Shaker

by Scott Frank

  The truth was, the freeways were still a mess and it took twice the usual time to get into the Valley from downtown, even with the police escort. But Evan Crisp was loath to blame the traffic for fear it would reflect poorly on the mayor. It had only been ten days, but people in L.A. were used to things getting fixed right away. Especially their freeways. Back in ’94, then mayor Dick Riordon got the 10 back on line after the Northridge quake a full three months ahead of schedule. He even issued curfews and no one gave a rat’s ass. They loved him.

  So Evan decided to blame the delay on their stop before the hospital, the visit to Frank Peres’s widow.

  It was unscheduled, Evan feeling that it would play more authentic if the press heard about it after it had already happened. They called Theresa Peres from the car and told her they would be there shortly. But by the time they arrived at the modest home on Blix Street, barely fifteen minutes later, the place was packed. All of the grown Peres children were there, along with their children, plus what appeared to be everyone from the neighborhood. All of them looking at the mayor like he had just poisoned their dogs.

  Worse, Mrs. Peres couldn’t stop weeping, haltingly telling the mayor through a fistful of wet tissues that he must “find it in your heart to make this right.”

  As if he was the one who’d made it wrong.

  The mayor tried to hug Mrs. Peres, but the keening bitch actually stepped back and stuck out her hand instead. Saying once more to the mayor, “Make it right.” All of it caught on cell phones by the family and friends stuffed into the living room. For the next week there would be vines and pix of the mayor standing there, his arms open, stranded in the middle of the room, surrounded by Peres family photos while this woman held out her tiny mitt, to shake hands.

  Things only got worse at the hospital.

  That visit started out okay, the mayor saying to the by now sweating and sunburnt press that “Roy Cooper was a real hero. Fighting for all of us. A great example for how we might help each other right now, during this crazy—difficult time.”

  The mayor was hoping for a break once they got on the elevator, but the doors opened and he saw that the car was huge, big enough for four gurneys side by side, so most of the press piled in along with Evan and his security detail. Then, just as the doors were closing, two young black boys, maybe thirteen or fourteen, squeezed inside.

  Roland, the mayor’s head bodyguard, was about to boot them when Evan glanced at the mayor, who, against all odds, actually understood the look, and said, “It’s all right, Rollie. We can make room for these nice boys.”

  The mayor felt the press all looking at him now and smiled at the two youngsters. One of them seemed to have a scar that took up half the real estate on his face while the other one was handsome enough to be a young TV star.

  “You guys visiting someone?”

  The handsome one said, “My moms,” and then added, “She has cancer.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that.”

  “She gonna die,” the kid went on. “Maybe today.”

  Now the mayor could really feel the eyes of the press on him.

  “That’s awful. Would you like me to come by and see her?”

  That got him a look from Evan. Too much. Abort!

  But the kid saved him. “No, thank you,” he said. “She voted for the other dude.” And everyone had themselves a good laugh.

  The doors opened and the press were able to snap a quick picture of the mayor with the boys—who also took their own selfies—before heading off in one direction while the mayor and his entourage headed off in another, the mayor already having forgotten them.

  At the nurses’ station, the mayor noted with some annoyance that an older black nurse with dyed blond hair was in the middle of a shouting match with a younger Hispanic nurse, this one, the mayor noticed, with poorly dyed red hair. Must be a thing, he thought, for nurses to dye their hair. He didn’t give it much more thought beyond that as, for some reason, both of them seemed oblivious to the advancing horde.

  Jesus fuck, hadn’t anyone prepared them?

  They saw the mayor and the assembled press behind him and both froze.

  “Good afternoon,” Evan said. “We’re here to see Mr. Cooper.”

  The black nurse stepped forward, clearly in charge, and said, “Mr. Cooper is no longer a patient.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She shot an angry glance at the redhead and said, “Apparently, Mr. Cooper checked himself out.”

  “What do you mean, checked himself out?” the mayor asked, his smile already beginning to hurt.

