by Matthew Iden
“What exactly is being performed?” I said. “You’re making it sound like we’re here for an autopsy.”
“That might be your reaction after it starts. I’m just asking you to listen with an open mind. Don’t bring any preconceptions to the music.”
“So, it’s music, at least?”
“Yes, Marty. It’s going to be music.”
“Why are we sitting ten rows back, then? Don’t we want to hear it?”
“I don’t want you to be influenced by anyone around us. A lot of the audience is going to be made up of music students who have some strong opinions about what they hear.”
“And tenth row means I can get up and leave without anyone seeing,” I said.
She glared at me. “Don’t even think about it. Promise me you’ll hang on for the hour.”
“Without even knowing what it is first?”
“Marty,” she said. Warning me.
I held up my hands. “Okay, one hour. I promise.”
There was that low, excited murmur that you hear in theaters and auditoriums as people tried not to make noise finding their seats, but saw friends or whispered to companions or swore as they stubbed their toes. A low-wattage excitement ran through the tiny audience. I felt a little thrill of anticipation myself. It had been more than a year since I’d even gone out for a movie and…well, I don’t know how long it had been since I’d seen live music. And, hell, I’d just gone out to dinner a few nights ago! I frowned. What did I do with my time? Sure, cancer fills up your day-planner, but still. I needed to get a life.
The overhead lights went down and the whispers stopped, then the curtains swung away from center, revealing six musicians illuminated by the soft glow of footlights. One guy was on drums, another at a baby grand piano off to the right. A third kid was on a standing bass and a girl was on guitar. Two more players, an older black man and an Asian girl, made up a tiny horn section front, stage left. The crowd broke into applause and there were a few whoops. The musicians on stage tried to ignore it, but the kid on the bass grinned ear to ear as his friends shouted his name.
The drummer clicked his sticks lightly, setting the tempo. I expected the whole ensemble to jump in, but the piano player started a soft, almost introspective stop-and-go solo. It lasted just a minute when the piano paused and the bass player, all business now, slipped in with a short, barely audible riff that repeated and swelled. The drummer came in with a cool hi-hat and snare rhythm that had me thinking of Scotch and velvet and smoke. The instruments eased into the pattern seamlessly. After another minute, the black guy stood up, trumpet in hand, and started to blow.
I stifled a groan. It was jazz. I hated jazz. You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but I’d dedicated every waking moment of my early years to punk music. In the early 1970s I was young, angry, and looking for something to give me a voice. Punk was it. Everything else was a sticky sweet anthem for singles’ bars, a look back to the Summer of Love, or the black hole of Your Parents’ Music. Even as I got older and my tastes changed, I couldn’t wrap my head around jazz. All the random, off-key honking made me antsy and gave me the urge to run away.
Amanda punched me in the arm and I looked over. She was glaring again and mouthed the words, You promised. I let my head loll to one side with my tongue falling out of my mouth, but turned my attention back to the stage when Amanda wouldn’t look at me.
The trumpet player had sat back down to applause and the Asian girl stood, a sax half her height dangling from a strap around her neck. Still staying inside the structure of the rhythm and the original riff, she took off where the trumpet had ended, her fingers flying up and down the keys. She, in turn, gave the stage to the piano. The piece uncurled in front of me, flying around the room and finally coming in for a landing with the same drawn-out, two-note riff that the piano had started with, dying out entirely with the second of those two notes. I let out a breath as the audience went nuts.
Amanda was grinning at me. “Well?”
“What was that one called?”
“So what.”
“Huh?”
“So What. That’s the name. It’s a classic. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans. Catchy, isn’t it?”
“It was okay, I guess.”
“So you were tapping your feet because you were nervous, huh?”
“Quiet, please,” I said. “The musicians are playing again.”
I stopped kidding around and paid attention to the next set, trying to relax and soak it in. Thirty years in law enforcement makes you a judgmental kind of guy and I found it hard to forget what I thought, forget the things I’d told myself, and just listen in the moment. It helped to watch each instrument in turn, rather than let my mind wander on its own. The jazz combo was in full swing, each player doing their own thing, but obviously very aware of what the others were doing. After peering at them for five or ten minutes, even I—with the musical sensitivity of a concrete block—could see that, while they all were careful to stay within the framework of the piece, they were given permission to go off on tangents, as long as they came back to the original at some point. They weren’t just improvising, they were inventing.
It wasn’t all my cup of tea. Some pieces were more avant-garde than others, going too far out on a limb for my tastes. I drew the line when I couldn’t tell if the musician had made a mistake or was ad-libbing. But it was, by far, the best jazz experience of my life. I might not run out and buy the complete Blue Note boxed set, but I was impressed. The combo finished up with a furious sax solo that made it pretty clear the little Asian girl with the big horn was the first among equals and the audience, filled out to the sixth or seventh row now, erupted into applause. I found myself clapping hard enough to knock my hands off. The whole ensemble was grinning like the bass player had been at the start. They gave nervous, perfunctory bows, as though unused to playing in front of an audience. Eventually, the applause died off, the lights came up, and the musicians descended to seat level to chat with friends and colleagues.
