by Joe Ide
Isaiah was glad the conversation was over. He was possessive about his work, and the arguments had been distracting. Any number of times he’d wanted to send Dodson home. On the other hand, Dodson had saved his neck and having a friend along was—wait, was that what Dodson was? A friend? Isaiah hated this. Another confusing situation he couldn’t get a handle on. Maybe stepping out of his isolated life wasn’t such a good idea after all. People, it turned out, were a big pain in the ass.
Benny and Ken spent a few days in the hospital. Janine and Sarita had a reunion in the reception area. There were lots of tears and hugs and promises to see each other more often.
“How’s Dad?” Sarita said.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready to see him yet,” Janine said.
“Me either,” Sarita said.
“I’m sorry for all the trouble, sis. I’ve really been an asshole.”
“You won’t get any argument from me,” Sarita said. “Did I tell you I still have the college fund Dad started for me?”
“You do?” Janine said. “Dad cashed mine in a long time ago.”
“Tell you what. You give up gambling, move here, and I’ll cover your expenses until you get on your feet.”
“You mean break up with Benny.”
“If he loves you, he’ll join you. If he loves gambling more, well, that’s his problem.”
Janine thought about that a moment. “I love Benny and he loves me,” she said. “Anybody who gives that up is an idiot.”
“What if the love is bad for you?” Sarita said.
“What if it is?” Janine said. She kissed Sarita on the cheek. “I’ll see you when I see you, sis.”
Frankie’s memorial service brought out a huge crowd. Extended family, friends, the Locos, the homegirls, their extended families, and people from the neighborhood. Even Frankie’s bail bondsman came to pay his respects. Holy Trinity was standing room only. People got up and spoke. Frankie was down for his hood. Frankie was true to the barrio. Frankie never backed down. Frankie was a legend. Frankie will live in our hearts forever.
Manzo sat at the back, a statue of himself. People were surprised when he didn’t speak, but what could he honestly say? That Frankie was a killer? That he sold dope, robbed people, extorted them, and didn’t care who he hurt? And what did true to the barrio mean? That he never tried to be anything but a gangster? Frankie wasn’t a legend, he was a mug shot, a rap sheet, a convict in a bright orange jumpsuit. He was shootouts and dead bystanders and bodies lying in the street. Everything else was bullshit.
They buried Frankie next to Ramona. His headstone said: FRANKIE MONTAÑEZ. 1979–2014. NOW YOU ARE IN THE LORD’S ARMS. REST IN PEACE. Manzo stood at the graveside next to Frankie’s mother, veiled and weeping over the supermarket bouquets piled on top of the gleaming coffin. What was she thinking about? That Frankie was a good boy and that he’d never hurt anyone? Or maybe that her son was a virus of terror who had infected his sister and many others besides and that death was as good a place as any for him to be. Possible, Manzo thought, but he doubted it.
Manzo looked around at his fellow gang members, their heads bowed, solemn and respectful. They’d all been to funerals like this, one of their own killed in a gun battle. Ask them about it and they’d say That’s the life we live, ese. We got to bang, it’s in our blood. It’s in our blood? It’s in our fucking blood? If we say it, why wouldn’t white people say it too? That’s the kind of stupid shit that makes them want to build a wall and deport eleven million people. Of all the great things about their culture, it was this craziness that kept going, generation after generation. A legacy of waste. He wished Frankie would climb out of that coffin and tell them: I fucked up my life and I let my sister fuck up hers. Don’t do it. Please don’t do it.
Sarita went overseas on business for a few weeks so the celebration was put on hold. Isaiah worked on his cases and did a lot of training with Ruffin. The dog seemed to enjoy the lessons, knowing exactly what Isaiah wanted him to do and getting a liver snack when he did it.
When Sarita came back from her trip she called and asked him to dinner at her apartment. The closest Isaiah had ever come to something like this was coffee at the Coffee Cup or a pizza at Pizza Hut. He was thrilled and terrified, but more than that, he felt like he was running behind; like he’d been held back a couple of grades and everybody else was graduating. He went shopping and bought a charcoal-gray suit from Macy’s and Johnston & Murphy cap-toes and took fifteen minutes to tie his tie even after watching the instructions on YouTube three times.
