“Emily, get up!” Lydia had returned when she heard the commotion. “T. Bob, you come along too. He’s just a foolish old man, Officer. You’d be embarrassed if you arrested him.”
The officer looked embarrassed.
“I can’t leave without Miz Dimitra,” said T. Bob, looking around. “My lord, she’s done disappeared.”
Lieutenant Kurtz, who hadn’t been there to see Emily’s spectacular collapse or T. Bob’s gallant rescue, was in front of headquarters. “You folks are blocking access to a public building,” he shouted through a bullhorn. “Move along.” No one moved. Kurtz then chose Gus McGlenlevie as the worst flake in the bunch. If his men had to haul this guy off, it would look a lot better on television than taking the man in the suit and tie. He approached Gus.
“I am a renowned poet, Officer,” said McGlenlevie loudly. “Angus McGlenlevie, author of Erotica in Reeboks, author of Rapture on the Rapids, which will be in your local bookstores in time for Christmas gift-giving, Mile-High Press, nineteen ninety-five. Did you get that?” he asked a newspaper reporter scribbling beside him. Then he smiled and bowed with a flourish to the cameras from Channel 9.
Glancing uneasily at the TV cameras out of the corner of his eye, Lieutenant Kurtz turned to Donald Mallory, who looked as if he might be more amenable to a warning from a representative of law, order, and traffic control. “Sir, we would appreciate your vacating the premises. On pain of arrest, I ask you—”
Mallory stared down his nose loftily. “I am a professor of Renaissance and Jacobean poetry, sir, and your detectives are unfairly harassing a member of our staff and a talented poet.” Mallory had raised his voice to auditorium volume. The TV people had to adjust their sound levels.
“And a gay,” cried Orion Massine, rushing in from the public parking lot.
“And a Los Santos bicycle racer,” said Hoke Mitchell, who had broken ranks on the street and bicycled up to the steps of Police Headquarters, skidding to a dramatic stop, displaying his Los Santos Cycle Racers T-shirt for the cameras.
“Lance Potemkin wouldn’t kill a soul, much less his abominable father,” said Orion to the reporter.
How the hell did Captain de la Rosa always manage to leave town when there was a problem? Kurtz wondered.
“And Los Santos will miss the acclaim when Lance wins the bicycle race on the High Road to Taos,” warned Hoke Mitchell. He had collared a Channel 7 reporter. “The police have stolen his bicycle and refused to let him leave town.”
Lieutenant Kurtz had no idea what they were talking about. Where the hell was Community Relations when he needed them? “Mosson!” he yelled through the door.
“I’m Lance’s mother,” cried Dimitra. “He didn’t kill Boris.” One of the traffic patrolmen had made the mistake of escorting Dimitra in her walker around to the front of the building. “Boris was struck down by God for his sins and his nasty disposition,” said Dimitra to a Herald Post reporter, “and T. Bob Tyler was just trying to rescue Emily Marks. No matter what you people say, he’s not a brawler.”
Because of all the media people grouped around Dimitra, Sergeant Manny Escobedo, who had been sent out to represent the C.A.P. case against Lance Potemkin, couldn’t get through the crowd. Sergeant Mosson of Community Relations tried to call Chief Gaitan, but the chief, according to his secretary, was giving a speech to the Rotarians on the department’s plans to move operations out to area divisions in order to increase contact with the citizens of Los Santos. “Community-based law enforcement,” Chief Gaitan called it, but Mosson didn’t think this kind of interaction with the citizens was what the chief had in mind.
18
Friday, October 1, 4:30 P.M.
Elena spent two hours canvassing the pawnbrokers with a description of the czar’s medal. At her last stop on Alameda, Jesus Bonilla said, “Don’t sound like much. What would I want with it?”
“Historical stuff sells for thousands if you have the right buyer,” she replied.
“So if I had it, I wouldn’t be tellin’ you, would I?” Jesus had a pawnshop cum fencing operation and a smart mouth.
