Rag and Bone (23 page)

“Client emergency,” I said. “I’m sorry. Shall we go?”

I let Angel get a couple of steps ahead of us and, in a low voice, said to Elena. “That was Jesusita Trujillo’s daughter, Socorro. Mrs. Trujillo’s in the hospital.”

“Why?”

“Someone broke into her house. The cops think it was a robbery.”

“Was she seriously hurt?”

Angel had stopped and glanced back at us suspiciously. I smiled at him and then told Elena, “She’s in a coma.”

I pulled into the parking lot of Saint Francis Hospital, a rambling pink stucco building with a white cross above the entrance. Two women in dowdy clothes and the blue veils of nuns passed in front of me on the sidewalk, deep in conversation. In flower beds beneath the first-floor windows, rose bushes were in profuse bloom. On the lawn was a life-sized statue of Saint Francis preaching to stone birds perched on his sleeves and at his feet, while a live pigeon roosted on his tonsure. The day had turned into a scorcher, withering the grass. I had time to make these detailed observations because I seemed unable to get myself out of my car and across the threshold of the hospital. I could hear Hayward’s voice telling me, “Everyone dies of something, Henry, and what you now know is that the probabilities are that you’ll die of heart disease.” The equation that kept me sweating in my closed car was: heart attack, hospital, death. I knew my anxiety was completely irrational and my sense of foreboding misplaced, that the benign glass doors of the little Catholic hospital were not the maws of death, but a good five minutes passed before I was able to peel myself from the seat and get myself through them.

I paused at the doorway of Jesusita Trujillo’s room. In the corner on a table was a makeshift altar where, among flowers and candles, there were prayer cards, family pictures and handwritten petitions to the saints on her behalf. A heavy woman in a flowered blouse and stretch pants sat vigil beside the bed.

“Mrs. Cerda?” I said, stepping into the room.

The woman turned her head. She resembled her mother mostly in the lines of weary kindness etched into her face.

“I’m Henry Rios,” I said.

She got up from her chair. “Call me Socorro.”

I approached her and got a good look at Jesusita Trujillo. Bandages swathed her head, covering her right eye. The part of her face that was visible looked like it had gone through a meat grinder.

“My God,” I said, remembering the gentle, frightened woman who, only a week earlier, had served me lemonade and told me lies. “How did this happen?”

“She had this glass coffee table. He pushed her through it, face first.” I remembered the table. The glass had been very thick “They got most of the glass out, but some of it went through her skull into her brain. Even if she wakes up, she’ll have brain damage.”

“The police say it was a robbery?”

She looked at her mother, then said in a low voice. “The doctors say she can’t hear nothing, but if she can, I don’t want to upset her. Maybe we can talk outside.” We went out into the hall. “A robbery, yeah, that’s the what the police say. A home invasion.”

“You sound skeptical.”

“I believe someone was trying to rob her,” she said, “but it wasn’t no invasion. The police said there was no break-in. It was someone Mom knew. The neighbors know, too, but they ain’t talking.”

“Why?”

“They’re afraid of the gangs,” she said.

“That’s who did it? A gangbanger?”

She rested her bulk against the wall and regarded me with exhausted eyes. “My mom knew them when they were kids, she babysat some of them. I used to warn her they were
malos,
but she said, no,
hija,
they got good hearts, it’s just the drugs. She said that because of Pete, because she blamed drugs for his problems.”

“Mothers have to assume the best.”

She nodded. “Maybe she was right about Pete, but not those kids he ran around with. They were just plain evil. She never got your messages about Pete, Mr. Rios. They found her the night before you called. I’m sorry I didn’t call before, but—”

“She was attacked the same night Pete was killed?”

“Pete was always breaking her heart. At least she didn’t have to hear about the way he died.”

“Were you close to Pete?”

She ran a hand across her weary eyes. “I changed his diapers when he was a baby, but I’m a lot older and I was married when he was still a
niño.
He was okay while my dad was alive, but after he died, Pete ran wild and Mom couldn’t control him. His cousin Butch got Pete into drugs.” She paused. “That Butch, he’s a bad one. Even Mom saw it. When Pete brought Vicky home, she was happy because she thought he would settle down. Pretty soon he was running around with Butch again, and the next thing I hear from Mom, Pete was back in prison again. I can’t believe Vicky killed him. She’s good people.”

