The Hidden Law

by Michael Nava

  “You made the right choice,” I told him.

  “Some days that seems truer than others,” he replied. “What about you? What’s your story?”

  I pulled myself out of the water and sat next to him, our legs touching. “Not that much different,” I said, “except that when I woke up I was thirty-three, and a drunk, and I had a law degree.”

  “Well, if you studied the way you swim, I’m not surprised. You’re not exactly laid back, are you, Henry?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  The lights went on beneath the water. From an opened window above us came the sounds of TVs and radios and the aromas of food. Lonnie pressed his hand against the small of my back and asked, “You mind?”

  “No, I don’t mind.”

  Unfamiliar smells rose from the tumble of the unmade bed. The sheets twisted beneath him and his head sank into a pillow as I pushed into him. He grunted, pulled his legs tighter on my shoulders. I bent down as far as I could, the hairs of my chest glancing his smooth one. He lifted his head and kissed me roughly. With his free hand, he rubbed the tip of his cock against my stomach muscles. I raised myself up to keep from slipping out of him, and he jerked himself off, his warm come spilling across my skin. I stayed in him until I also came, then pulled out slowly. He grinned as he peeled off the rubber and dropped it beside the bed.

  “Don’t you wish old Jesse Helms could see us now?”

  I grinned back. “No, not particularly.” I flopped down on the bed beside him. “Of course, I’m old enough to remember when fucking a boy wasn’t a political action.”

  “I haven’t been a boy in a long time.”

  “But I bet you were a helluva boy when you were,” I said.

  He leaned into me, and I put my arm around him. “I guess we should clean up,” he said, but neither one of us moved. The smells of chlorine and semen mingled in the air.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “My pleasure.” He reached down for a towel and cleaned himself off, then handed it to me. “You have a lover, Henry?”

  I finished with the towel and tossed it aside. “I think we’re in the middle of splitting up. What about you?”

  “I’ve never been the marrying kind.”

  “You want to go out and get something to eat?”

  “Sure, after we take a shower.”

  After dinner I dropped Lonnie off at his place and drove home on Sunset. It was a beautiful night. I rolled down the windows, opened the sunroof, and a cool wind flooded through the car. At Sunset Plaza the sidewalk cafes were jammed with late night diners sitting in the glow of candlelight over pricey pasta dishes. Haute couture mannequins postured in the boutique windows. A woman in red leather walked a Great Dane while, behind her, the lights of the city blazed through the clear air. I was absurdly happy. For a couple of hours I had drifted on possibilities, something that had not happened in a long time, and it had been delicious.

  When I got home there were four messages on the answering machine and the phone was ringing. Still buoyant, I answered it with a cheery, “Hello.”

  “It’s Josh, Henry. I’ve been calling you for hours.” His voice was edgy and frightened.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Steve had some kind of seizure. I’m at the hospital with him.”

  I sat down, uncertain of what to say. “Do they know what happened?”

  “His doctor thinks it’s toxo. They’re waiting until tomorrow to do a CT scan. Right now he’s sleeping.”

  “Which hospital are you at?”

  “Midtown,” he said. “I know this awkward, but could you come over, Henry, just for a little while?”

  “That’s over on Third and Genessee, right?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be waiting outside.”

  I left without playing the phone messages.

  He was standing beneath a street light. I recognized the unruly hair and hooded red sweatshirt. I drove up to the curb and pushed the passenger door open. He scooted in, looked at me and said, “Thank you, Henry.”

  His hand was bandaged. “What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  He shook his head. “Someplace close? I don’t want to be away too long.”

  “I understand,” I said, and started driving.

  There was an all-night coffee shop not far away. Inside, bright lights bounced off orange vinyl and brown Formica. A chalkboard listed the homey specials: liver and onions, red snapper, spaghetti. Behind the counter was a display of pies and pastries. A bee-hived waitress led us to a booth and handed us oversized menus. Josh didn’t even look at his, but told her, “Just coffee.”

  “Bring him the hamburger plate,” I said. “I’ll have iced tea and apple pie.”

  “All right,” she drawled.

  “I’m sorry if I was hysterical on the phone,” Josh said.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  The busboy brought our drinks. Josh measured milk and sugar into his coffee with his good hand. “When I went over to Steven’s this afternoon he was in bed complaining of a headache. Um, I got into bed, too. I nodded off. The next thing I knew the bed was shaking like crazy. I thought it was an earthquake.” He took a quick sip of coffee. “It was Steven, bouncing all over the bed. He sounded like he was choking. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat on him to keep him from falling off the bed and pried open his mouth. He was swallowing his tongue.” The coffee cup jerked in his hand and he set it down, the liquid spilling over the sides. “Sorry. I thought I was over it.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, covering his hand with mine. He grasped at my fingers. “You stuck your fingers in his mouth to keep him from swallowing his tongue.”

  He nodded. “He almost bit off my index finger, but eventually he stopped shaking, and was just sort of passed out. I called an ambulance. On the way to the hospital, he had another seizure. They took us both into emergency. They patched me up and I called his doctor. Then I started calling you.”