  “I mean, he’s gone.”

  The mayor could feel the heat on his back coming off the group gathered behind him, all of them now photographing and taping the two nurses.

  “You let him check out?”

  “He snuck out.”

  Evan glanced at the uniformed cop standing a few feet behind them, looking like he wanted to die. “Wasn’t there a guard at his door?”

  “There was, but…” the black nurse again looked at her redheaded associate, “he got distracted for a moment or two.”

  The redhead said, “It was Jordie—Officer McMann’s birthday. We got him a cupcake.”

  “A cupcake,” the mayor said and then looked at the young cop, who may have just ruined both of their careers, and added, “Well, happy fucking birthday, Jordie,” regretting it the minute the words came out of his mouth.

  He felt the hubbub behind him and tried to focus.

  Let’s all give a warm welcome to Miguel Santiago! Mayor Miguel Santiago. Mayor Miguel Sannnnntiagoooooo!

  Fuck.

  As Evan began shouting at the nurses and the idiot cop, the mayor went momentarily inert, unable to move or think, ignoring the questions now being thrown at him, the name Roy Cooper the only thing that he could take in. He had, after all, just called the man a hero. Maybe he was. Maybe he was just shy and didn’t want all this attention. Or maybe he was something else and didn’t want the attention for another reason. Whatever it was, the mayor needed to do something, and he needed to do it right now, so that he didn’t look like a raging dipshit.

  He was just turning to face the group, had something witty all teed up and ready when the lights in the corridor began to flicker and the building began to shake. The mayor, aware of something heavy falling over nearby, realized it was an aftershock. A big one. Somehow, now out of body, the mayor saw himself, from above, vaulting over the counter at the nurses’ station and, shoving a tiny nurse’s aide aside, wedging himself under the desk on the other side, where he remained for the next seventeen seconds.

  When the building finally stopped rocking and rolling, the mayor opened his eyes and looked up to see a dozen or so members of the press either leaning over the counter looking down at him or shoving those people aside so they could see, all of them holding up their phones and calling out his name.

  Mayor Santiago! Mayor Santiago!

  The last time Truck and Science had been to Valley Presbyterian hospital, it was to drop off Laura Klein, the girl who taught writing at Camp Kilpatrick. The girl with the red hair and the freckles.

  The girl Science still thought about most every night.

  Shake had been at Camp Kill out in Malibu for six months, having been sent there for vandalism and grand theft after he had stolen a deep fryer and some utensils from the Roy Romer Middle School cafeteria. Shake’s plan was to give all that stuff to his auntie for Christmas. She liked to cook and had just lost a leg to diabetes and Shake thought it would make her feel better. But in the middle of his big heist, he got stoned, fell asleep, and somehow started a fire.

  Science thought he was a fucking dumbass for capering like that on account of the lady couldn’t even stand up, let alone cook.

  Laura Klein was getting her master’s in film production at UCLA and had come to Kilpatrick to teach screenwriting. She was working on a script about gangs and had wanted just to do some research, but then “fell in love with the yo
ung men out there” and volunteered to teach during the summer.

  She read a story that Shake wrote about his pops—he’d gone into L.A. Men’s for selling dope, but then unfortunately killed someone inside during a fight over the TV and ended up at Pelican Bay where he remained, twelve years later, making yoga mats. Laura said that Shake had a “real voice.” That he should keep going with his writing. She gave Shake her number and told him to call her if he ever wanted help with his writing once he was home. She encouraged him to talk about his story with his friends and family in order to “flesh it out just a bit more.”

  But all Shake wanted to talk about when he got home was Laura Klein. He started calling her almost every night, telling Science that she was helping him with his story in return for him helping her with dialogue and stuff. She wanted to learn how to talk like Shake, though Shake thought he talked pretty much like everybody else.

  Science, skeptical from the get-go, told Shake that nobody was helping nobody, that Shake just wanted to get at her. Pure and simple. All of them laughing at Shake for being all sprung on the white college girl. But Shake said they didn’t know her. Not like he did.

