Текст книги "The Eternal Summer"
Автор книги: Paul MacDonald
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
THE SILENT SCREEN
I caught Jeff as he was about to leave the office. By the way he bustled about and didn’t make much effort to actually settle down for a second and speak to me directly, I got the sense he wasn’t in the mood to make much time for me. It wasn’t but a day or two ago that we were best friends, united in our work to bring home his daughter. Now I was the guy with the clipboard out front of the grocery store – if he didn’t make eye contact then he wouldn’t have to stop and sign my petition.
When faced with people in a rush, I have the annoying habit of slowing things down to a glacial pace.
“There was one thing…I, uh, wanted to…talk to you…about.”
“Sure, but I’m in a bit of a rush so if it’s quick, then let’s walk and talk,” he suggested and assumed I would be in agreement because he hurried out of the room before I could answer. I didn’t move from the spot where I was standing and patiently waited for him to come back. It took longer than I expected but he eventually reappeared in the doorway and put on his best annoyed impersonation. “Okay, what is it?”
“Did you ever get ahold of your daughter?” I asked.
“I did not. But I am not sure how that is any of your concern,” he replied, pushing his way into his office and closing the door behind him. “I thought you weren’t helping out on this anymore.”
“So are you and the old man on speaking terms again?” There was no way he could have known that unless they were. My suspicions were confirmed when I looked back at the blank screen where the now-silenced video installation was supposed to be.
“Yes, it’s common that family members talk once in a while,” he said, taking on a snarky tone. Jeff seemed to jump between two personas – the Average Joe from the Valley or the High Society dabbler – depending on his current standing with the old man. By the way he kept addressing me like a servant, I assumed things had been temporarily patched up between them.
“Why the rapprochement?” I asked.
“I don’t have to answer your questions,” he told me again but didn’t make any move to kick me out. “You’re a very aggressive person. And I’m not sure I like it.” He was slipping back into the kid from the Valley.
“How much do you know about what’s going on with your daughter?”
“How much do you know?” he shot back.
“Plenty,” I calmly replied, “She placed the article in the gossip blog.”
I invited myself to one of the chairs and made him listen to all that I learned over the last couple of days, including the connection of the nurse from the convalescent home to the clinic where Jeanette had her baby. He reluctantly sat opposite me and silently listened, though he did check his watch several times to remind me that he was a busy man and had places to go. Jeff didn’t let on whether any or all of what I was telling him was new information.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
“Almost. Have you spoken to Mr. Li lately?”
“No, but I plan to,” he answered.
“I’d like to be there when you do. I have some questions of my own that I want to ask him.” He didn’t acknowledge the request and overall wasn’t as responsive to reasoning as in the past. The reconciliation between him and Valenti was more pronounced than I had originally guessed. “Jeff, it’s time to go to the police. This is no longer an affair of the family. Murder is involved.”
“Trust me, I understand the gravity of the current situation,” he replied non-committedly.
“The number-one goal is to bring your daughter home, right?”
“Of course.”
“Well, the best way to do that is to let the authorities help. They have the resources at their disposal. They can cast a net a lot farther and deeper than what you or I can do.”
“Plastering her face all over the news sites?” he asked with a trace of contempt.
“Now is not the time to worry about decorum. That stuff is extremely painful in the short term but it fades a lot faster than you think. If she’s made it this far I think she can handle a little ugliness in the media,” I pressed.
He sort of nodded but something made me wonder if his original misgivings about the publicity were in fear for his daughter’s humiliation or in fear for his own.
“I spoke to the detective assigned to the McIlroy girl’s murder—” I said, but before I could finish, Jeff leaped to his feet, his face a contorted m�lange of orange and red.
“You already went to the police!” he shouted.
“I didn’t have to, they came to me.”
“Well you better not have been telling them anything.”
“Or what?”
“That was not smart,” he lectured.
“You aren’t exactly the epitome of Mensa Society, Jeff. And if you are getting your advice from somewhere, you might want to think twice about the source.” It was a transparent warning that he was being manipulated. Valenti had his hooks back in him but the question was, how deep? “I left out one other detail. Please sit down for two minutes and listen to what I have to say.”
I conveyed my suspicions and growing concerns that Valenti could be the father of Jeanette’s baby. I was careful not to libel myself as I had no real proof but the circumstantial references were starting to point in that direction. And that I was worried that this could quickly escalate.
