Below the Line

by Howard Michael Gould

  Cuppy, chafed, said, “Know what I think, since we’re getting all BFF-y? I think . . . you’re doing her. How is the lovely Lorena liking that?”

  “Go fuck yourself, Cuppy.” Waldo put a twenty on the bar and headed for the door.

  “I could fuck myself,” Cuppy grumbled into his empty glass, “but I’d have to get in line.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Waldo left a message on Lorena’s voicemail, telling her that he was going back over to the Roses’. He also said he might have a link between Ouelette and O.C. but that he hadn’t sorted it out yet and they should talk later. He didn’t want to leave too much on the recording. Especially since he didn’t even know if she still gave a damn.

  Paula Rose wasn’t as lit as Cuppy when she let Waldo in, but she was on her way. The house reeked. She said they were indeed going to try to make a portion of it livable while they sorted out the rebuild. Waldo told her he was looking for Stevie, that he had some new questions for her. Paula said, in a tone dripping with irony but with words that didn’t actually contain any, “Stevie’s room is uninhabitable, so she’s moved into the pool house. You can find her there.” She swept her arm in that direction and faltered a little on the stairs.

  Waldo crossed the pool area to the guest cottage beyond. He knocked on the wooden casing to the screen door, his eyes averted for Stevie’s privacy. He could feel the cold air blasting from inside, halogenated chlorofluorocarbons pumping into the troposphere as the Roses generously air-conditioned Sherman Oaks.

  “Waldo! My first visitor! I was hoping it would be you!” Stevie slid open the screen for him. “Want some schnapps?” she said, continuing the theme of the evening.

  “No. Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking that either.”

  “I definitely shouldn’t be drinking this. It tastes like Robitussin. Unfortunately it’s the only thing I found out here. I have no idea who left it.”

  The pool house was about twice as big as his own cabin in Idyllwild. There was a full-size daybed with a wrought iron headboard, a small sitting area with a couple of club chairs and a kitchenette, plus bathroom. “Can I sit down?”

  “Do it.”

  Waldo sat on one of the chairs. Stevie stepped up onto the bed and stood on the mattress with her glass in hand, bouncing lightly. “How do you like my new apartment?” She was wearing an oversize Dodgers T-shirt and below-the-knee shorts, easily the most modest outfit he’d seen her in.

  “Tell me about Victor Ouelette and drugs.”

  “Drugs? He didn’t even drink.”

  “What about him selling Adderall? And other stuff?”

  “Come on, Waldo—keep up, will you?” She bent to put the glass down on a nightstand, then flopped onto the bed and threw her legs over the side. “Mr. Ouelette wasn’t into anything except sex.”

  “How about seventy-nine?”

  “Off by ten.” She giggled, took another slurp of schnapps and peered at Waldo over her glass. He saw a flicker and didn’t want her going there, but didn’t know how to stop her. “When you were a cop, did you ever do it with somebody you were investigating for murder?”

  “When you told us about him dealing—that was all made up? Completely?”

  She wasn’t listening. “I bet you did. Was it hot? Thinking maybe she’d stab you right in the middle of it—like a movie?”

  “We’re definitely not going to talk about my sex life.”

  “You want to go swimming?” She started to peel off her T-shirt.

  “Hey.”

  “Chill, Waldo. I have a swimsuit under this.”

  “Leave your clothes on.”

  “I want to go swimming.”

  “And I want to talk about Mr. Ouelette.”

  “Fine, I’ll change in the bathroom.”

  She went behind the bathroom door but didn’t close it. She was completely visible in the mirror over the sink. Waldo looked at the floor. “Did you ever bring him anything, for anybody else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Designer drugs, maybe?”

  Stevie said, “Should I try to find a suit for you, or are you cool swimming in your underwear?”

  “If you even need that.” Waldo startled at the voice. It was Lorena, outside the screen door.

  Waldo jumped up and slid it open for her.

