Done for the moment, I stared at the places my hands should’ve been, but only saw porcelain. My body hurt—those internal explosions had torn away chunks of flesh.
I’m disappearing. That’s why my body hurts like this. That’s why I can’t see me. I’m having an out-of-body experience fully conscious.
Then, more shuddering. More vomiting. Burning eyes. Finally, my muscles relaxed. Spent, I sat back against the cold metal door. I shut my eyes, counted backwards from 100 … 96 … 92 … My pulse slowed, and the shivering eased …
90 … 89 …
Don’t remember reaching 85.
48
I was still collapsed on the bathroom floor when my jeans vibrated and pulled me from that place cops go when they’re tired and frustrated. All around me, metal doors banged opened and locks clicked. Toilets flushed. Water ran in sinks. Rubber soles squeaked on the tile floors. My jeans vibrated again—my phone was ringing.
I stood without swaying. No pain. Clear vision. Normal heart rate. Sweaty, but that had come from sleeping (or whatevering) in a public toilet while wearing a cashmere sweater.
How long have I been down here?
Had the argument between Lieutenant Rodriguez and me been real? Had I dreamed it?
I padded to the sink. Washed my hands. Splashed my face with water and dried off with a paper towel. Then, I plucked my cell phone from my jeans pocket.
Two texts. One from Lieutenant Rodriguez. Yes, I’m still pissed—you have one more time to fuck up, then I’m giving the case to Glickman and Bose. And then shit will go in your file.
My stomach alley-ooped. Not a dream.
The second text came from Zucca. The mud on Moriaga’s boots does not match dirt from park. But! The boot print from Lords scene matches boot print from A.Mitchel.Size12 Timberland. Rpt later.
I pushed back my shoulders and strode to the locker room. Off went the jeans and sweater. I showered, brushed my teeth, brushed my teeth again. Tugged on black track pants and a soft LAPD T-shirt. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, then brushed my teeth a third time.
As I tromped back into the detectives’ bull pen, my colleagues stopped talking. All eyes, even the two cuffed thugs on the bench, landed on me as I retreated east to my desk.
A porcelain vase of lavender roses sat near my computer keyboard.
“Lou?” Colin whispered.
With a shaky hand, I plucked the card from the bouquet and read:
HOPE YOU LAND IN A PLACE WHERE SOMEONE LOVES YOU BEST OF ALL. Z.
“Lou?”
“Time to work.” I shoved the card into my pants pocket.
Colin rolled over to my desk. “You okay, partner?”
It took every facial muscle I had to fake a smile. “Awesome.”
He frowned. “I hate when you fake it.”
“That may change everything, dude.” I pointed to the journal, still in its evidence baggie.
“Except that Chanita, Allayna, and Trina aren’t mentioned,” Colin pointed out. “I looked through it again.” He leaned close to me. “What did L.T. say to you? What happened?”
“He yelled. I yelled. The sun rose, and soon the sun will set.” I logged onto Madison Middle School’s Web site: smiling kids, a wise-looking teacher instructing from a hi-tech whiteboard. Football players in a huddle. Every one of them were targets—and as the gatekeeper, I was failing to keep them all safe. I clicked on the school’s calendar. “So there’s a basketball game that starts at six o’clock tonight. Got any plans?”
Colin pointed at the bouquet. “No, but you do. Sam’s got that ill-na-na.”
I rolled my eyes. “First, boys can’t have ill-na-nas, you dope. Stay off Urban Dictionary. Second…” I stared at the perfect velvety buds. “Those aren’t from Sam.”
Before Colin could respond, my desk phone rang.
Fifteen minutes later, my partner and I found ourselves back in the Jungle and standing in front of Chanita Lords’s apartment building.
Usually when slick yellow tape was stretched from one fixed point to another, a crowd of looky-loos pressed against it. Usually by the time lighter serum has ringed the darker blood, potential witnesses have filled their hoisted camera phones with fifty pictures capturing the sneaker beneath the death tarp or the leg twisted beneath the body.
