by E. E. Giorgi
What happened to you? she cries staring at the photo. What happened to your dreams?
CHAPTER 36
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Friday, October 24
Traffic spread apart and then reunited along the intricate three-dimensional network of ramps and junctions of L.A.’s cemented arteries. A uniform, relentless flow. Green signs and overpasses glided above us, while intersecting lives swept by our side: a hand pressing the mobile to the ear; a cigarette clinging to manicured fingers; the bobbing head of a teenager wrapped in his own world of deafening drums and screeching electric guitars.
I stared out the window, the vehicles sailing by a parody of human life. Individuals trapped in their own box, shielded from the outside noise and pollution. They all had their destination, their plans, their solitudes masked by busy schedules and frantic work hours—the few social interactions filtered through small mirrors bearing the warning “Objects may be closer than they appear.”
You better keep your distance if you don’t want your little world to be crushed.
“It’s almost Halloween.”
“Hm-mmm.”
“I miss patrolling on Halloween night.”
“Hmm.”
“Kinda fun with all the kids running by the cruiser, yelling, ‘Trick-or-treat, smell-my-feet,’ and guffawing at my face as I pretend to be scared.”
Hands on the steering wheel, Satish turned to look at me. My eyes remained glued to the window.
“Did you call her?”
“No.” And I wasn’t going to attach any justification to it. We passed a pick-up truck with a rattling fridge strapped to the deck, the blanket wrapped around it flapping angrily in the wind.
“We should make sure she got it.”
I heaved a sigh of frustration, reached for the phone, and dialed. She’ll never pick up. Every unanswered ring hit my eardrums like nails on a blackboard.
Hang up, Ulysses. She’ll never pick up.
I heard the click followed by silence. Hurt, voiced by a million unspoken words.
I inhaled. “Hey, listen—Did you get the tank?”
Seconds hammered by. “It’s here.” Glacial.
“Did you take a peek inside?”
“No.”
I turned to Satish, placidly driving along. “We’re under a little pressure,” I said.
“Pressure?” Diane replied, raising her voice. It’s going to come down now. “Get yourself here, Track,” she hissed, “and explain yourself to my face. Let’s see if that puts a little pressure on you. And don’t you tell me you got a callout because I already checked.”
The dropped line beeped into my ear. “Okay,” I mumbled for Satish’s sake before closing the phone. I hoped he hadn’t deciphered any of the metallic squeaks coming out of the wireless gadget.
“She’ll look into it,” I added, hoping it would finally close the matter. Satish nodded, drove silently for a few more miles, and then asked, “Still scratching your ass on that rocky bottom and finding it comfortable, Track?”
I forced a laugh out of my mouth, though it sounded more like a squeak. “Actually, I think I took the elevator to paradise but the ride turned out to be too fast.”
Satish smiled. I tapped the cell phone against the window and groaned. “I belong in hell, Sat. Not heaven.”
“Don’t we all, Track?” he replied. “Don’t we all.”
* * *
In Greek mythology the power of life and death was in the hands of the three Fates. The existence of every mortal being was a thread: Clotho spun it, Lachesis decided what length it should get to, and Atropos cut it when the time came.
I saw them that day, in Chris Hopf’s hospital room, one of Cox’s leukemia patients. By the windowsill, the three monsters played with the boy’s thread of life, pulling and tugging and teasing it with the blades of their scissors. The strand wasn’t made of fibers. It was composed of two coils held together by four molecules. Some of the molecules were feebly connected, and whenever Atropos’ scissors lingered in their proximity, they trembled as if about to lose their grip. They reminded me of pearls strung on a worn out thread: soon the time comes when they finally break free and spill on the floor, bouncing off in all directions like children at the end of a school day.
