The moonglow was so bright that I could see the cottonwoods beside the river and the Sandia pueblo church nestled on the east side of the road. The mountains took on definition from the moon. There was a place out here that kids called the twilight zone where they went to take drugs and spin their cars out. A jet crossed the sky from east to west, leaving a contrail that turned luminous under the light of the moon. At first it was a tight, bright line, then it began to widen and dissipate.
I didn’t pass a single car as I drove through Sandia. I continued north until I reached the village of Bernalillo, where I stopped at the Range Cafe in the old monastery. It was too late for the cafe to be open, but I wanted to turn around and take a good look at the sky. The first contrail had faded to a chalk line, but another jet was crossing from north to south. The moon was higher now, and it turned this contrail into a long dark shadow.
15
A FEW DAYS later, when I came back from lunch with a pack of Nicorette gum, Anna told me that Anthony Saia had called.
“What did he want?” I asked. That my client was having problems—or causing problems—in the D Home was always a possibility. If that was the case, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be hearing about it from Anthony Saia. A second possibility was that Judge Joseph’s decision had come down.
“He didn’t say,” Anna replied.
I went into my office and dialed Saia’s number. “Qué pasa?” I asked when he picked up the phone.
“Can you come over here?”
“Why?”
“There’s something I want to show you.”
I bit the bullet. “My client’s not having problems in the D Home, is she?”
“Nope.”
“Has Joseph made his ruling?”
“It’s not that, either. How about five-thirty?”
“Okay,” I said.
It was the rush hour, when traffic meets downtown construction and comes to a halt. I negotiated my way to Saia’s office through the orange barrel slalom, doing my best not to swear or wave my middle finger or give any outward sign of impatience.
Saia—who hadn’t had to drive anywhere—was sitting at his desk looking more relaxed than I’d seen him in a while. “Pleasure to see you, Neil,” he said, standing up and offering his hand.
“You, too,” I replied. “What’s up?”
A shiny black videocassette lay on top of the pile on his desk. The cassette was labeled, but I couldn’t read what it said from where I sat.
“Porn?” I asked. The thought of Saia caught in the act with Xena, Warrior Princess, passed through my mind, but I attached wings to that thought and sent it flying. I didn’t think he and Xena together was a video Saia would want to share with me. And Saia obviously intended to share this one; he was already loading it into the VCR.
“Not exactly,” he replied. “You know Harry’s, the scuzzy bar on Grande?”
“The one with the sign that says it’s the hottest wet spot in town?”
“That’s the one. We’ve long suspected them of prostitution, serving minors, dealing drugs, selling liquor after hours, you name it. The police conducted a raid last week, and they’ve been working their way through the surveillance tape. It took a while for this to make its way to my desk.”
He clicked the remote and started the black-and-white video. The foreground was in focus. The background was gray and grainy. The date and time appeared in the upper-right-hand corner. It was after hours, although the place was still occupied.
The surveillance camera focused on two teenage boys sitting at the bar talking, laughing and drinking. One of them popped the tab off a crack vial and filled a pipe. He started to pass it over to the other guy, but then he laughed and pulled it back, holding out for more money or for something else or just being a pain in the ass. I recognized the seller (or giver) as Ron Cade. His hair was blonde and curly and he wore an earring in one ear. He had high cheekbones and even features. But when he laughed I could see what the police sketch and photos hadn’t revealed—his mouth was a pit, his teeth were rotten and crooked. Someone should have given him braces and caps, but no one had, although this was supposedly a kid from a well-to-do family. Maybe his teeth had gotten broken too often to fix.
The other boy was about the same age as Cade, but clean-cut: no body piercing, baggy clothes, weird hairdo or turned-backward hat. He had bangs that fell across his forehead, an unblemished face, and the slender build of a tennis player. This boy looked as if he’d spent more time at the country club than he had on the street. He could be a kid who’d been showered with attention, a boy of whom much had been expected, maybe too much, because his hands trembled when he reached for the pipe. His expression changed from eager to desperate as Cade yanked the pipe away. Cade held onto it until the boy was willing to beg. Only after he mouthed the word “please” did Cade hand the pipe back. The guy smoked the crack cocaine, which quickly elevated his mood. Cade gave him some more vials and he gave Cade a high five. Some kind of deal appeared to have been consummated. I thought I knew what it was, because the date that appeared in the corner of the frame was the same day my client had been arraigned.
“That’s the tennis player who provided Cade’s alibi?” I asked.
“Right.”
“A crackhead. No wonder he lost the match. Is this the payoff for the alibi?”
“Looks like it. The date, you may have noticed, is the date of your client’s arraignment.”
“I noticed. Can you tell me the kid’s name now?”
“I’ll tell you once I prove his alibi is false. All right?” The names of witnesses were cards that Saia liked to hold close to his vest.
“All right.” I didn’t know the guy’s name yet, but I knew he was a student at Albuquerque Academy and the son of a prominent attorney known to be a pompous ass, the price some attorneys are more than willing to pay for success. “Whoever he is, Daddy’s not gonna like this,” I said.
“Nope.”
“His son looked pretty eager for the coke.”
