by Alex Abella
"Andale, pues, ¿me tomas por otro gabacho pendejo?" said Moat with a ringingly clear Mexican accent.
"Hey, maybe you think you're a whitey asshole. I just said I want to talk to him and you're stopping me. I'll have to report this to the court."
"Dude, you can take your report and stick it up your butthole."
"Am I going to talk to him or not?"
Moat hesitated, then called Remigio over. "Tú quieres hablar con este gringo?"
"I'm no fucking gringo," I said.
"No, man, I no talk."
Moat turned, opened his arms expansively. "Tough tamales."
Remigio looked at me hatefully, then spit again. This time it landed on my shoe.
"Excusa," he snarled. Just then I caught the tattoo of the snake and the stars on his left forearm, the symbol of the Abakuá cult, follower of Shangó.
"Remigio," I shouted as he walked away, "Shangó kuramá, ya kurumamá, ya kurumá"
He turned and looked at me in sheer terror, then set off running. Moat shook his head in despair. "What the fuck did you do?"
He sprinted after Remigio, catching him somewhere near the Mulholland Fountain on Los Feliz. By that time I was in my car, driving home. I saw the two of them arguing violently, Remigio obdurately shaking his head. Moat slapped him and Remigio finally calmed down. I turned left on Los Feliz and tooled up the hill.
I'd meant to scare Remigio, repeating the ritual words the god Shangó mouths whenever he possesses one of his followers: You know me not to speak of me. I knew that would frighten him. But I should have known he'd be even more scared of the LAPD.
11
t he house was in flames, the walls issuing long red fingers of fire that wanted to grab me and hold me in pain forever. I heard the moans and yells of the others trapped before me in burning rooms down the corridor, the din of their suffering an unbearable howl of pain. The exits were closed behind me and the windows were gone; tall, smooth flanks of fires danced all around me. A foul smoke, of sulfur and burning hair, in masses gray and blue, floated in the room, choking me, revolting me. I had no idea where the exit was, all I knew was I had to go forward, a firewall twenty feet high crackling and hissing with the sputtering of consumed existence twirling behind me, a siva of destruction. Only the ground, covered with a viscous, porphyritic liquid, was not aflame, cooled by the torrent that issued from somewhere ahead. I couldn't remember how I had entered the all-consuming room or why, I knew only-deeply and darkly-that I had to perform some deed, convey some message, leave my mark somehow. I struggled onward down the corridor, flames reaching out, wanting to grasp me, the cries becoming louder and heavier. The corridor started narrowing in on me, so that now the flames were only inches away, their heat singeing my clothes, the smoke peeling my lungs. I dropped to the ground, crawling, and realized the liquid was blood. I looked ahead. Another wall blocked my exit. Out of the raging holocaust I saw my father, strapped to a cross, medical tubes dangling from his body, doomed-I knew-to burn for eternity. I screamed in pain for him, in suffering, in revulsion and fear, I screamed until I thought I could scream no longer but no sound would come out, my words were all muffled, taken from me by the mocking red and yellow flames that smothered me . ..
"Charlie, Charlie!"
Lucinda straddled me, her knees on my shoulders, worry lines creased on her brow, eyes wide open and startled. She moved aside, I sat up. The pillowcase was wet with perspiration, my T-shirt soaked through. My heart raced desperately, lunging ahead of life's rhythms, still crawling for a way out. A pinkish gray dawn peeked over the hills of Griffith Park.
"You were shouting like a madman," she said. "I had to hold you down, you were moving so much."
"It's nothing, just a dream," I said, looking for my lost composure. My head still buzzed and I could still feel the burning flames licking my body.
"What was it?"
"Nothing. I, I just dreamed I was in hell, that's all."
"Hell," she said gravely. Then, "Did you see your father again?"
"He was in the flames. On a cross."
She lay down beside me, silent for a while, both of us feeling the slow ticking of madness dissipate.
"You have to go see Juan Alfonso," she said. "I'm telling you, someone cast a spell on you, somebody wishes you evil."
