In the Night of the Heat (10 page)

Two clangs in my head reminded me that Len was talking to me.

“…not much you can do except wait…” Len was saying. “So far, I haven't heard from Progress Smartphones, so that's good. Your contract runs through May…”

That bitch tried to hurt me.

The realization rang more loudly than the rest of the noises in my head.

The second time, I said it aloud.

“What?” Len said. He used that B-word plenty, but he'd never heard it from my lips.

“Lynda Jewell.” I pointed out the photo on my screen.

“Who's that with her?”

“The asshole who gave Perry a gun loaded with blanks.”

Len's eyes widened. He lowered his face so close to the screen that his nose nearly touched it. “No. That can't be right. You think…? He'll probably get fired. What you're talking about is assault. That's…
prison.
”

“Or something. If I can prove it. Means and opportunity we have. Maybe motive, too.”

Len looked at me with alarm. The tumult between my ears made me miss most of what he said, but I could tell how dismissive his words were by his body language. Don't jump to conclusions, he was saying. Give it a few days. Don't do anything rash. Len always gave good advice, but it's hard to hear him even with two good ears. For me, anyway.

I changed the expression on my face—admittedly, it must have been fearsome—and Len looked more at ease. Being an actor comes in handy every day. Before long, Len was looking at his watch, saying something about a meeting at Warner Brothers at three.

But first, he gave me another hug. “Next step, lawyer. If we make the case, you'll get a settlement. But your assault theory…remember what I said. Thin ice, Ten.”

Whatever else he'd said didn't matter. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Women,” he said to my good ear. “If you find a sane one, bottle her.”

Len hadn't said a nice word about women since his divorce. Once I told him to let all that anger go, or he'd drive himself crazy. If he was ever put on trial for any crime having to do with hating women, I'm not sure who'd be hotter to get me on the stand: the prosecution or the defense.

“It's not about women,” I said. “I've known thousands of women,
and most of them are saner than you. This one happens to be a sick and vindictive person.”

My speech was intended more for me than for Len.

I suddenly understood why so many men were eager to join the Bitches-Ain't-Shit club. Ages ago, one of my clients told me I had contempt for women, since so many female sex workers have contempt for men. I'll admit that her theory messed with my head for a minute, but I eventually convinced her otherwise. I
love
women. Let me count the ways.

Lynda Jewell wants to rewire Tennyson Hardwick? Bring a lunch. But our time in her hotel suite was far from over. She'd been too sloppy.

Somehow—some way—someday—I was going to get her.

The rest was only details.

 

After I walked Len to the door, I returned to my computer to find out more about the connections between Lynda Jewell, Gareth Priestly, and Frank Lloyd.

But first, I checked my email. Finally, a note from BLESSED-GIRL was waiting for me. I hadn't heard from April since she'd left. I inhaled, and read the note before the breath left my lips:
Arrived safely! There's so much to talk about. I'll call you soon.

And that was it.

My joy at seeing email from April was snuffed out by everything she hadn't said. She wasn't out in the bush: She'd told me they were checking her into a Holiday Inn. If she ever sent me her number, or called me, I would tell her what had happened Monday. If not, she didn't have time. Either way was fine. That was what I told myself.

I almost didn't recognize the next email's sender: SECUREG?

When I opened it, I saw the company's full name: SECUREGUARD.com It was a monitoring service I'd set up after my computer problem with Chela. They monitored keystrokes and kept track of email and websites. Pure invasion of privacy, but I owned the computer, I pay for the internet, and I don't care.

I'd almost forgotten I had the service. For months they'd been quiet, meaning that hopefully she'd been good. Now, for the first time in six months, I had a bulletin. SecureGuard could tell me if Chela tried to get back in touch with Internet Guy. I didn't spy on Chela's email more than once in a while, and lately only if I had a reason. SecureGuard had just given me one.

Chela wasn't home from school yet, so I went into her room to sign on to her computer. Knowing every keystroke also meant I knew her passwords.