“Gee, that’s too bad, Jesus,” said Elena, leaning her elbow on a glass case displaying handguns with nicked grips and unoiled barrels. “We’re watching this one real close. If we find that the medal’s passed through your hands—”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re gonna drag me straight down to headquarters for questioning.”
“No, we’re gonna arrest you as an accessory to murder.”
Jesus bit down so hard on his cigarillo that it broke and dropped sparks on his leather vest. Ten years earlier, he had been a member of the Scorpions and had barely beaten a murder rap after spending a year in the Los Santos County Jail.
“Hey,” he said, grinding the cigarillo into the grimy floor with a booted heel. “You got no call to hassle me. I ain’t seen the thing.”
“That’s not exactly what you said, Jesus. I took your answer to mean, ‘I wouldn’t tell you if I had.’”
“Well, I ain’t seen it. Swear on my mother’s soul.”
“Your mother’s dead.”
“So she’s a soul in heaven. All the better. Listen, I got a kid now. See ‘im? Jesus, Jr.”
Elena glanced down the aisle and didn’t see any kid. “Jesus, Jr., seems to have skipped town.”
“Madre de Dios!” exclaimed Jesus, Sr., and clacked off in his high-heeled cowboy boots. She could hear him in the back room yelling, “Hey, malcríado, fingers outa that cartridge box.”
He returned carrying on his bony hip a pretty child with smooth brown cheeks, which by the time he reached maturity, if he reached maturity, would probably be pocked with acne scars like his father’s.
“If that medal comes into your hands,” said Elena, “if you even hear about it, you call me. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Jesus, scowling at her in such a way that she could see in the man the boy who had once been the terror of the barrios and then moved on to prey on the young cholos who used him as a fence.
“You got no solidarity with la raza,” said Jesus.
“My people,” said Elena, “are on my side of the law. You ought to try it.”
“I ought to starve too,” said Jesus, but too softly to be quoted.
It was 4:45, and Jesus was her last stop. More overtime coming on her paycheck, and nothing to show for her day’s work except the elimination of Omar Ashkenazi as a suspect. Her police radio stuttered to life with a warning that headquarters at Five Points was inaccessible due to traffic gridlock. Astonished, Elena headed home and parked the unmarked Taurus in her driveway. She jogged around the house to the kitchen and the black and white TV. As she locked up her gun, the news was coming on, shots of Los Santos, the mountain, cactus flowers, downtown bank buildings. She pulled a Tecate from the refrigerator and popped the tab as the
newscaster said, “There’s a giant protest going on at Police Headquarters this afternoon. It’s tied up traffic for at least a mile in every direction for the last two hours. . . .”
“Protest?” Elena picked up the can and sat down, the first long sip sliding down her throat like wet silk.
“. . . on Monday when seventy-one-year-old Boris Potemkin was shot to death in his home on Sierra Negra. A varied group gathered at Five Points this afternoon to protest police harassment of his son, Lance Potemkin, who is a suspect in the murder.”
“Oh shit,” muttered Elena and took another long gulp of cold beer.
“Among the groups represented in the protest are the Los Santos Gay Rights Association, professors and students from Herbert Hobart University—”
She spotted Gus McGlenlevie waving a sign about the cops interfering with the poetic muse. Donald Mallory, Lance’s former lover, glared at McGlenlevie from the edge of the screen. The English Department was evidently supporting its secretary.
“—the Los S
antos Cycle Racing Club . . .”
TV cameras showed a long shot of people wearing tights, pancake helmets and fanny packs, riding bicycles in figure eights on Raynor and Montana.
“. . . headed by Lance Potemkin’s mother, Mrs. Dimitra Potemkin, and Mrs. Harmony Waite Portillo of Chimayo, New Mexico—”
“Mom?” Elena stared at the black and white image of her mother.
“Among those arrested were Dr. Donald Mallory, Mrs. Portillo . . .” The list went on. “At this time the suspects are being held at Five Points because there is no way to get them to the county jail.”
Elena rose, draining her beer can, then made a perfect hook shot into the wastebasket. She snapped off the television set, unlocked the drawer to get her 9mm in its shoulder holster, shrugged into her jacket, and headed for the departmental Taurus. If she had to walk in, she’d do it. Her own mother! They’d probably planned the demonstration at the poetry reading last night, and Harmony had conveniently failed to mention it.
