California Fire and Life (12 page)

“You set the fire, Teddy.”

“No.”

Jack picks Teddy halfway up, then drives his knee into Teddy’s chest. The air comes out of Teddy’s lungs with a grunt that makes Jack sick. But it’s like,
Do the job and do it right
, so he knees Teddy two more times then shoves him down so that his head bounces off the concrete floor.

He backs off and Teddy goes fetal.

“Don’t you just hate it,” Jack says, “when bad things happen to good people?”

“You’re crazy, man,” Teddy moans.

“That would be a good thing for you to keep in mind, Teddy,” Jack says. “Now, are you going to give it up or do we start again?”

“I want a lawyer.”

Jack knows he has to move him, and quick. Teddy gets a lawyer, he’ll find out there’s a murder rap hanging out, and then it’s over.

“Did you say something?” Jack asks. “Because you’re really tripping, man. Bouncing off the walls. PCP, Teddy? Or did you get hold of some skanky meth?”

Jack stomps on him, four times, hard.

Teddy balls up.

“C’mon,” Jack says. “It’s an arson. You’ll get eight, serve what, three? You can do three.”

Teddy’s lying on the floor sucking for breath.

Bentley’s turned away, his face into the corner.

“Or do you want to start again, Teddy?” Jack asks. “Because this time I’m really going to
hurt
you. I go about two twenty, so if I jump and land on your back …”

“Maybe I did the fire.”

“Maybe?”

“I did the fire,” Teddy says. “But Azmekian hired me to do it and I’ll say that in court.”

Jack feels the weight of the world go off his shoulders. He’s been carrying Guzman’s life and he didn’t want to drop it.

About ten seconds later Teddy’s in the chair, writing like mad. Gives it up totally. When he’s done, Bentley says to him, “Asshole, a guy
died
in the fire. You just wrote yourself a murder beef.”

Which just cracks Bentley up.

Jack’s down the hall, he can hear Bentley laughing and Teddy screaming,
You motherfuckers! You lying asshole motherfuckers!

Gets over that, though, and
really
starts laying it on Azmekian, giving up other fires, all kinds of shit. Teddy’s digging like a fucking gopher, man, trying to tunnel away from that body in the warehouse.

Jack, he’s in the can puking.

He never lit a guy up before.

End of the workday, he goes and finds his dad and they surf until it’s black out. Tells Letty he doesn’t want company that night.

The story on Jack Wade, Part Three.

Jack’s on the stand in Azmekian’s criminal trial.

Jack listens to the DA’s question, turns to the jury and says, “The modus operandi of the fire matched that of several known arsonists, including Mr. Kuhl. We brought Mr. Kuhl in for questioning, confronted him with the evidence against him, and he wrote a statement confessing to setting the fire and implicating Mr. Azmekian.”

“What sort of evidence?”

Jack nods. “Mr. Kuhl left behind one of the gasoline cans at the scene, and we found fingerprints that matched Mr. Kuhl’s.”

Jury’s eating him up.

“Was Mr. Kuhl under any duress to sign the statement?”

Jack smiles. “None.”

The DA calls Kuhl, who looks properly criminal-like in jailhouse Day-Glo orange. Kuhl’s in County awaiting his own trial, so he has a lot riding on his testimony. He doesn’t get the job done on Azmekian, he gets to carry the dead night watchman. They get through the preliminaries and then the DA throws the big fat pitch across the plate.

“Did you set the fire at the Atlas Warehouse?”

“No.”

Goddamn Billy’s in the gallery and he about swallows his teeth because Cal Fire has denied Azmekian’s fire claim based on Teddy Kuhl’s statement. Azmekian filed a lawsuit, of course, and they’re three months from the civil trial. Which will be a slam dunk if Azmekian has to shuffle to the stand in ankle bracelets.

The DA isn’t all that thrilled, either. He gulps and asks a question that provides commuter entertainment in the Greater Orange County legal community for weeks to come.

He asks, “You
didn’t
?”

“Nope.”

The DA goes back to his table and starts scrambling through his papers. Comes up with Kuhl’s statement, and starts reading it out loud. Then asks, “Didn’t you write this statement and testify to its truth under oath?”

“Yeah,” Kuhl says, and pauses with a jailhouse joker’s perfect timing. “But I lied.”

Jack gets this sinking feeling.

