Rag and Bone

by Michael Nava

“Tired. I smell breakfast.”

  He and Angel sat down with me to a pile of scorched pancakes made palatable only by mounds of butter and rivers of syrup.

  “I burned them,” Angel said in a teary voice.

  “Hey, you gotta burn your first batch,” John said. “It’s like an initiation. Next time you make them, they’ll be perfect.”

  I swallowed a bit of batter that was simultaneously charred and undercooked. “They’re still better than anything I could cook.”

  Angel looked back and forth between us. “Does John live here now?”

  “No,” I said. “He just happened to be staying here last night.”

  I watched him working something out and waited for the next question, but he turned his attention to his food and ate as if famished.

  “I brought you some clothes from the motel,” I said.

  He looked up sharply. “How come? When’s my mom coming to get me?”

  “Angel,” I said, as gently as I could. “Do you understand your father is dead?”

  He froze. “I saw him on the floor,” he said. “His head had a big hole in it.”

  “Did you see what happened?” I asked him.

  He looked at me, tears splattering his burned pancakes, and then tossed his fork to the ground and began to wail.

  When we finally calmed him down, he collapsed in a heap on the couch and fell asleep.

  John glanced at his watch. “I gotta get to work, Henry.”

  “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.”

  He grinned. “You would’ve managed okay. Listen, you mind if I hang on to your shirt? I’ll bring it back later?”

  “Yeah, sure. Keep it.”

  He got up, went into the bedroom for a moment, then came out carrying his shoes. He sat down again, slipped them on and tied the laces tight.

  “You know what’s funny, Henry,” he said. “I don’t even feel hung-over.” He glanced at Angel. “Man, this shit is for real.” He looked at me. “What’s gonna happen?”

  “I have to talk to Vicky. In the room it looked like she shot him while he was attacking her. If that’s how it went down, I can argue she acted in self-defense and maybe get her off completely. At worst, I should be able to deal her down to manslaughter. She could do anywhere from three to eleven years. It all depends on what happened in that room. I won’t know until I get the police reports.”

  As I was explaining this to him, I realized that I had just signed on to defend my niece.

  He nodded. “Will Angel live with you if she goes to jail?”

  “He’s got two grandmothers who have a better claim on him than me.”

  He stood up. “He’d be better off with you.”

  “John, I don’t know the first thing about kids.”

  “He needs a man in his life. I’d help you.”

  “I don’t know, John,” I said.

  His sad eyes caught mine. “You worried I’m gonna flake?”

  “No, that’s not it. All I’m saying is that you and I are in the first stages of something that I really want to work out but—look, it’s like you said last night. You didn’t want this thing between us to become about your drinking. I don’t want it to become about my family. They’re my responsibility.”

  “You don’t have to take the weight alone,” he said.

  “Are you really ready to carry part of it? I’m not sure you know me well enough to get mixed up in this. Especially after last night.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re not a flake, so I know you’re going to want to resolve your situation with Deanna.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. See, you wouldn’t know that unless you were the kind of man who took care of business himself. But you take on too much by yourself. You got to let the people who love you help you out.”

  I was so tired I didn’t understand at first what he was saying. “That reminds me I need to call Elena.”

  He stood up. “Other people love you too, man.” He brushed my cheek with his lips. “I won’t come over later unless you need me, but I’ll give you a call. Okay?”

  Then I understood. “John, thank you.”

  He grinned. “Later, man.”

  After he left, I called my sister to break the news. After a long, stunned silence, she said, “Where is Angel?”

  “He’s here with me. He’s all right, Elena. He was the one who called me last night.”

  “Have you talked to Vicky?”

  “No, not yet. They took her to the hospital—”

  “The hospital? What did he do to her?”

  “He beat her up pretty badly and the cops had to take her in for treatment before they could book her. I just called again. She’s at the Hollywood police station. I’m going to go see her as soon as we finish talking.”

  “I’ll come tonight.”

  “Why don’t you wait a day or so and let me figure out what the options are? Come down for the arraignment.”

  “Do you have any idea what will happen?”

  I launched into my litany. “If she shot him in self-defense, I might be able to persuade the D.A. not to file charges. Even if they do, it won’t be worse than second-degree and I’m pretty sure I can deal them down. Prosecutors don’t like going to trial on these kinds of cases.”

  “If he was beating her, of course it was self-defense,” Elena said.

  “Self-defense has a technical meaning in the law that’s different from its common-sense definition. It has to be proportional, and blowing away someone who’s hitting you is generally considered excessive.”

  She digested this for a moment, then said, “If she has to go jail for any period of time, I want Angel to live with Joanne and me.”

  “He does have another grandmother, Elena, and her claim is equal to yours.”

  “Henry, have you told her what happened?”

  “She may already have heard from the police, but I’ll phone her when we finish.”

  “Call me as soon as you get back from seeing Vicky. Take care of Angel.”

  “I will,” I said.

  I tried Jesusita Trujillo but reached her answering machine. Not knowing what she had been told, I simply asked her to call me about an urgent matter involving her son and Vicky and left my cell phone number.

  When I emerged from my office, Angel was awake. I sat down beside him and asked, “How are you feeling?”