  The food came. The waitress set a big plate with a sloppy burger and heaps of french fries in front of him. He picked up the sandwich and bit into it greedily.

  “It happened so fast there wasn’t time to be afraid,” he said, through a mouthful of food. He swallowed. “Afterwards, waiting to hear something, then I was afraid.”

  “I thought with toxo there were some warning signs,” I said.

  “Not always,” he replied. “Sometimes a seizure is the first sign. That’s the thing about this fucking disease. One day you’re OK, and the next day you’re in the hospital fighting something you didn’t even know you had.” He looked at the sandwich in his hand. “I don’t know why I’m eating this. I’ll probably throw it up later.”

  “Go ahead and eat. You’ll feel better.”

  He smiled wanly. “You’re always so practical, Henry. I bet you would’ve known what to do.”

  “If it’s toxo, they can treat it, can’t they?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He began on his french fries. “They can treat it, they can’t cure it. They can’t cure any of it.”

  I picked at the apple pie while he ate. “I’m sorry, Josh,” I said. “I hope he comes through it OK.”

  “This is really hard for you, isn’t it?”

  “What’s hard is not knowing where we stand,” I said.

  “I can’t come back,” he said. “Everything is different now.”

  “You know you can always call me.”

  “Henry, I’ve known that since the first day I met you.”

  There was a fifth message on my machine when I got home that night. The first four were from Josh. The last one was a male voice saying, “Thanks for tonight.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE NEXT DAY WAS Thursday, one week from the day that Gus Peña had been killed. The story had slipped from the front page of the first section of the Times to the front page of the Metro section. It had become as much about politics as it was about a murder investigati
on. One group of Latino leaders castigated the cops for not moving swiftly enough to find Peña’s killer while another group deplored the continuing sweeps of the gangs in East Los Angeles. As far as the investigation itself went, a new phrase had slipped into the police communiques: a “potential suspect” had been identified. On my way into work, I dropped in at SafeHouse to talk to Edith Rosen. I found her at her cluttered desk, poring over the same story that I’d read at breakfast.

  “I gather that Michael is their potential suspect,” I said. “Any word?”

  She folded the paper and set it down. “His parents have stopped talking to me,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “After the police told them Michael had threatened Gus, his mother called and demanded to know why I hadn’t told them sooner. I tried to explain that I couldn’t, but she wasn’t interested. She said if Michael’s in trouble, I’m to blame.”

  “From what you told me earlier about them, I wouldn’t have thought they’d care one way or the other.”

  “You’d have to meet her to understand,” she replied. She lifted a mug from the corner of her desk and drank from it. “You want a cup?”

  “No thanks. I want to finish our conversation about Michael and Gus.”

  “What do you mean?” She set the cup down on a folder.

  “If it turns out that Michael did kill Gus, I want to know the chances of constructing some kind of psychological defense. You said they hated each other the way people in families can come to hate each other. What makes you think that?”

  She rubbed her eyes wearily. By the looks of it, she hadn’t had much sleep. “Do you really think it’s going to help him?”

  “I won’t know until you tell me.”

  “You have to start with Gus,” she said. “A self-made man who came up from a very hard childhood. His own father was an alcoholic and violent. Gus was the oldest son, so he took the brunt of it. You know he could’ve just as easily become a gang member himself and ended up with a criminal record and zero prospects.”

  “He was smart,” I said. “That’s what made him different.”

  She nodded absently. “Smart and angry. Even that’s not always enough. To tell you the truth, Henry, I don’t know what it is with someone like Gus. All the statistics were against him, but look what he made of himself.”

  I hazarded a guess from my own experience. “Maybe he looked around and saw what was possible. Maybe he imagined becoming someone.”

  “Yes, but how and when, that’s the mystery. Wherever his ambition came from, it was ferocious. And unforgiving. Of him and others.”

  “This must be where Michael Ruiz comes in,” I said.

  “Michael had all the outward privileges that Gus never had,” she said. “His family’s well-off, and whatever else his parents may be, they aren’t alcoholics. From Gus’s point of view, Michael had squandered his advantages. Of course, Gus only knew half the story.”

  “What’s the other half?”

  We were interrupted by someone shouting in the hall, which ended as abruptly as it had begun, with the slamming of a door.

  Edith said, “I think I already told you that Michael’s parents were also strivers, like Gus, and just as successful. Michael paid the price for that.”

  “You told me he was basically raised by his grandmother.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” she said. “When he was three, he was rushed to the hospital with a concussion. His mother said he had fallen down the stairs. His father wasn’t at home at the time. Child services investigated and he was eventually placed with his grandmother. Later, he was returned to his parents and the records were sealed. I only found out about it—,” she stopped herself. “Well, it’s not important. There is a record, and I found out about it.”

  “Did the abuse stop?”

  “When I brought it up, Michael claimed he didn’t know what I was talking about, but his behavior proves he was abused. If you tell a child he’s bad long enough and often enough, he will act it out.”

  “‘Those to whom evil are done, do evil in return,’” I quoted. “A line from a poem.”