In a way, we were in a war, Chela and I. She didn't know who she was messing with.

I signed on as Chela, using her password. Her only email was ten announcements from her high school, one a reminder for the homecoming dance. Chela, knowing I was spying, deleted almost all of her personal email immediately. But I knew how to check her Recycling Bin, and that was where I headed next.

That was where I saw a sender's name: DRUMZ62.

It was a new email address, but I knew who it was from: The guy in Sherman Oaks was a drummer with a Led Zeppelin tribute band called Stairway. I'd watched his show once, with plans for him in the parking lot. His first name was Zack. He was forty-six, born in 1962. Chela didn't realize it, but I knew everything about that prick except boxers or briefs. And hoped Chela couldn't fill that one in for me.

I'd wanted to break his legs once, and the feeling was back.

His email to Chela was dated the night I was at the hospital, an
other reason to be pissed. I could have been at home. That wouldn't have stopped his email, but at least she wouldn't have been without me when it came. I had made her promise to tell me if he ever again tried to get in touch with her. She said she'd seen the light: He was disgusting, and she never wanted to hear from him again.

Yeah, right.

I clicked DRUMZ62's message open, a single line:

I miss you. Where U been, beautiful?

My fists contracted. For ten seconds, I was so pissed I couldn't move my fingers. It was as if he'd snuck in through the cyberwindow. Into
my
house.

Heart pounding, I scanned the folder of
SENT MAIL
to see if Chela had answered.

She had, within a minute:
I told you
not
to write me here. Call me on our cell.

Our
cell? I'd bought her one, but obviously she knew I had access to the bill. That door was locked and barred, right? Hardly. Disposable or rechargeable cells are sold over the counter at every 7-Eleven.
Who paid for it, Chela
—
and how did you pay him back?

Chela lied to me every day, and maybe always would. Lying was her nature. I was a fool to think I could stand in the way of a force that strong.

That was when the call came, when I was at my lowest.

Marcela knocked on my door. The knocking sounded so muted, I almost missed it. “Ten! Phone for you!”

My cell phone was in my back pocket, and no one called my house phone except political pollsters and bill collectors. I wasn't in the mood for the phone.

“Who is it?” I called back, not moving.

(“Meghiehee Wiehe?”)

“FUCK,”
I said, much louder than I intended. Rage was running
loose in my throat, my muscles and everywhere else, and I couldn't rein it back. I didn't even want to.

I tried to ignore the startled look on Marcela's face when I flung the door open. Marcela's eyes looked too much like April's when she asked if I'd gone into a hotel room with Lynda Jewell, wondering why I'd let that woman sit on my lap. Hurt. Surprised. Emptied out.

“Who?” I said. “Jesus, Marcela, speak up. E-
nun
-ci-ate.”

The phone in Marcela's hand trembled slightly. Her voice was uncertain.

“Melanie…Wilde? She said it's about T.D. Jackson.”

I'D WARNED MELANIE
that if she insisted on seeing me Tuesday, I wouldn't be at my best. But Melanie Wilde couldn't hear the word
no
, wheedling and cajoling nonstop on the phone. She talked me into letting her pick me up—only because getting out of the house seemed like a damn fine idea, and nobody else had offered me a ride. I didn't trust myself to drive yet. I also didn't trust having too much empty time left in the day. I was too pissed off in too many directions to have idle hands. Devil's workshop and all that.

I really wanted to drive to Sherman Oaks and commit a felony. Or to FilmQuest.

Instead, ten minutes later, Melanie showed up at my curb in a silver Volvo convertible, her braids loose in the wind. Driven music was playing on Melanie's speakers, but I couldn't follow it. She didn't smile, but she didn't have to. Grief chiseled her cheekbones. She was a sight, midnight skin wrapped in a sweater of spun gold. I had blocked Melanie's true beauty from my eyes at the fund-raiser, but that day my eyes missed nothing. Her beauty was hard, burnished, secure. She probably had known she was beautiful since she was a girl.

I stood beside her open passenger door. “You holding up okay?”

