He didn’t know what it was, but somehow this case had caused him and his partner to shift poles. For whatever reason, this time he was the more reasonable one.
“This guy’s making real changes for real people out there, and now they’re gonna demand that kinda action from us. We better be ready to deliver the same or more when the time comes, or else we’re the bad guys.”
Villagrana suddenly got a wily look in his eyes, and he snapped his fingers. “I know! We’ll get some of those kids of his to paint a mural for the city, right here on one of the downtown buildings. We’ll give ’em the paint, talk it up in the press, steal a little of his thunder. It’ll be our goodwill gesture.”
“Aren’t we just throwing him a bone?” asked Sanders, and the other council members nodded in agreement.
The mayor laughed that phony PR laugh he’d practiced ad nauseam so he could master it in front of a camera. “’Course we are, Bernie. But I agree with Sergeant Gibson. This entire crusade is gonna collapse under its own weight, and then we’ll look that much better when we step in to clean up what’s left.”
Ryan flashed a disgusted look Gibson’s way as his partner received a slap on the back from the mayor. Gibson had a very smug look on his face, which reminded Ryan why his partner had done a one-eighty on this case.
Immediately following the debacle at Round Table, Ryan and Gibson had been formally removed from the “Arthur matter,” as the Chief called it, and were told to focus strictly on gang activity. But that had been the problem—gang activity had slowed considerably. Just how many gangbangers might have joined up with Arthur was impossible to determine, but apparently those who hadn’t were taking a watch and wait approach to the king and his crusade.
Gibson in particular spent most of his time sulking and brooding over the embarrassment of their failure. And to add insult to injury, he’d been stunned to see the footage from Watts, with his own son affirming allegiance to Arthur. Ryan had tried to help him through it, but the exchange had become a bit heated.
Ryan had walked into the station that day, swigging his antacid, and spotted Gibson staring intently at the flat-screen TV, the other officers silently watching with him. Ryan almost gasped aloud when he saw Justin but said nothing until the news story played out, and Gibson killed the volume. A couple of the officers patted him on the back, but Gibson didn’t respond.
“I’m sorry, Gib,” Ryan said, and he meant it. Not just about Justin joining Arthur’s crusade, but because Justin had virtually admitted on TV that he’d been selling drugs. “What’re gonna do?”
Gibson wilted into his desk chair in despair, his shoulders sagging. “How, Ry, how did I lose my own son?”
“This job,” Ryan replied, sitting on the desk beside his partner. “It killed both our marriages, and now it’s killing your kid.” Gibson looked up sharply, but Ryan wasn’t done yet. “You know what this whole Arthur business has shown me?”
Gibson shrugged.
“That maybe I been wrong about kids all these years. You neglect ’em or abuse ’em, they go bad. But you give ’em a purpose, and they seem to shine.” He’d said this almost to himself, as the realization had struck him. Maybe he’d actually been wrong….
Gibson, however, flared with anger, his eyes bulging, his mustache bristling. “You tellin’ me I’ve been neglecting my own kid?”
Ryan shrugged. “Not on purpose. But you’ve been so obsessed with keeping other people’s kids out of gangs that you’re missing out on your own.”
“Back off, Ryan. You’re outta line!” Gibson hadn’t wanted to hear that. He’d vowed to be a good father, to be a father, to not be absentee, like his old man had been.
Ryan gazed at the younger man intently, his craggy old face more serene than usual. “Don’t you see, Gib, what this Arthur’s trying to teach us, all of us, the good men like you and the narrow-minded jerks like me?”
Gibson raised his eyebrows.
“That every kid needs individual attention and a helluva lot of it, or else they’ll go to the streets to get it. And that’s when we get involved, but then it’s too late.”
Gibson didn’t respond at first, digesting for a moment Ryan’s observation.
“Hell, Ry, you’re the guy who wants to throw ’em in prison at age ten and toss the key.”
