But LaSalle’s group was claiming to be part of the Christian tradition, so he’d have to watch carefully. He knew that any religion needed to operate consistent with its own charters. Eldon LaSalle was for the separation of the races. That was going to be a dicey item for the church bylaws.
The pinging of a utensil against a cup brought all conversation to a halt. Eldon LaSalle had called for order.
“We have a special guest with us tonight,” he announced. “Steve Conroy, Johnny’s long-lost brother, a renowned legal mind, has joined us tonight. Let’s welcome him.”
The group applauded as heads turned his way. Steve gave an embarrassed half wave.
“Steve and Johnny were separated as children, but now by God’s grace are brought together again,” Eldon LaSalle continued. He leaned forward. “It was my desire that the relationship between Johnny and Steve remain a secret. But that wasn’t done.”
He paused, and Steve caught a glimpse of Johnny’s face. It was tight, and it seemed clear to Steve he’d just been rebuked by the patriarch.
“And so it is absolutely imperative that this news does not spread. Is that clear to every one of you?”
Heads nodded.
“ ‘If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?’ ”
Whatever that means, Steve thought. Though he had to admit the combination of King James English and LaSalle’s deep voice was effective.
Only Johnny seemed to be stewing.
But one thing these people knew how to do was eat, so that’s what he did. He did note the passive faces of the women as they served. That would be another item to look into. If this was a polygamy thing — women belonging to Eldon? — he’d have a whole new area for Sienna to research.
After the dessert, a robust serving of cookies-’n’-cream ice cream — Buzz Cut said it was the Master’s favorite — the table was officially dismissed by LaSalle. The men got up and started filtering out.
Johnny left without saying anything further to Steve. Or anyone else that Steve saw. Steve was about to follow Johnny out when Eldon said, “Steve, would you join me in the library, please?”
THIRTY-FIVE
In the library, Eldon indicated a large chair for Steve, facing the fire. The flames cast a flickering glow on the wall of books. Achan still warded off his fate on the bas-relief.
Eldon positioned his chair across from Steve and next to a pipe carousel on a small table. He removed a pipe, packed it, and took a wooden match and lit up.
“Quite a collection you’ve got here,” Steve said.
“All the people are here of their own volition,” Eldon said.
“I meant the books. On the wall.”
“Ah.” He hissed a couple of puffs. “You are certainly correct about that. And I have read every one in here, some several times. The great books, the timeless ones. The men who move the world are those who have made the most of the life of the mind. Would you agree?”
“Sure, I suppose.”
“No supposition about it. Books have been my education and my solace and have enabled me to understand the ebb and flow of history, without which we would all be subject to brute force.”
Steve thought he was waiting for a response, and Steve had no idea what to say. So he offered, “How is that?”
Eldon puffed a few times. “History is but a fragment of biology, Steve. That’s the first lesson you must learn. It is the key to understanding everything we do here.”
Which is what Steve wanted to hear about. He looked into the fire and listened.
Eldon said, “Biology is about competition. Darwin was right about that much. Competition is not just the life of trade. It is the trade of life. Cooperation between groups may keep the peace for a time, but only until resources — material or spiritual or psychological — become scarce. Then survival is a matter of who eats whom first.”
Steve nodded. He could agree that not getting eaten first was a good thing.
“Every group,” Eldon continued, “be it a community or race or nation, has an ethos centered on partisanship and pride, acquisitiveness and aggression. In such an environment, selection is bound to take place. On a national level, there are wars. Within nations, there are groups that seek to dominate. And one of the factors that plays a role in all this is race. Would you agree?”
Steve measured his words carefully. “That’s the reason we have laws. To keep people from killing each other.”
“Which happens despite the law. We cannot depend on manmade institutions to save us when the enemy comes calling.”
“Who is the enemy?”
“Anyone who is against us.”
That might be a pretty large group, Steve thought. And it might include the federal government. “Could I ask you something completely personal?”
“Of course, Son.”
“How did Johnny come to live with you?”
Eldon, his face half in shadow from the firelight, nodded slowly. “Our Lord said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ When I heard about the terrible thing that was done to your brother, I couldn’t sit back and do nothing. Johnny became my son as surely as if he had come from my own loins.”
“Why didn’t you try to get Johnny back to our mother?” Steve asked.
“I considered that. I even had some of my people look into it. But in prayer the Lord told me that this boy needed one thing above all else. A father. A real father. Yours had, in despair, taken his own life. That’s a terrible thing to inflict on a child.”
He had that right. In spades.
“May I ask another question?” Steve said.
“Certainly.”
“We were told that my brother died in a fire. There was a body found, a little boy Robert’s age. An autopsy was performed by a doctor named Phillips. Walker Phillips.”
Removing the pipe from his mouth, Eldon said, “Phillips. He was a fool. But God uses fools, and used him for a greater good.”
“How so?”
