Where to Choose

by Penny Mickelbury

  Carole Ann could not protect herself from the panic she heard in Robbie’s voice. It invaded her and spread, poisoning her system like a killer disease.

  “What are we gonna do, C.A.!” Robbie screamed at her.

  “I don’t know, Robbie. I’ll call you back.” She pressed the button, cutting him off and returning to Addie. “They’ve got Tommy,” she said to her lawyer, the same way Robbie had said it to her. And she waited. And when Addie didn’t respond, Carole Ann told the story the way Robbie had told it to her. “I have to find him, Addie. And you have to help me.”

  “I don’t know what I can—”

  “You’d better figure it out.” Something unfamiliar reigned within Carole Ann. Something cold and fearful and rigid. And whatever it was, it spoke a language Addie Allen understood.

  “I’ll call you in thirty minutes,” she said, and severed their con­nection.

  The thing within Carole Ann transformed her. Nothing she felt or thought was familiar. She could think of nothing to do, to say. Noth­ing useful. To call Jake or Warren would accomplish what? To wake her mother? To get in her car and search for Tommy? Where? What? Why? How? She was shivering the way she had the day War­ren held her and told her she was grieving...Warren! No. Call Warren and say what? That she’d lost Tommy? Besides, he’d already saved her life once. He and Jake and Tommy.

  And there it was, announcing itself. The thing that had invaded her: Terror. And the fear of it. She’d lived the past year reliving the terror she’d felt the night was abducted by Leland Devereaux and transported, bound and beaten, deep into a Louisiana bayou where, she was certain, he’d planned to kill her. Until Jake and Tommy and Warren and Warren’s cousin, Herve, had saved her. She’d lived a year in fear because the worst had happened and she was terrified that it could happen again. And now it had. To Tommy. She’d save him. She had to. He’d saved her. She owed him. She owed Valerie more than a year with the husband she adored. Al was gone, but he and Carole Ann had had more than a year. So should Tommy and Valerie.

  “Addie?” she said, snatching up the phone in the middle of the first ring.

  “Listen carefully and do exactly as I say.”

  She’d followed Addie’s instructions to the letter, but she was find­ing it difficult to leave the keys to the rented Benz on the floor be­neath the mat. Even if the car was parked in a brightly lighted area of the arriving-passengers parking lot of LAX, near the security checkpoint. She inhaled deeply, held the breath, then released it in a loud puff and dropped the keys to the floor. She’d been willing to trust Addie with her own life. Trusting her with Tommy’s life was a different matter but she was without options.

  Addie had told her to dress in dark, functional clothing—black, if she had it—and to drive to the airport. She’d told her to park in the arriving-passengers lot, as if she were meeting someone, and leave the car keys and the parking ticket under the mat on the driver’s side. Carole Ann lifted the mat and placed the keys and the ticket beneath it.

  She strolled toward the terminal. Addie had said not to rush, to appear as if she’d arrived in plenty of time to meet the plane. She stopped at the first baggage carousel she reached and looked for the overhead monitor that displayed flight arrival times. It was where Addie said it would be and she stood reading it for several seconds. Then she looked at her watch. Then she rode the escalator up to the airport lobby. She looked right, located the symbol for the women’s bathroom, and followed the arrow.

  She was holding her breath when she entered the bright, empty space, and released it when she realized she was alone. No contact person here. She checked, pushing open each of the stall doors. She was wondering what to do when the door opened. Again Carole Ann released breath. An airport security guard.

  “Miss Gibson, I’m Gloria Jenkins. Thank you for helping my mother.”

  Carole Ann studied the woman before her. She didn’t recall how Gloria Jenkins looked, but she did remember declining Jake’s invi­tation to a reintroduction. This woman was her height, though not as thin. Her hair was cut short and streaked with silver, more salt than pepper. Her eyes were dark and steady. The silver identifica­tion bar on the breast pocket of her starched, light blue shirt read, “E. Killian.” There were three stripes on the sleeve of the shirt.

  “Sergeant Killian,” Carole Ann said. “I’m glad I was able to help, though I regret the need for it.”