“Sorry about your ear,” she said, ignoring my pity. “Let's take a drive.”

Climbing into her car was easy. Melanie reminded me of what April might be like in a few years if she took off her brakes. Melanie could help me put off my talk with Chela after school. Nothing else I did the rest of the day was going to be harder than that talk, or more dangerous. So I thought.

The drive itself was easy, too. But climbing out of Melanie's car afterward wasn't.

We sat idling at the Jacksons' curb, in the shade of perfectly aligned jacaranda trees. The gated community of Hancock Park belied the turmoil I knew was caged inside the genteel, Tudor-style house on the corner lot. Len had fawned over my house, but Alice had never lived with the kind of opulence in Hancock Park, which has been home to black millionaires since Nat King Cole crossed the color line and bought his house there in the 1950s.

I realized, a bit late, that I'd fallen into the oldest trap known to man, or more specifically, to men: I wanted to get laid. Mind you, despite my history—or maybe because of it—I don't find myself casually attracted to random women. Maybe that's why it turned out to be so easy for me to be monogamous; I'd seen so many women, I lost the habit of looking. Sex always felt good, but it wasn't always worth the responsibility of new people.

But April was gone—she'd been gone two days and counting, and I still didn't know how to call her—and the more I missed April, the more I wanted to see Melanie without her clothes. Apparently, I'm one of those people who get horny during periods of pain: Who knew? I hoped Melanie Wilde was one of those people, too. Everything she did turned me on, even her harassment, because at least she was feeding my ego, and my ego was starving.

But what the hell would I have to say to T.D. Jackson's parents the day after their son's body was found? I wasn't even sure I was sorry about it. He probably deserved worse than he got.

“Give me one reason,” I said. “Make it a good one. Or just take me back home.”

Melanie took a long time to mull it over. “Do you know when Homicide considers a case cold?” Melanie said, staring at her steering wheel. Her voice dropped, whispering, but I never missed a word. “The point when they figure they have
zero
chance of solving it?”

“Forty-eight hours.”

“That's right. And almost forty-eight hours after he died, instead of asking the public for tips, the LAPD jackass squad is still talking suicide. They're
glad
he's dead. I just want you to look into his parents' eyes. Hear them out.”

“Assuming I
can
hear them, what will they want from me?”

“Right now, they just need to know somebody's willing to listen.”

“There are plenty of licensed detectives.”

“That's not the way my uncle and aunt want to go.”

“Why not?”

Rare silence from her, a beat. “Judge Jackson likes to keep his options open.”

Right. He wanted to hire someone off the radar. No license, no trail, no accountability. Alice had put me through the seventy-four-day ESI Personal Protection program in Colorado, and I'd actually used the training a half dozen times. And yes, I'd managed to survive—and solve—the entire sordid Serena Johnston affair. But a nagging suspicion that I might have discovered an unsuspected talent didn't necessarily lead me to that doorstep.

Besides, Judge Jackson might want more than a solved case and an arrest. He sounded like a pissed-off, grieving parent. I understood, but I had my own problem. I had plenty.

“I'm not the one, Mel,” I said. “You're hurting. They're hurting. But I'm not the one.”

She brought her hand to my knee and let it rest. Next, a glimpse of her pain-shattered eyes. Ugh. “Unless you
are
the one,” she said. “How will you know unless you meet them?”

Part of me must enjoy doing what I know I shouldn't. Part of me always has.
I'd better at least get laid for this,
I thought, exactly as she knew I would.

“If I make even one phone call on this, they pay through the nose,” I said.

“They wouldn't expect anything less.”

“And you owe me a favor.”

She arched her left eyebrow. Damn, she was cute. “All right.”

“Then I guess one conversation never hurt anyone.”

The gunshot must have blown away my memory, too.

