“I’ve got no room in this department for puffed-up crusaders, Decker.”
You’ve got the ball, Decker thought. You goddam serve. He stayed silent.
“Why didn’t you let me know what the hell you were doing?” Morrison asked.
“You already told me that Arlington was off-limits. If I get fucked over, why bring you down with me?”
“Let’s hear it for loyalty,” Morrison said sardonically. “Why didn’t you tell me you were looking for a connection between Arlington and the Loving Grandpas?”
“I should have.”
“Yes, you should have.”
Decker threw up his hands. “I was wrong. For what it’s worth, I haven’t gotten past first base with it.”
Neither one spoke for a moment.
“I’m not going back to East L.A.,” Decker said. “Especially not under these circumstances.”
“So you’ll quit the force and then what? Law? You hate law. What are you going to do?”
“You could keep me here if you wanted to,” Decker said. “My Spanish is needed here as much as there.”
“Why should I? You’ve been a bad team player lately.”
“Look, Captain. You’re the one who put me in Homicide.”
Morrison reflected on that.
“Take your badge and piece and get back to work,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do about the transfer. Maybe you’ll quit acting like a schmuck once you’re back with Juvey.”
“Kids bring out the best in me.”
“Snotnose remarks are unbecoming in a veteran like you, Pete.”
Decker suddenly felt old. His mind flashed to Rina’s smooth, naked, young body. He wondered if he looked the way he felt.
He flipped through the stacks of 1040s and 540s on his desk. Cecil Pode had earned about the same amount of money each year of his life, with no sudden windfalls. The last couple of years, the photo business had experienced a slight decline in income. If Pode was making side money in the porno business, he was either stuffing it in a bank in the Cayman Islands or pissing it away. The man had admitted a gambling problem. Might be how he got involved in the first place. But one thing was certain; he wasn’t reporting the dirty income.
Pode’s army record gave no further insights into his personality. He’d spent a hitch in Korea and had been discharged honorably.
Decker pushed away the papers just as Marge bounced in.
“You hit a winner!” she announced, pulling up a chair. “Ida Pode’s remains were not found in bed. She was found inside the room at the threshold of her bedroom door.”
“And no arson was suspected?” Decker asked.
“Nope. The Fire Department figured she fell asleep while smoking.”
“Then why didn’t she die in bed?” Decker wondered out loud.
“Maybe she was awakened by the smoke, tried to get out, and before she could, she was overcome by fumes,” said Marge.
“Or?” Decker said.
“Somebody set her bed on fire and prevented her from leaving the room,” she answered. “What would be the motive for murder?”
“My intuition says insurance money,” he replied. “But we’re only talking ten g’s here.”
“Ten thousand dollars bought a lot more back then,” she said. “And desperate gamblers have been known to do it for a lot less.”
“I’ve got another motive, Margie,” he said. “Hatred.”
The phone rang.
“Decker.”
“Detective? This is Dr. Bachman, family dentist for the Podes.”
“How are you, Doctor?”
“Fine. It took me a while to find the X rays. Earl hadn’t come in for quite a while. Must be ten years since his last appointment. Dustin was in here three years ago. If you want me to, I’ll send copies to Dr. Hennon, but you might want to run the originals over to her place and then give them back to me—save us all a little time and inconvenience.”
“I’ll be right over.” He hung up the phone.
Mike Hollander strolled up to the desk and handed Decker a manila envelope stamped: Dr. Meisner—Confidential Records.
“Earl’s pediatric records,” he said. “Can this man get the lead out or what?”
“Amazing what you can do when you work, Mike,” Marge said.
“Thanks,” Decker said, ripping them open. He flipped over the cover sheet and began to read.
“Anything new?” inquired Marge.
Decker didn’t answer.
“Pete?” asked Marge.
“Huh?”
“Anything new?”
“Decker, the woman’s talking to you,” Mike said, slapping his back.
“Uh…sorry. At least now I know why L.A. County had no record of Earl’s birth. He was born in Fresno.”
“A scenic spot to dump your load,” Hollander said.
“If you like armpits,” Marge said. “Weren’t the Podes married in Fresno?”
“Yep,” Decker answered. “Ten to one old Ida went home to Mama to foal.”
He read further, then said, “Earl broke his arm when he was eighteen months and was treated for burns at ages two and three. Jaw fracture at three also. Contusions and head injuries from a so-called fall at four, broken rib at four and a half…”
“Goddam, that stuff makes me sick,” Hollander exclaimed. “I’ve seen it over and over, and I never get used to it.”
Marge placed her hand on his shoulder. “You may be a horny old slob, but you’ve got a heart, Mike.”
Hollander threw her a dirty look.
“Burnt hands at seven,” Decker said. “Aha! Enuresis at nine. That’s bed-wetting. The doctor prescribed To…Tofin…I can’t read this.”
“Tofranil,” Marge said.
“Yeah, that’s it. Okay, okay. Here we go. He upped the dosage at age eleven.” Decker looked up. “The kid was still pissing in his pants at age eleven. The first time the Fire Department was called over to the Podes’ house was a year before. I think little Earl was a pyrophile. Let’s hear it for the headshrinkers.”
