A Cold and Broken Hallelujah (12 page)

Jen finished her call and said, “This is why you never drive.” She hadn’t been paying attention to the passing scenery, and it took her a moment to get her bearings and figure out where we were.

“Have you been here before?” She caught herself and added, “Before the case.”

“I’ve walked around the path a bunch of times and out on the little pier there.” I gestured toward the concrete quay that jutted out into the Catalina Express marina. “But this is the first time I’ve ever parked here.”

Palm Beach Park really wasn’t much of a park at all. There was more parking lot than there was green space. The trees and grass made a band around the white-gridded asphalt taking up the center of the small peninsula upon which the park was situated. The peninsula separated Golden Shore Marine Biological Reserve, at the mouth of the Los Angeles River, from the rest of Rainbow Harbor and Shoreline Village. It was a small transitional blip of land that divided the industrialized harbor area to the west and the downtown tourist-centric waterfront.

There were a dozen other cars in the lot, but no one else in the “park” itself except a lone man in a dark suit at the end of the concrete jetty, facing away from us and looking out at the water.

Jen and I walked over to the strip of grass and stopped in the shade of a tall palm tree. I thought I could understand the appeal the place had for Bishop. It wasn’t hard to feel alone here. With the Long Beach skyline at our backs and a giant container ship slowly drifting across the horizon, it was impossible not to feel the urban world surrounding me, but there seemed to be a stillness here in the center of everything that made me feel an almost overwhelming sense of solitude somehow comingled with a sense of connection to the city around me.

“You still with me?” Jen asked.

“I think I get it,” I said to her.

“What?”

“Why Bishop liked it here.”

“Why?”

I explained it to her as well as I could, but I knew I wasn’t able to satisfactorily translate what I was feeling into words.

She surprised me with her response. “I think I know what you mean.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of what
randori
feels like.”

I’d watched her train and teach many times. I knew
randori
was a form of sparring, and I’d seen her, in front of a dojo full of students, being attacked simultaneously by four or five other black belts. In all honesty, those sessions were some of the most impressive physical displays I’d ever seen. There was a violence in them, to be sure, but there was a fluid and powerful kind of grace as well.

“What does it actually mean? I know I’ve seen you do it, and it’s a form of sparring, but what does the word actually mean?”

“I’ve heard it translated different ways. The one I’ve always liked best was ‘seizing chaos.’”

“That’s good.”

“It was, until I heard an MMA douchebag visiting one of my classes tell an orange belt that’s what his kanji tattoo meant. I looked at it and told him he had it wrong. It really translated as ‘egg drop soup.’”

“It did?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea what it meant. But he started to tear up. And later, on the mat, that same orange belt had him tapping out.”

The laugh that escaped me then felt like the first genuine sound I’d made in a long time.

11

R
ALPHS PLASTIC SHOPPING BAG CONTAINING THREE USED PAPERBACK BOOKS
: L
ONESOME
D
OVE
,
BY
L
ARRY
M
C
M
URTRY
; T
RUNK
M
USIC
,
BY
M
ICHAEL
C
ONNELLY
; S
LAUGHTERHOUSE
-F
IVE
,
BY
K
URT
V
ONNEGUT
.

Roberto Solano, father of Jesús and Pedro, lived in Riverside.

“Think a shot in the dark is worth a three-hour round trip on a Friday night?” I asked Patrick and Jen.

“We could just call it a night,” Jen said.

“I’m worried about Jesús.” I tapped the eraser of a pencil on a yellow writing pad on the desk in front of me.

“I know.” She looked at Patrick. “What do you think?”

“You’ve got dinner with your folks, right?” he asked.

She nodded. “They’ll get over it if I cancel.”

“They have all seventeen thousand other times,” I said. That had sounded funnier in my head.

But Patrick stepped up and rescued me from my own awkwardness. “I’ll go. Let’s do it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m waiting on forensics and ballistics results anyway. Why not?”

We knocked on Ruiz’s office door and told him what we were planning.

“You think it’s worth the drive? A phone call won’t do it?”

I said, “I thought about that. Not sure it’s a good idea to give them a heads-up. If Jesús is there, he might spook. Don’t want to lose him.”

“Well, it’s your Friday night. If you two want to spend it on the freeway, be my guest.”

On the way back to our desks, Patrick said, “That means no overtime, right?”