Joseph and Melissa Hopf had already lost their first child to leukemia. Two months after burying the nine-year-old girl, six-year-old Christopher, their second child, fell ill with the same disease. Wrapped in white hospital sheets, blue eyes sparkling from underneath hairless brows, Chris stared at the mobile of paper airplanes hanging from the ceiling while his mother read Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. More books lay on the bed next to him: a children’s space encyclopedia, a book about the planets, another about astronauts. A family of teddy bears sat on the night stand, each one holding a get-well card. All around, flashy wallpaper with red-nosed clowns broke the dullness of the gray linoleum floors. A vain attempt to make the room look child-friendly when in fact it lacked the essence: a child’s smile.
“Hi, Chris,” Satish said, drumming his knuckles against the door. “How are you feeling today?”
The boy stared from above a hospital facemask and squeezed his mother’s hand. I read awareness in his expression, a young man trapped in a child’s body. He knew what lay ahead. He’d seen it in his sister.
I don’t believe in destiny. I believe we have choices in life. And yet, looking into the boy’s eyes, sparkling with youth though sunken into a scrawny little face, no bangs brushing down his forehead, I couldn’t help but feel a profound surge of loathing. Somebody sealed your fate, Chris, before it had even been written. They yanked your thread off the Fates’ hands and meddled with it, snatching your dreams away.
Mrs. Hopf closed the book and sent an interrogative glance to her husband, standing by the window. Mr. Hopf had a long face with sharp edges, and flat cheeks studded by old acne scars.
“Is this a bad time?” I asked, showing the LAPD badge.
Chris’s eyes bulged at the sight. “Can I see it?” he asked, stretching out a hand and exposing small flowery bruises on the inside of his arm.
* * *
“I want to be an astronaut when I grow up,” Chris’s voice came from behind his blue mask. His fingers traced the reliefs on Satish’s badge. “Detective would be pretty cool, too.”
Seated at the edge of the bed, Satish smiled. “When I was your age, I dreamt of becoming a plumber.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “A plumber?”
Satish chortled and his voice trailed off in one of his stories.
Outside the door, the usual coming and going of visitors, nurses, and medical staff populated the corridors; trays of IVs and medications traveled from one wing to the other; white coats carelessly discussed dinner plans over histology results and patient charts; an old lady in a fluffy pink robe stared at us for a few minutes before resuming her random cruising of the hallway, faithfully followed by a rattling IV pole.
Across from the nurses’ station, sitting nervously at the edge of a blue chair, Mrs. Hopf whimpered and covered her mouth with one hand. By her side, her husband clasped his head and growled like a wounded animal. He sprang to his feet, paced furiously back and forth for half a minute, and then slammed both fists against one of the windows, resting his forehead on the glass pane.
Hopf held still, hands and forehead glued to the window. “So it’s all my fault,” he muttered. “All my children went through, all my goddamned fault.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “No, sir. But I do need your help to ensure the ones to blame get the punishment they deserve.”
“But you said it’s for a murder investigation. Not for deceiving us.”
“Correct. It’s a caveat—”
Hopf turned away from the window and glared at the ceiling, at the gods dwelling in the skies, cruel fates who gave him the power to know and to choose.
Just one bite from the tree of knowledge and you will die.
“I wanted the
very best for them. I wanted their life to be a dream. They got a nightmare instead.” He shook his head and looked at his wife. She opened her mouth as if about to say something, but never did, her parted lips hanging in an open question mark. “Do you know what it is like to spend days, weeks, months, by your child’s side in a hospital, Detective? Time no longer exists. The life you used to have, dictated by morning commute, work, meetings, lunch hour—it’s all gone. A deception. A mirage of what it used to be before you realized how futile it all was.” He sighed, his voice cracked with pain.
What he said next came out of his mouth in a low drone, the eulogy of a mourning father. “When an emergency breaks, time spins out of control. You feel the hours irreversibly slipping out of your fingers, like a handful of sand you want to hang onto and yet the more you squeeze, the more it falls through. And when you finally open your fist, there’s only a few grains left on your palm.
