“You jacked him off?”
“Yeah.” The way she said it was so offhand, as in, so what?
“Before or after he had his pants off?”
“He was naked.”
“Where were the others?”
“He was kissing on Angie. That’s when I jacked him off.”
“Did you do anything else except jack him off?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“When did you stop jacking him off?”
“Zeema came to get something for her baby and she said Shannon was outside.”
“You went out to open the door for Shannon. You told him where Pedro was.”
“Yeah.”
“Who all decided to boost Pedro?”
“Angie brought it up to me.”
“Whose idea was it to let him pretend to have sex?”
“Angie. He said he was going to leave. Then Angie started doing all that.”
“Why did you want him to stay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you waiting for Shannon to get there?”
“I didn’t know he was coming.”
“If Pedro had all his clothes off, why didn’t you just take his money and let him leave when he wanted to?”
“Huh?” She said this, a quick ejaculation, as if Mike had come at her out of left field.
“It never occurred to you to let Pedro leave?”
“No. That never occurred to me.”
“How did you figure they were going to rob him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.” Mike was suddenly argumentative. “Think about it. You’re not a dumb girl. You’re not going to just go in there and jack off some strange guy for the fun of it. What did you think was going to happen to Pedro?”
“That they were going to rob him.”
“Who are they?”
“Angie and Shannon.”
“How much money did Angie get?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where was Pedro when you finally left the house?”
“In the room. All tied up.”
“Who cleaned up the mess?”
“We did. The man was lying there and Shannon said, Get this blood up.”
“You’re cleaning up the blood and Shannon is still hitting Pedro?”
“He’s laying there.”
“What did you do with all the bloody rags?”
“Left it on the counter in the kitchen with all the Ajax and bleach and stuff.”
“Was Pedro conscious when you left?”
“Sort of. He was drunk. They bought him a Cisco and some Thunderbird. They was trying to keep the man drunk.”
“Who was?”
“Shannon was. He says, If the man is drunk, he won’t say what happened to him. Angie had some bleach, cuz she was cleaning up, and she put it in the Cisco and the Cisco turned all white and Shannon made him drink it. He must have got tired drinking it cuz he started spitting it out. Angie made Shannon stop giving it to him because the man kept spitting it out all over the floor and she didn’t want to clean it.”
“What were you doing?”
“I went and laid down on the bed in the other room with Angie’s baby for a while. Then I say, I can’t take no more of this, and I left to go to my male friend’s house.”
“Pedro was still tied up when you left?”
“Uh-huh.” She shrugged. “Next thing I knew about what happened, I’m playing dominoes with my friends and I hear that at the high school some man got killed. I say, that can’t be true. So I call the house and ask Zeema, Did they kill the man? And she tell me she don’t know nothing about it, you have to ask someone else. Then Shannon was over where I was and he says I ran off with some of the money and he wants it. I say, I didn’t run off with nothing but the five-dollar bill the man gave me. I say, Shannon what did you do? He says, I had to shoot the man in the head. I say, Tell me you didn’t drag him over to the school, and he says he did.”
“Shannon told you he shot Pedro?”
“Uh-huh. They couldn’t knock the man out, and Angie’s momma wanted him out of the house. Shannon said they had to shoot the man.”
Mike wrote, didn’t look up, gave Tina plenty of time to get edgy. She looked at me, looked at the other three corners of the room, watched Mike write. I saw her crane her neck, trying to get a look at the form Mike was working on. Her face began to glow with sweat. After about five minutes of silent treatment, Mike tattooed the end of a line with a hard dot. Then he signed his name.
“Okay,” he said, scraping his chair back as he rose. “Come with me.”
“I want to go to my sister’s house.” She was persistent.
“Not today, you’re not. We’re going to get your mother, and she’s going to go through the booking process with you.”
“Booking?” Tina gripped the sides of her chair, nostrils flaring, eyes bugged out. “What do you mean, booking? I ain’t going to jail. I didn’t do nothing to nobody.”
“Let’s get your mother.” Mike opened the door and waited for Tina to decide to get out of her chair.
“I told the truth. Thank you, Lord, I told the truth.”
“Let’s go.” Mike stood beside the door with his hand on the light switch. Lumbering, stooped forward, arms hanging in front like a kid imitating an elephant walk, Tina followed. She was bright. She was half-formed.
When they were gone, I slipped a new battery and a fresh tape into the camera. All the time that Mike questioned Tina, she called Pedro by name only once. The rest of the time, he was “the man.” He was no one, just the man.
When I listened to Tina casually talk about masturbating a stranger, I thought of my Casey when she was Tina’s age, thirteen, the time she had to deliver a health report at school. Casey is no prude, but every time she said the word condom her color rose and the entire class giggled. Her world seemed a million miles away from the world Tina brought into that tiny interrogation room. How protected Casey was, and how vulnerable.
Mike looked weary as he explained to Mrs. Johnson what would happen to Tina. He was booking her into Central Juvenile, and she would stay there until the juvenile court judge and some social workers figured out what to do with her. She was too young for a jury trial, and that would save her, Mike said. The DA was considering trying eighteen-year-old Shannon for capital murder. But first Mike had to find the kid and arrest him.
