by Joe Ide
Chip lowered the window and drove around the neighborhood. The car ran perfectly. The stereo was new. He came to a traffic light and stopped. He smiled big and patted the dashboard like it was a puppy. The light turned green and he drove off again. This is great, he thought. When he ran away from home, he wouldn’t have to take the bus.
Sal and Annie were home now and amazingly, things were better. Annie was still doing her Martha Stewart thing but the nagging had all but disappeared. They had sex and Annie squealed and thrashed and grabbed Sal’s hair just like the old days. It was worth giving up Angus’s payoff. Sal smelled dinner and it wasn’t meat loaf.
Annie came in. “Oh, my sweet baby,” she cooed. “You’re so beautiful, aren’t you? Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” Sal didn’t like it. It was unsanitary but Annie held the dog up and kissed it on the lips. Sal thought, this is our life.
This is our fucking life.
After the craziness at the warehouse, Grace went back to Cherokee’s apartment to get rid of the shakes, dig that bottle of Grey Goose out of the freezer and get away from Isaiah. They’d seen a little too much of each other in the last forty-eight hours. She’d gone through harrowing times with him but this felt different. This time she was with the man she loved, the man she wanted to be with forever.
It struck her again that what they’d gone through wasn’t an anomaly. This was Isaiah’s life and she would be part of it. Part of the danger and terror and life-threatening situations. True, she didn’t have to participate in his cases but what if things like this came up again—and they would come up again—what would she do? Turn him down when he said he needed help? Do nothing if she saw him get kidnapped? What would she do if Isaiah came home and told her there were another three dead and many wounded? How could her artist’s life compete with all of that?
She thought about the good things. He was, after all, Isaiah. A man among assholes. The sweetest, smartest, truest person she’d ever met. If she left him, she’d deprive herself of a love that would never, ever happen again. She was certain of that. She wished she was with Ruffin or TK, the only two males she knew who wouldn’t upset her. She would talk things over with Cherokee when she got home, or maybe become a lesbian like her and abandon men altogether. It didn’t seem like a bad idea. But she loved Isaiah, and it felt good. It felt right. “What are you going to do, Grace?” she said aloud, and she replied, “I don’t know, Grace. I really don’t.”
Isaiah was glad to be alone. Every minute Grace spent with him was like punishing her for being his girlfriend, and the more intimate they became, the more his faults were revealed and the worse he felt about himself. He was stupidly obsessive. Anytime anything triggered his curiosity, he was off and running. He had to find out what was really going on, even if arriving at the answer was costly and unnecessary. This flaw in his personality had never been so obvious before. You never know what you’re really like until someone is watching you. Sizing you up. Loving you. Grace reflected his weaknesses and that was the scariest part. Seeing who you really were.
Maybe the invitation to live with him had been premature. Maybe he should step back, get some perspective, be the adult in the room. That thought lasted all of three seconds. He didn’t want to step back, he didn’t want perspective, and the whole adult thing was up in the air. What he wanted was Grace. People said you don’t choose who you love. Bullshit. You do choose, but you have to fix the problems you cause and understand yourself better so you don’t create them in the first place. Sadly, the caveat was that you had to know how. He wished he had a dog. Not Ruffin necessarily. A dog who liked him would be enough.
His joints ached and his bruises hurt. He took a handful of Tylenol but didn’t get in bed because he didn’t want to look at Grace’s painting. Even in the dark he could see it. He couldn’t sit on the back stoop and drink a beer either. It felt wrong without her there. He had his beer lying back in the easy chair. He put on some Thelonious Monk and tried to relax.
But he didn’t. Instead, he thought about the alters locked up in a cell, dumbfounded as they appeared, vanished and reappeared, their collective lives an endless retribution for being abused. Monk’s number ended and in those seconds before the next song began, he felt it again. No, not now. Please, Isaiah. Didn’t we just talk about this?
He’d missed something.
