City of War (18 page)

So after having heard Manarca say that Kiki Videz’s mother worked as a domestic in Los Feliz, finding her hadn’t been difficult; Stephen and Warren’s housekeeper just tapped into the neighborhood network, and now I was sitting in the kitchen of a big house on Chislehurst Drive while sunlight streamed through a large bay window and a pair of Siamese cats lolled on the white tile floor.

Marta was a slight woman with large brown eyes, but despite having borne five children, she was still trim and attractive. She hadn’t made eye contact with me since I’d arrived, and as I spoke to her in quiet Spanish, she kept glancing at the bandage on my hand and crossing herself nervously.

I finally said, “Mrs. Videz, I don’t think Kiki is the one who shot me.”

Her voice was so soft that, as close as I was, I still had to strain to hear her. She spoke with a peasant accent, but there was an articulateness to it that indicated she had attended school for at least a while.

“I brought my family to this country so they could have a better life. My husband didn’t want to come. He was afraid. But I insisted, and now he is dead. In Guatemala, the nar-
cotraficantes make you carry drugs, then they kill you. In America, you take the drugs and kill yourself.”

Silent tears rolled down her cheeks, and she dabbed them with the back of her hand. “Kiki was such a good boy. When he was little, he used to sit on my lap and just hold onto me. And when he went off to school, he cried so much the teacher asked me to come and sit in the class. The other children made fun of him, but Kiki would just look at me and smile.”

“Mrs. Videz…”

But she wasn’t finished. “Kiki didn’t want to join a gang, but they beat him so many times that he finally gave in.” Then, with an anguish that sent a chill through me, she looked into my eyes for the first time. “Why did they cut off my baby’s arms? Why?” Now her tears spilled with no sign of slackening. I gave her my handkerchief.

I had no words of comfort for this kind of pain, so I simply reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. She wept for a few more moments, and then struggled and got control. “But you did not come here to listen to a mother’s heartache. I am glad you do not think Kiki shot you or that woman. How can I help you?”

Here was the strength that had carried Marta Videz and her family from the dirt streets of the tropics to the barrio of East Los Angeles. “Mrs. Videz, I need to know if Kiki had a tattoo on his right arm.”

She nodded. “Yes, so many tattoos, so awful. It was like he was trying to show the world how much he hated himself.” She gestured to her left forearm. “Here, he had a knife, a dagger, dripping blood down to his hand.” Then, gesturing to her right, “And here, he had a leaping tiger. Very large with many colors. Los Tigres.”

“No spiders?”

She shook her head. “Kiki was very afraid of spiders. He would never have let anybody draw one on his skin.”

“Mrs. Videz, did you ever hear Kiki mention someone named Tino?”

“No.”

“Or Dante?”

Her face took on a fierceness I could not have imagined. “Oh, I know him. Dante with the marks on his face.” She pointed to both cheeks, and I was sure she meant acne scars. “I saw him twice. He came to our house to pick up Kiki. While my son was out of the room, he put his hand here.” She pointed to her breast and blushed deep red. “He didn’t say anything, he just…how do you say it…pinched the…the tip…until the pain made me so weak I couldn’t move. It was not the touch of a man who knows women. It was a touch of evil—and a warning.”

“What was Kiki doing with him?”

“He only told me he was doing some work. And he was being paid a lot of money. If I had just told Kiki what this Dante did to me, he would never have gone with him, and my son would be alive. But I was too ashamed.” I thought she was going to cry again, but she didn’t.

“Did you find anything unusual in Kiki’s car?”

“Kiki didn’t have a car. When he went someplace with Dante, he picked him up. In a truck.”

“You mean a van. Dark blue.”

“Yes, very clean and shiny. He always parked it in the middle of the street, so nobody could get past. One day, a man got out of his car to yell, and Dante put a gun in his face. Then he laughed. But not a funny laugh.”

“Did your son tell you where they met?”

“At the Home Depot. In the back, where the men wait for work. Sometimes, on Saturdays, Kiki would go there to make extra money. He was good with his hands, and my husband taught him how to put down cement.”

“You said you saw Dante twice. Was the other time at your house too?”

