by Keri Lake
Rheumy eyes stare off toward somewhere behind me as she cracks a slight smile, her mouth bracketed by laughter lines. “Do you hear him, moineau?”
“Hear who, Mamie?”
“The angel. He says it’s almost time.”
“I wish you’d stop saying that. Stop talking like that.”
Her soft brown eyes fall on me. “This place … isn’t my home.”
She’s right, it’s not. Not even close. A few years back, she suffered a massive stroke, and though most of the time she almost seems to be talking in tongues, there are lucid moments with her, where I wonder if she remembers things from her past.
“I know it’s not.” Wrinkled skin brushes against my palm, as I stroke her hand and offer a sad smile. “I wish I could bring you home with me.”
“The angel …. He says I must confess before I go.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I exhale a sigh. The woman was always what I’d call haphazardly religious when she had her wits about her. She’d do something questionable, feel guilty, and have her occasional come to Jesus moments, none of which ever resulted in any committed church time. Ever since the stroke, though, church is all she talks about. Keeping a clean slate. Reconciling her sins.
“I’ll take care of it, Mamie.”
“And did you confess your sins, mon petit moineau?” Since I was small, she’s called me her little sparrow, a tribute to Édith Piaf, one of her favorite French singers.
“Not yet. I will. I promise.”
“That man is horrible. What he did to that poor child is so wrong.” Her words stir panic in my chest, and I lean to the side to make sure no one else has entered the room. “But you can be absolved. You don’t have to suffer for his sins.”
Out of a lifetime of memories I imagine are scattered throughout her brain like a kitchen junk drawer, where the hell did that erratic thought come from?
“You remember … Calvin?”
Lips snarled, she looks away from me, and for a moment, I think she’s going to go off on a rant about him. After all, she’s always hated him, probably more than me in the beginning. Instead, her face softens to a smile, eyes more rheumy than before. “You know who my angel looks like?”
With my mind still trapped by her random memory, I don’t bother to answer the nonsense that follows.
“Louis Jourdan. My favorite movie was Gigi. Do you remember we skipped class to watch it at the theater?”
It’s definitely not me she’s thinking of, but maybe a classmate of hers, since I wasn’t even born when the movie was in theaters. As she prattles on about the movie, my head slips into a memory of my own. A split second in my life that I wish I could go back and change.
I glance down at the medical record bleeding out all over my desk and arrange it in its proper order—patient information sheet, med history, physical exam, consent forms, physician’s orders, progress notes, consults, operative notes, pathology and discharge papers. After two years, it’s almost mindless for me. Which is good, because I started tonight’s shift with a letter from the city, informing me that my grandmother’s charitable efforts have not been appreciated by the City of Los Angeles for about a decade now. In other words, I’ve been issued a court order to pay the $40,000 in fines my grandmother accumulated for allowing the homeless to occupy a large plot of land. Fines she’s ignored in all her rebellion for long enough, it seems. Having spent most of the afternoon sobbing about it, I no longer have the mental capacity to think about that, let alone Alfred Miller’s hernia repair lying before me.
As I type the information into our filing system, a buzz jolts my muscles, so I end up typing ‘Me;oise’ instead of ‘Miller’.
The request counter is a Dutch door that we keep locked during second shift, but apparently the fact that it’s closed isn’t enough of a deterrent, and neither is the WE’RE CLOSED sign set out on the other side, written in bold letters.
Ignoring it, I go back to entering the information, but the buzz sounds again.
Seriously? At this point, not answering it is just a matter of principal, and I suddenly wish I brought my earbuds to work with me.
Another buzz.
With a frustrated huff, I push up from my desk and swing back the door, revealing a man on the other side. In a crisp black suit that clings to his large build, he reminds me of a mafia dude, his hair slicked back, face free of any hair.
“We’re closed. I guess the sign isn’t all that obvious.”
“Sign?”
I glance to the door that would’ve faced him and cringe. “Okay, well, there’s usually a sign. But I’m telling you, we’re closed. You can come back tomorrow at eight, when we open again.”
“I’m afraid tomorrow doesn’t work for my schedule. I need to access a medical record tonight.”
“I’m afraid tonight doesn’t work with my schedule. Have a good night.” I swing the door back, but it’s stopped short of clicking closed.
Fingers curled around the edge of it, he pushes it open, and a bolt of electricity tingles down my spine. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“No deals. And if you don’t leave? I’m calling security.”
“You don’t want to do that.”
Yet, my hand is already reaching for the phone on the desk below me. Subtly, of course.
“I need a medical record for a Richard Rosenberg. He came to the emergency department earlier for shortness of breath.”
“First, I don’t handle release of information. That lady is home watching The Walking Dead at this very moment. Second, what are you to him?”
“Patient advocate. But that’s really neither here, nor there.”
“No, it really is here and there, because I can’t just release a record to anyone. There are forms, things that need signing and verifying.”
He glances to the left of him and shakes his head, before returning his attention back to me. “I don’t have time for all that.”
“Then, this conversation is over. Agnes will be happy to help you first thing in the morning. After she’s had her coffee, of course.”
