Текст книги "The Eternal Summer"
Автор книги: Paul MacDonald
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A TIGHT WINDOW
The drive over to Beverlywood took three times longer than it should have. By the time we parked in front of Nelson Portilla’s house, the sun had long since vaporized the marine layer and beat down on us with little obstruction.
After the mini-victory with Jeff Schwartzman, I wanted to speak to the kid’s grandmother and solicit her help in bringing her boy home – and Jeanette with him. But Hector, with his dark glasses and knife poking out of his pocket, didn’t put very many people at ease. The last time they met he violated her home and nearly ran her over in the process.
“I need to speak to her alone,” I said, “and convince her it’s in the boy’s best interest to help us.” He shot me a look like he didn’t have any faith in me and my persuasion capabilities. “You have your doubts?”
“We made a deal,” he shrugged.
“Yes, we did.”
“It’s never good to come between an abuelita and her boy,” he warned as I approached the house. That gave me pause as I recalled the abuelita’s other “boy” and his heavily-armed thug friends.
“Well, it’s better than throwing her son in a head-lock,” I shouted back with little to no conviction.
After several knocks, the old woman opened the door and recognized me with a broad smile. She graciously shuffled me inside and as I crossed the threshold I shot Hector a look for doubting me.
I had caught the woman in between novelas. She fumbled with the remote to shut off the television, which took quite a while. I scanned the dusty framed photographs on the console. They were your typical school photos of awkwardly-smiling boys many years before they became the tattooed-hardened men of today. Nelson’s was easy to spot with his sweeping hair and brooding eyes and look of ineffectual contempt for the world. The chattering of the commercials now silenced, the old woman cleared a spot for me to sit on the couch. Ten minutes of declining offers to eat and drink everything she had in the house soon followed. I finally accepted a glass of water and a greasy papusa to get her to stop.
“That was delicious,” I lied and brought the discussion back to the original purpose of the visit. “I am worried about Nelson.”
The mention of the boy’s name brought a sun-spotted hand to her faintly beating heart. Whatever pleasure she got from feeding a stranger in her house was cast aside by a deep sadness that washed over her face. She muttered some words that sounded like a lament and then gently kissed her fingers.
“Let me help you bring him home,” I offered and placed my hand on her knee.
“He no come home,” she moaned.
“It’s okay, I can help.”
“He’s such a good boy. He my baby,” she said softly.
“I understand. And believe me, I want to help.”
She stood and got the photo down from the shelf and handed it to me. She said something in Spanish and I picked up the word “principe” but nothing else. That word had meaning to me. The only other time I heard it was in reference to a less-than-princely figure. I wondered how accurate it was this time. The woman again kissed her fingers and this time pressed them to the boy’s forehead in the photo.
From the back of the house came a high-pitched squeal and the sound of thrashing bodies. Hector emerged from the kitchen door. He carried a chubby, red-faced teenager like he was a little baby, except this newborn had fists. Hector plopped Nelson onto the couch vacated by his grandmother. The overstuffed sofa bounced the kid like a car in desperate need of new shocks.
“I caught him coming out the back window,” Hector told me. “He could barely fit,” he added.
The old woman rushed over to console her boy. She had a few choice words for Hector who quietly took them like he was the child who had spent a lifetime disappointing her. He let her have her say, which was plenty. Apparently the fact that she lied to me and was just stalling to give her boy time to escape didn’t factor into the list of things to admonish. I followed Hector’s lead and let her get it all out of her system.
“Nelson, we’re trying to help you,” I said during a break in the abuelita’s recriminations. “Can’t you see that?”
“Whatever,” he pouted, the word every teenager resorted to when they had nothing to say.
Hector made a move towards him, but I held out my arm to intercept.
“Can we talk together in the back?” I asked the boy. I needed to get him away from the security blanket to his left and the menacing figure in front of him. I gestured for him to follow me. He reluctantly took my lead and got up from the couch. Once more I had to tell Hector to stay behind. He shot me a look and then glanced at the old woman whose eyes bored in on him.
“I’ll go outside,” he decided. “Lock the windows,” he advised as he went out the front door.
Nelson’s room was smaller than a junior walk-in closet. Twin beds placed in one of the corners created a perfect L-shaped “couch”. I sat first. The bed creaked and sagged so much that I feared I wouldn’t be able to stand up without a struggle. Nelson wasn’t fully committed and remained in the doorway.
