Innocence

by David Hosp

  He set his coffee down on the armrest between the two front seats, trying to pull a notebook out of his briefcase in the back. As he turned, he knocked the coffee, sending it crashing into the passenger seat, where the plastic top jarred open, spilling half the cup over the new leather. Dobson cursed his clumsiness and grabbed some napkins out of the door’s side pocket, leaning over to blot up what he could.

  When he picked up his head, he almost spilled the coffee again. Two vans had pulled up to the church across the street, and a man was out, unlocking the gate on the fence in front. After four days, Dobson had actually begun to think nothing would ever come of his surveillance. He sat as still as possible, afraid that any movement would chase away the mirage.

  It took a moment, but he was finally satisfied that the vans were not apparitions. He watched as they pulled out of sight behind the church, around toward the rectory and the flat, ugly building that had once served as a church-run day-care center. A light went on inside the rectory, and then a blind was quickly drawn, and the building went dark again.

  Dobson sat there for several minutes, wondering what to do next. From the information Salazar had given him, he had an idea what was happening inside the church, but knowing it and proving it were two different things. He hadn’t thought through his next steps thoroughly, other than making sure he had his camera phone with him just in case. He’d just assumed something would come to him once he determined that his client wasn’t lying to him. Now that the moment was upon him, he wished he’d put together a more coherent plan.

  He was about to get out of the BMW when another vehicle approached the cluster of church buildings from the other direction. It was a boxy late-model American car, and it slowed near the entrance. A man got out of the driver’s side and walked, with his back to Dobson, to push open the gate. He paused there for a moment before turning and giving Dobson a clear view of his face.

  Dobson was so shocked that he dropped his camera phone before he could snap a picture. It couldn’t be, could it?

  He scrambled his hand around the car floor, searching for the camera, but by the time he had it again, the man was back in his car, pulling through the gate and around back in the direction the vans had disappeared.

  Suddenly, it all made sense, and Dobson was out of his car, crossing the street, and scaling the fence.

  z

  Carlos Villegas stood in a darkened room on the second floor, looking out the rectory’s front window. He had the look of a falcon, with a strong, prominent nose hanging from a sharp brow. His eyes probed the night.

  He had the phone to his ear as he took a deep drag on his cigarette. “When do we move them out?” he asked.

  “Two hours.”

  “And the money?”

  “Ten apiece. One hundred thousand in all. It will be there.”

  “Only seven. Not ten.”

  “My people told me ten. Did you lose three?”

  “Three of them were contract jobs,” Carlos said. “That’s the way they wanted it.”

  “Is that the way you want it?” It was the devil’s voice coming over the line, dripping temptation.

  “As I said, they were contract jobs. I honor my contracts.”

  Laughter on the other end. “Of course you do. No one has ever suggested otherwise. But you’re out thirty on the exchange, that means.”

  “Seventy. Agreed.” Carlos hung up the phone and took another drag from his cigarette. The other two men in the room remained silent. They knew better than to speak when Carlos was thinking. “Is everything ready?” he asked them.

  “Sí, Padre,” one of them replied.

  Padre. How had he gotten so old? It seemed like only yesterday he’d been there at the start of it all, fighting for survival on the streets of East L.A., hemmed in by the Mexicans—the Chicanos—to the east, and by the blacks—the Crips—to the west. It had been a meat grinder, almost as bad as El Salvador at the height of the rebellion. The only way to survive had been to be crazier than everyone else. Loco. That had been his street name back then, and he’d earned it. Soon no one wanted to mess with his crew. It just wasn’t worth the blood. And so they kept slashing out until they were no longer fighting for survival but for supremacy.

  Now here he was, two decades later, the old man. Padre. A leader in one of the most feared criminal organizations in the world. They were more than one hundred thousand strong, stretching from El Salvador to Michigan—nothing was beyond their reach. And it was all at his disposal. A loyal battalion of mercenaries and unlimited cash flow. He was, he thought, like many of the great leaders in history. Rockefeller. Kennedy. Fidel. They had all laid their claim to power in the shadow of the law until they were powerful enough to become the law. He was following in their path.

  Not that anyone would draw that connection by looking at him. He stood just under six feet tall and was just over 150 pounds of weathered steel cable. The veins stood out on his arms, his legs, his neck, giving life to the artwork that adorned his body. His markings. They covered every inch of skin from his toes to his bald scalp. Snakes and dragons and Aztec gods crawled over his body, as he felt them crawling through his soul. But the only one that mattered took up his entire chest: an elaborately styled rendering of his true identity. vds. It was who he was. It was what he was.

  He looked out across the front of the church and felt comforted. In an odd way, he had always considered himself a religious man. The Catholic Church was strong in El Salvador, and his mother had been devout, trying desperately to raise all her children to respect the Church and its teachings. In the end, it had been the radical priests who had caused her death, putting the peasants on the front lines of a war in which they had no say. When she was killed, he turned his anger against the Communists, joining with the death squads as a means of venting his anger, but for some reason, he could never quite bring himself to hate the Church—or at least not the part of it that had been such an important part of his mother.

