Blessed Are Those Who Weep

by Kristi Belcamino

  For a second, I debate calling 911, but the man on the ground gets up, holding his palms out, and backs away. The other man gets in his face, until finally someone whistles and the attacker turns away.

  I dig the kubaton out of my bag and clutch it in my palm before getting out of my car. Pulling my shoulders back, I head toward the steel door with Fellatio’s address on it, keeping the group of young men in my peripheral vision. I push all the doorbell buttons and wait, glancing back over my shoulder. The group has grown larger, milling around. Like the little piece of metal in my hand will help me. I don’t even know how to use the thing. My heart is racing. It’s stupid to be here alone. This is not a part of town anyone should come to alone.

  I pound all the doorbells again but don’t hear the click of the door opening. Probably too early in the day for the wild sex I saw on the matchbook. I head back to my car, eyeing the group across the street and slamming the lock as soon as my legs swing inside my car. Across the street, a parked motorcyclist I didn’t notice before revs his engine. The rider is dressed all in black, with the black visor on his helmet pulled down over his face. I can’t tell for sure, but it seems like he’s looking my way.

  Clutching the steering wheel, I scold myself. Young men gathering in a bad part of town doesn’t equal criminals, does it? I’ve interviewed crazy killers in jail, ridden along with girl gangbangers for three weeks for a story, sat in on autopsies, and I’m intimidated by a group of punk kids on a street corner? I’m a shame to the cop reporter profession.

  I unlock my door and unfold my legs from the car. As I do, the man on the motorcycle roars off. Standing, I pull my shoulders back and assume my most badass demeanor. Stalking over to the group in my girlie high heels doesn’t help much, especially when I stumble a little on a pothole, but when I walk up to the group, I look them all dead in the eye, one by one.

  “My name’s Gabriella Giovanni. I’m a reporter with the Bay Herald, and I need to ask you about that building.” I throw my arm behind me without turning. “What can you guys tell me about it?”

  Leaning back on the wall, a bigger kid with a skullcap pulled low to his brow glares at me and spits. “What makes you think we know anything?”

  “You know every single fucking thing that goes down on this block,” I say without blinking. “Don’t tell me any different.”

  A teenager in the back chuckles.

  The bigger kid straightens up. “What you gonna give us if I tell you?”

  I square my shoulders. “I’m a real reporter. Not some TV bimbo or crooked fuck at the National Enquirer who pays for her stories.” I fold my arms across my chest and wait.

  “I could talk to her.” A smaller kid with a baseball cap on sideways says this and gives me a shy smile.

  “Shut the fuck up,” the bigger kid says. “I’ll tell her. Listen, lady, there is some funky shit that goes on there. I’m talking sex stuff. You come here at eleven at night, this whole street is full of cabs. Everyone who gets out looks like they’re starring in a fucking porno or something with big old leather straps up their ass and stuff.” His friends all chuckle. “Some come straight from out of town in those airport vans. They got little suitcases on wheels and shit. I don’t know what happens inside. Ain’t never been invited in.”

  His friends laugh.

  “Do you know what time the place opens or closes?”

  “Some ­people never leave. I think there are rooms there. Sometimes in the morning ­people come down and go over to the minimart there and buy milk and smokes and shit and go back in. It’s some crazy-­ass shit going down inside there, I know that much.”

  When he’s done, I nod my head and start to leave, but I turn back to the teen in the skullcap.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tre.”

  I hand him one of my cards. “Thanks, Tre. You did me a solid. I won’t forget that.”

  “Stay cool, Lois Lane.” He tucks my business card into the edge of his hat.

  Chapter 21

  SOMETIMES I WONDER what I ever did to deserve Donovan. I’m not an easygoing, even-­tempered type of girlfriend. I come with a little more baggage than most.

  I am passionate about . . . everything. What I like and don’t like. There is little gray in my preferences. I either love or hate. It sometimes is exhausting. Sometimes my passion gets too intense even for me. I blame it on my Italian blood.

