“Captain Chacon said something about her father robbing the UDAs.”
“He used her as bait, you see. As I heard more of her story, I began to understand. It was a deception he put upon her, a punishment.”
“What did she do?”
“It was he who made her go out there, by the pool, without clothing, while he waited, hidden in the rocks above. She would hear him nightly, up in the canyon, battling with the serpent.”
“So he was up there robbing these guys all the time, anybody who stopped by to take a look?”
“Yes. He would preach to them. ¡Renuncie al diablo! ¡Renuncie la serpiente! She would hear him say.”
“What about this marrying the serpent stuff?”
“Thath the name of the band,” Rolly said.
“Yeah, but that was afterwards, right?” Bonnie said to Sanchez.
“Yes,” he replied. “I believe she was drawn to the band because of their name. That is how she understood the words of her father. The girl was an innocent. She knew so little of the outside, the real world.”
“Captain Chacon said you caught Velasquez looking at her one night.”
“Yes, but that was not the whole story. It began when she went to Señor Velasquez’ house. I believe, in her mind, that is when it began. And her father’s. It created the rift between them – Señor Velasquez and her father.”
“What happened?”
“One day she went to visit Señor Velasquez. I do not know why. He had been friendly to her, I believe, not as stern as her father. Her mother had left them, you see. The girl had no other friends. Velasquez was not at home this day. She went into his bedroom, found magazines that he had, of naked women and men. She returned to her house, ashamed, but she could not stop thinking of the things she had seen. Each morning she waited until her father and Velasquez would go to work in the trees. She would go down to Velasquez’ house and look at the magazines. She began to imagine herself as those women. She imagined herself with Señor Velasquez. She became flirtatious with him, less concealed.”
“How so?”
“She began to be less careful, at first, moving things, leaving pages of the magazines open. She was a phantom to him, a ghost. She would climb in his bed, leave her scent and strands of hair, and more intimate things.”
“Her panteeth?” said Rolly.
Sanchez nodded.
“Yes.”
“She told you all this?” Bonnie asked.
“Yes. I confirmed much with Velasquez.”
“You spoke to him too?”
“Yes. I told him of the child.”
“You thought it was his?”
“I thought it was possible.”
“He must have figured out she’d been in his house.”
“He knew from the very first time. It was a great torment for him. He began to desire her. He did not wish to cross with her father. He consorted with harlots, but he could not stop thinking of the girl.”
“Her father found out then?”
“Yes. It began with the pool, you see. One night she awakened. She felt restless. She went outside, in back of the house, by the pool. Her father was asleep. She felt someone watching her. She thought of Señor Velasquez, and his magazines. She took off her clothes. She posed as they do in the magazines. Again, the next night, and several more nights. One night, a man came to her. He took her in carnal embrace.”
“Velasquez?”
“She could not describe the man, except that he spoke a strange language.”
“Spanish?”
“I believe so. The next night her father discovered her. Out by the pool. He became greatly agitated. She told him everything that had happened. He told her she had sinned, that she had been with the Serpent, Satan’s agent, that the Serpent would return for her soul. That she would only be saved if they captured and exorcised him.”
“That’s when he started these stakeouts?”
“Yes.”
“How long did this go on?”
“Several weeks. She heard the shotgun go off one night.”
“When her father was killed?”
“Yes. The serpent came to her, out of the rocks.”
“She saw him? The killer?”
“She accepted him into her life. He was a pitiful creature. Wounded. She brought him into the house and dressed his wounds. He had the head of a snake, a mark upon his mouth, and great teeth. That is how she described him.”
“You never told Detective Walters about this?” said Bonnie.
“It had been more than a year since her father’s death. Señor Velasquez had been released. They would not find the man, anyway. It seemed to me that the man who killed her father had done so in self-defense.”
“So you agree with the report, that the killer was an unknown UDA?”
“It would do nothing for the girl to have the police in her life.”
“Is that why you lost your job?”
“The girl’s story touched me. Her mother was gone. Her father was dead. The more I spoke to her, the more I began to feel a deepening relationship between us. She trusted me. I cannot say what it was then, but I began to love her, in some way. Perhaps I am denying myself, but I did not feel it as sexual. Not then. I was the only man who could protect her. That is how I felt. I knew also that I wanted to keep her close to me. I could not lose her. That is when the serpent came. The voice of Satan spoke to me.”
Sanchez paused, cleared his throat.
“My wife and I, we tried to have children. We had been married three years then, but the Lord had not blessed us. My wife had become listless, forlorn. We no longer had a physical relationship. I do not know when it started, but I began to think of the child of this girl, that my wife and I could take care of it, that somehow it was a gift to us. I spoke to the lawyers. We made an arrangement.”
“You adopted the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Did your wife know about the girl?”
“I said it was temporary, at first, that this baby needed someone, that his mother was injured, in the hospital. She believed me. She was happy.”
“What happened to the girl?”
