Bluebird Rising

by John Decure

  I still couldn’t get my breath back as I swung about-face, but too late—another blunt shot thumped the base of my neck, and I spun and lost my balance. Falling, I saw Albert’s terrified face twenty feet away, his black eyes lit up. The guy who’d popped me twice from behind was moving in, dancing around me, the fool. Tilting hard, I hit the pavement, and rolled to avoid a kick coming at my head. “Kurt! Oh my God!” The girl’s screams again. Pain throbbed like a brass gong clanging in my ears and I heard a police siren scream.

  The black-and-white splashed through a huge rain puddle and skidded to a halt, tires smoking. Two uniforms jumped out, their billy clubs ready, but no one was ready to fight back. The surfer I’d kicked in the chest remained flat on his ass, gasping as he stared up into an even paler ocean of blue. Fat Boy’s face was a mess. He’d bitten his tongue when I clocked him and was spitting up blood, his eyes glazed. The recipient of my knee to the face was on all fours, inspecting the asphalt like it was an archaeological find. I wish I could say I was just standing there, buffing my nails on my Superman tights and cape, but it wasn’t exactly like that. My head was too clouded to find my feet just yet, so I stayed down on one knee and worked on my breathing.

  The cops rousted everyone against the van.

  “Cool out, you idiots!” an angry voice barked. “Hands along the van, palms out! Legs spread! Hey, stupid, I said against the van, did I tell you to turn around? Do not turn around!”

  There was some grunting and groping among the ones I had injured to find their feet. I wobbled gingerly into place.

  “We could arrest every last one of you pricks right now for disturbing the peace, and don’t even think about trying us, ’cause we will if even one of you starts mouthing off.”

  Nobody did.

  “Shepard?” a softer voice said. I turned around. The Latino cop from last night. Officer Terraza.

  “Morning, Officer,” I said agreeably, a note of apology in my tone. “Pulling a double shift, I see.”

  He started to speak, then frowned. I’d probably guessed right. “That’s none of your business. What happened here, Shepard?”

  My neck was throbbing and it hurt to move my jaw. I’d broken a knuckle and my forearm still vibrated up to the elbow from the greeting I’d laid on the roly-poly guy. My knee ached right where I’d high-stepped the longhair in the face. My right ear was like a ball of flame. But I had some explaining to do.

  “This was my fault. My future brother-in-law, Albert here, was attacked in the water. I wanted to know who did it. You can see why.”

  The cops turned and spotted Albert, took in his flat Mongolian features, his blood-encrusted nostrils and fat lip.

  “You did that to him?” Terraza asked the surfers along the van, agitated. They all denied it. Vehemently, spitting at the pavement. Listening to them protest, an ugly notion seized me. I’d come storming in based on a single sideways stare-down. Nothing any of them had said to me actually implicated them in Albert’s beating.

  Five feet away, three clear surfboards lay in a pile. The foam blank of a new clear surfboard tends to sparkle like Miss America’s teeth, but these sticks were soft yellow in places, waterlogged beneath the fiberglass. Dimpled with pressure dings. The board on top had a logo from a shaper named Mr. Zag. Nobody I’d ever heard of, this Mr. Zag, certainly not a well-known area board builder. Surfboards are like guns: make, model, and caliber are very noticeable to those in the know. This crap was strictly second-rate.

  The local crew would not be keen on embracing these characters, had probably given them a thousand subtle signals that their kind wasn’t wanted around here. That’s never been my thing, but then again, I tend to move around town like it’s my own backyard. The beach, too.

  Shit. These guys could have been merely defending themselves. Well, too bad the big one used the word retard, I rationalized. His mistake.

  “Take off, Mr. Shepard,” Officer Terraza told me, nodding but keeping it stern. I took my cue, went back to Albert and scooped up the boards. “Gentlemen,” I heard the cop say to the others as we walked past the van, “this is a small town, a nice place. If you think you can come down here and …” Lecturing them. My status as a local resident had bought me a free pass this time. It wasn’t exactly fair, but then, neither is life.