His career, going right through the floor and into the shitter.

As the DA croaks, “No further questions.”

Azmekian’s lawyer has a few, though.

“You said you lied in that statement, Mr. Kuhl.”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you lie?”

Kuhl grins at Jack, then says, “Because Deputy Wade there was beating the crap out of me.”

He goes on with great glee to say that Wade threatened to really hurt him if he didn’t give up Azmekian. How he would have said anything to stop the beating. How he doesn’t even know Azmekian. No, sir, never set eyes on him before today.

Jack’s sitting there watching this performance and wondering who got to Kuhl. Who was so scary that Teddy would trash his deal and risk a murder conviction?

Then he hears the lawyer ask, “Do you recognize Deputy Wade in this courtroom?”

“Sure,” Kuhl says. “The cocksucker’s sitting right there.”

The predictable hell breaks loose.

The judge bangs his gavel, the defense attorney moves for dismissal, the DA demands that Kuhl be arrested for perjury on the spot, the defense attorney demands that Jack be arrested for perjury on the spot, the bailiff whispers to Teddy he better not fucking say cocksucker on the stand ever again or he’ll whale the living shit out of him in the van, the defense attorney moves for a mistrial, the DA moves for a mistrial, the judge says there’s not going to
be
any mistrial, not on his damn calendar, anyway, and the next thing Jack knows the judge has sent the jury off and is holding an evidentiary hearing where Jack is the star witness.

Superior Court Justice Dennis Mallon is one pissed-off judge.

He has the dark suspicion that someone is jerking his leash here and he thinks that person might be Deputy Wade. So he gets Jack in front of him, reminds him that he’s still under oath and asks in no friendly tone of voice, “Deputy, did you
coerce
this statement from this witness?”

Jack’s problem—well, one of Jack’s many problems—is that he doesn’t have time to think this through. If Jack were more experienced he would have taken the Fifth, which would have tubed the prosecution
but probably saved his own ass. Jack’s not thinking that way, though. What he’s thinking is that he has to protect his witness. He’s also thinking that it’s Career Felon and All-World Scumbucket Teddy Kuhl’s word against his and Bentley’s—like, they’re up against a guy who’s got a teddy bear with a
hard-on
on his arm—so Jack decides to gut it out.

“No, Your Honor.”

“Is there
any
truth to what this man Kuhl is saying?”

“None, Your Honor.”

Me and him, we’re lying motherfuckers, Your Honor.

Judge Mallon scowls and then the defense attorney asks permission to approach the bench. He and the DA and the judge all whisper and hiss stuff that Jack can’t hear and when the huddle breaks, it’s the defense attorney asking Jack the questions.

“Deputy Wade, how did you come to suspect my client of this arson?”

“His
modus operandi
matched that of the fire.”

“That’s not true, is it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You said you had a gas can with my client’s prints on it, is that your testimony?”

“Yes.”

“And did you?”

“Yes.”

Which strictly speaking is true, because he and Bentley went out and got a gas can, jammed Teddy’s hand onto it, placed it on the site and “found” it.

“You
planted
that evidence, didn’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you beat up my client?”

“No.”

“You
beat
this so-called confession out of him, didn’t you?”

“No.”

Jack hangs tough.

Billy Hayes is watching this and thinking that Deputy Wade is a genuine tough guy.

Judge Mallon lets Jack off the stand but instructs him not to leave the courtroom. Jack sits in the gallery sweating bricks while there’s another endless huddle at the bench, the clerk makes a phone call, and twenty minutes later Brian Bentley walks in.

Walks right past Jack without looking at him, and the back of his jacket is
soaked
.

He takes the oath, and the stand, and the judge asks him how the statement was obtained and Bentley tells him that Jack Wade beat the confession out of Theodore Kuhl.

Bentley is sweating like a sauna as he turns into a Chatty Cathy doll on the stand. Tells about how Jack told him to leave the room and when he came back in Wade was stomping on Theodore Kuhl and threatening to really hurt him. How he had pulled Wade off the suspect, explained to the suspect that they had an eyewitness—

No, no, no
, Jack’s mind is screeching.

—who could place him at the scene, so he might as well try to help himself, and how based on that, Kuhl had written his statement. How Jack had forced Kuhl to put his prints on the gasoline can and then planted that evidence, and it was all so unnecessary because they did have an eyewitness—

“I want that witness produced,” Judge Mallon tells the DA.