Sarita lived in a glowing tower of sea-green glass overlooking Sunset Boulevard. Isaiah had to say his name twice to the uniformed man in the lobby, the first time it came out like a croak.
When Sarita swung open her apartment door, she smiled and said, “There’s my hero.”
“Hi,” he said with another croak.
She hugged him tight and then took him by the hand. “Well, come on in,” she said. The apartment was better than the one he’d imagined. The couch was a dove gray instead of cream, the furniture in different shades of gray, sea green, and beige that somehow blended together. The open kitchen had marble countertops, stainless steel appliances, copper cookware suspended above the stove. Music playing. Something Latin, gentle and arousing. Sarita was dressed casually in that way rich people dress casually. Jeans, ballet slippers, and a cashmere sweater that must have cost more than his suit.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” she said.
“Sure.”
“Chardonnay?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
She went over to the kitchen and poured two glasses. “Enfield Heron Lake, my favorite,” she said. “Sit down, Isaiah, relax.” He sat down on the edge of the sofa like he’d have to leave soon and wasn’t even close to relaxed. She sat down next to him and gave him the wine. “Cheers,” she said. She held her glass up. It took him a moment to realize he was supposed to clink it with his. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done,” she said. “You were incredible. I mean you literally saved my whole family. Tell me, are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You’ve got bruises on your face,” she said, touching his cheek. “And your knuckles are all scraped up.” She lifted his hand like she was going to kiss it.
He cleared his throat. “I’m okay. It’s nothing.”
“Oh, crap, I forgot about the polenta.” She got up and went into the kitchen. “I hope you like osso buco. I had it in Italy and went crazy for it.”
“Smells good,” he said. He’d heard of polenta but osso buco was a mystery. He hoped it wasn’t a species of snail or something with tentacles. While Sarita bustled around the kitchen, he settled in, and when he was breathing normally again, he got up and looked around. The room was spacious, with a cathedral ceiling and exposed beams. The floor was black hardwood. Vague, calculated paintings were hung on the walls and there were bright spots of color that took your eye from point A to point B and on into the alphabet. There were precious baubles from different countries and a collection of vases with metallurgic glazes and a bronze crane standing next to a bookshelf full of coffee table books and a coffee table made of reclaimed wood that somehow looked modern. The overall effect was hip and prosperous.
Framed photos were carefully arranged on built-in shelves. There were cap-and-gown pictures of Sarita, high school, college, law school, and pictures of Janine and other relatives. None of Ken. None of Marcus. Isaiah was put out. Wasn’t Marcus important enough to be remembered? One photo caught his eye. It was of Sarita at nineteen or twenty. He recognized the clothes. Designer field jacket, lion-colored boots, and the scarf that made her look sophisticated. She was standing on a wide green lawn, smiling, exhilarated to be there, an old majestic building in the background.
“Where was this taken?” Isaiah said.
“That? At Cambridge. Foreign exchange program when I was a sophomore. I had problems over there and
came home early. That’s when I met Marcus.”
Isaiah sat down again and sipped the wine, which smelled better than it tasted. There were other smells too. The food, the spices, vanilla candle wax, the fabrics, the citrus and cypress trees. Together, they smelled like privilege. But there was another scent too. Woodsy, like the fir Marcus used in his carpentry, with a touch of something sweet, lavender maybe, and on top of that a heavier scent. Musk. No, it wasn’t perfume. It was a man’s cologne.
“Isaiah,” Kevin said as he came in the door. “Good to see you again.”
“Good to see you too,” Isaiah said. Kevin was wearing a white shirt, untucked, the sleeves rolled up. Egyptian cotton, the thread count a million plus. His jeans were regular Levi’s but he wore driving shoes that looked too soft and supple to be leather. Isaiah suddenly felt like an overdressed bumpkin in his four-hundred-and-thirty-nine-dollar suit, the tie like a choke chain, his collar getting damp.
“I’m sorry about my behavior when we first met,” Kevin said, shaking Isaiah’s hand. “Can we start over?”