Mike loosened his necktie. When he caught me filming him, he pulled up the end of the tie like a noose around his neck. “Sixty-seven more days I have to put this on,” he said. “Sixty-seven more days.”
CHAPTER
9
Manhole covers popped up all along downtown streets, lifted on geysers of water. The runoff pouring through the underground flood control had huge force and volume and nowhere to go. Muddy sprays four feet high spewed up from the storm drains at many intersections; streets were fast-moving rivers. The scene was dramatic and strange, like something dreamed up by a studio special effects team run amok. But the cost and the peril were real.
Across the street from Parker Center, the five-level parking structure under City Hall East was inundated by runoff because debris clogged the long-unused drains. An entire lot full of city employee cars was submerged, every car a total loss. No one could locate a maintenance man who had gone down to the lowest level to turn off a natural gas line just before the wall of water flowed in.
Cantina Champange Woodson was transported from the garage at Parker Center to the covered receiving bay of Central Juvenile Hall without being touched by a single drop of rain. A symbolic beginning, I thought, to her incarceration. Cocooned, isolated from the world outside.
I didn’t have clearance to follow Tina inside. All I could do was film her back as she was escorted up a ramp and through a heavy door, a social worker holding one arm, Mike holding the other. She looked back at me once and I finally saw something I had been looking for all morning; Tina was scared.
Wh
ile I waited for Mike to return to his city-issue car, I made calls. The cellular signal was fuzzy, but at least the calls went through. According to the radio, many power and telephone lines were down.
I had spoken with my mother before she left for the airport, trying to persuade her to wait for the weather to clear before flying out. Mom has great faith in technology. As long as the tower okayed takeoff, she was leaving. Bridge night, remember?
It was just past noon. I called Burbank Airport for confirmation that Mom’s plane had left the ground. Then I talked to my dad in Berkeley.
“How’s the weather?” I asked him.
“Beautiful,” he said. “Absolutely beautiful. Crystalline, in fact.”
He also told me that my Uncle Max had a firm, written offer from the people who wanted to buy my house. The dollar amount was five percent above bank appraisal. “All cash,” Dad said. “They want to take possession in thirty days.”
I shivered, pulled my raincoat up around my neck.
“Max says it looks like a corporate offer. Big Asian company probably needs executive housing. They came in a little high because they don’t want to haggle. He says accept it or say no. Don’t bother with a counteroffer. The buyer wants a decision by close of business Monday.”
“I have a lot to think about,” I said.
“Don’t think too long, sweetheart. Max says it’s a good deal, considering the sorry state of the real estate market.”
“What if I decide I don’t want to sell?”
“Do what you want to. But Casey isn’t going to be around much longer, and it’s a big house for my little Maggot to rattle around in all alone.” In my father’s mind, Mike would not be part of my household until we were legally linked. “Max said to tell you to call him as soon as you get into town. He’ll bring the papers right over.”
I said, “Fine,” and made a mental note to pick up a bottle of bourbon on the way into the city. “See you tomorrow, Dad.”
Fergie had a dozen messages for me, most of them junk. I wrote down the few numbers I wanted to return, and asked Fergie to call a few others and say that I would be on location all day, and would get back to them in the evening. The remaining five or six didn’t require a response.
Minh Tam had called. I was both intrigued and enormously relieved, so I called the number he left first.
“Starbucks, Pine Square.” The voice was young and perky. “How can I serve you?”
“This number was given to me by a man named Minh Tam. Does he work there?”
“Gee, I don’t think so. Let me check.”
I heard her ask if anyone knew “Minnie Something.” There was some conversation, then she was back on the line. “I’m sorry, no one by that name works here.”
And then, close beside her, more conversation, and Minh Tam was on the telephone. “Miss MacGowen? How good of you to return my call.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. Thank you for asking.” As always, his manner was very formal. “I have some information that might interest you. Might we meet?”
“Of course,” I said. “When?”
“As soon as possible. This weather has rather changed my circumstances. As soon as I am asked to leave this establishment, I do not know where I will go next.”
The car’s radio gave a steady update on closed roads. Driving across the L.A. Basin was probably impossible. But the trains were still running; I had seen them as we drove down Mission Street.
“You have a dollar and some change, Mr. Tam?” I asked.
“I have a little money.”
“Can you get yourself to a Blue Line train stop?”
There was a pause before he said, “I can. The line is not far.”
“Take the train into downtown L.A., go all the way to Metro Center, then transfer to the Red Line east.” I looked at my watch; the trip should take him an hour plus walking time. Mike was already saying his good-byes; I could see him at the open door. “I’ll meet you at Union Station in ninety minutes.”
He agreed, and we said good-bye.
I called Guido next because I was worried about him. Guido lives in a little gem of a house in the rugged hills behind the Hollywood Bowl. During summer evenings, music fills his canyon, rising and falling with the breeze. In winter, only occasional car sounds and howling coyotes break the silence of his wooded retreat. Ten minutes from Hollywood Boulevard, he lives in eerie seclusion. During heavy rains he can always count on some part of his canyon to shed its face. Guido was working at home that morning, and I needed to know that he was all right.
