In My Dark Dreams

by JF Freedman

  On the screen, a telephone number flashes in bold type. That the victims, now three, were young, attractive Anglo women who lived on the wealthy Westside, has already produced a predictable barrage of vitriol on television, in the newspapers, and particularly on talk radio. The fear (and secret blood-sport excitement) is that we could be facing another Hillside Strangler/Night Stalker saga that will yet again tear open the city’s fragile, delicately stitched coalition.

  The men and women standing behind the mayor have on their professional grim faces. My mind drifts as they talk, because it’s all so predictable. Yes, they want to do the right thing, but more important, they want to advance their careers, which is why the mayor himself is up there in front of the cameras. Everyone knows that the public outcry about these murders, already shrill, is going to ratchet up, and they’re all going to feel the heat. Everyone also knows that hundreds of blacks and Latinos are killed in Los Angeles every year, and that no one, except members of their own communities, raises a voice. But someone knocks off a few white girls and it’s red meat for the television and radio talk-show Neanderthals who love to wallow in the gore. If you’re a politician, you have to pay attention to the mob.

  I snap to as I hear the mayor announce that “a reward of fifty thousand dollars will be paid for information that directly leads to the arrest of this killer, hopefully before he can strike again.”

  My fellow barristers, cynics that they are, mutter snarky comments at the size of the reward. Fifty thousand dollars is serious money. That much temptation will definitely bring the loony tunes out from under their rocks.

  His Honor wraps it up. “If anyone out there can help solve these vicious murders,” he says, looking into the camera, “this reward will be yours. Don’t hesitate to call.”

  The images from City Hall fade from the screen. As the local talking heads start to masticate the story like dogs fighting over a chicken bone, someone mercifully clicks off the set. Jill Lewis, a middle-aged woman lawyer in the office who’s seen it all, shakes her head in resigned revulsion. “I hope to God this isn’t racial,” she says.

  I agree with her, although I keep my opinion to myself. The tension among the racial and ethnic groups that make up our alphabet soup of communities has risen during the past decade, which is saying a lot, because it was awful ten years ago. We’re still paying the emotional and psychological price for Rodney King, the Rampart scandal, and the ongoing harassment of the minority communities by the police, especially the LAPD, who are their own worst enemies—witness the fiasco last year when the police assaulted the May Day protesters in MacArthur Park. They’re the modern-day gang who can’t shoot straight, but unfortunately, their stray bullets kill people.

  “Five dollars says this makes Larry King tonight,” someone calls out.

  “Wrong,” Sam contradicts the prognosticator from his self-appointed perch of eminence grise. “Nancy Grace tonight; she’s the lead dog on the sled—that woman is rabid. Probably O’Reilly tomorrow. Then Larry.” He grins, showing his desiccated gums. “That alter kocker never sticks his neck out until he knows which way the wind is blowing.”

  Takes one to know one, I laugh to myself; but I sober up fast. I’m not going to tell anyone here about where I was last night, because my life is none of their business; but I have a hollow feeling inside. I don’t know what time last night this latest victim was murdered, but it could have been when I was out running. Less than a mile away.

  Back in my office, I call the jail’s property room and notify them that I’ll be stopping by shortly to get some information from my client’s wallet. I don’t want to have to wait forever to get it, which would happen if I showed up without an appointment. They won’t let me take the wallet, but I can copy what I need. Before I leave, I call Salazar’s house.

  “Hola?” A woman’s voice, worried and suspicious, picks up on the third ring.

  “Habla Inglés?” I ask.

  “Yes,” comes the soft reply.

  I identify myself as her husband’s lawyer, quickly explain what happened today and what will transpire tomorrow, then ask for the names and telephone numbers of anyone who might be willing to come to court tomorrow and speak on his behalf. She puts me on hold for a few minutes, then comes back on and rattles off a series of names and numbers. All Spanish surnames—neighbors, friends, and members of his church.

  “You’ll be there, won’t you?” I ask her. “It’s important to show family solidarity.”