"Don't be silly, that's mumbo jumbo." I got up, washed up, came back towel in hand. "Besides, who'd want to do that?"
I'm fifteen, trying to sell enough magazine subscriptions to buy me the moped my father refuses to pay for. The manager has taken a group of us out to Homestead to go door to door to make our pitch. The sun burns down in the middle of the afternoon, tall grasses at the end of a paved road that stops abruptly on an abutting field. I knock at the last house on the street. A woman in her thirties with plain eyes and dark hair opens. I recite my pitch. She smiles at my fumbling and says she'll buy Vanidades. She invites me inside. A large white concrete block house with terrazzo flooring and painted grates. I enter the living room as she goes to her bedroom for her checkbook and I am astonished at the sight. A floor-to-ceiling altar, as wide as the room, decked with flowers, fruits, pictures of saints, implements of magic, all shiny and new, like a thousand small creatures looking at me with curiosity from the stacked altar. The woman comes out, check in hand, sees me staring in fascination at the offerings. She smiles, then frowns and puts her hand to her head.
"Come," she says, giving me her hand, ''someone has cast a spell on you, you must be cleansed. Come, don't be afraid, good-looking, women will never harm you. Come."
She leads me to a side room, sits me on a rush chair, sprinkles holy water on me, takes golden scissors and snips the air around me, reciting unknown words, her eyes closed. She takes a lit cigar-lit when? by whom?-then sprays the smoke on me. At the end she says, "Someone dark wishes you evil. I tried my best. It will not harm you. Your mother will lose her fertility. Your father-"
"What about my father?"
"Your father will always be with you. You will be wealthy and you will be poor and you will be wealthy again and your name will not be forgotten." She sighs, blinks her eyes, then hands me the check.
"Now remember, two years for the price of one, right?"
I go home and over the next few months I haunt the botánicas of Little Havana, I collect stamps, books and prayers, learn about the divining coconuts and the sacred stones and figurines until the day I come home and see my caldron in the garbage, the stones scattered, a Catholic priest blessing the house.
"Never again," says my mother, "never again." Two months later cancer is diagnosed, she undergoes a hysterectomy. Never again.
The chef was pudgy and pockmarked, dressed in white, his apron stained with the butter and herbs he brushed on the focaccia. He tossed the pizza dough and then wrestled it into shape on the marble cutting board. Knowing he was being watched, he gave a little extra polish to his movements, a seemingly careless flourish here, a just-so motion there for the benefit of his audience, so we would all know that although dark and Mexican he could be as great an artist as all those other milk-white gabachos who worked alongside him preparing the hundreds of loaves consumed at the Crocker Restaurant every day. Someone dropped a glass on the floor and the chef looked up from his labors. He saw me, smiled.
"Hola, Pancho, cómo estás?"
"Very good, Señor Morell. How you been?" he replied in English, determined to show off his newly acquired knowledge of the language. The last time I'd seen Pancho he'd been picked up for selling coke just two days after serving a three-year stretch in Chino for armed robbery. I was the only one who believed his story that the police had the wrong man, that he was just having a beer at the pool hall when the narcs busted in. I rounded up three witnesses to testify that Pancho had just walked in off the street that day and that the real dealer was another man, also named Francisco, who had run out the back. The judge dismissed the case and reprimanded the cops for their "excessive zeal," code words for ramming the ignorant to make their bust.
"Carmen, she is well?"
"Yes, thank you. About to relieve herself."
"Congratulations! How many does that make?"
"Four girls and three boys. Already picked out his name. Adolfo Fidel."
"May he grow big and strong."
"Thank you, Mr. Morell."
I gave my name to the captain. He checked his list, picked up a menu and led me through the sea of tables occupied by the mid-rank executives who descended in packs from their lairs in the granite and glass towers of the complex.
"Are you a friend of Francisco's?" he asked.
"He was a client of mine. How is he doing?"
