Killing Cortez

by A. L. DeNova

  “Jo, you don’t want to do that. She’s gone, probably in Mexico by now. Regardless of the verdict, you are a federal prosecutor, this light-hearted romance you had with her, this could mean ten, twenty years in prison for some creative conspiracy charge-I’m not talking about Carmen. I am talking about AUSA Gemma, Josephine Gemma. My mama has a saying, “Sleep with pigs, and you are going to get dirty. She is a beautiful woman, and fun, I don’t doubt that Jo. But you have to stay away. Have another donut, another night with Amber and drown your heartache in deep fried foods. It’s a lot safer, than trafficking in cocaine. You know the score.”

  Jo clenched and unclenched her fists. She said nothing.

  “Heidi can flirt with estas personnas but not you, not me, not our team. It’s about integrity. Not easy to describe, but like attraction, and character, you know it when you see it,” Jacobo said.

  “Make a left here,” Jo said.

  “You’ve got your Detective Papa. You need to call him to talk about this. But he is in Chicago. It is up to me to drive you home. It’s been quite the day. I have been up for about twenty hours, and I think you have been up too and it might be a good idea to sleep. Sleep Jo, and do not do any more stupid things. Believe me, she’s in some mansion in TJ now, sleeping with her boyfriend on satin sheets.” Jo stared at Jacobo. She sat silent.

  “If you remember one thing from this whole flat tire, stranded damsel, escapade, remember the distinction between nice and good. Remember also that choices have consequences.”

  Jo gave directions to her home. Jacobo pulled over to the curb. Jo hopped out, shivering in the mist of the fog of the coastal night. “Jo, promise me, you’ll just go to sleep.” “Thank you Jacobo, thank you for everything, go back to your family.” “Promise me, you will just go to sleep,” Jacobo cautioned out of his truck window. He then drove out of the cul-de-sac, and back to his wife and kids in Chula Vista.

  Jo swung open the waist-high gate from the sidewalk to her entry walkway. She closed the gate and started up the path. She looked up, tired, wrung out, and she looked up at the front door and fished for her front door key. It was time to go to bed. She did not know if she was going back to her office tomorrow, or ever.

  To the right, in a dark section of her front porch, she saw a silhouette of a person dozing. Jo approached with careful steps, unsure.

  “Jo, you do take your time, don’t you,” a woman’s voice said.

  36

  The Front Porch

  Carmen sprung to her feet and hugged Jo. She was glad to see her.

  She needed a ride on the Surf Liner. She remembered, it left at midnight.

  If she got Jo, to move they could just make it. She needed to be out of here. She knew she would never see JC again. At least not in one piece.

  “Sh” Carmen said, as Jo opened her mouth to speak.

  Softly, Carmen placed a finger over Jo’s lips. She kissed Jo, hard, thrusting her tongue in, and grinding hip to hip. The prosecutor submitted to delight, sensations erasing Jacobo’s lecture in a millisecond. Jo was too eager, always, with any woman she met in a bar, to throw off her clothes and jump into bed. It was a thrill to meet a girl, a woman, and then see her naked. Jacobo had warned her. Her sexual curiosity and hunger for Carmen put more than just her job at risk. Carmen held Jo by her Achilles heel, unchecked lust.

  Jo started for the front door. She turned the key, opened the door, and flipped on a light. She turned back and was bathed in Carmen’s beauty. Jo walked towards Carmen, not thinking just giving into feeling. She pulled Carmen to her. She was drawn to Carmen’s skin, her smell, her unavailability. “We have now,” Jo said.

  The two women kissed. Jo tugged Carmen inside. Carmen kicked the door closed with her heel. “I missed you Carmen,” Jo confessed. Carmen crumbled into the large easy chair in the entry. Jo straddled Carmen in the chair, and kissed her again. Jo’s lips followed the soft contours of Carmen’s neck. With closed eyes, Carmen tossed her head back, her long hair falling down. She smiled at the now familiar pleasure.