“There are moments when time flows as viscous as glass, and even though you know it’s moving, you can’t really see it. Time mocks you, Detective. It makes you simmer in pain, with its stubborn unwillingness to progress forward when you want it to, and its swirling out of control when instead you want to hold it back. The joy you felt at some point has vanished, like a fluttering butterfly setting on your finger. It shows you her beauty, and for a moment you think, it’s here, right here, I have it, it’s mine. And one second later it’s gone and it will never come back. You had it, but the one moment was elusive, so ephemeral you can’t stop but wonder, was it real? Or did I just dream of it?”
He pressed hard the knuckles of one hand against his lips and spoke no more.
His wife sighed. “Where do we sign, Detective?”
CHAPTER 37
____________
Friday, October 24
Lucia Hortega hears the sudden rumble and gasps. Dios mio, el terremoto! she thinks. By her feet, a bucket of water jerks and sloshes all over the floor. Angry thumps follow, as of objects hurdled against the wall. From upstairs, she realizes. Another crisis. Mira que disastro, Lucia groans, looking at the puddle sprawled on the floor she has just cleaned. Should she say something? Or should she just pretend she didn’t hear? Ni modo, she’s going to yell either way.
Lucia tiptoes upstairs and pokes her head into the master bedroom. The dresser lies on its side. The bottom drawers have been yanked away and upturned on the bed. The top ones hang open like jaws dropped in astonishment. Humps of crumpled clothes are scattered across the room. A nightstand lamp has crushed on the floor. The bed sheets have been pulled off and the mattress exposed.
“Madam—” Lucia whimpers.
“GET OUT!”
Puta, Lucia mutters, running away. Puta sucia. Guess who’ll have to clean up all the mess.
Crouched by the bed the woman is finally exultant. Her pulse quickens as she brushes the barrel with the tip of her fingers, a shiver of anticipation sweeping down her spine. I found you, my darling. He thought he could fool me. Keep you away from me. She smiles, brings the weapon to her cheek, and savors its scent: metal, gunpowder, oil. I’m ready, now, she thinks. I’m ready.
CHAPTER 38
____________
Friday, October 24
“Kids shouldn’t be allowed to get sick,” Satish said over a plate of moussaka.
I sunk my teeth into the gyro sandwich I had ravenously ordered, and then wiped my mouth. “And how do you plan on going about fixing the problem?”
“People like Julia Cox are doing their part.”
I refrained from uttering a nasty comment just because my mouth was full. Satish put down his fork. “Track. One needs money to do things, and money doesn’t always come from the cleanest sources. What are you going to do? Either you stall, or you keep going and make the best out of it.” He squeezed the fork and shrugged. “Call it cynical. Not all patriotic people love their country. In fact, most of them don’t.”
“Another metaphor I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand my metaphors to appreciate them.”
“And you don’t need to break the law to be a dishonest person. Look. Maybe Cox didn’t do anything wrong in the eyes of the law, but she knew what she was doing when she hampered Huxley’s efforts. She selfishly put her career first. Assuming she had nothing to do with the gene therapy thing, which I haven’t completely excluded.”
“I don’t know, Track. Had she gone along with Huxley and tried to implicate Chromo, she probably would’ve ended up dead, resulting in one more homicide and one fewer doctor to fight for these children.”
“Man, Satish. What’s wrong with you today? She accepted money from Chromo—that alone tells you she was involved, whether or not she knew about the Proteus therapy.” I shook my head. “Sometimes I don’t know where you stand, Sat. Do we even have a reason to do our job, or should we all go home and accept the world for the fucking bitch it is?”
Satish sank his fork in the last bit of moussaka left in his plate, and then brought it to his mouth. He chewed slowly and thoughtfully. He swallowed, then wiped his mouth. And while he did that, I chomped down and gulped the rest of my sandwich in three bites.
“Christopher Hopf does,” he finally said.
“Does what?”
“Accept the world for the fucking bitch it is.”
