by Phoef Sutton
“Okay.” Frida had been Gail’s student in the dojo for some time now. “You know her. What did she mean?”
“She meant she’ll be dropping by for an unscheduled visit this morning.”
“All right. We’ll be there.” He ended the call and slipped his phone back in his pants pocket.
“You’re still a good liar, Crush,” Angela said.
“Not good enough. She knew I was bullshitting her.”
“Is she used to you lying to her then?”
Crush shook his head. He was distracted. Trying to think of a way out of this. “It’s not like that. She’s a friend. I don’t lie to friends.”
“Only to lovers?”
“Maybe that’s why I don’t have many of those.”
“Really? You’ve changed since I knew you.”
“It’s been fifteen years. I hope so.”
“I don’t think I’ve changed much. But then I was pretty much perfect from the get-go.”
Crush wasn’t listening. He headed out. “We don’t have much time. Come on, Noel.”
“What? Where are we going?”
“We have to keep K.C. out of prison.”
“But we don’t even know where he is.”
“First things first,” Crush said, getting into his car.
CHAPTER FOUR
Frida Morales had been a parole officer for the County of Los Angeles for five years, nine months, and two weeks. That, she thought as she rode up in the elevator, should just about complete my sentence.
She had become a PO for all the right reasons. She wanted to make a difference. She wanted to give the downtrodden a second chance. She wanted to prove that the system could work. That idealism stayed with her for approximately ten months. The reams of paperwork, the maze of red tape, and the grinding cynicism of her fellow officers were all factors in her growing disillusionment. But the real cause of her burnout was simple. She spent all her time with ex-convicts.
All of them were guilty, of course. They had done either really stupid or really terrible things, and most of them had done both.
That was why she liked coming here, she thought, as she stepped out of the elevator and walked to K.C. Zerbe’s door. Not that Zerbe was an innocent man. He hadn’t been railroaded or anything like that. It was just that he was less dangerous than her average offender. He’d read the occasional book and was a good conversationalist. She liked him.
Also, she felt sorry for him. She had read his case-file and it was clear he had been set up to take the fall for wealthier, more culpable higher-ups. Zerbe wasn’t blameless; he was simply less guilty than the people who sent him to prison. He deserved to have someone cut him some slack.
Cutting slack was Frida’s favorite thing. She did it whenever possible, whenever she felt someone deserved it. She didn’t get the chance to do it very often. When she did, it made her feel like she was on the side of mercy, and it felt good. For a few minutes.
If she could have become one of those right-wing, “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” types, she would at least have had a gang to side with. But most cops she knew, though nice enough in civilian life, were bullies on the street. Too quick to look at a parolee and just see a potential threat. Too fast with their fists and their clubs and their guns. Too ready to meet any form of resistance with brutal force.
So that left her living with the volatile combination of a group of stupid, impulsive people with little or no self-control opposite a bunch of aggressive, suspicious, well-armed people who were spoiling for a fight. All Frida could do was wait for something truly terrible to happen.
It happened yesterday.
Afterward, she went home and fell into bed but she couldn’t sleep. She just lay awake and stared at the ceiling and wished to God she could drink. She was over being a P. O., she knew that. All her life she had wanted to be involved in the criminal justice system, but now she wished she’d gone into teaching or accounting or comedy improv or anything else. Her life had reached a turning point but she was too exhausted to take the wheel.
That was when she got the alert from Zerbe’s location monitor. It was just the distraction she needed. An excuse to visit a relatively benign offender and remind herself that not everyone in this bleak world was a piece of shit.
Not that Zerbe hadn’t caused her a fair amount of grief. She had gone out on a limb for him when he had requested that he serve out his sentence with Caleb Rush rather than with his wealthy parents. She looked the other way when it became obvious that he had internet access, in violation of the terms of his probation. She argued for the continuation of the probation arrangement with Mr. Rush, despite that fact that Crush (as Mr. Rush was called on the street) was repeatedly in trouble with the law, though never officially charged with anything.