  Jo paused, to swiftly pull off Carmen’s blouse and then her bra. “I am so glad I picked you up on Friday,” Jo said. For the first time Jo did not have court and Carmen did not have JC. Jo touched Carmen’s face and kissed her again. Jo felt light headed at her first touch. “Don ‘t leaves tonight, our one week anniversary is in a few hours, “Jo whispered. Carmen kissed back. Jo moved her right hand under Carmen’s panties and between her legs. Her index and middle finger slipped inside to the smooth moist velvet within Carmen’s thigh. Carmen sighed. “Carmen, we have something amazing. I feel your passion, I want you. I love you.”

  37

  The Trains I Missed

  Thursday

  July 21, 1988

  11:35 p.m.

  San Diego

  Carmen coughed and pushed Jo’s hand away from her body. This was survival. First, she had to be safe. She had so many men profess desire and love. Jo was simply the first woman to do so. Carmen inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly. “Oh no Cariño, I must leave. Now. You must take me to the Santa Fe Depot now, there’s a train at midnight. I need to be on it.” Jo looked at her and knitted her eyebrows.

  “Oh yes, you want me on that train, or I will be in pieces on the pillow by dawn. They have JC. Yes, you know the young man, that man who grabbed me, and shoved me in the Suburban. They have him, I am sure he is dead, or bleeding to death now. You need to get me gone.”

  Carmen pulled Jo towards her convertible. Jo opened the door, and Carmen slid in the passenger side. Jo drove silently. It was three miles from Jo’s bungalow to the Santa Fe Train Depot. Pressed for time, Carmen spoke fast, compressing her lifetime of silent understanding into words. “Oh Jo, I saw your trial, and I have seen others before it. The jury believed their story. We all tell stories to explain the inexplicable - our sad childhood, the evil men do to others. American courtroom stories are told about those charged with breaking law. Your American judges write the end to the story. Look at Judge Mack. More dishonest than a drug king because he calls himself good. Thank God, I was raised Catholic and I have faith - so I know He will make it right. Ay, Josephina. They have murdered my boy. He was a fool, he was arrogant, he thought only of today. I do not doubt that he is very dead. I do not doubt that he is most definitely not in heaven. It has been all of you, the Gringo drug users in LA who don’t think.” Jo did not take her eyes off Carmen. “Josephina, this border made of cheese cloth holds nothing. Stops nothing. You let it all in. It is a cat that kills only every tenth mouse, and lets the other nine infest the home,” Carmen said. She brought her right hand to her eyes, and brushed the tears away. “I have not seen this. I don’t want to remember. I want to laugh and drink Coronas and dance in the clubs. I want to study art and fashion. This filth is not me, it is not my life,” Carmen said.

  Jo said, “I know Carmen, I know.”

  “Nothing I can do can make this right never. Justice? Not in my lifetime. Not for Mexico,” Carmen said.

  Jo stopped the car, they had arrived at Santa Fe Depot, a glorious Art Deco building. It stood as the remnant of the marriage between unemployed Italian-American craftsmen and the Depression Era Works Progress Administration.

  The two women left the small car unlocked. Jo and Carmen walked together to the only train on the track.

  Carmen approached a uniformed train conductor and smiled. She was an accomplished flirt in every circumstance, it had kept her alive this long.

  Ever practicing her most precocious skill, Carmen asked “Is this the train north, to L.A., Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.” The whiskered conductor grinned at her soft accent and said “Yes, Miss, it is, but if you are going further north than Seattle, you will have to get off and buy a ferry ticket to Vancouver.” “Thank you, Mr. Conductor, “Carmen said with a giggle, “I’ll just buy my ticket on the train.” “Sure thing, Miss,” he said. Jo stared at Carmen, knowing certainly, that it would not be the case.

  Carmen walk
ed to the train entrance and grabbed Jo’s hand. She handed Jo a sealed envelope. In the dim light, Jo could only see that it was addressed to her. On the outside, it said “To Josephine Gemma, Esq.”

  Jo looked at her, and she said quietly, and deliberately, “I am here. I am not leaving. I am not letting this crime go unanswered, unpunished, forgotten. I do what I do to make things better - and now more than ever I want something more.” Jo paused, and stepped towards Carmen feeling her warmth and pulling her soft fragrant form towards her for a long, deep embrace.

  Jo stepped in for one more ephemeral kiss.