  Tonight, when I get home, my studio apartment is lit with glowing candles, and U2’s “Walk On” is coming out of the speakers. I throw the bag of pork buns on the counter, and we head straight for my bed.

  But something is off. I can’t figure out if it’s him or me. Deep inside, I know it’s me. I have a kernel of resentment that is slowly growing. All I can think about is how right now I can’t get pregnant, so what’s the point of even having sex. I know this is totally crazy thinking, and it fills me with guilt.

  Lying in bed later, Donovan traces his finger around my breast and says, “You’ve lost a lot of weight, haven’t you?”

  I shrug. “I don’t own a scale, remember?” I don’t mention that most of my pants are sagging off my hips.

  “That’s what I love about you,” he says, starting to kiss my hip bone. “A woman who isn’t obsessed with her weight.”

  He scoots up and props himself on one elbow. “I think you are incredibly sexy whatever weight you are, but this”—­he gestures at my naked body—­“it worries me. I mean like I said, you gun my motor no matter what, but I like my women with a little meat on their bones.”

  “Gun your motor? How you like your women? Meat on the bones? When did Mr. Macho Cop show up?” I say, teasing.

  His words are interrupted by Dusty’s meowing from the bathroom. I’ve started locking him in there during sex because he freaks Donovan out with his staring. It is sort of unnerving.

  “I’ll go let the cat out,” I say, getting up.

  We eat a European, snack-­type dinner, breaking off hunks of baguette and shoving slices of Gruyère between us, munching on green grapes as Donovan polishes off an old bottle of cabernet sauvignon. I manage to swallow a chunk of bread and several pieces of cheese and feel better. We have pork buns for dessert, and I eat every bite of mine.

  I didn’t like it when Donovan pointed out I was losing weight. I’m a girl who loves food. I love my curvy body, and I love to eat. It’s something that until recently has always brought me pleasure. A small part of me worries over my lack of appetite lately, but I brush it off. I’ll never be a toothpick girl on a date, moving around the lettuce on her plate. God forbid. Give me a big plate of pasta, some bread slathered in butter, and a glass of wine, and I’m a happy girl. Maybe not right now, but that is who I am at my core. That can’t change. At least I hope it can’t.

  After we eat, we plop on the couch and watch an old Alfred Hitchcock movie, Vertigo, which we’ve seen at least three times together already.

  I know Donovan usually prefers movies with happy endings, but he indulges my love for this movie. I sit up straight when James Stewart (Scottie) and Kim Novak (Madeleine) arrive at the mission in San Juan Bautista. Next time I go there, I’ll see if I can get up in the bell tower. I kick myself for not trying when I visited Mrs. Castillo.

  Right after the end credits roll, Donovan turns to me.

  “How are you?”

  “A little sleepy,” I say and yawn.

  “No,” he sits up. “I mean, how are you?”

  I swallow. I know what he means. I’ve been avoiding this conversation for some reason. I’m not sure why. It’s only been a few days since I stumbled onto that scene of carnage, yet it is hard to remember my life before that. So much has happened, and because of Donovan’s homicide investigation, we’ve spent much of the past few days apart. I fill him in on what has happened, including my visit to Mrs. Castillo and being attacked in the Mission apartment.
I tell him my theory that Martin is the one who attacked me, that he’s supposed to take custody of Lucy a week from Friday, and that I have to stop him. I hold my breath, waiting for his reaction.

  His brow furrows. “You were attacked? Jesus Christ, why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  I swallow my guilt. “I asked Khoury not to call you. She wanted to. I didn’t want to worry you.” It’s true. I didn’t realize it until now.

  “You can’t do that to me. You have to tell me what’s going on.”

  “Okay.” I don’t argue. It’s something I know I need to work on.

  “You really think the military is lying?”

  “I know what I saw. It was him.”