  “Did you see the guy?” I asked Albert. “Look at them. Do any of them—”

  “I du-dunno, J.!” Albert said, still sobbing. Watching a punch-out probably hadn’t done much for his already rattled state. “I’m sorry, J., I’m s-s-sorry!”

  “It’s okay, man,” I tried to reassure him, my mind unable to process what had gone down in the five short minutes since I’d ridden a wave to shore and walked up the sand to find Albert. I stood beside him, an absent touch to my stinging ear resulting in a mess of bloody fingers. Then I wiped my hand on my black wetsuit, Albert’s eyes tugging at me, the latest betrayer of his trust, from behind.

  The sun was high in the winter sky now, the air so crisp and temperate as to make a mockery of the morning’s chaos. Twenty miles offshore, Santa Catalina-Island lurked behind a gauzy strip of brown air. That clunky old Deep Purple riff came to mind. Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky. I always hated that song.

  We walked up the parking ramp toward the town, and home, Albert silently beseeching me to make things better. But words failed me.

  “It’s all right,” I said at last.

  Like hell.

  Carmen came suitably unglued at the sight of us and took the news of Albert’s beating like a body blow. She assumed my banged-up state resulted from a spirited defense of Albert, and I wasn’t inclined to tell her I actually might have jumped the wrong guys. Not yet, at least.

  Rudy and Dale were in the kitchen. Every last cereal box in the house was laid out on the maple dinette table near the window, Rudy reading ingredients and manufacturer come-ons like a radio announcer on speed.

  “Alzheimer’s, I’m guessing,” Carmen quietly told me. “Probably in its onset.”

  “You sound like you know firsthand,” I said.

  Carmen leaned closer as we stood together in the doorway, watching them. “I had this relative once. Uncle Victor. Technical writer for Hughes Aircraft, former Airborne Division infantryman in World War II, survived D day and something like a yearlong march through German ground forces.”

  “Impressive.”

  “Rock solid. Used to visit the house almost daily. Then it happened.”

  “Wheat starch, sugar, salt, calcium carbonate …” Rudy read on.

  Carmen smiled at Rudy. “Uncle Vic had the same sudden childlike regressions,” she said, “the odd eccentricities surfacing as his lucidity slipped away. A rapid disintegration. One day he’s helping me research a book report on the state of infant care in Third World African nations, the next, he’s wandering his neighborhood block, knocking on doors to ask directions to his own home.”

  “That’s harsh,” I said.

  “Yeah, harsh.”

  Sure, Rudy would have to see a specialist for a diagnosis before we knew for certain, but I had no reason to doubt Carmen’s speculation.

  Carmen took me to the bathroom and cleaned up my ear.

  “The guy at the shop called,” she said.

  “Mick?”

  “No. Some other guy. With an accent. The car is ready.”

  I pulled away. “Hey,” Carmen said. “I wasn’t finished.”

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  “That’s not what I meant.” She put the damp washrag she’d been using on the bathroom counter. “I wanted to talk to you. About today. What happened.”

  “Listen, Car,” I said hastily, “I think we’ve been over it enough, don’t you?”

  She folded her arms. “I’m worried.”

  “This thing was an aberration, a freak,” I said. “Albert never should have gotten punched. I’m going to find out who—”

  “You misunderstand. Of course I’m upset, who wouldn’t be? It was horrible.”
She looked away, studying the bloodstained washrag in the sink. “But the way you handled it, the way you respond to these kinds of things. The violence.”

  I’d heard it before. Carmen is something of a pacifist. I am not. I’ve never seen the point in arguing.

  “I did what I had to do,” I said. “I’m not apologizing for it.”

  Her arms remained folded. “I didn’t ask you to.”

  A little later I told Dale he and Rudy could drop me at Mickey Conlin’s garage, then follow me to the Glendale PD. Dale looked like he hadn’t slept much, kept rubbing his hair back on his scalp as if it was a smudge he couldn’t clean off.

