The Innocents

by Richard Barre

  “What happened after you got to California?”

  “Relatives of Serafina’s let us stay with them. I got a job in a restaurant, then another. A few years later, we opened a place selling chicken the way Serafina’s father cooked it in Mexico. Papa Gomez. We lived over the kitchen. We did well.”

  Wil recalled Reyes’ comment. “And your wife?”

  A deep sigh. “My wife did not do well. Losing Benito was very hard—even the new baby failed to cheer her. She stopped eating, then talking, then living. I was at work so much, I hardly noticed. By the time I did, it was too late.” His eyes went flat, then closed.

  Wil stirred milk into his cup; the spoon made a thin brittle sound. “Señor Reyes, what is it you want me to do?”

  The eyes opened slowly. “Can you kill Bolo Zavala for me?”

  “No,” Wil said. “I can try to find him, if he’s still alive. But it sounds pretty uncertain.” He laid the spoon on his saucer. “You’re sure the bones are your son’s?”

  Reyes nodded as if it hurt. “I chopped wood three months to pay for the medal. We had it engraved for his birthday. I knew the writing.”

  “He was six, you said? What date?”

  “April ninth, nineteen-sixty-seven. A Sunday.” He rubbed his hands. “He looked like an angel, Mr. Hardesty, but my Benito loved mischief. He swallowed it on a dare from Gilberto, his brother. I was furious with him. The next day he was gone.

  “You see,” he continued, “Benito wasn’t wearing the medal, it was inside him.” Reyes’ voice sounded distant and he looked old.

  “The bones are my son’s.”

  Before he left, Wil briefed Reyes on his fees. The man who was once poor was now rich, three bills a day plus expenses dismissed with a shrug. Reyes tore a thousand dollar advance from his checkbook. “Find him. I don’t care what it costs,” he said.

  “What about the cops?” Wil asked.

  Reyes’ gave him a weary look. “Police don’t like fathers who sell their children to murderers so they can cross the border in the night.”

  “What you’ve accomplished since then would certainly be taken into account.”

  “I still have my family to think of, Mr. Hardesty. The hurt they’ve already endured.”

  Wil wondered how much of that was Ignacio Reyes’ pride, but he let it drop. He caught sight of a group photo in the bookcase. “Do your other children know?”

  “So far they’ve said nothing.” He paused. “Gilberto would remember the inscription, but I doubt the others would. They were older and wouldn’t have stayed long at a birthday party with six-year-olds.”

  “Benito swallowed the medal at the party?”

  Reyes shook his head. “Afterward, when he and Gilberto were alone. I had been resting, but when I woke up I knew something was wrong—they both looked so guilty.” His eyes drifted to a point beyond Wil.

  “I’ll want to speak with Gilberto.”

  The eyes came back slowly. “Gilberto runs the Papa on Ventura Boulevard. Please, only if you think it will help—”

  “One thing more,” Wil said. “Have you any idea why your son might have been killed? What motivated Zavala—or the people he turned Benito over to?”

  “No. And I think of nothing else, imagining how it was for him. That is a terrible thing, Mr. Hardesty. Lying there in the dark assuming the worst. Hearing him cry out to me.”

  Wind rasped a tree branch against the house.

  “I have to know what happened,” he said. “If it means my life, I have to know.”

  The phone rang just as he was raising himself off the big woman with the spiderweb tattoo. Sweaty, panting, he picked up the receiver, caution having taught him never to speak first. As he waited he admired himself in the mirrored ceiling: muy hombre, even at fifty.

  “I see they found your little family.” The voice was steely. Familiar.

  His mood vanished like smoke in a breeze; immediately he hustled the woman from the room: “Vete, vete, vete, vete, vete. Tengo negocios.

  “An act of God,” he said, uncovering the receiver. “Who would predict a flood in the desert?”

  “God acts in ways mysterious. Not so men. What about the medal?”

  “No se preocupe. An oversight, nothing.” He fingered the pinkish line that ran from his chin to his right ear. “What do they know from it that could hurt us? None of those sheep would dare speak to the police. They know what would happen. They have everything to lose.”

  There was silence, then, “Recuerda, compadre. So do we.”