“I continued to visit her. Every weekend. I would bring her small gifts, even the cigarettes. I should not have done that. I saw the marks later. She would burn herself with the cigarettes.”
“On her neck?” said Rolly.
“Yes.”
“Her father had done it to her. As a warning, to remind her of the fires of hell, how it would be if she remained married to The Serpent, if he did not save her. How do you know of this?”
“The woman I saw today. The man did it to her.”
“The one in the picture?”
“Yes.”
“It is the same. It must be her.”
“You’re sure?” said Bonnie.
“Yes. It can be no other. It is what she desires. I have seen it myself. I have done this thing.”
“So you’re saying...”
“Yes, Officer Hammond. I broke the bonds of my marriage. That is why my wife divorced me. I broke the oath of my office. I had carnal knowledge of this girl. The serpent entered my heart. I lost my job. I lost everything.”
El Fantasma
(The Ghost)
“Hell of a story, huh?” said Rolly, as Bonnie drove him back to his house. His head felt clearer. The drugs had faded.
“He crossed the line,” Bonnie replied. “Way over the line.”
“I felt kinda sorry for the guy.”
“Not me.”
“Not a little?”
“Not the least. Stealing babies, sleeping with minors. He took a vow to uphold the law.”
“She wasn’t a minor when he slept with her. They let her out on her eighteenth birthday, remember?”
“That’s what he told us. Don’t forget hiding evidence and obstruction of justice.”
“Well, yeah, there was that.”
“And abusing his authority under color of law.�
��
“What’s that?”
“Putting her up in that motel. Getting that deal from the owner to give him the room for nothing. You think you’d get that kind of deal?”
“If I had something on them, I might.”
“Exactly what I’m saying. It was a protection racket. And don’t forget about murdering his wife.”
“He didn’t go through with it.”
“Only because she found out about the girl first.”
“That’s why he got fired, huh?”
“Any and all of those things, probably. Take your pick.”
“I thought maybe you read something about it in the book, that Border Lords thing.”
“This stuff happened after the book ends. I’ll check with internal affairs. They’ll have his records.”
They passed under the Laurel Street Bridge. Rolly looked out the side window, up towards the lights of Balboa Park.
“She was a Royal Tingler, that’s for sure.”
“What’s that?” asked Bonnie.
“Something Moogus used to say, back in the old days. The hottest girl in the club, the one he’d get stuck on, the one he couldn’t stop looking at.”
“The one he couldn’t stop harassing?”
Rolly chuckled.
“We used to have contests.”
“I don’t wanna know,” Bonnie snorted.
“It changed some, the meaning,” Rolly continued. “We used it to refer to anything you were jonesing about, something you just had to have, that makes you crazy until you get it. Drugs were the same way. Alcohol. Jimmy said it about his burrito the other day.”
“Speaking of Mr. Bodeans...”
“You’re sure he was with those AFA guys?”
“He’s hard to miss.”
“It makes sense now. His trying to scare me.”
“Are you saying Mr. Bodeans threatened you?”
“He stopped by to see me at Patrick’s last night, started telling me about how dangerous things could be down by the border, that I needed to be careful with all the drug gangs and stuff that were down there.”
“He’s right about that.”
“He said he was just looking out for me, being a buddy.”
“Mr. Bodeans is not your friend.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you that. Are you going to arrest him?”
“Let’s just say he’s near the top of my list.”
They were silent a moment, thinking separate thoughts. Then Bonnie spoke.
“I think you should throw in the towel on this one,” she said.
“I need the money.”
“Forget the money. This is dangerous. Tell your client it’s a murder investigation now. He’ll understand.”
“The tire tracks are my case. I need to finish it.”
“You’re in over your head.”
Rolly shrugged.
“Only my whole freakin’ life.”
Bonnie went silent, stared out the front windshield, up the road. Rolly thought for a moment, turned back to her.
“It’s just that, you know, there’s something about that kid, the Burdon guy.”
“What about him?”
“He kind of reminds me of me at that age.”
“You were that weird?”
“I’d obsess over things like he does, playing those video games, except for me it was the guitar. I wouldn’t let myself out of my room sometimes until I’d figured a part out, something I heard on a record.”
“Nothing wrong with being focused.”
“It was a defensive thing, though. Because of my parents.”
“My dad was a drunk, you know,” said Bonnie.
“Yeah, you’ve told me.”
“You got this thing, just like he did. You get fixated on one thing and that’s all you think about. Like that Royal Tickler or whatever it is.”
“Royal Tingler.”
“You’ve got an addictive personality type. I’ve seen it before.”
“So now you’re a shrink?”
“OK, forget it. I’m just suggesting you step back and think about things, maybe take a wider view of the situation you got yourself in.”
“OK, OK. I’ll think about it.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to take my advice now and then.”
“I said I’d think about it. Is there anything else?”
“No.”
“Good. I want to go home.”
Bonnie exited the freeway, pulled up at the stoplight on Robinson.
