Dark Horse (A Jim Knighthorse Novel) (2 page)

“I should resent that remark, if it wasn’t so
true.” He stood. “I gotta run. Good luck with the kid, but I think
it’s a lost cause. Kid even has a record.”

“What kind?”

“Vandalism, mostly. He’s a goner. Hear
they’re gonna try him as an adult.”

Detective Hanson left with his Styrofoam cup.
I noticed he wasn’t wearing socks. Even cops in Huntington Beach
are cool.

3.

Cindy Darwin is an anthropology professor at
UCI. Her expertise is in the anthropology of religion, which, she
tells me, is an important aspect of anthropology. And, yes, she can
trace her lineage back to Charles Darwin, which makes her a sort of
icon in her field. She knows more things about anthropology than
she probably should, and too few things about the real world. Maybe
that’s why she keeps me around.

It was late and we were walking hand-in-hand
along the Huntington Pier. From here we could see the lights of
Catalina Island, where the reclusive sorts live and travel via
ferry and plane. To the north, in the far distance, we could see
Long Beach glittering away. The air was cool and windy and we were
dressed in light jackets and jeans. Her jeans were much snugger and
more form-fitting than mine. As they should be.

“I’m thinking of giving San Diego a call,” I
said.

“Who’s in San Diego?” she asked. She had a
slightly higher pitched voice than most women. I found it endlessly
sexy. She said her voice made it easier to holler across an
assembly hall. Gave it more range, or something.

I was silent. She put two and two together.
She let go of my hand.

“They call you again?” she asked. “The Rams,
right?”

“The Chargers. Christ, Cindy, your own
brother plays on the team.”

“I think it’s all sort of silly. Football, I
mean. And all those silly mascots, I just don’t get it.”

“The mascots help us boys tell the teams
apart,” I said. “And, no, they didn’t call. But I’m thinking about
their last offer.”

“Honey, that was two years ago.”

She was right. I turned them down two years
ago. My leg hadn’t felt strong enough.

“The leg’s better now,” I said.

“Bullshit. You still limp.”

“Not as much. And when I workout, I feel the
strength again.”

“But you still have metal pins in it.”

“Lots of players play with pins.”

“Have you told Rob yet?” she asked. Rob was
her brother, the Chargers fourth wide receiver. Rob had introduced
me to Cindy during college.

“Yes.”

“What does he think?”

“He thinks it’s a good idea.”

We stopped walking and leaned over the heavy
wooden rail. The air was suffused with brine and salt. Waves
crashed beneath us, whitecaps glowing in the moonlight. A lifeguard
Jeep was parked next to us, a quarter into the ocean on the pier.
All that extra weight on the pier made me nervous.

“Why now?” she asked finally.

“My window is rapidly closing,” I said.

“Not to mention you’ve always wondered if you
could do it.”

“Not to mention.”

“And you’re frustrated out of your gourd that
a fucking leg injury has prevented you from finding this out.”

“Such language from an anthropologist.”

She sighed and hugged me around my waist. She
was exactly a foot shorter than me, which made hugging easy, and
kissing difficult.

“So what do you think?” I asked.

“I think you’re frustrated and angry and that
you need to do this.”

“Not to mention I might just make a hell of a
fullback.”

“Is he the one who throws the ball?”

We had gone over this precisely one hundred
and two times.

“No, but close.”

She snuggled closer, burying her sharp chin
deep into my side. It tickled. If I wasn’t so tough I would have
laughed.

“Just don’t get yourself hurt.”

“I don’t plan to, but these things have a way
of taking you by surprise.”

“So are you really that good?” she asked,
looking up at me.

“I’m going to find out.”

She looked away. “If you make the team,
things will change.”

I hugged her tighter. “I know.”

4.

I was in a conference room at the Orange
County jail in Santa Ana, accompanied by Charley Brown’s assistant,
Mary Cho. We were alone, waiting for Derrick Booker to make his
grand appearance. Mary was Chinese and petite and pretty. She wore
a blue power suit, with the hem just above her knees. She sat next
to me, and from our close proximity I had a clear view of her
knees. Nice knees. Cho was probably still a law student. Probably
worked out a whole lot. Seemed a little uptight, but nothing a
little alcohol couldn’t fix. Was probably a little tigress in bed.
She wasn’t much of a talker and seemed immune to my considerable
charm. Probably because she had caught me looking at her knees.

