by Michael Nava
“The important thing is not how you get the job, but how well you do it,” I replied. “If people want to think I got the job as a token, let them. I’ll prove them wrong.”
Cohan said, “I’m sure you will. This interview’s a formality. Next week, the governor will be announcing a dozen judicial appointments. You’ll be one of them.” He stood up and extended a slender pale hand. “Congratulations, Judge Rios.”
“Thank you,” I said, shaking his hand. “Tell the governor I won’t ever give him reason to regret this.”
Cohan raised an eyebrow. “Actually, Henry, I’m thinking you’ll be a pain in the ass. Go for it.”
Inez’s office was as lavish as Cohan’s had been austere, and as far from the governor’s chambers as she could get and still remain in the building. Her office was circular, with high ceilings and marble columns flanking tall, narrow windows with blue velvet drapes. The walls were painted a soft yellow, the parquet floors were covered with massive Oriental carpets and fighter jets could have landed on her desk. She was wearing a red linen suit over a white silk blouse, and I reflected that with each electoral success she became better-looking. I had just finished telling her about the interview with Cohan.
“Congratulations,” she said. “You deserve the job.”
“That doesn’t seem to be why I got it, but thanks. This is all your doing.”
She lit a cigarette. “On those mornings when I need help looking myself in the mirror, I’ll remember that I made you a judge.”
“I hope you don’t have those mornings very often, Inez.”
She waved away her smoke. “That’s what I love about you, Henry. Your innocence. In the little Mexican village where you and I would have lived a hundred years ago, you would have been the priest.”
“And what would you have been?”
“Someone’s wife,” she said. “The mother of his thirteen children. Instead, I’m raising millions of dollars to get myself elected to the Senate. I’m going to make it, too.”
“I know you are.”
She waved her cigarette. “Unless these kill me first. You do a good job in superior court, and when I get to the Senate, I’ll put you up for the federal bench.”
“There are no known gay federal judges.”
“There ain’t no lady Mexican senators, either,” she said. “You got to get over letting other people tell you what you can be.”
“Check,” I said. “You’ve stuck by me for twenty years, Inez. I’ve never been exactly sure why.”
“You’re my conscience,” she said. “Plus, I fell in love with you the first time we met. At that public defenders’ conference in Monterey, remember? You were everything I wanted in a man. Smart, brave, good-looking, Latin.”
“And gay.”
She shrugged. “I won’t tell you how many hours I cried over that. Well, I was only twenty-four. I got over my broken heart, but you never forget the first boy you love. Right?”
I smiled. “Right.”
“Speaking of boys, are you still dating that guy you told me about? John?”
“Yeah.”
“When do I get to meet him?”
“Next time you come down to L.A., if you have time.”
“Hey, if he’s half what you tell me he is, I’ll make the time.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Seriously, Henry. I’m happy you’ve found someone.” She looked at her watch. “I have a meeting. I’ll call you.”
I got up. “Thanks again, Inez. I won’t let you down.”
“I’m holding you to that,” she said.
My plane out of Sacramento was delayed, so I used the time to make some calls. The first was to Kim Pearsall. Two days earlier, Butch Trujillo had been arrested for armed robbery and attempted murder at a convenience store. He had been captured on tape shooting the clerk, who had just emptied the cash register and the safe. Pearsall wanted to tack Pete’s murder onto the charges. I had had a long talk with Vicky the night before and was calling him to give him her answer. He wasn’t going to like it. She was still afraid of Butch, and she worried that if she testified against him, his gang-banger friends would go after her or Angel.
“Back in July, you told Judge Ryan that Vicky would testify if Butch was in custody,” he said.
“I know what I said, but I didn’t expect he would be stupid enough to get himself arrested so soon. I mean, Vicky’s just now getting her life together again. No one in his family knows where she’s living or where she’s working, and she doesn’t want them to find out. If she testifies, they’ll know she’s still in L.A.”
“You want him to get away with murder?”
“The robbery’s dead-bang, right?”
“Yeah, we have him on video. The clerk survived and he’s already made an ID, and this time we got the gun. A three-eighty, in case you’re interested. Probably the same one he used to kill your dude.”
“He’s a three-striker. You convict him of the robbery and he’s going away for life. It wouldn’t matter if you charged him with the Lindbergh kidnapping.”
“The Lindbergh kidnapping? What’s that?”