She didn’t know exactly why she put herself on the line for Zerbe so often. She knew Zerbe was in love with her, but offenders falling for their probation officers was fairly common. Not as common as offenders hating their probation officer’s guts and wanting to kill them, but common all the same. Her roommate joked that Frida had a crush on Zerbe, but that was ridiculous. Just ridiculous.
Frida brushed her dark hair over her forehead to cover the bruise she’d tried to conceal with makeup this morning and took a breath before she knocked on the steel door of Crush’s loft. Zerbe hadn’t committed a location violation since he learned how to operate the ankle monitor. With only eight months and change to go on his sentence, this seemed like a crazy time for him to go AWOL. But Frida had known felons to act a little crazy at times. Most of the time, actually. She felt a wave of weariness wash over her.
Frida steeled herself and recalled that she was an authority figure and a representative of the State of California. She closed her fist and knocked on the door. There was no answer. This was not a good sign. Had Zerbe really bolted? Run off to Mexico? True, his monitor said he was in the apartment but, although the State of California did not want this to be widely known, monitors could be beaten.
The door swung open and Catherine Gail stood inside. Gail had answered the phone when Frida had called this morning, so she had expected her to be there, of course. But seeing her like this took all the resolve out of Frida’s spirit. She blinked, like a twelve-year-old girl who was caught by the Mother Superior smoking in the bathroom. “Master Gail,” she said, her voice breaking.
“I’m just Catherine Gail here,” Gail said. “We’re not in the dojo.”
“Of course,” Frida said. She had been studying tae kwon do with Master Gail for a year now, ever since one of her “clients” had taken a swing at her with a bottle of Royal Crown Cola and she’d decided she needed to learn to defend herself. Zerbe had recommended her highly, so Frida thought she would give Gail a try. She hadn’t realized until just now how much she had come to depend on Gail’s firm and steady influence. She was the mentor Frida had been searching for all her life.
It was all she could do to stop herself from letting the events of yesterday spill out of her in a long, plaintive monologue. But this was not the time. Their roles were reversed now. Frida was the authority figure and Gail was the civilian. “I need to talk to Zerbe.”
Gail hesitated. Not a good sign. “He’s sick. Can he call you later?”
“I need to see him. Now.” Frida used her most authoritative voice. The one her grade school teachers told her to never use. Her bossy voice.
“All right,” Gail said. “Give me a minute.” She stepped aside and let Frida in.
“Are you staying here, Gail?”
“What makes you ask?”
“It’s a little early for a social call.”
“Gail’s staying with me.” Crush was speaking up from the kitchenette, sipping from a coffee mug. He was dressed in a white T-shirt and sweatpants with a five o’clock shadow shading his bald head. She knew a lot of people found Crush thug-ishly sexy, but he didn’t ring Frida’s bell. She preferred the more bookish, nerdy, less-threatening type.
&
nbsp; “As Zerbe’s P. O., I should have been informed of any changes in the living arrangements,” Frida said, as Gail climbed the homemade stairs to the upper loft-within-the-loft.
Frida had always liked Crush’s place. Its odd decor of mounted auto parts hanging next to Japanese samurai movie posters gave the place an unmistakably masculine feeling, but that was belied by its uncharacteristic neatness. It was as if she’d found the mythical beast—the manly man who could do housekeeping.
She walked past the view of MacArthur Park in the early morning, over to the kitchenette where Crush was eating from a steaming bowl of oatmeal. “It’s only for a few days,” he said. “You know she got kicked out of her place.”
“Nevertheless,” Frida said. “I should have been told.”
Gail came down the stairs. “He’s coming but I warn you, he might be contagious.”
“I’ll chance it,” Frida said, beginning to lose patience.
Gail stopped and looked at her. “What happened yesterday?”
“What makes you think anything happened yesterday?”