  Stevie emerged from the bathroom in a fire-engine-red two-piece. Waldo was completely rattled and sure he looked it.

  Lorena pursed her lips. “How’s the interview going?”

  Stevie beat him to an answer. “Not very well. Waldo asks all the wrong questions. Actually, I think I might be more likely to open up to another girl.”

  Waldo didn’t know what her angle was but said, “Okay,” and stepped outside.

  Turning back to slide the door closed, he saw Stevie grin at Lorena and finish the thought. “Especially one who remembers what it was like to get hit on all the time.” It was a sly and wicked shot. Even from outside he could feel Lorena’s shoulders tense.

  He found Paula in the kitchen opening another bottle of wine with an electronic gadget. She said, “I have no idea what I did to deserve it, but I raised a total cunt.” Her intensity made him recoil even more than the word. “I mean, I was shitty to my mom sometimes, but nothing like this. You should hear how she talks to me. The contempt.” She refilled her glass, didn’t offer one to Waldo. “I’m her mother—I know I’m supposed to believe she didn’t murder anybody. But you know what? The way she looks at me? I honestly think she’d kill me if she could get away with it. Tell you something, Waldo: it makes believing in that girl kind of hard.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  On the way to Lorena’s house, Waldo downloaded her on the seventy-nine and what he learned from Don Q and Cuppy. “Maybe when you’re messing around with a student you want to keep it secret, but there’s no point being a dealer without anyone knowing you’re a dealer. So I’m thinking tomorrow we—”

  Lorena groaned exasperation.

  “What?”

  “Listen to yourself—you’re like a pretzel, trying to twist this into something that lets her off the hook. You’re in denial.”

  “No,” he said, defensive, “I get that she’s probably involved. She could be part of Ouelette’s connect to Orange County—”

  “She murdered him. And she planted the designer shit in his apartment, before or after, to throw off the investigation. Took his keys to get in, then went back and left them next to him.”

  “A fifteen-year-old came up with that.”

  “It’s not that brilliant.”

  “And Marwin Amador just gave her thirty grand worth of junk, to plant.”

  “We don’t know he gave it to her. She could have bought it.”

  “With whose money?”

  “Maybe her cousin, with the lobster Postmates.”

  “And he gave it to her, why . . . ?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she put on her little red swimsuit. Turns men stupid, apparently.”

  The fuzzy logic wasn’t remotely like her. There was some burning anger driving it, an anger Waldo didn’t understand—at him, it sure felt like, and definitely more than was warranted by whatever Lorena thought she saw in the pool house.

  She didn’t turn right on Vine like he expected her to. “Where are we going?”

  “Santa Ana. Talk to Amador.”

  “Now? For what?”

  “Find out if he’s dealing seventy-nine, and if he gave it to Stevie.”

  It was all upside down: maybe his own objectivity was compromised, but she seemed hell-bent on proving that their own client was guilty.

  He sighed and settled in for the ride. He had no choice. Nothing made a man feel less in control than riding shotgun when Lorena Nascimento had the wheel.

  * * *

  • • •
/>
  Amador’s house was dark. Lorena reached for the doorbell. Waldo told her it was broken and gave the bars a violent rattle like Daron had. No answer. They got back in the car.

  Waldo said, “Costa Mesa? See what Daron can tell us?”

  All she said was “Nah,” and started driving again. Daron was the obvious next move; she was only rejecting it because Waldo suggested it. Her pique itself was now steering the investigation. He closed his eyes and settled in for the return drive to L.A.

  A few minutes later he realized they were back on Harbor Boulevard. “What’s here?”

  “Maybe Amador’s with Tesoro.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” Her opposition was automatic by this point, not to mention wearisome.

  They cruised the Burger King from the far side of the street. He didn’t see the pimp, but one of his thugs was in the parking lot again. “That’s Tesoro’s guy. Probably the one you didn’t run over.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, not interested, peering down the sidewalk. “Tell me if you see that girl.”