“On second thought, can you drop me at the drugstore?” said Rolly. “I want to get this prescription filled. Over on Fifth.”
“I ain’t your freakin’ chauffeur,” said Bonnie. She turned left anyway, drove down four blocks, then into the Rite Aid parking lot.
“How old do you think that kid is?” she said, pulling to a stop in the fire lane outside the store.
“Burdon?”
“Yeah. How old?”
“I don’t know – nineteen, twenty, maybe a little more?”
“Sanchez didn’t say anything.”
“What’s that?”
“Just a thought. I’ll see if I can find Sanchez’ ex-wife.”
“You want to get her side of the story?”
“I want to find out what happened to that baby.”
Rolly nodded. His head hurt. He needed more pills.
“Can I go now?” he said.
“Nobody’s stopping you.”
Rolly climbed out of the car, shut the door. He felt stupid, standing there, watching her drive away. Bonnie had said something important, but he was too tired and in too much pain to hear it. He entered the store, walked to the back, handed his prescription to the pharmacist behind the counter. The pharmacist was a Latino man named Lucius. He looked about thirty years old, wore a pink blouse under his lab coat, and stood about five-ten in spike heels.
“So what’s on the menu tonight?’ said Lucius, reading the doctor’s scrawl.
“I cracked my skull,” Rolly replied.
“Oh, honey, what happened?”
“It was an accident. My car. I, uh... It’s complicated.”
“Bad day huh? Well, give me a couple of minutes.”
Lucius walked into the back to fill the prescription. Rolly leaned against the counter and closed his eyes, listened to the low buzz of the fluorescent ceiling. His thoughts drifted. Dark shapes and shadows loomed towards him.
“Mr. Waters?”
Rolly jerked, awake. Lucius had returned with the prescription.
“I’m here,” Rolly said.
“I need your driver’s license.”
Rolly passed over his driver’s license and a credit card.
“You been on this train before?” the clerk asked as he slid the cards through the register.
“Hmm?”
“The Perkushen train. One dose as needed, no more than six a day.”
“Okay.”
“Drink plenty of water. No alcohol. You don’t want to drive or operate heavy machinery.”
“Uh-huh.”
Lucius returned the license and credit card, pushed the credit card slip across the counter.
“You got someone to drive you home?” he said, as Rolly signed the slip.
“No. I’m walking. It’s close.”
“You got any heavy machinery?” Lucius winked.
“No,” Rolly said. He signed the slip, passed it back to the clerk, too tired to entertain Lucius’ flirting.
“Here you go, then,” said Lucius, stapling the receipt to the bag and passing it to Rolly. “Twenty box cars on the Perkushen choo-choo.”
“Thanks.”
“Get some rest now, honey,” said Lucius.
“Yeah,” Rolly said. “Thanks.”
He picked up a ham sandwich and a bottle of iced tea from the cold cases, paid for them and left the store. Pausing outside, he opened the pills, knocked one back with a slug of iced tea, placed all the items back in the bag and started towards
home. His head hurt.
There had been a time, when he first started working for Max, that a private investigator’s life seemed quiet, almost magically dull, an orderly sanctum miles removed from the misspent evenings of his rock-and-roll youth. He put in his days on the computer in Max’s office, or at the library. He chatted up clerks at the hall of records who could help him find the right documents. Sometimes he’d drive out to the location of a legal dispute, photograph the scene. It was easy stuff. That, and a regular paycheck, gave him the illusion of normalcy, of competence. But things had changed after Max retired, when Rolly went into business for himself. Bonnie was right. He was in over his head.
He stopped at the corner of Fifth, waited for the traffic light. The pain in his head eased. The lights of the city, the cars and pedestrians, began to converge in a dazzling harmonic hum. Three young women approached him, crossing the street. They were gorgeous, the most beautiful women he’d ever seen in his life – Royal Tinglers all.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said to them.
The women giggled, stepped around him, giving him a wide birth. For some reason Rolly’s right hand appeared in front of his face, brandished in chivalric flourish. He put his arm down. No wonder the women laughed. The high had jumped him even faster this time.
The light changed. He crossed the street, continued down the block, relieved there were only two-and-a-half more blocks to go. He turned down Eighth Avenue. The city lights faded. He heard someone singing. Sweet Baby James.
He walked past the front of his mother’s house, two stories tall with gabled windows, and turned into the driveway. He walked back towards his flat. The Perkushen might bring out his inner James Taylor, but he wasn’t so high he couldn’t find his way home in the dark.
When he entered the back yard, he came to a halt. So did Sweet Baby James. There was a truck parked in the gravel driveway. It looked familiar, an old Chevy, rusty and battered. He caught his breath, snuck in closer, hoping the gravel under his feet didn’t sound the way it did in his head, icebergs cracking. He peeked into the bed of the truck, spotted some leather halters, a long string of rope arranged in a lariat. As if by magic, Jaime’s old truck had appeared in his mother’s back yard.
Border Field Blues Page 16
