The Innocents

by Richard Barre

  Instead of talking, they listened to Christmas carols on the car radio. Julio fought it, but his head was against the rest when Wil finally parked the rental in front of the big white house. The boy stretched and yawned, then they were squishing wet leaves up the pebbled walk.

  Ignacio Reyes answered the bell. Man and boy shared a handshake, then Reyes asked in Spanish if Julio would like to use the pool while he and Mr. Hardesty talked. Julio’s eyes lit up, but he glanced at Wil before accepting. Marta found him a suit and Wil a fresh bandage for his cut, then Reyes closed the office doors.

  It took an hour to explain.

  “There is still the matter of Julio,” Wil said after he’d finished. It hung there in the silence until Wil wasn’t sure if Reyes had heard. Reyes finished his coffee and walked to the window; for a minute he watched the boy dive and climb out, shake off and dive again. Little waves threw sunlight around the patio and into the quiet room.

  “What will happen to him?” Reyes said, his eyes fixed outside.

  “Quién sabe.” Wil said.

  The old man sighed and turned from the glass. “What you are thinking is impossible.”

  “Like all this, not so long ago.” Wil rubbed day-old beard. “You’re right, I’m sure. But it occurred to me you had more restaurants than sons. And a pool that never splashed.” His eyes felt grainy with fatigue. “We’ll be leaving now,” he said. “I’ll send you an accounting.”

  Reyes turned back to the window. “What will you do with him?”

  “Keep him with us, I suppose. Until his immigration hearings.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said. “No promises. Now, what about your wife?”

  Wil told him about the operation.

  “Send me the bill,” Reyes said; then, after a pause, “and leave the boy with me while you take care of her. Papa Gomez is respected at the INS. Standing up for him is the least I can do.”

  A smile started that Wil was too tired to finish. “You’ll let me know when you want me there?”

  “Of course.”

  Wil’s hand was on the knob when Reyes stopped him. “One thing I have thought about, Mr. Hardesty. I want Benito.”

  “I understand. So far, you’re unknown to the police,” Wil said. “You’re aware of what it may mean to come forward?”

  “I want my son.”

  “Then I’ll find out about it and have a man call. Lieutenant Epstein.”

  Ignacio Reyes stood straight and nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Another name, a good man.” Wil found Montoya’s card in his wallet and handed it to Reyes. “He’ll show you the grave should you wish. Gilberto asked about it once.”

  Julio followed him out to the car, got in, eyed him solemnly from the passenger seat as Wil explained that he’d be staying with Reyes for a while.

  “What will happen to me?” he asked, biting his lip.

  “Good things,” Wil said. “Already you’ve made three friends. You can take the train up to visit us. Go surfing, have fun. We have a room where you can sleep. A boy’s room.”

  Julio’s eyes dropped. “I see things. Señor’s face in the water and the air coming out of him. Will they go away?”

  “Yes. Maybe not right away, but in time. How soon depends on what you let in. Look at me, Julio. People are grateful for what you did. It seems to me that one of them should be you.”

  The boy thought a second, then nodded.

  “Thank you for my life,” Wil said.

  Julio got out and shut the door; one hand rose in a quiet wave as Wil made a U-turn and drove away. Through a gust of Chinese elm leaves, Wil could see him following the car with his eyes.

  He caught the freeway to Pasadena, made good time in the thinned-out Monday commuter traffic. The hospital was the same one he’d received treatment in after going down on the Harley. He parked in the near-full lot, checked in at the nurses station, walked past the Christmas cards standing at attention on the counter. He figured he had a half-hour with Lisa before she was due in the operating room.

  She was sitting up in bed reading a magazine. She had a shiner under one eye and her right hand was swathed in white; she was turning pages with her left. As he held it, he told her about St. Boniface, what Donna Pacheco had sounded like, about Father Martin, Jennette, Julio, and Ignacio Reyes. Then the doctor came in. After a short briefing on the anesthetic she’d be getting, an attendant wheeled her down the hall.

  Wil went downstairs to the gift shop, bought flowers for her room, then stamps and an envelope into which he slipped a check for a thousand dollars, addressing it to 542 Hibiscus Place. He then wrote a second check for the remaining bonus—his Zavala money from Reyes—wrapped a thank-you note to Raeann Rodriguez around it, and put both envelopes in the mail drop.

  Four hours later, he was awakened by a touch on the arm. As the waiting room came into focus, he saw the doctor, still in his greens, mask hanging down.

  “First of all, Mr. Hardesty, your wife is fine,” he said. “Despite some splintering of the bone, I think we can expect only minor inhibition of the range of movement in those fingers.”

  Something else. Or was it him, his groggy state—sinus pressure he always got sleeping around air conditioning? “If she’s okay, Doc, then why the look?”

  The doctor regarded him, then cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, she miscarried in surgery. We stopped the bleeding, but it’s a good thing it happened here.”

  Wil had a sensation like the room tilting, of freon pumping in his veins. “Miscarried—”

  “While we were closing up.” Seeing Wil’s expression, the doctor added, “I’m very sorry. It’s apparent you didn’t know about the pregnancy.”

