A Hard Light

by Wendy Hornsby

  Cecil ducked his head into the interrogation room, said a few words, then gestured for me to come. I slipped inside, took a seat in the far corner so that I could watch both faces. Mike glanced my way, but said nothing. The kid looked at me a couple of times out of the corner of his eye, but that was all the interest he showed in this newcomer.

  Pen was lanky, underfed-looking, too young to grow decent whiskers, though he was trying. He wore baggy denims, an oversize polo shirt, heavy high-top basketball sneakers. His head was buzz-cut up the sides, leaving a long tuft sprouting from his crown. Over his left ear, he had razored DM2 into the short hair.

  Mike looked at some notes in front of him. “So, Zeema’s mother came home from work. Do you know the mother’s name?”

  “I know her. Arzeema Porter, Senior. See, it’s the same name as Zeema, cuz she’s Arzeema Porter, Junior. Like the way you call a boy after his father. Like me, Ronald Ward, Junior.”

  “Mrs. Porter was at the house when you came back?”

  “Yeah. Shannon calls me up and he says, Bring me a gun. So I took him over a .22.”

  “Where’d you get the .22?”

  “Belongs to my grandmother.”

  “What happened when you took the gun over?”

  “Shannon meets me at the door and he says, You bring it? I say, Yeah. I show him the gun and he snatches it right out of my hand. I follow him inside the house cuz I want to see what he planned to do. It was my grandmother’s gun, see. I didn’t want Shannon doing something that might come back on my grandmother.”

  “Where was Mrs. Porter when you gave Shannon the gun?”

  “She was on the porch.”

  “Did she see you hand the gun to Shannon?”

  “She musta’. She was real mad. She kept saying no one listens to her and she wants all the shit cleaned up that’s inside the house or she’s gonna call the police.”

  “What did you see when you went into the house?”

  “Nothing.” Pen, all innocence on his young face, spread his arms wide, exposed his wrists the way a magician would; nothing up his sleeves. “I saw nothing but someone’s feet all tied up. Then I went out onto the porch and after about five minutes, I left.”

  “Where was Mrs. Porter when you left?”

  “She had left already.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Went over to the park for a while to shoot some hoops.”

  “Weren’t you interested in what was happening inside?”

  “I was only interested in getting out of that house.”

  “After you left the house, did you see Shannon again that day?”

  “About dark time, I see Shannon and Snoop pushing a cart at about a slow jog. They’re going to the high school. I turn around and went home.”

  “Did you see what they were pushing in the cart?”

  “I seen what they have in there movin’, so I had a pretty good idea.”

  “You knew they had a man.”

  “That’s what I guessed.”

  “You gave Shannon a gun. You must have had some idea what was going to happen. Weren’t you concerned?”

  “I was concerned, but I didn’t want to get into it.”

  “You didn’t see who shot the man?”

  “No, I did not. Later, Shannon gave me the gun back. He says get rid of it. I took out the grips, the cylinder, the hammer, and the firing pin and tossed ’em. Then I put the frame back where my grandma kept it.”

  “Why did you do all that?”

  “I didn’t want my grandma to get in no trouble. Shannon said you couldn’t put nothin’ on us if I took that gun apart.”

  “Did you ever ask Snoop and Shannon what they did with the man?”

  “We was at a party over across the street later. Shannon came in and I said, What happened to that man? He said, I shot the motherfucker. We don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  “He told you he shot the man?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  Mike set his notes aside and leaned in closer to the kid. “I’ve heard this story a couple of times now, and the way you tell it just doesn’t go with what everyone else is saying.”

  “It’s the truth. What I say is every word of the way it went down.”

  Mike used his pen as a pointer. “What’s that carved into your ‘do?”

  “That’s me, Dee Mac two. You know, my gang name. You pass a gang name down like you name your son after you. Kind of like junior, like we was talking about earlier. Like Dee Mac one, he jumped me in. After me, there’s three more. Five Dee Macs.”