The heavy door with the wire window opened
and Derrick was shown into the conference room by two strapping
wardens. He was left alone with us, the wardens waiting just
outside the door. The kid himself was manacled and hogtied. Should
he make a run for it, Pope John Paul II himself could have caught
him from behind.

Mary Cho sprang to life, brightening
considerably, leaning forward and gesturing to a chair opposite
us.

“Derrick, thanks for meeting us,” she
said.

He shrugged, raising his cuffed hands
slightly. “As if I had anything better to do.”

Which is what I would have said. I stifled a
grin. I suspected grins were illegal in the Orange County jail.
Derrick sounded white, although he tried to hide that fact with a
lot of swaggering showmanship. In fact, he sounded white and rich,
with a slightly arrogant lilt to his voice. He was good looking,
with strong features and light brown eyes. He was tall and built
like an athlete.

“I have someone here who wants to speak with
you,” said Cho.

“Who? Whitey?”

I raised my hand. “That would be me.”

Derrick’s father owned lots of real estate
across southern California, and Derrick himself had grown up filthy
rich. He was about as far from the ghetto as you could get. Yet
here he was, sounding as if he had lived the mean streets all his
life. As if he had grown up in poverty, rather than experiencing
the best Orange County had to offer, which is considerable. I
suspected here in prison he was in survival mode, where being a
wealthy black kid is as bad as being a wealthy white kid. Except
that he had the jargon wrong and a few years out of date, and he
still sounded upper class, no matter how hard he tried to hide
it.

“My name’s Jim Knighthorse.”

“Hey, I know you, man!”

“Who doesn’t?” I said. “And those who don’t,
should.”

He smiled, showing a row of perfect white
teeth. “How’s your leg? Saw you bust it up against Miami. Hell, I
wanted to throw up.”

“I did throw up. You play?”

“Yeah. Running back.”

“You any good?” I asked.

“School is full of whities, what do you
think?”

I shrugged. “Some whities can run.”

He grinned again. “Yeah, no shit. You could
run, bro. Dad says wasn’t for your leg you’d be in the pros.”

“Still might.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“What about the leg?” he asked.

“We’ll see about the leg,” I said.

We were silent. Derrick was losing the ghetto
speak. His eyes had brightened considerably with the football talk.
We looked at each other. Down to business.

“You do her, Derrick?”

“Do her?”

“He means kill her, Derrick,” said Cho. “He’s
asking if you killed Amanda Peterson.”

“Thank you, assistant Cho,” I said, smiling
at her. She looked away quickly. Clearly she didn’t trust herself
around me. I looked back at Derrick. “You kill her, Derrick?”

“Hell, no.”

His arms flexed. Bulbous veins stood out
against his forearms, disappearing up the short sleeves of his
white prison attire. I could see those arms carrying a
football.

“Why should anyone believe you?” I asked.

“Give a fuck what anyone believes.”

“They found the knife in your car, Derrick.
Her blood was on the knife. It adds up.”

He was trying for hostile bad-ass, but he was
just a kid, and eventually his emotions won out. They rippled
across his expressive face, brief glimpses into his psyche:
disbelief, rage, frustration. But most of all I saw sorrow. Deep
sorrow.

“Because... ” He stopped, swallowed, looked
away. “Because we were going to get married.”

“Married?”

“Uh huh.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“How old was she?”

“The same.”

“Anyone know about the marriage?” I
asked.

He laughed hollowly. “Hell, no. Her dad hates
me, and I’m sure he doesn’t think much of me now.”

“I wouldn’t imagine he does,” I said. “You
have any theories who might have killed her?”

He hesitated. “No.”

“Was she seeing anyone else?”

“No.”

“You were exclusive?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“She loved me.”

“Did you love her?” I asked.