  “Carmen, stay here. I want to make this town good and beautiful. I love Mexico, its culture, its passion, its history. These border crimes are not the real Mexico.

  We’ve got it ass-backwards. Some say Hernando Cortez murdered Mexico, but from what I see, I know it’s this War on Drugs,” Jo said.

  “Listen Jo, gracias,” Carmen said. Finally, Jo said, “Carmen, don’t leave. We can have something.” Carmen shook her head and took a step away. She turned and said flatly: “Adios. Hope a murder investigation doesn’t screw up your career, Jo. Karma’s a bitch, even when you can’t see her.”

  Jo shook her head: “No, Carmen. Karma is a boomerang.”

  38

  Free Advice

  Jo didn’t wait to watch the train leave the station. With tears soaking her cheeks, she ran back to her convertible. She felt sick to her stomach. She felt the loss. She hurt from the loss at trial. She hurt from Carmen leaving. Jo sat alone in the dark car and cried. For those few minutes, she regressed to the motherless six-year-old girl in Chicago, whose mother had been killed. Just old enough to read and write, but not old enough to be told what really happened. She cried, she felt the loss of her mother even twenty-two years later.

  Jo coughed, and picked up the crumpled jury verdict form balled on the car floor mat. She wiped her tears away with the discarded paper. Like a horse going back to its stable, she looked around to find the car had driven her back to her neighborhood. But she couldn’t go home, and go to a bed that did not include Carmen. There was no chance of sleep now.

  She made a sharp left, and drove down the steep hill, under a railway bridge, and to the gay bar Defcon 2. It was be sure to be open. It was practically Friday. She parked in the bustling parking lot out front. Patting her hair down, and plastering a wan smile on her face, Jo squared her shoulders and approached a sturdy woman guarding the entrance to the club.

  “I am here to just look at the fish, I don’t intend to eat here, or take out,” Jo said.

  “Huh?” the bouncer said.

  “I just broke up with my live-in girlfriend of one-week and I need some eye-candy,” Jo explained.

  The husky woman glanced at her thick black wrist watch. “We don’t close until 2:00 a.m. so you still have two hours to get a replacement.” Jo sighed in response.

  The bouncer looked around, and lowered her voice. “Look, we’ve all been there. Women are the worst and the best. I’m not supposed to do this. Go on in, the cover is on me. But let me add some free advice, don’t get laid tonight.”

  Jo threw her arms up in a weak surrender and entered Defcon 2.

  Father DiGiacco was right, Jo realized as she entered the smoky interior packed with sweaty, scantily clad dancers.

  Sodom and Gomorrah definitely had its good points. She peered in the dark, looking for attractive women. Retracing her steps, from the previous week, she climbed up the bar’s winding metal staircase to the second floor. She stood at the railing, watching young bodies move to the pounding sounds. A soft hand touched her shoulder.

  Jo turned around. Jo tilted her head. Lana, from her surfing pack, was inches from her. Only tonight, high heels and a tight purple dress, replaced Lana’s habitual beach sandals and board shorts. “Nice to see you tonight,” Lana said, brushing her long blonde hair from her face.

  “Even better to see you Lana,” Jo answered.

  “Where’s Carmen?” Lana asked.

  “She moved to L.A.,” Jo said flatly.

  “I’m glad, I never liked her,” Lana blurted out.

  “Really? Why?” Jo asked with genuine curiosity. “Because, I have always had a crush on you,” Lana said.

  Jo blushed, and took Lana’s hand. “Lana, thank you, I like you too, but, I just need some time,” Jo said. Lana held on to Jo’s hand and kissed her full on the lips.

  “I got to go wash my face,” Jo said.

  Jo walked down a dimly lit hallway. In a corner, was phone booth to make phone conversation possible. Jo dug into her tight jeans and pulled out a fistful of quarters. She dumped in eight quarters. She dialed a number she had known by heart for twenty-five years. After the first ring, she closed the accordion thick glass door and waited.

  “This is Detective Gemma,” the voice answered. “Hi Dad,” Jo said.

  “Josephine, it’s after 3:00 a.m. Are you calling to tell me you just won the Publisher’s Clearinghouse grand prize?”