“Who cares?” he shouted at the ceiling. Whatever he’d overlooked wouldn’t affect anything now. Any more effort was pathetic and futile. Was he really a slave to his obsession? Take control. How weak are you? He breathed deeply, felt calmer and more sure of himself. That moment lasted seven seconds. A new record. He sat up. What is it now, Isaiah? Frames again. Fast. No spaces in between.
Gia talking to him about her marriage. The faint scar on Angus’s head. Jasper reacting vehemently to the azalea bushes. Bertrand agitated about the song “Maybellene.” Angie sending Grace away at the Palladium. The alters, trashing the condo. Angus screaming, “I didn’t do anything!”
Angus’s white scar was on his right temple, close to his eye, the same place Gia said she was hit with an ashtray on Christmas day. Angus didn’t throw it, she did. Gia’s favorite color was lavender, the color she dressed little Christiana in. The same color as the azaleas that repulsed Jasper. Angie rebuffed Grace because she didn’t like women. Women like her mother. In one of Christiana’s photos, a framed poster of Chuck Berry was in the background. One of his hits was “Maybellene.” The alters weren’t just messy, they deliberately destroyed the condo to punish Gia and keep her running ragged. When she told Isaiah about their marriage, she tried to make herself the victim and Angus the guilty one. When Angus screamed he didn’t do anything, he wasn’t proclaiming innocence. He meant he’d stood by. He’d known but did nothing. Gia committed the horrors. Gia was the torturer.
Isaiah put a narrative together. It was always a precarious thing to do but he had confidence in himself. He’d been doing it a long time. Gia knew about the elopement. How could she not? She hovered over Christiana’s every move. She was terrified Tyler was taking her daughter away and she’d have no way to assuage her guilt. No salve, no relief, no redemption, in hell until the day she went to hell. She hired the killers. She was Angus’s bookkeeper and had access to his files, phone calls and contacts. She knew his secret codes. When she talked to the killers she said she was Angus’s daughter. Maybe she saw an email or overheard a conversation but she knew the elopement would happen soon. She told the killers it was urgent but Tyler was an ex-marine, armed and wary. Getting him alone and vulnerable was tough. Gia was afraid the elopement could happen at any time and grew desperate. She knew about the appointment with Tyler after hours. She told the killers to do it there. Tyler would be relaxed and it’s hard to try on a suit when you’re wearing a gun. If Christiana was a witness all the better. She’d see for herself that Tyler was gone and the shock would make her more dependent on her mother. Gia left the logistics to the killers. They were professionals, the details were in their hands. She had no way of knowing Christiana would become a suspect. It must have been horrifying, her plan backfiring, causing the opposite of what she wanted. She appeared helpless because she was helpless. She didn’t know what to do. She could give up the killers but even if they could be found, they would turn on her and she’d go to prison, locked away from Christiana for the rest of her life, as distant as if Christiana had eloped to Fiji. Isaiah was making a lot of conjecturing, but if he was off, it wasn’t by much. He was IQ and of that, he was proud.
Gia didn’t answer her phone. Isaiah found her in the shop, tidying things up as if tomorrow would be just another day.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
She seemed to lose awareness of him. She put away a roll of fabric, turned off the sewing machine, inspected an unfinished sport coat and laid it carefully on the cutting table. Then she turned and walked away.
It was dusk at the LA Zoo. The parking lot
was nearly empty, car doors were closing, people walking slowly out of the entrance, lines of children waiting to board their school buses. Gloria hadn’t been here for a long time, and other than the smell of alfalfa and manure she had no memories of her previous experience. She and TK hadn’t talked on the drive over. He’d been quiet and remote. She’d wanted to say something but felt so terrible she didn’t dare. Thomas had been right about Josiah. Her ex was a bum and a liar and a number of other things as well. But when he’d left her for that barmaid, he’d taken more than their marriage. He’d taken a life lived. He’d taken every loving moment and declared it a lie.
Gloria and TK moved toward the entrance and went through the turnstile. TK had some sort of membership and they didn’t have to pay. He was carrying a small suitcase, nearly square, something that might hold an old-fashioned typewriter. He didn’t say what was in it and she didn’t ask. They took a tram up the wide cement road, not much to see, the animal enclosures behind the shrubbery. They got off and walked a short distance to the aviary, circus tents of netting, tall and wide enough for a bird in flight to feel a few seconds of freedom.
