by Smith, Julie
“It’s not me,” he said. “It’s Isaac.”
“Isaac? I need an escort to go see Isaac?”
“I think he’s got something, Skip.”
It took Skip a moment to recognize the young woman with the worried expression in Isaac’s hospital room, but close inspection revealed that it was only another version of Terri. “Hi, Terri. Nice hair.” It was short, spiky, and orange.
“Thanks, I’m trying to cheer Isaac up.”
Skip turned her attention to the patient, afraid of what she might see. But Isaac looked surprisingly like himself; his head was bandaged, but he wasn’t bruised and swollen. He had a bit of tension around the eyes, and Skip remembered what she knew about head injuries. Probably he wouldn’t be out of pain for quite awhile.
“Hey, hardhead.”
“Hey, Skip.” He gave her such a sweet smile that she couldn’t resist trying to hug him. A hug is always awkward when one party has an IV, and this was no exception. But she needed it.
“You look pretty good,” she said.
“So do you.”
“Not according to my partner here. You guys know Sergeant Abasolo?”
Terri rolled her eyes. “He’s been hanging out with us.”
“He says you’ve got something for me.” She was expecting to hear that Isaac had seen the shooter— hoping for it anyhow— but what he said was, “Daniel called.”
“Daniel? Daniel Jacomine called you?” There was a serious rift between the brothers.
Isaac’s sweet pale face scrunched a little, as if he were trying not to cry. “It was so sad to talk to him, Skip. He wanted to believe in something, and he bought into the wrong thing.”
In spades, Skip thought.
“He told me about something really bad our dad did to him…”
“When he was a kid?”
“No, uh-uh. The last night he saw him. He thought it was his fault. Errol told him he deserved it, and Daniel believed him. But…” Isaac actively fought tears. “…here’s what’s sad. He says he knows I didn’t deserve to get shot, that anyone who could do that to me…”
“But, wait. How did he know who did it?”
“He knew. Even before the story started to come out on the news— about Errol, I mean. When I talked to him first, the only thing he’d heard was that somebody tried to whack me. There was no doubt in his mind who it was.”
“Any doubt in yours?”
“No.” Isaac answered as matter-of-factly as if he were telling her the time. He’d never had illusions about his father. “But I knew why he did it. Daniel didn’t even know about Terri and the show. He didn’t know about Mr. Right or anything. He just knew, that’s all.”
Skip understood it. If she’d heard out of the clear blue that Isaac had been gunned down, she’d have known too. But for Daniel it was undoubtedly a breakthrough; she cordially hoped it was going to lead to something productive. “What did he say that you thought I’d be interested in?”
“He asked for you. He said to tell you to come see him.”
“You really think he has something to say?”
“He sounded…”
He paused so long Skip had to prompt him. “What?”
“…like a completely different person.”
When Skip and Abasolo had said their good-byes and walked down the hall to the elevator, Skip said, “You want to go with me, is that the idea?”
“I heard somewhere you were a quick study.”
They stepped into the elevator and, in keeping with elevator etiquette, remained quiet until they were alone again.
“There’s the car over there. Isn’t there a song called ‘Angola Bound’?”
“If there isn’t, there ought to be.” She headed toward the unmarked vehicle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Seeing Abasolo, Daniel was visibly disappointed. Wouldn’t even look at him. “Who’s this?”
“My good friend, Sergeant Adam Abasolo.”
Daniel turned his gaze on the other man. “I know you. You testified in some of the cases.” Meaning the Jacomine cases.
“That’s right.”
“I asked for Langdon.”
Abasolo raised an eyebrow, telling Skip it was her call. She needed him there in the worst kind of way. “Daniel, listen. If you have something important to tell me, I need a witness.”
“Come on! You don’t need a witness— what the hell for?”
“I have to tread lightly these days.”
Unexpectedly, Daniel laughed, if you could call a derisive honk a laugh. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. You’re dirty now.”
Skip winced before she could stop herself.
