When the Bough Breaks (39 page)

She looked at the pictures and her lips moved, almost imperceptively. Like a general surveying a smoldering battlefield, she conducted a silent body count.

“Andy working,” she said, and gave me the address of a garage on Figueroa.

“And Rafael?”

“Rafael I don’ know. He say he go look for work.”

She and I both knew where he was. But I’d opened enough wounds for one day, so I kept my mouth shut, except to thank her.

I found him after a half-hour’s cruising up and down Sunset and in and out of several side streets. He was walking south on Alvarado, if you could call the stumbling, self-absorbed lurch that propelled him headfirst, feet following, a walk. He stayed close to buildings, veering toward the street when people or objects got in his way, quickly returning to the shadow of awnings. It was close to eighty but he wore a long-sleeved flannel shirt hanging loose over khakis and buttoned to the neck. On his feet were high-topped sneakers; the laces on one of them had come loose. He looked even thinner than I remembered.

I drove slowly, staying in the right lane, out of his field of vision, and keeping pace with him. Once he passed a group of middle-aged men, merchants. They pointed at him behind his back, shook their heads and frowned. He was oblivious to them, cut off from the external world. He pointed with his face, like a setter homing in on a scent. His nose ran continuously and he wiped it with his sleeve. His eyes shifted from side to side as his body kept moving. He ran his tongue over his lips, slapped his thin thighs in a steady tattoo, pursed his lips as if in song, bobbed his head up and down. He was making a concentrated effort at looking cool but he fooled no one. Like a drunk working hard at coming across sober his mannerisms were exaggerated, unnatural and lacking spontaneity. They produced the opposite effect: He appeared to be a hungry jackal on the prowl, desperate, gnawed upon from within and hurting all over. His skin was glossy with sweat, pale and ghostly. People got out of his way as he boogied toward them.

I sped up and drove two blocks before pulling to the curb and parking near an alley behind a three-story building that housed a Latin grocery on the ground floor and apartments on the upper two.

A quick look shot backward confirmed that he was still coming.

I got out of the car and ducked into the alley, which stunk of rotting produce and urine. Empty and broken wine bottles littered the pavement. A hundred feet away was a loading dock, unattended, its steel doors closed and bolted. A dozen vehicles were illegally parked on both sides; exit from the alley was blocked by a half-ton pickup left perpendicular to the walls. Somewhere off in the distance a mariachi band played “Cielito Lindo.” A cat screeched. Horns honked out on the boulevard. A baby cried.

I peeked my head out and retracted it. He was half a block away. I got ready for him. When he began crossing the alley I said in a stage whisper: “Hey, man. I got what you need.”

That stopped him. He looked at me with great love, thinking he’d found salvation. It threw him off when I grabbed him by his scrawny arm and pulled him into the alley. I dragged him several feet until we’d found cover behind an old Chevy with peeling paint and two flat tires. I slammed him against the wall. His hands went up protectively. I pushed them down and pinioned both of them with one of my own. He struggled but he had no strength. It was like tussling with a toddler.

“Whadyou want, man?”

“Answers, Rafael. Remember me? I visited you a few days ago. With Raquel.”

“Hey, yeah, sure,” he said, but there was only confusion in the watery hazel eyes. Snot ran down one nostril and into his mouth. He let it sit there a while before reaching up with his tongue and trying to flick it away. “Yeah, I remember, man. With Raquel, sure, man.” He looked up and down the alley.

“You remember, then, that I’m investigating your sister’s murder.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Elena. Bad stuff, man.” He said it without feeling. His sister had been sliced up and all he could think of was that he needed a packet of white powder that could be transformed into his own special type of milk. I’d read dozens of tomes on addiction, but it was there, in that alley, that the true power of the needle became clear to me.

“She had tapes, Rafael. Where are they?”

“Hey, man, I don’ know shit about tapes.” He struggled to break loose. I slammed him against the wall again. “Oh, man, I’m hurting, just let me go fix myself up and then I talk to you about tapes. Okay, man?”

“No. I want to know now, Rafael. Where are the tapes?”

“I don’ know, man, I told you that!” He was whining like a three
year-old, snotfaced and growing more frantic with each passing second.

“I think you do and I want to know.”

He bounced in my grasp, clattering like a sack of loose bones.

“Lemme go, motherfucker!” he gasped.

“Your sister was murdered, Rafael. Turned into hamburger. I saw pictures of what she looked like. Whoever did it to her took their time. It hurt her. And you’re willing to deal with them.”