“There’s not much question about it,” I said.

“I guess he finally drove her crazy with the drugs, then,” she said. “I’m sorry about Pete, but putting up with him must have been real hard on her because she’s a good girl. Smart, too. Where’s their little boy? Angelito?”

“Staying with me,” I said. “You know I’m not just Vicky’s lawyer, I’m her uncle. My sister, Elena, is her mother.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Mom said something about how Vicky found her family. So you’re her uncle. I guess that makes us some kind of in-laws. Can I give you something for her?”

“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

“The motel where I guess they were staying, they left a message for Mom, too, and said to come and get Pete and Vicky’s stuff or they would throw it away. I sent my son down to Hollywood. There’s just a suitcase, some boxes. They’re in the trunk of my car. I figured there might be things in there that Vicky would want.”

“Is your car here?”

“In the parking lot.”

With Socorro Cerda’s help, I loaded two suitcases and four boxes into the trunk of my car. Afterward, there seemed no reason to return to the hospital.

“If there’s anything else I can do for you, Socorro, let me know.”

“Well,” she said. “My sister, Mary, and me, we want to bury Pete, but we don’t know where his body is.”

“The police didn’t tell you?”

She shook her head. “I tried to find out, but I got the runaround.”

“I can take care of that for you,” I said. “Where do you want the coroner to release his body?”

She gave me the name of a funeral home.

“Gutierrez and Sola,” I repeated, jotting it in my notebook. “I’ll call you as soon as the body is released. Would it be all right if I brought Angel to his dad’s funeral?”

“Of course,” she said; “We’re family. I’ve got to get back to my mom. Thank you for coming, Mr. Rios.”

“I’m very sorry about your mother. I only met her once, but she seemed like a very kind person.”

“That’s why I don’t understand why someone would do this to her.” She gave me a damp hug. “Give my love to Vicky and Angel. Tell Vicky I’ll try to get up and see her.”

“I will. I’ll bring Angel to visit you if you want.”

She smiled. “You do that. I think he likes his old Aunt Soakie.”

I had handled enough homicides over the years to have become friendly with a couple of the deputies in the medical examiner’s office. One of them was a young lesbian who had come to me for advice when she was considering a lawsuit against the county for what she perceived to be discrimination against women in the office’s promotion practices. I had helped her find an employment discrimination lawyer who had negotiated a handsome settlement. I phoned her from my car and asked for help with Pete’s body. She agreed to personally supervise the release of Pete’s body to the funeral home the following day. I left a message for Socorro Cerda. Traffic on the 405 came to a complete halt around the airport, a situation that usually raised my blood pressure, but I was the bearer of bad tidings, so for once I didn’t mind.

W
HEN I ENTERED THE HOUSE
, I heard voices and then a familiar laugh coming from out on the deck. Elena and Angel were sitting at the table eating lunch in the shade of the canvas umbrella I had purchased the previous summer but never got around to putting up. They had a guest—John—and it was his laughter I had heard. He was talking to Elena, but when I stepped outside, he lifted his head and our eyes met. I felt as if a light had been switched on inside of me. He unfolded his slow, private smile. I looked from him to my sister, in whom, apparently, a different light had just gone on.

“Hey, Henry,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind me dropping in. I was going to take you and Angel to lunch, but then your sister explained you had some business so we just picked up some food from the deli.”

“You know you’re always welcome,” I said.

“Sit down, Henry,” Elena said. “Eat something.”

I sat down, untied my tie and draped my coat over the chair. Famished, I served myself from a platter of sandwiches and salads. It was pleasant to sit beneath the umbrella, and a small herb-scented breeze rustled up from the canyon. I chewed my turkey sandwich and listened to Angel and John debate the relative merits of National League pitchers, a subject, I was mildly surprised to discover, on which my sister also had some emphatic opinions. For a moment I forgot about the horror I had left behind at the hospital and thought,
So this is what it’s like to have a family.

Elena had dropped out of the baseball conversation, and in a low voice asked, “Henry, how was she?”

“Not well,” I replied. “Did you tell him?”