Ryan sighed. His partner was right. That’s how he’d always thought. Yet somehow this whole Arthur crusade-thing had… done something to him, something that had knocked him clean off the rigid perch he’d resolutely inhabited for so long. “As much as an old fool hates to admit it—” He sighed heavily. “—I think I was wrong.”
Now Gibson felt like he was the bad cop and Ryan the good. “This guy’s violating every law in the book, Ry. And he’s made us look like chumps. You sound like you admire him.”
Ryan looked his partner right in the eye. “I do, Gib. And I’m almost beginning to believe what you said that day.”
Gibson had looked confused. “What’d I say?”
“That he might really be King Arthur.”
He’d patted the startled Gibson on the shoulder and ambled off to the men’s room. Damned ulcer was killing him.
THE day following Ryan and Gibson’s meeting with the mayor and his cronies, the “Mural Project” press conference got set up without a hitch. Helen, who knew how to contact Arthur by cell, had relayed the mayor’s proposal to him and asked if he could attend with however many kids wanted to be part of the mural undertaking.
Arthur informed her that he would be in a place called Panorama City doing restoration with the main body of his knights, but he would send those kids who wished to take part in the project, and they could then begin.
With Lance nowhere about, Arthur asked Esteban and Reyna, Lavern, Luis, and Enrique what they thought of the mayor’s idea.
Reyna made a rude gesture and said, “That guy’s an ass—my bad, Arthur, he’s a jerk and a phony. I seen him on TV enough to tell. If he’s doing this it’s cuz he thinks it’ll make him look good.”
Arthur nodded. Sounded like the authority figures of his own day.
Enrique liked the idea of creating a gigantic mural “so the people wouldn’t forget what we done for them.”
Esteban agreed with Reyna about the Mayor. “He don’t care about no one ’cept himself,” he told the king. “But I think Sir Rique be right. How long you think it’ll be ’fore the people forget what we done and go back to their old, careless, selfish ways, huh? I seen it happen in my own ’hood lots a times.”
Luis and Lavern agreed. For a twelve-year-old, Lavern not only had prodigious drawing and painting and archery skills, but a very level head on his shoulders. “The mayor prob’ly be doin’ it to make hisself look good, but if it helps our crusade shouldn’t we be doin’ it?”
Arthur smiled at the small boy with the Michelangelo hands. “Ye doth be wise beyond your years, Lavern. It be settled, then. You, Enrique, and Luis gather whomever you wish and meet with this mayor at the appointed time.”
Lavern grinned, and they set off to do the recruiting.
Arthur noted a pensive look on Esteban’s face. “What be troubling thee, Sir Esteban?”
Reyna leaned forward, her forehead crinkled, wanting to know. Esteban just shook his head, as though clearing cobwebs. “Not sure,” he began hesitantly. “A feeling that the mayor and his homeboys are up to something, like they want to bring us down.”
Arthur placed a hand on the boy’s brawny shoulder and grinned. “It doth be the nature of men like him—the do-nothings, to hate and despise men like us—the doers,” he explained. “It hath ever been so throughout human history. I have no doubt he doth seek my destruction and the ruination of our crusade.”
That worried Esteban and Reyna. “What will you do to stop him?” she asked, her well-trimmed brows furrowed with anxiety.
“As long as we please the people, we shall win,” Arthur replied.
Both teenagers nodded, but their fears remained.
&
nbsp; THE front of City Hall at three o’clock that afternoon became the proverbial media circus. The mayor and city council had moved fast, Helen noted, eyeing the enormous scaffolding already rising along the City Hall side of the U.S. Courthouse building. The mayor obviously had some pull with the feds, because they’d agreed to erect a gigantic canvas eleven-stories high that would cover the Temple Street side of the courthouse. Thus the completed mural could best be seen from City Hall across Temple Street and maximize the attention Mayor Villagrana could milk out of it for himself.
Helen knew the mayor was a narcissistic camera hog who did nothing if there wasn’t some personal gain in it for him. However, she honestly believed this mural would benefit Arthur’s cause and be a powerful reminder of what the man and his message had been. And what better place to erect it than the United States seat of justice within the city?
