Rag and Bone (24 page)

“I’ve thought about that, too,” he replied in the same soft voice.

“And?”

“I could do it if I knew we were in it for the long haul.”

“I figure after the heart attack that’s the only haul I got left in me,” I said. “As for being too good for you, John, we come from the same world.”

“Yeah, Rico,” he said, “but we ended up in different ones.”

“You’re my honey,” I replied. “It is like we grew up together and then found each other again years later. I know you feel the same way. Don’t tell me you don’t.”

“I do,” he said. “I liked you the first time I saw you. More than liked you.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

He folded his arms around my chest. “I have to think things through. About you and me. About me and Deanna. I have a history with her.”

“I know you do. And we both know two guys together is a lot harder in this world than a man and a woman. All I’m asking is if you decide you don’t want to be with me, don’t blame it on your not being good enough. I could accept any other reason but that one.”

“We finished the job down the street,” he said. “I’m going away for a few days with my dad.”

“Where?”

“Every year he takes one of his boys to a father-son retreat up at a monastery in Santa Barbara,” he said, releasing me. He sat down. “This year it’s my turn.”

“A religious retreat? What do you do? Pray? Chat about Jesus?”

“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “We do all that, but then after dinner we make popcorn and play poker with the Franciscans that run the place. I’m telling you, Henry, you got to watch those
frailes
like a hawk. Bunch of cardsharks.” He kissed the crown of my head. “I’ll pray for us.”

“You know, John, I don’t really go in for religion.”

“One year I didn’t want to go and I told my dad, ‘I don’t believe in God.’ You know what he said?”

“No.”

“He said, ‘You think God cares,
m’ijo?
Get your ass in the car.’” He stood up and kissed me again. “I gotta go. Talk to you soon, okay? I love you.”

“I love you, too, John.”

After he left, I sat there and imagined John in a smoke-filled room dealing cards to a couple of brown-robed monks. I opened my mouth to laugh, but a sob came out instead.

Elena found me in the kitchen stacking dishes in the dishwasher.

“You don’t rinse them first?” she asked.

“Then what would be the point of having a dishwasher? You were in there with Angel for a long time.”

“We had a lot to talk about,” she replied. “Did John leave?”

“Yeah. What are you looking for?”

“Plastic wrap to cover this potato salad.”

“In the drawer to the right of the sink.” I pushed the rack into the dishwasher, poured some soap in and turned it on. “You were really shocked that Angel’s first reaction to hearing about Jesusita was for himself, weren’t you?”

She nodded. “It seemed incredibly selfish.”

“Remember when Edith called him an invulnerable? I’ve figured out that what that means isn’t that things don’t hurt him, but that they don’t stop him. His dad’s dead, his mom’s in jail, and he feels alone and scared. He’s trying to cut the best deal for himself that he can. He doesn’t know how to be graceful about it because it must seem to him his whole life is riding on making the right choice.”

She put the salad in the refrigerator, then started wrapping the leftover sandwiches. “You have him reading Homer.”

“Not exactly Homer,” I said. “It’s a kid’s translation.”

“I remember that book from when you were a child,” she said. “It’s odd, Henry. You love him because he reminds you of yourself at that age, and for the same reason my feelings about him are—I don’t know. More complicated.”

“How?”

“Until you were about Angel’s age, you would still come to me for comfort when things got bad with Mom and Dad, but then you stopped. It was as if you had made a decision that you were on your own. I felt as if I’d failed you but I also resented the implied judgment you had made about me. I felt the same way when Angel said he didn’t want to live with me.”

“Funny how family members seem to know instinctively how to push the ancient buttons.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I do think Angel’s had enough mothering. It’s better that he stays here with you. He needs a man now and he adores you.”

“I never thought I’d be dad material.”

“You’re probably the first adult man he can imagine wanting to be like when he grows up. I mean, besides Nomar Garciaparra. That must be very powerful for a boy.”

“What about Pete?”

“I don’t think Pete was around enough for Angel to have felt that close to him, and when he was, he was usually on drugs. Angel really seems to have hated that.”

“I know. He told me. Do you think he’ll feel the same way about me when he understands homosexuality?”