"Well, I don't want to say this, but it's something terrible. He thinks he's making tortillas instead of focaccia, it all comes out real dry and overcooked. They've told him many times but he just won't listen. I'm afraid they're going to let him go soon. Here's your party."
Clay was sitting in the upholstered booth, martini in an extra-large glass on the marble-topped table, reading a report. He waved at me to sit down.
"Get a load of this," he said, passing the file. "It's from the coroner's. It says the little girl showed signs of sexual abuse when she died. Chin just picked that up this week. They're going to amend the complaint to reflect that. You figure what kind of chance these guys have, not only killers but child molesters as well."
"How do they know it happened at the store?"
"C'mon, Charlie, you know they don't care if the charge doesn't stick. They just want to prejudice the jury even further. Even supposing they were willing to find them not guilty of the murders in the first degree, there's no way they're going to let child fuckers walk the streets again."
"What did Reynolds say?"
"He has to allow it, what can he do? They can amend the complaint down to the wire. For what it's worth, I know our guys didn't do it. It seems the little girl had a vaginal infection ever since she got out of the refugee camps in Malaysia. Wouldn't be at all surprised if grandma was turning her out."
"How's that?"
"For money, what else? A whole bunch of them old geezers really get off on diddling little girls. You hungry? I'm starving."
Clay raised his hand. A tall slender waiter dressed all in white with a pink bow tie approached, announced his name was Chuck, that he would be our waiter and recited a litany of overpriced specials. Clay's speculations on the little girl had spoiled my appetite so I asked for a bowl of minestrone.
A busboy came up.
"Señor Morell?"
"Sí. "
"Don Francisco, he send you this." He set down a basket of freshly baked focaccia. The fragrance of rosemary and garlic tickled my nose. Pancho was smiling from the other end of the room.
"Tell him it's the best bolillo I've ever had." The busboy shook his head gladly. I waved at Pancho, who waved back and resumed his pounding, kneading and brushing.
"Lemme have some," said Clay. "Hey, this is good! Well," he continued, between bites of bread and sips of his martini, "the case looks bleaker than ever for our boys."
"Nobody ever said it'd be easy."
"Yeah, but now it's impossible. So my guy's turned."
"Again?"
"You know the old Chinese saying, the wise man always changes his mind. I just cut a deal with Chin. They'll recommend second-degree manslaughter."
"But that's just seven years, max."
"Yeah, that's right. He might walk after he testifies at the trial, what with credits and all. Course he is going to have to say Valdez was the only one shooting, that he was the one who planned it, that it was a robbery originally and that's what Pimienta was in for but that Valdez freaked out and got a little trigger-happy."
"Jesus."
"None of that either. He'll testify this had nothing to do with religion, that they weren't really involved in santería or anything, it was all a scam to rip people off. That's how they made their money after coming to L.A., that and some petty coke dealing."
Clay seemed happy he was telling me this, relieved that now he could join the winner's circle once more. Chuck brought a floury minestrone, green peas floating on a goldenrod mess.
"Well, that certainly changes the game," I said, stirring the soup.
"Ah, don't take it too hard. You know, if your guy pleads, he's still got straight life, no parole. That's better than the gas chamber."
"If that were the case he would have pled a long time ago."
"Listen, Charlie, I've known you for a while and I think you should bailout now. Declare a conflict, make something up. What's the use? What are you getting out of this?"
For a moment the prospect of release flapped before me like a bright yellow flag, snapping in the wind of freedom.
"I can't do that. Look, seriously, I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but no matter what the guy did, he's going to need somebody to help him."
"You forget he's defending himself. You're not his lawyer. I figure there's somebody else maybe can convince you better than I can. There she is."
Cutting through the crowd, Mrs. Barry Schnitzer, born Barbara Taylor, dressed in an all-white Ferre linen outfit with white gloves and wide-brim hat, swept into the restaurant like a Russian grand duchess. From her demeanor you would have expected little girls scattering rose petals before her, serfs lifting the hem of her train so it wouldn't touch the ground. Clay stood, pecked her on both cheeks.