  He shrugged. “Where’s John?”

  “John had to go to work. Listen, Angel, I’m going to go see your mother.”

  “Can I come?” he asked eagerly.

  “I need to see her alone first,” I said, “but depending on how she’s doing, you can either see her tonight or tomorrow. I have to leave you here alone for a while, but I’ll give you the number to my cell phone, and if you get nervous or upset, you can call me.”

  “Why can’t I see my mom?”

  He was a breath away from hysterics so I answered as calmly as I could. “Angel, I’m not just your mother’s uncle now, I’m her lawyer, too. Do you know what a lawyer is?”

  “Yeah, he defends people.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “I’m going to defend your mother, and so I need some time alone with her to talk about what happened last night and how I can help her.”

  “She don’t want your help.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “She said you think you’re better than us.”

  I said, “Your mom and I got off to a bad start, but we’re family and I’m going to do everything I can for both of you.” I stood up. “I’ve called both your grandmothers. Elena will be here in a couple of days. I left a message for your grandmother Jesusita. I have to go. Look, I found the book I gave you at the motel. You can read it while I’m gone.”

  “Can I watch TV instead?”

  I tossed him the remote. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He switched on the TV
and his eyes went blank.

  I took one look at my niece in the holding cell, turned to the deputy sheriff and demanded, “Why isn’t she still in the hospital?”

  He shrugged. “They released her. You want to see her or not?”

  “Of course I do.”

  He unlocked the cell door. Vicky was lying on a metal bed cushioned with a thin foam mattress, covered with a gray wool blanket. The right side of her face was so swollen that her eye was closed. Her head had been shaved above the ear to reveal a zigzag of stitches. Her breath was loud and raspy. I pulled a chair up to her bed and reached for her hand. Even it was bruised.

  “Vicky,” I said.

  She turned her face painfully until she could see me. “Uncle Henry,” she wheezed. “Do you know where Angel is?”

  “He’s at my house,” I said. “He’s okay. He called me last night from a gas station across the street from the motel. They were putting you in the ambulance by the time I got there.”

  She pulled her hand away. “I want my mom to take care of him.”

  “I’ll tell her,” I said. “She’ll be flying down day after tomorrow.”

  With effort, she shook her head. “No. Jesusita.”

  She said it with no particular emphasis, which made it all the harder to hear, and I dreaded having to relay this message to my sister.

  “All right, Vicky. I called Jesusita earlier, and as soon as she calls me back, I’ll ask her. I’m ready to represent you as your lawyer, but only if you want me to. Do you?”

  Her assent was a passive, “Yes, Uncle Henry.”

  “Can you tell me what happened last night?”

  “I killed Pete,” she said.

  I waited for an explanation, but none came.

  “Was he beating you?”

  “He was high,” she said. “He didn’t know what he was doing.”

  “Where did the gun come from?”

  “For protection. Pete bought it.”

  “Protection? Who was he protecting himself against?”

  “Pete knew bad people,” she said. “Drug dealers. Gangbangers.”

  “What were you doing in that motel in the first place?”

  “Waiting,” she said.

  “Waiting for what?”

  Her head lolled back and forth. “I’m tired now, Uncle Henry. When can I see Angel?”

  “I’ll bring him tomorrow,” I said. “Listen, Vicky, try to remember what happened last night.”

  “I already told the police.”

  “You told them you shot him?”

  “I had to tell the truth,” she replied. “That’s what Jesus would do.”

  “What else did you tell the police?”

  “That he was smoking crack again and he was hitting me. I told them I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted him to stop.”

  “When did you talk to the police?”

  “When they brought me here this morning.”

  They would have taped her statement. “I don’t want you to talk to them again unless I’m with you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Uncle Henry.”

  I got up. “You rest. I’ll make sure they give you proper treatment and I’ll be back tomorrow morning with Angel.”

  A tear rolled down her swollen cheek. “Don’t let anything happen to him.”

  Worse than this? I wondered. I said, “I promise you I won’t.”

  12.

  I LEFT THE STATION and sat in my car reading the arrest report. The only surprise was that the cops had not recovered the murder weapon. I thought Angel had told me he had seen the gun, but it had been a long, traumatic day and I may have misheard him. There was, as yet, no autopsy report and nothing on ballistics except that the slugs the cops had dug out of the wall came from a .380 semiautomatic. Pete Trujillo must really have pissed off someone to require that kind of serious firepower for protection. Otherwise, the report was perfunctory. As far as the cops were concerned, the case was open and shut. I liked cases the cops thought were dead-bang because they didn’t work them as hard, and my clients tended to profit from the neglect.