Eldon put his head back against the chair. “Your brother was kidnapped by a loathsome creature named Clinton Cole. Cole had a cabin in these mountains. Do you know what kind of a man Cole was?”
“A pedophile?”
Eldon nodded. “Evil. I found out what he’d done and dispatched some of my people to get Johnny out of there. Not long after that, Cole was killed in a fire. No one knows if he set it himself or someone else did. But they found in the fire not only Cole, but the body of a child. Connections were made. The authorities assumed the child was that of Robert Conroy, your brother. Phillips confirmed that in his autopsy. That was the hand of God, you see?”
“But you could have cleared everything up. You could have brought Johnny back to us. Why didn’t you?”
For nearly a minute Eldon LaSalle did not speak. The crackling of the fire filled the space, popping like the random thoughts in Steve’s mind. And he was feeling the desire again. He tried to picture Gincy in the room, pointing at him, telling him to calm down.
Finally Eldon spoke, just above a whisper. “I want you to prepare yourself, Son. I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you this.”
“Please tell me.”
“Your father. He was a friend of Clinton Cole. He shared Cole’s . . . interests.”
Steve’s throat clenched. Short breaths squeezed through.
“Steve, I don’t pretend to have acted properly at all times. But I was not going to let your brother go back to that. Time went on, and when your father killed himself, it seemed to me a sign from God. I am sorry for your mother. And for you. I want you to believe that I was always acting in what I thought was the best interest of your brother. Will you believe me, Son?”
Believe this? This?
Could he? He didn’t know.
“You’re not a praying man, are you?” Eldon asked.
“No,” Steve managed to say.
“Not a believing man?”
“There are some t
hings I believe in.”
“Would love to hear them.”
“Recovery. I believe in recovery. And, as imperfect as it is, the justice system.”
“Those are good things to believe in. Tell me, do you think I deserve justice?”
“Everybody does.”
“Do you think people deserve a chance to recover from their past sins?”
How could Steve argue otherwise, now that he’d put his high-sounding philosophy out on the table? “Sure.”
“Then I must know, Son. Do you have any hesitation about coming to work for us? To be our trusted adviser in all things legal?”
“I’m not saying no at this point. I just — ”
“Would a sixty-thousand-dollar retainer help make up your mind?”
Steve’s stomach almost jumped out of his body, megaphone attached, shouting, Take the money!
“Is that not enough?” LaSalle said. “How about seventy?”
“I think,” Steve said, “that sounds very fair.”
“And for that we will expect top-notch work, agreed?”
“Top.”
Eldon stuck his hand out and Steve took it with some reservation. But not enough reservation to turn down seventy grand.
“Good,” Eldon said. “This is very good. This is the will of God, that you’re here with us. Here, you can begin to heal.”
Johnny walked Steve out to his car. A half moon hung in the sky. The cold night air bit.
“You sure you won’t stay?” Johnny said.
“I think I’ll drive back.” He needed to get back to his own place. His small apartment and a scruffy cat. He needed to think this all through.
“Got lots of room.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“It’s been quite a night, hasn’t it?”
“You could say that.”
“You were in the library a long time with Eldon.”
“He told me. Everything.”
Johnny stopped on the gravel drive, looked at the ground.
“Why is he in a wheelchair?” Steve asked.
“Happened about ten years ago. One of the women rebelled.
Got a gun and shot him.”
“Whoa. What happened to her?”
“We went through the system. She was arrested, tried, and convicted.”
“How long did she get?”
“Forever. She died in prison.”
“What?”
“That happens sometimes.”
Hardly ever in prisons for women, Steve knew. But things were tough all over.
Johnny said, “I know the whole thing. When I got nabbed, must have been hard on you, on our mother.”
Steve said nothing.
Suddenly Johnny held him in an embrace. “You’re home now.”
Steve felt the warmth and strength of Johnny LaSalle, and for one moment in the night it was life and redemption. A starting over and a healing. A grip of one last hope. Steve threw his arms around Johnny and pulled hard, as if to squeeze the last of his doubts away.
To allow himself to be home.
THIRTY-SIX
Tuesday, Steve met Sienna just outside the entrance to DeWitt Law School. The school was tucked in near an old residential area about three miles from downtown Los Angeles. It was not one of the prestigious ivory towers attached to a university. But for almost seventy years it had catered to students who usually had to work their way through. It was known for its four-year night program.
“You didn’t have to drive all the way down here,” Sienna said, meeting him in the lobby.
“You’re a struggling law student,” Steve said. “You can’t afford the gas to come out to my office all the time.”
“How do you know I can’t afford it?”
“You have a rich father or something?”
“No. But you don’t know that.”
“There’s a lot I don’t know about you, Ms. Ciccone. But we’re going to take care of that right now.”