“Or did you get set up?”
“Yeah, I got set up.” She was aware that she was barking at him but not able to soften it. “You know anything about it?”
He shook his head. “No. But I might know who does.” He sent a sneer Abasolo’s way. “The Testosterone Kid can stay. As long as he keeps his mouth shut.”
She and Abasolo sat in the chairs the guards had provided for them. Daniel had somehow put up a mental curtain in the corner of the room occupied by Abasolo. Maybe it was something you learned to do in prison. He focused entirely on Skip, not holding back, and what she saw was an entirely new Daniel. She hadn’t seen him since his trial and had never really talked to him, only interrogated him. She remembered him as a fierce, angry fanatic, someone who wore a perpetual scowl, was probably paranoid. Some kind of crazy, at the very least. His hair was very short now; his face seemed rounder as a result. Calmer. If Skip had seen him on the street or in a bus station, she might have said he looked more confused than otherwise. In a sad sort of way. Like a child who’d had the kind of shock that makes him question everything he thought he understood. She suspected Daniel had been questioning things for quite some time.
He said, “I’m sorry I wouldn’t see you when you came up last week. Maybe I could have stopped some of this shit.”
“Did you know your father had become David Wright?”
He shook his head. “Hell, no. Sure as hell didn’t.” He sounded outraged, though Skip couldn’t tell whether his fury was directed at what his father had done or the fact that he hadn’t told Daniel about it.
“Then probably you couldn’t have helped,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Daniel fumbled in a pocket found a cigarette, lit it and stared past Skip and Abasolo into the depths of the prison. “I do know some things.”
Skip felt her stomach jump.
“How’s my father?”
Skip shrugged. “He’s still alive.”
“You know, yesterday I talked to my daughter for the first time in a year. Lovelace answered when I phoned Isaac. Started me thinking about her.” He leveled his eyes at Skip. “About why she’s alive.”
Skip nodded. She knew what he was getting at: In one sense, Lovelace was alive because of Skip. Nice of you to notice, she wanted to say. But it was no time for sarcasm.
“You know she writes me? Wrote while I was in Parish Prison, waiting for trial, on trial, all that time. Sends me Christmas cards, everything— Christ, a fucking Father’s Day card! But the cards were always mailed from New Orleans, by Isaac I presume. She never says where she’s living, or going to school, or what she’s doing; never even told me about her name change. I had to find out from the newspapers.”
In spite of Skip’s efforts, sarcasm won the day. “Maybe she doesn’t trust you. For some reason.”
Abasolo gave her what were known in the Third District as his reproachful guinea eyes, but Daniel ignored her. “Look, I know how good Isaac’s been to her, that she does talk about. And another thing. He’s my baby brother, goddammit!” He banged the table. His face had suddenly turned red, veins popping out like tunnels. The old Daniel was back, but the anger was redirected. “He can’t fucking kill my baby brother!”
“Hey. Daniel.” She spoke almost in a whisper, low and soothing. “He’s not going to be hurting anyone
anymore. And Isaac’s going to be fine. It’s over now.”
“Isaac told me to ask for you, but, fuck, any cop would have done fine. I asked for you for one reason and one reason only. I’ve seen the news. I want to know what really happened in that room. You were there; you tell me.”
“You have something for me?”
“Hell, that ain’t how it works. I’ve made up my mind. I’ve got something for you whether you talk to me or not. But my mother and my father were both in that room. Sounds like they tried to kill each other. If you’re halfway decent you’re gonna tell me.”
Skip told him, glad she could honestly say that Rosemarie had put out the lighter, finishing up with the fact that neither she nor Karen, in all likelihood, would ever be charged with any of their crimes.
“Mmm. Mmm,” Daniel said. “Serves him right. Serves him just goddamn right.”
“What do you know, Daniel?” She spoke in her give-it-up cop voice.
He put out his cigarette, lit another one. “Daddy did a little favor for my mother once. Took care of that superfluous husband for her.”
