One Day You'll Burn

by Joseph Schneider

  “But in eight days?”

  “What? You got doubts?” said Morales as he turned out of the station parking lot and onto First.

  “A few things don’t fit. I mean, think about it, what Detective Rislakki said. Why go through all that trouble to get rid of a potential snitch? Kidnapping, torture, then dumping him all the way over in Thai Town. What’s the point?”

  “Makes an impression,” said Morales.

  “Yeah, but on whom?”

  “Everybody.”

  “Okay, then why not kill the clerk too? He’s much more of an immediate threat. He was actually in the store when the shooting went down. If I were gonna get rid of any witnesses, I’d start with him.”

  Morales shifted in his seat, thinking. “They know he’s too scared to talk now, so they’re not gonna bother.”

  “I don’t know,” said Jarsdel. “Just seems a little thin.”

  “Thin? What d’you mean ‘thin’?”

  “I have a tough time believing that people brutal enough to cook a guy are going to all of a sudden feel a lot of restraint when it comes to the remaining witness.”

  “Okay. Then what about the usual explanation? They’re criminals. Not everything they do makes sense.”

  “But what about our guy, then? What the hell was he doing in Boyle Heights at eleven o’clock at night?”

  “Probably had a habit. Remember our special effects technician and his Oxy?”

  “Medical marijuana. That’s all we found.”

  “Okay, so we don’t know yet. We’ll figure it out.”

  “And the red quarter? What’s that mean?”

  “Some random cartel shit. Who knows what all their stuff symbolizes. I bet it has to do with making a phone call using a quarter, calling the cops, something like that.” Morales pulled onto the 10 West, heading back toward Hollywood. Almost immediately, they hit a wall of traffic.

  “That still leaves a major unanswered question,” said Jarsdel.

  “Yeah, I know. The other shell casings.”

  “Where’d they come from? What do they mean? They don’t come back to any other homicides.”

  “That we know of.”

  “Yeah, but again, I just don’t buy Wolin as being into anything heavy. Look at him. Other than a DUI, what’s he ever done? And now we’re saying he was somehow in on the Delgadillo thing?”

  “We’re not saying that. It’s a defense attorney who’s gonna make that leap. And in that sense, I see what the Dwarves are getting at. We gotta definitively tie Wolin to the scene or clear him completely.”

  “That’s what worries me,” said Jarsdel. “Because either way, we’re going to need an explanation for how that cartridge made it from a crime scene in Boyle Heights to a guy’s apartment ten miles away.”

  His phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but it might’ve had to do with the Wolin case, so he answered.

  “Jarsdel.”

  “Hello, is this the detective? Tully?” It was a woman’s voice.

  “That’s right.”

  “This is Aleena. From the lecture last night? I didn’t get a chance to talk to you again before you left.”

  “Oh.” Jarsdel felt a tingle in his chest. “Sorry. You looked busy. What can I do for you?”

  “I don’t know exactly how to say this. Hmm. Okay. I guess I’ll just come right out with it. Are you married?”

  Jarsdel didn’t think he’d heard her correctly. An MTA bus had come to a stop in the lane next to theirs, brakes hissing. “I’m sorry. Could you say that again?”

  “Ugh. I have a feeling I’m about to be embarrassed. I’m calling to see if you’d like to have dinner with me.”

  There was no mistaking her words this time. The tingle in Jarsdel’s chest blossomed into a sweet fire. “I, uh… I’d love to.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes. Very much so.”

  Aleena sighed on the other end of the line. “Cool. Are you free tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I know it’s short notice, but—”

  “No, tomorrow’s perfect.”

  “Great. Come by my place around seven? You remember where it is?”

  “I do, yes. Where would you like to go?”

  “You like pasta?”

  Jarsdel said that he did.

  “Then I’m cooking. Just bring a nice red.”

  “Okay.”

  “You have my number now, right? In case anything comes up?”

  “Nothing’s going to come up. But yeah, I have your number.” Then he added lamely, “Thank you for calling.”