  “Bye, sweetie,” I said to Carmen, stealing a glance at the liquor bottles while I hugged her close. The cabinet looked undisturbed.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Carmen said, “someone from work named Ellen, or maybe Hortense, called just before you came back. Rather curt and fast-talking. Hard to even get her name.”

  Ellen or maybe Hortense. I frowned.

  “Eloise Horton.”

  “I think so.”

  “My manager.”

  She probably was unhappy about something—a late filing, my failure to attend a staff meeting. I nodded. At the bar, management is constantly cooking up reasons to meet, taking us away from the real work. Protecting their hustle. I told Carmen I’d deal with Eloise later, but her feeling was that, judging from their conversation, this situation couldn’t wait. I trusted Carmen’s perception, put down my briefcase and called Eloise, told her about my car and that I was on my way in. Eloise wanted me in her office, soon as I got there. Wouldn’t say why, but I figured it was the usual management shakedown. Filings, filings, filings.

  Dale fidgeted with his hands at the dining table.

  “Just relax here awhile longer,” I told him. “I’ll call you later.”

  “What about Glendale PD today?” he said.

  “That’ll have to wait.”

  I thought I saw Dale stare right at the bottle of Jack Daniels as I headed out.

  Mick was not in the shop when I picked up my car.

  “He came by a little while ago,” Tord the grease-monkey poet told me. “Surfboard on the roof of that sixty-nine Mustang fastback he keeps in the garage at home. Said he’d be in before noon.” He grinned as if he and I shared a secret, but only he knew what it was. “Looked very, very happy.”

  “Let’s square this away,” I said, checkbook in hand.

  Tord noticed the bruises on my neck and bandage on my ear. “Heard about a bad scene down at the pier. Two guys in the hospital. The Sirens, they come right by here going down Main.” He pointed a hand, outlining the route.

  “Interesting.”

  I didn’t say I was involved but he seemed to figure it out on his own.

  “Yaah. Interesting.”

  I paid for the repairs and got the hell out of there.

  Eloise was in her office when I got to work, and I went straight there, dumping my briefcase just outside her door before knocking lightly.

  “Shepard, where the hell were you this morning?” she said through the back of her head. Mesmerized by a bunch of numbers on her computer screen.

  “Morning, boss. I’m fine, thanks. How are you?”

  She swiveled toward me in her black leather captain’s chair. She was in another one of her black pantsuits, tight fitting, with a crème–colored silk blouse, her dark eyes burning. Those legs looking long as stilts.

  “It’s afternoon, and don’t get smart with me, Shepard. We had a unit meeting. You missed it.”

  “My car broke down. I told you that yesterday, remember?”

  “You could have taken the Blue Line.”

  “I did. Yesterday. But today I didn’t have an extra two hours to sit on that thing. I had to pick up my car.”

  “You missed an important meeting.”

  “I didn’t know you were having one.”

  “That’s because you weren’t here yesterday afternoon when I announced it. Honey Chavez says you left early. Without my knowledge or permission, of course.”

  “I was doing a little investigation on a case,” I said matter-offactly, as if that would say enough. With Eloise, keeping your calm and keeping her in the dark are equally important.

  “And what case is that?”

  “A case involving UPL.” I made a face like I was grasping at a name. “New case. What’s it called … um, Conlin.” Thanks, Mick.

  I was betting she wouldn’t take a minute to check the case name, and she didn’t. What, and miss a prime opportunity to kick a board up my butt? No, Eloise Horton wouldn’t wait for that. “I see. You know That is what we have investigators for, or have you forgotten?” she snapped, her arms folded. Like a schoolmarm.

  This was getting old. Mea culpa time had come. “Sorry I missed the meeting,” I said with a little feeling. “And you’re right, I should have used an investigator. But I’m a little like you that way.” That perked her eyebrows. “You know, I just wanted the job done right.” The classic brownnosing compliment.

  Eloise gazed out the window of her corner office. Down below, the Santa Monica Freeway snaked west in the pale sunlight. “I may not have a lot of courtroom experience, you know.”