“That’s outlandish,” he commented without much indignation. If anything, he was trying to convince himself that it wasn’t true. He stared absently at the pile carpet, his right eye blinking methodically as he thought things over. I let him stew in all of the ugly permutations and patiently waited for him to come to their unsatisfactory conclusion.
“Listen, Mr. Restic,” emerged magnanimous Jeff, that condescending creature prone to lecturing. “We can’t let stressful situations lead us to make poor decisions…” It was a drawn out speech of well-meaning but empty words. I smiled politely and thanked him for his time. He graciously walked me to the lobby door, but I refused his extended hand.
The man was a lost cause.
***
I caught Meredith at home. She, too, had effectively been brought back into the family fold but at least she was honest about it. Unlike with her ex-husband there were no high-minded speeches to camouflage her real intentions.
“I’m going with which way the wind is blowing,” she said but it didn’t sound like she was actually happy about it.
“Who’s calling the shots?” I asked. She gave me a look that effectively reprimanded me for a dumb question. “What is he asking you to do?”
“To go along with everything.”
“Which is?”
She smiled. “That wouldn’t be going along with everything.”
“When did you know that Jeanette was pregnant?”
Meredith thought it through and it seemed like she was debating on whether to tell me the truth or not.
“About a month before she ran off,” she finally answered.
“That’s pretty late in her term.”
“She hid it well,” she replied but didn’t feel like that was enough. “We don’t have the best relationship,” she added.
She didn’t like the direction this conversation was going and decided to shift it away from her.
“Did they find the Portillo boy yet?”
“Not yet.”
“I never thought he was the violent type but I guess you never really know what people are capable of doing, do you?”
I let that go unanswered until she looked up at me.
“You want me to play along to help you feel better?”
“Excuse me?” she shot back.
“You know that kid had nothing to do with Morgan’s murder. But if you want me to talk you through it to ease some of your guilt I am happy to oblige. Is railroading Nelson part of whatever plan the family is cooking up?”
“It is not,” she conceded. One thing I admired about Meredith was when I called her on something, she was always big enough to acknowledge it. “And no, I don’t actually think that boy had anything to do with Morgan’s murder.”
“Hire me,” I said.
“What?”
“You don’t believe any of this nonsense being flung around about Nelson Portillo being a murderer. And I don’t get the sense you approve of whatever plan is being cooked up.”
“I already hired you, didn’t I?” She was trying to make a joke out of it to make it go away. I didn’t let her.
“I can find your daughter. I’m close to finding her now. I need your help, Meredith.” She nodded. I couldn’t tell if I was actually getting through to her or if she was just buying time before shooting down my offer. “It’s never too late to turn that relationship around,” I added.
“You and me disobeying Dad?” she dreamed. “He would have a conniption.”
“Let him.”
She tilted her head back and stared out the large slider like she was watching a movie of some fictional world on the other side of the glass.
“Look at him,” she said, pointing at Sami who sat on the edge of a chaise lounge just outside the sliding door. I hadn’t noticed him. He periodically glanced in like someone pretending not to be very interested in what was being said on the other side of the reflection.
“Does he sleep at the foot of the bed, too?”
“No,” she laughed, “but I might ask him to. You’re mean,” she said after some reflection but meant it as a compliment.
“Why are you shutting him out?”
“This is a family matter.”
“So why am I here?”
“You won’t be for long,” she stated.
***
I showed myself out. Meredith was my last hope, but even she couldn’t resist the pull Valenti had on anyone connected to him. I took a moment to take in the cool air trapped under the thick marine layer before heading out on the long drive back to Eagle Rock. It roughly worked out that every three miles equaled one degree warmer on the thermometer. By that calculation it would be ninety-five in my neighborhood.
“There is something happening,” a voice said behind me. Sami scraped through two dwarf palms. He remained close to the wall of the house and safely out of the sightline of the front windows. “Jeanette contacted them,” he said.
It seemed to me he was taking an unnecessarily conspiratorial tone, skulking in the shadows like a daylight robber.
“When?”
“Last night. Meredith got a call from her father. I don’t know what they talked about but it was a long conversation. I tried to ask Meredith afterwards. I didn’t want to push it.” But clearly he had tried. I waited for the response. “She told me it wasn’t any of my concern.”
“Who did Jeanette contact – her mother or the old man?”
“It sounded like her grandfather got the call,” he said. “She is going up to the family house tonight.”
“Jeanette is?” I asked, both elated at her potential return but wary of that same return.
“No, Meredith.”