  Aleena laughed. “See you tomorrow.”

  Jarsdel clipped the phone back onto his belt.

  Morales shot him a sideways glance. “I don’t get it. That shit never happened to me, man. Girl callin’ you up. Take my advice—just try not to talk a whole lot.”

  * * *

  When Jarsdel pulled up in front of Aleena’s house, the sun had nearly set, spilling its last few rays across the sliver of the Pacific that could be seen in the distance. He chewed and swallowed a breath mint he’d been sucking on, then picked up a gift bag from the passenger seat. Inside was a bottle of Opolo Mountain zinfandel his parents had given him for Christmas. He’d debated bringing flowers but in the end decided against it. Jarsdel had always tried too hard and didn’t want to scare Aleena off. Whatever impression she had of him, he had a feeling he could easily fuck it up just by being himself. The recent episode with Becca was just one example, and if he were in a masochistic mood, he was sure he could dig up others. He remembered Morales’s advice and resolved to be a more aloof, subdued version of himself.

  “No Rain Man stuff,” he murmured.

  The door opening onto the courtyard was ajar, and Jarsdel walked inside, passing the gurgling fountain on his way to the front door. He was about to knock when he realized his heart was pounding. He’d only been in one relationship since Maureen—a week-long fling of mediocre sex and alcohol-induced pledges of fidelity, even talk of marriage. Two souls in pain, both on the rebound, both trying to convince themselves they’d finally found their true mates. And one day, they’d woken up and had no idea what to say to each other. And that was it—a crash so fast and final they hadn’t even exchanged a handshake. Now here he was, years since he’d last been with anyone, standing on the porch of a woman whose dog had been murdered by a serial killer.

  The door swung open. Aleena stood there in a black cocktail dress, her tanned shoulders lightly spotted with freckles. She was barefoot, and something about that made Jarsdel feel a primal jolt of excitement. “Are you gonna come in or just stand out there all evening?”

  “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Kitchen window. C’mon inside.”

  Jarsdel stepped into the house, which was a welcome cool after the day’s mugginess.

  Aleena pointed at the gift bag he was holding. “That for me?”

  He handed it to her, and she took out the bottle, cradling it against her forearm like a sommelier.

  “Mm, zin.”

  “One of my favorites,” said Jarsdel. “Hope it…uh…works with what you’re cooking.”

  She studied him a moment, her rouged lips parting in a smile. “I’ll pour us a couple glasses.”

  She turned toward the kitchen, Jarsdel following as he had the week before, and he was once again struck by the extraordinary view. And as it usually did, the sight of that sprawling expanse—tempered though it was by the dimming light of day—made him feel uneasy. Somewhere in that city is someone who likes to cook people, Jarsdel couldn’t help thinking.

  The fan above the stove was on full, sucking up the steam from the pan of pasta sauce simmering beneath it. Even so, the aroma of basil, garlic, and onions filled the kitchen. Aleena produced a wine key an
d sliced the foil from the top of the bottle. Jarsdel watched as her long fingers worked at the corkscrew. There was power in those hands, and they moved with a practiced assurance.

  She caught him watching her. “Used to be a server. Three years at Cheesecake Factory.”

  Once the wine was poured and Jarsdel had his glass, Aleena went back to cooking, emptying a bag of spaghetti into a pot of boiling water. “So tell me about your name,” she said. “How do you get ‘Tully’ again?”

  “Oh,” said Jarsdel. “My dads are both professors. They named me Marcus Tullius, after Cicero.”

  “The Roman guy?”

  “Yeah. They had high hopes for me, I guess. Anyway, his nickname among those who study him has always been Tully. And that’s what my dads have called me since I was a baby.”

  “Your dads? Plural dads? Are they… Or—”

  “Gay, yeah.”

  “Cool. That’s really cool.”

  Jarsdel smiled.

  Aleena stirred the pasta. Billows of steam vanished into the vent. “So both dads are professors, and you ended up being a cop.”

  “I did.”