With a snort, he tips his head, the cockiness of his reactions intensifying my frustration. “I’ll cut to the chase. I’m aware that you’re in a bit of trouble with the city. A few grand, by my estimate.”
Winter ice stabs my chest as I stare back at him, momentarily paralyzed. “H …. Wh …. What makes you say that?”
A wicked grin stretches across his face and answers for him. “What if I told you I could help you?”
“I’m not taking money to hand over a medical record. That’ll cost me my job.”
“So will jail time for failure to pay.”
“I’m sure they’ll … garnish wages before then.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Which would leave you one step above poverty, correct?” His exaggerated gestures as he talks strike an irritating chord that makes me want to slam the damn door right in his face. “I mean, forty grand over a few years is about half a mortgage payment. Without the equity.”
“What exactly are you offering, and what are you asking for in return?”
“Richard Rosenberg’s medical record. In return? I’ll make that court order and fine disappear.”
Right. Who the hell is this guy?
“Yeah? And how do you propose doing that?”
“I got some friends in high places, love. Friends who know how to make things disappear. Who do you think told me they saw Richie boy come in on the monitors, hmm?”
Security? Why? Was the man a criminal, or something?
“Who are you? A cop?”
“Something like that. Not so stiff and uptight, though.” Bending forward, he rests his elbows on the top of the door’s lower half. “I eliminate scum for a living.”
“And what guarantee do I have? I’m not handing over a man’s medical record to some total stranger based on a promise.”
“I’ll come back in two hours with a letter signed by the court, dropping the fees you owe. Name’s Ca
lvin, by the way. Now we’re not strangers, Ivy.”
“How do you know me?”
“Two hours. If you’re not convinced, no deal has to be made.”
A loud beep rips me from the memory, and a woman’s voice announces Code Blue over the speakers. My gaze snaps up to my grandmother, who’s still going on about Gigi, but within seconds, a group of physicians, nurses, a crowd of medical staff carrying equipment into the room shuffle toward the other woman’s bed.
One of the nurses peeks over, her eyes stern and focused. “I’m afraid you’re going to need to step out of the room, ma’am. Now, please.”
Gathering up my bag, I bend forward to give my grandmother a peck on the cheek. “I’ll see you in a couple days, Mamie. Take care.”
As I pass the woman lying in the next bed, surrounded by staff who frantically buzz around her still body, I’m reminded of how quickly death strikes without warning.
How little time we have to right our wrongs before the clock finally runs out.
I’ll keep my promises to my grandmother, and help her find the peace she’s searching for, which means I’m definitely going to need to pay Father Damon another visit.
7
DAMON
“I’m telling y’all right now, something ain’t right about this one.” LaRonda Franklin sits forward, hair pulled back into a gold and burgundy scarf that almost looks majestic against her dark skin tone. She’s head of the Safety Gang Committee, a meeting that assembles once every two weeks, to discuss neighborhood safety and ways to keep the kids engaged and off the streets. Although I’m not officially a member, I do try to make the meetings whenever possible, as I appreciate their efforts on a more personal level. I’m certain, if there had been more vigilant neighbors like LaRonda Franklin, my wife and daughter might still be here. “This girl has a disorder. Nobody just let her mess around on her own for very long.”
“She went missing last Tuesday?” Something cold and troubling moves through me, as I listen to her offered details on the newest young girl to go missing. A seven year old from the neighborhood, named Camila, who was last seen playing outside of the apartment building where she lived.
“Yes, right out from under her mama’s nose. One minute she was there. The next? Poof! Gone.”
“And you said … she had a disability?”
“No, a disorder. She’s autistic.”
“Did she happen to have a service dog?”
“I think she might have. Can I ask why you’re asking, Father?”
“No reason. I just wondered if the mom may have been alerted?”
“She didn’t notice any dogs barking, or nothing like that.” She nods toward the blonde across from her, who sets down some print-outs of the girl’s face. “Gina’s gonna pass out some flyers that we could really use some help distributing.”
Each of the six members sitting around the table grab from the stack out of images.
“If each of you could take a few and post them around, I know her mama would be grateful. Poor lady hasn’t eaten in a week, she’s so distraught over this. I’ve rounded up some neighbor ladies to make her and the boys some dinners for the week, too. If you could mention something during Sunday mass, that would be helpful, Father.”
“Of course. I’m happy to help in whatever way I can.”
The meeting keeps on, but my thoughts swirl over the missing girl. Bits of conversation from the penitent’s confession surface, like when he mentioned that drinking helped quiet the screams. What if he had another child the night of his confession, when he was clearly drunk?
More importantly, what if he still has her?
I tell myself that my intentions for seeking him out are to urge him to go to the authorities, but I know better. If Camila is there, I’m not leaving without her.
It’s a little over three miles from downtown up North Broadway, and I turn the car down Casanova Street. Tucked between two sloping hills, the road bends ahead, looking like a dead end, but just before the curve stands a bungalow-style house, set back from the others, surrounded by high chain-link fences. Half-hanging from its hinges is a decrepit sign that reads Paws For A Cause. Old and rundown, the neighborhood bears the signs of apathy in the ratty yards and trash scattered about.
