Blackbird

by A. J. Gentile

  "Alejandro Garcia?" Zeke asked him.

  "Yeah. Please call me Alex."

  "It was a good thing you called me, Alex. Things seem . . . serious," Zeke said, failing to sound reassuring.

  "You must be pretty good, you were one of the first attorneys to pop up when I looked for a defense lawyer in Google."

  "I know . . . things," Zeke said. He had paid a student at CalTech $500 bucks to fix up his law firm’s website. She had mentioned something about exploiting Google's search algorithm before Zeke’s eyes glazed over. The student seemed like an overqualified wiz kid but needed the cash. "So . . . do you want to tell me what happened?"

  "Someone is dead, apparently—"

  "Right, the police gave me the basics."

  "You talked with them?"

  "We shared words . . . yes," Zeke replied, eager to display a modicum of competence. "I'm aware that Francesca Cahill was murdered, during a house party, with a knife. A big knife, I guess . . ." he said, thinking about how wise it was to be sitting within stabbing distance of a possible murderer.

  "Francesca Cahill? Wow, I'm screwed. My parents are going to kill me." Alex's eyes started watering.

  "Look, can you tell me where you fit into all of this? Everything you say to me is confidential, of course." Zeke was uncertain if attorney-client privilege extended to 3am discussions in coffee shops.

  "Look . . . I'm eighteen. I live in Boyle Heights with my parents and two sisters. I'm in an automotive repair program at L.A. Trade-Tech, and I work as a waiter for a catering company part-time. I only leave East L.A. when I'm doing catering gigs or going to school. I've never been west of Downtown by myself."

  "So, you were working at the house party?"

  "Right. Usually I ride in the catering van, but my classes ran late today, so I took my motorcycle. I parked between two cars just outside of the house, went inside, and changed in the hallway leading to the kitchen."

  "Seems normal so far—"

  "It was, until I started drink service. My boss assigned me to the living room. I'm just supposed to walk around with a tray of champagne, white, and red wine. I pick up empty glasses, get news ones in the kitchen, and repeat. Easy enough, until I spilled an entire tray of bubbly on Francesca Cahill."

  "Smooth."

  Alex sighed. "Today was a long day, even before . . . everything . . . and my uniform didn't fit really well. I turned a corner to the living room and we ran right into each other. Thankfully the floor is dark tile, but Cahill was absolutely soaked."

  "So . . . you killed her?"

  "Jesus, dude, what the hell?"

  "Sorry, but I had to ask."

  "No. I didn't touch her. I mean . . . I started to spot clean her dress, but she flipped out."

  "What did she say?"

  "She screamed and started crying, started calling me names, said I was an incompetent loser. She told me I would never work as a waiter again. It was humiliating, and it felt like everyone in the house had a front row seat to my public whipping."

  "What happened next?"

  "My boss pulled me off drink service, obviously. He was livid, wanted to send me home. But my dad does his yard work, it’s how I got this job. He's knows my situation, and I've never messed up this bad at work before. So, I changed my shirt in a spare bedroom and put my keys and dirty clothes in a hallway closet. My boss stuck me on dish duty in the kitchen. Things were fine after that. A few hours later, when we were packing up our vans, we heard some commotion in the back yard. The cops showed up immediately. Before I knew it, the police were on my case about what I was doing at the party."

  "What did you tell them?"

  "Same thing I told you. I wasn't involved. The big guy, Salter, kept implying that I killed her out of revenge. That she had offended my machismo. It was disgusting."

  "Yeah, he's a real people person."

  "They told me to stick by the police cars while they huddled in front of the house. After I hung up with you, they told me I could leave, but that I shouldn't go too far. Salter said he would hunt me down if I tried to flee to Mexico. Prick. My coworker gave me a ride down the hill."

  "You're free though, so that's exciting."

  "Do you have advice or anything? How do we fight this?" Alex said.