“I don’ know what you’re talkin’ about, man.”

More struggling, another slam against the wall. He sagged this time, closed his eyes and for a moment I thought I’d knocked him out. But he opened them, licked his lips and gave a dry, hacking cough.

“You were off the stuff, Rafael. Then you started shooting up again. Right after Elena’s death. Where’d you get the dough? How much did you sell her out for?”

“I don’ know nothin’.” He shook spastically. “Lemme go. I don’ know nothin’.”

“Your own sister,” I said. “And you sold out to her murderers for the price of a fix.”

“Puleeze
, mister. Lemme go.”

“Not until you talk. I don’t have time to waste time with you. I want to know where those tapes are. You don’t tell me soon I’ll take you home with me, tie you up and let you go cold turkey in the corner. Imagine that—think how bad you hurt now, Rafael. Think how much worse it’s going to get.”

He crumpled.

“I gave them to some dude,” he stuttered.

“For how much?”

“Not money, man. Stuff. He gave me stuff. Enough for a week’s fixing. Good stuff. Now lemme go. I gotta appointment.”

“Who was the guy?”

“Just some dude. Anglo. Like you.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’ know, man, I can’t think straight.”

“The corner, Rafael. Tied up.”

“Twenny-five, six. Short. Built good, solid. Real straight-lookin’. Light hair, over the forehead, okay?”

He’d described Tim Kruger.

“Why did he say he wanted the tapes?”

“He dint say, man, I dint ask. He had good stuff, you unnerstand?”

“Didn’t you wonder? Your sister was dead and you didn’t wonder why some stranger would give you smack for her tapes?”

“Hey, man, I dint wonder, I don’ wonder. I don’ think. I just go
flyin’. I gotta go flyin’ now. I’m hurtin’, man. Lemme go.”

“Did your brother know about this?”

“No! He kill me, man. You hurt me, but he
kill
me, you unnerstand? Don’ tell him!”

“What was on the tapes, Rafael?”

“I dunno. I don’ listen, man!”

On principle I refused to believe him.

“The corner. Tied up. Bone dry.”

“Jus’ some kid talkin’, man, I swear that’s it. I dint hear the whole thing, but when he offered me the stuff for them I took a listen before I gave them to the dude. Some kid talkin’ to my sister. She’s listenin’ and sayin’ tell me more and he’s talkin’.”

“About what?”

“I don’ know man. It started to get heavy, the kid’s cryin’, Elena’s cryin’, I switched it off. I don’ wanna know.”

“What were they crying about, Rafael?”

“I don’ know, man, something about how somebody hurt the kid, Elena’s askin’ him if they hurt him, he’s sayin’ yes, she’s cryin’, then the kid’s cryin’, too.”

“What else?”

“That’s it.”

I throttled him just hard enough to rattle his teeth.

“You wan’ me to make somethin’ up, I can do it, man, but that’s all I know!”

He cried out, snuffling and sucking for air.

I held him at arm’s length, then let go. He looked at me unbelievingly, slithered against the wall, found a space between the Chevy and a rusted Dodge van. Staring at me, he wiped his nose, passed between the two cars and made a run for freedom.

I drove to a gas station at Virgil and Sunset, filled up, and used the pay phone to call La Casa de los Niños. The receptionist with the upbeat voice answered. Slipping into a drawl I asked her for Kruger.

“Mr. Kruger isn’t in, today, sir. He’ll be in tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right! He told me he’d be off the day I got in.”

“Would you care to leave a message, sir?”

“Heck no. I’m an old friend from school. Tim and I go way back. I just blew in on a business trip—I’m selling tool and die, Becker Machine Works, San Antonio, Texas—and I was supposed to look old Tim up. He gave me his number at home but I must have lost it. Do you have it?”

“I’m sorry, sir, we’re not supposed to give out personal information.”

“I can dig that. But like I say, Tim and me are tight. Why don’t you call him at home, tell him old Jeff Saxon’s on the line, ready to drop in but stuck without the address.”

A clatter of ringing phones sounded in the background.

“One moment, sir.”

When she returned I asked her:

“You call him yet, ma’am?”

“No—I—it’s rather busy right now, Mr ….”

“Saxon. Jeff Saxon. You call old Tim and tell him old Jeff Saxon’s in town to see him, I guarantee you he’ll be—”

“Why don’t I just give you the number?” She recited seven digits, the first two of which signified a beach cities location.