He didn’t answer immediately. The silence
that followed was palpable. The ticking of the clock behind us
accentuated the silence and gave it depth and profundity. I
listened to him breathe through his mouth. The corners of his mouth
were flecked with dried spittle.

“Yeah, I loved her,” he said finally. He
swiped his sleeve across his face, using a shrugging motion to
compensate for his cuffed wrists. The sleeve was streaked with
tears.

“That will be enough, Mr. Knighthorse,” said
Cho. “Thank you, Derrick.”

She got up and went to the door. She knocked
on the window and the two wardens entered and led the shuffling
Derrick out of the room. He didn’t look back. I got up and stood by
the door with Cho.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think you’re secretly in love with me,” I
said.

“I think you’re secretly in love with
yourself.”

“It’s no secret,” I said.

We left the conference room and moved down
the purposefully bare-walled hallway. Perhaps colorful paintings
would have given the accused false hope.

“The kid didn’t do her,” I said. “No one’s
that good an actor.”

She nodded. “We know. He’s going to need your
help.”

“He’s going to need a lot of help,” I
said.

“Let me guess: and you’re the man to do
it?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.”

5.

On Beach Blvd., not too far from my
crime-fighting headquarters, there is a McDonald’s fast food
restaurant. McDonald’s is a fairly well-known establishment here in
Huntington Beach, California, although I can’t vouch for the rest
of the country since I don’t get out much. This McDonald’s features
an epic two- or three-story plastic playground, an ATM and DVD
rentals.

Oh, and it also features God.

Yes, God. The Creator. The Lord Of All That
Which Is And Is Not. The God of the Earth below and the sky above.
The God of the Moon and the stars and Cher.

No, I’m not high. At least, not at the
moment.

Oh, and he doesn’t like me calling him God.
He prefers Jack. Yes, Jack.

Again, I’m not high.

Let me explain: Not too long ago, while
enjoying a Big Mac or three at this very McDonald’s, a homeless man
dressed in rags and smelling of an overripe dumpster sat across
from me. He introduced himself as God, and later, by my third Big
Mac, I almost believed him.

God or not, he offered some pretty damn good
advice that day, and I have been coming back ever since.

Today, by my second Big Mac and third re-fill
of Coke, he showed up, ambling up to the restaurant from somewhere
on Beach Blvd. Where he came from, I don’t know. Where he goes, I
still didn’t know. Maybe Heaven. Maybe a dumpster. Maybe both.

As he cut across the parking lot, heading to
the side entrance, I noted that his dirty jeans appeared
particularly torn on this day. Perhaps he had had a fight with the
Devil earlier.

Jack went through the door, walked up to the
cashier, ordered a coffee.

“Hi, Jim,” he said, after he had gotten his
coffee. He carefully lifted the lid with very dirty fingers and
blew on the steaming coffee.

“God doesn’t like his coffee too hot?” I
asked. I had been curious about this, as he always blew on his
coffee.

“No,” he said simply. God, or Jack, was an
average-sized man, with average features: His hair was of average
color and length (neutral brown, hanging just above his ears), his
eyes of average color (brownish, although they could have been
green), and his skin was of average tone (perhaps Caucasian,
although he could have passed for Hispanic). In short, the man was
completely nondescript and nearly invisible to the world at large.
He would make a hell of a P.I., actually.

Jack finally looked up from his coffee and
studied me with his neutrally-colored eyes, squinting a little. I
felt again that he was looking deep within me, into my heart and
soul. While he was reading my aura, or whatever the hell it was he
was doing, I looked down at his coffee: It was no longer
steaming.

“How’s your day going, Jim?” he finally asked
me, sipping from the cup, using both hands, cradling the thing
carefully, as if it were the Cup of Life.

He always asked me that, and I always said,
which I did now: “Fine, Jack. How’s it hanging?”

“Some would be offended to hear you speak to
God in such an irreverent, disrespectful manner.”

“Sure,” I said. “Hell, I’m even offended.
Can’t you tell?”

He laughed softly.

“As they say, I broke the mold with you, Jim.
And they’re hanging to the left. They’re always hanging to the
left. Isn’t there anything else you want to ask God?”