  “Who, Alice?” Suddenly he got it. “You’re not looking for Amador.”

  “I’d talk to him if we saw him.”

  “What do you want with Alice?”

  Lorena hiked a shoulder. “Help her.”

  “Jesus.”

  She snapped. “What’s wrong with that? How about we start doing something for a girl who needs help?”

  “Like what?”

  Lorena took a U at the light and headed back toward the Burger King. Waldo saw the girl and shifted in his seat. Lorena read it. “Is that her?”

  Alice was walking alone thirty yards ahead. Lorena decelerated. The girl turned, like she might have a customer. Lorena pulled up to the curb. Waldo got a better look at Alice as she leaned toward the car: there were new bruises around her left eye. Lorena powered down his window. But when Alice saw Waldo she frightened and backed away, then started again down the block.

  Waldo wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. “Hey,” he called to her, feeling foolish.

  “Leave me alone,” said Alice, eyes averted, walking faster.

  Lorena put the car in park and jumped out. “Whoa,” said Waldo, “what are you—?” Alice broke into a trot.

  Waldo sat in the car, flustered and impotent, and watched Lorena race after Alice. The girl’s platforms weren’t made for running; even in heels Lorena caught her easily, seized her by the arm and talked at her. Alice retorted, the exchange escalated and soon they were shouting over each other in Spanish. Lorena let go of Alice’s arm. The girl didn’t run away this time, but whatever Lorena was trying to sell her, she wasn’t buying.

  Meanwhile, sitting alone in the passenger seat of a high-end Mercedes with the engine running was feeling less and less wise, especially given the block party the locals threw the last time they were in the neighborhood. Waldo got out and crossed behind the car to the driver’s side. As he opened the door he glanced to the right and recognized Tesoro’s squat frame almost a block away and heading in their direction. When the pimp spotted Waldo he pulled out a phone and made a quick call, then picked up his pace.

  Waldo slid in behind the wheel. Beyond Lorena and Alice he could see Tesoro’s goon come out of the Burger King lot and head their way from the other end of the street. Waldo pulled the car even with Lorena, reached across to the passenger door and threw it open. “Get in! Goddammit, let’s go!” Lorena grabbed Alice by the arm again. “Leave her alone!” he shouted.

  Instead, Lorena tugged hard, pulling Alice right off her platforms, then shouldered the stumbling girl toward the open door and bulldozed her into the passenger seat. Alice screamed.

  Lorena jammed her way into the car too, squeezing in on top of her. “Drive!”

  Waldo tore away from the curb with the passenger door still wide open. Lorena was reaching for the handle when it clipped a parked Jeep, slamming it closed.

  “Shit!” Lorena said.

  “You okay?” Waldo shouted over the girl, who was caterwauling a torrent of Spanish.

  Before Lorena could answer him they heard two gunshots. Waldo swung left in front of an oncoming pickup at the next break in the median.

  “Go back!” Lorena shouted. “Run that fucker over!”

  “We’ll come back and do that another time.”

  He ran surface streets until he saw a sign to the 22 and hopped on, hoping he remembered correctly that it would run them into the 405. Alice was shrieking in the passenger seat and Lorena, atop her, was bracing herself with an arm on the dash. Waldo tried to hold a steady forty-five in the right lane.

  Eventually, Alice’s protests receded to a whimper. Waldo glanced over: the girl was terrified. Lorena kept talking to her in Spanish, her voice dropping lower and lower. In time the girl calmed and even answered a couple of Lorena’s questions. Coming into Long Beach, Lorena told Waldo to look for a place to eat.

  He found a Denny’s past the airport. When they got out of the car, Alice looked around and Waldo thought she might run, but she didn’t. Inside, she asked for a French Toast Slam. Waldo ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and when it came pushed it in front of Alice; she tore through that too. They ate in silence: Waldo had eyes only for Lorena, Lorena only for Alice, Alice only for her food. Waldo had no idea what Lorena had in mind as a next step, let alone an endgame. But she was so focused and fearsome right now that he didn’t dare ask.

