Fire and Rain (41 page)

He stared off into space for a moment and then suddenly started to cough. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, and Carmen jumped to her feet. She knelt next to him, her hand on his arm.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Shall I call the nurse?”

He managed to shake his head, and in another moment the coughing stopped. His eyes were watering, though, and she handed him a tissue from her purse, her own hands shaking.

“Would you like to stop talking for awhile?” she asked.

“No, missy, this happens all the time. Listen, though. You don’t tell Robbie how bad off I am, understand? Ain’t no need to worry him.” He cleared his throat once again. “Now you sit back down, and I’ll go on.”

She took her seat.

“My apartment was more than they were used to,” he continued. “It was clean, for starters. Nice furniture. I gave them each a bedroom. Don’t get me wrong, now”—again, he lifted a grizzled brow in Carmen’s direction—”I wanted the girl, and she expected to have to sleep with me as payment. But I wanted her to sleep with me ‘cause that’s what she wanted. And after a while, that’s what happened.”

His expression changed, and a faraway look came into his eyes, as though he was remembering their lovemaking. Nothing lecherous—just a tenderness in his smile. He had truly loved Beth Cabrio.

He brought his attention back to the present. “The boy was so smart he scared me—I had a seven-year-old in my house who was ten times smarter’n me, and that can shake you up a bit.” He laughed, and Carmen steeled herself for a fresh bout of coughing, which didn’t occur. “He was doing shit work in school, though. We changed him over to the school in my neighborhood, and he started doing better right away. He had a glow on him when he come home in the afternoon.”

Carmen was quiet as Jefferson appeared to lose himself in thought once again. When he next spoke, it was in a quiet, confidential tone.

“I never did drugs myself,” he said. “I didn’t even drink, and if I did, I woulda stopped ‘cause of the boy. A few months after they moved in, I stopped dealing too, even though I sure coulda used the money with a family to support. I started working on people’s cars, instead. I wanted Robbie to see me make a honest living.” He grunted softly, waving a hand to take in the small, ugly room and what lay beyond. “But my past caught up with me. A coupla innocent people died ‘cause of me, and so here I am.”

Carmen swallowed. “I think Rob appreciated all you did for him,” she said. “It seems as though the two of you were very close.”

The old man smiled and looked toward the small window at the far end of the room. “The first time he called me ‘Dad,’ I felt like some sorta hero, you know what I mean? He did it sorta shy-like to see how I’d take it, and when I acted like I expected it, he got this big smile on his face. I’d had other kids, a few of ‘em scattered around, but none of ‘em ever meant as much to me as Robbie. None ever needed me the way that boy did.”

Jefferson Watts licked his papery lips. He no longer seemed aware of Carmen’s presence. He leaned back in his chair and took a few labored breaths before speaking one more time.

“Robbie was the one thing I did right in my life.”

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, CARMEN
stopped in a gourmet shop near her hotel and had them put together a tray of dried fruit, heavy on the dates and apricots. She wrote a note thanking Jefferson Watts for talking with her and arranged to have it and the fruit delivered to the prison.

She’d had a dream about the old man the night before. She’d dreamt that she and Chris had somehow freed him, not in any wild escape, but through legal channels, which seemed so plausible in her sleep that she was overwhelmed with disappointment when she woke up to realize they were only the optimistic work of her dreams.

On the plane from Philadelphia to San Diego, she sat next to an elderly San Diego woman who recognized her and who spent five hours telling her how pleased she was to see her back on the air and “prettier than ever.” Perhaps, she thought with some amusement, Terrell Gates was right. Perhaps she
was
the darling of the geriatric set. The intrusion, at first flattering, quickly became an annoyance. She wanted time to think. How would she present her new information about Jeff on the news tonight? She had dug too deeply this time. Now that Jeff had made good on his promise to deliver rain, unearthing his secrets felt like even more of a betrayal. Whatever he was hiding no longer seemed important. Yet she knew she would have to dig even deeper.

It was late afternoon and the skies were clear when she arrived at the airport in San Diego. She retrieved her car from the long-term parking lot and drove toward Mira Mesa and the
News Nine
studio. In the distance, the dark rain clouds hung over Valle Rosa.