Enrique, Luis, and Lavern brought with them almost thirty of Arthur’s kids of various ethnicities and ages who already had some mural experience from the neighborhood cleanups. Most were boys, but several of Reyna’s girls chose to be part of the mural crew. Enrique and Luis, long since over Reyna, immediately targeted two of these ladies for “extra special” attention.
The mayor and the entire city council posed for the cameras in front of the scaffolding, flanking the kids and making an extra big show of profusely praising them. Lavern and Enrique exchanged a knowing smirk, as the mayor flashed that phony PR smile and personally handed each child a “brand-new paintbrush!” Then he turned to the cameras and grinned, flashing those expensive, capped teeth he’d bought and paid for with taxpayer money. “Aren’t they just the greatest kids you’ve ever seen?” he gushed. Helen just wanted to vomit.
THE summer flew by and the Mural Project rapidly took on real form and substance. A massive, billowing sheet hid the artists and the work in progress from curious onlookers, all the better to make the grand unveiling another huge media event. Or so Villagrana hoped. Arthur and his knights had continued to parade throughout the city, cleaning, improving, removing all the urban blight the mayor had allowed to fester for six years.
If this thing didn’t crash and burn soon, his mysterious benefactor, Mr. R., would be forced to take action. He’d told the mayor he was monitoring the situation, but Villagrana still worried. Another public relations disaster like the pizza parlor could damage his reputation beyond repair. Not to mention cut off the money he’d been promised for his senate run in two years and leave him just another washed-up public servant lifer who wouldn’t have a clue how to get a job in the private sector.
As for Arthur, he’d become embroiled in managing all the daily affairs of money and donations and moving his vast company from place to place, supervising the repairs and painting, chatting more often than he liked to media personnel, and paying more attention to Justin and his boys and any other new recruits who chose to join as they wended their snaky way throughout the city.
Even into September, kids from all over Los Angeles eagerly folded into Arthur’s crusade, which seemed to them like one big, never-ending party. A few, after long hours of hard work, dropped out, realizing this party required too much personal effort. But most welcomed the sense of accomplishment and showed up each day, often ditching school, wherever the knights were to be found, and eagerly did their fair share of the work. Others joined the cleanups after school let out each day.
So busy had Arthur become juggling all these disparate matters that he’d begun spending less and less time moving amongst his kids and chatting with them individually. Some of them were too busy and excited by all the hoopla to notice, like Enrique and Reyna and Esteban and Lavern, but others, like Chris, felt the king’s absence painfully.
Of course, the hardest hit was always Lance, though Mark would have no doubt chosen himself as the most forlorn. Jack and Lance continued their daily attempts to try and cheer up Mark, and they played football with Chris whenever possible. Focusing on Mark and Chris helped make Arthur’s absence from Lance’s daily life slightly less painful.
However, despite the fact that Jack and Mark were his friends, and awesome friends at that, deep down, Lance just didn’t want to be like them, didn’t want to be… that way. It scared the shit out of him! During the day he could usually keep busy enough to quash such thoughts, so long as his eyes didn’t stray too often toward Jack.
At night, however, within the almost suffocating quiet of the storm drain, fidgeting uneasily on his bedroll, Chris breathing softly beside him, Lance’s thoughts always drifted back to the “g” word, and his breath tightened painfully in his chest.
His eyes would settle on the small blond boy nesting beside him, the little brother who idolized him as a hero. Even though Lance never saw himself in such grandiose terms, Chris did. What would the little one think if he found out Lance was… that way? Would he still admire him as an awesome big brother? What would he say if he heard someone called Lance a faggot? Would he laugh? Lance knew it would tear his heart out if he heard that. Shit, would Chris even wanna sleep near him anymore? Or would he suddenly be… afraid?
And what of Esteban and all the others who had accepted him and willingly agreed to follow him and take orders from him as needed? What would they think? He’d gained Esteban’s respect and that of the other hard guys through strength and force. How would they look at him if he turned out to be that way? Gay. There, I said it! He knew the macho mentality of Mexican guys, and most guys, for that matter, when it came to gay boys. At best, they were held in contempt and at worst they were shunned or beaten up.