No, no, no, no
.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“What’s the witness’s name, Deputy Bentley?”

“Mr. Porfirio—”

Jack stands up and yells,
“No!”

“—Guzman.”

Jack, he wants to race out of the courtroom and get to Guzman first, except he’s in handcuffs because the judge orders him arrested for perjury. Teddy’s sitting there grinning at him. Azmekian is smiling at Billy Hayes, who’s calculating how many millions it will take to settle his lawsuit. Bentley’s on the stand wiping his brow with a handkerchief as he reaches for his spiral notepad to give up Guzman’s address.

Which he does, in front of God, the judge and the defense attorney, and when the sheriffs go to pick up Mr. Guzman—sur
prise
, he’s disappeared.

Dropped off the face of the earth.

Jack always hopes that he’s in Mexico somewhere, in some village by the sea, drinking cold beer to some sweet
canciones
. He knows it’s far more likely that Teddy’s crew took him out.

And it’s my fault, Jack thinks.

I didn’t do the job.

I didn’t do it well.

And I got that good gentleman killed.

As Teddy Kuhl
walks
, as Kazzy Azmekian gets two million bucks from California Fire and Life, as Jack pleads out to perjury in exchange for unsupervised probation and his uncontested dismissal from the department.

All through this Jack doesn’t say shit. Doesn’t rat out Brian Bentley, doesn’t say a word in his own defense, doesn’t offer any explanations. Just takes the ass kicking and goes.

Worst thing is, he can’t get a job.

Any job.

He’s a lying felon. A corrupt, brutal cop. And with that kind of reference he can’t get a gig asking,
Would you like fries with that, sir?
And his dad’s retired, so that’s out, and then a few months later his dad dies while on a sport boat fishing off Catalina, and Jack disappears inside himself into his trailer across the PCH from Capo Beach and drinks beer for breakfast and surfs but after a couple of months he stops surfing.

Letty wants to stick it out with him. Letty is
there
, man, she ain’t going anywhere. She is one hundred percent solid gold, she walks the talk. She’ll even walk down the aisle with him, have kids, do a life. She tells him that and he looks at her like she’s some freaked-out skell and says, “Married? What are you, drunk?”

She starts to answer,
No, asshole, you are
, but she swallows her temper and says, “I thought you wanted to get married.”

He laughs. “I don’t even have a job!”

She says, “I have a job.”

“What, you’ll support us?”

“Sure,” Letty says. “Until you find something.”

“There’s nothing to find.”

“It’s not like you’re busting your ass looking.”

Unless they got jobs at the bottom of Budweiser cans.

“What do you want from me?” Jack asks.

“I want us to get married,” Letty says. “I want us to have a life. I want kids.”

Jack says, “I won’t bring kids into this shitty world.”

“Jack, you got beat,” Letty says. “You lost a case—”

“I lost
everything
.”

“Not everything.”

“I got a man killed!”

“Not
everything
, Jack!” Letty yells.

“Yeah,” Jack says. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“What am I
doing
here?”

“Go away, Letty.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I want you to.”

“No, you don’t,” Letty says. “Don’t throw me away, Jack. I’m too good to throw away.”

“You’re too good to hold on to, Letty.”

“Don’t give me that self-pitying shit. If I didn’t want to be here, I’d—”

“What are you, fucking deaf? I’m telling you to get out! Leave! Go! Split!
¡Pintale!”

“I’m gone.”

First word in Spanish he ever says to her and it’s
Go away
.

“I’m gone,” she repeats.

“Good.”

“Yeah, good.”

She slams the door shut behind her.

Two months later Jack’s unemployment has about run out when Billy Hayes trots his cowboy boots up Jack’s steps and into the trailer where Jack’s slumped on the sofa, drinking a beer and watching the Dodgers on TV. Jack recognizes him as the insurance guy he jammed up, so Jack asks, “What, are you here to give me shit?”

Billy says, “No, I’m here to give you a goddamn job.”

Jack stares at him for a long time, then says, “Mr. Hayes, I did everything they said I did.”

“You have some construction background,” Goddamn Billy says. “And you already been to fire school, so you save me some money right there. I figure you can make a pretty decent adjuster. Basically, it’s putting people’s houses back together. You want the job or not?”