Amanda turned to me, one eyebrow raised. “Try and tell me you didn’t like that.”
I cleared my throat. “Well, given the choice between a murder scene and another jazz concert, I’ll take the concert. But only if the victim isn’t somebody important.”
She stared daggers at me and I laughed as we moved from the row of seats and back out of the auditorium. “Okay, it was good. No, it was great. I could do without the dead cat noise in the middle, but I really liked it. What was that slow piece towards the end?”
Amanda ran her finger down the program list. “Wise One. It’s a John Coltrane piece.”
“Funny,” I said. “It seemed to be everything I dislike about jazz. Too schmaltzy, too contrived. Rainy streets and cigarettes and French cafés. Then I realized it’s what came after that was the schmaltz. This was the real deal.”
She covered her mouth in mock surprise. “Why, Marty Singer, I think we might make a jazz aficionado out of you, yet.”
I held up a hand. “Easy. Old dog, new tricks, remember? Give me some time to adjust.”
She took my arm again to lead me out of the darkness. “Oh, Marty. Don’t you get it? Life’s nothing but new tricks.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
At almost any time of the day or night, the steps of the Portrait Gallery on 7th Street were a good place to meet someone. The broad granite stairs gave you an elevated view of the ruckus at street level while keeping you insulated at the same time. This was important because the whole other side of the street was just one face of the massive Verizon Center sports arena, the premier venue for the city’s hockey and basketball and every other attraction that didn’t require a football stadium. The sidewalk teemed with jerseys and warm-up jackets plastered with school insignia or professional logos most nights of the week. Fans pushed through each other to the doors or past them to the pubs to grab a seat to watch their game. Scalpers and the homeless tried to take advantage of the crowd, getting in people’s way,
both of them trying to make a living off the frenzy for sports and entertainment.
For someone like me, the steps were also nice in that the doors behind me were permanently closed, so I felt secure sitting on the top step in a little bit of shade, waiting for my date, Jake Valenti. Jake was a criminology and sociology professor at Georgetown who had taken a deep interest in the culture of gangs in general, and the rise of Hispanic gangs in particular. One of my calls for help to other cops still on the force had put me in touch with him and he’d agreed to meet me as long as it was on the Portrait Gallery steps around six o’clock.
I got there early, sat on a stone step, and watched the scene for half an hour while my butt went numb. As five-thirty became six o’clock, a trickle, then a wave, of red-sweatered fans came down the street and up out of the Metro towards the Verizon Center doors. DC’s hockey team, the Capitals, apparently had a game. I didn’t follow the sport myself, but I could read and you’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to see the team’s logo emblazoned on nearly every flat surface around the arena. A small drum corps kept up a steady cadence to get people’s blood going. Drunk fans spilled out of bars chanting, or trying to chant, the team’s cry of “Let’s Go Caps!” but it came out sounding more like “I Grow Cats!” or “Let’s Make Hats!”
One of the blobs of red detached itself from the mob and crossed the street towards me. If it was Jake, he was about five-five, thin and hawk-nosed, with receding brown hair. He wore dress slacks and leather bucks that just didn’t seem to mesh with the hockey jersey on top. But that could describe most of the fans I was watching. He smiled at me from the bottom of the steps, then watched his footing as he came up.
“Mr. Singer?”
“Just Marty,” I said, rising to a half-squat and extending a hand. We shook and he sat next to me. “Jake? Or is it Dr. Valenti?”
“Jake is fine,” he said, then smiled. “Unless you’re a regular on the Caps Internet forums. Then you’d know me by Howlin’ Wolf.”
“Let’s stick with Jake.”
He put his hands on his knees and rocked back. “Phil Ricci over at Alexandria PD called and told me you could use a primer on local gang culture. Specifically, the Salvadoran maras?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I tend to get in trouble when I make too many assumptions. But, yeah, in essence, I’m working on a case where they keep cropping up. They might be the motivating force behind a lot of trouble that’s been happening lately. Or they might just be an easy target to finger since they’re around.”
“What’s going on, specifically?”
I gave him what I knew, trying to keep out my own deductions and guesses. He listened intently without nodding or interrupting, just rocking a little in place. Besides Sam Bloch, I gave him the most complete picture of anyone that I’d talked to. When I was done, he nodded to himself while he digested what I’d said.
“Were the scenes marked up or decorated in any way?”
“Not the scenes, per se,” I said. “In four out of five cases, though, the bodies were severely beaten.”
“Pre- or post-mortem?”
“A little pre, mostly post,” I said.
“Mutilated?”
“No trophies, if that’s what you mean. Not, ah, dismembered. Beaten all to hell, though.”
He rubbed his hands on his knees. “Do you have the crime scene photos with you?”
“I do,” I said and handed him a folder with copies of the photos. He put on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. My estimation of Howlin’ Wolf went up a notch as I watched him sift through the glossies. The circle of professions that could look at these pictures without flinching was pretty much limited to soldiers, cops, nurses, and doctors. But Valenti’s face remained expressionless and once or twice he peered closely at a photo, lifting his glasses to try and make out particular details. He put two of the batch aside and flipped through the rest, back and forth.