“He’s a dying kid, he doesn’t have a choice.”
“Maybe this is our problem, Track.”
I didn’t know what he meant and didn’t have time to mull it over, either. “It’s getting late. We’ve got to get back to work.” I waved for the check. Satish propped his elbows on the table and let his eyes wander off, a peaceful, daydreaming stare painted on his face.
I signed the check, grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair, and adjusted the holster hooked on my belt. Even though with time you get used to having this constant ballast embracing the small of your back, there’s always a time of the day—after lunch, or after sitting for too long—when it uncomfortably reminds you of its presence. We walked out of the café—Satish by my side still wearing his airy smile—and by the time we got back to the vehicle I gave up.
“Fine, Sat. What the hell does this whole story remind you of?”
Satish inserted the key into the ignition and beamed. “Why, Track. I thought you’d never ask.” I groaned. “It reminds me of my sister Rhani’s new bicycle.”
“A bicycle.”
“A brand new bicycle,” Satish repeated, pulling out of the parking lot. “Rhani was seven when Santa Claus finally got her one, after pleading and pouting for two years. She was so thrilled she hopped on and rode in the backyard for hours. Watch me go with one hand, she’d yell. Watch me go with no hands. And in all the excitement, she forgot to look ahead, slammed against the porch railing, and hit her head. My brother and I guffawed, while my mother came running out of the house yelling, What was that? And then everything went silent.
“Rhani lies still on the ground, the handle of the bike jammed against her chest, and the front wheel spinning.
“Ma screeches. Rhani! Eyes wide open, Rhani stares at the sky and weeps. My brother and I sneer and go back to play. My old man picks up his daughter, dusts her off, and then puts her back to her feet. Walk, he says, and she walks. Raise your arms, he says, and she raises both arms. Jump, and she jumps. Talk, and nothing comes out of her mouth. Talk, Rhani. Nothing. Say papa. Nyet. Say mama. Nada. Ma wails, pulls her hair, and squeals, It’s a concussion! We need to take her in. And at those words, Rhani’s eyes bulge. Pa takes her inside and sets her on the couch with an ice bag on her head. Then they scuttle off, Ma to call the hospital, my old man to get the insurance papers.
“What if they keep her? Ma shouts. Let me get some extra clothes, just in case.
“Rhani starts sobbing. She goes to her bedroom, gets her canvas tote, throws in her colored pencils, her journal, a pen, and her favorite doll. She takes her piggy bank and an old car I once gave her. While Ma frets around the house—now she prep
ares snacks, just in case the waiting at the ER gets to be long—Rhani comes to the backyard and hands me the old toy car and the piggy bank.
“The piggy bank is empty, she says. But from now on you can use it for your savings.”
“Wait a minute… I thought she couldn’t talk!” I interjected.
“Of course she could talk. She was just fine.”
“Then why didn’t she say so?”
“I don’t know, and she didn’t know either. She was seven. I bet she was too afraid to say anything because she thought they were going to yell at her.”
“Instead they took her to the ER?”
“Yeah, though she didn’t know that’s where they were taking her.”
“Where did she think they were taking her?”
Satish chuckled. “She gave me her most valuable things, and to my younger brother she left a rock—but it was her favorite rock—and then hugged us both.
“Let’s go, Rhani, Ma calls while Pa pulls the car out of the driveway.
“What’s wrong with her? I ask my brother as I watch her shuffle away and get in the car with her head down and her shoulders drooping. My brother lifts his head from the dirt hole he’s been digging in the backyard. Dunno, he drawls and resumes digging.”
“We’re almost there, Satish, and I’m still missing the point,” I pressed, as our vehicle merged into the right lane and took the next exit.
“The point, my very impatient Track, is: my sister confused the word concussion with adoption, which was confirmed by Ma’s erratic behavior, taking her clothes, preparing her food, and shoving her into the car. She thought they were taking her some place where they’d give her up to strangers who would then become her new parents.”
