Because he’d gotten his wish. His dream job on the force. The academy was a breeze, but then foot patrol was boring. Mostly mindless shit like patrolling the Fashion District for purse snatchers or busting hookers over on Broadway Street. When he’d finally been assigned a cruiser and a regular shift in South Central, there was enough action to keep his mind busy. But only for a while. Before long he’d go back to the memories of Ortega and the rest of the platoon, half of them dead now, and of their translator, Waheeb, kidnapped during the ambush and dragged away by the enemy to . . .
To nowhere.
Because they never found his body, did they?
Stop it. Change the channel.
The concept was simple. It even worked, most of the time, when you fooled yourself into thinking it did. But it didn’t work, not really. Because the brain was the ultimate DVR. It could store what it recorded and simply wait until you were too weak not to watch. Then, sort of like pain pornography, you couldn’t look away.
“Here we are,” Campos said, snapping Parker out of it as they pulled over at the curb.
Piper’s was a four-bay auto shop at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Rampart Street, meant more for tricking rides out than for spark plug changes or tune-ups. Two of the bays were currently occupied, one by a white and yellow Lexus that was having a wide-head muffler installed, and the other by a midnight blue Toyota that was lowered over wheels that were almost all rim, with only razor thin treads. A couple of tattooed Hispanic men were working on the Lexus, one of them pointing something out on the undercarriage to the other, while a heavyset Asian guy with a long goatee was looking at the left rear tire of the Toyota.
There was a beautiful candy-red El Camino parked in the tiny parking lot in front, and an older Buick painted brown with a fat racing stripe splitting the hood and rooftop parked next to it. There was no purple Honda anywhere around.
“Well. We tried,” Parker said flatly.
“Yeah. But we both knew it was a long shot, twice over,” Campos replied.
“Thing is . . . we need a place of residence to start from.”
“And Eric says he’s a nomad.”
Campos shook his head. “For all we know he’s on another job, driving through Fresno right now.”
“What else we got to work with?”
“It’s too early yet . . . but there’s always this Toolie girl to lean on later if we can’t track down this Tic Toc guy.”
“And this Jin guy,” Parker said.
“When he gets back from running his errand.”
“What about Hymie’s cousin, Hector?”
“Yep. In due time. We need to get all the parties straight before we move on him.”
“Okay,” Parker said with a nod.
Campos was squinting into the distance. “We save Mondo for last, because if he’s made it that high up in the gang he’ll know to lawyer up the minute we get near him.”
“Jin won’t?”
“Maybe not. But here’s the thing to remember, Parker: anyone besides top man on the totem pole?”
“Yeah?”
“Ain’t usually willing to get chopped down with the totem pole.”
“He’s dating Mondo’s sister though, right?”
“That may make him a bit more loyal. But we got a few high aces in our hand.”
“Yeah?”
Campos smiled nonchalantly. “Damn straight. A million a year through that liquor store? If we prove that was going down and this Jin dude was in on it? He’d never be seeing Mondo’s sister ever again anyway, so why wouldn’t he roll over?”
Parker nodded. “Okay. But what now?”
“It’s 11:50. Be close to 12:15 by the time we get there, but let’s go grab lunch at Philippe’s—I’m dying for a dip—and then head back to the station. See what we can dig up ourselves while we’re waiting on the GU to give us something.”
“Okay. Sounds good to me.”
And it actually did. Philippe’s, located a couple of miles from the station house, at the corner of Alameda Avenue and Ord Street, was a mainstay of LA history. It had been serving up the best French dip sandwiches in the area since 1908, bar none. Parker never passed on a giant pickle, either, to help offset the bite of the spicy mustard. It was a small thing, but on a “be careful” day you had to take advantage of whatever little happiness you could get. He’d have to hit up the treadmill an extra twenty minutes at the gym later for this, but it was worth it.
On the drive over, Parker was entertained by Campos’ attempts to strike up a conversation with a sharply dressed woman standing on the corner across from the LA Main Court House. The briefcase was the first hint that she was probably an attorney. The disdainful look she gave Campos’ aggressive attempts at getting her phone number was probably the second. Parker shook his head as she wasted no time hitting the crosswalk the second the light turned green.
“You ever stop, man?”
The Muttley chuckle followed as Campos made his turn. “Why man? Shoot. Life is so boring without women, Parker.”
“Yeah. But. I mean. Do you always gotta slam dance like that?”
“Gotta . . . what?”
Parker laughed. Another blow against his creeping depression. “Never mind.”
“C’mon. She was hot. I haddatry.”
“Lotta good it did you too.”
“Really? I think she liked me, man,” Campos said with a big grin.
“Uh-huh.”
Before long the blue and white sign of Philippe’s was before them, making Parker’s belly rumble. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad day after all.
Chapter Eight
Father Soltera forced himself to stop thinking about Gabriella, slowly and deliberately. He let the pain pass through him like a river, wide and powerful, praying his way through the deeper waters and stronger currents. His Lord would never forsake him. Father Soltera knew this, to his core, and it was with the rope of this belief that he pulled himself back to shore again, hand over hand, back to the house of God that he served, and the many people who came to him each day for help.