  FIVE

  Using the car phone, Wil left a message for Lisa not to expect him, then called Mo Epstein and set up an after-work at Musso’s. He drove to Paul’s house, parked beside the sycamore in front, told him of the meeting, what he faced going in.

  “I don’t know. Reyes wasn’t sure he was even alive.”

  Rodriguez thought a moment. “I know a Border Patrol guy—and another in Immigration. Big a bastard as this one, somebody must know something. Lemme help, huh?”

  Wil was shaking his head when he had second thoughts: If Paul could get any kind of a sniff, he could pick up the trail from there. Meanwhile he could use the time to see what the law had learned. “Two conditions,” he said. “One, you’re on the payroll. Two, you take no chances.” He saw the grin, sharpened his tone. “Hear me on this, Jefe. It’s too nice a deal you got here to let me screw it up for you. Okay?”

  “Your call, bro.”

  Wil hesitated. “I was a horse’s ass, Paul, the things I said in that bar. Hope you understand what was doing the talking.”

  “More’n you think,” Paul said. “Now go on, get outta here.”

  Cruising Hollywood Boulevard, Wil took in the dazzle. The City of Dreams lived in the bright billboards, the few remaining deco facades, the glowing marquees. Real Hollywood, though, lived at street level—in the human pinballs who bounced around mumbling, in the hungry angry ones snarling for spare change, in the timid vacant ones who avoided eye contact. Bits of flotsam, they streamed and eddied past leather shops, greasy spoons, curio dives, low-fi outlets, T-shirt emporiums—the new inheritors.

  Musso and Frank was an island in the polluted stream. Wil reserved a table, savored red leather booths and old wood, the long bar, the juniper smell of crisp, cold gin. At lunch the restaurant was crowded with dealmakers and doers, revved by the race. Dinner, early dinner particularly, brought out the old-timers and a nice sense of calm.

  He scanned the bar for Mo Epstein, saw him in a rumpled suit rolling for rounds with the barstoolers on either side. As Wil approached, he looked up, grinning, from a spread of dice.

  “Hey, Wilson, we were just celebrating the occasion. These gentlemen are buying our cocktails.”

  “I see you brought your own dice again.” He shook Epstein’s hand; to the losers he said, “This man isn’t usually allowed out by himself. It’s good you kept him occupied.” He ordered a club soda, watched it being poured while Epstein collected his beer. They followed the maitre d’ to a corner booth.

  Settling in, Wil regarded the man he’d first met defying authority in Saigon: compact stature, homely face, intelligent eyes over a generous nose. A pain in the ass, Wil had thought initially. Never keen on the military way, Epstein resigned his commission after Nam, kicked around, and to Wil’s amusement joined the L.A. County Sheriff’s. “Can’t live with it, can’t live without it,” he’d kidded. Still, Moshe Epstein had done well. Their paths had crossed a couple of times since, unofficially. Once over a teenage runaway when Mo had been in Missing Persons, the second on a wife-killer who’d disappeared into the San Rafaels.

  They touched glasses. “My friend, the independent one,” Mo said, raising an eyebrow. “Club soda?”

  “Penance,” Wil said. “Six months now.”

  “At least I haven’t had any morbid drunken calls from biker bars lately. Figured it must mean something.”

  “You miss those, do you?”

  “About like nighttime
incoming. You working again?”

  “Here and there, nothing I’m too proud of.”

  “Lisa?”

  “Just fine, quite the business executive. She outearned me again last year—thank God.” He sipped his drink; the waiter came and they ordered dinner. Epstein tore a piece off a slab of sourdough.

  “And how’s copping?” Wil asked.

  Epstein stopped. “Business is terrific, thanks, very uplifting. Just had a little girl beaten to death and burned up by her junkie mother, somebody’s been slicing Lynwood hookers, and Jesus, the gangbangers. Last week a grandmother minding her own business, this week two grammar-school kids and a three-year-old. Proving themselves, or they’re bored, or you’re wearing red, or something. And the weapons: riot guns, assault pieces. Like Ma used to say, it’s no place out there for a nice Jewish boy.” He waved at the waiter for more butter, steadied on Wil’s eyes.

  “How you farin’—really?”

  “All right.”

  “I mean about Devin.”