She shook her head but didn’t offer anything.

“Can you tell me?” I asked gently. “It might be important.”

She looked at me, and I could see real fear. She thought for a moment, then made a decision. “On Sunday, my day
off, I get up early and help my cousin, Rita, clean the bar at the Biltmore Hotel. We ride the train downtown, and that way we can finish in time to walk to eleven o’clock mass at Our Lady of Angels. It’s such a beautiful place, and there are so many people. It makes God feel very close. Do you go to church, Mr. Black?”

“Not as often as I should.”

“I will say a prayer for you.”

“Thank you, I’d like that.”

“The Sunday before Kiki was…was killed, Rita and I were finished with our work and getting ready to leave for church, when Dante came into the hotel. He was dressed in a suit—very expensive.”

“Was he alone?”

“No, there were other men there.”

“In the lobby?”

She nodded. “Five or six. All young, dressed very nice. They were with a man with much white hair. A very, very big man, but not so old like you would expect with such hair.”

“When you say big, do you mean tall? Like me?”

“Tall, yes, but also very…” She used her hands to demonstrate a thick torso. “Very
anchuro
.”

“Wide?” I said.

She nodded. “Yes, wide. But graceful. Like a dancer. Like he was big all his life. And his mouth. Much teeth…much teeth. Not a nice man to look at.”

She stopped, looked at me. “I also saw the woman.”

“The woman?”

Marta nodded. “The woman who was shot…with you. Dr. York. She was standing on the balcony that looks down over the lobby. Watching the men.”

I was taken completely off guard. “Are you sure?”

Marta’s voice turned firm. “Her picture was on television. I am sure.”

“How long did you watch?”

“Not very long. At first, they just stood there, like they were
waiting for somebody else. Then Dante said something that made the big man angry, because he slapped him—hard.”

“What did Dante do?”

“Nothing, he didn’t even put his hand on his face. Then all of sudden, more men came into the hotel, some of them from across the other ocean. Many men, maybe ten, twelve, and they had things in their ears, like when you are deaf. They went to different places in the lobby and stood. One of them was right next to me.”

Somebody’s private security, I thought. Wearing earbuds, like the Secret Service. “When you say from across the ‘other ocean,’ do you mean they were Asian?”

“Yes, Asian. But I cannot tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese and the others.” She seemed embarrassed. “I have a friend who is Korean, and she looks like them too. I’m sorry.”

I reassured her. “It’s okay, Marta. What happened next?”

“A man wearing sunglasses came in. He was not Asian, like the ones who were protecting him. He went to the man in the white hair, and they shook hands. Like they were old friends.”

Old friends don’t bring security. And somebody had insisted on meeting in a public place. It was the kind of show reticent people participate in only when they think there is real danger.

Marta had started speaking again, and I had to stop her and ask her to start over.

“The elevator opened, and everybody got very nervous. Like it wasn’t supposed to open. The man standing next to me took out a gun. Then from the elevator, a man got out…an American.”

“An American?”

She nodded. “No matter how hard they try, people who live in other countries cannot dress like Americans. And they cannot walk like them. This man had on jeans and one of those shirts with a horse on it, here.” She indicated her left
chest. “The shirt was white and the horse was blue, and he was wearing a leather jacket. An old one. Brown, very neat. And cowboy boots. Not like a Guatemala vaquero. Very expensive.”

“What did he do?”

“He walked right through all of those men with things in their ears like they were not even there. Smiling. That is what Americans do. They are not afraid of anything.”

She was right. It gets us killed sometimes, but it’s also what makes us…us.

“The man in the white hair was angry, and he said something, but the American didn’t seem to care. Then…”

She stopped, and I could see she was clasping and unclasping her hands.

“Go on, Marta,” I said softly.

She nodded, but her hands were still busy. “The woman. Dr. York. She had a camera. One of those little ones you hold out like this.” She extended both arms. “One of the men saw her and pointed. The white-haired man started shouting, and Dante and some of the others went after her. There was much yelling and running, and I was afraid. So I took Rita’s arm and we left.”

“What did your cousin say?”

“That she didn’t see anything.”

“But she did.”

“Of course. She was standing right beside me.”