“Sure,” Isaiah said. “No problem.”
Kevin was carrying a shopping bag and he took it into the kitchen.
“It’s about time,” Sarita said, and gave him a quick peck on the lips.
“Better late than never,” he said.
Isaiah was confused. What was Kevin doing here? Why did he have a key to the front door? Why did she kiss him? It took a second for him to acknowledge it. They’re a couple. It was Kevin Sarita was talking to when Isaiah called her from Vegas. Checking with him, seeing what he thought.
Kevin poured himself a glass of wine, came back into the living room, and sat in a chair. He crossed his legs. No socks. He’d replaced the fake Rolex with a real one. Damn, he was good-looking. Where do you get a haircut like that? How come his skin was so smooth? Athletic too. Broad shoulders, deep chest, probably goes to one of those fancy gyms and works on his six-pack abs. He was the reason there were no pictures of Marcus.
“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for Sarita,” Kevin said. “Remarkable, really.”
“I was glad to do it,” Isaiah said.
“I hear you’re quite the detective.”
“I try,” Isaiah said.
“Tell me, how did you come to be doing this line of work?”
“I don’t know,” Isaiah said, thinking, Why would I tell you? “Fell into it.”
“You know, our firm uses investigators all the time. Maybe we could throw some work your way.”
“That’d be great.”
An empty moment, the tension palpable. Isaiah wanted to get up and run out the door.
“Sarita told me about Marcus,” Kevin said, smiling that Billy Dee smile. “He was a wonderful man.”
“Yeah, he was,” Isaiah said. Anger sucked the moisture out of his mouth and hummed in his head like a power line. What do you know about it, asshole? Sarita to the rescue.
“You guys ready to eat?” she said.
They ate dinner, Sarita and Kevin thanking him profusely, toasting him. Osso buco turned out to be baby dairy cow, Isaiah wondering if that was where Kevin’s shoes came from. They asked him questions about what happened. He kept his answers brief and general. They seemed satisfied and uninterested in the details, just glad he was okay. They used their knives to push-scoop food onto their forks. They talked about real estate prices and what houses in the neighborhood were going for and Kevin’s new Tesla and Sarita’s ridiculous shoe collection and how she needed more closet space and Kevin would have to put his clothes on the balcony. They talked about Sarita advancing her career.
“What are your billable hours?” Kevin said in a tone used by people who were senior to you.
“About twenty-two hundred,” she said.
“Barely the minimum for a bonus. You’ll have to do better.”
“I know.”
“It’s the only way to get noticed. You know, I heard Demco is acquiring Sedgewick International, hostile takeover. That’s your bailiwick, isn’t it?”
“I would think so. Sedgewick is based in London.”
“I’ll hint around with Chapman, see if I can get you a leg up.”
“That would be helpful. Thank you.”
They talked about binge-watching Breaking Bad and going to a fundraiser for PETA because a client was involved and Kevin playing tennis with Howie and easing up on him because he was a partner.
“Are you working on any interesting cases, Isaiah?” Sarita said, like she just remembered he was there.
Isaiah hesitated. What would he tell her? That the science club wanted him to get a bully off their backs? That he was on the lookout for Miss Myra’s brooch? That on Doris Sattiewhite’s birthday, her ex-husband, Mike, sent her a box with a dead mackerel in it? He considered telling them about Marcus’s death but it didn’t seem to be the right time. “Same old stuff,” he said.
“Is it true people pay you with casseroles and discount coupons for carpet cleaning?” Kevin said, like he didn’t believe it.
“Some do,” Isaiah said.
“How are you able to make a living?”
“I have clients that can pay.”
“Well, I commend you for your service to the community,” Kevin said. “It’s really quite admirable. We need more people who care about something other than themselves.”
“That’s absolutely true,” Sarita said, nodding earnestly. “Really, Isaiah, I’m so proud of you.”