19
Friday, October 1, 5:35 P.M.
Chaos prevailed at Police Headquarters: traffic gridlock on the streets, protesters milling outside, the leaders under arrest and held in the public reception area because the police had no way, short of teleportation, to get them downtown for booking. Harmony loved it. She was jammed against the desk sergeant’s counter, guarded by a harassed patrolman and gleefully giving Lieutenant Beltran, whom she had demanded to see, melting looks that turned the poor man to putty.
Harmony knew she was looking her best, long black hair windblown so that the silver streaks showed, cheeks flushed from her afternoon outdoors. She had on her black hat with the silver and turquoise band, her favorite woven peacock-blue tent dress nipped at the waist with a concho belt, and her black sandals studded with turquoise.
“It’s so sweet of you to come to my rescue.” She gave Beltran a smile that turned him pink, while she ignored the imperious Captain Stollinger. Harmony considered herself only a partial feminist. She wasn’t above using female wiles to achieve her ends. While Beltran was blushing and stammering, Harmony spotted Elena pushing through the mob of prisoners, police, and media people.
“Mom!” exclaimed Elena when she reached the desk. “How could you—”
“Where the hell have you been?” demanded Lieutenant Beltran, shaken out of his befuddlement.
“I’ve been working on the Potemkin case,” Elena replied.
“This woman is your mother, Jarvis?” demanded Captain Stollinger as Lieutenant Beltran was muttering, “Maybe in the future, you could convince members of your family not to demonstrate against the department.”
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t speak to my daughter in that tone of voice, Lieutenant,” said Harmony indignantly.
“He’s her superior,” said Stollinger. “He can talk to her any way he wants . . . as long as it doesn’t constitute sexual harassment,” the captain added hastily.
“And here I thought you were being so gallant, Lieutenant,” said Harmony reproachfully.
“I was. I mean it was certainly my pleasure to—”
“What’s going on?” boomed the rich, baritone voice of Armando Gaitan, Chief of the Los Santos Police Department. “Can’t I leave headquarters for three hours without my department being bombarded by unfavorable media attention?”
Elena put her hand over her mouth to hide a grin. If there was one thing the chief hated, it was unfavorable media attention. He liked to think of himself as the darling of the press. By and large he was, being a tall, trim, handsome man in the best Hispanic tradition, a bachelor who put a tremor in the hearts of ladies all over town, including media ladies.
“Chief,” called a reporter from Channel 4, “do you have any comment on the accusations that have been leveled against the department by this group?”
“I don’t even know what the accusations are,” boomed the chief, “but I shall certainly look into them.”
The reporter glanced down at her list as she trailed him toward Stollinger. “That police harass gays, that you’re preventing a local hero from attending a bicycle race on the High Road to Taos, which everyone thinks he’ll win, that—ah—the police are acting like vigilantes against poets.”
“Vigilantes?” The chief looked astounded. “What poets? I don’t know any poets.”
“I, sir, am a poet,” said Angus McGlenlevie, eluding his personal police attendant and grabbing the chief’s arm. “The young man who is receiving your unwarranted attention is a poet. I assure you, poets all over the country, including myself, whose book Rapture on the Rapids will be in the—”
“By God, McGlenlevie,” broke in Professor Donald Mallory, “if you plug that book one more time—”
“And for failing to protect senior citizens,” concluded the reporter. “Could you please comment, sir.”
“Senior citizens?” muttered Armando Gaitan. He shook off McGlenlevie and glared at the lieutenant. “What senior citizens haven’t we been protecting?”
“I think they mean in general, sir,” said Sergeant Mosson, who, from a place near the hall, had shouldered his way toward his leader, cutting off an interview with a reporter from Mexico to do so. “However, we had a lot of old folks in lawn chairs obstructing traffic in the parking lot.”