The walls were plastered with a collage of music posters, fashion magazine pages, and his own photographs. The black and white photos were of an artistic bent with their Dutch angles and extreme close-ups. There were an inordinate number of reflection shots – through mirrors, glass doors, and off ponds and puddles. I marveled at youth’s unceasing ability to seek depth in shallow pools.
I pointed to one of the few photos with human subjects. It was a close up of Nelson and Jeanette, cheeks pressed together, smiling up at the camera held an arm’s length away.
“You two look happy,” I said.
Nelson didn’t bother to look up. He stared at some random spot on the carpet like he was trying to burn a hole through its already thin threads. A duffel bag packed nearly full of clothes sat on the floor close to the spot where Nelson put all of his intense attention.
“Where were you going with all of that?” I asked. Failing to get him to engage I tried a different tack. “Did you learn how to drive a stick shift yet?” I teased. This kid had some anger in him and if there was any chance of getting him to talk, I was going to have to engage that anger.
“Don’t take this the wrong way but you’re an idiot. Guys like you and me, but definitely guys like you,” I clarified after giving him the once-over, “don’t take on guys like Valenti.”
I was intentionally casual about my delivery to try to convey an inevitableness to what I was about to tell him. “Do you know how much money he has? Whatever money you think he has, multiply it by a thousand, and then you’ll be half-way there.”
“You think I care?”
“You should. That kind of money buys you things, and I don’t mean stuff like a home better than this.” I made a dismissive gesture to the shabby surroundings.
“That’s how we’re different,” he said, mustering up some self-righteousness, “because that kind of thing don’t matter to me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I corrected. “And you’d like to think it doesn’t, but it does. With his kind of dough people can be bought for a price. Me – why else would I be wasting my time here with you? That old pachuco out front, you—”
He scoffed. I gave it a brief pause.
“Jeanette.”
“You don’t know her,” he shot back.
“I don’t have to.”
“She doesn’t even care about money.”
“Rich people always say that.”
“She’s different,” he countered. “You wouldn’t even know it when talking to her that she’s super rich. She’s just a regular girl,” then realizing how inadequate that sounded, he appended, “but also different. Special.”
All along I never thought that Nelson’s involvement with Jeanette’s disappearance had any trace of a malicious nature. His strident defense of his girl made me wonder if all of this was simply over star-crossed young love by two kids from disparate neighborhoods. A for-profit school with a mission for diversity brought them together. A baby eventually came out of it. It seemed so antiquated for contemporary Los Angeles and for what seemed like a fairly progressive family but some prejudices run silent and they run very deep.
“Do they not like you?” I asked, keeping the subject of the potential hatred broad. I wanted him to fill it in.
“Who?”
“Her family.”
“They don’t care enough about her to worry about me,” he said.
I felt a dull pang in my chest and subconsciously rubbed my shirt back and forth as if warming it up would make it go away. It was one of those feelings that sometimes reared up on the commuter bus ride home at dusk or in the audience of one of those unnecessary conferences I always had to attend. It was that disquieting feeling of being alone.
I thought of Jeanette, the shelves of self-help books, her distracted parents, her lying in that clinic surrounded by strangers, and I felt for the first time a real need to find her. I didn’t necessarily need to bring her home, just find her and talk to her. I’d figure out what I would say later.
“All right, I’m in,” I told him.
He looked at me quizzically.
“In on what?” he asked.
“Whatever it is you guys are trying to do. I’ll help by getting the old man off your backs.”
I could see Nelson internally deliberate the offer. He was trying to determine if this was a trick. Over-selling the offer would only increase his suspicion that it was a trap, so I decided to pull back a bit in order to enhance its legitimacy.
“I don’t even want to hear the plan. I assume it’s a horrible one,” I said with disgust. “But I’ll do what I can. Probably won’t be successful but I will try.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Help us.”
“You look like you could use it.”
After some shuffling of feet and more pouting, I got him to agree on a place and time to meet later that night. I tried to get him to bring us to Jeanette but he wouldn’t go for it.
“I have to talk to her first,” he explained. “You guys show up with me…she wouldn’t forgive me if I did that.”