She eased into the booth, tossing her blond curls out from under her hat, so they would fall in a shiny cascade on her shoulders. She extracted a filigreed case and took out a cigarette, which Clay promptly lit with a greedy smile. Theatrically, meter measuring every beat, she exhaled then deigned to look at me.
"We meet again, Mr. Morell."
"Certainly not my idea. I wasn't expecting poule sur le divan for lunch."
"Beg your pardon?"
"Bad joke. Since when are you two working together? Oh, silly me, I forgot, you two run in the same crowd, the buyers and the users. That's how we met originally. So tell me, was my life decided over dinner at L'Orangerie or after drinks at the Riviera Country Club?"
"Give her a chance, Charlie."
"What's the use, I know the message. It goes something like, Mr. Morell, I loved my husband so much I won't rest until I have given you all my money so you will beg off the case. You know, this really shows a lack of imagination on your part. You haven't given me a single reason why I should quit, except for money. I think of dozens every day. But to you, anything that isn't status or money doesn't exist. Terra incognita-remember your Latin, Clay? Outer space. There are other things in life besides big fat bank accounts or"-I fingered the lapel of Clay's suit-"custom English tailoring. But you guys wouldn't understand that. You know, I feel sorry for you, I really do. You're prisoners of your own desires, you're blinded to anything other than dollar signs."
"There is nothing else, Mr. Morell," said Mrs. Schnitzer, flicking the ash from her cigarette. "I believe someone named Marx once wrote something about materialism and the market economy.
Money is the Western world."
"Must have been Groucho's missing brother. Look how well it turned out for Russia. In any case, Mrs. Schnitzer, this is no longer the West of old. In fact, sometimes I look around and wonder if we're still the U.S. or whether by some twist of fate we've slipped into a big Johannesburg. But I'm sure you wouldn't know about that."
Mrs. Schnitzer patiently heard me out. "Frankly, I don't know which is more remarkable, Mr. Morell, your contempt for our system or your inflated sense of self-worth. Your kind of posturing went out, I think, with Diogenes and the Romans. Or are you the honest man the philosopher was searching for in Rome?"
"Better, Mrs. Schnitzer, much closer to the mark. Only it was Athens, not Rome. But apparently I'm still not getting through. As I'm sure you'll recall from your stock trading days, sometimes people do the most ornery things for no reason at all, just because someone got their dander up. So let me level with you and give you the fi
rst free piece of advice you've gotten in years. There is no way on God's earth that Ramón can win this case. Clay here will tell you that his boy is going to sing until the cows come home, and seeing that he was the only witness to the event, Valdez better start saying his mumbo jumbo because he's going to meet that big mamba snake in the sky pretty soon. So do me a favor, leave me alone, will you? You are a very beautiful woman, but somehow you manage to insult me every time I see you."
"I'm sure you've heard the old Spanish saying, There is no worse blind man than the one who doesn't want to see. It's obvious you don't know Valdez."
I shook my head, unbelieving. "How do you know him so well, if I may ask?"
She inhaled calmly, in perfect proportion, a funnel tipping into her pink lips.
"I had some dealings with him."
"In what capacity?"
"Barbara, I advise you not to say anything else," warned Clay.
"What's this?" I asked.
"That's all right, Clay. I was once interested in some of these tribal religions."
"What? Wait a minute. Now you're telling me that you were personally involved with Ramón?"
She readjusted her hat, like someone readying to leave in a few moments. Her reserve slipped just a fraction.
"I didn't say that. I was interested in all that voodoo stuff. After all, I'm sure you know so many of our help are devoted to this kind of nonsense that I thought it might be amusing to attend one of their ceremonies."
"Let me guess. The deceased went with you, didn't he?"
"Barry did go once or twice. We were ... I know it sounds funny but at the time we were worried about a hostile takeover and he thought it wouldn't hurt to have all bases covered, so to speak."