  I’m instantly defensive, expecting him to tell me my judgment is skewed because of my miscarriage, but he surprises me and leans into me, breathing into my hair.

  “Promise me something?”

  I pull back and look into his eyes.

  “Promise you’ll be extra careful investigating this. If the military is lying . . . there must be a reason for it. Something they are trying to hide. This is a dangerous game they’re playing, and you might want to consider staying far away.”

  I don’t answer. I can’t promise, so I’m not going to lie.

  Later, when we go to bed, I can’t fall asleep.

  In the dark, I can still feel Lucy in my arms, how she clung to me and wrapped her fingers in my hair. Holding her made me ache with longing for my own child.

  Shortly after I found out I was pregnant, I began thinking about my baby girl—­I’m convinced it was a girl—­constantly. I couldn’t help but imagine my child’s entire lifetime played out in vivid Technicolor. In my mind, I saw her birth, I saw her birthdays, and I imagined her as a young woman graduating from college. This unborn baby had taken on an entire life before she drew her first breath. There were so many hopes and dreams wrapped up in her that I felt her presence in my life even though I had never actually met her.

  The life inside me might have been too small to see with the naked eye, yet I’d already seen that child’s lifespan from birth to death in my hopes and dreams for her. And when that vision was ripped out of my arms, my world dimmed. And those shadows cling to me.

  It’s also not the first time this has happened. When I lost my sister and father both in one fell swoop, it took a long time for the colors to return to my world.

  It was so easy, stupidly easy, to get pregnant.

  But keeping the baby wasn’t.

  I can’t help but worry I’ll never be able to have a baby. That I’m being punished for taking a life. Taking two lives.

  For long, dreary days, the only light at the end of the tunnel was hitting that three-­month mark—­the time my doctor said we could try again. And my lifeline was clinging to what the doctor said that day in the office. “ . . . I’ve told hundreds of women the same thing, and within a year, I’ve delivered their baby.”

  Last month, my scientifically proven method of getting pregnant should’ve guaranteed a pregnancy. But it doesn’t work like that, does it?

  Or maybe it does for everyone but me. Maybe it does for women who are not killers.

  Despite what Father Liam says, I will never be able to forgive myself for taking a life. And worse, I’ll never be able to forgive myself for knowing that if I had the chance, I would do it again.

  Chapter 22

  I’M RUNNING LATE to work the next morning, so I punch the gas along the Embarcadero toward the Bay Bridge. I have a lot to do before I attend the massive memorial ser­vice later today for Maria and her in-­laws. I cut up to a residential street, hoping to save time. I’m swerving around slower drivers when I see red and blue lights behind me. Damn.

  My heart is racing as the officer walks up. I’m digging through my purse, but I can’t find my wallet. I see the blue uniform out of the corner of my eye at the same time the officer knocks his flashlight on my window. Before I can turn to respond, there’s a flurry of movement, and he’s shouting.

  “Get out of the car with your hands up!”

  Turning, I freeze when I see his ser­vice revolver leveled at my face.

  “Take your hands slowly out of your handbag.”

  My heart is up in my throat as I remove my hands and hold them up. I see passersby on the sidewalk nervously glancing over their shoulders at my car.

  “Put them on the steering wheel. Eyes straight ahead.”

  I’m staring at the street in front of me, which all of a sudden is disconcertingly empty of ­people and cars. I hear, rather than see, the cop tug open the door. There is a blur of a young guy with a crew cut, sunglasses, and bulging muscles, and I’m yanked by the front of my shirt out of the car and slammed face-­first along my trunk.

  “I was looking for my license.”

  “Uh-­huh,” he says, patting me down.

  I start to get angry.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong. I was reaching for my wallet. My purse is a black hole. I swear I wasn’t doing anything bad.”

  He ignores me and holds my hands behind my back with one of his hands.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” My mouth grows dry as sawdust as his other hand pats me down again, but this time he starts at my chest, wrapping his big paw around my breasts and fondling them, pressing his body against me and breathing in my ear, “You say one fucking word, and . . .” He punctuates his point by shoving his knee into my tailbone. I wince, but stifle my cry.