“You staying dry?” I asked him when he finally answered.
“At the moment,” he said. “I’m trapped, Mag. Mudslide has my road blocked at the north end, and the bridge at the south end is ready to wash out. It may be gone already.”
“Will you be okay? Your house isn’t going to slide down the canyon, or the canyon isn’t going to slide down on your house, is it?”
“I’m all right for now,” he said, though his tone lacked its usual cocky macho. “Caltrans has dozers working on the slide. As soon as they have the road clear, I’m out of here.”
“Mi casa es su casa,” I said. “You know where the spare key is if we’re not home when you get there.”
“Thanks. I’ll take you up on it. Think Bowser will freak if I bring my cats?”
“He might, but he’ll get over it,” I said. “San Francisco is still on for this weekend. Are you coming with us?”
“Yes,” he said. “Definitely. If it isn’t raining up north, I’m going.”
The last call was to Arlo Delgado. I gave him the social security number I had taken from Pedro Alvaro’s autopsy report and asked him to find out anything he could about the dead man’s family and friends.
When Mike got back into the car after booking Tina, he was in a foul humor. He argued with me about my plan to drive to Union Station, as I knew he would. But he didn’t put much energy into it. “Do what you have to do. At least there’s no traffic to speak of; anyone with any sense is off the road.” The last was a dig.
The terrain along Mission Street between the Golden State Freeway and the Los Angeles River is a wide, shallow bowl. When Mike neared the flooded bottom of the bowl, his car hydroplaned, slid across all four lanes, and spun a hundred and eighty degrees before the front wheels reconnected solidly with asphalt. Good thing there were so many sensible citizens; we had no one to collide with. I gripped the armrest and waited, silently, watching the ugly backside of the railroad yards flash by, until Mike had control of the car again.
“Well done,” I said.
He shook his head, his face set in grim lines. “We’ll go right past Union Station here in a minute. Makes no sense for you to come back this way in an hour. There’s a lunch counter inside the terminal. Let’s get a bite and wait for your buddy to show.”
We ate tuna sandwiches on white bread and tomato soup heated out of a can, seated at a polished table facing the tunnels that led to the tracks. The old terminal, moribund until commuter trains began running a couple of years ago, teemed with life. The click, click of hard leather heels on the marble floors echoed off the high, vaulted ceilings, the noise rising and falling with the arrival and then dispersal of each load of passengers.
When Mike laid a ten and two ones on the lunch check and folded his napkin under the edge of his plate, one hour and five minutes had elapsed since I spoke with Tam on the telephone.
Mike stood. “Ready?”
“Ready.” I gathered my jacket, bag, and umbrella and walked out with him to wait at the Red Line terminus.
Five minutes later, Minh Tam emerged, struggling under the weight of two canvas duffels, the fabric stained dark by water. He saw me and smiled, veered off from the other exiting passengers to meet me, but stopped suddenly, balked, when he saw Mike beside me.
I always wonder about people who can immediately recognize a cop in plainclothes for what he is. They have a history with the law, I sus
pect, some experience that informs them. And Minh Tam knew right off, even though Mike’s proverbial cheap suit was hidden under the handsome raincoat the kids and I gave him for Christmas.
I stepped forward and gripped Tam’s elbow, drew him out of the traffic stream. “Mr. Tam,” I said. “Meet Mike Flint.”
When Mike put out his hand, Tam set down one of the duffels so he could accept it. I picked up the bag, taking a hostage, as it were, in the guise of being helpful, so that Tam would not run off.
“So,” Mike said, taking the handle of the second duffel from Tam, a gracious gesture motivated, I was sure, by the same impulse I’d had. “You’re a friend of Khanh. Ever eat at Khanh’s restaurant? It’s a real nice place. We were up there this winter.” He was fast-walking, and fast-talking the whole time to make us keep up with him. “You expect it to be all chili-hot raw fish, rice, and noodles, but it’s mostly French. Big surprise to me when she brought out pâté and crackers instead of egg rolls.”
By the time he mentioned egg rolls, we were out of the traffic path. At the first pewlike row of oak benches, Mike stopped and set down the duffel he carried. He took the duffel I carried and set it down, too. He asked me, “What’s your plan?”
“Depends on Mr. Tam,” I said. I turned to Tam. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
With a wicked smile, Tam held up his hands, showing us how they shook. “For the price of a cup of coffee, I can stay out of the rain. As you can see, I have had enough coffee since the rain started last night that I won’t need to find a place to sleep for a very long time.”
“You have no place to stay, Mr. Tam?” I asked.
He shrugged. “There will be more shelters opening tonight because of the rain.”
I saw some calculation in the look he gave me. I asked, “Have you eaten?”
“I have eaten a little, yes. But I have not slept.”
From Mike I heard a warning that sounded like a low growl, the same sound he made when Michael brought a stray cat home from school over the holidays. I put my hand on his arm.
“We could get a hotel room for Mr. Tam,” I said. “I’ll list it on the budget as an interview venue—it’s done all the time.”
A Hard Light Page 10