by Dianne Emley
Bill DeLacey stood at the bottom of the stage and shouted up to Alvarez, “You should check your facts before making accusations.”
Junior had gotten up from his chair to stand next to his father, his face oddly void of emotion.
The reporter who’d been sitting in front of Iris was now on the stage. She shoved a microphone into Iris’s face and started blabbing at her, not appearing to be fazed by the mob scene.
Iris didn’t realize the reporter was talking to her and distractedly said, “What?” into the microphone.
The reporter scowled, elbowed closer to Iris, and spoke more loudly. “I asked, are you the one who has information about Gabriel Gaytan’s murder?”
The camera crew’s lights went dead. The reporter tapped her microphone which was also dead. “What’s going on?”
Cole dropped the power cords that he had pulled apart.
“Hey!” the reporter snapped. “Leave that alone.”
“Let’s get out,” the cameraman said.
“Like hell,” the reporter answered. “I’m not going to miss this.”
“Hasn’t anyone called the police?” Iris asked.
“This is East L.A.,” the reporter replied. “The cops think they have more important things to do.”
“I’m out of here,” the cameraman said. “I have a wife and kids at home to think about.”
Someone in the crowd threw a chair. Somewhere else, glass was broken. Someone had found the controls for the stage lights. The stage went all blue, then red, then multicolored lights started spinning.
“Two murders! No justice!”
“Okay.” The reporter relented. Let’s go.”
Thomas said, “Iris, do it now. Tell them about Humberto.”
The people in the audience turned their attention to Iris. Some of them started yelling, “Speak!”
Iris wanted to shrink, but there was no escape. With the colored lights still spinning, she drew herself up and said loudly to the crowd, “When I was fourteen, I saw Gil Alvarez and Ron Cole beat Humberto de la Garza when they arrested him at Las Mariposas.”
“Bullshit!” Alvarez spat.
Cole shouted from the auditorium floor, “She’s lying. What do you expect from someone who’s sleeping with Thomas Gaytan DeLacey?”
Thomas watched the response of the crowd with triumph.
“Pig cops!” someone yelled.
“This ain’t over yet, Thomas,” Alvarez warned. “It’s just started.”
DeLacey was standing next to Cole. “Wasn’t too smart to have left a witness, was it?”
Cole retorted, “You got away with murder so don’t preach to me.”
Junior stood near his father. “He didn’t murder anyone.”
“Oh no?” Cole said.
The people on the floor shouted, “Police brutality! Who’s going to pay?”
“It is not bullshit,” Iris snarled at Alvarez. “I saw you.”
“You say you saw this when you were fourteen and you’re only talking about it now, after you started screwing my opponent?” Alvarez said. “Or are you pretending this is a repressed memory or something? No one’s going to buy that.”
“Pig!” a man yelled at Cole. “You beat my brother when he was a kid.”
Cole shot back, “You’re on drugs.”
Someone else shouted, “Everyone in the hood knew about you, Cole.”
“You think you can kill now and pay later?” A man climbed on top of a table that he’d pulled into the center of the auditorium and gesticulated toward the stage. “And later never comes? Well, now is later!”
The crowd took up the theme. “Now is later! Now is later!” The chanting escalated. The people who were trying to leave became more desperate. More chairs were thrown. A fist fight started. Still the crowd chanted, “Now is later!”
There was a gunshot.
Fear turned into panic. People were shoved. Some fell to the floor. Those near the exits were pinned to the walls. It seemed as if the police were never going to arrive. Screams and cries echoed in the old hall.
“Let’s take it to the streets!” the mob’s impromptu organizer shouted from his tabletop pulpit. “Now is later!”
There was a second gunshot.
Iris crouched on the stage floor with Thomas next to her. The wooden floor trembled with the footsteps of people running backstage to get out. The colored lights swirled.
Cole drew his gun.
Those near the stage scampered away from the shooter, clearing a circle. In the middle of the clearing stood Paula, her handgun pointed to the ceiling. She fired it a third time.
