Rhetorical question. But Soledad gave a quiet accounting of dozens and dozens. And how many times had Soledad wanted to shoot first and not even bother handing a freak the opportunity to surrender? But she had not. Never once. Despite her feelings, that wasn’t the way things were done. At least, it wasn’t how she did things.
The case Tashjian was building was, as to be expected, undeniable.
What Soledad wanted to know: “So freaks, freak fuckers are being killed. Let the cops deal with it. Why do you and me have to take a walk in the park?”
“The murders themselves, quiet, spread out over time among a relatively disenfranchised community, have gotten little attention from the department. At least as of yet. But what’s nearly certain, sooner or later some intrepid individual at the Times or Channel 4 will piece things together: Metanormals and their supporters are being targeted, being killed by police officers. We are, Soledad, in a very precarious position. Less than a decade and a half since San Francisco, and people—”
“People forget,” Soledad finished the thought.
“Worse than that. They have forgiven and are on the verge of shifting blame. The protectors become persecutors: We’re too harsh on metanormals. We’re too inconvenient in the public’s lives. I’ve heard the word ‘gestapo’ used with the LAPD, with MTac programs. Hyperbole, but after a time extremism begins to stick. So metanormals, metanormal rights activists being targeted, murdered . . . which side, do you suppose, will gain advantage from this situation? Who will gain sympathy?”
“I get that. What I don’t get: Why me? IA’s got a department full of people.”
“And you’ve been at DMI how long now? Already you’ve seen it’s more like a fiefdom than a division. They don’t even sit in Parker Center. To try and investigate by ordinary means is pointless. To try to infiltrate one of my officers would be useless. Everyone at DMI would see a plant coming as easily as if they were supervisioned muties. You’re in a good position, inside DMI by circumstances beyond suspicion, and your credentials are beyond question. You’ve distinguished yourself in duty, and that you’ve been investigated by my department—”
“Tormented.”
“Is well known. By rights you should hate Internal Affairs. Why would you ever work with us? You are perfect for what the situation demands.”
“Like I was a born rat.”
“We can play a game of semantics all day and all night. If you fear being a rat, don’t think of yourself as one. Don’t disregard the opportunity to exonerate innocent officers.”
“And I could tell them that? After this is done, how do you think they’d take it that I spied on them?”
Tashjian made a show of looking confused. His version of sarcasm. “Why would you tell them?” he asked. “They have absolutely no need to know.”
“I’m talking about—”
“Honesty. Fidelity. And I appreciate that. What I’m talking about, simply, is maintaining the structure of society as we know it for the foreseeable future. If the door of change opens slightly, it might as well be kicked down. I think so. You are needed to keep the door shut.”
More than eight months since IA had gone after her. The bad taste Tashjian, the department, left with her was still strong in Soledad’s mouth. “Won’t do it. I’m not going to sell out other cops.”
“If they’re murderers, if they are killing people—”
“Freaks aren’t people. They don’t have rights.”
“Neither do dogs, but you can’t shoot one in the street. The transgression is the same. So is the threat to you and me and everything that we believe in.”
“That’s kinda much, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. But is that the chance you want to take? Hate me, O’Roark. From where you stand, I deserve your hatred. But don’t hate me so much you would condemn us all to returning to a time when freaks ruled and humans clung to relevancy. Understand, that is where we are now: a point of advancement or reversion.
“I don’t know what destiny has assigned us. Whether it’s to change the course of history as we know it, or just bust a few dirty cops. Honestly, even thinking like that . . . well, I stand on very ordinary legs. What I do know, for whatever reason, whatever the outcome, we have been delivered to this moment to do something or to do nothing. My question to you, Officer O’Roark: Which will it be?”