“I want it talky,” she told Dennis before her broadcast that evening. “Folksy.” So, they put her in the armchair, with the backdrop of one of Valle Rosa’s avocado groves on the wall behind her.

There was an undercurrent of positive energy in the station. She’d felt it the moment she walked in that afternoon. They were whispering about her. Something was in the wind, something good, but no one looked her directly in the eye. No one was about to tell her what they had in store for her. She could wait though. She could be patient.

Watching the stage manager for her cue, she moved her script to the floor beneath her chair. It wouldn’t be necessary tonight. She wouldn’t be using names, and she would avoid dates and places, anything that might make Jefferson Watts—and his son—identifiable.

The red light flashed on the camera, and she looked into the lens. “I had the opportunity yesterday to meet with the man who raised Jeff Cabrio from the time he was seven years old until he was sixteen,” she began, “and I found him to be a man of dignity and intelligence. Jeff and his young mother were homeless and penniless at the time this man found them and took them in. He provided not only financial support but love and stability as well, despite the fact that he was heavily involved in illegal activities at the time. He put aside his life of crime to become a father to the boy who had never had a father, and under his parenting, Jeff began to excel in school. But his father’s past eventually caught up with him, and he was arrested on charges stemming from an incident years earlier. He is currently serving two back-to-back fifty-year prison sentences and is in failing health.”

Dennis was grinning at her by the time she finished her report.

“You’re leading up to something, aren’t you?” he asked, walking with her toward the exit of the building.

She shrugged as though she knew the answer but planned to keep it to herself a while longer.

“What is it?” Dennis pressed her. “What’s the old man in the slammer for? Organized crime? Murder? Rape? Drugs? And what’s Cabrio’s game? He’s dealing, right? Probably the ringleader of a—”

“You know everything I know,” Carmen interrupted him, loving her sudden power. If only she hadn’t had to stoop so low to get it.

IT WAS DARK AS
she drove along the narrow road above the canyon on her way to Sugarbush after leaving
News Nine
. An occasional flash of lightning split the sky, and she remembered Kent Reed telling her that Jeff might give Valle Rosa a few bolts of lightning, but no rain.

“Well, Mr. Reed,” she said out loud, turning up the speed on her windshield wipers, “you were wrong.”

She was tired, but satisfied. As she drove past the reservoir, she tried to see how much it had filled in the last couple of days. But in the darkness it was nothing more than a black gaping hole in the earth, and she quickly returned her eyes to the road.

Pulling into the driveway at Sugarbush, she noticed lights burning in the second story of the adobe—in the bedroom and bathroom. Chris was there, working on the plumbing. Her first reaction was anger—he knew she’d be getting home around this time. He was supposed to be out of the house. But the anger faded as quickly as it had come. In its place, she felt a sense of comfort. She remembered the feeling from long ago, the small, simple joy at the knowledge that he was home, that in a few minutes she could talk to him.

Despite the occasional flashes of lightning, the rain wasn’t heavy, and she didn’t bother with her umbrella as she got out of the car. She took her suitcase from the trunk and walked through the darkness toward the adobe, so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t see Jeff until he spoke.

“You stepped way out of bounds, Perez.” He was standing in the shadow of the adobe, leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest.

Carmen gasped and stopped walking, drawing her suitcase close to her side. There was something threatening in Jeff’s stance.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, moving toward the house again, but the muscles in her legs had turned rubbery, and her fingers shook as she reached for the door to the kitchen.

“Are you satisfied yet?” he asked. “Have they started kissing your feet at work?”

Chris had left the door unlocked. She stepped into the kitchen and tried to pull the door closed quickly behind her, but Jeff caught the knob in his hand and pushed his way past her into the room.

Carmen let go of her suitcase and drew back against the counter. “Chris?” she called. She wanted to turn on the overhead light, but the switch was on the wall behind Jeff. Still, the flashes of lightning provided enough illumination for her to see the fury in his face.