  “The only evil Michael’s ever done has been to himself,” she said. “Anyway, you had Gus on the one hand playing the enraged father and Michael on the other playing the defiant son. And they were both Chicano, of course, which added that whole cultural element of standing your ground.”

  “I’m familiar with it,” I said.

  “I don’t believe Michael killed Gus,” she said. “I don’t think he had it in him but, if he did, it came out of that struggle.”

  “We have to find him,” I said.

  “I know,” she answered. “Why don’t you try the parents. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.” She reached for her Rolodex and turned it to R, then searched for a card. She jotted down an address in the valley and a phone number. “His mother’s name is Carolina and his father’s called Bill.”

  I pocketed the slip of paper, thanked her, and left.

  Although I left a couple of messages at the Ruizes’ house, Carolina Ruiz didn’t return my call until the next afternoon. I was at my desk dictating notes from a reporter’s transcript of a murder trial into a hand-held tape recorder. Another dozen volumes of transcript sat on my desk waiting to be gone through. I had picked up this appeal from a colleague who had tried it, assuring me that the judge’s errors would leap off the pages. So far, however, all the record had revealed was a bad case of judicial temperament. I was relieved when the phone buzzed.

  “Carolina Ruiz,” Emma said in the tone of voice she reserved for assholes.

  “OK, thanks.” I pushed the button to the outside line. “Mrs. Ruiz?”

  She opened with, “Who the hell hired you as Michael’s lawyer?”

  I marked my place in the transcript and shut it. “The director of SafeHouse tried to kick Michael out. Edith Rosen asked me to talk to the man. We worked something out and Michael stayed. When it became clear that the police were looking for him in connection with Gus Peña’s murder, Mrs. Rosen asked for my help again. No one’s actually hired me.”

  “You’re damn right,” she said. “If Mikey needs a lawyer his father and I can take care of it.”

  “I think he needs a lawyer.”

  “He hasn’t done a thing,” she replied.

  “Mrs. Ruiz, at minimum, he’s in violation of his probation for leaving SafeHouse, and he’s also a suspect in Gus Peña’s murder. The moment the police find him, they’ll put him on a probation hold and lock him up. That’ll give them all the time they need to interrogate him.”

  She wasn’t as quick to answer, but her tone was still rancid when she did. “My son didn’t have anything to do with Gus Peña getting himself killed. If that woman hadn’t talked to the police Mikey would still be at SafeHouse.”

  “Mrs. Rosen isn’t the one who told the police about Michael’s threat.”

  “Look, I don’t care who said what to who. My son didn’t do anything wrong, and he doesn’t need you.”

  “All right, Mrs. Ruiz, have it your way. You’re right, no one has hired me to represent Michael, so I’ll back off, but take my advice and get your kid a lawyer. When the cops catch up to him, he’s going to need all the help he can get.”

  “Don’t tell me how to take care of my son,” she said and hung up.

  I put down the receiver and said to Emma, who had come in at the tail end of the conversation, “How would you like to call her mommy?”

  “She’s no mommy,” Emma said, making a face. “That woman’s a mother. You want to sign these checks?”

  I signed the stack of checks she had put in front of me. “How did two nice people like us end up in this line of work?”

  She shook her head, jangling her intricately braided hair. “I like to eat. You like to save the world.”

  “Not that the world has ever noticed.”

  “You just have those Friday P.M. blues, Henry,” she said. “Take the rest of the day o
ff.”

  “I’m looking for a needle in a haystack,” I said, indicating the pile of transcripts.

  “They ain’t going nowhere.”

  “You know what? You’re absolutely right. Take off, Emma, we’re closed.”

  After she left, I sat in my office wondering what to do with the first free weekend I had given myself in months. The thought of going home to an empty house made me want to sleep on the couch in the lobby. I considered calling Lonnie Davis, but that kind of excitement wasn’t exactly what I wanted either. Then I remembered Eric Andersen and his lover Andy Otero.

  I had known Eric since college. He and Andy lived outside of Santa Barbara, on an avocado ranch that had been in Eric’s family for eight generations. I saw him once or twice a year when he came into the city, and he had been urging me for years to come up and stay at the ranch. I dialed his number, already halfway up the coast in my imagination.

  The ranch was deep in a canyon off the Coast Highway, accessible by a narrow rutted road that cut through bare brown hills and meadows shaded by great eucalyptus trees. Cows grazed peacefully along the road. Eric and Andy lived in a cottage that had been built by Eric’s great-grandfather, a descendent of a Mexican land grant family, in the 1890s. The two men had lovingly reconstructed it.

  They had been lovers for sixteen years, from the time that Eric had returned to Santa Barbara at twenty-four to take over the ranch. He met Andy, then an eighteen-year-old high school senior, who was working as a ranch hand that summer. Physically, they could not have been more dissimilar: Eric tall and blond, the son of a Mexican mother and a Danish father; and short, black-haired Andy Otero, one generation away from a Mexican village in Guanajuato. They loved each other and the ranch, and it was hard to tell where one left off and the other began. When he wasn’t working the place, Andy painted.