  Late sun bounced off the stainless-steel cover on the untouched food they’d brought him, then faded from the wall, the ceiling, and finally the window glass. Wil stared out at the headlights coming on, traffic filling the lanes in waves generated by signals up the street. The mountains behind Altadena were deeply shadowed under a last splash of pink light at the top. Sterile air hissed softly from the vents.

  Approximately two months old, the fetus had been—a boy, the doctor revealed when pressed. Telling him also that Lisa had been given two units of blood and would be weak for a while but projected to go home tomorrow if she passed inspection. Follow-up, medication, etc., could be discussed then. Get some sleep, he suggested; with the sedation she might be out awhile.

  “Wil—” The sound of her voice broke into snap-click thoughts ranging from Devin in life and death, to his mother and father, to all the things he’d do differently if he could, the self-serving, self-pitying ass he’d been to any and everybody, especially Lisa. To almost losing her, then this. Sadness like a spasm in the soul; guilt that he hadn’t been man enough for her to tell him the truth.

  He went to her, kissed her, held the straw for her, watched her as though he’d never seen her drink before.

  “Feel so weak…” she said, her eyes filling up. “So sorry. I was going to tell you…”

  A peppery feeling spread out from back in his throat and threatened to engulf him. “It’s okay, Leese. Just be okay. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “My fault. I wanted another one so badly. Another us.”

  “You still want that, partner?”

  “Takes two…Not the way I did it.”

  She was drifting now; he squeezed her hand. “I know, Leese,” he said. “That I do know.”

  She smiled at him and her eyes closed, and she mumbled something about tomorrow he didn’t quite catch. Then she was asleep, her breathing steady, and suddenly his heart felt buoyed, as filled with light as the moon beginning to show through the swaying eucalyptus trees out beyond his reflection.

  Back to TOC

  Here's a preview from Clutching at Straws, the second Jake Diamond mystery by J.L. Abramo.

  One

  Lefty Wright slipped the rusty blade of his trusty paint scraper between the frame and sill of the kitchen window and
finessed the latch open. He slowly raised the window, squeezed through, and shimmied like an alligator across the sink. When his palms reached the linoleum he went into a perfect handstand, which he would have held longer if not for the sore rib. He gracefully and silently tumbled into an upright position. Once inside the house he stood motionless for a full minute, infinitely patient, listening.

  Lefty had found the two bundles of cash exactly where he had been promised they would be. Five thousand dollars in twenties and fifties under a flat stone on the ground below the window. A down payment. He had stuffed the cash into his inside coat pockets before entering the house.

  Known as a top-notch second-story man by his peers, and a two-time loser by the courts, Lefty had been relegated to ground-floor entries since falling from a dry-rotted cedar balcony a few weeks earlier. He favored his right side as he moved quietly through the kitchen and into the dining area. Always the pragmatist, he decided to go directly up to the bedroom, knowing that was where he would find what he’d come for. He could quickly inventory the street-level rooms on his way out.

  Lefty had been watching the place on and off since Saturday morning, noting the stuffed mailbox and the newspapers on the lawn. He hadn’t seen a light come on or go off in the residence, and nothing seemed changed when he arrived now, just before ten on Sunday night. He had planned to arrive earlier but consoled himself with the fact that the tree-lined street was deserted at this hour. He had been assured that the sole occupant of the large home was not due back until late Monday evening. Lefty Wright was not one to be overconfident, but he couldn’t help feeling that the odds that he was alone in the house were very good.

  He pulled out his penlight, slid the tiny beam toward his feet, and moved slowly toward the carpeted staircase. Halfway up the stairs, he stopped and stood motionless again, listening.

  After a silent count to sixty he continued up, a broad smile occupying the entire lower half of his face.

  For the next thirty minutes, the house would belong to Lefty Wright.

  At the landing, Lefty slipped off his Doc Martens and introduced his thick wool socks to the plush wool carpet. The bedroom door was open and he slipped into the room. The painting was directly ahead of him on the wall above the chest of drawers, where he had been told it would be.

  The painting, an original by one of the lesser French impressionists, was fairly valuable itself. But artwork was nearly impossible to fence, and Lefty Wright was more interested in what he expected to find behind the painting.

  He removed the painting, leaned it against the foot of the dresser, and looked at the safe. There was nothing safe about it. He had cracked tougher boxes when he was eighteen. He placed his ear close to the tumbler and began rotating the dial.

  Twenty seconds later he was in.

  The safe was unusually bare. A pair of diamond-studded monogrammed cuff links and a small collection of coins, neither of which interested Lefty. A heavy, nondescript gold chain and a Smith and Wesson chrome-plated .38-caliber snub-nose revolver, which he couldn’t resist. They went into the right front pocket of his coat. And the gray metal document box.

  He removed the metal box and placed it lightly on the top of the chest of drawers. It was legal sized and approximately nine inches deep. He pushed the small latch and the box popped open. He quickly went through the papers and found the nine-by-twelve-inch envelope he had been told to look for. He laid the envelope on the dresser top, closed the metal box, and returned it to the safe.

