Bad Intent

by Wendy Hornsby

  Sly belonged to all of us, a ten-year-old urchin Mike and I had gathered in off the street the previous spring. While Michael put away his school things, I followed Sly around as he followed Mike around. I eavesdropped on their conversation, dropped in my two cents now and then.

  When we first met Sly he was a foul-mouthed, underfed little delinquent with more tricks in his repertoire than most career criminals acquire in a lifetime. After five months in a decent group home in Reseda, with Michael as his Big Brother and mentor, and with Mike running interference with the authorities now and then, Sly’s sharp edges had noticeably softened. He was being transformed from a know-it-all old man into a vulnerable child. But he was still hungry all the time.

  “This asswipe Fliegle’s always on my case,” Sly complained, slumped at the kitchen table while Mike made him a couple of predinner peanut butter sandwiches. “It’s harassment, Mike. I’m gonna sue him.”

  “Fliegle’s the math teacher?” Mike cut the sandwiches and set them in front of Sly. I poured him a glass of milk as an excuse to be there. “Are you turning in your homework every day?”

  “I just don’t get it. How’m I supposed to do those crapwad problems when I don’t get it?” Dejected, Sly picked up his sandwich. “Anyway, don’t matter what I do. Fliegle hates me.” He took a bite.

  “Fliegle wants you to learn something. If he didn’t care about you, he wouldn’t be on your case.” Mike sat down beside Sly, listened to his grievances, acknowledged his frustration—school was a whole new world for the boy. Then he sold the teacher to the kid, pushed him even. When I left the room to answer the front door, they were laughing about Fliegle’s weird mustache, agreeing that he was a good teacher.

  Watching Mike with the child, I was moved. I was encouraged. Mike Flint would never coerce a kid to do something wrong; the charges were bullshit.

  On my way out of the kitchen, I almost collided with Michael.

  “I have tickets for the Dodger game,” he said, following me to answer the door. “Can you and Casey come?”

  It was Casey at the door, with Bowser. “Forgot my key,” she said. She unhooked Bowser’s leash and followed him inside, both of them panting and hot.

  “Michael has tickets for the Dodger game,” I said.

  “Can’t,” she said. “Homework.”

  I knew it was a lie, but I didn’t make an issue. For nearly four years it had been just her and me. As much as we liked Mike and Michael, it takes a while to get accustomed to living with new people. Casey and I both needed a time-out.

  “You men go ahead,” I said to Michael. “Have fun.”

  I thought Michael looked as relieved that we weren’t coming along as Casey did. I helped Mike find his binoculars and kissed everyone good-bye.

  While Casey showered and dressed to go out to dinner with me, I took advantage of having a few minutes alone to make some calls.

  I reached Baron Marovich’s office and asked to speak with George Schwartz, just to see what I could learn. After a round of telephonic leapfrog, and under the guise of a loan rep trying to verify the employment of an applicant—that is, Schwartz—I was put in touch with Marovich’s administrative assistant.

  “Mr. Schwartz is on disability leave,” she told me. “Has been for about two months.”

  “Paid leave?” I asked, absorbing the implications.

  “Yes,” she said. “You should call the county personnel office for verification, though.”

  I thanked her and went on to round two. If he was on leave from the D.A., then for whom was George Schwartz following us around?

  I already knew from trying to track down LaShonda DeBevis that county personnel wasn’t going to give me anything as useful as an address and a telephone number. Information was of no use: there were too many George Schwartzes in Los Angeles, doubtless many more in the commuter suburbs that fan out from the city for a hundred-mile radius.

  Mike’s badge number is 15991. I invoked it when I called the south Pasadena police and asked for booking information on Schwartz, George, white male, arrested for assault on a police officer that very day. Among the information I received, including Schwartz’s booking number, was the address on his driver’s license—he lived in Santa Monica—and a work telephone number. I dialed the number I was given. Intrigued, I dialed the number a second time to make sure I had it right: the phone was answered by campaign headquarters, Marovich for District Attorney.