I didn’t have much choice but to trust him.
“Okay,” I agreed and proffered my hand and shook the dead fish he offered back. “Come on, kid, first thing you have to do is tighten up that shake.”
I left a smiling Nelson to finish packing and walked back to the car where Hector waited by the driver’s door. He looked past me as if expecting to see Nelson in tow.
“We’re going to meet him tonight at a Rally’s out in the Valley,” I explained. Off his quizzical look, “He’s going to bring Jeanette with him.”
Hector said nothing but he didn’t have to. I could hear the doubt in his silence.
“He’ll bring her,” I said.
***
He didn’t bring her. He didn’t even bring himself.
We wasted four hours driving out to Sunland and sitting in a Rally’s parking lot waiting for Nelson and Jeanette to show. But they never did. Just as we were about to call it a night, Hector’s phone buzzed.
“Is it her?” I asked.
“No,” he said and studied the number. “It’s Valenti.”
We both sensed what was about to happen next. I observed Hector answer and casually look away to some random spot across the parking lot as he listened to the old man. It was a short conversation.
“He wants to meet us at the club,” he said.
Hector said nothing on the drive. Perhaps it was my imagination, but he started to resemble the Hector I knew when we first started out on this work. He was morphing back into his old role before my eyes. Or, I was projecting my feelings onto him because I knew at the end of this drive I was going to be fired.
I knew the termination walk very well. I had walked it too many times with associates not to recognize that feeling of a distinct distance growing around me. The banter, if there was any, was small talk of a different sort than the kind engaged around the coffee machine or in the elevator. There, you talked of the weather and last night’s game to non-sports fans. Here, you made hollow observations on anything at all just so you wouldn’t have to listen to the silence.
“Be nice once they open up another lane on the 110 interchange,” I said, but Hector never acknowledged me.
I desperately wanted to crawl into the back seat for the remainder of the ride.
DEAD MAN WALKING
We pulled into the loop under the Coverdale Building and parked under the canopied entrance, a completely unnecessary design as the building above already shielded us from the rain and sun. Rows of exposed light bulbs lit up the space like a Broadway theater.
Inside, I was led to the antiquated dining room and pointed to a table in the corner where Valenti sat. The tuxedoed fellow who was helping me eyed my coatless frame and quietly brought over the house’s blue blazer with shiny, gold buttons. I slipped it on and made the long walk across the burgundy carpet. I slowed as I reached the table and took the coat off. I was growing tired of being told what to do.
Valenti started to dress me down before I even sat down. I held out my hand to stop him.
“No more speeches,” I said. “Not today.”
I looked around for the waiter. Valenti wasn’t going to offer me anything and I was damn determined to get a free cocktail out of the deal before being dismissed. I tried to think of one of the expensive, aged scotches but none of the names immediately came to mind so I ordered a gin instead. A double.
“What happened in 1963?” I asked after a long pull on the glass.
“That’s not what we are here to discuss.”
“Yes, it is. You pushed me in that direction.” I gestured to the area by the entrance. “You insisted that I work closely with Hector. You insisted that I talk to Gao—”
“Jimmy,” he corrected with his usual smirk.
“What actually happened that day?”
I didn’t expect him to answer, and he obliged.
I was coming to the uneasy conclusion that I was being played the entire time. All along it wasn’t about his granddaughter but it was about the museum and Gao and getting what he wanted. Jeanette might just have been a pawn in the whole thing.
“Was Hector covering up for you? Or did you cover up for Hector to gain his loyalty? Whatever this feud was between you and Li, I imagine it manifested itself in some sort of proxy war among the people down a few levels. At least you paid Hector back with some lifetime employment driving you around. I guess that was a fair bargain. The other guy didn’t fare so well.”
Valenti stared at me with no emotion.
“And now it’s all come full circle with the younger Li,” I said, being deliberately vague with the details. He took the bait.
“How do you mean?”
“Just what I said. He’s involved. And maybe trying to exact a little payback.”
I decided to leave it at that. If I was going to be dismissed, there was no reason to give him any information I had discovered. Hector would probably fill him in later anyway.
Valenti was intrigued by the developments I alluded to. I wanted to pretend that didn’t mean anything to me but it did. In a strange way I felt all along like I needed to impress this man, or the money that elevated this man to such a stature. Sometimes we look for validation wherever we can get it.
