Dangerous Games (3 page)

She folded the covers down suggestively, though she was still dressed. “Do you want to now?”

He patted her knee. “Lu, I was wrong to jump your bones the other night. In my house, you only have to do what you want to,
when
you want to, though it did seem like you were into it 100%.”

“It was just nice you didn't want anything weird,” she said. “It was okay.” The fact that she'd been giving it to boys on demand since she was thirteen, not figuring she had much choice about it, she kept to herself.

“All that acrobatic stuff we shoot is crazy, but it would get pretty dull without it. The girls doing reverse cowgirl, the poor guys having to stand on one leg like storks so the camera can see their weenies going in. Can you imagine middle America watching and trying to copy all that stuff. I bet I've personally made a million bucks for the American Chiropractic Association.”

She couldn't help but smile.

“I mean it, Lu. You're your own woman here. When the money comes, I'll pay you, and then you can rent your own pad, do whatever you want.”

“How come it's Keith who's got the money?” She didn't like Keith much. She'd met him only for a minute, and though she couldn't put a name to it, he had something about him you couldn't trust, like a guy with a habit of nasty surprises.

Rod shrugged. “I think he's just the messenger, the golden moneybags for the golden eggs. He claims it's his money, but I doubt it. You know what I think, I think he's found a group of doctors and dentists or something like that, and I just don't ask. He knows
somebody.
He hands us $25,000 to put together an hour and a quarter video in two days of shooting, and, as far as we need to know, that production money just falls from heaven, even if its far more likely it's come up from the other place.”

“Why don't you save up and make movies for yourself?”

“Because it's not what I do. I don't have a clue how to promote or sell stuff. There's a lot of people doing this, three hundred tapes a month, and if you don't know the ropes it's just going to sit there on your kitchen table. And, to tell you the truth, it's just possible I could get my fingers broke in the process. This business used to be dominated by a lot of Italian guys with silver suits, and even though it's changed a lot these days, what with cheap videotape and all, I still think Keith's moneybags might have a vowel at the end of his name. Whatever, he's not somebody to mess with. Truth is, when I get ambitious, maybe I'll go out on my own and direct, but I've only been doing it a year, and I've got another iron in the fire, anyway.”

“I think you're a nice guy.”

“Nah, your standards are just too low. Look around you, everybody in this business is at least a little bit pissed off, a little crazed, everybody comes from some kind of dysfunctional family—moms ran off with a salesman, daddy used to do them, they had to lick the floors clean for the wicked stepsister. This pays the rent for now. It'll buy me a big Harley and a lot of coke. What you see is what you get, kid.”

“I still think you're nice.”

Dear Diary,

My protector came to talk to me & he didn't even ask for sex tonight. I wonder if this is a compliment to my dignified manner or if I look too Indian for him to want me. I was never very popular in school except when boys wanted you-know & the white girls didn't talk to me very much. I dont believe his real name is Rod but he just laughed when I asked him what his real name is. He could have any of these beautiful blonde women in his movies & he came to talk to me & then he bought me a hamburger at the Jack-in-the-Box. He even asked me to go back to school & said he would get me some books. My heart is filled with the warmth of gratitude for this kindly man. I wish I had someone at home to write a letter to & tell them about him. I live now mainly for the time at the end of the day when I can read about other times & places. Maybe one day I will go somewhere like that.

THREE

Put It Behind Me

The gang unit apparently liked its autonomy. They worked out of a nondescript storefront on East Third a mile east of the Hollenbeck station. There, amid the wanted posters and other notices, a mysterious bumper sticker was taped to the inside of the window:
There is a wide universe of love and pain and death.