  I didn’t come up for air until about halfway through dinner at a Chinese place in Sherman Oaks when Casey tapped her chopsticks on the edge of my plate to get my attention.

  “Earth to Mom,” she said. “What’s your estimated time of arrival?”

  “Sorry,” I said, taking her hand.

  “What are thinking so hard about?”

  “These accusations against Mike. There’s something strange going on.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  I shrugged, tried to change the subject. “I saw a dance shop on the way. You need some shoes.”

  Shaking her head, smiling at me to show she wasn’t buying, she said, “What are you going to do?”

  I leaned toward her. “I’m going to visit the campaign headquarters of Baron Marovich. You game?”

  “Hold on.” She picked up one of the fortune cookies that came with the check and cracked it open, read the fortune, handed it to me. “Let’s go.”

  The fortune said, “Make your own destiny.”

  Marovich campaign headquarters was on Victory Boulevard out in Van Nuys. The campaign had taken over a vacant storefront at the end of a block of vacant storefronts; quiet neighbors, but a busy intersection.

  I could just make out “Valley Carpets and Floorcoverings,” no more than a gold-leaf shadow on the big front windows to tell who the last tenant had been. Campaign posters covered some of the holes left by long-gone store fixtures. The huge space was unevenly filled with rented desks and mismatched chairs, tangles of telephone wires, a hodgepodge of computer equipment and typewriters. The only luxury to be found was the luscious seafoam-green carpet.

  I scanned the dozen or so volunteers working the phones or stuffing envelopes, picking my target. I passed on the retiree with the bald head and bald-toed tennies, passed on the well coiffed matron and the earnest young pair I guessed were there as part of a Poli-Sci 1A assignment.

  I settled my attentions, finally, on a young man stationed off to the side, polished Gucci loafers on the desk next to half a take-out order of sushi. His clothes, which he wore easily, were subdued in color but extravagant in tailoring and, I was sure, in cost. Slacks, striped silk tie, custom-fitted white-on-white shirt rolled up to the elbows. In his manner I read good schools, good connections. Going places.

  If money is the mother’s milk of politics, then press coverage is surely the hand that rocks the cradle. I pulled out my press credentials as I led Casey over to my pigeon.

  I think Casey liked his looks. She held herself tall, flipped her long hair over her shoulders.

  “Maggie MacGowen,” I said, holding out my press card to him. “My intern, Casey.”

  He brightened, took down his feet, swept the sushi into a desk drawer. Then he offered his hand to both of us in turn, giving Casey more turn than me. “Schuyler Smith. How can I help you?”

  “I’m interested in your volunteers,” I said.

  “Media relations handles all interviews. If you’ll leave your card…”

  “Sure.” I smiled, propped my hip against his desk. “All I’m doing at this point is deep background for a nonpartisan piece to run as filler on election night after all the rhetoric has been canned. ‘Volunteers: Who Are They?’—something like that. Marovich is an old-time pol. I thought there might be some personalities to mine here.”

  Smith surveyed the mixed bag populating the room, smiling at some retort he was keeping private. What he said was, “The district attorney depends on citizens dedicated to his platform of a quality judicial system, of fairness �
�”

  “Are you a volunteer?” I asked. “Or paid staff?”

  “Full-time volunteer.”

  He must have read something into the glance I gave his Guccis, because he felt a need to explain further. “I feel so strongly about Mr. Marovich’s candidacy that I took a six-month leave from my job.”

  “Paid or unpaid leave?” Already a familiar refrain.

  He frowned. “You really should talk to media relations.”

  I made a little bow as an apology. “For background only. I’m curious, of course. A campaign on this scale takes a lot of bright-young-man hours.” I glanced at Casey. “And bright-young-woman hours. The time represents quite a financial sacrifice. Your employer would risk violating election laws if he kept you on the payroll, risks his own productivity if he leaves your job open for you. I was merely wondering how you keep yourself in sushi and why you would put a career on hold and how you got your employer to go along.”