  In the parking lot she and Alice had another brief discussion in Spanish, this one hushed and tranquil. The two of them looked over at Waldo like there was a question on the table; then the girl answered it. Lorena said to him, “You drive again.”

  Apparently by agreement, this time Lorena got in the car first and told Waldo, “Drive to Hollywood. I’ll tell you where to go.”

  The girl wedged in and folded onto Lorena’s lap. Waldo checked her before backing out of the space. He said, “You going to be all right there, Alice?”

  Lorena said, “Her name is Mariana.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Everything about the night left him mortified at his own ignorance. He didn’t know enough Spanish, didn’t know enough about this realm of human exploitation, didn’t know that this organization, the Los Angeles Trafficking Rescue Emergency Action Network, even existed. As a homicide cop, in fact, he’d barely been aware of the shift toward thinking of these girls as “trafficked”—that is, as victims, as slaves—rather than arrestable young hookers. But this outfit had probably been sitting here, on the upper floor of a two-story above a falafel joint on Hollywood near the Egyptian, since back before the area Disneyfied.

  Lorena had known all about it, though, and had called on the ride up from O.C. to arrange for someone to come into the office to meet them. She and Mariana had gotten out of the car and gone inside without a pleasantry, leaving him to wait on the street, and now she was coming back out alone. Waldo pointed east and they started toward the car. “Anybody asks,” she said, “we picked her up on Figueroa—downtown, not O.C.”

  “How come?”

  “Just do it, Waldo, okay?”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t; I’m just asking why.”

  “If they knew she was on the street out of county, they wouldn’t be able to place her without a shitload of red tape. Biggest shelters wouldn’t even touch her. She could end up back out there, even worse than before.”

  “You know a lot about this.”

  “You should, too. You were a cop.”

  “Well, I don’t. I didn’t even know that you knew this much.” Her silence felt like yet another reprimand. “So, what, they do placement?”

  At the car, she reclaimed the driver’s side and held out her hand for the keys. “Placement, all kinds of victim services. Assistance through the court system. Education.”

  “For the gir
ls?”

  “Not just for the girls,” she said, getting behind the wheel. “They try to make law enforcement less ignorant, too.”

  He didn’t see her face as she said it, but it was the kind of shot she’d usually take with a smile. He figured he could help get things back on track by joking back. “They could use a better acronym, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “L.A. Trafficking Rescue Emergency Action Network? LATREAN?” He saw her face now, as she turned to him under the car’s interior lamp. No smile.

  How had it gotten this bad, this fast? Could it really have been only weeks ago that they couldn’t get through a day without their clothes coming off more than once, Lorena relentlessly pitching him a vision of the life they could build together, an investigative power couple on an endless romantic adventure? It had been intimacy—full intimacy, not the facsimile he’d recently shared with Jayne White that helped him back into the world, not even the halfway, safety-on version he’d known with Lorena when they were younger—and the whole thing, the real thing, was so intoxicating that despite the grooves three years of solitude had worn on his soul, he’d let her maneuver him into using this case as a trial run.

  Some power couple. They couldn’t agree on where to stop for lunch, let alone whether their client was some kind of teenage black widow. More ominously, the working relationship seemed to be snuffing out the physical. It had been three nights now. The first two of those she’d curled up against him, but last night she’d given his hand a squeeze and rolled away.

  Then again, sex had gotten them into this and maybe it could get them out. Get back on track tonight, that’s all, and back to where they were before they’d ever heard of Stevie Rose.

  * * *

  • • •

  Sometimes she showered with the bathroom door open, an explicit invitation; more often she left it closed but unlocked, available for a happy surprise. As he undressed, he had a flicker of insecurity: might she have bolted it tonight?