“Paula!” Thomas gasped.
“I said I wanted quiet!” Paula shouted.
The noise in the hall dimmed for a brief moment.
Bill DeLacey fearlessly approached his daughter. “Paula, what the hell are you doing?”
Junior trailed behind him, looking pale and damp.
The chanting resumed. “Now is later!”
Cole took a step toward Paula.
Paula turned her gun on him. “Get back. Throw the gun down.”
Cole hesitated.
“I’ll shoot you,” Paula warned. “I don’t give a damn.”
He tossed his gun on the floor and raised his hands.
Paula stepped over to the gun and picked it up without lowering hers. She put it in her jacket pocket.
Alvarez said, “I refuse to stand here and—”
“You’ll stand there!” Paula thundered.
Junior swatted his big hand against the perspiration that was trailing down his face.
Thomas nervously got to his feet.
Iris also stood and blinked at Paula in disbelief.
“Shoot the cops!” someone shouted. “The cops who killed Humberto!”
Alvarez clamped his mouth closed and took a step back.
Cole glared defiantly at the crowd.
“Justice for Humberto! Justice for Gabriel!”
“Now is later!”
The stage lights switched to steady red.
Cole shouted to Alvarez, “We’d better get out of here before we get lynched.” He hoisted himself onto the stage.
“Go ahead and get out,” Paula said. “It’s not you I want.” She aimed her gun at Thomas.
Cole ducked as a Vote for Alvarez key chain, thrown by someone in the audience, sailed past his head.
“Not before I get my hands on that will,” Alvarez said.
Bill DeLacey, standing beside Paula, shook his head, his shoulders bouncing as he silently laughed. “Paula, I always said that if you had just a little more brains, you’d be really dangerous.”
“Don’t underestimate me, Dad,” Paula said. “Not when I have a gun on your precious little boy.”
People continued to flood the exits. As the auditorium emptied, the action moved to the street. More people had taken up the chant, “Now is later!” People were breaking car windows. Through the auditorium’s open doors, Iris saw police in riot gear, the scene outside taking precedence over the one inside the hall. Something was burning. Iris glimpsed a police car that had been turned over and set aflame.
“What do you want?” Thomas asked Paula as he stared at the gun barrel. He then ducked and held his hands up to avoid being hit by campaign buttons thrown by someone in the dwindling crowd.
Iris, Alvarez, and Cole ducked as well while the buttons showered over them.
“Answers,” Paula said.
“Give us some answers!” someone shouted.
Paula continued to hold the gun on Thomas. “Which one of you A-holes killed my mother because she knew too much? Go ahead. Don’t be shy.”
Bill DeLacey slowly raised his gnarled hand and pointed his index finger. “Paula, stop looking for skeletons in the closet.”
“Then explain this, Mr. DeLacey.” Iris turned her back, reached inside the waistband of her skirt, pulled the will from her panty hose, and waved it.
Alvarez exclaimed, “The will!” He l
unged and grabbed it.
Iris held on.
Thomas tried to pry Alvarez’s hand from the document. He reared his fist back and slugged Alvarez, sending him to the floor.
The people who had been taunting Alvarez and Cole let out a whoop when they saw Alvarez down. “Get him!” They started to rush the stage.
“Gil, let’s go.” Cole helped Alvarez to his feet and pulled him toward the back door, leaving Iris and Thomas on the stage. Junior, Bill DeLacey, and Paula were on the auditorium floor just below.
Paula waved the gun at the crowd. “Stay back.” She released a shot into the air.
Iris was clutching the will in both hands when Thomas grabbed it and yanked it from her. “Thomas!”
Some of the crowd called Paula’s bluff and pushed past her onto the stage to follow Cole and Alvarez.
People jostled Bill DeLacey and Junior, who were still below the stage. Junior tried to shield his father with his body. He climbed onto the stage and held his hand out for his father to join him. “Dad, let’s go out the back.”