  “You’re from the Trey-four posse?”

  Pen flashed a gang hand sign.

  “You’re the only Dee Mac two, is that right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Mike slipped a Polaroid across the table. “This is a picture the coroner took of Mr. Pedro Alvaro. What is that symbol carved in his abdomen?”

  Pen paled. He checked the door real fast, as if maybe he flashed on bolting.

  Mike slid the Polaroid my way. DM2 was clearly carved into Pedro’s skin just under the breastbone.

  “Did you do that to Pedro, Pen?”

  “Yeah.” The kid had been caught out and he knew it. “I cut him.”

  “You told me that you dropped by the house only long enough to give Shannon the gun. The others I’ve talked to say you were at the house for quite a while. The others say that you helped Shannon and Snoop beat Pedro Alvaro. They also said you helped put Pedro into the cart and wheel him over to the high school. This is all going to go easier on you if you start telling me the truth.”

  “I didn’t shoot him, man.” Sweat ran down Pen’s dewy face. “I swear, I didn’t shoot nobody.”

  “When you brought the gun over, did it occur to you that someone might get shot?”

  “You never know what Shannon can do.”

  “So it occurred to you someone could get shot?”

  He collapsed down into himself. “It occurred to me.”

  Mike had Pen start over. This time the boy told about being inside the house for hours, beating Pedro, making him drink bleach mixed with Cisco, carving and burning him. The only change he would not make in his story was confessing that he had been with Snoop and Shannon at the time Pedro got shot.

  When he had finished his tale, Mike asked him, “Where is Shannon now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “Yesterday morning when he heard you all was going through the house and taking out Mrs. Porter’s knives from her kitchen and taking out the rags and stuff we cleaned up with. Shannon heard that, and he took off.”

  “Where would he hide?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does he have family that would take him in?”

  “Shannon?” Pen scoffed. “He ain’t got no family. I don’t know where he would go.”

  “Okay.” Mike thumbed through his notes. “How old you say you are?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Seventeen.” Mike gathered his notes and forms and the coroner’s Polaroids and made a neat pile of them. Then he stood. “Let’s go.”

  Pen stayed in his chair. “There going to be a hearing? Am I going home or the CYA?”

  “Youth Authority? You’re seventeen now, Pen. This is a capital case you’re involved in. Sheriff’s going to transport you over to the Hall of Justice Jail to wait for arraignment.”

  “HOJJ?” Tears and snot started flowing. “No, man. They do me bad over there. I can’t go to HOJJ. I’m not eighteen.”

  “You just graduated.” Mike grabbed him by the biceps and hauled him to his feet. “Welcome to the big time.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  Casey and Michael arrived home before Mike and I. All day I had restrained myself from calling their schools to check whether their campuses had washed away, taking small comfort knowing that if there were major problems, someone would call or we would hear something on the news. />
  We found them both ensconced in the living room doing homework in front of the fireplace, Michael stretched out on the sofa, Casey curled up in my grandmother’s wingback chair, the dog on the floor at her feet. Except for the heavy metal music blaring from the CD player, it was a lovely scene.

  A nearly empty basket of popcorn, a carafe of hot cocoa and dirty cups showed that they had been home for some time.

  Casey looked up at me over the top of her biology book, a sassy grin taking form as her glance moved from my damp hair to my sodden socks. “Have a nice day, Mom?”

  “I’m glad to be home.”

  Mike used Michael’s cup and poured himself some cocoa from the carafe. I went to stand with my backside to the fire. Steam rose from my jeans.

  Mike asked, “Have any problems with the car, son?”

  “The car made it fine,” Michael said. He pulled up his feet so that his father could sit down. “Did you hear what happened at my college?”

  My stomach dropped, Mike froze halfway down to the sofa.

  “The gym roof collapsed.”

  “Anyone get hurt?” Mike asked, dropping down onto the cushion.