  “I know.” Wil stirred ice around and sucked in a breath. “What-could-have-been still gets to me, usually at odd times. I see him in crowds occasionally. But the worst seems over. Except now Lisa hears clocks ticking—she wants another child. We keep going round and round about it.”

  “Changed her mind, huh? You think you might?”

  “Not in this lifetime. Your shop handling the Innocents, Mo?”

  “All right, I can take a hint. We are, yeah. There’s another piece of work—the kid murders.”

  “Think of the bright side,” Wil said. “Everybody watching, no more laboring in obscurity.”

  Epstein grimaced. “Gimme obscurity. Anybody with an axe to grind is out there grinding it. As we speak.”

  Wil motioned the waiter for a repeat on the club soda. “Anything new turned up?” he said as it arrived.

  Morris’ attention had drifted to a woman across the room; at the question, he swung back. “What, on the Innocents? Can’t tell you much.”

  “Policy, or don’t have much?”

  “Fulla questions, aren’t you.” He spun his beer glass slowly, watched it settle, eyed Wil. “I know you, Hardesty, the way you sneak up. You wouldn’t have something going…”

  Typical, Wil thought; well, here it was. “Actually I have, Mo.” He watched his friend’s eyes widen. “I’m representing someone I can’t disclose, someone with an interest. I’m prepared to share what I can.”

  “Jesus,” Mo said. “Lucky I asked.”

  Wil met his eyes. “It was coming if you hadn’t. I invited you, remember?”

  “Yeah, I suppose you did at that.” Epstein paused to let the waiter set down their orders, then started on his. “How’d you fall into this honeypot?”

  “C’mon, Mo.”

  Epstein gave him a long look, then shrugged. “What the hell. What we got is a lot of media hype and circling politicians. Carl Vella’s the task force coordinator—good man, grist for the mill, though, the way it stands, everybody out for blood.” He removed a bone from his fish. “That’s it mostly. Thing’s a bitch.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Wil said.

  “So what’s up?”

  “I hear you say mostly?”

  Epstein flushed. “Games—seven dead kids and a good cop with his tail in the wringer and it’s fucking games.” He took a deep breath. “Sorry. I know you’ll do what you can to help. Okay, to date: they were found about seven feet apart, regularly spaced, like in a graveyard. Except for the medal we got no physical evidence. Not even a fiber. Nobody’s come forward, no Missing Unidentified Person matches. All the databases have come up zero. Sound good so far?” He used the napkin, then dropped it beside his plate. “Whoever did this was real tight, they’d never have turned up at all without some freaky storm and a boy shooting at cans. Maybe God plain had enough.”

  Wil smiled faintly at the logic. “Kids—how old?”

  Mo looked at him. “We’re expecting the report on that tomorrow. First blush, though, fairly young.”

  “What about the medal?”

  “Maybe you should be telling me about it.”

  “It’s been all over the news, Mo, Vaya con Dios, Benito. Papa, 1967.” He put down his fork. “The paper said something about sex murders. That the feeling at Homicide?”

  Mo swallowed the last of his beer. “Among some. We’ve got a search going for similarities and offender profiles. NCIC, VICAP, our internal system; we’re even cruising through the Unsolved’s. So far nothing.”

  When the waiter returned Wil ordered pie, Epstein coffee. In a few minutes, the waiter was back with both. Mo resumed after he left.

  “You mentioned a client with an interest.”

  Wil drew a breath and leaned forward. “What if I had a name, Mo? Not my client’s—that’s out—but a name that could open things up?”

  “That’d be up to Vella and Captain Freiman. I don’t know, they might be in a mood to listen. Suppose it depends on what you’re asking for.”

  “What I’m asking for is in. Access.” Wil chased pie with ice water. “I need to know what you guys know. Everything. Until it’s over.”

  “That’s all?” Epstein looked incredulous. “Look, everybody wants this thing cleared. If you know something, Freiman’s going to want it the worst way—he’ll dance on your head if he has to. Christ, you know about withholding evidence.”

  Wil bristled. “So far it’s not evidence, Mo, just dinner conversation.” He gestured for the check. They sat awhile, looking around, not seeing much.