  Something flashed for an instant in her eyes, and was gone. “My son saw Tommy Griffin yesterday. He ran a license plate for him,” she said, and waited for Carole Ann to make the connection.

  “How old is your son?” Carole Ann asked, and the woman who had been Gloria Jenkins those many years ago smiled; that woman’s children had been five and seven years old when they en­tered the witness protection program thirteen years ago. Not old enough now to be running license plates for Tommy Griffin.

  “Anthony was my lover’s son. We were raising our children to­gether. He was thirteen when his mother was killed. He was with his father the night...everything happened. He spent one weekend a month with his father. He wanted to go with us, with my children and me, when we left. When we entered the protection program. His father didn’t object. He knew Anthony loved me and that I loved him and would take care of him. Anyway. One weekend a month was as much of a father as he wanted to be.”

  Carole Ann nodded her acceptance of the explanation and mar­veled at the turns the woman’s life had taken. Marveled at the twists and turns of so many lives she’d recently learned of. Marveled that people managed as well as they did.

  “Have you been here in L.A. since then, for the last thirteen years?”

  She nodded. “They got me this job. I thought it was some kind of joke at first, the government’s brand of humor, but I learned to like the work. Can’t say I was pleased, though, when Anthony decided to become a cop. But he loved it. Then they turned on him.”

  “Is that how you know Addie? From your son’s trouble?”

  “What business is that of yours?” Her tone was so calm as to be devoid of emotion, but Carole Ann did not miss the potential for hostility that was there.

  “It isn’t, certainly. I only ask because of the incredible coinci­dence—that I should be connected to you through both Jake and Ad­die.”

  Her eyes flashed another message and Carole Ann rushed into the breach and changed the subject. “Did he find a match for the plates?”

  She nodded and compressed her lips and seemed to be thinking of something more to say when the radio clipped to her gun belt crack­led. She unhooked it, brought it to her mouth, and said her name.

  Then she put it to her ear and listened for several seconds before ac­knowledging the message and signing off. “Anthony is waiting for you at Gate Eleven. You have a tail. There’s two of ‘em—skinny white dude with long hair, beard, ragged jeans, and a woodwork Black dude: khakis, loafers, and a white oxford shirt. The type who could blend in anywhere. He’s at the phone kiosk just outside the door. Skinny is in the gate area across the way pretending to be asleep beneath a newspaper. There’ll be a crowd at the gate when you get there. Full flight just in from JFK. Walk directly into the mass like you’re meet­ing someone. Anthony will take it from there. He looks like Marvin Gaye and he’s dressed like a flight attendant.” Her radio crackled again and her body language abruptly changed. As she bolted for the door, hand on her holster gun, she said, “Don’t notice me when you see me at the gate,” and she exited the ladies’ room at a fast trot.

  By the time Carole Ann emerged several seconds later, Gloria Jenkins, aka E. Killian, was not in sight. She looked both ways, tak­ing in Skinny and almost missing Woodwork, who had blended so well into the scenery that he almost was invisible, before turning left and toward Gate 11. She felt the crowd’s energy a split second before she heard the cacophony of voices as the first passengers off the plane spilled out into the main passageway. She immediately could sympathize with the feeling of freedom after the five-hour
coast-to-coast flight. She had never enjoyed the New York to Los An­geles trip, had always felt like a kid let out of school for the summer when the door of the plane opened.

  Following instructions, she reached the gate and waded into the crowd, swimming against the tide. She recoiled when she was bumped from behind, and she almost reacted defensively when she felt the pressure on her arm. Then she heard, “It’s me, Anthony,” and she allowed herself to be steered toward the plane’s jet way. Suddenly she heard a shout and people began pushing and shoving. Several women screamed and the man in front of her stumbled and fell. She tried to stop but Anthony pushed her forward, around the fallen man. Out of the corner of her eye she saw an official uni­form—Sergeant Killian—and felt the scuffling energy intensify.

  Anthony abruptly changed direction, forcing her into a hard left turn. They ducked behind a metal partition and, for an instant, were back in the main hallway. On their right was a steel door with EMPLOYEES ONLY printed in block letters. Anthony turned the knob, the door opened, and he pushed her inside.