The family circle was tightening as Meredith and Valenti closed the ranks. It didn’t sound like Jeff made the cut. Fathering Jeanette apparently didn’t qualify for full membership benefits. Jeff would be strung along like the stray following the wagon train to California. He’d never get a seat in the carriage but I think he was content with that arrangement. It was a better situation than the one for interlopers like me and hangers-on like Sami who were shut out completely, left off at some depot in Topeka.
Sami wasn’t taking it very well. He lingered among the prickly palm fronds as if afraid any movement would slice open his bare skin. He had foolishly led himself to believe he’d earned his way in. All the free booze and morning romps and promises of financial support had lulled him into believing it was real. He looked at me with plaintive eyes as if my sensible car was his last ticket out and last chance to catch up to the train.
“If I learn anything, I’ll call you,” I said, which sounded very much like an empty promise. I subconsciously glanced up at the bank of windows above him. This sent him reeling.
“Did she see me?” he stammered.
Before I could reply he retreated into the cut of drought-tolerant plants and out of sight altogether.
THE FINAL DAYS OF THE GAO LI EMPIRE
The dismantling of the empire that Gao built was executed with methodical precision. This was not a job for pyrotechnic experts and their molar-rattling blasts. This one called for precision, like an army of ants tasked with the dismemberment of the unfortunate cricket who had wandered into its path. While one piece was cut away and carried off, six more were loosened for their eventual removal. It was clean, tidy, and cold-hearted.
The opening move was, on the surface, nothing more than a random event. But in isolation they would all feel that way, until you strung a few together and started to get the feeling that there was some grander force behind them choreographing each move.
Overnight, Proposition 57 emerged from the bowels of the Times local section. Polls dedicated to the issue bubbled up. Interviews on local radio with both proponents and opponents spanned the dial. There was big money behind the blitz and although the slant was fairly even with a slight tilt in favor of the NO supporters, it felt bigger than anything Gao and his cohorts could muster.
I texted Claire: “PR machine in full swing. Yours?”
Her response spoke volumes: “We’re on lockdown.”
When the PR plan is underway you don’t want any interference from your own ranks. The word had gone out to the troops. This was clearly coming from Valenti’s side.
Gao himself was featured in several debates and interviews for both TV and radio. At once he was both anywhere and everywhere and consistently with the same headshot. I realized later, as he must have after it was too late, that he walked right into the trap. The free publicity was a boon for his cause, which he greedily took advantage of at every turn. But he did not realize that his visibility was the goal all along. He needed to be recognized before he could be cut down.
The breaking story came just in time for the evening news. Helicopter footage showed the dilapidated roof of the Victorian in Alhambra with a long line of police streaming into the front door of the house. The street was cordoned off to allow a string of ambulances to come and take the “residents” of the house to a properly-sanctioned medical facility. The news outlets alternated between three sets of footage on continuous loop: the overhead shot of chaos and traffic jams, the image of a hysterical Chinese mother wheeled out on a stretcher while a female EMT carried a swaddled baby in her arms, and the arrest photo of the impassive-faced woman at the helm. She looked dour in person and downright grim in a mug shot. It wasn’t long before someone conjured up the name, “The Baby Mill.”
It was a compelling package of heartache – crying mothers, crying babies, crying relatives – and of outrage – traffic jams, baby tourism, and longer traffic jams. It was all building to that one moment when two images juxtaposed against each other would serve as coup de grace. It happened early the next day, right in time for the morning news, when that now-familiar headshot of Gao Li was placed next to the truly unflattering mug shot of the mastermind behind The Baby Mill. That image alone sealed his fate.
It was a masterstroke of manipulation. Gao was a minority partner with a meaningless stake of less than five percent in a company with a series of properties across the Inland Empire. But despite this tenuous connection to these illegal activities, he was effectively implicated in a grander scheme. It made great fodder. Here was the scion of a respected Chinese-American family, the self-proclaimed standard bearer of the cultural heritage of a proud people, exploiting the weak souls longing for the opportunity to pursue a dream, the very dream his family lived. There were interviews with the victims who spoke from hospital beds about the conditions of the house and the price they had to pay so their poor child could have a chance at the American Dream. Gao followed up one grand blunder with more missteps as he made a foolish attempt at damage control. Proclamations that clarified his limited involvement in the operation went unheeded. Vitriol and attacks on Valenti cast him in a bitter light. The hole may have been dug by Valenti, but Gao jumped in and shoveled the dirt on top.