Iris tried to grab the will.
“It’s DeLacey property, Iris.” Thomas blocked her with his elbow.
“You stinking son of a bitch.” Paula turned the gun on him again. “You’re done.”
Thomas grabbed Iris and pulled her in front of him. “Go ahead and shoot now, Paula.”
Iris struggled in his grasp.
Paula waved the gun, trying to take aim at Thomas without hitting Iris.
“Paula,” Iris yelped.
In the commotion, no one had noticed a man quietly making his way to the front of the auditorium.
“Dad?” Iris whispered.
Paula kept her gun pointed on Thomas, but turned to look at Les Thorne.
“Thomas, let her go,” Les said.
Thomas released Iris.
Iris glared at him. “You creep.” She snatched the will from him.
“Paula, give me the gun,” Les said.
She handed it to him. “It was empty anyway.”
“Empty,” Thomas said. “I knew that.”
Junior took a few steps backward as if to put space between himself and Les. “What does he want, Dad?”
“You’ve got no business here, Les,” Bill DeLacey said.
Their voices sounded loud in the hall that was almost empty save a few people who had come in to take refuge from the riot outside and others who were trying to recover from the earlier stampede.
“I’m here to help my daughter and to do what I should have done years ago,” Les said. “It’s time people knew the truth about who murdered Gabriel Gaytan.”
“You know who did it?” Paula asked.
Before Les could answer, a gunshot rang out from the stage. Les crumpled to his knees.
Iris jumped from the stage to the auditorium floor. “Dad!” Her father bled from his abdomen. “Somebody call an ambulance,” she pleaded, clutching her father’s hand.
DeLacey suddenly grabbed hold of Paula as he frantically scanned the stage. “Find Junior.” He clutched his chest and grew pale and breathless. The old man didn’t seem able to stand on his own.
Paula put her arm around him to hold him up. “Thomas! Something’s wrong.”
Thomas climbed down from the stage. “Dad, sit down.” He tried to edge his father to a folding chair but Bill DeLacey wouldn’t move.
“Find Junior,” he rasped.
Paula lowered her father to the floor. “I think he’s having a heart attack.”
“Find Junior,” DeLacey repeated, panting. “Please. He thinks everyone knows he killed Gabriel. I’m afraid of what he might do.”
Outside, the chanting subsided and was replaced by the sound of broken glass as the protest that was born of a search for justice quickly disintegrated into mindless looting.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Paula and Thomas sat next to Bill DeLacey’s hospital bed, where DeLacey was lying motionless on his back, his eyes closed. Tubes fed in and out. Monitors blipped. A television mounted to the wall hummed quietly.
“I suppose Iris and I are finished,” Thomas said.
Paula stared at him, as if to make sure he was serious, then sniggered.
Thomas ignored her. “Wonder what happened to Alvarez and Cole.”
“Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe you’ll win the election by default.”
“I haven’t heard anything on the news about them. I guess they got away from the crowd unharmed.” He gazed down at his father. “He looks old, doesn’t he?”
“He is old,” Paula responded.
“Wonder where Junior is.”
“He’s bound to turn up. “He’s never been more than a hundred miles from home his whole life.” Paula looked at Thomas. “You never knew that Junior killed Gabriel?”
“I always thought it was Humberto. When the will surfaced, I realized there was more to it but frankly, I didn’t want to know the truth. I hated thinking it was Dad. The way you were acting the past few weeks, I began to believe it was you. But I couldn’t figure out why you would have killed Grandpa.”
“I wanted him dead all right.”
“Why?”
“You don’t know?” Paula winced in disbelief. “Damn. You don’t know, do you?” She shook her head. “The favorite son. Sheltered from all life’s nasties.”
On another floor in the same hospital, Iris and Lily paced up and down the hall, sipping paper cups of machine-brewed coffee. They passed a waiting room where five children were sprawled on the couches and chairs watching television. The eldest boy was seventeen. The youngest, a girl, was eight. There were two boys and another girl in between.
