Halfway House (18 page)

At his request, Sister Agnes gave Bobby the box of comics and he’d read each one all the way through. With each issue he’d developed a better understanding of Jimmy Hixon and his
father
, the Silver Surfer.

The Silver Surfer had the ability to channel ambient cosmic energy into his body at will, and expel it violently as concussive force or gently as a means to restructure molecules according to his mental design. He could generate beams of energy through his hands with sufficient destructive force to level a large city or generate such subtle amounts of energy to restructure the molecules of the natural dyes within a plant to change its color. But he could not transmute elements. The forces binding together the molecules making up the silvery material that comprised the Silver Surfer’s
skin
were so great that there were few known forces in the universe strong enough to overcome them.

The inner portions of his body had also been made highly resistant to injury. Thus, the Surfer was invulnerable to most forms of physical harm. He could survive extremes of temperature caused by the buildup of friction within atmospheres or the vacuum of space or the intense heat within the near vicinity of stars. His body could even withstand the stresses of near-light-speed travel in this universe, and of even greater speeds in hyperspace.

The Silver Surfer could trounce Superman, Spiderman and the X-men all at once if he wanted. What better superhero to have as a father?

When Bobby turned sixteen, he gave up the comics, but he’d always understood Jimmy’s need to identify with parents. Most of the kids at the home dealt with that very same issue, albeit not by co-opting a superhero alien parent. Bobby had determined in his sagely teenage mind that because of Jimmy’s physical handicaps, he’d needed a very special parental cipher. The Silver Surfer had been changed to his form against his will by Galactus. Jimmy had been changed from the potential of a perfect baby to one with only three senses. Whether it was Galactus, the devil or goddamned blind fate, Jimmy had been forced to be something he didn’t want to be, and he’d finally found a reason for it.

Part of Bobby needed to find out why Jimmy had decided to make the Silver Surfer his father. He wanted to understand the boy’s thought processes, because there was one thing he’d known beyond a shadow of a doubt, and that was that Jimmy Hixon was just as sane as the next person.

And then Elvis had become
his
father. The irony was eternally forefront, and ever since that day Jimmy Hixon hadn’t been far from Bobby’s thoughts. The boy had believed a superhero was his father and everyone had laughed at him. Bobby had been told Elvis was his father, and did he dare believe? Was he strong enough to find out?

A neon green late-fifties Chevy and a canary yellow Mercedes sedan with a white hood scoop and tail purred like tomcats as they waited for the light to change at the corner of Crest Road and Hawthorne Boulevard in Rancho Palos Verdes. Split and Blockbuster sat in the Chevy. Behind them was the Mercedes driven by Jimmy V, with his cousin Paco in the passenger seat. Lucy sat in the back, his bulk comfortably filling the bench-style seat. He held a cell phone in his right hand and was busy.

A Jetta filled with four blonde high school girls pulled to a stop in the next lane. Their four heads bobbed in rhythm to some song on the Volkswagen’s radio, reminding Lucy of the little plastic Chihuahuas on the dashboards of taxis. Once he’d seen a bobble-head Jesus. He’d also seen a bobble-head Elvis. Sacrilegious.

“Lucy. We turning up here on the right?” Blockbuster asked through the phone connection.

One of the girls glanced his way, her eyes as blank as the plastic dog’s. Her hair was pulled into four pony tails with colorful ribbons woven in and out of her hair. She mouthed unintelligible words to the unheard song, her mouth moving like the incantation of a spell, looking right through him.

“Lucy. We turning?”

She reminded him of a white girl he’d dated in junior high. Her name had been Colette. She wore her hair just like the girl in the Jetta. Her lips had tasted like bubblegum, but that’s as far as he’d ever gotten. He’d tried to force her one night, but she’d ended up crying.

“Lucy!”

“What?” He glanced at the map in his lap. “Stay on Hawthorne, then turn off Valon. When you see Via La Cresta, take that.”

“Left or right?”

“There is no left or right. There’s only one way to go.”