  He was eyeing my daughter, holding in his little gut for her benefit. “I’m fortunate to work for a firm with a social conscience. They feel that any sacrifice now is an investment in the future. Contacts made, friendships solidified.”

  “They pick your candidate?”

  “Of course not.” Still smiling.

  “Who do you work for?” I asked. The law firm he mentioned was only too familiar. Jennifer Miller hung her credentials on the wall there. Baron Marovich was an alumnus.

  Casey had wandered off to leaf through a stack of posters. Smith watched her. I was tempted to snatch him bald for his thoughts. Not so long ago, I… I believe the first sign of impending middle age is becoming invisible to men under thirty. I wasn’t invisible yet, but I felt I was fading.

  “George Schwartz,” I said to get Smith’s attention. “Excuse me?”

  “I understand George Schwartz has left his position with the district attorney’s office to work for the campaign. Do you know him?”

  “I know who he is. George works under the aegis of the executive staff. I don’t see much of him.”

  “What does he do for the executive staff?”

  “Leg work. I’m not sure.”

  “Know how I can reach him?”

  “You might leave a message through Roddy O’Leary. Or call media relations.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said. “Mind if we speak with some of your volunteers?”

  “Media relations will be in at nine tomorrow. You’ll have to ask them.” He was smooth, never let the friendly mien drop. I left him my card. Casey and I walked back out into the noise of city traffic, heads together, trying not to burst out laughing at the smooth of Mr. Schuyler Smith.

  We had filled in some blanks, learned a few questions to ask. It was time well spent.

  Casey was in no mood to waste the last night without homework at home. She came with me to my office in Burbank to help me get settled in. Sounds boring, but we were having fun, cataloguing video tapes before shelving them, taking turns with the TV, fifteen minutes of Satellite Network News, then fifteen minutes of MTV, with a few seconds of token groaning to serve as segue between sets.

  We were five minutes into my turn when Ralph Faust came on with a breaking news report. I leaned forward from my seat on the office rug to hear every word. Casey was making labels and never looked up at the TV.

  Demonstrators keeping candlelight vigil at Parker Center, police headquarters, have been for the most part orderly. Earlier some bottles were reportedly thrown at the front of the building after the Reverend Jimmy Lee Cook, in addressing the crowd — estimated to be between two and three hundred — suggested that if Charles Conklin were not freed immediately that it might be time to go back to the streets to give a message to the LAPD.

  At a separate news conference in his office, District Attorney Marovich called for an investigation into the records of Detectives Mike Flint and Jerry Kelsey, identified as the chief investigating officers assigned to the Wyatt Johnson shooting. A recent survey by the police department identified the forty officers with the worst records of abuse and civilian complaints. Neither Flint nor Kelsey appears on the list.

  Casey’s head snapped up. “What did he say about Mike?”

  “Junk,” I said. I punched up MTV.

  Casey gave me a quick, wise appraisal. “Why did you change the channel? They’re talking about Mike.”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” I said.

  “Oh, right,” she said, reaching for the remote. “You mean, you don’t want me to hear it.”

  SNN came back on the screen, running taped footage of the earlier interview Ralph had done with Marovich, Miller, and Burgess. Casey sat rapt this time, listening.

  When the Reverend Burgess said, again, that Mike scared false testimony from two child witnesses, Casey threw down her pen in disgust. “The fat guy said Mike threatened someone.”

  “Casey, those people will say anything to get their names on the news. Look at them. You have a reporter desperate to keep his ratings, a politician running for office, an attorney looking for her thirty-percent cut of a potentially huge civil suit, and a pseudo-reverend sitting there with the address where you can send donations scrolling across his chest. Who do you trust, them, or Mike?”

  “Don’t get mad,” she said. “It’s like Mike always says, ‘Who you gonna believe? Me, or your own lyin’ eyes?’ “

  “You little wiseacre.” I gave her a gentle shove and made a grab for the remote, but her arms are longer than mine. She held it beyond my grasp so I couldn’t change from the news.