  Aleena poured a dribble of olive oil in with the pasta. “Were they freaked out?”

  “Well, when I told my baba—that’s ‘father’ in Farsi—that I joined the force, he wouldn’t talk to me for months. And neither of them came to my graduation.”

  “Seems kind of harsh.”

  “It was, but you know, from their point of view, I’d joined the bad guys. Dad got teargassed more than once back in the sixties, and Baba won’t even talk about the kind of things cops did to gay guys in Iran. Pretty dark stuff.”

  Aleena lifted a strand of spaghetti out of the water, pinched it to test for firmness, and dropped it back in. “I know what you mean. My mom’s Lebanese, and she’s the sweetest person in the world, but she’s totally homophobic. Been here for, like, forty years and still can’t shake it. It’s just so ingrained in the culture over there. I mean, can’t they still actually stone you to death for it in some places?”

  “Yeah, they do.”

  “Shit. Crazy,” said Aleena. “So with your parents, were you, like, trying to horrify them?”

  “No.” Jarsdel considered. “I don’t think so. No, but…you sure you want to get into all this stuff? Not exactly pre-dinner, just-getting-to-know-you banter.”

  “Oh, see, I don’t banter. It’s what we in my field call ‘avoidable delay.’ So everything we say should mean something, else it’s just noise. Besides, we can hardly go back to ‘nice weather’ and all that after you just told me about your amazing gay dads and their wayward, badge-carrying son.”

  “Fair enough,” said Jarsdel, amused. “What’s the best way to put this? Okay. You can be really good at something. Let’s say you’re the best horseshoe player in the world, but all you’ve really ever wanted was to play darts. And every time you toss that horseshoe, all you can think about is how much better, how much more fulfilling it would be to throw a dart.”

  Aleena thought about that. “Probably the worst analogy I’ve ever heard, but whatever—you wanted to be a dart player.”

  “I did. And it’s not as if I didn’t try to make my dads happy and do the academic thing. You know—Harris Tweed sport coat, copy of Plutarch’s Lives under my pillow.”

  “So you’re pretty much the perfect guy. Brains and brawn.”

  “Huh. I don’t think ‘brawn’ and I have ever been in the same sentence before. Thanks.”

  Aleena dipped a long wooden spoon into the stockpot and collected a bit of sauce. She blew on it, took a tentative sip, and gave a nod of satisfaction. “Do you have a partner?”

  “I do. He also thinks I should be in another line of work.”

  “You don’t get along?”

  “Not that well.”

  “Aw, bummer. In the movies, they always do. Or actually, I guess they don’t, not at first. They have to clash and get on each other’s nerves, but then by the end, they’re total buddies. Mullets tend to be involved at some point. Maybe that’ll happen with you.”

  “Working on it,” said Jarsdel. “Took him for some good food the other day, and I think that softened him up a bit.”

  Aleena nodded at the pot simmering on the stove. “Never fails. Why do you think I’m doing this?”

  Jarsdel felt himself blush. He took a large swallow of wine.

  “Just so you know,” she went on, “it’s not my habit to call guys up and ask them to come over.”

  “No?”

  “And I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.” She saw the disappointment on Jarsdel’s face, then quickly corrected herself. “Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that. That’s not the idea I don’t want you to get wrong. No, I’m totally attracted to you. What I don’t want you to think is that I’m just lonely and rebounding from my husband. We’ve been separated a long time. I’ve made my peace with it, in other words.”

  “Okay,” said Jarsdel. He’d never met anyone as direct as Aleena Andreotti, and he didn’t quite know how to handle it. His resolve to be coolly aloof was crumbling.

  * * *

  After they’d finished dinner, Jarsdel and Aleena sat side by side on the sofa, looking out at the city. It was fully dark now, and Los Angeles glittered silently before them. Jarsdel could even make out planes on their approach to LAX.

  “You know what I’m thinking?” asked Aleena.

  Jarsdel said he didn’t.