The light changed and the Jetta pulled away. Lucy watched the girl’s receding head. What had made him think of Colette after all this time? It’s not like he pined after her. She was just another girl from his younger days. The insinuation of his past into the present disturbed him.

“There has to be a left or a right,” Split argued from the front car. “How the hell else are we gonna turn if it ain’t left or right.”

“You better keep it down, or else Lucy’s going to get pissed.”

“He should be pissed. I mean he wants us to turn but not left and not right? What crack is he smoking?”

“Shut the fuck up,
vato
.”

Lucy finally stirred. “You two want to keep your finger off the send button when you’re acting like punks? Pull over at the service station on the corner.”

“Now you’ve done it.”

“Me? I didn’t do anything. But I am going to take a right when I turn into the station. See, you have to take a right. There is no just—”

Lucy sighed in the silence. The Mercedes followed the Chevy as they both pulled into the parking area of the service station. Jimmy Z and Paco both looked questioningly into the backseat but Lucy ignored them. He ignored everything except the feelings that were washing over him. He had a gift for staying out of trouble, and right now his gift said to get the fuck out. Something was wrong. He didn’t know what it was, but something was definitely wrong. Their cars were as out of place as a black eye at a wedding. But this was L.A. He could always come up with a reason for being anywhere. It had to be something else. It had to be a warning on a deeper level.

Lucy suddenly jumped.

Split rapped on the window. A worried, lopsided smile rode the man’s awkward face as he made the universal roll-down-the-window gesture. Lucy depressed the button and lowered it halfway. Split was so much the puppy dog.

“What?”

“Did you want to see me, Lucy?”

“Nope.”

Surprise slashed his features, “Aren’t you mad at me?”

“Nope.”

About a dozen seconds elapsed before Split added, “I’ll be getting back to my ride then.” He stepped away, then jogged back to his car and leapt inside.

Lucy’d deal with him later when he least expected it. He hadn’t missed the insubordination. He was just too busy to be concerned at the moment. Making Split think it was all over was a timesaving measure that had the added benefit of being devious as hell.

He came to a decision.

“Split and Blockbuster, you guys head down to Portuguese Bend and wait for me there. We’re going to handle this ourselves.”

“Okay, Lucy,” Blockbuster said. Worry colored his voice as he spoke to Split, once again forgetting he had the send button depressed. “I told you to shut up and now look what happened. We’ll be lucky if we’re delivering burritos tomorrow down on the beach. What the fuck were you—aw, shit.”

Lucy’s cell phone went silent as the green Chevy pulled back onto the street and headed down Hawthorne. They’d be safe if they followed his orders.

Now for his plan.

The problem was he didn’t have one. Driving into the neighborhood was going to raise eyebrows and probably the blood pressure of the local neighborhood watch. Growing up in San Pedro, he knew how the people of Rancho Palos Verdes looked down on him. It wasn’t just his skin color and it wasn’t just his heritage. The mere fact he lived at the base of their hill said it all. He was low-class by virtue of elevation.

Originally owned by the Vanderbilts back before Carl Laemmie built Universal City in 1915, which became Hollywood in the hands of Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer of MGM, Rancho Palos Verdes now boasted the homes and resorts of Donald Trump, Pete Sampras, P Diddy and four thousand other millionaires whose right to their lofty purchase rested in the fulcrum of cold hard cash. The only Mexicans in the zip code were day laborers, gardeners and maids. He’d be pegged for a gangbanger right away. His only choice was to play dumb. Bobby Dupree better fucking appreciate what Lucy was about to do for him. Instead of relaxing on his porch while his dad played dominoes, he was about to put his nuts in a gold-plated fire. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be burned alive.

“All right boys, nice and slow, let’s take a drive through the neighborhood and see what we can see.”

They turned into Via La Cresta. To his left, between the homes, he could see the lights of ships and Catalina Island in the distance. Royal palms lined the streets like sentinels. Birds of paradise and butterfly bushes hemmed the sidewalks. Million dollar houses preened on perfectly manicured lawns. A two-story Santa Fe sat next to a four-story French Revival, which in turn sat by a sprawling California Craftsman. There wasn’t one style, nor was there a size, that the homes shared. Everything was about location, the view, and the elevation.