They walked around the corner to the street behind the law school. The brick building was from the early thirties and was, at one time, a Presbyterian church. Steve had used the library a few times and read a pamphlet on the history of the place. It was fitting, Steve thought, that Sienna Ciccone would have chosen this place to study law. A little religious heritage to go with her own.
A strip of grass along the south side of the school held a couple of red iron benches. They sat. Sienna was dressed in Levi’s and a navy blue sweatshirt with the school emblem on it. Steve caught a whiff of her hair. It smelled like morning.
“I need more help on this LaSalle thing,” Steve said. “I need to know just how much they can get away with and still be legit under California law.”
“What do you mean get away with?”
“Regarding views on race. Can they claim that according to their religion, they are not to be bound by things like equal protection and antidiscrimination laws? Can you do me a memo on that?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll pay. I can pay now.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“There’s more.” He paused. “I don’t know if you want to hear about the personal angle.”
“If you want to tell me.”
He did. He wanted to tell her and have her understand him, and then he wanted her to put her arms around him and kiss him and tell him all would be well.
So he gave her the story all the way up to the troubling revelations of Eldon LaSalle. He spoke evenly, wanting her to assess all the information for herself. When he was finished, he felt more vulnerable than he had in many years.
She looked off for a long moment. Then said, “That’s an unbelievable story. How does it make you feel?”
“I don’t think I know yet. I don’t know if I completely believe it all.”
“No? You think he’s lying to you?”
“Or maybe he’s got selective memory. I know one way to find out, though. There’s a doctor named Phillips who may still be around. I want to see if I can track him down. He was there. He did the autopsy on the boy who was burned. He can corroborate what Eldon LaSalle told me. Or not.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“I have a lead. I’ll follow it up.”
Sienna looked at her watch. “I have a class.”
“There’s another reason I drove down here.”
“Yes?”
“I just wanted to see you.”
When she hesitated in her answer, Steve felt like a sliding door had been left open, only slightly, with the curtains lifted by the breeze. Maybe he could sneak in after all.
“Mr. Conroy, I thought I made it plain — ”
“It’s because I’m not religious like you, is that it?”
“This is not getting us — ”
“Or do you have an other? And I don’t care if you sue me or run away screaming, I really want to know.”
She smiled and shook her head. The door slid a little farther open. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“Let me put it to you this way. You ever heard of Satchel Paige?”
“Baseball player?”
“And philosopher. He once said, ‘Don’t look back, something may be gaining on you.’ ”
“Profound.”
“Yeah, it is. It’s how I’ve lived my life. If I look back, I’m cooked. I’ve got to keep moving forward, and I will. So let me make my case.”
“What case?”
“The case about taking you out to dinner, with no strings attached, just to get to know each other a little better.”
Sienna looked at the sky. A heavenly appeal? Or a signal of frustration at the end of her rope?
“All right,” she said. “Dinner. One time.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“You do move forward, don’t you?”
Driving back to the Valley, Steve had to make a case on himself.
Okay, boy, you’ve got your foot in the door. Keep it out of your mouth. Clean up your act. Ma
ybe this is just what you need, a little inspiration. Motivation. A good woman.
She is good. Too good for you. Who are you, pal? She’s got something. What have you got? You’re a day-to-day guy, afraid to look back. Maybe you shouldn’t do this thing. Maybe you’ll drag her down instead of her dragging you up.
You’ll get to know her and like her and maybe she’ll like you, and then you’ll fall and get high and ruin everything.
Bad idea, the whole thing. Call her back and call it off.
Steve flipped his phone open just as he merged onto the 101. Then he snapped it shut.
Life was risk. Life was the Zipper, Gincy said.
Go for it.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Steve stopped off at the Starbucks on Victory near the Warner Center. As he thought, Norm was there, laptop open, fingers flying, eyes wild with a desperate search for inspiration.
“Hey, Norm,” Steve said.
The writer looked up, startled. “Don’t do that!”
“What?”
“I’m in flow here.”
“I need to talk to you, Norm.”
“I’m working here!”
“Can I get you a refill?”
Norm’s eyes flashed to the venti cup on the round table. He rubbed the stubble on his chin with his right hand, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Straight drip.”
Steve took the cup and got in line. He bought a tall drip and got a refill for Norm, then took them back to the table, pulling up a chair.
Norm took a slug of coffee, then said, “What are you doing here?”
“I thought maybe we could finally settle that account,” Steve said.
“Oh, man! Don’t hit me now. Give me some time, will you?”
“Norm, we can work it out another way.”
“What way is that?”
“Your brother works for the DMV, right?”
Norm narrowed his gaze. “What are you asking?”
“I need an address.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Of course you can. You did it before.”
He cocked his head. “Now you’re not gonna bring that up, are you?”
“Don’t you remember me keeping that out of the public record? The prosecutor was going to present that evidence to the judge, that you used your brother to get that dealer’s address. I kept that from happening, my friend.”
The Whole Truth Page 15