It was also a going away party for Sadie. She’d decided being a gangster’s girl wasn’t for her. She and Carlos had parted ways amicably and she was dating one of the security guards she had manhandled at the Star Center. He’d quit his job and was working as a bodyguard for Matt Macklin. They’d rented an apartment together on the West Side.
Danny couldn’t make the party.
He was in jail.
Apparently, he had staged a virtual jailbreak to bring Rain to our party. He showed up at the foster home while the adults were at work and grabbed Rain. Probably not the smartest move ever. Cops got him the next day. He was sitting in L.A. jail right now. They had arrested him on suspicion of kidnapping.
But Ernie’s partner, Officer Craig, said that because the details of what happened when Danny arrived at the house were murky and nobody could prove Danny did anything other than give Rain a ride back to the American Hotel, the DA was considering dropping the case altogether.
I went to visit Danny. The jail was only a few blocks away from the American Hotel. He had somehow talked a guard into letting him have his electric guitar in his cell so he sat there all day, playing it, unplugged.
I felt so bad thinking of him being HIV positive, wasting what little life he had left sitting in a cold, crappy jail cell. But he was his usual goofy, nonchalant self—as if he couldn’t have cared less.
“This ain’t my first go round in the pokey and…” He made the sign of the cross, “…if I’m really lucky with this HIV positive thing, it probably won’t be my last.”
Then he cackled madly—the Danny I knew and loved.
Last week, Taj asked me out on a date for this Saturday, which I thought was cute since we’d never had a real date. He was borrowing John’s car and said I needed to wear a dress. I’d surprise him and even wear my sandals, too. I asked if we could make a special trip to the cemetery so I could put flowers on Ernie’s grave.
I had written Ernie’s daughters a long letter about how their dad had died a hero, saving my life. Craig said he’d make sure they got it. I told them when they were older I would give them all the details, but for now they should be very, very proud to have had such a brave, heroic dad who loved them so very, very much. I even lied a little and said that right before he died he told me to tell his girls how much he loved them and that he would be watching them from up in heaven.
It was what I had always hoped my mom had said about me before she died. And honestly, I bet if Ernie had had the chance, he would have said that exact same thing.
Rain was living with Officer Craig and his wife. They’d been trying to have kids for years and had finally given up and become foster parents. He was able to pull some strings and take Rain into his home while they made arrangements to adopt her. He promised all of us we could visit her any time we wanted. We had an open invitation each week for Sunday dinner, which at least Taj and I planned on keeping. The first thing Craig and his wife did was enroll Rain in a middle school near his house in Burbank. Rain loved school, especially her photography class. I gave her my camera and now she had plans to attend Central L.A. High School as a freshman next year. The downtown arts school specialized in dance, music, theater, and photography.
Rain and I were both in therapy. It was Craig’s idea. He was right. I went once a week. I was trying to figure so much out. I needed to learn to live with so many things. My mother’s death. The surfers’ murders. Killing a man. Even being able to say that showed how far I’d come.
I had thought Rain was my second chance, my opportunity to do things differently with her than I had with my mom. I had lived for so long thinking that walking away from my mom was the wrong thing to do. When Rain came along, helping her seemed to me the only way to right that wrong. But my therapist explained that walking away from my mother had actually been the right thing to do.
My dad knew my mother was there. But even he couldn’t save her, so I had been wrong to think saving her was within my power, a teenage girl. It never had been. Even though the therapist kept telling me this, it would take a while for me to believe it. I also hoped that with therapy I’d be able to create a better relationship with my dad. And as the weeks passed, I was even more determined to be a part of his baby’s life—my little brother or sister—even if it was a long-distance part and only on the holidays.
I’d also gotten a gig volunteering at the homeless shelter that helped Frank. Once a week, I went and served meals. It was funny because even though I was supposed to be helping them, those Tuesday nights had become the most fulfilling, gratifying thing I’d ever done.