“There’s somebody here I have to see,” he said. A path led through a manicured rain forest and the damp smell of earth and moss and climbing vines, a stream meandering alongside. Birds with riotous colors and unusual profiles flew and glided and stalked in long steps through the foliage.
“Here,” TK said.
They sat on a bench. The path had ascended and they could see over an expanse of forest. They heard cheeps, clicks, chitters and calls, an incantation, mystical and rhythmic, a dozen alien languages spoken at once.
“We have to wait till he recognizes me,” TK said.
She wondered who he was talking about. Did he know the ornithologist? Why did he have to be recognized? Was someone watching them? She looked at him and thought she’d never seen a man so content and peaceful as TK sitting there basking in the greening light. She saw something else too. Relief. His eyes, tired of straight lines and right angles, resting now on the curves and patterns of God’s fertile earth.
The little red bird appeared so suddenly, it surprised her. “Oh!” she said. It perched on the railing that followed the path.
“Hello, Red,” TK said. “It’s been a while.” He found some birdseed in his pocket and held it out in a cupped palm. She was sure it was against the rules. The vice principal in her almost spoke but didn’t.
The bird tipped its head back and forth, its shiny black eyes wary and curious. TK’s calloused hand was as steady as the railing. Red flitted over and rested on TK’s thumb. The tiny thing was breathtaking. The color was glorious, the feathers so well fitted they formed one sleek surface. The beak was yellow and perfect, the bird’s movements so precise they could have been digitized. When Red flew away, it felt like a friend had left on a long trip.
Gloria and TK left the aviary and went into an enclosure area. TK walked fast, taking none of the side paths to the animals. They heard a lion roar, magnificent and plaintive. They arrived at the elephant compound. It was surprisingly large, several acres at least. An elephant was standing under a tumbling waterfall, showering before supper.
“That’s Billy,” TK said. “Been here for twenty-five, thirty years. Stood around in a dirt corral until they built this place. A damn shame is what it was.”
They walked around the perimeter of the compound. There were trails and pools and rock formations, shady places under big trees. “In the wild, an elephant stays where the food is,” TK said, “so the zoo people got smart. They put the food everywhere; they even hide some of it. If the elephants want to eat, they gotta go find it, move around, get some exercise.”
They stopped at a viewing section. A wooden rail held back the onlookers. A few feet farther on was a fence made of thick strands of wire, set apart so the view was nearly unobstructed. Two elephants were lounging in a pool some distance away.
“Tina and Jewel,” TK said. “They’ve lived together for over thirty years.”
They were magnificent, ancient and wise and stoic. They should be wandering the veld, Gloria thought, but now they’re here so people can see them before they vanish from the world forever.
She hadn’t noticed TK opening the little suitcase. It held a concertina, a Cajun accordion. “TK?” she said.
He didn’t answer and slipped the straps over his shoulders. It was a complicated thing made of varnished wood. There was a tiny keyboard and dozens of other knobs and buttons, their functions unfathomable. TK squeezed and separated the bellows, playing a few random chords. There was nothing like the sound of an accordion. Multiple chords at multiple registers, whining and groaning, an infant church organ. TK began to play a zydeco song, one of those meo mio irresistible toe-tappers that made you want to go dancing in the Big Easy and eat a crawfish pie. People turned to watch and listen and smile. It was wonderful, this unabashedly joyful music in such an unexpected place.
Gloria glanced at Tina and Jewel. They were lumbering straight toward them. “Goodness,” she said.
The elephants were unmistakably drawn by the music. There was an urgency about them, like they were late for the concert. They arrived at the wire fence and stood shoulder-to-shoulder. And then, miraculously, they danced. There was nothing else to call it. Swaying back and forth and back and forth, their trunks swinging and reaching and weaving in the air, the crowd was as delighted as it was mesmerized.