  “My boyfriend is a cop. You’re going to regret this.” I practically spit the words out.

  He leans down and puts his mouth to my ear again. “I know who your fucking boyfriend is. He’s not here to help you now, is he? Remember that. It’s not always daylight. There won’t always be ­people around to save you.” A chill races through me as I realize I’ve never told him my name and never got a chance to get my license. How does he know who my boyfriend is? Who the fuck is this cop? What is he talking about?

  “Let me go. Now.” I grit the words out at the same time he presses his groin against my backside and yanks me up from the trunk by my hair. “You will regret this.” I spit the words out, channeling some Italian Mafia ancestor I’m sure I have somewhere in my background.

  I’m filing a complaint as soon as I get to the station. He will not get away with this. This is fucking madness. He must hate Donovan. Maybe he’s friends with that moron, Detective Jack Sullivan? That guy hates me so much, but even I wonder if he would stoop this low, getting other cops to harass me.

  Feeling humiliated and afraid and utterly helpless, I try to blink back hot tears spurting into the corners of my eyes. I won’t let this bastard see my cry.

  A cell phone rings, and I hear him mumble something. Seconds later, he’s thrown me to the sidewalk. As I scramble to my feet, I hear an engine start and see his car peel out. I squint to see his license-­plate number, but his car is too far away. At the opposite end of the street, two squad cars come flying around the corner, with lights and sirens blaring. I slouch onto the curb and put my face into my hands.

  A few seconds later, the sirens cease, and I see polished black shoes in front of me.

  “Ma’am, are you okay? We got a call about an assault in progress. Someone in one of these apartment buildings called in. Described a victim in a red blouse.”

  Yep. That’s me.

  “It was one of your own,” I say.

  The officer scrunches his features in consternation when I explain what happened.

  He tilts his head and speaks into the walkie-­talkie clipped to his shoulder before turning to me. “We didn’t have anyone over here on the east side. And none of ours called in a traffic stop. Are you sure it was a San Francisco police officer? Any chance it was BART police or something?”

  “I don’t know.” And I don’t. It was a black-­and-­white car, but I don’t
remember a number or shield on the side. I don’t remember a badge number or name, either. I didn’t get a chance to look at the cop or his car. I don’t know if he actually is a cop. But I do know that I was just given a warning.

  “Do you want us to escort you home?”

  I decline. As the two officers wait for me to get into my vehicle, I peer up at the tall apartment building. I mouth a silent “thank you” before I drive away. A few curtains fall shut as I do.

  Chapter 23

  STEPPING INSIDE THE dark church, I’m struck by the Virgin de Guadalupe shrine to one side of the altar. It is so bright with silver and gold that I can’t stop staring. How can this tiny church be so amazingly beautiful? The altar itself is lit from above. Sunlight streams down from a skylight and bathes the simple stone altar, which is covered in white cloths and dozens of white roses.

  I take a seat in the back. I’m still shaken up from my encounter with the fake cop. I called Donovan on the way over here, but I left out the part about the fake cop’s beefy hands touching me. When he heard what happened, Donovan swore and said in a dangerously low voice, “I’ll handle this.”

  I’m worried about what he has in mind. He has a temper that sometimes gets him in a heap of trouble. I remind myself to concentrate on this memorial and paying my respects. I know I never met Maria Martin in person, but she turned to me for help. And I failed. I was too late. Whatever she needed to tell me is going to the grave with her.

  The five coffins at the memorial are almost too much to take in. The altar is covered with more flowers than I’ve ever seen in a church in my life.

  Mrs. Castillo won’t return my messages, and I don’t spot her in the church. For a second, a flicker of fear shoots through me. What if Joey Martin went after her? Is that why she’s not answering her phone? She seemed so afraid the other day.