But there was none of this today. Not even the ghetto Greek chorus loitered nearby. Four patrol cops and two detectives stared at the dead guy hidden beneath a blue tarp in the middle of the street.
Colin and I ducked beneath the yellow tape.
Thomas Jefferson, tall, black, and skinny, was scribbling in a pad and pointing his flashlight at sections of the asphalt.
I glanced around the scene. Red cup, red cup, empty Alizé bottle.
“Hey, Jeff,” I said.
Jefferson regarded my track pants and sneakers. “Casual Friday on a Sunday?”
“Got blood on my sequins and mink stole this morning.”
“Just that you’re always suited and booted.”
“Yeah. Circumstances. May I…?” I nodded to the victim on the wet asphalt.
“Certainly.”
The two other dicks stepped back as Colin lifted the sheet.
Raul Moriaga’s thin face was now swollen and pulpy. His bloody wifebeater had been ripped apart. He lay in a mingled puddle of storm water and the crimson stuff that had given him life. He wore a single black Paul Rodriguez Nike.
Colin muttered, “Shit.”
I stared at Moriaga’s weasel face—his half-mast eyes saw nothing.
“Guess his cousin will be gettin’ those fish again,” Colin said.
“You were looking at him, right?” Jefferson asked.
“Yeah.” Then I told him about Chanita Lords, Moriaga’s possible involvement, and his relevant past.
“So folks found out about his connection to Chanita through the news?” Jefferson asked.
I shrugged. “But Chanita’s mother has always suspected him. You may wanna talk to her and to Ontrel Shaw, the girl’s boyfriend.”
“Shaw’s Jungle Bloods, ain’t he?” Jefferson asked.
“Yep, so tread carefully,” I said.
“So what happened here?” Colin asked, nodding to the dead man on the asphalt.
Jefferson scratched his eyebrow. “A group of unidentified black males told Moriaga that he needed to confess to killing the girls. He refused, so they beat him. Finally, he said that he did it, probably hoping that they’d stop. But his confession only made it worse. Someone pulled out a knife and stabbed him ten times.” Jefferson clicked on the flashlight and showed us eight slits along Moriaga’s back, his left bicep, and left wrist. “He bled out before the ambulance arrived.”
I grunted, uncertain how to feel about a predator permanently booted from society.
“One of the wits who saw nothing,” Jefferson was saying, “told me that he deserved it. She said that the neighborhood had enough problems without somebody stealing and raping and killing children. She said somebody needed to do something since the cops weren’t.”
“And the guys who beat him?” Colin asked.
Jefferson smirked. “What guys? No one saw a thing. Moriaga got jumped by ghosts.”
49
The coffee grinder chewed whole beans, masking the funk of mildew and traitor in Syeeda’s office. My college friend, sweatshirt sleeves rolled to her elbows and hair gathered in a loose bun, hummed as she filled her coffee maker. The weekend news played on the flat-screen television bolted to the north wall. The weekend edition of OurTimes sat on her desk. Syeeda tried to smile. “What do you want me to say?” She poured creamer into a mug, then licked her sticky index finger.
“Oh…” I shrugged. “Nothing special. Just, ‘Sorry, Lou for writing a—’”
“I didn’t write it.”
“Your reporter did,” I snapped. “And you let him put my name in it.” I didn’t want to have this conversation—every part of me thrashed on the inside, bucking against the onslaught of wo
rds my brain had prepared during the drive over from the Jungle.
Syeeda flicked her hand, then grabbed two sugar packets from a tray. “Your name’s been in hundreds of articles. And this isn’t the first time Rodriguez has reamed you for no good reason.” She sighed as the second mug filled with hot coffee. “You’re right—I was supposed to write it, not Mike. You’re right—it was shitty writing, and even after I bled all over it, it was still shitty writing. But he called my boss, Lou, and complained, so I had to let him do it. And I had to let some stuff go in, like the stats.” She tore open the sugar packets.