  The room, about ten feet square, was an employee lounge. Sev­eral ugly vinyl couches lined the walls. Equally ugly metal tables were arranged before them, and littering the tables were old news­papers and older cups of coffee and cans of soda. Windows spanned the back wall of the room, and there was a door in the far corner. An­thony saw her notice the door and he nodded.

  “Your car already is en route to a garage in Ladera Heights. My girlfriend’s parents’ house. It’ll be safe.”

  “Thanks,” she said, thinking that he really did resemble Marvin Gaye. Eerily so. “Do you know where Tommy is? Do you know who has him?”

  Anthony massaged his head with both hands. “The ‘who,’ yes. The ‘where,’ maybe.” He looked at his watch and pressed his tem­ples. “Come on.” He was at the door, opening it before Carole Ann crossed the room. The whine of a jet engine rushed in on the night air and caused the room to reverberate. “I don’t know how people listen to this noise all day.” He said something else she didn’t hear, then he pressed his lips to her ear and, as they descended a flight of stairs to the tarmac, he pointed to a white food service truck and told her that was their way out of LAX.

  The food service van dropped them at an employee parking lot, where Anthony climbed in behind the wheel of a nearly new Ford Bronco. Carole Ann climbed into the passenger side. She checked her watch as the mechanical arm lifted and they exited the lot. It had been exactly thirty-five minutes since she parked her car in the arriving-passengers lot. She was impressed with the operation and she told him as much. He turned and looked at her, something in his gaze familiar but unreadable.

  “Griffin thinks you walk on water but I look at you and I see the lawyer who defended the piece of shit who killed my mother.” That’s when Carole Ann knew what it was she recognized in his eyes: It was the same thing she’d seen in Gloria Jenkins’s eyes. Something that if they’d been different people would have been related closely to hatred. Gloria and Anthony did not hate her, but they did, she sus­pected, hate what she’d done. And suddenly it all reminded her of Hazel Copeland. Juror number seven. What she had seen in Hazel Copeland’s eyes is what had prompted her decision to leave the practice of law. Or at least to leave the way she’d been practicing it. She nodded. “That’s a mistake I wouldn’t make now.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I thought otherwise, lady.”

  Since there was no appropriate response she settled for silence. She watched him drive and watched the traffic ebb and flow around them, unconsciously on the lookout for Woodwork and Skinny, though she was satisfied that they’d be spending the rest of the night explaining to a superior officer how they lost their mark at the airport. Traffic was as heavy as if it were midday. She often won­dered where so many people could be going at two o’clock in the morning; and she wondered if any of her fellow travelers wondered at her presence on this road, and speculated about her destination.

  Anthony had taken the 105 from the airport, to the 5, and was heading south. He wove in and out of the dense traffic, lane shifting like a maniac. Then, at Anaheim, he got on Highway 91. She sat up and took notice. Her familiarity with this area was vague. This was the way, she thought, to Anaheim Stadium and to Disneyland. He kept driving, fast and steady. The traffic thinned and the Santa Ana Mountains loomed dark and forbidding in the distance and he seemed to relax a bit. He checked his watch and increased the pres­sure on the gas pedal. The truck leaped forward. She must have dozed because when she looked again for a road sign, they were on Interstate 15. Unless they were going to have a mud bath at the spa in Temecula, Carole Ann couldn’t imagine why...unless they were going to Mexico.

  She flashed back to the journey she’d made in the back of a vehi­cle similar to this one, about this same time last year. She was bound and blindfolded and in Louisiana. She tried to find comfort in the fact that she was not, on this journey, a captive, a prisoner. At least not in name.

  “Are we going to Mexico?” she asked, and concluded from his re­sponse that she must have succeeded in sounding barely concerned and extremely nonchalant.

  “You don’t seem too put off by the notion. Griffin must be a major player in your ball game.”

  “He saved my life, so I suppose that qualifies him for the majors,” she replied, not caring that an undercurrent of nastiness accompa­nied her words. She hadn’t liked what she’d heard implied in his question. Robbie, too, had questioned her commitment to Tommy, but with nothing prurient in his question.

