Reason to kill, p.24
Reason to Kill, page 24
“You stay here inside, all right?” I tell her once we cross the threshold. I prowl around, poke my head cautiously into every closet and dark corner, then come back to where she’s standing in the living room. “And after I leave, I want you to lock yourself in and prop a piece of furniture up against the door. Not just a folding chair, either. Something heavy, like that couch over there, or better yet, your piano. You understand?”
“No, I don’t,” she says. “What the hell’s that going to do? That won’t stop those fucking cops, will it?”
“I’m not worried about cops,” I explain. “It’s Javier you need to be concerned about.”
“Javier?” She almost laughs. “Javier wouldn’t hurt me. Javier’s a gentleman.”
“Oh yeah? Let me tell you something. Javier does what he’s told. He’s the guy who put your apartment through a blender.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says. Then, in the same breath, “How do you know?”
“Simple deduction,” I say. “You connect the dots. First off, it wasn’t a break-in, what happened to you.”
“Oh no?”
“No. Whoever broke in here, if that’s the word you really wanna use, he had a key. Think about it. He just waltzed right in. And who had a key, tell me?”
She just stares.
“You. Lola. The manager. And Pinky. I’d say we can discount the first three. That leaves Pinky. Pinky’s too old and decrepit to rip up a joint by himself. But he’s good at hiring people. And he and Javier go way back.”
“But why?” she asks. “Why would he do that?”
There’s so much homespun sincerity welling up in her wide brown eyes, I don’t know what to think. Well, actually, that’s not true. What flashes through my mind is Judy Garland and Toto and The Wizard of Oz. That’s what all this is, I think—a fantasy. Everyone’s deluded. Everyone’s lost in the Emerald City, and yeah, there’s no place like home, but how the hell do you get there? “I dunno,” I say. “Maybe he meant to scare you. Or maybe Pinky told him to scare you.”
“Pinky? I—I still don’t understand,” she says. “What was the point?”
“Back up,” I tell her. “Try to see it from his point of view. Let’s say he’s in love with you. Pinky brings you all the way out here from New York. He sets you up with a first-class band, even pays for your apartment. He’s put out a lot of cash. He’s a generous soul, sure, you told me that, but kindness only goes so far. In some ways, you’re an investment.”
“Investment?”
“Maybe he would never be so crass. But that’s how his mind works. Everything’s a transaction.”
“So what if I am?” she says. She’s on the defensive now. “Aren’t I worth it?”
“Sure,” I say, “you’re worth every penny. But he was betting on you, Risa, and he was an old man and he was losing. He had to turn things around in a hurry. That’s when he got his bright idea.”
“And what could that have been?”
“Pinky’s old-school. He liked to be in charge. He liked women who needed him, or at least relied on his judgment.”
“And I wasn’t like that? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You didn’t fit the bill, no. But he hoped you could be persuaded. So I’m guessing here, but maybe he got this bright idea. He put this question to himself: What if Risa Barsky comes home one night and sees that a stranger has broken in and turned her whole place upside down. Just ripped it apart. Who’s the first person she’s going to call for help?”
She doesn’t answer me. But she’s standing there, trembling, staring through me. The innocence is gone.
“And who came over right away to take you to Pinky’s? Who rescued you?”
“Javier,” she mumbles. “You know, it’s funny. I wondered how he got here so fast.”
“Pinky wanted you to love him, Risa. You knew that. You told me that yourself. And the first day I met him I thought he might be smitten with you. He didn’t say it out loud, but he wasn’t much good at keeping it secret, either. He loved you. He wanted you to return the favor. Desperate, in fact. And if that wasn’t an option, well, at least he wanted you to need him.”
She looks at me suddenly with admiration. Or I can’t be sure, maybe it’s more akin to shock.
“Really? You think so?”