“Ah.”
“He didn’t think I knew, but I did. I put it together, anyhow. See, Bettina has a very talented friend. You know Bettina?”
“Oh, yeah. Teflon Bettina. Everybody goes to jail; not Bettina. Know her well.”
“Bettina used to brag about this guy, offer him to Daddy in case he needed somebody whacked.” He let out his derisive honk again. “’Course Daddy had his own trained assassins.” He stared at his cigarette to avoid looking at Skip. “I ought to know.” He flicked his gaze back to her face. “But some things you just can’t ask your firstborn son to do. Even if his mama needs a favor. Lobo came up in a gang outside L.A. Learned lots of stuff there, some of it kind of subtle, I’m gathering.”
“Lobo who?”
“Lobo’s all I know. Anyway, what it’s worth, I always thought Daddy got him to off Rosemarie’s husband.”
“Now what made you think that?”
He shrugged. “Besides common sense? One thing, a cash withdrawal Daddy had me make. I know he gave the cash to Bettina. And the time was right. Look.” Daniel squared his shoulders, tapped the cigarette impatiently. “Y’all pretty much broke Daddy’s whole well-oiled machine. That’s why it took him so long to come back. Soon’s I heard that Mr. Right shit, heard he was in Dallas, I knew exactly what happened. He had to play the Rosemarie card ’cause it was the second to last one he had left. But Rosemarie couldn’t fix him up with an assassin for his second and most poorly loved son— he never gave a tinker’s damn about Isaac! If she knew one, she’d have offed her own fuckin’ husband. You see where I’m goin’ with this?”
“Yeah. You think he played the Bettina card.”
Daniel wiped all expression off his face; his work was done. “Shouldn’t be that hard to find; name’s Bettina Starnes. Got a kid.”
“I think we can find her.”
“Take care of the kid, okay? He’s my little brother.”
Skip was elated. On the ride home, she was practically burbling. “I’ve always thought Bettina was our only chance.”
“But we never had probable cause,” Abasolo finished for her.
“And we still don’t,” Skip sighed. “Well, we can go talk to her. See if we can get her to give up Lobo.”
“Yeah, if we can’t find him some other way.”
“Gonna be pretty hard without more of a name.” She shrugged in frustration. “She’s our only chance. She’s stubborn as hell, but she’s got to know we got Jacomine. We can drag her in; say he ratted her out.”
“For what?”
“You name it, Bettina probably did it. She’s got a kid; he’s got to mean more to her than Lobo.”
“So you’re thinking maybe she’ll get chatty. Hope sure springs eternal.”
“We’ve got to cut Shellmire in.”
The sergeant winced. “Yeah, I guess so. But this is our operation, not the FBI’s.”
“Let’s roll first thing in the morning,” Abasolo said. “One car only, I think.”
“I’m going to be at Steve’s tonight. Shellmire knows how to get there. Why don’t I get him to meet me at Steve’s, and we’ll pick you up at your place? We can go in my car.”
She called Shellmire from Steve’s and then began concocting a vegetable pasta sauce.
Steve overheard the conversation. “Man, I hope you get something, Skip. I’m sorry for thinking you were paranoid. I mean, I knew Jacomine, but I didn’t really think…” He stopped talking, trying to figure out how to finish the sentence, but she knew perfectly well what he meant.
You could know Jacomine, think you knew what he was capable of, and yet not really know. You could underestimate him because he’d go so much farther than anyone else, was so much crazier on a grander scale. And, it seemed, had a secret source of money and power. Maybe if they got Lobo, they could get Rosemarie.
* * *
Terri had been doing a lot of thinking the last couple of days. Her mother was always saying, “You need to reevaluate your values and go to church.” She hadn’t felt the need of the latter, but she’d done a pretty thorough job of the former.
She couldn’t believe what an idiot she’d been. She flinched when she remembered she’d actually had fantasies about a murderer and con man, had stupid, adolescent doubts about whether Isaac was right for her. Especially after all the doctors and nurses and Lovelace had left them alone and he told her how much he loved her, how he realized it when he saw his father on the show, how much he regretted the doubts he’d had about her.