“Desperate, if you ask me.” Saia pushed the rewind button and the tape wound its way back to the beginning.
“Can’t be good for the tennis game.”
“I don’t think he’s been winning lately.”
“Does the father know about this tape?”
“Not yet.” Saia leaned back in his chair and tapped the tips of his fingers together.
“What was the alibi? This kid was at home watching a video with Cade on the night of the murder?”
“That’s right.”
“What video?”
“Die Hard 2.” Saia said.
“And the father backed Junior up?”
“He said he trusted his son.”
“I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you show Daddy the video.”
“I’ll give you a report.” The video had finished rewinding. Saia popped it out and returned it to its place of honor on top of his desk.
“So now you have the son for perjury and drug dealing.”
“Don’t forget drinking under age.”
But I knew he’d drop all the charges if the tennis player would give up Saia’s nemesis Ron Cade.
“Will your client recant if I disprove Cade’s alibi?” Saia asked me.
“Disprove it and we’ll talk,” I said.
******
I didn’t have the privilege of sticking to the wall when the tennis player was questioned. Since he was a juvenile, the father was likely to be present in the capacity of either lawyer or father. The police cannot question a juvenile without one or the other. Saia told me that the father was furious and the son was terrified, though he couldn’t tell what terrified the son more—the wrath of his father or the prospect of double-crossing Ron Cade. The son confessed that he had manufactured the alibi in exchange for the cocaine, but he said he had no knowledge of Cade’s actual whereabouts the night Padilla was shot. He said all he knew was that Cade wasn’t with him. Saia didn’t press charges. The police rele
ased the kid in the custody of his father. He’d be facing anger in the home and terror whenever he went out on the street. Ron Cade and his gang were unlikely to forget that he’d been double-crossed.
“Are you going to tell me the father’s name now?” I asked Saia.
“Henry J. O’Brien. You know him?”
“Yeah. You’re right. He is a pompous ass. Are you going to bring Ron Cade in?”
“If we can find him,” Saia said.
******
In the morning I went through the gates of the D Home and into the dreary visitor’s room once again to tell my client that Ron Cade’s phony alibi could open the doors for her. She looked comfortable and rested and might be better off in here than O’Brien Jr. would be on the street. But she had Nolo Serrano looking out for her, and O’Brien would have Ron Cade gunning for him.
“The person who gave Ron Cade an alibi recanted,” I told Cheyanne.
“Oh.” Cheyanne stared at her fingernails. I’d been hoping for a little more enthusiasm.
“If you’ll say Cade assaulted you and made you confess to Juan Padilla’s homicide and if you’ll testify you saw him shoot Padilla, I’m sure Saia wouldn’t charge you with being an accessory. You could be out of here.”
She squeezed her hands together and looked down; I was now staring at the top of her head. “I can’t do that,” she mumbled.
“Are you afraid?”
She nodded.
“Once Cade is in jail, you won’t have to worry about him anymore.” She might still have been worried about Cade’s homeboys. Or she might have been worried about someone else. It was possible that the truth of the Padilla shooting had still not come out. Maybe it was stuck in the mud somewhere in an undredged portion of the ditch.
“I can’t. That’s all. I’m cool here. Don’t worry.”
“I’m available if you change your mind,” I replied.
She put her hand on top of mine. “I know that,” she said.
******
When I got to the office, I called Saia. “She won’t recant,” I told him.
“Shit,” was his reply.
“She might be more inclined to cooperate if Cade was in custody.”
“She’s in custody. What’s she worried about?”
“The long arm of the gangs.”
“We’re looking for Cade,” Saia said. “That guy can disappear faster than a lizard.”
“Maybe he’s hiding in a hole in the ground.”
“His parents live in the Heights. Who knows where the hell he hangs out.”
Now that Cade’s alibi was destroyed, the testimony of Saia’s witness had become important all over again. “What’s happening with your original witness?” I asked him.
“He’s sticking by his story. He says he’ll never forget. I like that in a witness.”
“And you’re sure he’s not a gang member?” I asked.
“I’m sure,” he said.
Often you can get the name of a witness from a police report, but it hadn’t been entered in the Padilla case. I’d already checked. That night I stopped by the shop to see the Kid. His head was buried under the hood of a Chevy truck that had seen a hundred thousand hard miles and was likely to see a hundred thousand more. Trucks live a long and active life in New Mexico. When aged properly, they are as respected and venerated as elders. “How’s your search coming?” I asked.
The Kid kept his head buried in the engine. “What search?”
“For the witness.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Work harder. Work faster. I need to know,” I told him.
“Hijole!” he replied in annoyance.
“Hello,” squawked his parrot.
A few days later, when he was in the bedroom getting ready for bed, he reached deep into his pocket and came up with a grubby slip of paper that had a name and address hand-printed on it. The name was Alfredo Lobato. The address was on Pino in a neighborhood where gangs hang out.
“How’d you get this?” I asked him.
“Lobato started talking. Someone who knew I was looking heard him and gave it to me.”
“It’s the weakness of the criminal personality.”
“What?”
“Talking. They always have to tell somebody what they’ve done.”
“How do you know the guy is a criminal?”
