Pound for Pound

by F. X. Toole

  That left him with nothing. He was speeding along the beaches and rocky retaining walls north of Ventura when he started retching. He pulled onto the weedy shoulder of the freeway and threw up.

  By the time Dan got up to Santa María, he’d pulled over three more times to vomit, but by Solvang he had the dry heaves and only tears, bile, and snot came out of him.

  At Pismo Beach, he said, “Fuck Canada.”

  It was well past dark when he got back to Malibu, and twenty minutes later he headed for the Santa Monica Pier and the merry-go-round. He watched kids and moms, and lowered his head so they wouldn’t see what was going on in his eyes. He wanted a drink. He wanted twenty drinks. Instead, he chose a fish shack, thinking that he could keep down a broiled fish dinner with steamed potatoes. He ordered halibut, his favorite, but when it was served, his appetite vanished. He paid the check, left the table, and went to a nearby bar. He drank too quickly and he drank too much. He became rude and loud and got himself eighty-sixed. In the parking lot he kicked the left-rear white sidewall of the Caddy. He stopped at a store for a quart of milk and a package of Mother’s cookies. He chugged half, then spewed all of it back up. Between spasms, he remembered something about the women who’d come for the little gang bitch who killed Tim Pat. But he promptly forgot them as the dry heaves doubled him over again.

  He got home sick but almost sober and pulled into his driveway. He backed out immediately. He would never be able to sleep at home again. He didn’t want to check into a flophouse or dirty-underwear motel, so he drove to the parking structure of the Los Angeles airport and slept in the car.

  The next day, he ate cold cereal and cottage cheese and cantaloupe in an airport hotel coffee shop. From the phone booth near the shoe-shine stand, he telephoned the Hollywood division of the LAPD, which was located on Wilcox and De Longpre. The phone was answered by a woman who identified herself as Officer Carneros. Dan explained that he was calling to request a police report.

  “What kind of report?”

  Dan gave the details of Tim Pat’s death, and asked if he could stop by in an hour to pick up a copy of the report. The officer informed him that cases like Tim Pat’s were automatically processed by the West Traffic division of the Wilshire area regional facility, located on Venice and La Brea.

  Dan said, “But this happened on Wilcox, only two miles down from you.”

  “I know, but West Traffic handles all traffic-related homicides,” the lady cop said.

  Homicide, Dan thought, yeah, the cops call these things by their rightful names.

  Officer Carneros added, “But give it at least a week before you make your request.”

  Time. How could he speed up the sunrise, how could he shove down the sun? Each night, late, he pulled the Caddy into the shop and slept in the car, used the shop toilet, but would leave before the crew arrived. He didn’t shave or brush his teeth. He knew he was gamy, but didn’t care. He began to wear a Dodgers cap and dark glasses, and only kept in touch with Earl by phone. Sometimes he’d drive all day, choosing to poke along the old streets of as many Mexican communities as he could think of, hate in his head. Riding under the front seat was the 12 gauge that he’d taken from the shop. The shotgun was a holdover that Earl had brought in during the Rodney King riots. Dan knew how to load the gun, to aim it, and to shoot it. He knew where the safety was. As far as he was concerned, that was enough. Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. Perfect aim wasn’t what shotguns were about.

  Somehow he always managed to turn around and find his way back to the shop.

  Dan telephoned West Traffic a week after Tim Pat was killed, sure that the police had already nailed the little bitch, sure that justice would be done. It wouldn’t bring Tim Pat back, but at least there would be a consequence for a homicide. He wondered how they’d charge her. Assault with a deadly weapon? Could a van be a deadly weapon? Vehicular manslaughter?

  An Officer Singleton answered Dan’s call. He listened patiently, then told Dan that the report was not yet available.

  “But since there was a fatality, what you might need to do is contact Detective Rall Nájera on this.” In saying “Rall,” Singleton had used the Anglicized pronunciation of Raúl. “But when the report’s ready, you can order it here at the desk.”

  “Right,” said Dan. “So if she’s not already busted, she will be, right?”

  “Was she driving under the influence, or speeding, or both?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Reckless driving? Did they arrest her at the scene?”

  “No. Uh, I don’t really know. I remember some Mexican women, is all.”