“That’s it up ahead.”

The three-story mansion was lit up with spotlights from the front yard and Tiki torches along the side. Two men in tuxedos parked cars and escorted scantily clad women and their dates from the backs of limousines.

Jimmy V pulled the Mercedes to the curb.

There had to be at least a hundred people at the party. Mostly white, the women mostly blonde, and every one of them gorgeous.

“What is it that this
pajiero
does?” Jimmy V asked.

“He’s a film director.”

“Any idea what kind of films?”

“The kind that make a lot of money.”

Lucy was about to order Paco to check out the action with the valets when the cell phone erupted in his hands.

“Lucy, we got a situation,” came the voice of Trujillo.

“Give.”

“MS 13 is cruising 8th Street. They’re looking for some action.”

Jimmy V and Paco exchanged a look. Lucy shook his head. “Then give it to them. I’ll be there in a second.”

Jimmy shoved the car in gear and backed it out of the street. In no time, he was heading down the hill, slipping from gear to gear like a Monte Carlo pro. It wasn’t until they hit Hawthorne that police lights lit up their rear window. As if the siren wasn’t enough to convince them to pull over, the cops activated their PA system and reinforced the message.

Without being told, Paco grabbed the guns and slid them into an opening beneath his seat and reset the false floor. The only way the guns would be discovered is if the cops found reason to confiscate the car and put it on hydraulics. In the meantime, everyone knew to keep it cool.

They pulled to the side and slid the Mercedes in park. Jimmy V lowered his window. The thick night air immediately fought its way inside through the air conditioning. It carried with it the scent of exotic flowers and the ocean.

One cop stood by the back bumper, while the other walked up to the driver’s side.

“Turn off the engine.”

Jimmy did as ordered, turning the key all the way back.

Instead of asking for license and registration, the cop said, “Tell Mr. Cabellos to step out of the car.”

“What?” Jimmy V’s eyes darted from the rearview mirror to the policeman.

“Lucy. We want a word with him.”

“Officer,” Jimmy V said, leaning out the window. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“Then do as you’re told.”

Paco seemed as if he were about to do something, when Lucy laid his hand on the gangster’s shoulder. “Easy. Let’s see what this is about, okay?” To Jimmy he added, “Tell him I’m coming out.”

The cop stepped back as Lucy climbed from the backseat. He closed the door behind him then leaned against it. The cop was about six foot and had the look of someone who didn’t like his job. The police car read Rancho Palos Verdes Police Department. Lucy knew exactly what this was: a roust, pure and simple. Someone had seen them and they wanted to send a message.

“What can I do for you, officer?”

“We noticed that you’re outside your area.”

“I didn’t see any fences.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I do.”

The cop exchanged looks with his partner. Lucy turned and noticed that the camera on the dash of the cruiser had been turned off. No red light. No evidence. He turned back to the policeman, ready for anything. Without a camera, these guys weren’t on the job. They weren’t even wearing nameplates.

“It’s like this,” the cop said, removing his cap. “You need to stay in San Pedro where you belong.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then we can convince you of the gravity of your decision.”

And there it was. “So who sent you?”

“A concerned citizen.”

I bet, thought Lucy. He wouldn’t be surprised if the community had some kind of biometric program to keep track of the cars that came and went.

“Would that concerned citizen have a name?”

“He would, but you couldn’t pronounce it right.”

“And it’s rude to mispronounce someone’s name,” the other cop added.

Lucy nodded. He had a choice. He could either stand here and take the roust, which would probably end with him in jail or the hospital, or he could get back in his car and find Trujillo and see what MS 13 was doing. The latter meant giving in, something that Lucy didn’t do well. But he had the intrusion to think about.

“I better not come back here until I can pronounce it right.” He opened the door to the Mercedes. “We’ll be going now, officer.”

“Good decision.”

Lucy got back in the car and closed the door, gritting his teeth the entire time. He hated the prejudice. He hated the treatment. For the common good of the order, he’d take it, but he vowed that the cop would pay for it at a later date.