  “Our kiss good night won’t be awkward. I’m taller than a lot of guys—taller than my soon-to-be ex, actually. He hated that, by the way. Being shorter. But you’re just the right height for me.” She considered. “Though I probably shouldn’t have put so much garlic in the sauce.”

  Jarsdel’s mouth was suddenly very dry. “It was delicious,” he managed to say.

  “Why thank you.”

  “Best vodka sauce I’ve ever had.”

  “Really? My father-in-law would always give me a hard time about it not being, you know, authentic Italian cuisine. But I don’t care. It’s good.” She swirled the wine in her glass and took a sip.

  Jarsdel detected the faint thrum of a helicopter. The sound grew louder as it approached, and looking out the picture window, Jarsdel glimpsed the beam of its spotlight skewering a line of deodar trees. He himself had done his share of chasing criminals up into the hills. It was a classic end run—a biological impulse to get to high ground. But it never ended well. He only hoped this helicopter wouldn’t pick the Andreotti house to hover over. He was grateful when it banked to the left, out of sight.

  “Can I ask you something?” he asked once it had passed.

  “Sure.”

  “Why’s your house so empty? No pictures or anything. Nothing that would say to me that anybody lives here.”

  Aleena was thoughtful. “Ever heard of William Morris?”

  “I’m not sure. Which—”

  “The arts and crafts designer. He was a poet too.”

  Jarsdel hadn’t. “Okay, yeah, I think so.”

  “I have a quote from him on my business card. Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. There should be no such thing as stuff for stuff’s sake, right? You’ve seen it. Some people will have, like, a vase with random dry sticks poking out of it, just because the idea of having some empty space in the house gives them this weird sense of anxiety. Neither useful nor beautiful, just displacing air. Empty space is like silence. Some people can’t handle it.”

  Jarsdel nodded, looking down at his feet.

  Aleena sighed. “But you know, that’s only half of it. The house and pretty much everything in it were David’s, and the things we shared—artwork and photos and whatever—it didn’t make me feel good to have it all around, reminding me every day of him and the marriage and all that, so I mad
e him take it. But even after that, I didn’t feel like the house was really mine. I still don’t. We haven’t settled yet on what’s going to happen to the place, so I guess I just want to be tied to it as little as I can. I’m already really picky about what comes into a house, and this way, if I have to move, it won’t be so painful.” Then she smiled. “Meantime, though, got a hella nice pad, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You ever married?”

  “Engaged. A while ago. We don’t even talk anymore.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. It felt like an arranged marriage. She was academic royalty, our families knew each other forever, and we played together growing up and—I don’t know—I suppose on some level, it seemed like I was getting married to my cousin.”

  “What happened?”

  Jarsdel hesitated.

  “Sorry. Out of bounds?”

  “No. It just doesn’t make me look very good. What happened is I ended it. Then I quit my job as a teacher’s assistant and enrolled in the academy. She said I broke her heart and that no one had ever broken her heart before and that it was worse than killing a person.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. But it’s been five years. And hey, apparently now, she’s doing great. Full tenure and married to a professor at USC.”

  The helicopter returned, skirting just shy of the house, firing its blinding spotlight somewhere out of view.

  “Super romantic,” Aleena sighed.

  “If you want, I can call them up and tell ’em to beat it.”

  “Haven’t had one of these in at least a month. Had to happen tonight, right?” Her fingers brushed his hand.

  Jarsdel’s heart sped up. “Those new copters are fitted with FLIR,” he said. “Forward-looking infrared. They’re so sensitive, they can detect thermal radiation on a dropped handgun. Bad guy ditches a gun onto a rooftop or whatever while he’s running, and it’ll actually glow on the monitor.”

  “Fascinating. Are you going to kiss me or what?”

  Jarsdel had been wondering all night what it would be like—to kiss her, to hold her—and now he did, pressing his mouth against hers, tasting the red bitterness of her lipstick. She wove her fingers into his hair, heightening Jarsdel’s passion. When they broke away, both of them were flushed, their breathing rapid.