Every once in a while I found myself sitting down, sharing a meal, and listening as someone told me their story. What went wrong, and how they ended up on the streets. In my head, I was taking notes. Everyone had a story. And everyone had a story worth telling. I wanted to be the one to tell some of these stories. This was partly why I gave Rain my camera. Not only had therapy made me see I was using it to hide, to stay detached from life instead of truly living it, I’d also discovered a different way to make art.
Writing.
I enrolled in L.A. Community College. I was going to study creative writing. If the scholarships I applied for came through, I’d transfer to USC in two years. I’d also borrowed Danny’s typewriter while he was in jail and began writing a memoir. It was going to be a bit about my mother and hopefully by writing about her I would be able to forgive her, and fully forgive myself. But more than that, it was the story about how a motley crew of misfits came together to form a family. That first night I slipped the crisp white paper into the typewriter and pounded out my title:
The American Hotel.
City of Angels
She’s calling out to me
Saying, find yourself some shelter
Here beneath my wings
She is so forgiving
To my restless heart that sings
Out my songs of indignation
Her redemption brings me peace.
Salvation is somewhere on her streets
And I know a neon halo
Is waiting there for me.
I want it. She’s got it.
She’s offering everything up for free
The keys to the kingdom
Are within my reach.
City of Angels
Caress my soul
Free me from the bondage
That’s kept me low.
I don’t want forgiveness
For all the things I’ve done
I just need your arms around me
For I got nowhere else to run.
I want it. She’s got it.
She’s offering everything up for free
The keys to the kingdom
Are within my reach.
All the angels say Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
She sets them up
I knock them back
The rounds are never ending.
I’m blinded, by the lights that shine
Like stars a burning in my eyes
I want it. She’s got it.
She’s offering everything up for free
The keys to the kingdom
Are within my reach.
Come on now. Give it up now.
Give it up, give it up, give it up to me.
Angel of mercy
Gonna spread her wings.
I’m talking about Los Angeles.
–Michael Miller, ©2008
My deepest gratitude to my amazingly talented writer’s group—Sean Beggs, Kaethe Schwehn, Kate Schultz, Coralee Grebe, Sarah Hanley and Jana Hiller. In addition, I am so thankful for early reads from stupendously talented writers: Owen Laukkanen, Samantha Bohrman, Trisha Leigh, Phyllis Bourne, Claire Booth, Bethany Neal, Kat Asharya and Sarah Henning.
Also thanks to David Pennington, a talented writer and high school friend, who was a good sport when I told him I was using his “other” name: Taj.
Huge thanks to my best friend, Manisha Dhanak, for letting m
e use the poem she scribbled in my journal a few decades ago!
Kristi Belcamino is a Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Award-nominated author of four crime fiction books, a newspaper cops reporter, and an Italian mama who makes a tasty biscotti. Her first novel, Blessed Are the Dead, was inspired by her dealings with a serial killer during her life as a Bay Area crime reporter. As an award-winning crime reporter at newspapers in California, she flew over Big Sur in an FA-18 jet with the Blue Angels, raced a Dodge Viper at Laguna Seca and watched autopsies.
Belcamino has written and reported about many high-profile cases including the Laci Peterson murder and Chandra Levy’s disappearance. She has appeared on Inside Edition and her work has appeared in the Miami Herald, San Jose Mercury News, and Chicago Tribune. Kristi now works part-time as a police reporter at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and her two fierce daughters.
Visit her online at www.KristiBelcamino.com and follow her on Twitter at @KristiBelcamino.
The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Kristi Belcamino
Cover and jacket design by Georgia Morrissey
Interior design and formatting by:
www.emtippettsbookdesigns.com
ISBN 978-1-943818-68-6
Library of Congress Control Number: forthcoming
First hardcover publication May 2017 by Polis Books, LLC
1201 Hudson Street, #211S
Hoboken, NJ 07030
www.PolisBooks.com
City of Angels Page 23