  “No Dad. I just wanted to talk.”

  “Seeing as I don’t have to get up for three hours, I can listen,” Giacomo Gemma responded.

  “Dad, I just lost the biggest case I’ve had,” Jo said.

  “I am sorry Jo.”

  “The guy was so guilty, and we just got a bad deal the whole way through,” Jo explained.

  “Jo, I hear you, you must feel bad.”

  “Dad, I do. Really bad. I don’t want to go back not now. I need a break. And I need some answers.”

  “Jo honey, so do I. I have been working at this damn city job for 30 years.”

  “Dad, I am being real,” Jo said.

  “Sure Jo. You can come to the Albany Park homestead. Nothing’s changed.”

  “Dad, I have to ask you about Mom. And how she died. I remember some things. I feel more. Especially, when things in my life aren’t working. I just need you to help me figure this out.”

  “Jo, honey, I wish, I could replay that night. I wish I could protect you from the unknowable evil with a nightlight and hug. Or even a snub-nosed Colt, but I don’t know.”

  “Dad, I love you.” Jo sniffled.

  “Jo, you gotta decide for yourself. Do you want to win or do you want justice?”

  “Dad, I will see you Saturday night, or earlier.”

  Jo hung up, crying.

  The pay phone rang. Jo picked up and listened as a high-pitched voice said “Please deposit $1.75 for the last call. Again, please deposit $1.75.” Jo dug through her pants and wallet. She found $2.00 in loose silver coins. She dropped the coins in the slot at the top of the payphone.

  Jo returned to her convertible. She picked up the pink envelope Carmen had handed her at the train station. She carefully lifted the sealed edges with her finger and exposed a greeting card. The outside of the card depicted the silhouette of a couple walking on a beach. Jo opened the card. In a neat cursive handwriting was a short note: “To the only girl I love, Carmen.”

  Jo felt better. She had hope.

  39

  Spare Key

  The Veronica and other members of the Red Tide, escorted Rosie back home. They rang the doorbell. Nobody was there.

  “Good thing your jaw was not actually broken,” the rugby captain said.

  They called out, and rang the doorbell a few more times, but nobody answered.

  After some minutes waiting, Rosie mumbled out through a cracked and swollen face, hey let me grab the spare key from the garage. Rosie opened the door adjoining the small detached garage, and stumbled on a loose board. She retraced her steps to hit the fluorescent light on the wall. Rosie looked again down at the board that had caused her to stumble. There was something, a package or something in the old oil pit. She kneeled down to get a better look.

  “Hey Rosie‼” You OK? “The Veronica roared.

  “Yeah, one sec!” Rosie said.

  She knelt down, and pulled a second, then a third, then a fourth loose board. The oil pit was filled with packages.
With bricks of something. Carmen’s Chevelle was gone too. Rosie had learned a lot from Miss Fancy Pants Gemma, about cartels, and bricks. Rosie bent down and picked up one of the packages wrapped tightly in silver electrical tape.

  With a trained chef’s attention to detail she turned it in her hands. She rose to her feet, and grabbed an awl from the toolbox, and poked a hole in the silver package. A white powdery substance slipped out. Rosie was no stranger to the party scene. She put her right index finger in her mouth, moistening it, and dabbed a few grains of powder and put it her nostrils. Rosie’s eyes lit up.

  40

  Grand Opening

  January 7,1989

  “Rosie!” The Veronica led the cheers of the Red Tide.

  Veronica handed the microphone over to the large woman with pink hair.

  “Thank you to the Red Tide, and everybody who has been a part of celebrating our grand opening. Welcome to Cafe Madame Defarge,” Rosie announced. Rosie winked at an old girlfriend standing in the soft warm light of the January afternoon. To soothe her agitation, she fingered the 24-carat mustachioed saint wedged between her voluptuous breasts. Under her breath, Rosie whispered “Gracias, Jesus Malverde.” Unseen by Rosie, the gold pendant winked back.

  Afterword

  The War on Drugs was launched over thirty years ago. If you want to know how we got here:

  Follow the Timeline Started in the 1980’s

  1984 United States Sentencing Guidelines Enacted into Law