That part absolutely embarrassed her to tears. “Oh, Isaac, I was such a whiny little asshole then. I’m so, so sorry,” she’d wailed.
He’d sketched out his trip to Dallas for her— what he could remember of it— and she was so deeply moved she wanted to be with him forever.
She felt like a different person now; that period was behind her. One good thing was left: her desire to do something besides paint. She was still an artist; that was a given. It wasn’t about to go away. But she was going to paint differently now, maybe with more of an edge. It was a metamorphosis Isaac had gone through, after he’d given up being The White Monk, and she could feel it happening to her. But she was going to do some other work as well; she’d been given an opportunity, and she was going to grab it. She bustled into the hospital full of news.
“Isaac, guess what? The bank dropped the charges. I just had a call from my lawyer. George Pastorek’s still my lawyer! Can you believe it? After all this, he still went right ahead and worked on my problem. He said I have to pay him, though— I have to do some more TV appearances with him, tell what happened to me— and he gave me a chance to work for his consumer group this summer, to help pay my way through school. I have to go to New York, but that’s okay, it’s only for a few months.”
She was a little worried about that part, how Isaac was going to take it. She scrutinized his face; he looked like he’d lost his last friend.
“Oh, Isaac, I won’t go! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”
“It’s not that. You go. I’m happy for you.”
“What is it then?”
“My father died. It was just on CNN.”
The news hit her like a bullet. “Your father? I’m sorry. But…” She was about to say, “You didn’t love him at all,” but she stopped herself.
“I didn’t think I’d be sad, but I am; you only get one father. Terri, he never had a chance.”
She was flabbergasted. The truth was, he’d never given anyone a chance, including his two sons. “I don’t follow.”
“He could have been a good person— a normal, regular, happy person. Something happened, and he just never was; I don’t know what.”
“You mean, like something in his childhood?’
“Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe he was born the way he was. Which makes you wonder—” He left the thought unfinished, apparently unwilling to venture into philosophi
cal territory. “Terri, imagine having to live that way! Always suspicious, always afraid, always scheming, seeing enemies everywhere. Never having someone to love. God, it’s just so sad.”
Terri thought his father was the personification of evil. Isaac might be crazy, he might be in denial, but you couldn’t say he wasn’t generous. She’d never loved him more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Skip awakened to a fine May morning, with a kiss of breeze off the river and hardly a drop of humidity. She and Shellmire stopped at PJ’s for a grande to go and one for Abasolo.
Afterward, Shellmire took off his seersucker jacket and tucked it into Skip’s backseat.
“Hot day,” she said.
“But lovely, isn’t it? Too bad old Errol isn’t here to enjoy it with us. Swear to God, I miss him already.”
“Spare me the black humor, Turner.” Skip spoke more sourly than she intended.
He raised an eyebrow as she got in and started the car. “I thought you’d be in a great mood this morning.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said, and barely said a word on the drive to Mid-City. She was still trying to process the news: that her old enemy was really dead, the years of threat and fear truly over.
By the time they got Abasolo, the coffee had started to kick in. It was almost farther to the sergeant’s house than to the East itself. On the Interstate, it’s no more than seven minutes away, far, far closer than the hour’s drive to the North Shore, though the psychological distance is the length of California.
As she took the high-rise to the East, across the Industrial Canal, she listened to the men banter and noticed that, though it didn’t grate on her particularly, she still wasn’t ready to contribute. She was in the mood that had caused her mother to inquire, when she was a kid, whether she had ants in her pants. Termites, she thought. She’d dreamed about them again.
Still joking when they turned onto Bettina’s street the men missed seeing the young woman approaching her building. Skip snapped, “Hey! Something’s going down. Let’s see if that woman goes to Bettina’s apartment. I’m going to cruise by and then stop. Y’all watch her.”