  “So call her up,” Science said one day. “Invite her over. Let’s get to know her.”

  “She ain’t never gonna show up here.”

  “You saying she’s never been here?”

  “No, dude. We talk on Skype.”

  “That’s cool,” Science said. “Tell her you want help studying for your SAT. They can never say no to that shit.”

  So they all listened as Shake called Laura Klein and tried not to laugh as they caught him changing his voice when she picked up, adding more ghetto, trying to be someone else, someone Laura Klein wanted him to be. Shake said that he just wanted to holler at her some, tell her more about his life on the street, stuff he was too afraid to tell her during their time at Camp K.

  They made plans to meet up at an IHOP on Vineland, Laura walking in, surprised to see Truck and Science sitting in the booth with Shake. Shake told her that they wanted to talk to her, too. That they had ideas for movies just like Shake, and they could help her out with making her movie more authentic, same as he was.

  Science had not expected Laura Klein to be a redhead. In all of his Laura this and Laura that, Shake had failed to mention that this shorty had red hair and a shitload of freckles. Even on her arms. And big round titties. You could see that even under the sweater she wore. She had on a denim jacket, some Converse sneakers, probably thought a lot about what she was gonna wear down here to the ’hood. Wanted to make herself look “cool.”

  But what she looked was nervous. Especially when she took a gander at Truck, but then she sat down anyway. Right next to Science, who thought the girl smelled like apples. He stared at her profile as she talked to Shake about the SAT, about how he was going to nail the essay on account of he was such a good writer.

  Science thought she had soft arms and kept finding ways to lean against her. She wasn’t chubby, but she had meat on her. Her face was full, a pale peach color with all those freckles, and the deepest blue eyes Science had ever seen. He thought at first that maybe they were fake, some kind of contact lens like the ones his cousin wore for a while.

  They all ordered pancakes, even Laura Klein, and Science found himself telling her about his brother getting shot in the spine, asking her if she thought that would make a good movie. Laura Klein said they were lucky in a way, they had so much to write about. Yeah, that was a sad, but awesome story. Science thought that maybe she wanted to write it. He wanted to know how much money a person could make if they sold a movie script. She said it depends. Could be a lot, though.

  She liked to eat. Science liked that about her. This bitch wasn’t dainty. She kept up with them, even as she scribbled nonstop in her pink notebook. And Laura Klein couldn’t seem to write it all down fast enough.

  Science knew what she wanted to hear and kept feeding her. So when she asked if any of them had ever shot anyone, did they do any drive-bys and were they afraid of getting shot, they all traded knowing looks, and Science said, “I don’t care one way or the other about living or dying. And I care even less about killing someone.”

  Science watched her furiously scribble his every word, threw in some shit he used to hear his brother say. “We all at this table the same,” he said. “Uncut. Straight out of the bush. We all shoot somebody, it come to that. We all do whatever we gotta do in whatever way we gotta do it.” And then he added almost solemnly, “No doubt, one day pretty soon, all of us gonna die on the trigger.”

  Shake said, “Righteous,” and hit the bump.

  “That’s a great phrase,” Laura said. “Die on the trigger.” She smiled at Science. “That could be the title of my piece.”

  Science leaned against her. “It’s all yours.”

  Truck looked at Science, but said nothing. Let him run his mouth. For now.

  Shake, not wanting to be left out, chimed in with “I don’t really like drive-bys ’cause innocent people might get hit, you know?”

  “So you do worry about that?” Laura Klein asked.

  Shake nodded and said, “My homeboy one time shot a baby, it was still in the stroller. He felt bad about it, you know, but he was like, ‘That’s just how it happens sometimes.’ What could he do about it?”

  Shake let Laura Klein’s scribbling catch up while Science wondered exactly which homeboy Shake was talking about. This being the first time he’d heard this story.