“Do you think she had ever seen any of them before?”

Marta shook her head. “I waited until she wasn’t expecting it, and I asked her.”

“And you believe she was telling the truth?”

“Yes, Rita would never lie twice. And never on the way to church.” Marta smiled for the first time.

“Marta, I want you to take a moment and think back. Get a mental picture of the scene. Then I want you to describe the man wearing sunglasses.”

Marta thought for a moment. “He was not tall, but not
short either. And his suit was tight across his chest, like those men on TV who tell you to buy their machines, and you will become strong.”

“A weight lifter?” I said.

She nodded. “His arms were thick too. Like they were almost too big for his clothes. He had a square face, and his hair was very dark, but it had a white streak in it. Right here.” She pointed at the front of her own hair.

“Did you hear him speak?”

“Yes, and he did not come from America. He talked like Mr. Nik.”

“Mr. Nik?”

“Yes, the man who owns this house.”

She pointed to a framed movie poster on the wall across the room. It was an art film I had never heard of, but as I read through the credits, the composer’s name stopped me. Nikita Kuchin.

I looked at Marta. “Is Mr. Nik Russian?”

She nodded. “He says most people leave Russia because of politics. He just wanted to get warm.”

The Siamese cats suddenly heard something and bolted out of the room. Marta smiled and shook her head. “Loco.”

I got up to leave. “One more question, Marta. Have you ever heard of something called City of War?”

She thought for a moment. “In Guatemala there is a large cemetery called City of the Souls. I have never heard of one for war…but maybe there should be such a place…where we could put the men who start them.”

The wisdom of the unlettered. Once again confirming Buckley’s observation that he’d rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston phone book than by two thousand Harvard professors.

I handed Marta my card. “If you need anything, or if Dante contacts you…”

She took the card, looked at it, then at me. “Thank you, Mr. Black. You’re the first person who has been kind. And your Spanish is beautiful.”

At the front door, I stopped and turned. “Marta, you are a very strong person.”

“I am trying,” she answered. “For Kiki.”

As I went down the front walk to my truck, I knew more than when I’d gone in, but, unlike Sgt. Manarca, I was a long way from making out the Eiffel Tower. One thing was clear, however. Kim was batting 100 percent in the bullshit department. And not only had she seen Dante before, it wasn’t in the hot fudge line at Baskin-Robbins.

In the car, I replayed my conversations with her. She’d talked about losing her cell phone, datebook, even her dry cleaning, but she’d never mentioned a camera. And there hadn’t been one in the house or in the box sent over by Dr. Abernathy. I dialed the Getty.

“Everyone in the art world carries a digital camera,” said A.A. “It’s one of the wonderful things technology has brought us. Even a lox like myself can take a picture that it used to take an entire crew to get.”

“Do you know what kind of camera Kim had?”

“The museum issues us each a top-of-the-line Olympus. Nikon be damned. It’s just marvelous.”

“And you didn’t find it in her things?”

He thought for a moment. “No, and I actually thought about it, because it’s supposed to be turned in when an employee leaves. But I didn’t know who to ask, and it seemed unseemly to start calling around. I take it you didn’t find it either.”

“No, but if it shows up, I’ll be sure to send it to tech security.”

He laughed. “You do that.”

15

Big Boats and Bigger Bullshit

As the gates on Dove Way slid back, I saw the silver Lexus. I recognized it right away. Instead of driving down into the garage, I parked alongside. When I walked into the house, Rhonda Champion and Mallory were sitting in the living room.

Rhonda got up, gently put her arms around me and pressed her lips against mine. Her long, raven hair smelled of lilac as it brushed my face. I held her a little longer. When she stepped back, she let out a short whistle. “Whew, you need a bar of soap.”

“You’re the second person in two days to comment on my hygiene.”

“Why did it take two of us? Go directly upstairs and leave those clothes in the hall.”

I did as I was told, and a few minutes after I stepped into the shower, Rhonda came into the bathroom and leaned against the sink. She was holding a couple of tall Arnold Palmers, and I extended a hand through the steam so she could hand me one. I realized I hadn’t spoken to her since the shooting, and now the guilt set in.