“If you’re telling me the truth now, Risa, then yeah. When you drove away with Ray that night, Pinky was still very much alive, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Javier came out from the kitchen door. He heard us shouting. There was a lot of shouting, and after a while he came out. He had a gun, at least I think he did. There wasn’t much light on that side of the house. Whatever he had in his hand he waved it at us, told us both to leave. Get out! Get out! That’s what he said. He screamed at us.”
“So you never witnessed the murder, then.”
“Ray and I were scared. He had a gun. We thought he had a gun. He was waving this thing in the air, and I was so scared I almost peed my pants. We jumped in the car. I had to fumble around for the key in the dark.”
“Where were you when the shots were fired? Do you remember? Did you hear them?”
“I did. And they were just as loud as I told you before. But I didn’t see anything, I swear. It was dark. I floored it and was heading for the main gate. That’s all I cared about. I put my foot down on the gas and—”
“All right,” I say. “You don’t have to say another word. Just do what I tell you.”
She nods. I press my cheek to her forehead, give her a little parting hug. Her hair smells like lavender. “Everything’s going to be fine,” I whisper. Then I’m out the door. I glance at my watch on my way down the hall. Unless I hurry, by this time tomorrow they’ll be fitting Risa out in an orange jumpsuit, that’s a fact. And if Javier’s not around, it may be too late for her in any event. My pace quickens. I’m taking the stairs two at a time.
As soon as I reach my car, I punch up Omar’s number. He sounds vaguely surprised to hear from me. There’s some faint female giggling going on in the background and I wonder whether I called at the wrong time, not that that would stop me.
“Are you free?” is the first thing I ask him.
“Hey man, I’m always free,” he says. He’s speaking reasonably, but it’s a lot slower than I’m used to. “This is the land of the free, right?”
“One other question. Have you been drinking?”
“Drinking? No, no. It’s three in the afternoon. Lourdes and I just woke up from our little siesta on the couch, that’s all. I’m sober as a judge.”
“Good. In that case I need you to meet me at Javier Escovedo’s house in Eagle Rock. Can you be there in an hour?”
“Javier? Who?”
“Javier. That fellow we visited before. He took care of Pinky’s estate.”
“You mean the one with the ripped screen door? That guy?”
“Exactly.” I pull out my notepad and recite Javier’s address. Not only that, I make sure he writes it down.
“Okay, man. I got it. One hour from now. Eagle Rock. I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, Omar. Oh,” I say, “and one more thing.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“The gun.”
“Gun? What gun?”
“The gun I gave you. My present to you. The Glock. You still have it?”
“Are we friends?” he says. “Of course I have it.”
“Okay. Then bring it along. I don’t have time to drive back to Park La Brea and pick up mine. See you in Eagle Rock.”
I take the Hollywood Freeway south and angle my way into the proper lane for the cutoff to the Ventura. They call it the 134 now. The signs are everywhere, but I wish to hell they’d go back to real names. The Golden State. The Harbor. There was poetry then. Now all these numbers are just making people duller and more stupid than they already are, in my not-so-humble opinion. Before I went into the Marines, I used to drive out to Claremont every week to spend quality time with a girl named Ginger O’Neill who went to Scripps. Ginger had long red hair. She was raised Catholic, but she wasn’t happy with that upbringing. She never said she loved me, but she hoped that by dutifully fulfilling my sexual needs that my Judaism would somehow rub off on her. Which, however you look at it, is a bargain. I had to go out on Foothill Boulevard. It wound through rolling orange and lemon groves. It also passed by vast tracts of rubble that would soon become tract homes that were indistinguishable from one another. The trip to Ginger’s bed took forever. Then they put in the Foothill Freeway, which was faster, but it didn’t feel like it, and anyway you missed all the exotic scenery. Then they renamed the Foothill Freeway the 210. Now it takes forever and there’s still no scenery.
