Halfway House (24 page)

“Nothing too much. I thought maybe it was an early Halloween.”

She glared at him. “So it’s going to be like that?”

“How else could it be?” He bowed his head, but managed to look into her face.

“You know I could take you in right now.”

“That would be a waste of time.”

She shrugged. “It would make it look like I’m doing something.”

“Maybe so, but then I’m not the one you want.”

“Who do I want?”

He waited until she was about to ask again, then: “The
puto
who caused the 10-98.”

“What do you know about that, Louis?” Her voice dropped an octave.

Suddenly a commotion hit everyone’s cell phones at the same time a report came into the Captain’s portable radio. They locked eyes.

“Damn.”

“You know who that was?”

“Split.” Lucy spat on the ground.

“What was he doing on the bridge?” she asked.

“Looking out.”

“For what?”

“The Salvadorans.”

“MS 13?” She stared into Lucy’s face. “They’re involved in this?”

“Up to their wet-fucking-backs. All that noise on your radios is nothing but MS 13. It isn’t us pissing in our backyard.”

“What are they doing in San Pedro?”

“They’re making a run. How the hell do I know?” He turned to go, but paused a moment as he hung his head. “You watch yourself, Captain.”

“You watch yourself, too.”

She started back across the park.

Lucy headed back to the map. He needed to get a sense of what was going on. Things suddenly felt out of control. But before he got ten feet, police radios and his cell phone erupted again. Perez let out a strangled cry.

“Lucy!” Captain Fiesler yelled from across the park. “It’s your dad! They attacked the house!”

A hole opened up in Lucy’s chest. He remembered the last words he’d said to his father.
Be careful. There’s some serious shit going down out there.
And he had left the old man alone to protect the family home.

He turned and saw the expressions on the other bangers’ faces. Fear... no,
terror
. MS 13 was hitting too close. Each of them was thinking about their own families. Were they alive? Were they in danger?

“Go,” he commanded. “Take care of your business then meet back at my place.”

“Louis, are you coming?”

He took off at a dead run toward the police car. She didn’t wait for him. Instead, she got in and spun up the lights. When she squealed away from the curb, he was in the front seat, leaning forward, his mind already on his dad, hoping he was doing nothing more than matching dominoes on the front porch, chink-chunking the tiles against the table like he always did.

Daddy? Where are you, Daddy?

Laurie? Is that you?

Daddy? I can’t find you. There are so many of us, I can’t get by.

Hold on, Laurie. Daddy’s coming.

His head jerked up as he woke, the father’s fear still clinging to him on the Kevlar webs of hardened dreams. His knees sagged, but he caught himself. He’d fallen asleep standing again. He was exhausted, so tired even his face hurt. He’d allowed them to escort him inside three times—twice to use the bathroom and once to eat a bowl of gruel they’d made with vitamins, oatmeal, creatine and ephedrine.

They’d offered to give him a room, but said it would cost. When he’d asked how much and received their response of one thousand dollars, he’d laughed in their faces. You can give us something of equal value, they’d offered. That had only made him laugh harder.

But as the hours progressed and his body began to break down, he considered the offer. He had the Velzy that his daughter had given him. He could trade that to them. As he paced in his own figure-eight circuit, he recognized the symmetry of using the gift Laurie had given him as the price of admission so he could speak with her one last time. It would also serve as a penance. He’d left her to grow up fatherless so he could chase the world’s waves. To give up his last board would be fitting.

He suddenly found his way blocked as the triplets formed an impenetrable barrier. They stared at him from behind black sunglasses. Their mouths were pinched into toothless frowns, their chins collapsing. Their white hair, which had been pulled into severe buns, escaped in places, long strands whipping as the gentle sea breeze danced them around. It was no wonder he’d heard the wardens calling them the Three Blind Mice.

“She wants to talk to you,” the one on the left said.

“She’s scared,” the one in the middle said.

He growled and tried to move around them, but wherever he went they scooted in his way.

“She wants her daddy,” the one on the right said.

He turned to get away and bumped square into the chest of the old man with the missing left arm. His eyes were rimmed with moles, as if they’d grown there in the blackness of the man’s worry. “Talk to her so I can talk to my Maria,” he said. “Your daughter keeps interrupting because you won’t talk to her.”

“What do you mean I won’t talk to her?” Kanga asked, the words slicing him deeply. What had he been doing the last three days but trying every second to speak with her?

“Yo, old man. Get her out of my head so I can be with Lashawnda,” the black banger said, sauntering toward him, fists bunched at his side. “This soul blocking you doing ain’t fucking cool.”

Kanga took a step back.
Soul blocking
? Was he doing that? He held his hands out and stared up at the sky. What was he doing wrong? He’d embraced the idea that he could speak with the dead. He’d been doing what he’d seen everyone else do. Was he doing anything right at all?

“You gotta sleep, man. They work themselves into you when you sleep, then they can talk to you right up until the end.” The pregnant woman with dyed red hair shook her head like she’d just had to explain to him for the tenth time how to use the faucet.

“Motherfucker needs to sleep,” the kid said.

“Sleep,” said the Three Blind Mice in unison.

“Sleep,” said the one-armed man.

Kanga looked over at the wardens and noticed the smug smile on their faces. They’d known all along. They’d known he’d be back. They’d known he hadn’t had a choice.

It had begun to rain a fine mist. Through the windshield the red and blue lights took on a smudged quality, making 8th Street look like a painting Lucy had once seen in the Getty Museum, a blur of mottled colors as if a hand had ruined the art before the paint had had time to dry. Then the wiper swept away the water and gave him a clear view of the events as they unfolded.