Padilla sat with his feet up on an open drawer, going over paperwork. Facing him was a big map with colored pins extending out of the City into County territory, with a key identifying the colors: Marianna Maravillas, Greenwood, Little Valley, Sangra, Lomas, 3 Innocentes, Inez Locos, Barrio Heroes, Quatro Flats, The Magicians, Dogtown, Orphans, Terrace, Obregon, Bluff Boyz. Gloria Ramirez studied the pastel shadings for a moment. Her house was well imbedded in the zone that had been cross-hatched with a light green magic marker—Greenwood. She noticed a white pushpin just about at her house on Greenwood Avenue and guessed it was for Maeve. White for
drive-by, nonfatal incident.

Beside the gang map was the station's homicide board: forty or fifty Polaroid photos of the heads and shoulders of young Latino corpses, bloody and glassy-eyed, clearly deceased and lying on sidewalks or wood floors, although a few were shown still hanging on with tubes coming out of their mouths. There were others of some of the young men still alive, obviously taken by patrol cops. They stood looking defiant against walls or cars. Each photo had a typed caption with the boy's name and nickname—Popeye, Chivo, Stick, Largo, Huffy—then a date and the circumstances of death. One showed only a head, crudely decapitated. Gloria studied this one:
“Bad Dog” David Solis
—the date a few weeks earlier—
Veterano of Dogtown. Head found Pine Hill, north of minimart, fifty feet down culvert from body and machete. Presumably done by the Magicians, likely doer “Trumpo” Rodolfo Carillo.

“Dean,” she said. He looked up, and she showed her badge wallet casually.

“I know who you are,” he allowed. “Sorry. It was your boyfriend's kid, wasn't it?”

“Yeah. Why do you think they hit a
gabacha?
They never do that.”

“I don't know if they even realized she was there. Maybe the perp was just capping off a couple of warning shots, trying to freak the guy. The best thing we could do for this town is give everybody some lessons in marksmanship.”

“So then it's just pure genocide,” she said not caring how angry she sounded. “All the gangbangers kill each other off.”

“That's super-duper in my book, Sergeant. These guys don't deserve to use up oxygen resources. Not one of these skells is gonna contribute shit to the world.”

She decided to go easy. He had a Latino name, after all, and wasn't just another racist cop like her partner. “I hear Jack gave you a pretty good description of the car.”

He rolled his eyes, then laughed. “Big old lowered Chevy. Yeah, that ought to narrow it down
a lot.
Guy inside with brown skin, T-moustache, used a revolver. Uh-huh, sure. Your Jack told us a gold-on-black plate and they went out in 1969, and from his description the Chevy had to be at least a 1973. The plate's just a junkyard special.”

“You could consider it a family matter, a cop's daughter.”

Dean Padilla raised a palm. “Hey, we're on it. We're talking to the Greenwoods, see what they might tell us. They can't like this happening in the middle of their tierra, real dis for them.”

“Jack is really upset, and if nothing happens he might do something stupid on his own.”

Dean Padilla stared at her for a while. “The girl isn't even dead, Ramirez. Can you explain the facts of life to this boyfriend? We're not gonna roll SWAT because an Anglo got hurt in Boyle. It's pattern, it's background, white noise, it happens ten times a night.”

“Not at my house, it doesn't.”

“And don't you horn in, either, Sergeant. You work in Harbor. I'm not coming down there trying to clear
your
245s.”

She left her card on his desk. “I'd just appreciate a call on anything you get.”

“Sure thing.”

“I mean it.”

“Ay te miro, ruca.”

Kathy came out of the hospital room, sniffling a little and blinking the tears away. She nodded to him. “Your turn. She's going to come home with me when she's ready. I just want that clear.”

“Sure,” he assented. But seeing Maeve was all he could think about. Kathy was a blur.

He went in slowly, full of trepidation. There was far too much apparatus for his taste, all of it attached in some way to his little girl, as if every one of her body systems required artificial ministrations—which was probably the case for the moment.

He peered down at her bleary gray eyes, her face colorless as parchment.

“Looking good,” he said.

He noticed tears dribbling down her cheeks and wondered if it was something her mom had said. She wasn't convulsing with the emotion but something had left her steadily weepy.