“You’re right, I don’t know. If he told the truth about what he saw, he’s not a criminal, not in this case anyway.” And if he was telling the truth about what he’d seen, my client wasn’t a criminal, either. “Saia believes he’s not a gang member. Is that true?”
The Kid was not impressed by Saia’s street knowledge. “My guy says he’s a Four O.”
“What does he look like?”
“I never saw him, but mi amigo says he is muy feo. He has a barba de chivo—a little beard like a goat—only his is on the back of his head.”
“That should make him easy to identify.”
“You’re not going to talk to him, are you, chiquita?”
“Why not?”
“These guys are muy peligroso.”
“I know.”
“Stay away from them.” The Kid bent down, kissed my cheek and sniffed my hair. “It smells good now that you are not smoking.”
“You can tell the difference?”
“Sure.” Now that his pockets were empty, he began unbuttoning his shirt and unbuckling his belt, turned on maybe by the subject of danger and smoke-free hair. He smelled pretty good himself, and I met him naked on the sheets.
******
The next morning I went to work by way of Rosa Street, driving across the railroad tracks, past the Sacred Heart soccer field and church, the adobes with historical markers, the warehouses, the strip joints and into the neighborhood where Alfredo Lobato lived. Somewhere in there I crossed the city/county line. On Rosa you can go from rural charm to city trash in one long block.
After I crossed the line I opened the glove compartment, took out the Marlboros I’d been hiding from everyone but myself and lit up. It was a neat trick of Sonia’s, blowing out a match with a cigarette in her mouth, and one I’d never been able to perform driving or sitting still. I used my car lighter and put it back in its circular compartment. How many cigarettes a day could I smoke in my car? I asked myself every time I did this, and I’d been doing it more often since I’d begun representing Cheyanne Moran. Not enough to do any harm, my self answered. It beat smoking in the office and at home anyway. Anna and the Kid had never told me to stop—getting caught in a forest fire told me that—but I knew what they’d say if I restarted. Car smoking was my way of keeping it secret. When I was growing up people kept what they did in cars secret. Remembering the Kid’s comments about smoke in my hair, I rolled the windows down, allowing the wind to blow in and the smoke to blow out.
When I got to Lobato’s street, Pino, I turned down it, wondering why Saia believed he wasn’t a gang member when the Kid’s informant had said he was and the neighborhood had gang written all over it. Now that I knew where Lobato lived, I felt the same negative pull to his house that I felt to my pack of Marlboros. I wanted to see where he lived and what he looked like. I wanted to judge for myself the quality of Saia’s witness. Lobato hadn’t been at the arraignment. If anyone there had had a beard on the back of his head, I’d have remembered.
Since I’d never seen Lobato, I figured he wouldn’t know who I was, either. Still, I couldn’t drive down the street too often without somebody noticing the huera in the yellow Nissan. Pino wasn’t a road that led anywhere. It was a street of broken cars and houses fortified by burglar bars. The houses were small and close together. The yards were a warren subdivided into tiny cages by chain-link and wooden fences. I didn’t see a single person as I drove down Pino, but I had the feeling that curtains were opening and closing behind me. At number 347, the Lobato residence, the blinds were drawn, the driveway was empty. There was a chain-link fence around the bare yard, and attached to th
e garage was a hoop without a net.
16
DISPROVING CADE’S ALIBI had reopened the Padilla case for Saia, and for me it had reopened the issue of who had assaulted my client. The police hadn’t been very interested in the assault after Cheyanne had refused to cooperate in their investigation and had pled guilty to Juan Padilla’s murder. I’d always been more concerned about that crime than Saia was. It had been and still was a sticking point for me. Maybe the wounds had been inflicted by Cade seeking insurance in case his alibi was disproven, although I wasn’t as convinced as Saia was that the lack of an alibi made Cade guilty. Still, if he was guilty, Cheyanne could walk. One way to get to that point was to rule out other possibilities. Maybe the wounds had been self-inflicted in remorse or (as Saia had said) to get into the D Home. If the word on the street had convicted my client of Juan’s murder, the assault could have been a payback from the Four O’s. I also couldn’t exclude the ex-con, gang member and stepfather of sorts, Leo Ortega. He had the muscles, he’d had the opportunity, he had the anger.
On Saturday the Kid worked and I had nothing special to do, so in the afternoon I took a walk to the Sacred Heart Church to see if there was a soccer game going on. About halfway down the block I saw a mix of Mercedes-Benzes, Toyotas, four-by-fours and pickup trucks lined up on both sides of the street, soccer moms and dads being Saturday chauffeurs. The bike rack was full. The spectators were a fence surrounding the field. Through the spaces between them I could see boys Danny Ortega’s age galloping up and down, full of energy, but not very coordinated. I circled around the spectators looking for Leo. Some parents were busy watching the game. Some were busy watching each other. When I located Leo on the far side of the field it was obvious he was in the game-watching category. Whatever the other parents were doing or saying or wearing or driving didn’t interest him. He didn’t even notice me sidling up beside him. I followed the direction of his eyes and saw Danny run down the field, take a wild kick at a ball, lose his balance and fall on his butt.
Ditch Rider Page 10