He pulled himself back for all of them, but mostly he pulled himself back for Luisa. She came to his mind with such clarity that it was as if her name had been placed there by an invisible hand.
Luisa was in danger. The boy who’d impregnated her even more so.
The creature—
Father Soltera blinked. Creature? What an odd thought.
The man who had confronted him at the market, Guero Martinez, Luisa’s uncle, was going to hurt them both for some reason. Father Soltera’s fears for the boy made sense, in this case, but why would Guero hurt Luisa? She was his niece.
Suddenly, a voice whispered to him out of thin air.
“Because of family honor? No. Because of reputation. Guero’s reputation. And worse?”
Startled, Father Soltera at first thought he was still asleep. But no. He was awake. He was sure of it. When he spoke, his voice was raspy. “Who is it? Who’s there?”
“That’s not important.” The voice was male and echoed off the walls.
Sitting up, Father Soltera wiped at the dried tears around his eyes, which had left behind tight patches of film like bits of Saran wrap. He looked around the room to verify that he was alone. What’s happening? This is crazy! But after thinking for a moment, he couldn’t help himself. “What do you mean by ‘worse?’”
“Guero is pure evil, Father. He has killed and maimed, yes, but he is also a destroyer of hearts and hope. Many before Luisa have fallen prey to his desires and many more will fall after her, if we don’t stop him.”
“You mean . . . ?”
“Yes. He was saving Luisa for himself, when the time was right. He’s angry because the boy she slept with has ruined that now.”
“What? Merciful Lord.”
“We’ve got to stop him, Father. You and I, together.”
Bewildered, Father Soltera sat up on the edge of the bed. “Who are you?” Then, he tremble
d at the thought that came to him next before he formed the words to ask. “Are you an angel of God?”
There was no delay in the reply, but it was so pregnant with potential to change his entire life that it still felt like a century before the answer came. “Never mind all that. Focus. On Luisa.”
Then a wave of pressurized air moved through the room, ruffling the pages of his sermon notebook on his nightstand and knocking over an empty plastic cup next to it. Father Soltera could tell that whoever the voice had belonged to was gone.
He went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face and over his temples to refresh his senses. Dabbing a hand towel over his chin and forehead, he walked to his desk and conferenced Carol, who answered on the first ring. “Yes, Father?”
“Carol, could you please get me the home number for Luisa’s family? The name is—”
“Martinez, right?”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“Give me a second and I’ll find it.”
“Thank you.”
He hung up, went back to the bathroom and was combing his hair when again he had an overwhelming urge to find Luisa.
Once back at his desk he signed a few letters that needed to go out and checked his emails. The leader of the local grade school PTA had written him asking if he could intercede on behalf of the community, as a seventh grader had been caught with a packet of ecstasy pills she was passing out free to fellow students, to hook them, calling them “Magic Pez” in the process.
Ten Catholic churches in East LA, and they were still barely enough to make a dent in the sin and evil that roamed the streets and tried creeping into every house each day. How many children would he see lost to drugs? How many more to the gangs? He shook his head in disillusionment. Maybe someday it would all get better, but right now it was only getting worse.
His phone intercom beeped. “Father?”
“Yes, Carol?”
“Here’s the number.”
He jotted it down and then dialed the number. It rang and rang, but no one picked up. The voice mail clicked over but did not engage. That was typical for this neighborhood. The bill collectors were like jackals and no one wanted to hear messages from them three times a day for a couch or DirecTV premium package that they never should’ve gotten in the first place. Which was easy to say when you weren’t the one who had to listen to your kid’s frustration at not being able to watch the same cartoons as their friends, or watch them lay on the dirty carpet in the living room to do their homework instead of on a couch like a normal person.
The same feeling came over him. Luisa. Danger. Something was wrong and he had to act.
Putting his jacket back on, he grabbed a brown fedora, figuring the chill outside would be worse with the wetness of his hair, and made his way out of the office.
“My, my,” Carol said, “aren’t we on the move today. Where to now?”
She was a petite woman in her mid-fifties, her black hair dyed and cut in a bob. Her retro cat-eye glasses were hanging from a chain on her neck and her dark eyes were studying him curiously.
“Hopefully the Martinez home. We have their address?”
Carol’s face darkened. “I think so,” she said as she typed at her computer. “Is something wrong?”
Father Soltera shook his head. “I hope not.”
She wrote down the address and handed it to him. “It’s a couple of miles from here. Do you want a ride?”
He was pondering this thought when he glanced down at her lunch, which was spread across her desk.
“Mom’s Tamales?” he asked.
She smiled. “Yes. My son just came by with my lunch. And yes, I told him to get you one too. Pollo con queso.”
“God bless you. Truly a woman of God,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll take the tamale but pass on the ride. Thanks. I’ll be fine.”
She handed him the delicately wrapped treasure, the white paper steamed tight to the corn husk around the masa and chicken, a dab of cheese poking out the top and calling to his taste buds.
He was out the side door and down the steps again at a measured pace, his right leg cramping up a bit on him unannounced, reminding him of his age. He half-limped a full block until he chased the cramp away, nibbling on his tamale and making his way west on Fourth Street.
