Falling Down

by David Cole

  Another tell. Without any body language or verbal inflection, Gates just told me that even Kligerman didn’t know I’d been hired to find a bad cop.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “So. If I’ve got this right, Laura,” Kligerman said, “you don’t limit evidence-searching to crime scenes or autopsy rooms. You look on the Internet.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I start by looking inside computers. All kinds of things are saved on hard drives. Even when people think they’ve deleted something, it rarely occurs to them that all the information still exists on the hard drive.”

  “Whoa,” Gates said. “I delete all my email. I clean out my browser cache regularly. Once a week I bounce all the cookies I’ve accumulated that I don’t want. But do I understand you right? I’ve deleted them, but actually I haven’t?”

  “No, you haven’t,” Kligerman said.

  “Explain that to me.”

  “Well,” Kligerman said, “there are these traces. On your hard drive.”

  “So?”

  “People can look at these traces, they can read them. Not the whole deleted email message, say, but most of it. Laura? That’s pretty much it, right?”

  I stood up. Surprised them both, they stood up also, maybe they thought I was going to do some visual aids. But, I thought, this asshole in his fifteen-hundred-dollar suit would be my boss and he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. I thought about saying goodbye, caught a crinkle in Gates’s eyes. Cocked his head, an inch to the left, nodding to himself, and then he actually winked at me.

  I sat down.

  “Think of it this way,” I said to Gates. Kligerman moving his chair, so it appeared I was actually talking more to him. I didn’t care. “Any digital file is like a long, long bracelet, say you’ve got a thousand beads strung one after another on a piece of wire.”

  “That’s the best damn analogy I’ve ever heard, Laura. Good. Really good.”

  “Except,” I said, “when you think you’ve deleted that whole string of beads, you’ve probably just deleted or moved the very first bead on the string. And the first bead is like an index page at the back of the book. Except here, it’s the first thing in the file. And it tells me exactly what’s in the rest of the bracelet, which is usually almost one hundred percent recoverable. Just a matter of having the right software to look at the hard drive.”

  “And we’ll buy that software,” Kligerman said. “When I set up the department, my budget will have money to buy all the software we need.”

  What crap, I thought.

  I don’t need this job. I don’t need this guy who thinks that computer hard drive decoding software is something you go down to find at Office Max or CompUSA. These are the moments where I’m not good with people, I’m just not good with social smiling when I’m seething inside. But I’d worked hard at just doing my old mantra, taking deep breaths, counting to myself until I tamped the anger back into its box. Usually, the anger came out of something unconnected, now I’d learned how to focus on my goals.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m in.”

  “You’d probably like to see the facility space,” Kligerman said. “There’s not much in the space yet, we’re just setting up the cubicles. I’ve barely moved into the corner office. But you could choose where you’d like to sit.”

  “No,” I said. Calm as I could be. “My first condition is that I work in my own space. With my own people.”

  “Not a problem,” Kligerman said. “Give us a list of names, we’ll check.”

  “When you hire me, you hire my reputation. Who I hire is none of your business. I’m a licensed private investigator. I specialize in computer forensics. I have four full-time staff, any number of part-timers. It all depends on the contract.”

  “Oh, yes, salary.”

  “I don’t work for wages. We’ll draw up a contract. You tell me what you want done, I give you the price.”

  “What’s your normal fee?” Gates kept his hand on Kligerman’s dollars.

  “Depends. All I know so far, you want me to investigate bank records. Usually, a job like that ranges up into high five or low six figures.”

  “You get over one hundred thousand dollars for one job?” Kligerman was somewhere between incredulous and seriously impressed. “You rock, girl.”

  “If the job takes a week, you pay the fee. If it takes two years, same fee, unless we renegotiate. I don’t guarantee that I, personally, will do all the work. But I’ll be your contact for anything. But. I will not be on salary. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Kligerman said. Without hesitation, his deep brown eyes sparkling, his lower jaw shifting forward and backward, small muscles rippling at his temples, like tectonic plates, as though he’d seen the future and it was an earthquake of personal publicity. We shook hands.

  “Come meet three of my people,” he said. Pressed a button on an intercom, didn’t say anything, just beeped, I could hear the target phone system beep somewhere in another room. A door opened and three young people entered.

  “Folks,” he said, “this is Laura Winslow.”

  A young couple immediately stepped forward, right to the edge of my chair, thrust their hands out to me.

  “I’m Heather Celli,” the woman said. “I’m Casey Celli,” the guy said, “geez, we’ve heard so much about you, this is a privilege, Miss Winslow.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Wondering how such nice kids knew my reputation. “Just call me Laura. Please. Just Laura.”

  “Yes, Miss Winslow.” Like Bobbsey twins, a matched pair. They actually curtsied. “Yes, Laura.”

  “Just back from their honeymoon,” Kligerman said. “They’re my two data miners. Whatever you can teach them, you can see their enthusiasm. And this is Lauren Militi.” The third person came forward, nodded with a smile, a quick, hard handshake. Older than the Cellis, very beautiful, very tiny, I’d seen a lot of Veronica Lake movies, Lauren even had the same long hair, falling over her left eye, except her hair was a deep, lustrous black. Her hands flew in sign language, reminding me for the second time in two days about Tigger.