  "At this point there isn't much we can do. You haven't been arrested and nothing you told the cops points toward guilt. You're simply a victim of happenstance."

  "Happenstance?"

  "Yeah, I'd say you're in the clear."

  "And what about my motorcycle?"

  "What about it?"

  "Well, the cops said I could go. But they impounded my motorcycle as evidence. Something about it being close enough to the house that they wanted to take a look at it."

  "That's . . . weird . . . but probably just normal procedure."

  Alex sat in silence, not sure if he should be more worried about the police or his lawyer's lackadaisical attitude. "So, how much are your services going to cost me?"

  "Look. I'm going to level with you here. You would be the first criminal case I've ever worked on. But I don't see much work here for me to do. Let's just call tonight a freebie, and let me know if the cops give you any more problems in the future.

  ". . . and my bike?" Alex said, agitated.

  "Sure. I'll call the police station tomorrow to see if we can get it sorted out."

  "Okay then. Hey, can I get a ride back to East L.A.?"

  "Hmm . . . how about I call you an Uber?" Zeke said.

  "Ok, thanks."

  Zeke paid the bill and they walked outside to wait for Alex's car. Zeke couldn't help but feel as if he had dodged a bullet. A murder case? He had worked on a few misdemeanors and felonies when he was an intern in law school, but this would've been like playing in the Super Bowl. Thankfully, Alex was just a witness. He was a harmless eighteen-year-old kid. Tonight was solid practice, he thought to himself.

  "Thanks for your help," Alex said, as his Uber driver pulled up to the diner.

  "No problem. I'll be in contact tomorrow about your motorcycle. Have a good night."

  Alex closed the door and the Uber pulled out of the lot. Zeke pulled out his phone and texted Matty, "we have to talk in the morning. Meet me at the office at nine o'clock sharp."

  February 6th, 2:15am

  ". . . I'll be passing them your badge number, detective," Victor said as he walked toward his limousine. This is getting out of control. He slammed the car door shut. "Take me to VMK," he barked at the driver.

  Victor's film production company, VMK Productions, had its headquarters in West Hollywood, bisecting L.A.'s film studios in Burbank and its enclave of wealth in Bel Air. It was perfect for his enterprise. He had easy access to the studios his business needed just over the hill. He could funnel drugs to addicted entertainment executives and desperate actors on their doorsteps. As far as L.A.'s drug trade went, Victor owned the Westside. "This will have to be rectified, of course," Victor said to the shadowy figure towards the front the cab.

  "I'll have my guys start looking for him tonight," the man said.

  "We don't even know where he lives?"

  "Eddie ran a tight ship. Only met in public place. It's fine. We'll find him."

  "Not too soon, we'll have to wait a few days, until things with the cops cool off. Connor, you'll have to approach this carefully. I won't have any more blowback," Victor said, with the control of four-star general.

  "Sure, boss. I'll handle everything myself," Connor replied.

  "What exactly did that little shit-stain Eddie say?"

  "Around midnight, Eddie showed up at the front-door. He wanted into the party to have a chat with you, concerning the business in East L.A."

  "Piece of shit." Victor regretted getting into business out there since it started. Eddie Martinez was one of Victor's small-time distributors operating south of Downtown. He’d approached Victor a year ago about expanding sales into East L.A., on the other side of the river. Eddie had grown up there and was conf
ident he could set up a network and make some “serious cash.”

  Victor had agreed to it, always eager to grow the business, but things weren't so simple out there. The business in Downtown Los Angeles was spoken for by Victor's competition, and once Victor started selling near their turf in East L.A., things got crowded. A couple of Eddie's dealers had disappeared. Even worse, Eddie's clients weren't reliable. It simply wasn't cost efficient. Victor had ended it in a few short months and took away the rest of Eddie's business too.

  "What'd you do?" Victor asked.

  "Told him to bounce," Connor said, "but he was pissed. He lifted his shirt, brandished a handgun concealed in his waistline. Said you would regret it if you didn't see things his way."