I glared past her and out the dirty window to rundown Crenshaw with its wig shops, smoke shops, and Wienerschnitzel that sometimes included bullets with its chili dogs. “You obviously don’t respect what I do. You obviously don’t care that a man is dead because—”
“Dude, I’m sorry, all right?” Syeeda handed me one of the mugs. “I’m sorry that I didn’t get permission from you to—”
“Don’t be passive-aggressive.”
“Folks read a story that told them nothing new,” she argued, sticking the stirrer into her mouth. “Everybody knew that Moriaga was a sex offender—”
“And yet he somehow, miraculously, continued to breathe until you printed a story—”
“Oh, Elouise.” She rolled her eyes. “I got a tip, okay? An unnamed source who told me that he’d been watching Moriaga, that he’d seen him more than once scoping out Chanita and other kids in the neighborhood. He actually sent me a picture of Moriaga talking to a twelve-year-old girl at the park two days ago. And so I made the call.”
“Who’s this source?” I asked.
“You know I can’t name my source.”
“Who?” I demanded.
She shook her head.
“I don’t believe you.”
“What did you want me to do? Not report it? I have a picture of this guy being a goddamned predator, and yet I decided not to print the picture, even though my boss was saying that I should. Yes, you’re doing your job. But I’m doing my job, too. Calling attention to this sick shit and to a neighborhood predator that you all wouldn’t take off the street. He’s dead? You’re welcome. Now he’ll never rape another kid forever and ever.”
A knock on the door.
Syeeda shouted, “Yeah?”
Mike Summit popped his head in. “Should I be on this conversation since I wrote—?”
“No!” boomed from both Syeeda’s and my mouth.
Mike Summit blushed and closed the door with a quiet click.
Syeeda hugged her elbows. “Lou—”
“No.” I stood and sat the coffee mug on her desk.
She sucked her teeth. “Don’t be like this.”
I grabbed my bag from the floor. “Be like what?”
“Stay. Chat.” She pulled off her sweatshirt—beneath it, she wore a FRANKIE SAYS RELAX T-shirt. “So what’s up with you and Sam?”
I cocked my head. “You do realize that I’m working, right? You do realize that my ass is grass in about six hours and that I’m here to ask you to refrain from printing any more bullshit and racist, unsubstantiated conjecture. I’m looking for a monster, Syeeda. One who chews up little girls, spits them out, and leaves them in the park for me to find. And guess what? No matter who he was, Moriaga didn’t kill those girls. It’s not his DNA on Chanita. He’s dead and you helped make that possible.”
“We wrote a story based on the information we had at the time,” she said.
“But you didn’t have all of the information—”
“Cuz you didn’t give me enough,” she shouted. “And you’re not the only person in the world who knows shit. The people who live there—”
“If you’d just given me more time—”
“In this business, we don’t get a lot of that. And Moriaga was setting up another girl—”
I shook my head. “But he didn’t kill Chanita. He didn’t kill Allayna. And now my colleagues will be hunting black boys who thought they were avenging something.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I understand what you’re saying and that wasn’t our intent.” She leaned against the credenza and continued to chew on that straw. “So Mike said there was some excitement at Chanita’s funeral yesterday before Allayna Mitchell—”
“No comment,” I growled.
“Off the record, then.”
I shook my head.
She gaped at me.
I gave another head shake, then ante-upped with a frown. “Who sent you the picture of Moriaga and the girl?”
She called my frown with a frown of her own. “Hell no.”
“You and I need to take a break, then.”
“Seriously?” she asked, tossing the stirrer into the waste can.
“I give you information. You give me nothing back.” My stomach twisted into hot knots. “Is that all I am to you? Another source?”
“You’re accusing me of using you? Now you’re questioning our friendship?”
Am I? I nodded.
Tears glistened in her eyes. “I’ve always been there for you, even when it has nothing to do with my job.” She threw up her hands. “Fine, I admit it: I give zero fucks about Moriaga being dead.”
“Wow,” I whispered.
“I’m wearing white, too, Elouise,” she said. “I want justice for all, too, and if you’re not gonna protect—”
I pointed at her. “You shall not compare my job to yours, cuz I’m looking at you right now, at your cute little torso all freed up and shit, wearing quirky T-shirts that say ‘relax.’ Wanna guess what I’m wearing under my—?”