Two ambulances. One team of paramedics kneeling in the middle of the yard, strapping someone to a stretcher.

Swipe
.

The other team working frantically on someone lying on the porch steps.

Swipe
.

A cop running across the street and into the house.

Swipe
.

No sooner would an image become clear, then it would smudge as it transformed into an impressionist rendition of itself, where things weren’t so vivid and tragedy wasn’t so determined.

Swipe
.

As they pulled to a stop, the patrol car’s headlights strafed the crowd. Everyone knew who lived here. This was supposed to be the safest place in the city. So why had two people been shot? Lucy saw the fear and uncertainty in their faces until it smudged away and became impressionistic.

Swipe
.

Lucy leapt from the car and ran toward the steps, pushing aside those who dared get in his way. Every word he’d ever wanted to say to his dad and hadn’t slowed him, until it felt as if he were running in slow motion. Missed opportunities were jagged glass to his feet, scraping and slashing every time his foot came down.

A wounded Salvadoran gangbanger was being lifted from the ground as Lucy passed. He wanted to lash out and strangle the
pendejo
but Lucy knew he hadn’t a second to spare. Still, he snapped a mental photo for the position of honor in his
to do
gallery of soon-to-be-dead assholes.

Then he was there. The bullets had entered his father’s chest, his shoulder and his hand, the latter as if he had held it out to block the assault. Lucy shook his head and took his father’s unwounded hand in his own. “Pops. You shouldn’t have.” He pushed hair from the old man’s eyes, hesitating a fraction because he couldn’t remember ever touching his father’s face.

“Son, you have to let us go,” the voice of a paramedic said from behind him.

A hand reached to grab him, but he shrugged it off. He noticed the IV and the line snaking into his father’s chest. The paramedics had backed away when he’d approached, fear battling with determination in their faces as they held their hands ready to continue administering aid.

“Louis. Let him go. He’s going to survive.”

He heard Captain Fiesler’s words, but didn’t dare believe them. His father was so still, so weak looking. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his face so slack. The man always kept a hardness to his jaw, a universal
don’t fuck with me
scowl to the world that needed no translation. But as he lay on the steps for the whole world to see, shot by the MS 13 banger, he seemed to be just another old man.

Firm hands gripped Lucy’s shoulders as Captain Fiesler’s voice commanded low into his ear, “Come on, Louis. They need to take him to Our Little Company of Mary. He’s okay, but things could go bad away from the hospital.”

He turned to look at her, his eyes still switching to impressionism as everyone smudged before him. “He’s going to live?”

“If they hurry, yes.”

He allowed her to pull him up and reluctantly let go of his father’s hand. He watched it fall limply back to the body that had once carried him up the three hundred steps to the top of one of the cranes in the harbor just so a little boy could see the space shuttle as it burned across the heavens on its way home from space. The wink of light had trailed a finger of fire across the sky as it vanished, like the finger of God pushing a toy across the rooftop of the world.

Are they gonna die, Daddy?

No, son.

Then what’s the fire for?

To help them along.

Fire helps?

Sometimes.

*  *  *

Nerve endings screamed. Fingertips tingled. Ants danced in his joints. Snakes sunned themselves in the heated maw of his stomach. His head throbbed as the remnants of an Elvis dance team tapped rapid-fire rhythms inside his skull, blue suede shoes with razor blade stiletto heels.

Bobby turned onto his back and collected himself. The last thing he remembered was a dwarf, or something about a dwarf, and a redhead and a green-skinned Elvis. He was on the floor. A bed was to his right. A table with a fringed purple lamp stood beside it. By the dim light he could make out wallpaper with men and women cavorting. He couldn’t actually see what they were doing, but his imagination filled in the gaps.

He levered himself into a sitting position. The bedspread was rumpled. His jacket had been removed and laid across the back of a chair near the door. His shoes were beneath it.

Then it hit him.

It had happened again.

Where were the meds Lucy had given him? In his mind’s eye he saw them tucked into his bag back at the beach shack. Damn. Lot of good they did there. He’d thought he’d been humiliated before, getting kicked out with everyone laughing at him. But this was worse. His face burned with the memory.

Another memory came, one of his almost-family.

“But what if he drops the baby?” his would-be dad had hissed from the hallway, as a twelve-year-old Bobby sat in Sister Agnes’s office. Mr. and Mrs. John Lee had made it through the process, paid their fees and passed the home inspections. All they’d needed to do was sign the contract sitting in the middle of Sister Agnes’s desk. Then they could take Bobby home to their house in the Memphis suburbs with the picket fence and the dog on the front porch.

Presto chango instant family.

Easy Peasy Japaneasy!

“He won’t drop the baby, John.”

“How do you know? Will you stake the baby’s life on it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What happens when they’re alone together and he has one of his fits?”

A strangled cry from the woman who might have been his mother was followed by the sound of Mr. and Mrs. John Lee walking crisply down the hall, their receding footsteps like a diminishing heartbeat in little Bobby’s chest. He stared into Sister Agnes’s eyes and shrugged. He tried to smile, but couldn’t convince his lips to make the effort. Sister Agnes kept her face impassive as she gently took the adoption papers and replaced them in a folder which she slid into the top drawer of her desk. Bobby finally reached down, grabbed his bag and stood, waiting for her to let him go back to the other boys.

There was only one door out of the room, so Bobby doubted he was in a bathroom. He struggled into his shoes then slipped on his jacket. He tried the door and found the knob turned easily. Good, he’d been afraid he was locked in. The door opened into a hallway where he paused to listen. The house was mostly silent. He didn’t know what time it was, but the cool empty feel promised it was late into the early morning hours.