It started as a John Doe. A body, no ID, clothes partially burned away, found at the bottom of the LA River. Not that the LA River was particularly deep. More like the LA stream. The stiff was stiff, probably dead forty-eight hours by the rigor, the lividity, but lack of decomposition. A bum, probably. Dead from too much booze, too little shelter. The body got transported to the LA County Forensic Science Center. Fancy name for city morgue. Given the same deference as the inanimate slab which it had ended up, the body would get processed, paperworked, stored, then prepped for an eventual dump in a potter’s field.
Routine.
In LA, in a city that manufactured 158.9 bodies a day, this John Doe was just more of the same.
Would’ve been.
Except for the mandatory autopsy that the assistant medical examiner finally got around to performing six days after the body arrived. Except that when the AME put a scalpel to the John Doe to open his flesh, the flesh would not open. Not with the scalpel. Not with a bone cutter. Not with a hacksaw. Not with a Black & Decker power drill the AME pulled out of the trunk of his Dodge Stratus.
Who the John Doe was, was still unknown. What he was, was becoming real clear. What he was, was a freak. An invulnerable. Dead, probably, a lot longer than forty-eight hours prior to its discovery. Impossible to know. A hundred years from now his body might, slightly, begin to decay. Somewhat. Nobody knew for sure. As there had only been a very few exanimate invulnerables as case studies, the rate of their decomposition was still being surveyed.
So who the freak was, how long it had been dead were questions. But neither was the question. The question, the one that got the examiners at LACFSC nervous as they called DMI, reported what they had: What is it that killed an invulnerable freak?
He’s a freak.”
Soledad and Donatell stood just inside the doorway of the house. Nice house. Really nice. Palos Verdes nice. Big. Ocean view. The house was nice to the point the guy who owned the house probably referred to his “inside the doorway” as a foyer or anteroom or something else classy-sounding.
The guy who owned it: Fong. An Asian guy with an English accent. Either born in Hong Kong or educated at Oxford. However it was, the end result, he’d ended up in the south bay area of LA with enough dough to live well. Real well. The only stress in Fong’s life, apparently, was his neighbor.
“He’s a freak,” Fong said again.
Soledad and Donatell gave very little outward reaction. Donatell—Mike Donatell—might’ve reacted the hell out things. His face, hard to tell. Donatell, when he was MTac, had ended up on a bad call against a fire freak. Donatell had been severely burned. Donatell’s skull looked like it had molten flesh poured over it. Ears and nose made out of melted, discolored wax. He was a sight. Not a pleasant one.
Donatell: “When you say he’s a freak . . .”
“When I say he is a freak, I mean that he is a freak. I’m not sure what else there is to say.”
“What kind of a freak?”
Hesitation from Fong.
“What are his abilities?”
“Well, they are subtle. But they involve his vision. I believe he has, has the ability to see through solid objects.”
“X-ray vision,” Soledad prompted.
“I believe. And he is superstrong.”
“Thing is, freaks only have one metanormal ability. So which is it?”
Hesitation from Fong.
Soledad, again: “Which is it?” Soledad had been “graciously invited” along on the interview by Donatell. Strictly, she wasn’t sure she should be asking questions. But, response by response, she was getting a sense of things. Her sen
se, her time was being wasted.
“X-ray vision. I believe.”
“And you know this because . . . ?”
“Because I’ve seen him use it.”
“You’ve seen him use X-ray vision? How were you able to see someone use X-ray vision?”
“Why would I lie? What reason do I have to lie about that . . . that freak being a freak?”
“Did I say you were lying?”
“Mr. Fong,” Donatell stepping back into things, “before we deal with the situation, we need to be absolutely sure of what we’re dealing with.”
“And I have told you.” Fong did not, could not look at Donatell. Donatell’s aspect too severe to handle.
“Yes, you have.” Donatell’s mouth was nearly fused shut. His words were permanently slurred, and every sentence uttered ended with a slurping sound. Donatell sucking in air and sucking back saliva. A couple of scenes from The Elephant Man jumped into Soledad’s head. “But we have to be sure of what we’re dealing with. Every detail has to be considered. Can you give us a description of the individual?”