  Epstein broke the silence. “Look, all I can do is ask. Maybe you’ll get lucky. But if that’s what goes down, I’d watch the independent act if I were you. Freiman’s by-the-book and not without ambition. Vella’s a good enough guy, but he’ll toe company rope. Now, what is it you have to offer?”

  “Sorry, Mo, you’re a good cop. What would you do if I told you, and Freiman wouldn’t deal?”

  Wil pulled out a credit card and laid it on the table.

  SIX

  Paul was up and glad for the company; as he listened to Wil’s plan to meet Freiman and Vella, he blew on decaf, then offered his opinion. “Sheeit. Probably just my Hispanic instincts about cops, but I’d be careful, I was you.”

  Wil said he would.

  Paul looked skeptical then brightened. “Hey, I got through to my sources. Two’re researching, but my Border guy knew Zavala. Some bad mother—got into a scrape with some of my guy’s people near Calexico. Early seventies, it was, after they got a tip he was coming. Four in the morning they spring an ambush. Zavala opens up on ’em, using his illegals as a shield. They hit him, but somehow he gets away.” Paul inhaled coffee. “After he guns three of them and a couple of his own.”

  “Just a gentle misunderstood soul,” Wil said.

  “Yeah. Mexican authorities told my guy he was pretty good with a knife, too. Not long after the shootout, their snitch, fella named Pacheco, winds up in the Colorado with his throat cut. So happens the Mexicans have been after Zavala for years. Nothing recent though. Prob’ly dead, they thought.”

  Wil leaned back on chrome legs and stretched. “Your guy’s connection say where in Mexico he operated?”

  “Hermosillo,” Paul said. “Drugs and guns but mostly flesh-peddling, although he thought there were some sixties-vintage murders. No convictions—Zavala had a lot of friends in the local police. Every time the federales got close, he’d disappear.”

  Wil said, “Shame Reyes didn’t know some of this stuff.” He complimented Paul’s detecting.

  Paul smiled, hesitated. “It’s kind of off-the-wall, but my cousin Gabe goes to church in the north Valley, St. Something-or-Other…Boniface. They’re big into Mexican outreach, always after us for donations. I remember him mentioning once the distribution end’s based in Hermosillo.” He slid his empty mug on the tabletop.

  Wil narrowed his eyes. “And you were thinking they might know somebody down there to talk to.”

  Pau
l’s smile went to grin. “More’n I would. I’ll check it out tomorrow, give me something to do. The extra bed’s yours if you want it.”

  Wil nodded. “Be great. I’m beat.”

  “Um—I know how rough it’s been, man. But I was telling Raeann about how much better you guys seem, you in particular. You still seeing that therapist?”

  “I’m fine, Paul, really. Lisa too. Everything’s fine. Thanks for not pushing it.”

  Wil got Raeann’s sewing room with the hide-a-bed, a little milk-glass reading lamp on behind him. Hands under his head on the too-soft pillow, he lay awake, gut fluttering at the risk he was taking.

  Two ways to go, the dice already rolled: If the cops were as flat as Mo Epstein indicated, they might agree to let him into the loop. If not, they could make it tight—threaten his license, haul him in, generally harass him trying to get what he had.

  But finding Zavala was going to be a bitch, especially with as cold a trail as this one. He needed what cops could put their hands on readily—files, documents, reports. For a while he tried putting himself inside Freiman’s head, juggling possible scenarios, weight given to how much heat the department was taking. After a while he gave it up, clicking instead on a little boy in a desert grave and a father who, now that he had the money, couldn’t get his son back at any price.

  Six, Benito Reyes had been. Four years younger than Devin.

  Feelings flooded in: hearing Dev pronounced dead, blaming himself, taking whatever Lisa’d said all wrong, the same with her. Trying then to be strong, the agony of it, finally just numbness and not knowing how the hell to act—even in bed.

  Lisa found the therapist; they’d gone together for a while then each alone. It hadn’t helped. For months it seemed they were on different cycles: one up—one down, him angry—her depressed. Vice-versa. Then there were the harpoons of pain from unexpected sources, tears when he least expected. For two years he’d wiped out in waves of his own making, each wave bigger than the last, each battering them both hard. One day he broke the surface like a drowning man clutching a spar and began to function again. Enough to swear with Lisa that as long as they stayed together they would never again risk the loss of a child.