  Burgess still dominated the spot. Mr. Marovich listened to us, understood the implications of our findings right away. He has such confidence that the original investigation was tainted that he persuaded one of the city’s big-dollar law firms to represent Charles Conklin on a pro bono basis. Without charging a retainer, Jennifer Miller will lead the defense.

  I crawled over and switched off the television. “Listen up,” I said. “And be warned. If the D.A. succeeds in blowing this into a bigger issue, there will be press everywhere looking for juicy bits. If anyone comes near you, you keep your mouth shut and run.”

  I knew she had a sassy retort brewing, but the telephone rang and interrupted her.

  “Another thing,” I said, scrambling for the phone. “Don’t give out anything on the phone.”

  I said, “Hello.”

  Bad news travels fast, especially when it travels by satellite. I had picked up the receiver with a sense of dread. I expected to hear on the other end an obscene caller, a local news person looking for fresh dirt, a concerned but nosy friend. What I got was my ex. And he was in high dudgeon.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” Scotty ranted. “I saw the news. I want you to put Casey on a plane for Denver right now, Maggie, get her out of that overheated environment.”

  “Hello, Scotty,” I said. “How are the wife and kids?”

  “Merely contemplating the implications of what I just heard is like a knife through my heart.”

  “Through your what?” I didn’t think he heard me.

  “It’s one thing if you want to destroy your reputation,” he roared. “But to leave Casey vulnerable to the storm of criticism this mess will generate is absolutely unconscionable.”

  “How’s the golf game?”

  “The first time I hear my daughter’s name linked in public in association with that reprobate Flint, I will haul you into court. With custody comes certain obligations, Maggie, that I seriously doubt you are fulfilling.”

  “Heard any good jokes?” I said calmly. Casey was watching me closely. “I heard one. What do you call a lawyer who can tie his own shoes?”

  There was a pregnant silence.

  “Gifted,” I said. “I thought you might like to try that one at the office tomorrow. Let me know if anyone gets it.”

  “Are you insane?” He wasn’t shouting any more so it was safe to pass him on to Casey.

  “Yes, everything is fine.” I smiled at Casey. “
Casey had school orientation today. Here, I’ll let her tell you all about it.”

  I handed the receiver to Casey. She covered the mouthpiece and said to me, “I could hear every word he said.”

  I whispered, “And he can tie his own shoes.”

  She took a breath. “Hi, Dad.”

  After that opening, Casey did a lot of listening, with a few “Uh huhs” and “uh uhs” wedged in, because she had no alternative other than hanging up. I could hear Scotty, but I didn’t listen hard enough to discern what he was saying. I didn’t need to. During our twelve years of marriage, I heard everything I ever wanted to hear from him. And more.

  I went back to work cataloguing tapes, stowing them away. Now and then I glanced up at Casey to make sure she was all right. I watched her expression change from bored resignation to anger.

  I said, “Remind him how much the call is costing.”

  She grimaced, took a breath, and said very loudly, “Dad! Will you listen to me?”

  Apparently he wouldn’t listen. She tried again.

  “You don’t know anything about it, Dad.” Her assertiveness made me proud. “You don’t know anything about Mike, either. Those people are just distorting everything for their own purposes.”

  She listened to some flak, then cut in again.

  “You’re wrong, Dad. Anyway, who are you gonna believe? Me, or your own lyin’ eyes?” She slammed down the receiver. I saw right away that the slam had been dramatics as much as frustration. She wasn’t crying and that was a hopeful sign.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’m okay.” She stretched, reached up and touched the rim of the ceiling light fixture with her fingertips. “Dad’s the one with the problem, Mom. I think he’s jealous.”

  An odd idea. “Jealous of what?” I asked.

  “Mike.”

  An odd idea that grew on me. Scott MacGowen had waited almost thirty minutes after our divorce was final before he married the lovely young Linda. Now she was pregnant with their second child. Pregnancy can be rough on men. Especially when they’re over forty years old and facing a second go-round on the child-raising process that they hadn’t much liked the first time. Too confining, according to old Scotty. Very messy.