“He’s Mexican.”
And Soledad got it. No matter the guy was doing well enough to afford a place in Palos Verdes—which meant he was doing better than ninety-five percent of the working stiffs in America—Fong figured his property value was going to take a hit having a Mexican living next door. So what do you do? You call him a freak, call DMI, have them send him off to a new place to live. Like the SPA.
Standing right where she was, Soledad settled back within herself. Let Donatell do the work, conduct the interview. She was done with getting her time wasted.
The queer thing about it all, one guy was accusing another of having the ability to see through solid objects. Soledad thought he was lying, but in the world she lived in he didn’t sound insane.
The waiter took the order of the Chicken Saag, the Lamb Tikka Masala. Onion Kulcha. The waiter, taking the order, stared at Donatell. Barely looked away enough to write on the pad he carried. He stared at Donatell like he was clocking one of those Night of the Living Dead zombies trying to figure what was the best way to kill the beast. And on top of all that the waiter was obvious with the speed he took down the order, got away from the table as if he had to rush off to puke. Donatell didn’t seem put out. Then again, as before, it was hard to tell what was going on behind that permanent mask Donatell wore.
Soledad, eating some katchumber: “What do we do?”
“About the call? Write it up, turn it in. Surveil the guy.”
“Even though the complainant was lying?”
“You know he was lying?”
Soledad gave a laugh. “C’mon.”
Donatell, again: “Do you know he was lying?”
“Back in the day the complaint would’ve been: He’s a dealer. A banger. Whatever. Whatever to try to get the cops to do some redlining on the city’s dime.”
“Do you—”
“I know it’s a waste of time when DMI ought to be looking for real freaks.”
“Good of you to educate me,” big slurp, “on how DMI works.”
No matter the damage, the scarring, the flesh around Donatell’s lips retained his right and real pigmentation. Darker than his burned skin. He was sort of a reverse minstrel. So badly burned. A few more seconds, a few more, Soledad wondered, and would he have been killed rather than left to live as he is? Does he ever, she wondered, look in the mirror and wish the couple of seconds had broiled him into oblivion?
“Do they bother you?” Soledad asked. “Ones like the waiter. The ones who just stare.”
“Two kinds of people. The ones who stare, the ones who don’t. The people who stare . . . hell, I would stare at me. The ones who won’t look are the ones I hate. How are they not going to look? I know how my shit is. But they won’t even acknowledge me, like, like if they don’t look, I don’t exist and who the hell am I screwing up their beautiful world with my hideousness? Anyway, you get over it. I scare kids and I can’t get laid by anyone but whores I’ve got to overpay. You learn to deal.”
He sucked in some katchumber.
“I used to be,” Soledad said, “the same way with my neck. Self-conscious like that.”
Donatell laughed, blew slightly masticated food out of his mouth. “That’s like a hangnail, O’Roark. That little bit of scarring you’ve got’s like a hangnail.”
“Yeah, well, I used to be beautiful. For all I know, what you’ve got’s an improvement.”
A little light in Donatell’s eyes. If he preferred those who stare over those who don’t, he really dug those who could give a good ribbing no different than if all he’d gotten was a bad trim at Supercuts.
Getting back to what’s what: “Maybe it’s bullshit, O’Roark, but we still do things by the book because that’s how the book says to do them. I know you’ve got issues with that.”
“Issues with . . . ?”
“You don’t always do things how they’re supposed to be done.”
“You know that?”
“I know the talk.”
“And I care for talk the way you care for the people who won’t even stare.”
“You gotta understand,” taking up a napkin, whipping drool from his chin, “things are different at DMI. Yeah, I know you’ve heard the talk; cops here think they’re superspies. Most of that, most of that is self-arad . . .”
“Self-aggrandizing.”