I halfway expected a butler to answer the door, but instead it was Judge Emory Jackson. Judge Jackson was in his sixties and fit, with broad thick shoulders and a head of snowy hair. He was dressed in a dress shirt and tie even at home. He was four inches shorter and three shades darker than his son, but I immediately saw T.D. in his gait and gestures. T.D. Jackson had grown up to be just like Daddy, almost a carbon copy. In that way alone, their resemblance was eerie.

“Uncle Em, this is Tennyson Hardwick,” Melanie said. “He was friends with Bumpy back at SoCal. They lived together at Clayton Hall.”

Despite Melanie's exaggeration of my status in T.D.'s life, Judge Jackson didn't move to let me into his home. His dark eyes assessed me, then he glanced over my shoulder, probably to make sure no news vans were lurking, even with a guardhouse at the neighborhood's gate. The whites of his eyes were anything but, and his face was puffy
beneath his eyelids. He looked embattled; he wasn't used to crying, but tears had forced him to submit for days.

“You kin to Captain Hardwick?”

“Yessir. My father. He's had some struggles, but he's doing fine.”

Judge Jackson grunted. “Tennyson like the poet, huh?
Charge of the Light Brigade
?”

“‘Into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell, Rode the six hundred.' But my mother preferred
Ulysses.
” More for Melanie's sake than Judge Jackson's, I recited lines I memorized in high school in my quest to know my mother: “‘We are not now that strength which in old days / Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are. / One equal temper of heroic hearts, / Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find…and not to yield.'”

Melanie stirred beside me, a silent
Yes!
I hoped to hear that cry aloud later, in her bed. Poetry had been one of my popular extras as an escort. Judge Jackson looked at me with new eyes, intrigued. I'd passed his test. When he let me in, he came as close to a smile as he could.

The Jackson house was elegant and tranquil, a chapel of mourning. The house had high ceilings, and the winding marble staircase was too fine even for
Gone With the Wind
's famed Tara. The living room brimmed with somber arrangements of roses and lilies, scenting the air with false spring, but the colonial-style furniture in the living room was a dour shade, probably like Judge Jackson's courtroom. I knew that the Aaron Douglas and Henry Ossawa Tanner original paintings on the wall had cost a fortune, but the décor was understated. I figured the Jacksons hadn't come into money in only one generation; they were comfortable with money. Steeped in it.

Judge Jackson led us past the tallest floral arrangement in the living room, where T.D. Jackson's face was framed by new flower buds.
BELOVED SON AND FATHER
, a ribbon was inscribed. It was a high school photograph, senior year in cap and gown, acne and all. The unlucky parents who outlive their children always remember them most vividly from when they were young.

Three sets of soles echoed on the marble floor in the walkway. While the sound ricocheted in my head, Judge Jackson said something I didn't hear.

“You may have to speak up, Judge Jackson,” I said. “Firearm incident. My ear.”

Judge Jackson looked back at me, disturbed on my behalf.

“Don't worry, Uncle Em,” Melanie said, shining a smile at me. “My firm's on it.”

So, I had a lawyer now, and a good one, judging by the address I'd seen on her business card. I just hoped I could afford her—and dollars were the least of my worries. I guess that was my favor. I should have asked for two.

As we walked across the vast expanse of the house, we came to an open-air chef's kitchen, where a woman I guessed was T.D.'s mother sat on a tall barstool, staring into her teacup. It felt impolite to gaze at her for more than an instant; her agony was so pronounced on her thin face that she could have been naked. Her hair was hurriedly fixed into an unruly bun, with nearly half of her hair still loose. She wore a slightly frayed sweater that was clearly comfort clothing, designed for indoor use only. T.D. had had his mother's nose and long forehead.

Judge Jackson leaned close to her, gentle as a mouse. “Evangeline? This is Tennyson Hardwick. He knew T.D. He's come to help us.”

She flinched, then she gave me the blankest stare I've ever seen—her brown eyes were a cavern. Tranquilizers, I guessed, and maybe a glass or two of wine. Bad combination. “All right,” she said in a thin voice, sounding resigned.

Judge Jackson patted his wife's hand. “Richard Hardwick's son,” he added.