  “I see,” said Singleton. “Are you sure the investigating officers didn’t arrest the driver?”

  “Not that I saw. To tell you the truth, I don’t recall.” Dan didn’t add that the police had handcuffed him and placed him in the back of a patrol car once Earl had pulled him off Lupe. Nor did he mention that the police, sympathetic to his grief, cut him loose. He assumed that Earl had said he’d be responsible for getting Dan off the street.

  Dan said, “How much longer before I can get the report?”

  “Give it a few more days.”

  Dan said, “We’re talkin right and wrong here, aren’t we, Officer?”

  Dan waited another day, but then couldn’t wait any longer. He showed up at West Traffic on four days in a row before the report was available. Dan paid the fee, expecting to get the report at that time, but Officer Singleton, a big black man with a creased face, told him the report would be mailed to him in about a week.

  “Has the driver been arrested, or what?”

  Singleton checked the computer. “It looks like this was determined an accident.”

  Dan exploded. “Accident! We got a murdered kid here!”

  “Apparently not in the view of the investigating officers.”

  “I want to see that Mexican detective you told me about.”

  “Rall Nájera,” Singleton said. “I’ll check his schedule and make an appointment for you.”

  Dan didn’t know what to do with himself. He bought new clothes rather than go home. He checked into a whorehouse motel so he could shower and shave and brush his teeth. He showed up at West Traffic the next day. He was sober, but his hands were shaking. He had to wait fifteen minutes. Then Detective Nájera came out and led him to a reception room off the hallway.

  Dan said, “We got a murdered kid here, Detective.”

  Nájera was in his fifties. Most thought of him as a Chicano, but he had been born in El Paso, and though he’d lost his Texas accent as a child, when his family moved to California, he still considered himself Tex-Mex, off duty wore boots and a Stetson. His home was near the Santa Cruz Sports Arena, where for several years club fights had been held. He had done his share of boxing, and he often went to the sports arena to have a few beers, talk with some of the old guys he had known since his boxing days, and unwind. What was left of Nájera’s balding hair and clipped mustache was salt-and-pepper gray. At five foot nine, he weighed close to 190, but Dan could see he was solid. Nájera’s nose was flat and there was scar tissue in his black brows. Dan felt like he was with one of his own.

  Nájera shook hands gently, the way fighters do who have nothing to prove. He noticed Dan’s eye, smiled slightly, and nodded. “You know me,” said Nájera.

  Dan said, “That right? From where?”

  “From Daw, your middleweight. Earl retired me after my fifteenth pro fight. You’re Dan Cooley the trainer, right?”

  “Yeah, I remember you, you were big for a Latino fighter in those days,” Dan said. “That was like thirty pounds ago.”

  Nájera smiled broadly and nodded.

  Dan added, “You knocked Earl down in the second. You always had to gain weight because the forty-seven-pounders wouldn’t fight you. You had a big hook.”

  “Yeah, but Earl had a bigger right hand. That’s when I became a cop. What can I do for you, Mr. Cooley?”

  Mollified, Dan spoke barely
above a whisper. “It’s about my grandson.”

  “Which one is that?”

  “The Markey kid, Timothy Patrick.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Jesus. I didn’t make the connection you were that Dan Cooley.”

  “You arrested the bitch who did it, right?”

  Nájera cleared his throat, watched as Dan’s eyes went from green to black. “Could you call me tomorrow, Mr. Cooley, so I can get the whole file?”

  “I been waitin a long time. I made an appointment.”

  “I wasn’t told specifically what this was about. Our error. Or I could call you?”

  “No, no,” said Dan, “I’ll call you.”

  “I’ll wait to hear from you.”

  “Just so we’re pullin on the rope in the same direction,” Dan said, “we’re talkin Justice with a big J here, right, Detective?”

  “Mr. Cooley, I’m backed up here. Tomorrow, okay?”

  Dan went to his car feeling even more unsettled than before. Maybe he was just being jerked off.

  He put his key into the ignition. “They better put that bitch away, they fuckin better.” He reached down to touch the eighteen-inch barrel of the shotgun. “These fuckin dicks better help.”