“It’s too early for anything to have happened today and something’s got you on edge.” Gail peered more closely at Frida’s face. “Is that a bruise over your right eye?”
Frida brushed her hair back down. “It’s not appropriate for me to talk about it now.”
“You want me to leave?” asked Crush.
“I’m fine,” Frida said.
“Really?” Gail asked.
“It’s nothing that won’t keep till our next lesson. Have you found a new dojo?” Frida asked, trying to change the subject.
“I’m still looking. We can do our lessons here until I find a place.”
“Here?”
“Why not?”
“It might conflict with my professional…” Frida faltered. “Oh, what the hell, by next week I’ll be a substitute teacher anyway.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk?”
Frida was about to let it all come out when, to her immense relief, Zerbe came shuffling down the stairs, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a mug of steaming something in his hand. He looked like someone playing “sick man” in a community theater production.
“How are you feeling, Zerbe?” Frida asked.
“Not so well,” he whispered in a strained voice as he walked to the sofa. He folded his feet, covered in red striped fuzzy socks, underneath him and wrapped the blanket around his head, as if were trying to disappear into his own shell.
“We think it’s either stomach flu or something he ate,” Crush said. “It’s been pretty nasty in here the past few hours.”
“Pretty nasty,” Zerbe muttered.
“We’re going to need to do some laundry,” another woman said, coming down the stairs with a bundle of sheets in her hand. “Or you’re going to have to buy some new sheets. I recommend buying new sheets.” The new woman dropped the bedding into the trash and crossed to the sink to wash her hands. “Have you had your flu shot?” she asked Frida. “’Cause you don’t want to get what he has.”
The woman was almost a redhead and was quite a bit younger than Frida or Gail. She had a trim figure and was wearing expensive but casual clothing that said, “I make more money than you but I don’t have to show it off.” Frida took an immediate dislike to her.
“I’ve had my flu shot,” Frida said.
“Good for you.” The woman extended her freshly toweled hand to Frida. Her nails were manicured and painted with clear nail polish, in a “humble-brag” style of beauty treatment Frida found very annoying. “I’m Angela Zerbe, K.C.’s sister.”
Frida took Angela’s hand. It was soft and surprisingly firm. Damn her. “Pleased to meet you. But I thought Zerbe wasn’t on speaking terms with his family.”
“Yeah, but that’s me,” Angela said, “always the peacemaker!”
Crush choked back a laugh as he spooned more oatmeal into his mouth. Frida got the feeling that she was losing control of this situation.
“Zerbe, there’s a question I need answered,” Frida said, in her most businesslike manner. “Where were you at 4:13 this morning?”
Zerbe looked at her with an expression that said that either he had been caught or he was about to throw up. Or both. “I was here. Where else would I be?”
“Where, here?”
“He was either on that sofa or in the toilet,” Crush said. “Take your pick.”
Frida kept her eyes on Zerbe. “At 4:13 your monitor said that you left this apartment.” She bent down to take a look at the device on his leg. Zerbe jerked his feet back.
“Oh, that,” Angela said, quickly. “I can explain that. You see, he was alone in the apartment, feeling sick. Very sick. He tried to call Crush and Gail but he couldn’t reach them. So he called me. I came right over.”
“And?”
“Well, I don’t know the building very well. I got off the elevator, but I took a wrong turn. K.C. came out to get me. That must have been when it registered that he went out of bounds.”
Frida considered. “Okay,” she said. “But I still need to examine the monitor.”
The three of them exchanged a look. No doubt about it, Frida thought, they were definitely exchanging a look.
“Let me see it,” she said.
“But….”
“Zerbe, look at me,” Frida said. Zerbe pulled the blanket off his head and looked at her. “I’m on your side. You know that, right?”
Zerbe looked uncertain, but nodded.
“Now I need to check your monitor to see if it’s operating correctly. Just like I always do. Why are you resisting me?”