  Goddamn it, Victor thought.

  Victor had grown up in the San Fernando Valley, a suburban enclave north of Los Angeles. Separated from the likes of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Downtown by the Santa Monica mountains, 'the Valley' had developed something of an inferiority complex with respect to Los Angeles proper. Most of its families were staunchly middle-class. Every morning, Victor thought to himself, parents would drop off their children at one of LAUSD's notoriously underfunded public schools and make the long, horribly congested commute into the city. And so it was with Victor's family, too.

  The son of an administrative assistant and air conditioning repairman, Victor was familiar with the serviceable but altogether boring life of suburban strip malls, chain restaurants, and cookie-cutter houses. His only moment of escape was when his family took trips to the Griffith Observatory. Sitting on a south-facing slope on Mount Hollywood, from the observatory Victor could see all the way to the coast, and every mile of the city in between. To the west, he had a clear line-of-sight to the Hollywood sign. On the family’s ride back to the Valley, Victor reinforced his determination to one day live in the city, not a second-rate version of it. His childhood brain only knew one way to get him there: show business. Movies, television, and taking trips to Universal Studios and Disneyland had taught him that there was no business like show business.

  He participated in high school drama. Took improvisation classes at the local youth center. He worked his way up to starring roles in local youth productions of major Broadway hits.

  But, despite his best hopes, Victor never hit it big. His transition into adulthood meant he was competing with more actors for fewer roles and most of the acting schools in the city were snake-oil salesmen. Truthfully, most of Hollywood's big-name actors came from old money or had parents that had already hit it big in entertainment. After years of working backbreaking food service jobs in the Valley and commuting across the 101 or down the 405 for auditions, Victor was broke and had nothing to show for it.

  He first became aware of the L.A. drug scene at auditions such as these. Actors and actresses were a permanently depressed people, and self-medicated in order to make it through the thousands of rejections they received. Victor, who had never used even a pinch of the stuff, saw a business opportunity. A high school classmate of his had moved to Tijuana after college, just across the US-Mexican border from San Diego, and had mentioned the cheap pharmaceuticals he could get. Victor arranged to distribute his classmate's product in Los Angeles, and the rest was history. Victor was able to finance his own film company, VMK Productions.

  His film and drug businesses had always interacted throughout the years. If he couldn't be in other people's movies, he would make his own. It turned out, though, that he could also sell drugs to the enormous network he had developed on the film side. The businesses were complimentary.

  "How did it end?" Victor asked.

  "He said that we would hear from him, and he walked down the street," Connor said.

  "So . . . how the fuck did he get into the party?"

  "Not sure. It was just me at the door tonight. Could've hopped a fence or gone through the side with the wait staff."

  I'm running the biggest operation on this side of L.A. and I can't even get good security. "So why the hell didn't you hire somebody else?"

  "Victor, you have these parties twice a month. Nothing has ever happened. I figured it was just another night."

  "Double my security. Triple it, actually. What's the deal with the cops?" Victor asked, frustrated.

  "They don't know anything. They think it’s the waiter, from earlier tonight. Revenge killing, heat of passion or something."

  Poor fucker. Cahill had flipped a shit when a waiter spilled a full tray of wine on her earlier in the night. She ripped him a new one in front of the whole party. "That's lucky."

  "They don't know anything about Eddie, no way of finding out either."

  Good. Eddie had been the one that discovered Cahill. She was in college and working as a waitress at the time, living from paycheck to paycheck along with thousands of other wannabe actors. Eddie had been selling to her friends for a while and noticed she had above-average looks. He brought her to Victor, and the rest was history. A billion-dollar film franchise and a few indies later, Cahill was a star. Her death was a huge blow to Victor's bottom line. Eddie knew exactly what he was doing when he killed her. "Fine, just deal with it. Quietly."

  "Done," Connor said, smiling.