“Never mind. The bottom line is that Vicky won’t testify.”
“I could make her.”
“You could get her on the stand, you can’t make her talk.”
“Damn it, Henry, we had a deal.”
“The safety of my family is more important,” I replied, then relented. “Look, Kim, convict him, put him away for life, and then we’ll talk again. Maybe I could persuade her to testify at that point.”
“I’m holding you to that,” he said.
“You’re the second person today who’s said that to me.”
“I got priority,” he replied, and hung up.
I thought about my niece on the plane back to L.A. She and Angel were living in an apartment about ten minutes’ walk from my house, and she had gone back to work as a maid at the downtown Sheraton. Both Elena and I had tried to persuade her to go back to school, get her GED and train for a real career, but she claimed to be happy cleaning rooms in a hotel. Often she worked double shifts, and when she did, I picked Angel up from school and brought him to my house. Vicky had also thrown herself into Reverend Ortega’s church, and while Angel would go to services, he resisted her attempts to get him involved in the youth group or prayer meetings or Bible class because it cut into his school studies. This was a source of friction between them—for which, I knew, she blamed me. Fortunately, Reverend Ortega assured her that Angel could be a good student and a good Christian. I suspected the second part of the formulation was wishful thinking on the Reverend’s part, but I was in no hurry for that fight and was relieved that Angel still uncomplainingly went to church. Between my niece and me, there remained some unbridgeable gap of temperament. She put up with me for Angel’s sake and I put up with her for Elena’s because the two of them had become closer. I know they spoke by phone every day, and Elena and her partner, Joanne Stole, usually came down once a month. We had tense little dinners, just like a real family. Still, it had been Vicky’s decision, after Jesusita Trujillo died, to cut off her ties with Pete’s family and throw in her lot with the Rioses. For Angel’s sake, of course; it seemed that our entire little family revolved around the boy.
At least Vicky liked John, but then, everyone liked John. Accustomed as I had been to the endless dramatics of my life with Josh, filled with hidden meanings and misunderstanding, it was a great relief to be with someone who was pretty much what he appeared to be. When I had mentioned this to him, he had laughed and told me that I was complicated enough for both of us. Actually, though, the older I get, the simpler things seem to me. Where once I would have spent hours wondering about the meaning of life and my place in it, now I am more apt to wonder what to give Angel for dinner. A much smaller question, to be sure, but one to which there is at least a concrete answer.
I came into my house and heard the TV going.
I called out, “Have you done your homework?”
> “I’m doing it,” Angel said.
I came into the living room and found him with his math book opened in his lap while he watched a playoff game between the Giants and the Braves.
“I can see that. Who’s winning?”
“Giants, eight to six. I’ll do my math when the game is over. Mom’s working night shift so I’m staying over, okay?”
“What do you want for dinner?”
“Pizza. Is John coming over?”
“Not tonight.”
He glanced at me. “How come you and John don’t live together? Then he’d be here all the time.”
“We probably will someday, but for now we each have reasons to have separate houses. How was school?”
“Ssh. The game’s starting. I’ll tell you after. Sit down and watch, okay?”
I took off my coat and tie, kicked off my shoes and sat down beside him. I draped my arm around his shoulder and he scooted up against me. Barry Bonds came to the plate, and on a full count sent a ball sailing over the wall at Pac Bell Park and into San Francisco Bay. Angel, cheering for the California team even if it wasn’t the Dodgers, hooted happily.
“That’s going to be me someday, Uncle Henry,” he said excitedly.
“I know,” I replied. “And I’ll be in the stands cheering.”
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK BRINGS TO an end this series of mysteries and my career as a mystery writer. In past books, I have thanked the many people who have helped me. Again I thank my agent, Charlotte Sheedy; my editor, Neil Nyren; my trusted colleagues, Katherine V. Forrest, Paul Reidinger, Robert Dawidoff; and all the other people who have helped bring these books to print over the years. In the writing of this particular book, I am also indebted to my dear friend Dr. Rod Hayward, for explaining to me the clinical aspects of myocardial infractions, and to Greg Wolff, who was kind enough to share his personal experience of recovery from an M.I. It also seems appropriate to give thanks to my readers, who, by your support, have created a place for these books in the tumultuous literary marketplace.
Michael Nava
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2001 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.
cover design by Angela Goddard
978-1-4532-9775-9
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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