He read on, frowned, then began flipping back to the beginning pages.
“What’s wrong,” Marge wanted to know.
“Hmmm.”
“What is it?”
“You know, the burnt hands at seven were the last recorded abuses,” Decker noted. “Dustin’s chart had physical abuse into his teens.”
“You’re talking about the old lady like she was rational or something,” Mike said.
Decker smiled. “You’re right.” He folded up the chart and tucked it under his arm. “I’ll double-check the records over lunch.”
Hennon stood in front of the viewing monitor, compared the sets of radiographs, and shook her head in amazement.
“I want you to promise me one thing, Pete.”
“What’s that, Annie?”
“If I’m ever found dead under mysterious circumstances, you’ll be the detective on the case.”
“A promise I hope I never have to keep,” he chuckled. “Which one belongs to the bones?”
“Earl…” She stared at the screen. “His teeth had shifted and changed a bit over time—a few new amalgams—but there’s enough similarity to some of the older restorations and a very distinctive old hairline fracture of the mid-mandible for me to say a definite match.”
She turned off the light switch and picked up a plaster replica of Earl’s skull. “Alas, poor Pode. I didn’t know him, Pete. Nor did I want to.”
The detective smiled.
“Got time for some coffee?” she asked.
“Thanks, but I’ve got to get these back to Bachman before he closes up shop.”
She nodded.
“How’s it going with your lady?” She made a face. “I don’t mean to be nosy—”
“It’s okay. I’d say it’s going…” He searched for the right word. “Well, let’s just say we have an understanding—a very nice understanding. She’s moving away to New York.”
“For
good?” Hennon asked, surprised.
“For the time being.”
“What are you going to do in the meantime?”
“I don’t know. We’ve left it open. But some chains are permanent even if they are invisible.”
He shrugged, and she broke into a warm, wide smile. “You’ve got my number. A beer with a pal doesn’t seem like a bad way to spend an evening. Give us a call sometimes.”
“I will,” said Decker.
Hennon handed him the packet of X rays. “Good luck, Pete.”
They shook hands. Hers was firm and confident.
“Peter!” the boys cried simultaneously.
He hugged them both, smiled at Rina’s parents, and looked around.
“Where’s your eema?” he asked.
“Buying some books and junk at the gift shop,” Jake answered.
The airport wasn’t busy, but their flight was going to be crowded. The area around the departure gate was full. The adjacent plane was going to Madison, Wisconsin, and the passengers were mostly blonde and blue-eyed. The travelers to New York were a salad of ethnicities—a little black, a little Italian, a little Puerto Rican, some Irish or German, several Jews including some wearing knitted yarmulkes and dressed in ordinary street clothes and others with side curls, wearing long black coats and black hats and speaking Yiddish. Decker sat down and the boys took seats on either side.
“You know any of those men?” Decker asked pointing to the black-garbed Jews.
Jacob shook his head.
“They’re Chasidim,” Sammy said. “Fanatics!”
Decker laughed, but stopped quickly when he realized the boy was serious.
“I’ve got something for you guys,” he said, reaching into a paper bag.
“What?” Jake asked.
“A couple of Go-Bots. I didn’t have time to wrap them. One’s a bad guy, the other’s a good one. You boys decide who wants who.”
“We can switch off,” Jacob said, tearing the plastic bubble over the toy. He started pulling on the die-cast metal pieces, changing the figure from a bulldozer into a pocket-sized robot.
“Excited about going?” Decker asked.
“Yeah!” Sammy exclaimed, holding his unopened toy in his hand. “I love my bubbe and zaydah.”
Decker glanced at Rina’s parents. They pretended not to hear, but the wounded look shone in their eyes.
“You have lots of relatives in New York, don’t you?” Decker said quietly.
“Tons!” said Sammy. “My abba’s two sisters live there. Tante Esther has five kids; the oldest one just turned eighteen and got her driver’s license! Tante Shayna has four kids, and my cousin Reuven and I are only two days apart.”
“And Shimon and I are only two months apart,” Jake said.
“I look exactly like Reuven,” Sammy continued. “People used to always mistake us for twins ’cause I look like my abba and he looks like Tante Shayna, and my abba and she looked alike. And you know what else?”
“What?”
“I have great-grandparents there! They are so old—like seventy-three or four.”
“That’s great,” said Decker.
“And they’re not even senile or anything.”
Decker laughed. His own parents were close to that age. “You should have a good time.”
“Eema said we’re going to go to a big school,” Jake said. “And there’ll be lots of people, so we won’t have to worry about bad guys dumping bodies and Eema being alone.”
The younger boy quieted suddenly and leaned his head on Decker’s shoulder.
“I’ll miss you, Peter. I’ll miss the horses. I don’t think they have horses in Borough Park.”
The thought of horses roaming the wilds of Brooklyn made Decker smile.
“I’ll miss you, too,” said Sammy in a small voice.
“I’ll miss you guys like anything. More than you could know. But I’m also very happy ’cause I know you’ll be having lots of fun being with your abba’s family.”
Decker hugged them and gave them each a big kiss.