  Try none at all, I wanted to say.

  “But I do care about a job well done.”

  “Sure, doing it right,” I said, commiserating. “It’s what you’re about.” Judas Priest, if flies could land on bullshit words, this office would be swarming like an outhouse right now. But Eloise was digging it.

  “You’re a good lawyer, Shepard.” Running those long fingers back over her short Afro, massaging her temple. Sighing. “Just keep me in the loop. I don’t need any extra headaches.”

  Right. As if that caseload of zero was making her reach for the Excedrin. I managed a tight little smile and went back to my office.

  Honey Chavez was heading to lunch with five or six other legal secretaries, her m’ijas. A close bunch known around here as the Mexican Mafia. She looked particularly nice today in red cashmere and matching lipstick, a tiny wrapped gift coming out of her purse for friendly inspection by the girls. Somebody’s birthday today.

  I briefly told Honey about my car. “Surf’s up again, huh?” she wisecracked, handing me my phone message slips.

  Why fight it? Honey knew the deal. I just stood there smiling as the ladies enjoyed a nice chuckle at my expense, I glanced at my messages. One was from a detective with Glendale PD, a guy named Tamango Perry. In by 3 P.M., could see me then. Shit, I’d have to figure out an excuse for bailing early from work again.

  “Make sure you see Eloise before you go to lunch, she’s looking for you,” Honey said over her shoulder, the girls making their exit. I was about to say Eloise had found me, but Honey added, “She won’t be here this afternoon.”

  Oh, really. “What’s she doing?”

  “Dental appointment,” Honey said with a tiny wink. She knew I did things my own way, and she was good enough to slip me whatever inside information she had on Eloise’s goings on.

  “Thanks. You ladies have fun.”

  Problem solved.

  I flexed my fingers to wave, but my broken knuckle wouldn’t work. Then I rubbed my hand until the burning sensation dissipated, thinking maybe the day was salvageable after all. Eloise was cool for now. I hadn’t even eaten yet, and a bite at that Salvadoran place around the corner would be excellent. Big plate of the beef stew with rice. After lunch, I’d stop in on Therese Rozypal and see about Bobby Silver’s reinstatement trial on Monday.

  I pulled that day’s Times from my briefcase and snapped the case shut, sliding it under my desk. Looking up, I saw the judge’s decision sitting in my in-box: In the Matter of the State Bar of California v. Eugene Podette. Nervous, sweaty little Eugene Podette, the good Christian flimflammer, Von Trapp family jack-off. Christ, that was fast. I flipped through Judge Renaldo’s analysis, saw all the right factual and legal findings, laid out exactly as I’d do
ne it at trial. Good work, Your Honor. Disbarment, right? Had to be—had to be. Then, on the final page, the order of a thirty-day suspension with probation. I read it again: thirty-day suspension. The words hitting me harder than anything I’d absorbed that morning in the pier parking lot.

  I sat down at my desk, flexing my fingers, too angry to give a damn about the pain.

  Eight

  Therese Rozypal was on the phone in her office, twisting the long white cord through her fingers as she waved me in. She looked smart and prosecutorial in a charcoal pinstriped dress suit, sitting there, telling some defense attorney that she didn’t care where else he had to be that day, the matter had been calendared months ago, so no way would she stipulate to a third continuance. Damn, I thought, how many times have I heard that one?

  “Then make a motion, sir,” she hissed into the phone. “No, I never said that. I don’t owe you anything of the sort.” Rolling her blue eyes at me. “I take that as a threat. Do not threaten me.”

  I didn’t really know Therese, because she was a recent hire, but I liked the way she sounded just now. Nobody’s pushover.

  Waiting, I studied the only two photos mounted on her desk. Both were pretty interesting. One was a picture of Therese in a red Santa’s helper hat, gorgeous furry white sweater, perfect teeth flashing, cheek to cheek with a glassy-eyed tiger-striped cat wearing the same kind of hat. Cute. No boyfriend—then again, maybe he was the photographer. Therese struck me as too good-looking to be unattached.