  “See, me, I’m like this,” Shake went on. “If I want some dude, I park in front of their house, camp out all night, maybe drink a little, smoke some weed, and just wait for ’em. Soon as they come out they house, I splash ’em and I leave.”

  Science and Truck both started laughing.

  Laura Klein asked, “What’s so funny?”

  “Man, this dude ain’t never camped out to get nobody in his life. Ain’t put that much work in. Fuck, he still a tiny.”

  Shake looked at Laura Klein, but threw a piece of ice from his soda at Science and said, “You trippin’, cuz! You don’t know shit about me!”

  Science said, “I know you oughta get stomped.”

  She asked Science, “What did you call him? A tiny?”

  “Tiny G. What he is. What me an’ him are. Li’l homies. We got outta baby homie when we were like thirteen.”

  Shake nodded.

  “We ain’t gonna reach OG for a couple years yet.”

  “And you’re what, fourteen?”

  “Yeah, but Truck, he’s sixteen. He still a li’l homie but he got the rep.”

  “How does one get a rep?”

  “In our set? By straight killin’.”

  Laura Klein looked at Truck. Something holding her back from asking him what she really wanted to ask him. If she was nervous, Science couldn’t tell. It wasn’t until he asked her where she lived that he caught the hitch, the slight hesitation.

  “Westwood.”

  “Whereabouts?”

  She told him a street. And he knew for sure she was lying. He asked, did she have a dude? She said she lived with someone. Guy in his second year at the medical school.

  That felt like the truth, but something at the table was changing. There hadn’t been much talk about SATs or college. And now every time she looked at Shake, he looked away, embarrassed. The dude was clearly miserable. Anybody could see that.

  Laura Klein was starting to figure out that she was here for another reason.

  Science asked about the dude she lived with. What’s his name? Greg. Dr. Greg. They all got a big laugh over that. She started looking at her watch. Asked Shake about when his SAT was. Did he have a workbook. Laura told him that he could get one online. Already disconnecting from what she now understood was rapidly turning into something she couldn’t control. This was a mistake. She was still trying to be cool, but Science could see that now she was afraid.

  He didn’t try to make her feel better. Didn’t help her in any way. He d
ug it. It was as if he could see inside her brain, could see exactly what it was that she was so afraid they might do to her. And the more he saw, the more excited he became.

  And he wasn’t the only one.

  Truck watched her, too. All through the pancakes and the hash browns and the Coca-Colas, Truck had that one wilted eye locked on Laura Klein. He hadn’t stopped watching her since the moment she sat her ass down. At this point, Science didn’t know how the day would end, hadn’t made up his mind whether or not, if it came to it, he’d have to step in at some point, or if he would just let Truck do his thing.

  All Science knew was that he needed to see more of Laura Klein than she was showing him.

  A whole lot more.

  The waitress, a woman Science recognized as his fifth grade teacher and a former crack addict, set the check down. The last time Science had seen her, she was on the pipe and doing everything and anything to get a blast. Now here she was, in this place, refilling the boysenberry syrup.

  Laura picked up the check, saying a bit too loud, “Let me get this, guys.” They all watched as she started to grab a credit card from her purse, then changed her mind and instead handed a couple twenties to the waitress, saying that she didn’t need any change. Science figured there had to be at least a forty percent tip there. It was clear that Laura Klein just wanted to get the fuck out of there, and Science, knowing what he knew, didn’t blame her.

  She started to get up when Truck said, “I’m not done.” The first words he had said since Laura Klein sat down.

  Laura smiled at him. “You finish up,” she said. “I just have to get back.” And then, as if she needed to sell her exit more, “I have a class tonight.”

  As soon as she slipped out of the booth, Science looked at Truck and the three of them got up and followed.

  A minute later, they were all standing in the parking lot, Laura saying that Shake should keep in touch, let her know how he does on the test, when Science asked if she could give them all a ride home. She was caught, not sure what to say. He used his superpower and smiled at her, said it wasn’t far. On the way to Westwood for sure.