“I know, all right?” she shouted.
I strode toward the door.
“You’re leaving?”
“Looks like it.”
“Is Rodriguez making you choose between the boys in blue and your girls in pink and green? Girls who’ve cried with you and been there for you since childhood?” The heat of her anger rolled toward me like solar flares.
But her hotness had only made me icy. I opened the door and squinted at her. “You chose between me and your job when your boss told you to give the story to that fucker out there.”
“So you are choosing, then. You don’t care—”
“About who? You? Black people? Now I’m not down enough cuz you fucked me over?”
Syeeda crossed her arms and canted her head.
I squinted at her. “And when was the last time you visited the Jungle?”
She opened her mouth to respond. No words. She reached for the coffee mug and brought it to her lips. But she didn’t drink.
I nodded, then said, “Thanks, pal.”
50
It was fifteen past three, and Lena and I sat at an outside patio table beneath one of Airport Radisson’s heating lamps. Every five minutes, jets just a few feet aboveground roared over us, rattling our drink glasses and the tray of chips and spinach dip. Lena’s orange Birkin bag and my battered messenger bag sat in the chair Syeeda would have occupied. At the bar inside, men of many colors all glowed TV-mosaic purples, whites, and reds. Every face was glued to flat-screen televisions and to college kids hustling up and down a basketball court.
Lena pushed her phone in my direction.
“I’m not calling,” I said. “I have nothing to say to her right now. She basically called me a sellout.”
Lena gave me a raspberry.
I had three hours to myself before meeting Colin back at the station. And I had chosen to use that time to close circles and trim dead-ends in my personal life. Call it a psychological “control burn” of overgrown trees and brush that kept me stooped and weak.
Lena shivered. “Oh my lord, it’s so effin’ cold.” She wore silver short-shorts and an artfully ripped Hello Kitty sweatshirt.
“Maybe you should wear clothes in the winter,” I said, eyebrow arched.
“Maybe I should cut out my gallbladder with a rusty melon baller first. And it’s spring now, so—” She gave me another raspberry. Then s
he picked up the phone and waggled it.
I sipped my tonic water. “Stop it or I’m gonna throw your new phone into the pool.”
“Ugh. I hate when you two put me in the middle. And I’m glad I don’t have to worry about ‘keepin’ it real.’ I was always surrounded by Oreos.”
“You’re the Oreo queen.”
“Didn’t even know a Crip until I dated what’s his face. The hot one with the tats and the cornrows. That summer was like, education abroad or … ecotourism.”
I glanced at my watch.
“Almost time?” she asked.
I nibbled on the lime wedge. “Uh huh.”
“So have you and Sam … canoodled yet?” she asked. “Or is he now in the discard pile like his predecessors?”
“We had an argument last night. His ex-wife answered his phone. He claims that nothing’s happening. I don’t feel like believing him right now. We’re … too soon anyway.”
She plucked a green olive from her dirty martini. “You never get past two weeks cuz everything’s too soon. Is that Dr. Zach guy the next sucker on the sampler platter?”
My face flushed. “No.”
“You went out with him.”
“Not true.” I reached for another tortilla chip. “We happened to be at the same place at the same time. I may be a blue-collared cop, but iced tea and a soggy panini will never count as a date in my eyes.”
“And the flowers he sent?”
I shrugged, then ate the tortilla chip.
“Why are you having such a difficult time with this?” She leaned forward and whispered, “Is it because he’s not black?”
My head fell back and I stared at the sky. “Oh my—”
“You have to get over that,” Lena said. “Open your mind. And then … open your legs.”
I looked at her. “His color, whatever the hell he is, does not bother me. And I’m not ready to open my legs for anyone right now.” I paused, then added, “I don’t think.”
Lena was staring at me. “Sam and his ex—”
“Worries me. I don’t think she’s over him, which … When she answered his phone … I just … They were married fifteen years, so I get it. I won’t come first in his life, so why try?”
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