banking there, and learned to work on high-end automobiles there. It was possible that she had been sending money to her father in Guatemala. But it was also possible the money in her father’s bank account had come from Olivia’s mother, who took it from Arturo Toledo just before she murdered him, since the amount in the account matched the amount delivered to the kidnappers. If it was blood money, and if Olivia’s father was a decent man, that would explain why he hadn’t spent it for seven years in spite of his miserable living conditions.

  Moonlight slanted into the darkened living room. I looked at the way it fell on Medallion’s M9 on the coffee table and considered him again. For perhaps the hundredth time, I wondered if he and the Other One who had tried to kill me really were part of the old military junta
that had once controlled Guatemala. I wondered if they were trying to protect themselves and their superiors from prosecution for past war crimes. If that was the situation, then they would see me as a threat, since there was a chance I might clear the URNG from suspicion in Arturo Toledo’s murder and Dona Elena’s kidnapping. If I managed to do that, it could cause Congressman Hector Montes to stop opposing US assistance for the URNG. The US might even support an international investigation into the genocide, the so-called disappeared ones during the Guatemala civil war. A lot of very powerful old men in Guatemala would be unhappy about that.

  As for the complete unknowns, I still had no idea if Haley’s Guatemalan movie project had anything to do with all the rest of it. I had no idea why Olivia had gotten herself hired as Doña Elena’s personal assistant. I had no idea what she planned to do. I had no idea why Castro had been in Doña Elena’s house during the final moments of his life, and no idea if Alejandra Delarosa had been with him, or if it had been Olivia or some other woman. I also had no idea who the other two men were in Doña Elena’s house that night. I only knew neither of them had been me, and unless I found a way to prove it, I would probably spend the next decade or so in prison.

  I finished off the Scotch, put the glass down on the table next to Medallion’s M9, picked up the weapon, and took it with me to bed. Sleep was a long time coming.

  42

  Sometime after dawn, I heard Olivia rattling around in the kitchen. At least I hoped it was Olivia. I rolled out of bed, wincing at the damage to my ribs, and slipped into a shirt and jeans.

  “Good morning,” she said from the other side of the cabinets as I entered the living room. “I’ve got coffee going. Hope that’s okay.”