“Thank you much, I believe Tim told me he lived near the beach—that far from the airport?”

“Mr. Kruger lives in Santa Monica. It’s about a twenty-minute ride.”

“Hey, that’s not bad—maybe I’ll just drop in on him, kind of a surprise, what do you think?”

“Sir, I have to—”

“You wouldn’t happen to have the address? I tell you, it’s been one hell of a day, what with the airline losing my sample case and I’ve got two meetings tomorrow. I think I packed the address book in the suitcase, but now I can’t be sure and—”

“Here’s the address, sir.”

“Thank you much, ma’am. You’ve been very helpful. And you have a nice voice.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You free tonight?”

“I’m sorry, sir, no.”

“Fellow’s gotta try, right?”

“Yes, sir. Good-bye, sir.”

I’d been driving north for a good five minutes before I heard the buzzing. I realized, then, that the sound had been with me since I’d pulled out of the gas station. The rearview mirror revealed a motorcycle several lengths back, bouncing in the distance like a fly on a hot windshield. The driver twisted the handle accelerator and the fly grew like a monster in a Japanese horror flick.

He was two lengths behind, and gaining. As he approached I got a look at him, jeans, boots, black leather jacket, black helmet with full-face tinted sun visor that completely masked his features.

He rode my tail for several blocks. I changed lanes. Instead of passing, he hung back, allowing a Ford full of nuns to come between us. A half mile past Lexington the nuns turned off. I steered sharply toward the curb and came to a sudden stop in front of a Pup ’n Taco. The
motorcycle sped by. I waited until he’d disappeared, told myself I was being paranoid, and got out of the Seville. I looked for him, didn’t see him, bought a Coke, got behind the wheel and reentered the boulevard.

I’d turned east on Temple headed for the Hollywood Freeway when I heard him again. Verifying his presence in the mirror caused me to miss the on ramp, and I stayed on Temple, dipping under the bridge created by the overpass. The motorcycle stayed with me. I gave the Seville gas and ran a red light. He maintained his position, buzzing and spitting. The next intersection was filled with pedestrians and I had to stop.

I kept a watch on him through the side mirror. He rolled toward me, three feet away, now two, approaching on the driver’s side. One hand went inside the leather jacket. A young mother wheeled a small child in a stroller, passing directly in front of my bumper. The child wailed, the mother chewed gum, heavy-legged, moving oh so slowly. Something metallic came into the hand in the mirror. The motorcycle was just behind me, almost flush with the driver’s window. I saw the gun now, an ugly little snub-nosed affair, easy to conceal in a large palm. I raced my engine. The gum-chewing young matron wasn’t impressed. She seemed to move in slow motion, indolently working her jaws, the child now screaming at the top of his lungs. The light remained red but its catercornered cousin had turned amber. The longest light in the history of traffic engineering … how long could an amber light last?

The snout of the revolver pressed against the glass, directly in line with my left temple. A black hole miles long wrapped in a concentric halo of silver. The mother still dragged her heavy body lazily across the intersection, her heel in line with my right front tire, unaware that the man in the green Cadillac was going to be blown away any second. The finger on the trigger blanched. The mother stepped clear by an inch. I twisted the steering wheel to the left, pressed down hard on the accelerator and shot diagonally across the intersection into the path of the ongoing traffic. I gunned the engine, laid a long patch of rubber, heard a Delphic chorus of curses, shouts, honking horns and squealing brakes, and shot up the first side street, narrowly missing a head-on collision with a Water and Power van coming from the opposite direction.

The street was narrow and winding, and pocked with potholes. The Seville was no sports car and I had to fight its slack steering system to maintain speed and control around the turns. I climbed, bounced down hard, and swooped steeply down a hill. A boulevard stop at the bottom was clear. I sped through. Three blocks of level turf at seventy miles an hour and the buzz was back, growing louder. The motorcycle, so much easier to maneuver, was catching up fast.

The road came to an end at a cracked masonry wall. Left or right? Decisions, decisions, with the adrenaline shooting through every corpuscle, the buzz now a roar, my hands sweaty, slipping off the wheel. I looked in the mirror, saw one hand come off the bars and aim the gun at my tires. I chose left and floored the Seville, putting my body into it. The road rose, scaling empty streets, higher, spiraling into the smog, a roller coaster of a street planned by a berserk engineer. The motorcyclist kept riding up on my rear, raking his gun hand off the bars whenever he could, striving for steady aim …