  Perhaps that was why he had chosen this place. Here, he felt closer to her than he had in decades. He would be sad to leave, but he had learned long ago the dangers of remaining in one location for too long. Another week and they would move on, but that week was crucial to him. The delivery due next Saturday would provide him more money than any ten had before. Then he and his men would slip away and find a new headquarters, as they had for fifteen years. He would miss this place, though.

  He turned to face the others. “Two hours,” he said. “We wait.”

  “Our friend is here,” one of his underlings reported.

  “Good. We have much to discuss with him.” Carlos turned back to the window, his mind working through all the angles and all the plays. He’d always been good at figuring out the angles; that was what had kept him alive. As he clicked through complicated scenarios, his eye caught a shadow rolling across the cement at the front of the rectory. He reached out and tugged at the corner of the shade to give himself a better view. His eyes narrowed as he added another variable to what lay before him. “It seems we have more than one visitor tonight.” He looked at the other two men in the room. “We should make our guests welcome.”

  z

  Mark Dobson stood with his back to the exterior of the rectory. So far, so good, he thought. He rested there as his breathing returned to normal. Crossing the parking lot in the front of the church had been the only dicey part of his reconnaissance mission, and it appeared he’d cleared that hurdle. All he had to do now was get one picture. He waited another several minutes to see whether someone would burst forth from the rectory to grab him. He was ready to run, but it looked like that wasn’t going to be necessary.

  Slowly, silently, he began moving around toward the back of the building. Twice, as he passed first-floor windows, he popped his head up to determine whether he could see enough to take his picture and head back out to his car. Each window was blackened, and he was forced to continue.

  When he reached the corner, he crouched down. The gro
und fell away in front of him, following the driveway toward a sunken two-car garage underneath the rectory—the driveway that the vans and the sedan had taken around toward the rear of the facility. It occurred to him that he was placing himself in significant danger. If what Salazar had told him was true, then these people had been protecting their business for decades. They wouldn’t take kindly to any intrusion. Still, what would they do, really? Rough him up? For Dobson, perched on the edge of a whole new life, the risk seemed worth it.

  He edged around the corner, concealing himself behind a barrel against the wall. From where he was, he could see the vans, their doors open at the back. Empty. But not entirely empty. Something remained of what had been in them in a putrid stench pouring from the interior.

  Stench wouldn’t show up in a picture: He needed more. He raised him

  self up on the balls of his feet, still crouched, ready to move.

  That was when he saw her.

  She couldn’t have been over six years old, her dark hair hanging in clumps in front of her face, her clothes stained with dirt and grime. She was standing in the doorway next to the garage doors, peeking around the corner, watching him. She said nothing, and her eyes had the vacant look of stolen youth.

  He put his finger to his lips, imploring her to be quiet. Taking his camera phone out of his pocket, he held it up to show her. She frowned in curiosity and poked her head a little more out of the doorway. He aimed the camera in her direction, focusing his attention on holding it steady. His hands were shaking as he pressed the button to take the picture. The camera flashed, and he held the digital display close to his face to make sure he had the image.

  She was there, sure enough, and his heart pounded with satisfaction. He had the evidence he needed. With the picture and Salazar’s story, they might actually have a chance.

  As he knelt there, looking at the little girl in the picture—the little girl who might very well hold the key to his client’s freedom—he noticed something odd. In the split second it had taken him to snap the picture, her expression had changed. It was no longer a look of muted curiosity but one of abject terror. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was open, as though she was witnessing something too terrible for words.

  As he looked more closely, he noticed something else that struck him as odd: Her eyes no longer seemed focused on the camera. Instead, she was gaping at something else. Something above the camera, off behind it—behind him. The revelation hit him so hard he almost fell over. He thought to turn around, but he never got the chance. He took one last look at the image on the tiny phone screen. Then everything went black.

  Chapter Twelve

  Monday, December 17, 2007

  “It’s your show, Mr. Finn,” Dumonds said. “You called for this meeting.”

  Finn sat on one side of a large table in a respectfully ornate conference room in Dumonds’s firm’s offices. They were high above the city on the fortieth floor of a glass and steel monstrosity. Dumonds had demanded that any meeting take place in his offices, and Finn understood why. Dumonds wanted the benefit of the home court advantage. Many lawyers swore by it and fought tooth and nail to maintain the psychological advantage that came with waging skirmishes on their own home turf. It gave them a sense of control.

  Finn was fine with that. Growing up an orphan, he’d never really had a home, and as a result, he never felt particularly intimidated by the home court advantage. Every game was an away game to him. But there was something satisfying about away games—if you beat someone in his own house, you owned him forever.

  He was flanked by Kozlowski and Lissa. Across from him sat Dumonds and Slocum. Slocum seemed surprised by how healthy Finn presented, though unsurprised by the fact that Finn had sought a settlement conference. He had the smug look of a man who thought he couldn’t be touched. Finn was about to touch him.

  “Yes,” Finn began. “I wanted to talk with you and your client about our settlement offer. We’ve reevaluated the situation, and we would like to amend our previous offer.”

  A broad grin broke across Slocum’s face.

  “We’ll obviously listen to any offer that’s reasonable,” Dumonds commented, his voice oozing condescension.