The air had indeed grown cooler, and it now had the slightly metallic flavor of rain to it that he’d learned to sense in Michigan; before the snowy season came, all you could taste for months was ice crystals.
The streets around him were a far cry from those streets outside of Ann Arbor, which had been wooded on either side with towering pines and maples. These streets were covered in trash and carved in poverty. He marveled at the alternating languages of graffiti spread across brick walls and the sides of buildings here or there, one tagger or another asserting dominance and affiliation over identity and artistic merit. What, he wondered, could these kids do, what could they express, if they were only given the proper canvas?
He was telling himself to note this idea when he tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and almost fell.
Cursing himself for being a clumsy old man, he righted himself, happy that he hadn’t dropped what was left of his tamale as he turned the corner on Soto and headed north. Carol was right. It was a bit of a walk. About two miles, each way. A bit too much for him these days. But it might help him sleep tonight, and he wanted that more than anything.
He finished his tamale and threw the wrapper in the nearly overflowing trash bin near a bus stop before he finally made it to Sheridan Street. Taking the piece of paper out of his jacket pocket that Carol had neatly folded for him, he checked the address: 2212. It was up the street, a blue apartment complex with overgrown hedges. It was just after one o’clock and the kindergartners from the school across the street were getting picked up, filling the chilly air with the warmth of giggling children.
His legs felt weak as he made his way up the stairs to the entrance of the apartment complex. Old brass mailboxes were on either side of the double glass doors, one of which was propped open with a wooden wedge. Inside a man was painting the railings that led up to the manager’s office. As Father Soltera made his way through the doors without bothering to try and buzz up to anyone, the man simply looked up and nodded. No one questioned a priest.
Looking again at the slip of paper, he was happy to see that the Martinez family lived on the first floor, in apartment 177. He didn’t think his legs could handle another set of stairs. It was all the damn meds he was taking now. He was firmly convinced they did equal measure harm as they did good to his body.
Unfortunately, the unit was all the way at the back of the complex. Sighing, Father Soltera pushed on and a few minutes later he was glad that he did.
There, standing out in front of the door to her apartment, was Luisa, crying and wiping her eyes, frustration smothering her face as she talked with a boy who looked to be older than her. His body posture was all wrong and he was shaking his clenched fist in her face.
He’d been right. Luisa was in danger. Father Soltera didn’t know what he was going to do, but he was going to do something. This time, he had to. Because the last time he’d done nothing?
A child had died.
Hector felt hazy. It’d been months since the last time he’d had any alcohol, and somewhere after the sixth beer and the third shot of tequila his brain had turned to mush and his eyes had grown heavy. Slowly, he wandered away from the group and found a dirty couch in the corner of the shop that the body shop guys crashed on during busy weekends, when they would “strip and flip” nearly two dozen cars.
As he lay down, he felt utter relief at finally being out of jail mixed with sorrow at his discovery of Marisol’s infidelities. And that was topped with the weight of now having to stoke the rage within him to settle the score and save face.
He was tired of living on the edge. In prison, it was a required state of existence. But out on the street it wasn’t much different. Inside, th
e edge was blunted. Out here it was like a razor. You couldn’t relax. Like, ever. He wondered at the last time he had any peace and concluded that it was sometime between the age of ten and eleven. After that, “the life” took hold and the transition between his blood family and gang family began.
But the whole “gang family” thing was a lie. He’d figured that out quickly. The truth was, even now, right this second, one of the Vatos in his crew who was yucking it up and having a beer outside “celebrating” Hector’s freedom was also probably waiting for his chance to usurp power and push Hector aside. Nacho and Burro, two of the highest earners on the street, were names that immediately came to mind. Like vultures, they were circling, waiting for any sign of weakness. The fact that Hector had so much of the crew still loyal to him was all that was holding them at bay. No. He was lying to himself, and the tequila would have none of it: the rest were loyal to him only because they were afraid of him.
But that would all change if Hector let another man bang his girl and get away with it, plain and simple. Bennie and Chico may have wanted him to chill out, but that was only because they were the most loyal to him and too stupid to know that they, themselves, would slowly start disrespecting him too. Slowly. Subconsciously. Hector thought again of Lord of the Flies and pictured Piggy with that stupid conch. Whoever held it had the power.
Until someone bashed his brains in and took it away.
His ear was itchy so he scratched at it and kicked off his shoes. He needed to sleep, to go to the only place the world wasn’t a festering mess with a cherry on top. His eyes closed and then opened to that world inside him, the place where he could be anything he wanted. In his dreams, he wore nice clothes and drew engineering plans for rockets at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Sometimes his dreams would turn to memories, as they did this time, showing him the day he and Marisol had made love all day in her house when her mom had gone to San Diego. It had been a sunny day, and her hair had mingled, like black fingers, in the sunbeams that pierced their way through the curtain of her bedroom window. Everything was slow motion bliss; the loving, the hoping, her hair combing over his chest as they raced to those few seconds where their souls could touch.
The Parker Trilogy Page 8