I call Carmen to let her know I may be late again for dinner. Maybe she can throw something together for Loretta? Por favor? In my mangled Spanish I tell her again how sorry I am. She’s used to this kind of behavior when I’m on a case, but still I don’t like to worry her. Or Loretta, for that matter. Though Loretta’s not actually a problem anymore. In fact, sometimes in the morning when I shut the door to our apartment and take the twelve tired steps down the gray carpeted hall to the elevator, I’m really not sure Loretta knows I’ve gone. Or that I was ever alive. Carmen has learned how to satisfy her; Carmen is almost her whole world now. She doesn’t say she misses me when I return, she knows who I am, I think, but she doesn’t offer anything, not unless I ask her point-blank.
I arrive at Javier’s long before Omar, which isn’t so surprising. I pull over a few doors south of his house and park on the other side of the street, as though I’m visiting a neighbor of his. But now I have an unobstructed view from the driver’s side. The first thing I notice is that he’s fixed the slash in the screen door. In fact, it seems like he’s replaced the old screen and put in a much more substantial metal door. Also he’s home, I’m pretty certain. There’s a speckled light coming from the kitchen window on the left. His dusty old white Toyota pickup has been parked at a slight angle in the driveway, and the front lawn looks like it’s newly mowed. You can even see some of the grass clippings he left behind on the pavement.
Ten minutes later Omar arrives in his black Camaro. He climbs out cautiously, shoves his gun into the small of his back, and covers it with his orange T-shirt. We look at each other and head slowly toward Javier’s residence.
“Keep an eye on him,” I whisper to Omar. “That’s what I need you to do. I don’t think he’s dangerous, but I want to talk to him without worrying about any monkey business.”
Omar has obviously been mulling over why we’re here and the existential significance of the gun in his pants. I haven’t discussed what Risa told me, but he’s tense and ready. “That’s why you had me bring the gun?” he asks, with a smirk. “Because you don’t think he’s dangerous?”
“I want to have a civilized chat. I want you,” I say as I point to his chest, “to think he’s dangerous.”
“You saying he killed Pinky?”
“I know he killed Pinky. Well, wait a minute, I take that back. If Risa’s telling the truth—if she’s telling the truth, then Javier was the one holding the gun. And he was probably the last one to see Pinky alive that night. Now, does that make him a killer?”
“If she’s telling the truth?” Omar frowns. “Shit, man, hasn’t she told you twenty different stories already?”
“She has, she has. I agree. But this time I’m inclined to believe her.”
“That’s wonderful,” Omar says. His lips curl into a perfect sneer. “That’s marvelous. You believe her.”
“I do. And if I’m right, it means she’s only a witness to a murder. Which is not quite the same as someone who pulled the trigger, is it?”
“And Ray Ballo?”
I shrug. “Ray Ballo. I’m guessing Javier killed Ray, too. But that’s just a wild guess.”
“So tell me,” Omar says, “is there any real difference between your belief and this wild guess of yours? You believe he killed Pinky, with no evidence. And you’re guessing he killed Ray, again with no evidence. But we’re just talking about two murders here. Two bodies.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want you to be sure, that’s what I mean. I mean, have you lost your fucking mind? I don’t like charging into somebody’s house with a loaded gun.” He pulls the Glock out from under his shirt. “This is no joke.”
“You’re funny, Omar.”
“Hilarious, man.”
We stand silently then on either side of the screen door, and Omar holds his pistol at the ready flat against his thigh just in case Javier proves to be a psychopath. I knock three times.
Javier opens it and nods serenely at me. “Please,” he says, “please, señores, come in.”
Chapter 23
HE LEADS US into his living room, then turns and extends his hand for me to shake. His hand isn’t nearly as rough as it was the first time. For some reason, I immediately credit this to the fact that he’s come into more money than he’s ever had before; maybe now in retirement he’s started using lotion. But that’s not the central thing. It’s the way he looks. His black shoes gleam like he’s just walked off a military parade ground, and he’s wearing a solid blue tie over a tan dress shirt, which is passing strange, I think, since it’s four in the afternoon and the middle of the week and he’s home here alone. Who dresses like that in his own house? A sport coat is hung neatly over a nearby kitchen chair and he has undone the top button of his shirt and loosened the tie at the neck, something I also like to do as soon as I’m out of the limelight. This gives him the demeanor of an academic, or maybe an old-time newspaper reporter. Thoughtful. A little harried, but not unattractive.