“Why’d you hire me in the first place? Look, I am my own biggest fan, but if I wanted this task done, and done right, I would have hired a real private investigator or gone to the police.”
“Ironically, you were hired for the same reason you’re being dismissed – indiscretion.”
He slid over a printout from a local gossip blog.
“You know I didn’t place that article,” I said. “But you’re pissed off or scared or humiliated or whatever it is and you’re going to relieve yourself as you have all your life – on someone else. So if it makes you feel better, have your speech about indiscretion. At least let me order another drink.”
I pointed to my glass, and the attentive waiter hurried off to bring a refresher.
“By the way,” I said when the waiter returned. “She had the baby. That’s probably what the forty thousand was for – to pay for the right to have her baby in some crummy building in Alhambra with a bunch of strangers.”
“What?” he whispered.
“Trust me that you wouldn’t want to see this place. Ten to a room, not exactly sanitary. Hector can fill you in,” I told him, somewhat uncomfortable with the cruelty of the words coming out of my mouth. “Maybe because she didn’t know where else a fourteen-year-old with no support can go to have a baby. Or maybe the family didn’t want her to have that baby. You would know why, not me.”
“I’ll make your life a living hell,” he hissed and white spittle formed on his lip.
“Too late,” I replied. “Now that I give it some thought, I think you knew about the baby the whole time. At least at the very end before she went ‘missing’. You conveniently left out those little details,” I reminded, “so before you give me another speech about indiscretion or whatever, look within, pal, look within.”
That’s when I noticed the check on the table written out to me for five thousand lousy dollars. I asked the hovering waiter for his pen and full name and then endorsed the check over to him.
“Better cash that now before he cancels payment,” I instructed as I handed the man the check.
I went out the front entrance, passed the idling sedan where Hector sat behind the dark glass, and grabbed the first available taxi for the long and expensive trip back to Eagle Rock.
HOGTIED
Pat Faber set up a six-thirty touch base on Monday morning as a not-so-subtle reminder that he was still in charge. Normally, calling in was accepted for any meeting starting before 8 a.m., but with a touch base you had to do it in person.
Touch base meetings where people just talked to each other were the darlings of the corporate world. For managers, it was tangible proof that associate feedback was important to them. For associates, it was the opportunity to talk about your accomplishments and hint at the need for a salary increase, something your manager never truly acknowledged and certainly never did anything about.
I always followed a standard approach. I would come with a list of three topics. Never more than three because that would overwhelm Pat, and when that happened he assumed that the person overwhelming him had a communication problem. At the end of my agenda of three I would always drop, “…and one thing I need your advice on.” Pat relished the opportunity to pass along wisdom, so I would quickly roll through my three items, always presenting the challenge first and then how I overcame it. We’d then spend the remaining twenty minutes of the thirty-minute touch base going over the issue I needed help on. To be sure, the issue was never a real one and if it was, I already knew the answer. But to Pat, it was portrayed as something I really struggled with. The value of the touch base was measured by the amount of time Pat talked. Sometimes he’d speak for the entire meeting and when it was time to leave, he was so energized that he’d show me to the door and with a slap on the back he’d say, “We need to do these more often.”
That’s how I kept off management’s radar. But on this particular Monday morning, I flirted with danger. Distracted by my work outside the office, irritated that I had to drag myself into work on a Monday just as the sun was creeping over the horizon, pissed off that they had yet to replace the half-and-half in the break room, I walked into Pat’s office without an agenda.
“Whatcha got for me, Chuck?” Pat chirped a level or two louder than was needed in the empty offices.
“What a week,” I stumbled. “I’m barely keeping my head above water.”
Pat nodded but he didn’t like it. “Busy” was an acceptable reply in elevator banter but not in a touch base.
“Well, that’s why they pay us,” he reminded me.
We bandied about a couple of things I was working on but we never quite got into a good rhythm. I was distracted and my words showed it. Pat grew frustrated and decided to take the lead.
“What do you think of this whole obesity thing?” he asked casually. I was taken aback. All along I never felt my co-manager Paul’s relentless focus on eradicating obesity from the firm ever garnered much support but here was Pat taking up the mantle. He either believed in the cause or it was just a ploy to stir the pot holding the two people about to duke it out for head of the group. “The health costs are becoming prohibitive,” he added. “We really need to help these poor people.”