I stop the car and kill the lights. Fingers curled around the steering wheel, I take a moment to breathe, stealing a quick glimpse of the gun sitting on the seat beside me. Not that I plan to kill anyone. It’s simply for protection, to defend myself in the event things take a very dangerous turn. I’d be lying if I said I was nervous about having it.
There was a time, up until the age of twenty-one, right before Isabella was born, when carrying a gun was everyday business. Back then, I worked as a bagman for one of the more notorious criminals in Queens: my father, Anthony Savio. Hated every second of it, and so did Val, so we packed up and moved as far away from New York as we could possibly get. Haven’t talked to my father since.
I always had a love for carpentry and working with my hands, so I started up my own business installing cabinets up by Montecito Heights, where we lived. Found a nice fixer upper there, and life seemed to be damn near perfect, until Isabella was diagnosed with Leukemia. That’s when everything went to hell, but not even that could match the lows I sank to after Val and Isabella were murdered.
Police claimed it was a simple break in, and that might’ve made sense, considering a few small things had been stolen. But any good criminal would’ve surely sniffed out the safe in my home office that sat untampered, so I didn’t quite buy the simple break-in theory. And as a result, I stared down the barrel of that gun more times than I can possibly count, until the night I stumbled drunk into the local church and had a rather long and candid conversation with Father Thomas. Can’t even pinpoint where in the course of my drunken rambling he turned my thoughts around. Maybe I just never allowed myself to open up to someone like that before.
Over the six months that followed, I changed my name, got clean, and enrolled in St. John’s Seminary. Everything about my former life dissolved with the memory of my family, and I started anew.
Drawing in a deep breath, I clamp my eyes and exhale. I’m stalling, and I shouldn’t, because every moment I waste on thoughts that don’t matter anymore is another moment a child might be suffering inside that house. I can’t just stroll up to the door, either. Old instincts tell me to case the place first and make sure it’s just the one guy. That’s what the son of Anthony Savio would do, and even if I hardly know that man anymore, I can appreciate his innate sense when approaching another criminal.
Tucking the gun into my coat pocket, I stare at my reflection in the rearview mirror. The white collar nearly glows in the surrounding darkness, and I remove it for this, as every moment hereafter goes against everything it stands for. Nabbing a pair of gloves from the glovebox, I stuff them into my slacks, then I exit the vehicle and cross the sidewalk to the narrow walkway that leads to the front of the house.
A light is on in the upper part of the property—a bedroom, I presume—but every other room stands dark. Dogs bark in the distance, and I round the perimeter to find a row of cages covered by a roof, within the fenced in lot behind the house, each occupied with a different dog breed.
Staying out of sight, I slink back toward a window at the front and peer into the room within. Too dark to see anything there, but what I can make out seems to be tidy, in spite of the aging exterior of the home. Rounding the corner brings me to a side door, and when I peek through, I can see a stained laundry basin and an old washer and dryer.
Reaching for the knob, I pause. An innocent man wouldn’t think twice about leaving his prints there, but one practiced in breaking into places knows better, so from my pocket, I pull out the gloves and slip them on. Gripping the knob, I give a light twist, surprised when it opens easily. The rattle of loose hardware is a warning not to push too hard, and I slip inside, careful while I close it behind me.
In the moon’s light, I can see
rust and dirt on the top of the outdated white washer, which doesn’t match the pea green dryer. Cracked linoleum covers a bowed floor, and I step lightly to keep from creaking it.
The kitchen beyond is fairly kempt, but dark and dated. A piece of mail set out on the kitchen counter tells me the owner’s name is Chuck Beatty. Beside it, a bottle of whiskey brings to mind the smell of his breath that night, as he spoke about the girl.
To the left stands another door, perhaps a pantry, but when I open it, a set of concrete stairs disappear into the darkness below. Aside from in the million dollar homes, basements are rare in California, so I’m left wondering what this leads to.
Pausing to listen for any sounds, I cant my head to the side, looking for movement past the kitchen, then pad down the stairs into the obscurity.
The air is cooler by a few degrees, casting a chill over my skin. Only the sound of my breaths can be heard, as I round the staircase, blindly holding my hand out in front of me to keep from running into any surprises. There’s nothing past the next step when I scoot my foot in search of an edge, and I realize I’ve reached the bottom, so I flick on the flashlight of my phone. An arc cuts through the blackness, and the garage door ahead tells me it’s not really a basement, but a door leading to the attached garage below the house, though there’s no vehicle parked inside. A water heater and furnace stand to the right, a refrigerator to the left, adjacent to another door encased in brick.
In three quick strides, I come to a stop at the door, listen for any movement, and crack it open. It appears to be some kind of workroom, with a bench and tools hanging from the wall. Only the tools aren’t typical. I study them for a moment, certain the long slender pole with prongs at the end is an electrical prod of some sort. Muzzles, collars, harnesses, and leashes all hang beside it.
Whimpers draw my flashlight toward a cage beyond the workbench, and my next breath hitches in my throat.
Inside is a young girl, hunched over in the too-small confines.