  There is a moment’s hesitation. “I will do my best,” she tells me. “I have to find someone to watch my kids. Maybe my sister, if she can get off work.”

  “Please try,” I beseech her. “It’s really important.”

  This is a small example of how having enough money to afford a private lawyer is of immeasurable value to someone who has been arrested. A private lawyer would hire a babysitter to go to her house to watch her kids while she came to court to stand by her husband. We don’t have those resources, unfortunately.

  “If you can’t find someone to stay with your children,” I tell her, “I’ll pay for a sitter. I really want you there.”

  Okay, so on the rare occasion I can be a soft touch. What will it cost me, twenty or thirty bucks? I know public school teachers who spend hundreds of dollars out of their pockets to buy supplies for their classrooms that the school district can’t afford. I’ll pass on the Starbucks Caffè Latte Venti for a week. I should stay away from dairy anyway; it builds up lactic acid, a bane for runners.

  “Thank you,” she tells me. I can feel the gratitude flowing through the line. “I will try very hard to get someone for free.”

  “Let me know,” I tell her. “You need to be there.”

  For once, the property room attendants are cooperative. Salazar’s wallet is waiting for me at the counter when I arrive. The duty sergeant hands me a form to fill out, then passes it over. I copy down Gonzalez’s phone number and some other names written on scraps of paper that are stuck in the frayed leather case along with a few dollars and a debit card. I give the wallet back, walk outside, and dial Gonzalez on my cell phone.

  Surprise, surprise. The number I have dialed is no longer in service. Please make sure I have dialed correctly.

  It’s almost five o’clock. Outside my office window I observe the evening shadows lengthening across the sidewalks, the sunlight softening from lollipop yellow to a muted orange-magenta twilight glow. In a few minutes I’ll be in my car, watching the sun dropping into the horizon through my windshield, because my work day will be over.

  If I were in private practice, I could be making two or three times what the county pays me. My student loans of $130,000, which I took out to go to college and law school, would be paid off instead of looming in front of me for most of the rest of my life. I wouldn’t be driving a ten-year-old Volvo; I would buy my clothes at Neiman’s and Nordstrom’s, not Banana Republic and the Gap (and Ross Dress for Less, which I keep a tightly guarded secret); and I definitely wouldn’t be living in my dead mother’s house, which is full of bad memories.

  But there are important compensations for my relatively meager pay. I work a forty-hour week, eight-thirty to five, Monday through Friday. No weekends, no evenings, no holidays (eleven paid). My clients meet me in my office, the jail, and the courts. Never in my home—or anywhere else—unless I choose to do so, which I don’t. They do not have my personal phone numbers, so they can’t call me whenever they feel like it. I don’t have to ass-kiss self-important clients and dun deadbeat ones for overdue payments.

  I’m here by myself because Sam is long gone, the phantom of the twentieth floor. I was surprised to see him hanging around the water cooler this afternoon; he usually takes off after lunch, and he’s too much of a short-termer for our bosses to care. I stuff some paperwork into my briefcase and lock up my desk.

  My phone rings.

  I instinctively reach for it, then hesitate. Whoever it is can wait until tomorrow. But what if it’s personal, l
ike Jeremy, my boyfriend? Although if it is him, or another friend, they will call me in a few minutes, on my cell.

  It’s five o’clock. Time to turn off the lights and shut the door behind me.

  The phone keeps ringing. Twice more, and the service will answer it.

  I pick it up. “Hello?”

  “Jessica Thompson, please,” the voice on the other end requests. It’s a woman’s voice, soft and cultured, but forthright—not a supplicant’s voice.

  “This is she.” I put my briefcase on the floor and sit in my chair. Something tells me this call is going to take more than five or ten seconds.

  “Miss … is it Miss?”

  “Yes,” I reply.

  “Miss Thompson, my name is Amanda Burgess. I’m sorry to be intruding on your time, but this is an urgent matter.” The words are apologetic, but the tone isn’t.

  Amanda Burgess? “What can I do for you, Mrs. Burgess?”