Now I was nervous. Pat was quoting verbatim from Paul’s messaging plan. When you can get someone to repeat what you say, you have won the game. I knew not to dismiss Paul’s idea outright – that would never be received well, even if the receiver was not a fan of it. I had to tread carefully.
“It’s a real concern,” I started solemnly. “It’s something that’s going to take the full attention and resources of our group.”
I foolishly hoped that would be enough. It wasn’t.
“So what would you do?” he asked straight out.
“There’s no silver bullet solution,” I began tentatively, “but more a series of smaller efforts and initiatives.” I babbled on like this for a minute plus which must have felt like twenty. It was all empty jargon, and Pat wasn’t buying a word of it. “Anyway, it’s something I’d need to get my head around and put out a recommendation, or something.”
I had flown under the radar in enemy territory for a long time but it felt like I was about to be discovered. My reputation was built on being an innovator but the truth was I hadn’t had a fresh idea in over ten years, ever since I invented the Stoplight System for dealing with sexual harassment. And no one seemed to notice or care as long as I played along and talked a good game. The real concern wasn’t that I had no ideas, it was that management would figure it all out. But reputations, once built, are very hard to undo. Thankfully, no one ever looked that closely.
“Chuck, you haven’t had a fresh idea in ten years.”
My heart skipped.
“If you’re going to take this group to the place it needs to be, you’re going to have to bring a new perspective, a new vision.” The lecture that ensued was as direct a dressing-down as the corporate world ever saw. They were very rare, and that did not bode well for me.
“You’re right,” I mustered like an already defeated man.
There was a long, uncomfortable pause.
“Nothing for me?” he asked like the seventh kid after a six pack of sodas has been passed out.
“No,” I answered, though I wished I did have something. “Not this week.”
“Thank you, Chuck,” he dismissed without getting up.
I scurried out of his office before anything more was said and nearly ran over Paul on his way in.
“Hey, Chuck,” he smiled. “Little touch base with the boss?”
“Yeah, we just wrapped up.”
“Did you touch them all?” he laughed at the same joke he’d been telling for fifteen years.
“Yes, Paul, I touched them all.”
“Hey Chuck,” came the earnest voice, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about all this…craziness. I just want to say ahead of time that there are no hard feelings.” Why would there be any, I thought to myself. “No matter how this turns out, whether it’s you running the group or me, I’m going to be happy. Because at the end of the day, it’s the group that matters, and with you or me at the helm it’s going to be a huge success.”
It was a terrific speech, and I didn’t believe a word of it.
“Paul, thank you for those kind words. You have to know that I feel the same thing about you. And if put to a choice,” I said placing a hand on his shoulder and mustering up the same level of unctuousness to match his, “I think you are the better man for the job.”
“I believe you, Chuck, when you say it.” The bastard somehow got a tear in his eye. I could compete with Paul on many things but false sincerity was not one of them. If he went in for hug I might have punched him.
“There are my boys,” Pat smiled, watching over the proceedings like a spectator with a fistful of crumpled bills. “Sizing up the competition, are you?”
Paul and I played it off like good sportsmen do, but I resented the cockfight element of it and the way Pat stood over us with that glib smile at his “boys” who were about to be pitted against each other for a fight for their corporate lives.
Pat never had to fight for anything and was kept around for fear of an ageism lawsuit. And still he clung on despite the firm stripping him of any kind of responsibility. I hated that old man because he was a dithering fool who believed the opposite. I hated him because he made it and men like my old boss, Bob Gershon, didn’t. I hated him because this was the man who controlled my destiny. And it was at that very moment that I decided I actually wanted the job.
I didn’t want the responsibility of the role, or the bump in salary, or the juicy title that came with it. I didn’t want the A-level parking spot or the secret double-bonus opportunities that opened up once you entered this rarified layer of upper management. I wanted it because I wanted to shove it down Pat Faber’s throat.
“Make sure you touch ‘em all,” I advised Paul and stormed off.
***
Despite any misgivings I had of ever using Badger for any work assignments, I needed him for some personal use because, even though Valenti fired me from the job, I was nowhere near ready to quit. For some reason I simply felt like I owed it to Jeanette to find her and make sure she was safe.