Earlier, Lily had been chatting with them. She had a better rapport with children than Iris, who had tried to make idle conversation with her half brothers and sisters. They all ended up covertly glancing at each other, checking each other out, until she could stand it no longer and made Lily walk with her.
“I’m surprised Mom’s still in there with him,” Lily said.
“Isn’t Sonja still in there too?”
“Sure is.”
They both chuckled.
“I don’t think Mom’s leaving until Sonja leaves,” Iris said. “It’s a question of seniority. Mom and Dad were married two years longer than Sonja and Dad.”
“Plus, Mom was the first wife,” Lily said momentously.
Iris said, “She married a man who changed her name from Rose Bell to Rose Thorne. She had two girls who she named after flowers. Let’s give her a break.”
“Absolutely.”
They walked a few feet in silence.
Lily said, “So I guess last night was the end of you and Thomas.”
“Duh. Just as well. He’s too self-absorbed. Too much like me. We probably would have had mutant children.”
A door of one of the patient rooms opened and Rose Thorne came out.
Iris and Lily exchanged a glance.
Sonja came out on Rose’s heels. In her middle forties, she had a mountain of blond hair styled in loose curls that cascaded to her shoulders. She was wearing a long, loose, black knit top over leggings.
“Sonja’s still pretty,” Lily remarked to Iris.
“If you like that overly made-up look.”
“I guess you and Mom agree on something.”
Sonja and Rose walked down the hall together until they reached the sitting room, at which point Sonja left to join her children.
Rose stood between Lily and Iris and put an arm around each of them. “The doctor said he’s going to be fine. The wound isn’t serious.”
“What a relief,” Lily said.
“I’m so glad you girls have reconciled with your father,” Rose gushed.
“Well,” Iris said, “it’s a start.”
Rose glanced at Sonja as they walked past the waiting room. “She’s really not that bad, you know.”
“I don’t imagine she is,” Iris said.
Rose looked meaningfully at Iris.
“Something on your mind?” Iris asked with suspicion.
“Have you talked to Thomas?”
“No.”
“You know he’s here in the hospital sitting with his father. He’s got a good future ahead of him, Iris. A man like that’s hard to find.”
“Mom, he tried to use me as a human shield.”
“Stop being so critical of people, Iris, or you’re never going to find anyone to marry you.”
Iris was about to respond when Lily tugged on her arm. “Let’s say good-bye to Dad.”
Iris cast a disbelieving look at her mother, who was toddling off toward the waiting room.
“I thought you’d just decided to give Mom a break,” Lily said.
“It’s going to take some practice. It doesn’t come naturally.”
When Iris and Lily entered their father’s room, he extended his hands on each side of the bed. Lily walked to the far side and took his left hand and Iris took his right.
“I’m glad you’re going to be okay,” Iris said.
Les squeezed her hand. “How’s Bill doing?”
“Not well,” Lily answered.
“I can’t get over how Bill protected Junior all these years,” Iris said. “I guess he really loved Junior.”
“You’d never know by the way he treated him,” Lily said.
“Why did you help Bill DeLacey cover up the murder?” Iris asked her father.
“Well, Bill told me Junior killed Gabe in self-defense. That Gabe had attacked Junior as a way of getting back at Bill. I told Bill to tell the police, but Dolly became hysterical. Made me promise I wouldn’t tell. She said Junior would die if he went to prison and she was probably right. Then Bill made some insinuations about me keeping my job.
“But that wasn’t the only reason I helped. Junior was a young kid. He was terrified. Thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. I agreed to help Bill make it look like some stranger had done it. I went off to bury the hammer and Junior’s bloody clothes. When I came back I saw Bill breaking open Gabe’s head with a pickax. He told me it was best if the police found a murder weapon so he was giving them one. At the time I didn’t know he was setting up Humberto. Then when Humberto died, I realized what I had participated in.”