By the time we hit the 91, rush hour had peaked. We’d done rock-paper-scissors to figure out who would drive each way. I’d won, so Patrick got stuck behind the wheel in the bad traffic. It would be a breeze on the way back to Long Beach. I wondered how we’d manage if we ever partnered regularly. We must have been the only two cops in Long Beach who never wanted to drive.

“I might have to move,” I told him.

“Why?”

“My landlord decided to sell the duplex. Every other one they’ve sold on the street in the last two years has been converted into a single-family house. So he’ll probably want to do that to mine.”

“Sorry, man. That’s a cool place.”

“I know. I really like it there.”

“You always lived there by yourself, right?”

“I moved in a couple of months after Megan died.” A twinge of anxious sadness curdled in my stomach. “I chose it because I knew she would have loved it there. Kind of weird.”

“Not weird at all. How long do you have?”

“Don’t know. The only thing he’s talked about doing so far is changing out all the old fixtures for new low-flow stuff. Seems like an odd way to renovate. Maybe he’s just trying to get the ball rolling.”

“You going to stay in the same neighborhood?”

“I don’t know.”

Patrick had moved last year as well. He’d lived in one of the few authentic lofts in Long Beach, an old mixed-use industrial building he’d converted himself. It was an impressive place, hipster living at its best.

“You miss your old place?” I asked.

“Sometimes. It was a bitch to keep up, though. You know how hard it is to vacuum a two-thousand-square-foot concrete floor?”

I laughed.

“How about the condo?” He’d moved into a bland townhouse on the edge of Signal Hill. It had a great view of the harbor and the sunset, but in every other way it was a virtual clone of thousands of others just like it all across the city.

“It’s okay. Nice to blend in. I don’t feel the same need to make a statement with my living arrangements that I used to.”

He’d never told me the reason for the change, but he’d been attacked in his old place in the course of one of our previous investigations, a disturbing multiple murder that involved a congressman, a dirty FBI agent, and a trio of Eastern European thugs. Whenever I thought about it that way, I thought it sounded like one of the absurd cop thrillers that Patrick and I had so much fun mocking. In reality, though, there was nothing funny about it. Patrick had spent several days in intensive care while the rest of us waited anxiously to find out if he’d ever regain consciousness. I understood changing your living arrangements to escape the trauma of violence and loss.

“You thought about buying something?” he asked.

“Jen loves her place,” I said. “Looks like I missed the window on that, though. The prices and interest rates are already going back up. And I don’t have the nest egg she did. If I was going to buy, I’d have to look at either condos or a crappy neighborhood.”

“Don’t knock condos. It’s not nearly as soul crushing as you think it will be.”

“I just don’t want to move.”

A few miles later, he said, “Did you ever check out that link I sent you?”

“No, not yet. It got pushed way down in my e-mail and I forgot about it.” I was never as good at managing my personal e-mail as I was with my work account. It happened a lot, and I was always apologizing to people. “Sorry.”

“You should be sorry. It’s going to change your life.”

“Really? Must be quite a link.”

“Remember who you’re talking to. How many shitty links have I ever sent you?”

“Good point.”

It seemed like hours of toll roads and carpool lanes, but we made it to Roberto Solano’s address in ninety-two minutes. He lived in a bad neighborhood in an old two-level, eight-unit apartment complex.

We drove past, turned right at the end of the block, and cut down the alley behind the building. It was a simple rectangle, four apartments on each level stacked one right above the other. There was an exposed walkway on the second floor that each upstairs unit opened onto. They probably had identical floor plans. While we were in back, Patrick slowed the car and looked up through the windshield.

“Can you see the number by the door up there?”

I squinted into the darkness. “It looks like 2D.”

“Well, that’s it,” he said.

The building was perpendicular to the street, and Solano’s apartment was all the way at the back, farthest from both the street and the stairway to the upper landing. If anyone saw us coming, the only escape route would be a jump from the second story to the ground and a climb over the six-foot barbed-wire-topped concrete block wall.

Our unmarked Police Interceptor wouldn’t fool anyone, especially in this part of town. So Patrick had pulled into half a space along the curb and didn’t worry about the front end in the red zone. We could have tried to hide the car by parking up the street or on the next block, but we decided the advantage of having the car closer outweighed any stealth we might gain. Besides, no one in the vicinity would be surprised by the presence of a cop car.