Arthur said he didn’t care if Lance favored girls or boys, that he’d chosen him for his character. But the others would care. He knew that. If he turned out to be gay and everyone found out, would that be the end of the crusade for him? Would he suddenly be a nobody again, like he was when Arthur first found him? Or would he be, in the eyes of his new family, even lower than nobody?
He desperately wished he could talk with someone about his worries, but Arthur was always too busy, and he feared the king might be disappointed in him, maybe even think him weak and a poor choice after all for First Knight, and decide to choose someone more “manly.”
He couldn’t tell Jack either, partly over embarrassment for his conflicted thoughts regarding the older boy, but mostly because Jack was already suffering too much pain over Mark and didn’t need any more. Of course, Mark wasn’t an option, either, obviously. Despite opening his heart to him that one night, Mark had since shut himself off from the world, and from him. He had all too quickly lost the friend he’d gained, and that hurt too. A lot.
It was now October and Lance was tired of the gap between them. It had gone on too long. He’d grown up apart from friendships and didn’t really know how to navigate his way through issues like this, but he felt a desperate need to do something. He knew from hints Jack had given that Mark’s melancholy had something to do with Arthur, and suspecting Mark’s feelings toward the king similar to his own, he sought the boy out one night when everyone was asleep, and a peaceful silence blanketed the tunnels.
He found Mark seated on the cold concrete in one of the side tunnels, resting dispiritedly against a wall beneath a hanging lantern, which framed his blond head in a glowing halo. He let out a nervous breath, then approached and gingerly slid down the wall to sit beside his friend, who didn’t even acknowledge his presence. The drip, drip of water was so omnipresent that it no longer even registered as sound.
Lance’s eyes swam with memories as he gazed at the brooding boy beside him, wild blond locks tumbling loosely about his gentle face and draping his shoulders like waves of falling snow. How many months had it been since he and Mark had become friends, since he’d confessed his long-suppressed secret, and Mark hadn’t laughed or mocked, but just accepted him unconditionally? Lance wanted that Mark back—needed him back—but didn’t know how to do it.
“Arthur’s been super busy, Mark,” he tried lamely, as much for his benefit as Mark’s. “
You know that. I miss him more than you.”
The emptiness in his soul, the absence of Arthur’s smile and words of encouragement, coupled with his other doubts and fears, often pulled tears from his eyes when he least expected them. He fought them off now. Mark needed his strength, not his weakness.
Mark’s legs were pulled up and pressed against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around them as though afraid to let go. His deep blue eyes brimmed with tears. “I don’t think so.”
His reaction confused Lance. “Well, I mean, in the beginning it was just him and me, remember, and… well, you know, I kinda started to think of him like my—” He stopped himself, and dropped his head between his own knees, suddenly feeling small and awkward.
Mark looked at him forlornly. “Like yer what?”
Lance let his hair fall like a curtain across his face, his old defense mechanism, and eyed Mark from behind it. “Nothing. It’s stupid.” He tried for that smile the media loved, but Mark’s expression of profound loss pierced his very soul, and the smile faltered. “Look, Mark, I know it seems like he’s ignoring us, but—”
He stopped when Mark leapt to his feet abruptly and ran off into the darkness. Lance gazed after him, mystified, wondering what he’d done wrong.
A cleared throat drew his eye to a different tunnel, and out of the shadows stepped Jack, dressed for sleeping in just his drawstring pants and no shirt. Lance sucked in a breath as he nervously eyed the dark-haired boy’s chest and abs, forced his eyes up to Jack’s face, and then cleared his own throat. “Did you see all that?”
Jack nodded, padding his way across the chamber to drop down beside Lance. Even though he was fully clothed, he felt oddly exposed next to Jack’s near-nakedness.
He wanted to move away, but then he didn’t want to. He fought against his fluttering heart and forced himself to focus on Mark.
Children of the Knight Page 29