  Dan called Nájera several times daily, three days running. He left the number of his cell phone, but Nájera didn’t return his calls. Dan was living on coffee, aspirin, and bourbon.

  Dan drove the streets of East Al-Lay, and other points east. He was on automatic pilot. One day he found himself at East Fourth and Mathews, at Theodore Roosevelt High School. One side of the school was blocked to through traffic, but he drove along the three open sides several times, cruised at ten miles per hour, all the while looking at the predominately brown faces of the students, especially the girls. He didn’t realize that he was less than four blocks from the pink-and-green house of Lupe Ayala. And he did not know that she and her mother had knelt to place two dozen roses at Tim Pat’s grave.

  On the fifth day of his peregrinations through inner L.A., Dan found himself parked in the lot at Eighteenth and Grand, at the Olympic Auditorium. It had been painted pussy colors, was now known as the Grand Olympic Auditorium, the name changed by order of the International Olympic Committee. Dan replayed his fight there, relived every one of the blows that had wrecked his face. He touched his eye. His cell phone rang. He fumbled with the phone, dropped it in his lap. It got caught in his sweatshirt. He answered during the third ring. His voice was hoarse.

  “This is Cooley.”

  It was Nájera. “Could you come by?”

  “Where? When?”

  “I’m at West. I’ll be here the rest of the day,” said Nájera.

  “I’m on my way. Twenty, thirty minutes.”

  Nájera said, “No rush.”

  “Yeah, there’s a rush.”

  Dan fought traffic, then picked up Freeway 10 west and raced to the La Brea exit. Fifteen minutes. It took him another ten minutes to get to West. He checked in with the front desk, and Nájera came out to meet him.

  Nájera said, “I know how important this is to you. So I read the report front to back. I interviewed all the officers on the scene. They stood by their call, that it was an accident. Even so, once I read that the ice-cream driver had taken off, I located the company he works for and chased him down.”

  “He was the Mexican guy, right?”

  “Yes. I interviewed him in Spanish. He’s going to lose his job for taking off from the scene. Up to the DA if he gets prosecuted.”

  “The chickenshit,” Dan said. “You think he will?”

  “Probably not, since he wasn’t involved in the actual incident. But here’s the point. He confirmed the statement given by the woman who was a witness at the scene, and by the young driver and by her brother, who was with her. The ice-cream guy was very clear about it. The victim tripped and stumbled directly in front of the oncoming vehicle.”

  “And the victim was my little one, right? We ain’t talkin fender-bender, right?”

  “No, but the girl’s vehicle was going only ten to twelve miles an hour.”

  “She shouldn’t a passed the truck.”

  “It was parked adjacent to the curb, Mr. Cooley.”

  Dan leaned forward. “Reckless don’t have to mean speed.”

  Nájera said, “True, but there’s no skid marks, no liquor, no drugs.”

  Dan said, “I don’t care if she’s the Virgin fookin María! My little guy’s dead. I want the justice he’s due. I want the driver arrested for murder!”

  “I’m sure you know I’m in your corner. That’s why this took me so long. I know how you must feel.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Nájera said, “But I do. My youngest son was drowned in a neighbor’s pool. He and our dog wiggled under the fence. My son was three.”

  “Was she Mexican?”

  “Mexican? What does Mexi—”

  Dan interrupted. “Was the female witness Mexican? Were the investigating officers Mexican? You’re Mexican. The ice-cream driver’s Mexican, right? So who paid you off, Officer?”

  “This interview is over, Mr. Cooley. Go.”

  “I want the fuckin chief of police.”

  Nájera said, “Please. I know your loss is enormous. Believe me, I do. But the Ayala girl is innocent of a crime. Another tragedy won’t make the first one right.”

  “She’s a gangbanger, don’t you get it? I saw her and the boy doin the finger-signal gang shit.” The urge to kill came over Dan; all he lacked was the shotgun. “So how much did you get to sell out my little guy?”

  Nájera flushed under his dark skin. He was on the verge of reaming Dan out, but he remembered what he’d felt when the paramedic looked up to tell him that his little Rudy was dead, remembered how he had grabbed the man by the throat.