  “Of course you will,” Finn agreed. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. He placed it flat on the table, covering it with his palm. Then he pushed it across the table toward Slocum.

  Slocum’s smiled continued to grow as he reached for the envelope. Finn wondered whether it might swallow his entire face.

  Slocum picked up the envelope and shot Dumonds a look that said, See, I told you I could handle this, you useless fucking suit. He held it up like a trophy and then tore it open.

  Finn had trouble not laughing as he watched the man’s face. The grin morphed, showing the transition from shock to confusion to anger, until it was the scowl of an angry troll who’d been trifled with. “What the fuck is this?” Slocum demanded, slapping the paper back down on the table.

  “Our latest settlement offer,” Finn replied. “Was I unclear?”

  Dumonds, still left out of the loop, lunged for the paper, picking it up and reading it. “I don’t understand,” he said after a moment.

  “I think your client does.”

  Dumonds flipped the paper around to show it to Finn, almost as though he suspected that Finn had accidentally given him the wrong sheet of paper. “Mr. Finn, your last offer of settlement was for eight million dollars. This appears to be an offer for eight million six hundred and fifty-two dollars.”

  “And thirty-two cents,” Finn added.

  Dumonds looked back at the paper. “Yes, I see. And thirty-two cents.” He looked up, bewildered. “Can you give me an explanation, please?”

  “Sure. I had a contractor over yesterday. Six hundred and fifty-two dollars and thirty-two cents is how much it’s going to cost to fix the mess in my office.”

  “Pardon me?” Dumonds said.

  “You slimy little shit,” Slocum said. “You think I can’t reach you?”

  “Of course you can reach me,” Finn replied. “I’ve even got an ad in the Yellow Pages. What you can’t do is intimidate me.”

  “Oh, no? Where is that slut of a client of yours?”

  “Careful whom you call a slut, Mr. Slocum, I have a full report of your encounter with Ms. Prudet in Las Vegas. I’m not sure that’s a character battle you want to take on,” Finn said. Slocum turned crimson with rage. “I thought it best if my client wasn’t here for today’s meeting, so we can discuss some issues more openly.”

  Dumonds looked back and forth between Finn and his client. “Would someone please explain what’s going on here?”

  Finn looked at Slocum. “Do you want to? Or would you prefer it if I did the honors?” Slocum sat silently, stewing in his rage. “Very well,” Finn said. “Last Friday I received a visit from one of Mr. Slocum’s employees. Charles O’Malley. He came to deliver Mr. Slocum’s response to our previous settlement offer.”

  Dumonds’s face went white. He looked at his client. “Sal, you didn’t. Not after we talked—”

  “Shut up, Marty,” Slocum snapped.

  “See, that’s what I don’t get,” Finn said, looking at Slocum. “You pay your lawyer, what, six hundred dollars an hour for his advice? And then you don’t take it?” He shook his head. “This time it’s going to cost you.”

  “Bullshit,” Slocum said, a shadow of his former grin returning. Now the grin wasn’t about victory; it was about revenge. “Fine. So you took care of O’Malley. You think that gets you something? That gets you shit. I’ll send someone else. And you’ll never prove I had anything to do with this in the first place. O’Malley will never back you up.”

  “Actually, I think he will,” Finn said. He picked up his briefcase and put it on the table, opening it so that the top flipped up toward Slocum, blocking his view of its contents. Finn reached in and pulled out a five-page document. He looked it over and then handed it to Slocum. “This is
an affidavit signed by Charles O’Malley, detailing the ‘work’ he’s done for you since you sponsored his parole. Paragraphs seven through fifteen deal directly with his instructions from you with respect to his visit to my offices last Friday.”

  “I’ll fucking kill him,” Slocum growled.

  “My client is speaking metaphorically,” Dumonds was quick to add. Slocum just glared.

  “You won’t have to deal with Mr. O’Malley anymore, I assure you,” Finn continued. “My investigator, Mr. Kozlowski—I think you’ve met him before—is a retired police detective, and he’s arranged to find Mr. O’Malley a new job.”

  “I’ll still fucking kill him.”

  “Still metaphorically.” Dumonds seemed to be trying to keep up on the treadmill of his client’s unraveling life. He was failing.

  Finn said to Slocum, “I understand your feelings.” He reached into his briefcase again and pulled out two more documents. “These are also affidavits. One is signed by Mr. Kozlowski, and the other is signed by me. In all respects, they corroborate the substance of Mr. O’Malley’s affidavit with respect to the events of last Friday.”

  Slocum briefly looked them over, then threw them back across the table at Finn. “You think this scares me? The three of you? I deal with bigger problems than this every fucking day. You just signed your own death warrant.”

  “May I have a moment with my client?” Dumonds pleaded. “Sal?”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Finn went on. “You know, it occurred to me that this might not be enough to convince you, so I had Mr. Kozlowski spend some time this weekend talking to Mr. O’Malley—poking into your affairs, so to speak. It turns out you do wonderful work with the parole board. According to our count, your various companies employ twenty-seven individuals currently trying to straighten out their lives after various periods of incarceration. Very admirable. We contacted them all.”