“Hi, Dad. It's great to see you.”

He rested a hand softly against her shoulder.

“Does it hurt, hon?”

“Uh-uh. I'm sorry, I just can't seem to stop crying. Nothing hurts. It's weird. It feels like I did something wrong.”

“Good people always cry when they get attacked,” he said mildly.

“Really?”

“Somewhere deep inside, you believe you live in a just universe, against all the evidence. So you can't help feeling you must have done something to deserve what happened.”

She offered a pale smile. “Is
that
it?”

“Do you remember, we were talking existentialism just before … it happened?”

“Not really. I remember coming down the steps to talk to you while you were raking up the leaves. Then my memory's pretty much gone. There's a blank, is all. So I'm feeling guilty? Go over that part again about the just universe.”

“Let's let it go for now, hon. You might get a wee bit angry, too, after the weepiness. I've seen it, and it would be understandable.”

She tried to shake her head but ended up rolling it a little instead.

“Don't be too expressive—please.” He moved his hand to her thin warm arm, and was reminded for the millionth time how delicate she was in this violent universe. He couldn't help thinking that a strong man could snap her arm like a carrot.

“What's wrong with me? Mom wouldn't say.”

He thought about it for a moment, but the doctors hadn't issued any taboos. “The bullet hit one of your lower ribs and spun around inside you. You've got very tough ribs, it seems. The bullet tore up some internal stuff.”

“Define
stuff.
”

He grinned as best he could. “They managed to save the kidney, they're pretty sure. It seems to be functioning fine today. You lost about two feet of large intestine. You'll never have to have an appendectomy. I guess that's the bright side.”

“Too bad it didn't get my tonsils, too.”

He thought she was herself again at that minute, and he felt his face flush with the relief of it.

“Wait, what's this?”

She had lifted her right arm painstakingly, strapped as it was to a board to immobilize it for a drip, and he could see that she'd felt the bag attached to her side. Fortunately, it was under a sheet so she couldn't see it.

“While your intestine is healing, you'll have to wear a bag for a while.”

“Oh,
gawd.
” She closed her eyes and shuddered.

“Yeah, hon, I'm sorry, but it's only while you're healing.”

“Oh, ugh. Double ugh.”

“Triple ugh,” he commiserated.

“Now I've got a reason to cry.”

“You won't be doing any sliding into third base or boxing or jumping off the roof, but they say you can drive sled dogs just fine.”

She didn't say anything. He could see she was shaken.

A middle-aged nurse looked in and called time. “Sorry, sir.”

“Give me one minute,” he told her.

Maeve lay there and watched him. He couldn't read her expression.

“Mom wants you home with her for a while. Let's not fight her on it. I'll come see you or take you on trips. She'll relent after a while, and things will get back to normal soon enough.”

She nodded. “Yeah, and we won't say anything about Mom calling your neighbors gun-crazy trash.”

“You know she didn't,” Jack Liffey said. He knew Kathy wouldn't. She had subtler ways to say it.

“She might as well have.”

“We'll get through this, hon. It's upsetting.”

“I'll tell you one thing, Dad, I'll certainly be glad when I can put all this behind me again.”

Until she started giggling maniacally, he didn't realize she'd made a horrible pun about the ostomy. His heart melted, the way it always did when he got a glimpse of her staggering strength. She was going to be okay.

“All the better saints did it,” Kenyon Styles insisted.

The old wino leaned close and confided, “You know I ain't no saint. I been a mackerel snapper, and I know. For weeks I been balling that girl with the torn red sweater.” His breath gave off a whiff of something fleshy and rotten, some premonition of the grave.

“It's okay, you can do anybody you like. You just got to ask forgiveness for it.”

“It's not right with the Lord. It's
fornication!”
The last word was bellowed forlornly into the night, and the tall young man looked up to see if his partner was rolling, and Rod Whipple flashed him a thumb's up, his face buried behind the little Panasonic DC352.