  Nájera said, “The investigating officers gave you a break, Mr. Cooley. You could have been charged with assault with intent to kill. Three were fuckin Mexicans, okay? And one officer was white. They could have nailed you, but didn’t. The girl, the one you tried to strangle, she said not to.”

  “Fuck her, too.”

  “Mr. Cooley,” Nájera said, about to lose it himself, “I think you’d be wise to quit while you’re ahead.”

  Dan pushed through the heavy door.

  “Ayala!” Now he had a name.

  He stumbled and nearly fell. He gulped deep breaths, but didn’t feel like he was getting air. He leaned against a front fender of the Caddy. His shadow fell across the long hood of the car, made him think of death. He clawed at it at first, broke several fingernails. Then he began to bang on it with his fists. He tore off a windshield wiper. He used the metal part to dig into the paint. He got up on a fender and dented the top of the hood with his right fist. His hand swelled, he barked his knuckles. His bruised hand and wrist bones would ache for weeks. He broke the middle knuckle of his right fist. He kept cracking the hood.

  “Fuckin, fuckin, fuckin dicks shouldda done right.”

  On the ride back to the shop, Dan felt pressure in his chest. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He didn’t care. He couldn’t go home. He couldn’t keep sleeping in the car.

  When Dan pulled up at the shop, Earl saw the Caddy’s scratched paint and dented hood.

  Earl said, “Somebody hate Cadillacs?”

  Dan showed Earl his hands. Earl walked him up to the office while the crew watched.

  Dan said, “Remember Rall Nájera? Knocked you down? You retired him?”

  “His left hook got me.”

  “Yeah, well. He just retired me and Tim Pat, the fuck.”

  “I don’t get it,” Earl said.

  Dan explained what had gone down.

  “Damn!” Earl exclaimed.

  Dan sat at his desk. He looked down. His hands were swollen; one knuckle was bleeding. He looked up to Earl, who was standing in the doorway.

  “I got nobody,” Dan said. “You take over the shop. It’s yours.”

  Earl shook his hea
d. “No good. A handshake made us partners back when you trained me, and when I worked for you, and when we trained fighters together, and when I bought in as a partner. No paperwork, just somethin between you and me. Ain’t partners if we ain’t in it together.” He slipped some black into his talk. “‘Sides, man, I’d feel like I was pimpin off you, and pimpin ain’t my style. Now ‘ho’in, that be somethin else.”

  Dan smiled despite himself. “Earl, you’re all I got.”

  Earl said, “I’d feel empty as you if this happened to one of my little girls. Just try to go a little easy on yourself.”

  “Was it my fault, Earl? Did I cause it?”

  Earl said, “No, no, this could happen to me, and you know how I watch my kids.”

  “I’m runnin like a lost dog.”

  Earl said, “Maybe you could sleep upstairs in the gym? Fixin up that room’ll give you somethin to do. Don’t worry about the shop. All the guys can work a little extra. I’ll handle our fighters, so don’t worry about the gym.”

  “Somebody’s gotta pay for Tim Pat.”

  “Long’s it’s not you.”

  Dan fixed up the upstairs room. It took him a week. Once it was finished, he hardly left it except to buy booze and TV dinners. He took tranquilizers so he could sleep, but he didn’t tell Earl that he washed them down with booze, that he gulped whisky from a water glass. He could no longer see colors, only battleship gray. It didn’t matter. All he wanted was to live long enough to get justice. After that, he didn’t care.

  But his anger was often undercut by doubts and a slow seepage of guilt. Why had he allowed Tim Pat to go to the ice-cream truck alone that day? Dan tossed back the last three ounces from the Jim Beam bottle. The hit felt as if he’d taken a right-hand shot to the heart. He fell back on the unmade bed. Then, mercifully, he passed out.

  Chapter 10

  The police report arrived in the mail. Dan took it to his room. He read it, silently shook his head. He drank. He ate two dry doughnuts with black instant coffee. He opened another bottle. Ten High, bottom-shelf sour mash. Only two weeks before, he drank Old Granddad and Old Forester. Now it didn’t matter. Later on he had pretzels. After that it was Cheerios and evaporated milk. He kept reading the police report. He drank more whisky and passed out. He slept fitfully, finally woke at four-thirty in the dark morning. His mouth was dry, tasted like the bottom of a birdcage.