Before he got out, Patrick slipped his iPhone out of his jacket pocket and pulled up a copy of Roberto Solano’s driver’s-license photo. “Want to take one more look?”

“I had plenty of time to memorize it on the drive.”

The sign mounted on the front wall of the building identified it as the “el Ray.” The first letter was missing. “What do you suppose it used to say?”

Patrick examined the cracked yellow stucco where the missing letter should have been. “Been gone so long you can’t even see the fade marks. I bet it was a
D
.”

“Why?”

“Because slumlords in the desert an hour away from the beach think they can trick people into imagining an ocean breeze.”

“Marina Del Rey is spelled with an
e
.”

“Illiteracy just supports my theory,” he said with a grin.

There was a locking front gate, but it had been propped open with half of a broken concrete block. We started up the stairs. “Be careful,” I said. “The railing’s loose.”

Patrick shook it and the wobble was visible all the way up to the second-floor landing. “Nice,” he said.

In apartment 2A, someone peeked out from behind the curtain covering the front window next to the door as we passed. The heavy fabric moved back to its original position, and the light behind it went out.

Apartments 2B and 2C were both dark. As we walked slowly toward Solano’s door, the floor below us creaked and the railing rattled. We stopped before the last window and listened. The curtains there were closed as well. Nobody lived in the el Ray for the view.

The only sound coming from the apartment was a dull monotone that sounded like someone talking on the TV or the radio. It wasn’t loud enough to tell for sure which it was.

At the end of the landing, there was a good five feet between Solano’s door and the railing. The doorknob was on the right, so if someone cracked the door or used a safety chain, one of us could hide against the wall on the other side of the door. I gestured for Patrick to move into that space. He did and I knocked.

“Mr. Solano!” I said, rapping on the door. “Police. We need to talk to you.” I gave it a few seconds and knocked again. “Mr. Solano, it’s the police. We need to talk to you.” After the second round, I heard someone moving inside, and a shadow partially blocked the sliver of light along the curtain’s edge.

The door cracked open about an inch. An eye peered around the edge of the jamb. There was a solid safety latch, the sort that hotels use, spanning the small gap.

“Mr. Solano?” I asked, holding open my badge holder so he could see my ID.

On the other side of the doorway, Patrick had his back to the wall and his hand under his coat on the grip of his Glock. I was careful not to look directly at him and give away his presence and position, but in my peripheral vision I could see him give his head a single shake.

“Sir, I need to ask you a few questions about Jesús.”

The man in the apartment said, “Okay. What?” His voice was soft and flat, and I couldn’t see enough of his face to get a read on his expression.

“Sir, can I come inside?”

He took a quick look at something behind him inside the apartment, then looked back at me. “I’ll come out,” he said.

The door closed, and we heard him flip the latch back against the doorjamb. I moved my hand inside my jacket to where the grip of my pistol hung under my left shoulder, and I very briefly made eye contact with Patrick. I relaxed slightly as the door opened, knowing he had me covered.

The man who stepped out in front of me was thickly muscled and tall. He had a goatee and a shaved head and wore a long-sleeved black dress shirt buttoned all the way up. I took a few steps backward, and he moved with me. The light from the window hit the side of his head, and, though I couldn’t be sure in the dim light, there appeared to be some neck ink peeking out of the top edge of his collar.

“What’s going on with Jesús?” he asked. “Is he in some kind of trouble?”

“Honestly, Mr. Solano, we don’t know. We need to talk to him about his brother.”

“His brother.” The big man pondered that for a moment. “Pedro?”

“Yes, Pedro. You looked like you had to think about that name.”

“He has other brothers. And I haven’t seen those two in years.”

“Other brothers with different mothers?”

“Yeah. So?”

“I’m just asking for the record, sir. These details could be important. You say it’s been years since you’ve seen Jesús? Have you had any contact with him at all?”

“No, nothing.”

“Well, then, thank you, sir. Would you give me a call if you hear anything at all from him?”

“Yes, of course.” He exhaled and his posture softened. He thought he’d made it.

He started to turn toward the door.

“Just one other thing, Mr. Solano.”

The man’s jaw clenched, and he transferred his weight to the balls of his feet. The look on his face was one I’d seen a thousand times before. He was trying to figure out if I believed he was the man he was pretending to be.

“Could I see some ID?”

I was able to set my feet and get my left arm up to block the punch, but he still connected with enough force to knock me off balance and drive my guard into my side hard enough that I lost some wind.