She smiled. “What makes you think he doesn’t understand it now? He loves John. So do you, don’t you?”

“You don’t miss much.”

“He’d make a splendid brother-in-law.”

“Well, then keep your fingers crossed,” I said. “I could use a cup of coffee. Shall we make some?”

We busied ourselves with making coffee and she volunteered to find a school for Angel.

“From up there?” I asked. “How?”

“The internet, of course,” she said. “I thought we might even be able to get him into summer school. He’s extremely bright, but I don’t think Vicky was very consistent about his education. He’s going to have some catching up to do.”

“I didn’t get to ask you how your visit with her went.”

“The usual. Stilted, difficult. My leaving her twice will always lie between us. I have to win her trust back inch by inch. By the way, if Angel’s going to stay here, you have to take him to Reverend Ortega’s church. Vicky was emphatically clear about that.”

“Oh, come on, Elena.”

“She’s still his mother, Henry. You can’t completely ignore what she wants for him because she’s in jail.”

“What about what he wants?”

“He seemed to like Ortega,” she said. “Anyway, he can decide for himself when he’s older what he wants to do about religion, but for now you need to do as Vicky asks. All right?”

Sounding to myself like a sullen teenager, I said, “All right. You know the guy probably preaches that gays burn in hell.”

“Angel loves you, he’ll work out the rest for himself,” she said. “Listen, he needs some clothes, so I thought we could shop before my plane leaves.”

“Yeah, and I should get him some more books to read and some toys or something to keep him occupied while I am working. What do you think he likes?”

“We’ll ask him, Henry.”

“Oh,” I said.

Later, after Elena had left and Angel was in bed, I went through the boxes that Socorro Cerda had given me looking for a red sweatshirt that Angel wanted. At the bottom of one box I found some of Pete’s papers. Parole documents. Letters that Vicky had written him in prison. An envelope with the return address of the San Francisco branch of the Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA? I opened it. Inside was a letter rejecting Pete’s application to become an informant. I looked at the date. He would have received it just before he had been released from prison. Why had Pete Trujillo wanted to become a snitch, I wondered. And why had he been rejected? I found the name of his parole officer on his parole papers and made a note to phone her.

The parole officer, a tough-sounding woman named Cahill, returned my call the morning of Vicky’s prelim as I was rushing to get Angel up, dressed, fed and out the door. Between yelling at him to get ready, I tried to explain to her that I was not representing Pete Trujillo on a new criminal charge.

“Your message said you were a lawyer,” she said accusingly.

“I am a lawyer but I’m not representing him—”

“Do you know who is?”

“Pete Trujillo’s dead,” I said. “His funeral’s tomorrow, if you want to send flowers. That’s not why I’m calling you. Angel, are you dressed yet?”

“What?”

“I’m talking to my nephew, Pete’s son.”

“I thought you said you were a lawyer. Is he really dead?”

“Yes. His wife shot him. I’m representing her.”

“I’ll need the death certificate to close my file,” she said officiously.

“Fine. I’ll make sure you get a copy if you’ll just answer a couple of questions for me. Angel…”

“Listen, mister, I’m not your Angel.”

“My nephew’s name is Angel. Why did Pete want to snitch for the DEA?”

“Because he was good at it,” she said.

“At being a snitch?”

“That’s how he got that sweet deal when he should’ve gone down as a three-striker. The DEA didn’t think he was going to be able to keep his hands out of the cookie jar, so they passed. Where was he killed?”

“Here in L.A.,” I said. Angel emerged from his bedroom, his hair a tangle of knots and wearing a soiled T-shirt and his pajama bottoms. “You can’t go to court like that.”

“You talking to your nephew again?” she asked, caustic but no longer hostile.

“Yeah, sorry. Who did he snitch oh to get the Three Strikes deal?”

“His gangbanger buddies,” she said. “I don’t remember the details and I don’t have his file with me but you could call his P.D.”

“You know her name?”

“Morgan something. Lee or Yee. Chinese. I’ve got to go. You send me that death certificate, okay?”

Angel wandered into the kitchen and listlessly poured himself a bowl of cereal.

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

“You know,” she said. “Pete wasn’t the worst bum on my list.”