“The Lord won't be so upset with stuff if you make it up to him and do your penance. Look, there's the hammer.”

As if suddenly discovering where he was, the old man noticed the rough man-sized wooden cross construction on the park grass behind him. “Anyway,” he said, his gravelly voice suddenly wistful and faraway, “balling's not the same as it was, not for neither of us.”

“That's tough.” There was no real concern in Kenyon Styles's voice. “The hammer, man. The nail's there. You want the hundred bucks, don't you?”

“I guess.”

“Go for it.”

The old man picked up the huge galvanized nail and held it to his eye gingerly, looking at it dubiously.

“Just your left. One moment of religious sacrifice and you'll be rich.”

Rod Whipple tried to hold the camera with its floodlight steady as he took a quick glance around him. Their glow had scared the dope dealers away from the northeast corner of MacArthur Park, at least for now. A news team, perhaps, dogging some cops on a sweep through the park. One of the hundreds of film or TV or ad crews that infested the L.A. night. In any case
light,
something to avoid.

The old man rested his left hand dubiously, palm up, on one wing of the cross. “I wonder if me an' Erleen could get the ol' moon river magic back.”

A gunshot sounded not too far away, and Rod felt his anxiety level ratchet up a notch. He didn't have half the bravado Kenyon Styles did for stuff like this. But the money would be good.

The old man placed the tip of the 16-penny nail against his palm.

Rod remembered from somewhere deep inside him that nails were associated with St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, and with Joseph of Arimathea, of course, and St. Bernard, and St. Louis. It was all coming back.

The old man held the nail tip in place awkwardly with the thumb and little finger of his left hand and then raised the big roofing hammer. Oh, man, don't, Rod thought, despite himself. But the old man screwed up his face and drove the big nail straight through his palm with one blow.

His shrieking filled the whole night that hovered over MacArthur Park. “Aw Jesus, aw Jesus, aw Jesus!” he wailed on and on.

Gloria Ramirez got back to Greenwood late, and when she came in, she saw Jack crashed on the old sofa in the living room, his mouth open and snoring softly as if exhaustion had caught him all of a sudden. He hadn't even picked up the mail. Under the bills and catalogues, she found a postcard showing the sawtooth peaks of Mt. Whitney, with the roughened redder Alabama Hills in the foreground, and on the back there was a printed scrawl with the vertical strokes going every which way. She had to sit down in a kitchen chair to read after she realized what it was.

Deares Gloria

I no you wasn real sure you was my for true Neese when you was here but I got to ask you now to help me. Luisa went and got real mad at Clyde and ranned away to the city. Im afraid Clyde went and touch her or something Please please can you find her and make her come home. Youre ant Nellie Wilson Emm.

She read it three times, sighed and put the burritos she'd brought home from El Tepeyac in the fridge, noticing that he'd bought some, too. She wondered where he had gone. She knew it wasn't El Tep because too many cops hung out there for his taste. She read the postcard again, very slowly, and once she recovered from the variety of emotions that assaulted her, she realized all at once that this was exactly up Jack's alley. Nellie and her family didn't have much money, but she could slip them some ahead of time to pay Jack's retainer, and it might take his mind off Maeve and finding the bangers who'd done it. It was almost perfect timing.

“You don't need to get married again, Jack. Who needs the official ceremony? Just find yourself some woman who yells at you a lot and give her a house.”

He chuckled as she headed the RAV-4 east off I-5 onto the Antelope Valley Freeway. She always had a quip ready whenever he broached the subject of marriage, even lightly. Quite a reversal on the usual gender positions on commitment, he thought, but Gloria had some aversion to getting married—or to marrying him—and he still wasn't able to identify which.

In a weak moment he'd told Art Castro, an old friend from the anti–Viet Nam War movement long ago, that maybe he just wasn't cut out for marriage.