“One older lady was dragged from her chair,” said Harmony reproachfully. “That’s no way to treat one’s elders.” It was then that Chief Gaitan first noticed Harmony Waite Portillo, and his eyes lit with the gleam of a bachelor on the prowl. Female politicians and city administrators, members of museum and symphony boards, even female members of the media were fair game for Chief Gaitan. Elena hoped he didn’t favor married women. She’d never heard that he did.
“Chief, this is my mother, Harmony Waite Portillo,” she said quickly. “Of Chimayo.”
Chief Gaitan clasped Harmony’s hand and gave her a charming smile. “Dear lady, what a pleasure, and may I say that your visit graces our fair city?”
TV cameras were rolling.
“The pleasure is mine,” said Harmony with an equally charming smile. The two positively radiated good will and sex appeal.
“Mother’s been arrested,” said Elena loudly, “for picketing the police department. Probably in her younger days she even called us pigs.”
“Elena!” exclaimed Harmony. “That was years ago! Before you were born.” She smiled at Armando Gaitan. “In the late, bad sixties.” Long, black eyelashes dropped flirtatiously onto flushed cheeks.
“We’re contemporaries,” said the chief.
“Are we? Did you ever call a policeman a pig?” Harmony asked gaily.
“No,” said Gaitan. He was taking the conversation amazingly well.
“Do you plan to put Ms. Portillo in jail?” asked the pretty Channel 4 reporter sharply.
Elena decided there were at least two people in the crowd jealous over the flirtation between the chief and Harmony, Lieutenant Beltran being the other one.
“Everyone knows the LSPD is a bunch of gay bashers,” said Orion Massine combatively, then turned to his guard and snapped, “Watch the pleats,” when the patrolman grabbed the back of his shirt to keep him from escaping into the mob.
“Nonsense,” said Chief Gaitan.
“Chief, there are a lot of senior citizens who are nervous about driving after dark and would like to get home as soon as possible,” said Harmony.
“We haven’t arrested any senior citizens,” said Lieutenant Kurtz. He had come out of Sergeant Mosson’s office to the left of the reception counter. “They can pack up their lawn chairs and leave, even the old guy who grabbed an officer. He evidently thought he was protecting some
lady. She thought she was being subjected to police brutality. In other words, it was just a mix-up, so they can go home. The old folks.” He looked hopeful.
“Well, I believe, sir,” sai
d Harmony, “that they’re staying to see that nothing untoward happens to me, since I came with them from the Socorro Heights Center.”
“Nothing unpleasant will happen to you, my dear Ms.—may I call you Harmony? My feeling is that we should all retire to the conference room—”
“What about Lance?” shouted Hoke Mitchell. “He’s our best chance to win that race.”
“—and discuss the complaints of those who have been protesting here today. I’m sure we can reach a compromise that will make everyone happy,” said the chief soothingly.
“You’re knuckling under, Chief?” asked the jealous Channel 4 reporter.
“I’m being responsive to public concerns,” snapped the chief. Then he turned courteously to Harmony. “If you would represent the senior citizens, Ms. Portillo—”
Elena said, “Mrs.,” but no one heard her.
At the chief’s orders, police officers shepherded those who had been arrested into a utilitarian conference room with a lectern for the chief and an array of uncomfortable chairs for everyone else. The media was relegated to the hall. Protesters sat down, Gaitan took the lectern, and the complaints began.
“Where is this Lance Potemkin?” asked the chief after he had heard from gays, poets, and racers.
“He’s much too retiring to take part in noisy protests,” said Donald Mallory, “but I have a complaint.”
“What is that, sir?” asked the chief.
“In the first place,” said Mallory with dignified restraint, “the work of the English Department at Herbert Hobart has been seriously disrupted because of your unwarranted harassment of Lance Potemkin, our secretary. In the second place, McGlenlevie is misusing the word vigilantes. By its very definition, vigilante cannot be used about police in the pursuit of their assigned duties.”
“Harassing gays is an assigned duty? I knew it!” shouted Orion.
“We do not have a policy of harassing gays,” said the chief, “but we do have to investigate murder cases.”
“Well, as I told my daughter,” said Harmony, “your investigation is misguided. Lance is not the murderer.”
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