  “Lauren’s a mute,” Kligerman said. “She’s got an astonishing memory, like a photographic memory, except she stores whatever she’s seen on a computer screen.”

  I signed Hi, nice to meet you, back to her and her smile broadened.

  “Two more things,” I said to Kligerman. “First. I’ve got a personal interest in these assassins. These maras. Understand me on this, I have other clients. All but one of them, I’ll hire part-time staff to complete those contracts. But one client is still very important to me. I can’t and I won’t tell you anything about this client.”

  “What’s his name?” Kligerman said.

  “Not even a name. I promise you, right now, your interests are mine. Second. That murder, this morning, the man tortured and burned. Carlos Cañas. Use whatever law enforcement database you access, see if there’s any background info.”

  “This related to what we’re contracting for? Or your mystery client?”

  “Both. You draw up exactly what you want me to start with, I’ll give you a fee, we’ll sign a contract. This is probably a first for both of us. PIs don’t usually work under contract for the police department.”

  “Done!” Kligerman said. He beeped somebody else on the intercom, I thought he’d be bringing in champagne next for us to toast our togetherness. I left soon afterward, no champagne, somebody photocopied my driver’s license and took down some personal details.

  Outside TPD headquarters, I wandered briefly through all the half-truths and lies I’d promised. To get to the end, you do whatever it takes. Even the police lied.

  “Yo,” Ken said. On our cell phones. “You still want to go to a cockfight?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re on. I’ll pick you up around eleven tonight.”

  21

  Swimming my way through my anger and confusion and depression, I couldn’t get behind the realization that I’d been abandon
ed, left behind, deserted, and dumped.

  I realize that women get dumped all the time. Everywhere in the world, every day, every hour. Men also get dumped, if that’s even the right word.

  Stroking through my swimming pool, I tried to sort out what I was feeling, but one thing was certain. My anger at Nathan’s leaving, my depression, my confusion, my uncertainties—all of these feelings I powered to keep under control, knifing through the water, thinking of men in my life, try to do the working out of men in my life, going back through all the men in my life.

  Nathan Brittles

  Rich Thompson

  Rey Villaneuva

  Kimo Biakeddy

  Ben…Ben Yazzie.

  Lots of somebodys, one-night stands, meth connections

  Jonathan Begay, once my husband

  And George Loma, my father

  Swimming, I focused on doing The Work. Turning a thought on its head, as I was taught to do by Monica Tilley and Delilah and Carolyn, my friends in Arivaca, the sudden thought hitting me that yes I did have a few girlfriends, I’d have to tell Mary.

  Turning my anger on its head.

  I hate Nathan because he left me.

  Was that true? Two laps of the pool later, I forced myself to realize that he’d not left me, I just didn’t go with him. But that gave me little comfort.

  All kinds of things flooded my head.

  If I’m swimming, how do I know if I’m crying?

  If I want a life of my own, how do I know I’m not being selfish?

  If I hurt, why don’t I want to hurt him back?

  If the sun is shining, why does it feel like a rainy day?

  I hate Nathan for not moving into my house, for not living with me all the time. Total irrational thoughts, like, do I want to kill him for doing that, for never really moving into my life? That he should love me enough to be aware of my need to have him close by, all the time?

  Getting left behind really sucks. But who would I be if I actually wasn’t left behind, if instead I’d been given insight and invitation to a different way of life?

  Nathan was a good person. He just couldn’t live without being on his reservation, with his own people. He didn’t cheat on me with another woman, he didn’t threaten or abuse me, he didn’t give me the “I’m glad it’s ended” speech.

  What’s the first thing I should feel an overwhelming compulsion to do?

  Sex?

  Sob into my pillow?

  Forget emotions, force myself into my work?

  Or is this something really basic about the kind of person I am? What if I really was selfish enough to believe that my life was so fundamentally more important, that actually, by not following Nathan when he needed me, I was dumping him?

  Still swimming, my stroke and pace settled into a near-constant rhythm. So was I reacting to Nathan’s selfish wishes, that he didn’t want to live with me all the time? Or was I reacting to my own anger that he would not do so? And why did I need him to live with me all the time?

  Secondary impression, my life is a soap opera.

  So my pain, when I turn Nathan’s own decision on its head, my pain is not that he was a total shit for not living with me, I was condemning him for the moments he wasn’t nearby, but not delighting in those times his body lay next to mine or we talked or he played one of his native flutes.

  Turn that on its head.

  Nathan survived Vietnam. Nathan survived the brutal murder of his oldest, closest friend, Leon Begay. Nathan had already too much brutality and death in his life, Nathan wanted, Nathan’s soul needed time on the dineh reservation to regenerate his soul’s urge to love life.

  Turn that on its head.

  Nathan needed time with his people to learn how to love me.

  Ah, that’s a sticky unanswerable dilemma. But it is what it is.

  Fleeting thought. People watch soap operas because, they’re usually about somebody being dumped for somebody else, about the constant quest for true love, never mind that on TV this turns into the need for another hot body in bed.