“Jefferson’s an old man,” he said. “They’ll pump him for information about me, and they won’t care if they kill him in the process.”

“I didn’t identify him,” she said. “I was careful. I didn’t even say where—”

He pounded a fist on the counter next to her and she jumped. She closed her eyes, wondering if she was in danger, if she should call once again for Chris.

“Just how stupid do you think they are?” Jeff asked. “Look what you’ve managed to find out. How long do you think it will take them to piece together the clues you’ve given them?”

She opened her eyes again. He loomed above her, tall and forbidding. The streaks of rain on the window were reflected in his cheeks and forehead, like gray, shifting scars. She forced her self to look at him squarely. “Who’s ‘they,’ Jeff? The police? The Drug Enforcement Agency? The FBI? Who exactly are you running from?”

He shook his head, an incredulous look on his face. “You shove your way in wherever you want, don’t you? Well, this time you went one goddamned step too far.” He paced away from her, then back again. “You got me where I live. Is that what you want? How would you have liked it if, when you slit your wrists, some reporter stuck a microphone in your face and asked you how you were feeling?” He grabbed a juice glass from the counter and thrust it in front of her face. She tried to turn her head away, but he followed her with the glass. “How did you feel about your husband sleeping with a tramp and giving you VD, Ms. Perez?”

Carmen sucked in her breath. “Stop it!” She tried to push his hand away, but the imaginary microphone remained in front of her lips. The strength in his arm scared her.

“How does it feel to know your son lives in an institution, that no matter how old he gets, he’ll never be more than an infant in any way that matters?”

Carmen covered her ears. She felt the rim of the juice glass against her chin and struggled once more in vain to brush it away.

“What’s it like to turn your back on your own kid?” Jeff asked. “Your own little—”

“That’s enough, Jeff.” Chris appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall, and Jeff was immediately silent. He stared at Chris for an instant, then slowly lowered the juice glass to his side.

Carmen dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, her hands shaking as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. She looked gratefully at Chris. He walked over to where she sat and put his hands on her shoulders. Still, Jeff wasn’t quite finished.

Looking at Carmen, he spoke quietly this time, although the tremor in his voice still conveyed his rage. “You have one thing on your mind,” he said. “And that’s Carmen Perez. You don’t care what happens to Chris or your son or anyone else who might be in the way of your rise to the top of the dung heap.”

“That’s not fair,” she managed to whisper.

Jeff closed his eyes, and in the dim light she saw him trying to collect himself, control himself. For the first time since she’d known him, he looked weak. Defeated. She had crossed over into territory he’d felt was his, territory he could no longer protect. She felt thoroughly deserving of his wrath. Every ugly word he’d said was true. She had tried to escape from that truth by any means possible. She’d tried killing herself, drugging herself, withdrawing from the world, avoiding Chris, losing herself in her work. But suddenly it was all as unavoidable as his imaginary microphone had been in front of her face.

The pain welled up inside her, catching in her throat. Chris squeezed her shoulders. There was a strength in his touch she hadn’t felt in years.

With a sigh, Jeff ran a hand through his dyed, dark hair. “You said Jefferson was sick.” He looked down at her, the anger gone now from his features. “Is it the emphysema?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “He seems quite frail. He misses you. He misses his grandchildren. He… he loves all of you very much.”

Jeff raised his hand to his eyes. “It’s better he doesn’t see me again. Better he doesn’t know…” He looked at Carmen. “Are they taking decent care of him?”

“I think so. Yes.”

Jeff walked toward the door, stopping only to touch Chris’s arm. “Sorry,” he said, and Carmen knew as he stepped out into the rain that the apology was for Chris and not for her.

As the door closed behind Jeff, Chris pulled Carmen to her feet and into his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“How could you have told him the truth about Dustin?”

“He’s a friend, Carmen. He’s the closest friend I’ve had in a long time.”

A fresh wave of pain washed over her. “You used to think of me as your friend,” she said.

“Yes.”

She hesitated before speaking again. “When I was driving up to Sugarbush and saw the lights on, I realized you were here. I was annoyed at first, but then I felt happy. I wanted to see you.”