A spark of light passed across her empty eyes, a flaming moth on a moonless night. “Richard Hardwick. The Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. Such a good speaker! Got everyone so motivated. You look just like him…” Everywhere I went, I was reminded of how I resembled my father in appearance alone.

Her voice faded as the light in her eyes died. After another fond pat, Judge Jackson motioned for us to follow him.

“I pray to God she survives this,” he said to Melanie. “I just don't know.”

“Aunt Evie's just like Mom.” Melanie linked their arms. “Like me. She'll survive.”

“Hope you're right,” he said.

At the other end of the house, double doors led to a large study with paneled wood worthy of the Peninsula. Melanie let us go in alone, waiting outside. She knew what Judge Jackson was going to say. Above the large oak desk, I saw the requisite array of certificates, diplomas, and degrees one would expect from a lawyer and judge, including one photo of Judge Jackson with Bill and Hillary Clinton; another with Barack Obama. Covering his bets.

The centerpiece was a glass-enclosed case that stretched the length of the room, the shrine to T.D. Jackson. “May I?” I said.

Judge Jackson nodded eagerly. Of course. He flipped a switch, and the display was bathed in light. It looked professionally mounted; part photo display, part trophy case, part collage of newspaper headlines. T.D. Jackson's gleaming bronze Heisman Trophy sat on a shelf, the old-school football warrior running with his arm thrust out. I'd never seen a Heisman up close, and I was surprised at its size. It looked like it weighed twenty-five pounds.

“T.D. gave me that the night he got it,” Judge Jackson said, quickly
wiping his eye. “Said it was mine by rights.” No small honor: Few actors would let an Oscar or Emmy out of his sight, although Jimmy Stewart famously gave his Oscar to his father.

Judge Jackson looked up at me, his face suddenly full of pride. “You know what else? T.D. had his Super Bowl ring engraved to his mother and gave it to her. How about
that
? That's the kind of son T.D. was.”

T.D. Jackson sounded like a hell of a guy.

The case wasn't entirely dedicated to T.D.'s career. On the far left side, the lacquered newspaper clippings were from the 1960s, before T.D.'s time. An older photograph showed a Southern California State squad in outdated uniforms, with four black men prominent in the center. Even with his helmet on, I spotted Emory Jackson's face, nearly fifty years younger.

“So you played, too?” I said.

“Not like T.D., but we thought we were doin' something.”

The older team had done pretty well, I noticed: Beneath the photo was a single newspaper article, the headline reading
SOCAL SPARTANS BOWL BOUND
.

“I know T.D. went to you looking for protection,” Judge Jackson said. He was standing closer behind me that I'd realized.

I had wondered if that would come up. “Yessir. I couldn't swing the schedule.”

“Has your schedule changed?”

“Actually, it has.”

“Tell me you give a damn what happened to T.D. Tell me you didn't forsake him for personal reasons.”
Forsake
was a strong word, spoken from pursed, angry lips.

“Judge, I'd take the job if I could go back. I wish I could have prevented it. I never meant to forsake your son.” I'd sounded genuinely sorry, and hadn't had to fake it.

Judge Jackson sighed. “All right,” he said.

In the display case, he pointed out T.D.'s iconic jersey, Number 13, which lay beneath a poster-sized photo of T.D.'s Super Bowl reception for the San Francisco 49ers, the year he was dubbed “The Master of Disaster.” (A tiny placard pointed out that it was the very jersey T.D. had worn that snowy day in Buffalo.) T-shirts, coffee mugs, and water bottles proclaimed his legend. On the far right side of the display, T.D.'s journey to Hollywood was chronicled in one-sheets and publicity shots. None of his movies ever fulfilled the promise of
Cody's Dawn
, T.D.'s first movie, where he played an injured Gulf War vet with surprising pathos and earned a Golden Globe nomination. But until a couple of years before his divorce—after a ridiculous direct-to-DVD mistake called
Space Bowl
made it hard to look at him with a straight face—T.D. Jackson had been an industry unto himself in Hollywood.