Jeff waited for the upstart to be slain and dragged through the streets before entering the fray to now stand over the body and proclaim his indignation.
“I am disappointed and upset regarding the revelations surrounding Mr. Li,” the prepared statement read. “As a citizen of the great multi-cultural city of Los Angeles, a long-time admirer and supporter of Chinese art and culture, and as a parent myself, I can no longer in good faith support Proposition 57.”
No one seemed to question how pulling his support from the Proposition was in any way connected to activities associated with the birthing clinic. In the end it didn’t matter. Jeff had successfully maneuvered his way back into the winner’s circle.
The gnawing thought I couldn’t get to go away was a feeling that this was the plan all along, and that I was an unwitting participant in helping it come to fruition.
***
I had a meeting with Gao Li the following day but it wasn’t planned and it didn’t contain two willing participants. I caught him coming out of his “office” at the sign-less storefront in Arcadia. The noodle shop was continuing its brisk business and the brassiere shop its drawn-out decline.
“You got some balls, man,” he said as I approached him in the parking lot. Three of his buddies were with him and were waiting for the thinnest of pretenses to start trouble. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him back.”
“No you won’t,” I told him and it seemed like he knew it.
“This is probably another one of the old man’s games,” he said. “We stomp you and then get arrested for assault. It might be worth it,” he said after some thought.
The last thing I needed was to get my ass handed to me in an Arcadia parking lot because someone thought they were getting back at Valenti.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said. “I don’t work for Valenti and this isn’t some kind of trick.”
“Then maybe we just stomp you anyway for fun,” he laughed and his buddies laughed with him. I tried to join in but they stopped laughing when I did. “What do you want?” Gao asked me.
“Can we talk? There are questions I can’t answer but you can.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I told him truthfully.
Perhaps my honesty struck a chord because Gao waved his friends off and together we crossed the boulevard to a coffee chain on the opposite side. The air conditioning inside was five degrees colder than the standard and the music three clicks louder than needed to have a conversation. We sat in the corner to escape both.
I asked Gao to fill me in on the Proposition and the impetus behind getting it put on the ballot. He effortlessly slipped back into campaign mode and all the flowery language that came with it. He spoke of heritage and cultural integrity. Away from the social club and the historical society, the banter fell particularly flat. “Social fabric” sounded especially tinny over iced lattes with an acoustic set playing in the background. Perhaps it was the setting or the recent events, but even Gao’s heart wasn’t in it. I let his diatribe peter out to its unconvincing conclusion.
“Tell me about the business angle,” I asked.
A different person than the one who sat down at the table began speaking. It was the voice of an ambitious young man who spoke with conviction. It was the first truly genuine interaction I had with him.
“It’s all about the condos,” he told me. “Chinatown is the next wave in the downtown revitalization. It’s hipper, closer to the freeways, sits over a new park, and you can walk to the train station. But there’s no housing. It’s just a bunch of two story dumps with live chicken stores on the ground floor. You can’t be renting a place out for three grand with rooster shit under you,” he laughed. “We’ve had our eyes on that end of Chinatown for a while now. Hell, you can walk to a Dodger game if you wanted to.”
“Who’s we?”
“My investors,” he clarified. “Then we get word that Valenti wants to put a museum there. I’m thinking, hell yeah! White folks love that art bullshit and it will give the place culture, which just means higher rent to me. We already had some pieces of property and were working on others but kept running into Valenti.”
“He had the same idea.”
“Trust me, there was plenty to go around. But he started making it difficult for us.”
Valenti didn’t want to share in the spoils that would result from fabricating yet another cultural center in Los Angeles. Each had pieces of what the other wanted but neither side wanted to budge. Valenti’s tactics for leverage were more advanced and had more weight behind them than Gao’s limited capabilities, “so the idea of the Proposition was born.”
Gao smiled like the kid who was the first to solve the math problem in the classroom. It was an infectious smile, and I couldn’t help sharing in the triumph at such a brilliant and calculating stroke to get the best of Valenti.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get to see it through,” he said as the smile faded. He shook his head, like an old man ruminating on his life’s one big regret. “That stupid lady.”
“Did you know what was going on in the house in Alhambra?”
“Do you know how many properties I have ownership in? Do you think it’s possible to know everything that goes on in them? I am a land owner, not a priest.”
“So you did know,” I told him.
Gao laughed the laugh of someone getting caught.
“You’re such a dick, man.”
“I know I am. But I am also right.”