“I’ll make sure to put that in his eulogy,” I said and hung up. I went into the kitchen, where Angel was lethargically spooning cereal. I touched his forehead, he was burning up. “Hey, Angelito, are you all right, sweetie?”

He cocked his head and gushed vomit.

A few hours later, I was sitting in lockup with Vicky. Angel was home with my neighbor, Sharon Kwan. I had rushed to the emergency room, phoning the court from my car and pleading for a postponement of the prelim. At the hospital, a harried ER doctor had diagnosed a “bug” and told me to take him home and give him acetaminophen. I was explaining all this to Vicky, who seemed much less worried than I had thought she’d be.

“He gets like that when he’s upset,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Sick like that,” she said. “He’ll be okay, Uncle Henry. Probably it was because of his grandma Jesusita. He keeps his feelings all bottled up.”

“These feelings ended up all over my suit.”

She laughed. I had never heard her laugh before. It was a girl’s giggle. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not funny.”

“It is funny. Now. I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to figure out what to do while he’s calmly puking. Then I took him to, the emergency room and the doctor’s looking at me like, he’s just got a little temperature, why are you bothering me?”

She was laughing harder now. “I wish I’d been there.”

“I’m glad to hear you say it’s not serious.”

She wiped her eyes. “He’ll be fine.”

“I’m sorry about Jesusita, Vicky.”

All the mirth went out of her face. “You take care of Angel. Don’t let anything happen to him.”

“Of course I will.”

“I wish this was over,” she said.

“All rise. Department sixty-seven is now in session, the Honorable Marie LaVille presiding.”

Judge LaVille, a small woman wearing round, red-rimmed glasses and with a skunk streak of white through her black hair, assumed the bench with the wry, relaxed demeanor of a popular high school English teacher.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “Be seated. We’re here, belatedly, for the preliminary hearing on
People
versus
Victoria Trujillo.
The complaint alleges second-degree murder. Mr. Rios, were you able to attend to your sick child?”

“Yes, Your Honor, and thank you for putting the prelim over from this morning.”

The judge smiled. “You should thank Mr. Pearsall, too. He graciously agreed to keep his witnesses on call until you made it in.”

The young D.A. sat at his end of counsel table scrawling notes as furiously as if he were taking an exam.

“Thank you, counsel,” I said. “That was decent of you.”

He looked up, nodded. “No problemo.”

“Is your son all right, Mr. Rios?” the judge asked.

“He’ll be fine. He’s actually Mrs. Trujillo’s son. My grand-nephew.”

Judge LaVille looked back and forth between us. “I see. Well, I’m glad it’s nothing serious. Mr. Pearsall, are you ready to call your first witness?”

Pearsall gulped. “Yes, Your Honor. The People call Officer Korngold.”

The purpose of the preliminary hearing was to compel the prosecution to demonstrate to a judge that it had sufficient evidence to bring the defendant to trial on the charge alleged in the complaint. For the defense, it served to disclose the strength of the prosecution’s case and provided an opportunity to develop impeachment material for trial by getting prosecution witnesses to commit to details they would not possibly remember months later when they testified at trial. Thus the prosecution’s objective was to put on as narrow a case as possible, while the goal of the defense was to get away with as much as it could. My plan in this prelim was a little different. I wanted to show the newbie prosecutor how easily his case could be dismantled, so as to deal him down to a lesser charge. I gave a pass to Officer Korngold, who was the first uniformed officer on the scene, and saved my fire for the homicide investigator, a slit-eyed, gray-haired veteran named Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald knew the game, and on direct gave a dry recital of only enough facts to make out the charge. Then it was my turn.

“Detective Fitzgerald,” I began, “did you recover the murder weapon?”

“No, not personally,” he said.

“As far as you know, did anyone recover the murder weapon?”

“No, not as far as I know.”

“Did you look for it?”

“Yes, we canvassed the area.”

“Extensively?”

Pearsall was on his feet. “Objection, calls for speculation.”

A good objection, had we been in a law school evidence class. But prelims tended to be pretty casual.

“Overruled,” said Judge LaVille. “I think the officer knows the difference between an extensive search and a perfunctory one. Right, detective?”