  “It’s Ms.,” she corrects me. “I’m divorced. Which is irrelevant for the purpose of this call. I’ve connected with you; that’s what counts.”

  Connected with me? What in God’s name for? “What can I do for you, Ms. Burgess?” I ask again.

  “I understand you are representing Roberto Salazar on a criminal charge, is that correct?”

  “I handled his preliminary arraignment this afternoon,” I tell her. “How did you find out?”

  “His wife called me. She’s very upset, as you can imagine.”

  Roberto Salazar’s wife called one of the wealthiest and most influential women in Los Angeles and talked to her about Roberto’s arrest? What the hell is that about?

  “I know,” I say. “I spoke to her myself, a short time ago.”

  “Yes, she told me you had called, and that you were very decent, for which I thank you, as does she,” Ms. Burgess replies. There is a moment’s pause, then: “Whatever crime Roberto is being charged with, he did not do it. I give you my word on that.”

  “And you know this because?” While it’s true that I’ve started to think Salazar might be an innocent rube, where is this society lady coming from?

  “Because I know Roberto,” she answers in a voice that does not brook disagreement. “He is completely honest. Trust me on that, Ms. Thompson. I’ve employed enough men like Roberto to know the honest ones from the criminals and con artists.”

  I’m too nonplussed to rebut her, and she continues: “Roberto does some gardening for me. I have a landscaping staff, of course, but Roberto has a special touch, which is unique.” There is a brief pause. “But to the point of my call: there have been instances where Roberto, were he of a criminal mind, could have made the wrong choice. But he never has, which I know from experience is unusual in a person of his background.”

  Listening to this patrician woman extolling her gardener’s virtues, I can’t help but think, another limousine liberal. Condescending without even realizing it. Still, that a person of her position would inconvenience herself enough to call and plead the case for a man who is being represented by the office of the county Public Defender is something I’ve never encountered before.

  A sudden thought comes into my head. If Salazar works for a very rich woman, has a roster of other clients, and owns two trucks, why is my office defending him rather than a private lawyer? When he was arrested and Mirandized, he was advised that if he couldn’t afford a lawyer, one would be provided for him. He chose us. Does that mean that he really can’t afford a private lawyer, or that he just panicked and agreed to take whatever the system gave him? An experienced public defender is better than the average private defense lawyer, but that doesn’t mean anybody can use one. If you can’t afford a lawyer—that’s vital. We’re supposed to be the safety net for people who really are broke. Our office would be paralyzed from overload if anyone could use us.

  From what this woman is telling me, Salazar can afford a lawyer, unless she doesn’t pay him very well, which is possible. Rich people can be cheapskates, especially toward those lower down the social ladder.

  “I’m coming around to agreeing with you about Roberto,” I tell Ms. Burgess, putting Salazar’s financial status out of my mind for the moment, “but the evidence against him is pretty solid. I do think I have a decent shot at getting him off, though,” I add impulsively; immediately, I wish I had bitten my tongue. I shouldn’t express optimism over this case, particularly since I probably won’t be defending him. After tomorrow, any of the several hundred qualified lawyers in the office could be assigned his case.

  There is a hesitation on the line, which I feel like a sudden fog of uncomfortable humidity. I swivel in my chair and watch the sun slide toward the horizon, waiting for her to fill the void.

  Which she does. “Are you a competent lawyer?”

  I sit up. “Am I what?”

  “I mean no disrespect,” Amanda Burgess says, with nary a hint of embarrassment. “But I know nothing about you, and I want to make sure Roberto is properly represented.”

  The impulse to hang up on her comes and goes quickly. You don’t hang up on the Amanda Burgesses of this world.

  “I am a good attorney,” I respond in a calm, even voice. She just forced a decision, and she doesn’t even know it. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to make sure that if Salazar does qualify for public assistance, Joe assigns this case to me, because now it’s personal. “Roberto has first-class representation,” I tell her, calmly and coolly.

  “I’m pleased to know that,” she says, relieved that I’m qualified to represent her gardener.