  “No. The coach saw the ceiling start to bulge and cleared everyone out in time. Ceiling in my bio lab leaked and the first floor of the social science building flooded, but that was the worst of it. They canceled all the afternoon classes and told us to go home.”

  “Casey,” Mike said, “your school have any flooding?”

  “Just the teacher’s parking lot. When Michael picked me up at lunchtime, everything was okay.”

  I was still sorting through possible responses to that nugget of information when Mike turned to his son, head cocked, eyes narrowed. “You picked up Casey from school early?”

  “Had to.” Michael shrugged, matter-of-fact. “The way it was raining, I thought I’d better go get her while I could.”

  “Casey,” I said, “the school released you to go home?”

  “Everybody was trying to leave. We had to give Mrs. Langston, my English teacher, a ride home because her car was swamped. The whole faculty lot was covered in two feet of water.”

  I said, “Thanks, Michael. Good thinking.”

  Mike set down his empty cup and yawned. “I don’t suppose these perfect, genius children, while they were sitting around all afternoon in front of a nice warm fire, thought to make their poor old, hardworking, wet as hell parents a nice hot dinner?”

  “Grandma made stew before she left,” Casey said. “It’s in the oven. We can eat anytime you want.”

  Dear old Mom, I thought. Mike wore an enormous grin. He said, “That’s what mothers are supposed to be like. She could write the book.”

  His own mother had been no Donna Reed. She ran off with a trucker when Mike was in the third grade and came back pregnant when he was in the fourth.

  I peeled off my socks. “Any possibility I can have a hot bath before we eat?”

  There was a consensus that I could be indulged.

  “I won’t be long. Mike, are you changing out of your wet things?”

  “Yes.” He reached out to me for a hand up. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I went upstairs. One of the best things about the old house we rented was the master bathroom. Originally, there had been only one upstairs bathroom. It was big enough for a whole family to use at once, and grand enough to suit a czar. A claw-footed tub held center stage, placed right in front of a small fireplace with a granite hearth. I lit the fire, filled the tub, picked up the morning paper, and settled in for a soak.

  Mike came in when I was laughing over the daily “Only in L.A.” column in the Times. He handed me a glass of red wine and sat down on the edge of the tub. Ever since we moved in, the tub had been where we talked over our days.

  “Climb in,” I said. “Water’s fine.”

  “Later maybe. Cheers.” He tipped his glass against mine and took a drink. “You had a long day. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine, Mike. How are you?”

  “Good. Another day down, sixty-seven to go.”

  “You already told me that. But who’s counting?”

  He got up to fool around with the log on the grate. Something weighed heavily on him, made him thoughtful and quiet. He put the brass poker back in its rack. “I’d better change and go down. Casey’s setting the table. How do you feel about a salad to go with the stew?”

  “A salad would be nice.” My answer sounded oddly formal. But so had his question. He patted me on the head and left me alone.

  I dressed in sweats and went downstairs.

  Vivaldi had replaced hard rock on the living room CD player. Mike, wearing sweats and thick running socks, sat in Grandma’s chair now, with his feet up, his eyes closed, hands folded across his stomach. I left him to his repose and went on through to the dining room.

  The table was set with the good china, candles were already lit, the salad served. In the kitchen, Michael held the heavy porcelain tureen while Casey ladled in Mom’s beef stew—Mom would prefer it be called pot-au-feu, but she wasn’t around to correct us.

  Candlelight, beautiful music, a congenial air all about, the aroma of good homemade food, a wild storm shut out of the tight, warm house. Everything around me was oddly perfect, a rare moment to savor.

  Perfection, like a straight line, does not occur in nature. It has to be manufactured. That is, it seemed to me that this moment of harmony was the result of a lot of effort. Losing the pregnancy had affected us all. The simple act of putting dinner on the table was a series of quiet gestures of affection from every person in the house. I knew the moment would pass, but I would hold the sentiment behind it forever.

  Casey garnished the top of the tureen with a sprig of fresh basil. “Five more minutes, Mom. We’ll call you.”