“No, I was going to, but then John showed up and, well, he seems very fond of John.”

“Yes, so am I.”

“I gathered,” she replied dryly.

John said, “What are you two whispering about?”

I put the sandwich down. “I have some bad news about Angel’s other grandmother.”

Angel looked at me. “What?”

“Someone broke into her house and attacked her. She’s in the hospital.” I glanced at my sister. “In very bad shape.”

John squeezed the boy’s shoulder sympathetically. Angel looked down at the remains of his lunch, then raised his head and asked, “Does that mean I can live with you while my mom is in jail?”

Shocked, Elena exclaimed, “Angel!”

He glanced at her, but addressed me. “You said my mom wanted me to live with my grandma Jesusita, but I can’t live with her if she’s sick.”

Elena replied, “You have two grandmothers, Angel.”

Still looking at me, he said, “If I live with Grandma Elena in Oakland, I won’t be able to see my mom.”

“Henry works,” Elena replied, matching his deliberate tone. “He can’t look after you. I’m on summer break.”

Angel squared his shoulders and said to me, “You don’t have to take care of me all the time. I can take care of myself.”

“Angel,” Elena snapped, “I’m speaking to you.”

He threw her a furious look. “I don’t want to live with you. I hate you.” He looked at me. “Don’t make me go with her, Uncle Henry. I want to stay with you.” Then he ran from the table, sobbing.

For a moment, no one said anything. I tossed my napkin on the table. “I guess I should talk to him.” I looked at my sister. “I’ll try to make him understand why it would be better if he lives with you.”

She looked back at me. “Would it? Do you want him here?”

“Yes,” I said. “I want him to live with me. I know it won’t be easy, but we’ll manage.”

She folded her napkin and set it on the table. “All right,” she said. “Let me go tell him.”

“You know he doesn’t really hate you.”

She got up from the table. “Actually, Henry, he probably does just now, because he thinks I want to take him away from you. That’s why I want to tell him he can stay. Excuse me, John.”

A headache began to gather in the center of my forehead. I shut my eyes and rubbed the spot. I heard John get up and then his hands clamped down on my shoulders and his thick fingers began to knead me.

“Man, you’re tight,” he said. “Relax.”

“I couldn’t get my niece out on bail, Angel’s other grandma’s been beaten into a coma, my sister feels rejected and Angel’s in hysterics. Is this what it’s like to have a family? Ouch!”

“Let go, okay? Stop fighting me.” He worked my neck. “Those things aren’t your fault, man.”

“They’re my responsibility,” I said. He dug deep into my muscles and my headache began to fade. “That feels great. You’re really good at this.”

“I’ve been getting massages since I played ball. I picked up the basics over the years. I like your sister. She’s sharp, like you.”

“Sharp as in smart or sharp as in smart-ass?”

“Both. Like you. Like all you Rioses. You’re all a little too smart for your own good.”

“How was dinner with Deanna?”

The massage became a ruminative rub, as if he was composing his thoughts.

“Was it bad?” I prodded.

“She apologized,” he replied. “You know, for the things she said. She told me she’d been doing a lot of thinking and she figured she made a mistake with me.”

“What kind of mistake?”

His hands slipped off my shoulders. “Turning me down when I asked her to marry me. She said she didn’t know how much she loved me until she thought about losing me.”

After a moment, I said, “I can understand that.”

“She wants me to give her another chance.”

I felt a pain in my chest that I knew was not angina. “Are you?”

He laid his hands on my shoulders again, but this touch was tentative, uncertain. “I want to ask you something, but you gotta think about it before you answer.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think we could have a future together? I mean, we’ve had a lot of fun, but you know we’re different. You’re a lawyer, I put in bathrooms in rich people’s houses—”

“They’re good bathrooms.”

He squeezed my shoulder. “I’m serious. You’re a smart man, Henry, you have a lot of class. I’m a dumb baseball player. I never went to college. I work with my hands…” His voice trailed off.

“You can’t mean that you don’t think you’re good enough for me.”

“Am I?” he asked in a quiet, uncertain voice I had never heard from him before.

“Are you sure it’s not that you’re worried about bringing a boyfriend home to your family instead of a wife?”