  I heard the first bars of “La Cucaracha” played on a car horn and looked up. A roach coach had pulled up in front of the police station, where a crowd of cops and DWP workers was already waiting for the truck. It was just now noon. I had been up most of the last twelve hours and the world had taken on the shimmer of unreality produced by extreme fatigue. A transvestite in a yellow wig and red hot-pants tottered by on spike heels, deep in conversation with a balding, middle-age man in lawyerly pinstripes. Three cholos passed by dressed in baggy pants and flannel shirts, each with the same tattoo emblazoned on his neck, one of them pausing to maddog me. A young policeman stood in front of the station smoking a cigarette and lazily watching the girls emptying out of the nearby office buildings without making any attempt to hide the hard-on that tented his trousers. This is my life, I thought, these are the people among whom I have spent it, prostitutes, tattooed boys with dead eyes, and horny cops. Usually I could separate myself from the milieu in which I plied my trade, but this time, to quote the slogan of innumerable action films, it was personal. My niece had belonged to this world of the terminally damaged and now it seemed that world had engulfed her. I wanted desperately to rescue her, and not simply because I had promised Elena. Maybe I was beginning to master the paradox of family—loving without liking. Irritably, I tossed the arrest report on the passenger seat and headed off to see the D.A. to plead for Vicky’s life.

  “Anthony Earl,” I said.

  Tony Earl looked up at me from behind his battered desk in the sweltering cubicle reserved for the head of filing in the small suite of rooms comprised by the D.A.’s satellite office in Hollywood. The furniture told the story: This was a dead-end assignment for any D.A. For Tony Earl, who had, until the last election, been the big D.A.’s number-two man and anointed successor, the fall was particularly steep. Earl had been a man in a hurry, and after a series of botched high-profile prosecutions weakened the incumbent, Tony had smelled blood in the water and announced his candidacy. The D.A. was a Sicilian with a rich wife, and he fought back with one of the dirtiest and most expensive campaigns in L.A.’s history. Tony Earl had movie-star looks, a nimble mind and a preacher’s eloquence. He had also had the politician’s requisite rags-to-respectability story—raised in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, he now wore two-thousand-dollar suits as though to the manor born. He was also black, and he fell victim to the silent racial civil war going on in post-Rodney King, post-O.J. Simpson L.A. One of the battlegrounds was the polling booth, where whites voted in greater and more consistent numbers than any of the city’s other major ethnic groups.

  The D.A. ran for reelection on the slogan, “A District Attorney for All Los Angeles.” In white neighborhoods, he distributed campaign brochures featuring a picture of Tony Earl at a black bar association meeting, ostensibly to criticize Earl for being too chummy with the criminal defense bar, but the real point was that sea of black faces. City law required Earl to take a leave of absence from the D.A.’s office to run his campaign. The D.A. parceled out his duties to two deputies, a Latino and an Asian, and won in return endorsements from the Latino and Asian bar associations. Earl was squeezed in the vise of race: If he ignored the D.A.’s barely submerged race-baiting, it would doom him, but if he complained about it, he would be the one blamed by white voters for making race an issue. He complained, bitterly, and went down in the kind of decisive defeat that ends a political career.

  “Mr. Rios,” he replied. “Still buying your suits off the rack, I see.”

  He had removed his coat, revealing sweat-stained armpits and a pair of maroon suspenders. His handsome face was a bit fuller than it had been ten years ago when we had squared off in a capital case. That trial had gone on for two months before the jury finally sent my client to Pelican Bay for the rest of his life. In the courtroom, Earl was the model of prosecutorial rectitude; outside, he was profoundly cynical—hi
s nickname for the LAPD was “the Aryan Brotherhood.” He fought hard and dirty, but I had the distinct sense he was motivated less by a concern for justice than for his career. On the other hand, he was so good that when he finished his closing argument, even I was ready to send my client to the gas chamber. That I persuaded the jury to give him life instead was one of those examples of why justice is like sausage-making, a process best not examined too closely. Years later, as I stood in my polling booth, I remembered that summation and, realizing what a tough and effective D.A. Tony would make, cast my vote for his incompetent opponent.

  “So this is what happened to you,” I said, sitting down in a metal chair. “Why is it so hot in here?”

  “Brand-new building,” he said. “’Course the air-conditioning system is fucked up. Go ahead, take off that wrinkled-ass sports coat. Unless it’s covering a mustard stain on your shirt.”

  “Who are you, Mr. Blackwell?”

  “That’s funny, Rios, on so many levels. I haven’t seen you in a long time. Thought you were dead.”

  “Not yet. I don’t do much trial work anymore. I’m more into appeals.” I laid my niece’s arrest report on his desk. “But I do have this case I came to talk to you about.”

  He picked up the report and flipped through it. I remembered from our trial together that he was a speed reader with near-perfect retention.

  He tossed it back at me. “Why are you bringing me this low-life shit?”

  “Because your name is on the door, Tony. You’re the D.A. who decides what gets filed. Plus, the suspect is my niece.”

  He leaned back in his chair and played with his tie, a pale lavender silk number that went perfectly with the French blue shirt and the darker suspenders. “Yeah, well, all that proves is that you should choose your relatives more carefully. What do you want?”

  “Reject it for filing,” I said. “He was a wife-beater, she snapped. Plus, the cops did a crap job that’s not going to look good if I get to cross-examine them. They didn’t even find the weapon.”

  “Dream on, baby,” he said. “All I need for what’s left of my career is to start cutting deals like that. Anyway, she copped to it, Rios. Pretty stupid of her, but I’ll assume she didn’t have the benefit of your wise counsel.”