  Chapter 2

  February 7th, 9:00am

  Zeke was fiddling around with a new marketing project the next morning when Matty strolled into Zeke's Downtown L.A. office. He was renting a one-room office for his firm—Blackbird and Associates—from a shared workspace company Downtown, just across from the Stanley Mosk courthouse. Zeke liked it for the convenience and sense of community with other entrepreneurs. Matty liked it for the hipster coffee.

  "What's up, boss?" Matty said, jokingly.

  "Hilarious. Please, just 'Zeke' is fine."

  "Oh good. I couldn't actually keep that up for too long. So, how was your night?"

  "Eventful. A kid called me up for some on-the-scene counseling. That big thing up in Hollywood, did you hear about it?"

  "The Francesca Cahill murder? Holy crap. Yeah, it was all over the news this morning. You were there?”

  "Not until it was over. Cops questioned the kid, Alex, for an hour or—"

  "What was a kid doing at a Hollywood house party?"

  "Just let me finish. As I was saying, he was there as a waiter, hired by a catering company. He lives somewhere in East L.A. Boyle Heights, I think."

  "Great bars out there, very hip right now. Kind of a rough neighborhood though."

  Zeke paused to show is annoyance. "Anyways, apparently he spilled some drinks on Cahill during the party and caused a scene. She called him names, really did a number on him."

  "So, he killed her."

  "That's what I said. He's claiming innocence though, and I believe him. He's no bigger than me, and only eighteen. I don't think he has it in him."

  "Ok, so what did the cops want with him?"

  "The detective on the case is a piece of work. Phillip Salter. I ran into a few cops like him when I interned at the Public Defender's office. He doesn't like defense attorneys."

  "Who does? Slimy bastards."

  "Yeah, well, that's what turned me off from criminal defense too. The DA hates your guts. The judge thinks you're a cheater for getting clients off on a technicality. The victim and her family look at you like you're a monster. Worst of all, your client thinks you're another cog in the wheel keeping them in-and-out of jail."

  "Tell me how you really feel, though, Zeke," Matty said, laughing.

  "Look, I'm trying to attract a higher caliber clientele. Maybe do business litigation for a few small fish at first, and then catch a few big—"

  "How's that working out for you?"

  "I'm in the business development phase, Matty. There's a lot of moving pieces at a new firm. Incorporating, marketing, setting up the trust account." Zeke was considering using targeted online ads to attract corporate clients. The type of clients that he actually wanted. If he could get a couple of big companies, the white-shoe firms wouldn't be able
to ignore him.

  "What are you doing?" Zeke stared at Matty has he started swiping Tinder profiles.

  "I'm lonely Zeke, I deserve someone too, you know. You're blubbering on about how hard it is to be a lawyer for goodness sake. How about dressing like one?" Matty said, gesturing to Zeke's slacks and sneakers.

  "This . . . is . . . my brand. I deliver legal advice and look cool while doing it."

  "That's fine if your only client is your Dad," Matty said while Zeke groaned, "but if you want to hit it big, you need to dress the part.”

  "You have a man-bun and wear suspenders," Zeke said as he rolled his eyes.

  "Yeah, and as the 'and Associates' of Blackbird and Associates, that's perfectly fine. So how did you leave things with Alex?"

  “The police cut him loose after questioning him. I chatted with him for a bit afterwards. He was shaken up, but I think he'll get over it. I told him there was nothing to worry about."

  ". . . and that was it?" Matty asked as he matched with a particularly attractive lady nearby.

  "Pretty much. The cops impounded his motorcycle as evidence, apparently. So, I called him an Uber."

  "That seems, not legal, right? I mean, they didn't have enough to arrest him, how could they just take his motorcycle?"

  Zeke hadn't really thought about it too much, being eager to get home last night. Matty had a point. "I told Alex I would call the cops later today to ask about his bike, maybe I'll look into. Not sure how much time I want to invest in this."

  "As far as I can tell, this is the only case you have. Maybe you should make the most of it," Matty said.