“I was never good with big words. Shouldn’t even try. We’re busted cops and we want to feel good about ourselves. I was MTac. Most of us were. But I’m just talking from my POV for a sec. When I was MTac, I saw things different. Mostly, I saw how the book was written by guys who were safe behind a desk telling us how to take out the freak of the week. You get bad advice a couple of times and you—”
The waiter brought the food. Set it down. Asked if the pair needed anything. When he got their no-thank-yous, the waiter left the table. All of that, his eyes never left Donatell.
Donatell, going on: “Things go bad for you a couple of times, sure, you do what you’ve got to do to keep you, keep your element alive.”
Probing: “Not here. You don’t use any independent thought?”
Donatell didn’t say anything to that.
So Soledad let it lie. Had some saag.
Donatell ate too. It was not the most attractive thing in the world.
After a minute, taking a break: “I think if we go off the page, if we do . . . different from just doing something on our own, it’s more about leadership here,” Donatell said.
Soledad kept chewing, gave a quizzical look.
“Not like going head-to-head with a mutie, collecting intel is straightforward. Pretty much it is. But once you’ve got the intel, what do you do with it?”
“Merits a warrant, you get a warrant. Give it to MTac.”
Donatell went back to eating.
Soledad was struck by his lack of affirmation. Being roundabout: “When you talk about leadership . . .”
“I’m talking about Raddatz. He’s got respect coming to him.”
“Other cops don’t?”
“There’re some of us who respect him a lot more . . . even more, I should say. Even more than others. The reason you did things your own way back on MTac—and I’m not telling you, I’m saying ask yourself: Was it because you couldn’t trust your leadership? If you had real reason not to, if you just felt like you couldn’t, it was the leadership you couldn’t follow. Not when it got down to it. But Raddatz . . .”
“Him you can follow. No trust issues?”
“You’re lucky enough to work with him close, you see why.”
“How many work closely,” a little something on that word, “with him?”
“Me, Tony Shen.”
Soledad gave a shake of her head. Shen she didn’t yet know.
“You’d remember him if you met him.”
“How’s that?”
“He makes me look good. Chuck Panama.”
&nb
sp; “Him I know.”
“You’re curious to him, to Raddatz.”
“And is that how I ended up taking a call with you? Are you giving me a field audition?”
“You’ve got nothing to audition for. How you handle yourself only matters if you’re going to be DMI. You really going to be DMI, O’Roark?”
Donatell cast a line, waited for an answer.
Soledad ate.
When it was real clear to him he wasn’t going to get a response, Donatell joined her in getting back to eating.
Throughout lunch Donatell sounded like a suction filter on a pool. Bugged the hell out of Soledad.
There was one new message on Soledad’s integrated cordless phone/digital answering machine. From her mother. The message had barely started playing and already Soledad was reaching to erase it, thinking of what would be a good time to return the call. “Good” meaning a time when most likely her parents wouldn’t be home.
Her hand stopped, hung in the air, held up there by her mother’s message.
Soledad’s mother wasn’t calling from Milwaukee, wasn’t in Milwaukee. Soledad’s mom was calling from the Radisson Hotel at LAX. Soledad’s mom was in the city.
Sunset Plaza was a strip of boutique shops and al fresco eateries that lined the north and south sides of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. Very LA. Very LA in the way folks outside LA think when they think LA: Beautiful people. Expensive cars parked along the curb. Really old guys with their hot young girlfriends who clearly weren’t hanging out with their men because they actually had a thing for guys thrice their age. Minimum of thrice. Lot of flamers. The occasional actor who could still do box-office. All very ostentatious. High-end. And it was all just pretentious enough to give the tourists something to talk about when they went back home to talk about “those people” out West. All in all, Sunset Plaza was about as decent a place Soledad could think to take her mom for lunch. It was also, Soledad hoped, filled with enough “look at that over there” value to intrude on her and her mother’s conversation. The crappily little conversation Soledad knew she’d be able to muster.
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