“Find something?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, drawing the word out. He picked up the two he’d put aside. They were from Okonjo’s and Clay Johnson’s scenes. “These are very different than the others.”
“The victim that wasn’t beaten. I told you about him,” I said. “But that last one looks just like the others.”
“The lack of beating is the obvious standout in the one case. But number five is different for a more subtle reason.” He picked up the set of the first three photos. “These are the same because of one physical detail.”
“You can tell that without seeing the autopsies?”
“Oh, no. I’m no crime scene pathologist. I can’t tell you anything medically. I’m talking culturally, from a gang point of view. Specifically, from the viewpoint of a member of one of the maras.”
The streets were alive now with sports fans and even across the street we had to huddle a little to hear each other. “You can tell something just from the pictures?”
He nodded and flipped through the pictures, pulling out Danny Garcia’s. “See the hands? The way the fingers are lashed together?”
I studied the picture. “Yes.”
He shuffled the pictures again. “And this one, Terrence…Witherspoon. The fingers aren’t taped but appear to be snapped, bent back.”
I frowned. “Not in the same way as Garcia’s, though.”
“Not when the picture was taken, but how about before rigor mortis?” he asked. I didn’t say anything. “And this one, the last one.”
“Brady Torres.”
“Yes. Same extensive trauma, though even more vicious than the other two. His arms appear to have been broken—which is why he doesn’t look like the other two—before the fingers were stacked.”
“Stacked?” I asked. Then the light went on. “Oh. Oh, hell.”
“Stacking,” he said. “Slang for making gang sign. Each of these three bodies exhibit post-mortem beating, in part, because the killer was trying to get the fingers to stack a particular way. He didn’t always have the time or opportunity to tie the fingers together for the stack and so was forced to break some fingers until they conformed. The other two victims, even though one was beaten, do not show stacking.”
“How the hell did I not see this?” I said.
“It’s a relatively new tendency among Salvadoran and Mexican gangs. It’s totemic, a way of laying claim to a killing without actually taking a…trophy, as you put it, or making an announcement. They think they’re being cryptic, though of course everyone in the know gets what’s going on. Which is the point.”
“What do you mean?”
Valenti took his glasses off. “These are almost always retributive killings, not regular ‘hits.’ For cowardice or going to the police or threatening the existence of the gang. It’s a way of degrading the victim, owning them. It’s saying that the victim no longer is his own being, he belongs to the mara after death.”
I chewed this over for a second. “What does the stacking mean specifically?”
Valenti pulled out Danny Garcia’s picture again. “This one is the best example. Roughly speaking, his right hand is stacking the letter P. The fingers of his left hand are making an E.”
“Which is?”
“The code takes a little deciphering. PE is short for Para Él.”
“‘For him’?”
Valenti nodded. “Short, again, for Esto es para Él. It’s a corruption of an old catch-phrase meaning ‘This is for Him,’ meaning God. It’s been used many ways in the past. As a battle cry, a plea for salvation, a way of absolving oneself—or dodging responsibility—before committing an atrocity.”
“What’s its application here?” I asked. “It fits everything you mentioned.”
Valenti handed me the photos. “Like a lot of groups, gangs take things that are culturally familiar and turn them to suit their own needs. They no longer believe in God, they believe in the gang. So the Él in the phrase isn’t the Divine, it’s the figure that embodies the group for them.”
“The gang,” I said. “Or
the gang leader.”
He nodded. “It’s not worship, of course. The act of swapping God for a gang leader as the object of devotion is tongue-in-cheek, a cultural wink and nod everyone understands. But as a way of making a statement—for these punitive killings, for instance—it’s perfect.”
“I kill this person, or these people, for him. And, by extension, for the good of the gang.”
“Exactly.”
I stared at the stack of photos for a moment. “So, the two killings are different because they’re missing this stacking. If there’s no message, there’s no connection.”
“Probably. Well, I’d say definitely in the case of the one victim, who was not beaten. Then again, his killing could be connected in a less retributive way. Who knows what the circumstances are—that’s more your realm.”
We’d been talking for a while now and the streets were thinning out. The drum corps had packed it in and the area had returned to its normal decibel level. It was a strange thought that the building across the street now held almost twenty thousand people who I couldn’t see or hear. Valenti checked his watch.
“Game time?” I asked.
He smiled. “They’ll be dropping the puck in a few minutes.”
“Big game?”
“We’re meeting the Penguins in the playoffs. It’s going to be a bloodbath,” he said, then grimaced. “Sorry. Poor choice of words.”
“No problem,” I said. “One last question, then. Who, in this area, does this?”
He pursed his lips. “Only one I know of, though these things spread as the idea gets more popular. Fads, so to speak. Look for a Hispanic gang. In this area, that means MLA. Mara Loco Asesinos.”
“One of the Salvadoran maras.”
“No, Marty. The Salvadoran mara.” He stood up and brushed himself off. “Feel free to call me if you need any more background. I hope this has helped.”
I shook his hand. “Unfortunately,” I said. “It has.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