I had placed a call to him the night I was dismissed by Valenti with a request to track down the real name and address of the gossip blogger who wrote the story about Jeanette. These sorts of mentions were universally placed by sources with motives – mostly public relations hacks but also people with personal grudges to grind. Perhaps there was value in knowing what motivation drove the person who placed this particular story. Badger told me he would have the information to me in a few hours. But then I never heard back.
After several attempts to reach him and having his phone go straight to voicemail, I decided to make the short drive over to his office/home in Echo Park.
I found parking in front of the building. A few spots down I spied Badger’s car and I got a dry tickle in my throat. In my previous dealings with him, the one constant was his reliability. Like many of his self-proclaimed merits, his “Johnny on the Spot” moniker was consistently accurate. My mind raced at the possibilities and the growing fear that I, and my amateurish sleuthing, had set him on a course that brought him into harm.
I looked apprehensively at the large bay windows but couldn’t see past my own noon-day reflection in the glass. I crossed the ten feet of sidewalk to the front door and entered the office.
It was ten degrees hotter inside than out. The air was still and rank. I didn’t see Badger but the half-opened curtain leading to the back room sang out that if I wanted my answer, I needed to cross through it. My feet sank in the gold-plush carpet as I moved towards the back of the room. Passing the desk, I lifted up the yellowed newspaper. The gun was not there.
The curtain dividing the office space from the living quarters hung heavy on a metal rod. As I pushed it aside I took a step forward and leaned back at the same time; the bottom-half of my body entered the room while my head remained in the doorway. I knew what was back there but wasn’t quite ready to confront it.
I saw the awkward figure sitting on the floor with its back to the wall. He was shirtless and had his hands bound behind him. His head, covered in a pillow case, slung down onto his shoulder in an unnatural position.
I suddenly felt nauseous and fought off a bout of the dry heaves. Then I heard rustling and realized that Badger was moving.
“Jesus!” I shouted and ran over to him. I ripped the pillowcase from his head and his hair piece came with it. Even with the labored breaths reverberating throughout the room, it still felt like I was looking at a dead man. His skin was a sickly white, his eyes bloodshot.
“There he is,” his voice scratched, lacking its normal enthusiasm. “Give me a little water, would you?”
I found a never-washed glass on the sink in the bathroom and filled it up. I held it to his lips and he greedily drank from it. Most of the water just rolled down his chest, but those few swallows put some of the life back into him.
“What happened?” I asked.
He muscled himself upright. I heard the grinding of metal on metal as the handcuffs that bound his wrists rubbed against the drain pipe they were looped around. The areas under the cuffs were raw and even bloody and spots on the pipe shiny among the rust where he had struggled mightily to break free.
“Get the key,” he instructed. “It’s in the top right drawer of the desk.”
I scrambled back to the front room and found the key among a pile of metal paperclips and discontinued thumb tacks. I thought of the humiliation he must be feeling, the equivalent of a cop having his squad car stolen. Badger had been overcome and bound with his own handcuffs.
It took me a few tries but I was finally able to release his wrists. “You’re a prince,” he whispered and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face.
“Tell me what happened,” I said as he returned to the room, recovered his hair piece, and put it back in its rightful spot.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
I detected a tinge of embarrassment.
“What do you mean it’s nothing? Who did this? Did you get a look at them?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m very worried.”
“It’s not that,” he dismissed. “It’s just something we do.”
“Wait…what? Something who does?”
“Yeah, a little role-play me and my lady friend like to do.” He might well have said something about taking out the trash. It was a non-event in his eyes. “I must have said something that upset her. I never thought she’d take this long to get back.” He turned to face me. “Guy, I let you down.”
The man responsible for unearthing the seamy side of potential candidates, the one whom I was about to rely on to help me track down Jeanette, was too busy getting himself hog-tied to radiators to complete his duties and was asking for forgiveness. And for some reason I wasn’t even angry.
“I found your gossip blogger,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t get this to you earlier but I was preoccupied.”
He handed me a slip of paper with a name and address. Putting aside whatever misgivings I had about his personal life and overall demeanor, I decided to engage him on a long-term assignment to help me track down Jeanette. He could do things I couldn’t and he had already proven to be very handy in unearthing information.