Zerbe slowly slid his right leg out from under the sofa. He lifted the leg of his sweatpants to reveal the ankle monitor.
“All right,” she said. “That’s more like it.” Frida reached out to touch the monitor. It was wet with oil. “What’s this?”
“What?” Zerbe asked innocently.
“It’s all slimy.”
“Oh, that…” Angela said.
“Take off your socks,” Frida demanded.
“My feet are cold,” Zerbe said.
“Take them off.”
Zerbe bent over and pulled off his left sock.
“Now the right one,” Frida said.
Zerbe looked to Angela and to Crush. Receiving no help from either of them, he pulled off the right sock.
Frida looked at Zerbe’s naked foot. “All right, I want an explanation.”
“For what?” Zerbe asked.
“Why is your foot raw and scraped and covered in olive oil?”
“Is it?”
Frida stood up, trying to make her five-foot-four frame appear as imposing as was humanly possible. “Were you trying to take the monitor off?”
“No!”
“It was me,” Angela said. “I did it. While he was asleep.”
Frida turned to Zerbe’s sister, relieved that she didn’t have to hide her dislike for the woman now. “Why?”
“It was hurting him. Can’t you see how swollen his leg is? I thought if I took it off, he could rest.”
“You said he was asleep.”
“He was asleep. But not resting. He was restless.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that taking the ankle monitor off him would get him sent back to prison?”
“Yeah, that’s why I stopped. I almost had it off when I came to my senses.”
Frida considered. “Okay. I guess that answers all my questions.” She headed for the door.
“I’m here if you need me, Frida,” Gail said.
“I’ll take you up on that some time. See you later, Crush. Nice to meet you, Angela.” Then she added, just as she opened the door, “Goodbye, Noel.”
“Goodbye,” said the sick man on the sofa. Then he looked a lot sicker.
CHAPTER FIVE
Frida stepped back inside. “Okay, who wants to tell me what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” Angela asked.
&nb
sp; “He just answered to Noel,” Frida said, pointing at Noel.
“He thought you said Noël,” Crush volunteered. “He thought you were wishing him Merry Christmas.”
“Is that what you thought, Noel?” Frida said.
“Yes. I mean, no. I mean…” Noel lapsed into quiet muttering.
Frida stepped forward and offered her hand. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Frida Morales and I believe you’re K.C.’s twin brother, aren’t you?”
Noel looked up at Frida. Then he looked over to the others.
“Give it up, Noel,” Crush said.
“I can’t believe you’d do this,” Frida said. “All of you.” She turned to Gail. “Especially you. Why?”
So Gail told her why and when she was done Frida stared long and hard out the window at the traffic that was creeping along on Wilshire Boulevard. “Now tell me the real reason,” she said.
“That’s the truth,” Gail said.
“Come off it,” Frida said. “Zerbe just flaked, didn’t he? He ran off. And you brought Noel over to cover for him? That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Frida…” Crush started.
“Tell me you didn’t plan this so he could go on a trip to Vegas or something.”
“What I told you was the truth.”
“If you want to make up a story,” Frida said, exasperated, “at least tell me one that makes sense. Don’t tell me Noel arranged for him to be kidnapped and then you lost him. Don’t tell me that.”
“We’d rather not tell you that, but it’s the truth,” Crush said.
“Where is K.C. now?” Frida demanded.
“I don’t know,” Crush said.
“Gail?”
“We really don’t know,” Gail said.
“For God’s sake don’t lie to me. Don’t you lie to me.” Frida was shocked to feel a rush of sorrow and frustration. Calm down, she told herself. Don’t let them see how fragile you are right now. She turned to the sink and gripped the counter.
Gail walked up to her and placed her hand on Frida’s back. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No, I don’t want to talk about it!” She spun around to face Gail. “You know what I’m going to have to do, don’t you? I’m going to have to call this in. They’re going to put a BOLO out on him. He’s going back to prison.”