  Spider watched a lot of TV. One of our real differences. I liked movies, she liked TV. I liked complexity and subtext, she liked Desperate Housewives and Fear Factor and Survivor. Spider loved brand names. I cared less about brand names, as a rule. But these differences didn’t affect our love for each other, it just affected what we shared in conversation.

  One last piece of doing The Work.

  What if I didn’t love him anymore? Is there even a right answer to that question? A wrong answer? Is that true, that I don’t love him anymore? This is the moment of truth, when doing The Work. Turn that last question on its head. What if I just drop any thoughts about whether or not I still loved him. Or actually, is there some major answer to this question that neither angers or stresses or depresses me?

  Turn that on its head.

  Why does my self-esteem depend on Nathan loving me? What actually did Nathan have to do with my unhappiness with him not constantly sharing my life, living with me, living in my house and not just living in my heart?

  This is the power of The Work. Who knows, maybe even the power of soap operas. I felt I needed him to be with me constantly. In truth, he angered me with his need that I be with him constantly, wherever or in whatever world that took place. So I should have the freedom of love to be able to tell him to join his people, join his clans, that I would, in my own time, be with him and his people and his clans, but that I had a life outside of his.

  Mostly, I thought, toweling myself off beside the pool, mostly it’s what I’ve come to expect from relationships with men. I always seem to pick men who leave me, I felt like an idiot, running through these thoughts as though I were embarking on the five stages of accepting that I had cancer. I called Mary and got directions for the swim meet. Then I called Christopher Kyle and told him to meet me at the pool.

  22

  Sixty or seventy high school boys and girls clustered around an eight-lane outdoor swimming pool. Skinny freshmen through well-built seniors, powerful thigh muscles standing next to legs like beanstalks, girls flat-chested face-to-face grinning with large-breasted seniors. No makeup, no pretense at all in dress codes and jewelry and body piercings and everything else that teenagers use to identify with a clique and separate themselves from other cliques.

  The pool itself surrounded by a ten-foot wrought-iron fence, with fifteen feet of concrete between the fence and the pool, hardly any empty space, parents and families with coolers and portable folding chairs gathered inside the fence while outside the latecomers peered through the iron staves.

  Mary waved me to an empty chair, gave me a bottle of water, dragged a large cooler into the middle of a group of girls in reddish swimsuits. The other team wore blue-and-gold-striped suits, sheer fabric completely revealing body sizes, a few of the older girls already with high-beamed nipples standing out against the suits, boys with their sex clearly outlined through swimming briefs.

  “Sit here,” Mary said. “I’m one of the timers, so I can’t much explain to you what’s going on. But quickly, the real competitors will swim the middle lanes. Beginners or just warm-up swimmers in the two outer lanes, ’cause when these kids start power-stroking they send waves across the pool to bounce off the ends. Since this isn’t an official swim meet, there’ll be about ten individual events for girls and another ten for boys, plus half a dozen for relay races. Who is that man?”

  Kyle moved slowly to the outside of the fence, bracing himself with one arm and waving at me with the other. I waved at him.

  “Who is that?” Mary said.

  “A homicide detective,” I said. “I want you to meet him later.”

  “Does he know?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.”

  The Catholic girls’ team banded together, arms raised to touch hands in the middle for their school cheer.

  “Not quite fair,” I said. “Jesus
has gotta be on both sides.”

  “It’s just a pep cheer,” Mary said.

  For an hour, I watched individual races, a few of the boys and girls clearly much better than the rest. Mary and the other timers roamed the far edge of the pool, taking down names, taking times, recording the results. Only later I realized Mary’d not introduced me to Ana Luisa.

  Later, when the families disbanded and few people were left, Mary met me at an outdoor table where I sat with Kyle. Again, I saw that Ana Luisa wasn’t present, but I didn’t ask why.

  “I’m not sure why you brought me here,” Kyle said.

  “To see these teenagers,” I said.

  “And why?”

  “These kids will never have to be drug smugglers,” Mary said. “But some of them do take drugs.”

  “Drug smuggling,” Kyle said. Talking to me, but studying Mary. “Is that what this is about? Why TPD wants to hire you?”

  “Yes,” I lied. Not a complete lie.

  “The maras,” he said. “They’re…they’re unstoppable, you know. And they’re not even the main drug smugglers.”

  “And who would that be?” Mary said.

  “Heroin comes from Afghanistan. Almost the entire world supply comes from new poppy fields. The government is helpless, since warlords control the opium regions. And the warlords work with the Taliban. You cannot stop it.”

  “So what’s practicable?” I said.

  “Nothing’s practicable.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Mary said. A quick nod at Kyle, a frown to me before she walked to the parking lot.

  “That lady really didn’t want to meet me,” Kyle said.

  “No, maybe not. But unless she saw you with me, she’d never trust you.”

  “So. Laura. Is this where you get really honest with me?”

  “About what?”

  “What kind of work are you doing for TPD?”

  “To tell you the truth, Christopher, I don’t really know. And I don’t even know that I want to work with them.”