  Anthony whistled through his teeth. “No shit,” he said. “When somebody steps up to the plate like that, I suppose you do have to pay back in kind. So. To answer your question, we’re not going to Mexico. But the smugglers have a safe house down near the border and when they snatched Griffin, they headed in this direction. My source says they lost ‘em out of Tustin, so we’re guessing about their destination. But it’s an educated guess. You know what I mean?” Carole Ann said she did and she asked him who his source was. He laughed. “Tommy was right about you.”

  She didn’t ask what Tommy was right about. After the silence had stretched into several minutes, he told her that his source was an INS agent he’d worked with for over a year trying to bust up what he called “a big-league people-smuggling ring.” It was a joint project, the LAPD and the INS for the first time really and truly cooperating with each other instead of competing. The reason for such a high degree of cooperation, he offered before she could ask, was “a van full of dead people. Twenty-seven of ‘em. Eleven children. Jammed into the back of the thing like slaves crossing the Atlantic. All dead but one woman, and she eventually died. But not before giving us the smuggler’s name and the deep and skinny on his scam.”

  “Hector Nunez, Pablo Gutierrez, Enrique Nunez, Jacaranda Es­tates,” she said, and smiled inwardly at the double take he did in her direction.

  “How the hell did you piece all that together? It took us months!”

  “I thought you were ex-LAPD,” she said, emphasis on the “ex,” ignoring his question and wondering whether she’d misunderstood, for Anthony sounded and acted like the real thing. But his face told her there’d been no misunderstanding.

  “I told you we’d been at this more than a year? It’s been closer to two years. And every time we’d get set to spring the trap, they’d be five miles down the road. It finally dawned on us that they were get­ting inside information but we didn’t know where from. We blamed the INS and they blamed us and the whole thing almost unraveled. Then Gutierrez set me up to take the fall.” And he stopped talking and waited for the impact of his words to register with her.

  “Gutierrez. You mean the one—”

  He nodded. “Yep. It wasn’t until that old man took him out that the brass knew who the dirty cop was and that it wasn’t me. But it was too late. I’d already quit rather than endure an LA investigation and have my whole life dragged through the mud. Besides, Mom— Gloria—didn’t need the aggravation. But
now that they’ve got Gutierrez’s ass, I can get my record cleared and get my private li­cense and try to live a normal, happy life.” He tried a light laugh but the pain in his voice was too evident.

  “How’d Gutierrez set you up? And, help me out here, but are you really telling me that a cop beat up my mother?” Unlike Jake, Carole Ann had little difficulty embracing the concept of hoodlums in blue, but even her cynicism was taxed by that thought.

  Anthony shook his head and muttered a curse, followed by more mutterings about wearing his heart on his sleeve. “The setup was easy. We were looking for a place to live. Mom, Teresa, that’s Mom’s partner, Grandma, and the kids, and my girlfriend and me. We wanted to live near each other. Gutierrez introduced me to his uncle, also Gutierrez. This is before we knew the part he and Jacaranda Estates played in the smuggling operation. Anyway, I meet with old man Gutierrez and take a tour of Jacaranda Estates and fall in love with the place in about two seconds. I pay to get on the waiting list for two houses—a big one for Mom and the gang, and a small one for me and my girl. Snitch Gutierrez videotapes the whole thing. When we learn about old man Gutierrez and his part in the smuggling, I say nothing. I’ve heard nothing from him, I know I wouldn’t dare move in under the circumstances, forget about it. Then the suspicions begin and that punk serves me up. And my ass is grass. End of story.” He shrugged elaborately, still not doing a very good job of masking his pain.

  “Gutierrez obviously was scum,” Carole Ann said, wrinkling her lips in distaste.

  “Yeah. But I don’t think he was beating up your mom. I think he was trying to get control of one of his contraband,” he said. “A lot of the guys they’re bringing up here now are hard-core criminals and the first thing they do to work off some of their anger is look for somebody to rob. I mean, think about it: They spend days cooped up in some funky old van. Then they finally get here, and Gutierrez locks ‘em in those sheds for another couple of weeks.”