TK was playing with a grin as wide as the sky, and Gloria realized he had introduced himself. His gentleness, his peace, his enjoyment of life. No, she’d never ever seen an elephant dance, and she’d never met a man like Thomas Marion Kahill.
The waiter didn’t bother bringing Angus a menu. He hadn’t ordered anything but a Reuben sandwich in fifteen years. He’d read the article in the Telegram. Lately, he’d been taking more interest in the news. All charges against Christiana Byrne for the murder of Tyler Barnes had been dropped. Gia had turned herself in. He should have been locked up with her, in adjacent cells where they could look at each other and wonder how they could have ever been so evil.
Christiana had been released. She was probably holed up at the condo. He’d called her twenty times but she didn’t pick up. He fretted, worried. She was probably zonked out on meds. Yes, she was out of jail, but in truth, she would never be free and neither would he. The little girl in the lavender dress hanging from a closet bar would always be there, staring at him through strands of filthy hair, hating him and haunting them both forever.
After the fiasco at the warehouse, the area was flooded by cops. A few of the extra stupid morons had decided to get drunk and hang out at the Den until they were arrested. Angus had dutifully bailed them out as part of their pact. He got them decent lawyers and promised to give them a big bonus if they kept their mouths shut. They wouldn’t, of course. They would find the DA on vacation in the Bahamas to give up their boss. Angus’s lawyers told him in that noncommittal, boilerplate way they have that there was reason to be cautiously optimistic. There were no incriminating documents, bank records, tapes or photos. Angus had used a burner to make his criminal phone calls. He had no bankruptcies, lawsuits or indictments. He’d never been arrested and for all intents and purposes was a legitimate businessman. Bottom line, the lawyers said, it would be his word against a bunch of ex-convict skinhead assholes. Angus liked his odds.
The Reuben arrived and he took his first humongous bite. He moaned. Fuck, it was good. Just the right combination of carbohydrates and grease with that perfect zing of sauerkraut. It was his only pleasure now, the only thing that kept his mind off his guilt and the blazing need for revenge. That son of a bitch Isaiah had not only double-crossed him, but that devious bitch of his had spun him like a top. Angus had plans for them. He’d been hateful before but now that’s all there was; all that was keeping him alive. Isaiah and his girl would never be safe. Never. And neither would the violin player. After he was through with her she wouldn’t be able to whistle.
Last night, he’d dreamed of Isaiah, sprawled on the sidewalk, a pool of red expanding around him as if the sky had rained blood. That day would come. The two fucking killers had never returned with Weiner and never got their payoff. Angus wished they had, he’d have paid them gladly. He missed Weiner desperately. He ached for his little pal. Getting another dog seemed wrong. Sacrilege.
The front door of the restaurant opened and two guys came in. Angus glanced at them and went back to his food. He was chewing another mouthful of corned beef when he realized the men were dark-skinned Asians with flat noses. One of them was Ponlok.
“Hello, Angus,” Lok said.
Angus set the sandwich down and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Look, this war has gone on long enough,” he said. “There’s enough business for the both of us. Sit down and have something to eat. The Reuben is great.”
“You sent Isaiah to steal the Gatling gun,” Lok said.
“No, I didn’t,” Angus scoffed. “I would have if I could, but how would I know where you were keeping it?”
“That’s why you sent Isaiah. That motherfucker can find anything.”
“I didn’t send him,” Angus said adamantly. “I wanted to kill him. He brought you guys in to steal the goddamn gun from me.”
Lok sat down across from Angus and set his pistol next to the jar of hot mustard. “Then tell me something,” Lok said. “Why did Isaiah risk his life and bring the cops down on my mother’s house if you didn’t send him?”
“Because he thinks he’s a hero, that’s why,” Angus replied. “He didn’t want Sinaloa to have the gun and I don’t know why you’re complaining in the first place. You got my million dollars, didn’t you? Are you gonna give it back?”
Lok considered that a moment and nodded. “Yeah, I can see Isaiah doing that. I’ll spend your money wisely, Angus. You take care.” Lok and his friend left.