  I poured myself a second glass of wine. “We’ll be in the living room.” I went in and watched Mike pretend he was dozing.

  Without moving, he said, “I can’t find Shannon. I put word out at every shelter in town, and no one has seen him. No known associates have copped to hearing from him. We sent black and whites to every house he has ever been known to visit, and all we got for our trouble was a boxful of junk he left behind somewhere and some attitude.”

  “What’s in the box?”

  “Dirty clothes and photo albums. He left it a long time ago.” Mike drew in a long breath. “I don’t know where to look next.”

  “You’ve checked hotels and airports?”

  “He killed a man to get twenty bucks. Where would he find money for a hotel or an airplane? Besides, Shannon has never been farther away than the Youth Authority camp in Sylmar. He’s here; he doesn’t know how to get out of town.”

  “You’ll find him, Mike. Someone knows where he is. Someone always knows.”

  “Mike?” Casey stepped into the room. “Telephone. Mom, dinner’s ready.”

  Mike took the call in the kitchen while I helped the kids carry hot dishes into the dining room. I heard him say, “Nothing?” “No report?” “No record?” and assumed the call referred to the missing kid named Shannon.

  “Maggie?” he called out to me. “What was the date of the robbery at Khanh’s?”

  I told him, he repeated the date into the telephone, had a few more words, and then he hung up, looking thoroughly puzzled.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Khanh never reported the robbery to the police.”

  “She must have.”

  “Should have. But didn’t.” Mike pulled out Casey’s chair and held it while she sat. “Could be a cultural thing, fear of the police. My guess is that if something was taken, it was something she didn’t want the authorities to know she had. Did she ever say what was stolen?”

  “She suggested that a piece of jade sculpture was taken. Generally, she was enigmatic.”

  “Enigmatic?” Mike laughed as he sat down. “Casey, that’s one of your mom’s Berkeley words. Out here in the real world, we say, the woma
n kept her mouth shut. Maggie, I think you need to call your friend and ask her what’s going on.”

  “After dinner,” I said, “I will.”

  Guido and his cats appeared at the door just then, looking half-drowned and pathetic. The cats set up a mewling that made Bowser retreat.

  Casey took the cat carriers from Guido, saying, “I’ll put George and Gracie in my room until they quiet down.” We heard her talking to the cats as she walked up the stairs.

  I poured Guido a glass of wine. “I was getting worried about you.”

  “I was getting worried about me, too. Caltrans took forever to clear the road. I wasn’t sure we were going to get out.” He glanced at the table. “Sorry to intrude. Sit down. Eat.”

  “Go get dry.” Mike took another dinner plate out of the sideboard and put it on the table. “We can wait a few minutes.”

  Ten minutes later, when we started dinner all over again, Guido raised his glass. “Bless you, friends.”

  “And pass the stew,” Mike said.

  Guido laughed. “And pass the stew.”

  While we ate, we talked about the planned trip to San Francisco. Originally, we were going to drive up on Friday morning, stop at a couple of wineries north of Santa Barbara, take our time, picnic along the way. But bad weather in the southern half of the state would spoil the scenic part of the trip.

  I asked, “What shall we do?”

  “I may have to stay home and work my case over the weekend,” Mike said. “Especially if I get a line on Shannon. Can’t Uncle Max fax down the offer on the house?”

  “I can’t go anywhere.” Michael sounded very firm. “I have a lot of studying.”

  “But you promised we were going, Mom. No fair.” Casey pushed out a pouty lip. “I called all my friends. We made plans for the whole weekend.”

  Guido put down his fork. “If it’s okay with your mom, Casey, you can fly up with the crew.”

  “What crew?” I asked.

  “When you said you were going up north this weekend, I told the crew to scratch the New Year parade in Little Saigon because we were going to Chinatown.” Guido seemed way too happy. “Fergie made reservations for the whole crew to go up. If the rain doesn’t hold us back, I have every intention of being on a scaffolding on Grant Street Saturday night, filming the dragon.”