As soon as they finished dinner, Isaiah said he had to get going. He had a client to meet who couldn’t wait. They looked a little relieved. He thanked them for a great evening. Kevin gave him a manly hug, and Isaiah wanted to hit him. Sarita started to hug him, but he quickly said his goodbyes and left. As soon as he got outside, he ripped off the tie and threw it into the shrubbery. If he wasn’t standing on the street he’d have ripped off the suit too.
He drove home, going too slow so he wouldn’t go too fast. Of course Sarita would be with somebody like Kevin. Of course he never had a shot. What was he thinking with his cheap suit from Macy’s and his house in the hood and his driveway that would never have a Tesla in it? What did Kevin say? Maybe we can throw some work your way? Thanks, asshole, we destitute people in the ghetto would really appreciate it. I commend you for your service to the community. Oh, like I need your approval to do my job? Like it’s a good thing there are people who serve the community so you don’t have to? Fuck you, Kevin. You and your driving shoes and your Egyptian cotton shirt. That Sarita didn’t see he was an arrogant asshole said something about her. And what was that Kevin said about Marcus? He was a wonderful man? Kevin didn’t have the right to speak about Marcus and she didn’t have the right to tell him. And she was never going to be a prosecutor or work for an NGO. What she wanted was more room for a shoe collection and a leg up on the Demco case. Really, Isaiah, I’m so proud of you. Like he’d finally done something worthy of her praise. Fuck you too, Sarita. Next time she could save her own sister; ask Kevin to drive through Vegas at ninety miles an hour and get beat up and shot at by Chinese gangsters.
The next morning, he went to the wrecking yard with Ruffin. He looked for the girl with the GTI and the pocket watch tattoo but she wasn’t there; no reason why she would be. He talked to TK about Sarita, how she was a huge disappointment, how she was nothing like she pretended to be.
“She’s not pretending,” TK said. “She can’t help it if you thought she was something else. That’s on you, boy.”
“Why are you sticking up for her?” Isaiah said. “You don’t even know her.”
“Nobody’s sticking up for her. I’m just saying she is who she is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You got big holes in your life, boy. All by yourself, no family, no friends, ain’t had a girl in a month of Sundays and got no idea where your life is going. Boy’s so lonesome he gotta come down here and talk to a broke-down old man like me.”
“Lo
ok, TK—”
“Hold on now, hold on, let me make my point.”
“You mean that wasn’t it?”
Seething, Isaiah waited while TK tapped a Pall Mall out of the pack, struck a match, lit it, and sucked down a long drag, squinting as he exhaled.
“You tried to do it the easy way,” TK said.
“Do what the easy way?”
“You tried to fill all them holes up in one easy step. Sarita was gonna cure your loneliness, bring some people into your life, give you a family, give you a future. Well, it don’t work like that, boy. You want a life you gotta open yourself up, not close yourself down.”
“I’m not closed down.”
“Well, you coulda fooled me. You ever talk to somebody just to have a conversation? Invite somebody over for a beer, watch the game? Go places to socialize? Bar, pool hall, church, ball field, anywhere where you ain’t by yourself? Do you?”
“I don’t know, sometimes.”
“Sometimes? Shit, boy, who you tryin’ to kid?” TK said. “And why do you take that goddamn dog with you everywhere you go? To keep folks off of you, that’s why. You think a pit bull makes you look more friendly?”
“It’s my dog,” Isaiah said, shrugging with both shoulders.
Isaiah left the yard, angry and embarrassed. TK didn’t know what he was talking about. The old man ran a junkyard. Who was he to be analyzing somebody? Sarita had duped him, got him to risk his life with her hugs and flattery and slender body. And for free too. He should send her a bill and send one to Kevin for being a jerk. He’d been a mark, a sucker, and that was never going to happen again.
Isaiah had dinner at Taco Bell and wondered how many things you could make out of the same four ingredients. At home, he cut the lawn, mopped the kitchen floor, and played online chess with some hotshot from the Czech Republic and checkmated him in ten moves. He was sitting in the easy chair looking through his emails when he remembered that photo of Sarita, the one he’d looked at in her apartment. He stood up sharply, Ruffin watching him, sensing the change in vibe. Sarita was at Cambridge, standing on the lawn with that magnificent old building in the background. He’d seen it before.