“Maybe you are and maybe you aren’t.”
“Did you know Valenti’s granddaughter was staying there?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Not at first, anyway.” Gao explained that he got a call a few weeks back from a stranger who told him that he had a famous person’s family member at the home. “They were vague but kept hinting that there was money to be made in it.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“A woman,” he answered but didn’t have anything more to add. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly on the call.”
“What’d you tell the caller?”
“I strung her along to try to pump her for information but at the end of it just told her I wasn’t interested. And then as soon as I hung up I had the girl kicked out of the place. I panicked. The whole thing smelled bad, like I was being played. I was a mess thinking that any day it was going to come. You showed up last week and I thought that was it. But no cops were with you. So I waited and waited,” he said, “but nothing happened. A few days go by, then a week, then nothing. I was relieved as shit. Until the other day,” he added.
Gao had no warning that the raid was coming. Neither did he ever hear from the woman who called him asking for money.
“Do you know a nurse who worked there? Tala something?”
“You find that fat Filipina, you let me know,” he answered.
“Have you been looking for her?”
“Yeah, I am looking for her,” Gao grumbled. “The bitch set me up. Who do you think brought that problem into the house?”
I relayed the information Badger had discovered on Tala. She never showed up to work and her condo in the Valley was partly vacant, like someone who had left in a hurry. I had asked Badger how he came across this information, and he subtly told me she had left a window ajar and he had looked around a bit.
Gao couldn’t mask how impressed he was that I had this information. I seemed to earn some points with him on it.
“Do you think Tala could have been the woman who called me?” Gao asked.
“Maybe. But if all she wanted was money out of you, she didn’t need Jeanette to be at the house. She could have blackmailed you with the threat to expose the illegal activities going on inside the house.”
“Do you think she’s connected to Valenti?” I let my silence serve as a response. “Fuck, man,” he said like someone who has been played.
“One other link to Valenti,” I began matter-of-factly, “is a murder from 1963.”
Gao studied me.
“He killed my uncle,” he said flatly.
“Valenti was never charged with that murder.”
Gao understood the underlying meaning in my clarification.
“Allegedly, his thug killed him.”
“Why?”
“Because unlike my grandfather and unlike my dad, my uncle didn’t let himself be pushed around. He stood up to them. And they killed him.”
“What was it over?” I asked.
“It don’t matter. Another stupid deal that one guy got the better end of and the other guy didn’t like it.”
“This upsets you—”
“Fuck yeah, it pisses me off. My grandfather took orders. My big-shot father took orders. My uncle didn’t take orders and neither will I.” The statement was somehow equally defiant and yet full of resignation. Gao didn’t want to be pushed around by Valenti and all that he stood for but inside he knew that was exactly his fate. His anger wasn’t necessarily towards Valenti as it was towards the family that disappointed him. Also in his anger was a fear that his own limitations would lead to a similar outcome.
“Does it upset you enough to concoct a scheme to lure Valenti’s daughter in so you could finally get back at the man?” He studied me with abject hatred. “You never shut down that birthing clinic,” I reminded him. “And this mysterious caller doesn’t quite add up, especially since you never heard from her again. Now this Tala woman is missing and you apparently want her found but can’t seem to do it. Gao, it all sounds like a wild scheme to get back at Valenti that backfired and now you are covering your tracks.”
“You’re wrong,” he said.
“Why did you allow what was going on in the house? You clearly knew what they were up to.”
“Why would I do that?” he replied incredulously.
He humored me as I tallied through the litany of moral and ethical reasons. But I could tell right away that he didn’t believe in any of them. It was all just words.
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “What did you, or I, do to deserve the life we got today? I’m sure you have a nice house in a safe neighborhood.” Not nearly as nice a house or neighborhood as yours, I thought to myself. “You have a decent job that doesn’t require you to work very hard but still pays you good money and benefits. Good healthcare, retirement package?” he continued.
My attempt to guilt him was having the opposite effect.
“You probably have a couple of kids going to some private school and playing all the sports they want to.” It had been assumed that I had children so many times lately that I was starting to believe I actually did have my own brood. I was at the point of actually giving them names.
“Have you ever asked, ‘Why us?’” Gao paused but not so I could answer. “Why do we get all this and not someone on the other side of the world? Are we that much better than them? Think about it. The only difference between us and them is that we were born on this soil and they weren’t. Say what you want, but I’m at least giving them a chance. The same one we got.”
In his odd way, the clinic was his only chance to even the score.