“You’re lucky,” he says, suddenly mindful of how we’re looking at him. “I just got home a few minutes ago. I was down at St. Dominic’s. They’re organizing a new group to help Latinos. Father Daniel said I’m a natural-born leader.”
“What do they want you to do? You’re starting a new job?”
His brow crinkles in consternation. “Oh, I wouldn’t call it a real job, no.”
“So what’s that mean?”
“Just that there’s no money to pay me. Not yet, at least.” He shrugs his shoulders. “The church, after all.”
He pauses. His dealings with the church seem like a private matter somehow. I’m thinking he wants to keep it that way, walled off, apart.
“I’m not sure,” he says then. He licks his lips slightly. “I’m not sure where it will go, señores. Right now, they’re having me talk to people in small groups, registering voters. That’s a big problem. We have a lot of power, I tell them. It doesn’t matter where you came from. If you’re a citizen, you have the power. But only if you vote.”
The interior of the house hasn’t changed since we last were here. Except for one thing. On the same wall where the wide-screen television still sits, above it and to the right, in a corner niche all its own, there’s a polished wooden replica of Jesus staring down at us in his final moments of agony. He’s about ten inches tall. He’s got sad green eyes and golden tresses. I stop to take it all in. The folk artist, whose name—Alarcon—is barely visible on the side of the cross, has gone to great lengths. You can see the anguish in the face, and while it’s all in miniature, nothing has been overlooked—there are even a couple of red dots on his tiny outstretched palms.
“That didn’t come from a flea market,” I say with admiration. “You must have paid a pretty penny.”
Javier shrugs. “I have an old friend in Guadalajara. He owns a gallery. I saw it in his catalog and decided I wasn’t getting any younger. I called him up. Told him I had to have it.”
“Sometimes you need to be impulsive in life,” I say. “Otherwise, what’s the point, right?”
“Exactly.” He motions us to sit around his dining room table, which looks out onto his backyard. There’s a formidable avocado tree at the center, and all along the white plaster wall behind are birds of paradise, succulents, and other plants I couldn’t name if my life depended on it.
“I didn’t know you were such a gardener, Javier.”
“I did a lot of work outside for Señor Bleistiff.” He wags his head. “It was easier, of course, when I was a younger man. I never got sick, you know, never took a day off.” He waves vaguely at all the abundance. “But God has a way of wearing you down.”
“Still, you have a fine garden out there. You should be proud. That took some doing.”
“A couple of weeks ago I hired a fellow I met at the church. He’s a tremendous worker, Raul. So strong. Never complains. Reminds me of myself thirty years ago.”
Omar hasn’t said a word yet. The minute Javier welcomed us at the door he shoved the gun back behind him before Javier could get a look at it, which was exactly the right thing to do, but now I think Omar has to be confused by all this parlor talk. I know how he feels: It’s hard to just relax and chat, especially when a minute before you were standing outside in the shadows with your hand on the trigger.
Javier asks us if we’d like some refreshment. Coffee? Beer? I can see what’s in the refrigerator? Omar shakes his head. “No, gracias.”
“We don’t want to take up too much of your time, Javier,” I say. “But you’re a smart man. You know how these things go. We’re still on the job. And I still have a few unanswered questions.”
“Questions, yes,” he says, “I’m happy to help you, if I can.” He looks down at his newly smooth hands and rubs them gently together and smiles. There’s a nobility about him, I think, a way he carries himself that reminds me of my father. He’s only a little bit younger than I am, but he has spent most of his life shoveling dirt in the sun, moving the physical universe from one place to another, and even though his body may be weathered, he still doesn’t show it, not on the outside, at least. “I’m not sure you’ve come to the right person,” he says. “And I don’t understand. Señor Bleistiff is dead. He was the one who was paying you, yes?”