  I’ll bet she’s pleased that I’m free of charge, too. She may believe Salazar is the salt of the earth, but she isn’t going to hire a private lawyer for him, because if she was, she already would have. Her concern for his welfare isn’t unlimited, obviously.

  “If there is anything I can do …” she continues.

  I interrupt her. “Show up tomorrow.”

  “Excuse me?” she says, as if I had suddenly begun speaking in a foreign language.

  “Come to Roberto’s hearing tomorrow afternoon. A woman of your stature in the community, speaking on his behalf, could really help.”

  Silence from the other end. Then, “I’m not available tomorrow afternoon.”

  Of course you aren’t. Pardon me for even asking.

  “But I’ll see if I can change my plans. Where should I come, and when?”

  FIVE

  JEREMY GILBERT, MY BOYFRIEND, is the assistant principal bassoonist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For a classical musician, that is a fantastic job. He plays music he loves with some of the best musicians and conductors in the world; his base salary is six figures; plus there’s record company money, travel to great locations, off-orchestra work, studio jobs, and ensembles. Besides being in the Philharmonic, he is also in a chamber group; a woodwind group; and as a baritone sax player, his second instrument, he plays jazz clubs and theaters, and records for a jazz-specialty label that sells over the Internet.

  To someone who isn’t an aficionado, the bassoon can be a comical instrument, the musical voice of the wily wolf with slouch top hat and chewed-up cigar who is trying to sneak into the henhouse; but if you actually sit down and listen to the deep, gorgeous tones it produces, it can be as soulful as a cello. Sometimes I’ll snuggle up in an armchair and listen to Jeremy practice, and it’s almost as good as sex.

  Jeremy is thirty-two, three years younger than me (which he never lets me forget), so he is set for the rest of his professional life—thirty years or more, if he wants to stay active that long. The symphony is always looking for fresh blood to invigorate the institution, but there’s no mandatory retirement age. Talent is talent, regardless of how old or young you are. All that matters is that you’re better than the competition. Jeremy works his tail off to maintain his edge.

  He has a concert tonight at Disney Hall, which I’m attending. Bartok’s Second Piano Concerto, with a hot young Russian pianist, and Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony—a meaty program. Salon
en is conducting, which makes it extra special; he spins gold from his orchestra. I didn’t know squat about classical music before I met Jeremy, but now I’m pretty knowledgeable for a newcomer, enough so that I can hang out with him and his friends and not embarrass either of us. I go to about half a dozen concerts a season, when Jeremy can get me a good ticket.

  The Music Center is two blocks from my office, so I could walk there; but since I have three hours to kill, I’m going to work out at the gym in Jeremy’s loft-apartment building on Figueroa, near Sixth Street. He’ll be gone already, having an early snack and warming up for the performance, but I can shower and change at his loft after I exercise. I’ll run on the treadmill, and lift weights. You have to be aerobically fit to run a marathon, but it helps if you’re strong as well, because all that pounding wears your body down.

  I park in a public lot across the street from Jeremy’s building and stand on the corner, waiting for the light to change. My purse is slung over one shoulder, my gym bag across the other. Already, at five-thirty in the afternoon, downtown Los Angeles is emptying out. The loft scene has exploded over the past decade, but that is only relative to the black hole that was here before. Although a few thousand yuppie professionals now make downtown their home, it is still pretty much a wasteland after dark. People do come here, from Beverly Hills, Studio City, Cheviot Hills, hundreds of outlying neighborhoods. They go to the Water Grill, Ruth’s Chris, Staples Center and the Music Center and the Mark Taper and the Pacific Dining Car and Philippe’s French Dip and the Original Pantry and Chinatown and all the other attractions. They park as close to their destination as they can (valet park, if possible), go inside, eat, drink, watch a game or a concert or a play, get back into their cars, and go home. Once the workday is over, downtown Los Angeles, despite all the hype, is still a place for tourists who don’t know any better, adventuresome young hipsters, and the downtrodden—especially the dregs. L.A. has the largest skid row in the country, a statistic the city doesn’t include in its promotional brochures.