  Lefty had been instructed to leave the envelope on top of the dresser, for which he would earn himself an additional ten thousand dollars. As he reached down to his feet to pick up the painting, he made up his mind to improvise, in the event that he would be compelled to bargain for the balance of his payment.

  He pushed the safe door closed, but did not spin the dial to lock it.

  Lefty pulled out his Swiss Army knife and removed two of the staples that held the paper backing to the wooden picture frame. He lifted the envelope off the dresser and slid it between the backing of the painting and the canvas. Then he rehung the painting.

  As he was about to leave the room he caught sight of the Rolex lying on the floor at the opposite side of the bed.

  Lefty had a weakness for fine timepieces.

  He crossed to the far side of the bed, and his foot struck an object on the floor. He glanced down to his feet and gasped.

  Suddenly there were beacons of light streaming into the room from the street, accompanied by a harsh siren. Lefty had stumbled upon the head of a man whose contiguous anatomy lay under the large bed, and the instantaneous commotion from below had Lefty believing for a wild moment that the head had been rigged to some bizarre sort of silent burglar alarm.

  Twenty minutes later Lefty Wright was handcuffed in the back-seat of a San Francisco Police Department cruiser on his way to the Vallejo Street Police Station.

  Two hours later Lefty Wright was booked for murder and locked behind bars.

  He had been stripped of his most prized article of outer clothing, a tan knee-length London Fog slicker, along with its contents, five thousand dollars in legal tender, a chrome-plated pistol, a gold chain, a dime store penlight, a Swiss Army knife, and a rusty paint scraper.

  His shoes had been left at the scene.

  Lefty’s adamant demands for a telephone call and a Pedro’s Burrito Supreme went unheeded. He eventually assumed as comfortable a body position on the jail cell mattress as possible. When he woke to discover that he had actually slept through the night, it was his sole pleasant surprise.

  After which he was rudely subjected to another interview session with two detectives, who differed only in theory from two detectives who had grilled him the night before and paid even less attention to his pleas of innocence. Then Lefty was at last allowed to make his constitutionally guaranteed phone call.

  He called me.

  Two

  Autumn in San Francisco.

  Late September, early October is my favorite time of the year in San Francisco. In terms of weather, September is the mildest month. Most of the tourists are gone and that is a great blessing. In July and August they’re as thick as Buddy Holly’s eyeglasses. The kids are back where they belong, the nine-week challenge of trying to find a single square inch of ground not infested by swarms of loud and reckless adolescents is finally over. Unless you’re insane enough to venture anywhere near a school. I can hardly imagine a better place to be in early fall.

  Though I admit, I’ll take Paris in the springtime.

  I had recently made it past my fortieth birthday fairly intact and I was possibly involved in a budding romance with my ex-wife. As I headed to the office on the first Monday in October, I was feeling pretty cozy.

  I remembered in the nick of time that Darlene wouldn’t be back at her post until the following morning.

  Darlene Roman is my right hand; I can barely tie my shoes without her. She runs the office. Her boyfriend is L. L. Bruno, a defensive lineman for the 49ers. Darlene had taken off to Colorado for the weekend to watch San Francisco lose to the Denver Broncos. She had decided to stay the extra night to help pump up Lawrence Lionel for the upcoming game against Oakland.

  I was fairly certain I could squeak through one day without her, but I wasn’t about to venture into an empty office with no coffee waiting. I stopped at Molinari’s Deli on Columbus Avenue for a couple of large cups to carry up. My office sat two flights above the deli, and on a warm day when the wind was just right I could identify the daily lunch special from my desk chair.

  “Buon giorno, Angelo,” I said, using one of the few acceptable Italian expressions I had learned from my grandfather, “let me have two large black coffees.”

  “How’s the elbow, Jake?”

  I had taken a hard line drive to the elbow while playing first base in a softball game the weekend before. The ball was caught on the fly off my elbow by the second baseman. I was credited with an assist.

  “It only
hurts when I do this,” I said, lifting my arm over my head.

  “So, don’t do that,” Angelo said, trying to sound like Henny Youngman.

  He sounded more like Walter Brennan.

  “Did you hear about Judge Chancellor?” Angelo Verdi asked as he poured.

  “He take another bribe on a parking ticket case?” I asked.

  J. Andrew Chancellor was the most noted criminal courts’ justice in northern California, if not in the entire state.

  “He took a six-inch kitchen knife in the chest,” said Angelo.

  “I hope whoever stabbed him wasn’t aiming for the heart, since he doesn’t have one,” I said. “Is he going to live?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “The story is he had just arrived home from a weekend at his cabin near Mill Valley and bumped into a house thief. Can you believe that, the judge killed without premeditation? That’ll wind up in Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”

  “They catch the thief?” I asked.

  “Right there in Chancellor’s bedroom. The ‘Good Morning San Francisco’ news guy said that the perp was trying to stuff the judge’s body under the bed when the heat showed up.”

  “How did the cops get there so fast?” I asked. “They must have had a week’s notice.”

  “At least a week,” Angelo said. “Lucky break though. Their list of suspects would have been longer than their log of unsolved cases. You’re probably relieved that you won’t have to tell the police where you were last night.”