“Take care of yourselves.”
They hugged and kissed him back.
“Aren’t you gonna wait for Eema?” Jake asked.
“I’ll meet her at the newsstand.” Decker got up and nodded to Rina’s parents.
“It was nice that you came down,” Mr. Elias said.
“Couldn’t let the kids leave without saying goodbye.”
Her mother looked at him, then turned away.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Elias.”
“Good-bye,” she said formally.
Decker trousled the boys’ hair and headed toward the gift shop, saddened. He knew he’d miss the boys tremendously, but at least they seemed excited about the move. It was some consolation.
He found Rina paging through a paperback with a lurid cover. She was wearing a muted pink cable-knit sweater, a full, pleated gray wool skirt, and gray suede boots. Her hair was tucked into a knitted angora tam. Her face was soft and serene even under the harsh fluorescent lighting.
He walked over to her and took the book out of her hand. She jumped.
“Peter! What are you doing here? I told you not to come!”
“I wanted to see the boys off.” He looked at the cover of the paperback. “The Jackknife Slasher-The True Account of a Woman’s Plunge into Terror. Sure you want to read this?”
She began to cry uncontrollably. Decker put the book back, escorted her out of the airport gift shop and into an isolated corner. He hugged her fiercely.
“I knew…this…would happen,” she said between sobs.
He rocked her, kissed a delicate earlobe jeweled with a single diamond stud.
“Don’t go,” he whispered.
She didn’t answer. He knew she would leave. It was best for both of them. But every condemned man can still pray for an eleventh-hour reprieve.
“I love you,” he said. “We’ll work it out if you stay.”
She still said nothing. Her tear-streaked face leaned against his shirt, looking as lost and forlorn as a wet puppy.
He sighed and gave up. “I’m a phone call away, honey,” he said. “You ring, I take the next flight out.”
She nodded and brought his mouth down to hers.
A sweet kiss.
A flight number was announced over the loudspeaker.
“That’s my flight,” she said, wiping tears off her face. “Oh my God, Peter. What am I going to do without you?”
He smiled. “You’ll do real well without me.”
Too well, he thought.
“I don’t think so,” she said, breaking away. She took a deep breath. “Walk me to the gate?”
Decker hesitated. “I’ve already said bye to the boys. I don’t think your parents are too anxious to see me again.”
“I’ll miss you terribly,” she said.
“I’ll miss you terribly, too,” he said. “You write, you hear? Or better yet, call…collect.”
“That won’t be necessary, Peter,” she answered. “I have a feeling we’re going to rack up enormous phone bills.”
“I’ll pay for them all.”
“We’ll split them down the middle,” she said.
“Liberated woman.”
“Hardly.” Her lip began to tremble.
“You know, Rina,” he said. “If I’m going to keep studying with Rabbi Schulman, I figured I should take on a Jewish name. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a great idea,” she said, breaking into a dazzling smile.
“Schulman suggested Pinchas. I guess that was as close an approximation to Peter that he could find. Then I discovered that Pinchas is Phineas in English—as in Phineas Fogg. I vetoed that one.”
“It doesn’t suit you, either,” she said. “Pinchas was a religious zealot.”
“No, that’s not me,” he said. “I like Akiva. What do you think?”
“I love it!”
The loudspeaker announced the final flight call.
The tears had come back, but that didn’t stop her. She pivoted and walked toward the gate. She had a lovely sway, a graceful step.
“I love you, Rina,” he called out.
“I love you too, Akiva,” she shouted, turning her head to look at him as she strode toward her family.
By the time Decker got back to the car, he noticed his cheeks were wet. Goddam smog, he thought, rubbing his stinging eyes. Even at night, it doesn’t leave you alone.
25
Decker revved the Porsche up to ninety and flew on the empty stretch of freeway. The speed and wind gave him an illusion of infinite freedom, youth, and immortality. It had been months since he’d last burned rubber, and after seeing Rina off, he needed to rid himself of the emotion that had swelled inside and cut loose. The abandon lasted only a few minutes; his beeper went off, and his rearview mirror reflected a cruiser flashing him its blues. Pulling the Porsche onto the shoulder, he took out his badge disgustedly, got out of the car, and handed it to the uniform. The officer examined it carefully, then handed it back to him.
“What’d you clock me at?” Decker asked.
“Ninety-two.” The officer eyed the car. “Nice set of wheels.”
“Thanks. Put her together myself from bits and pieces over the years,” said Decker. “She sure can race.”
“I’ve got a ’68 ’Vette myself. Blown and supercharged. It’s one hell of a fast motherfucker.”
“A land jet.”
“You’ve got it, Sarge.” He smiled at Decker. “Take it easy.”
“I just got beeped,” Decker said. “I’m working Homicide. Mind if I use your radio?” He gave the cop his unit number and a moment later was patched through to Foothill.
“A break?” the patrolman asked after Decker hung up.
“Not sure, but I can hope,” Decker said. He got into his car and left behind a cloud of exhaust.
Marge was waiting for him at his desk.
“What’s so urgent at…” Decker checked his watch, “11:36 P.M.?”
“Did you take your No-Doz tonight?”
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