Revision of Justice (29 page)

I didn’t move, didn’t even blink. I felt like I was dropping through space, nothing to grab hold of, a free fall into nowhere and no sense of time.

I swallowed with effort, took a breath.

“They want to take the left leg first. Then, as soon as they can, the right one. As high up as possible, above the knees. They say if they don’t, I won’t live more than a month or two. And it won’t be too much fun while it lasts.”

There was no air in the space where I was falling, no light. I rose from the bed, found a part in the curtain, and pulled it open. Each breath was coming faster and deeper than the last.

“I’m not going to let ’em start cutting me up like that, Ben, a piece at a time. Not just to buy me a few extra months.”

I landed. The fall was over. Now everything inside me was collapsing, disintegrating.

I made myself face him.

“We can get you into a hospice, a care facility.”

He shook his head.

“No, Ben.”

“There are plenty of good people who will—”

“No!”

I gnawed my fist, tasted blood. I took my hand away but didn’t know what to do with it, where to put it.

“You want to go home? Back to Oklahoma?”

“Never felt like home. Not for a long time, anyway.”

“The Sangre de Cristos, Milagro, back to your mother’s people?”

He reached for the trail hook and topo maps I’d brought, clutching them to his chest. I started to understand.

“The Sierra.”

“There’s this pretty little lake out of Lone Pine, not even two miles up the trail. Maggie and me used to go there all the time, on our way over the high passes. It’s right here in the book.”

“You’re in no condition to hike.”

“The doctors say they can get me up on my feet and walking pretty good in a few days. If you help me, I know I can get up to that lake. If we have to, we can rent us some horses. I got a check coming from the government. You can have it, to pay for things.”

“Just to see that lake one more time?”

“Not just to see the lake, Ben. Don’t you understand what I’m asking you?”

I did, all at once, completely.

“Oh, Danny.”

“I’ve stockpiled, Ben. Barbiturates. I got enough to do the job easy.”

“Danny, Danny—”

“The pills are in a plastic bag, hidden at the bottom of Maggie’s dry food.”

“We need to discuss alternatives—”

“I don’t want alternatives! The only choices I got are to lose my legs to buy me a little time, go into a hospice now and let ’em shoot me up with morphine ’til I’m gone, or do it myself, staring up at a ceiling that don’t mean nothing to me. I don’t like none of those choices. Maybe some people can go out that way. But not me.”

Tears brimmed over from his pleading eyes.

“Please help me, Ben. I want to do it on my own terms. I want to die looking up at the stars.”

He dropped his chin, wiped away the tears.

“Can’t see no stars from this damn city.”

He looked up, straight into my eyes.

“I know it ain’t fair to ask. But you’re the only one I got. The only one I know to do this for me. All my other friends, they’re all dead, or disappeared somewhere.”

I wanted to speak, to stop him from saying more, but no words came.

“You don’t have to stay with me, Ben. You can leave me up there. I got the whole thing planned out. The search and rescue guys can bring out my body, over the back of a mule. I don’t want to cause you no trouble.”

A ragged cry tore up out of my chest, sounding like it came from another dimension, escaping my throat before I could stop it.

I ripped off the paper gown, then grabbed my knapsack, intending to run from the room. But there was no way out.

Lieutenant DeWinter filled the doorway, dressed in the same kind of protective garb worn by the policewoman behind him.

I crumpled my gown into a ball, making it smaller and smaller and smaller.

“What are you doing here, DeWinter?”

“I’m here to place Danny under arrest.”

DeWinter stepped past me. I followed him toward Danny’s bed.

“You told me you’d give me a few days.”

“That was yesterday.”

“What happened?”

DeWinter ignored me, looming over the bed.

“Hello, Danny.”

He glanced at the maps in Danny’s hands.

“Planning on taking a trip?”

I forced myself between DeWinter and the bed.

“I worked with you, Lieutenant. We had a deal.”

“We found the Grolsch bottle, Justice, the one we’d misplaced. Got it to the lab. The contents tested positive for cyanide, like you figured they would.”

“And the samples from JaFari’s body?”

“Yeah, we tested those too.”

“Cyanide traces.”

“Correct.”

“That doesn’t implicate Danny.”

“There’s more.”

I waited.

“I went back into the apartment with my warrant for another look. Guess what I found in Danny’s backpack? Half a pint of cyanide in a plastic bottle.”

I looked at Danny. He was as calm as a mountain lake on a windless day.

“If it was there,” he said, “I didn’t put it there. That’s all I can tell you.”

“The bottle had only one set of prints. Those prints matched the ones I took off one of your empty prescription vials.”

“Whoever broke in before could have gone back and put the cyanide in one of Danny’s water bottles.”

“That’s possible.”

“If Danny used cyanide to kill JaFari, he wouldn’t leave it where you could find it.”

“He would if he’s careless.”

“Where’s the motive, Lieutenant?”

“I think we’ve nailed that one down too. You see, we found another set of Danny’s prints—taken eight years ago.”

He was looking straight at Danny now.

“When I was arrested up in San Francisco.”

“Bingo, Danny boy.”

My eyes moved from DeWinter to Danny.

“Arrested for what?”

“Tell him, Danny. Tell him about the man you beat half to death with a piece of wood the size of my arm.”

“It was somebody I was involved with.”

“Somebody who was putting his ding dong up your poop chute,” DeWinter said.

Danny ignored him, talking to me.

“He told me he’d tested negative, that he’d taken follow-up tests. Been celibate for a year, he said. Told me he didn’t like to use condoms, that they took away the pleasure, some shit like that. I was nineteen, a kid who didn’t know much except that he was in love. I believed him. I trusted him.”

“He infected you.”

Danny nodded.

“After I got tested and found out, I put it to him. He admitted he had HIV. Said he didn’t care who he infected. Somebody did it to him, and he was going to take as many guys with him as he could.”

“Which is exactly what you and Reza JaFari argued about,” DeWinter said, “the night before he died. It set off your rage all over again, and you figured a way to take him out. Drove him to the party, took some beer with you. One of the bottles was spiked with cyanide. Cyanide kills fast. You left him down there on Cantwell’s terrace and slipped out of the house without being seen a couple hours before the party started.

“You took the poisoned bottle with you and left a second bottle in its place, half empty, as if JaFari had been drinking from that one. You wiped your prints off the first bottle and tossed it into the canyon as you drove away, figuring it would never be found.”

“I argued with Reza, yeah. I hated what he was doing. But I didn’t kill him. I dropped him off and came back later to give him a ride home. Just like I told you before.”

“Tell it to the jury, Danny.”

DeWinter signaled the policewoman, who came around the bed with a set of steel handcuffs.

You can’t take him out of here,” I said. “He’s too sick.”

I pushed past DeWinter, toward the policewoman.

I felt DeWinter’s huge hand on my collar, pulling me back. He spun me around and slammed me against the nearest wall.

“If you’re smart, you’ll stay where you are, Justice. We’ve got another set of cuffs if you’re in the market for jewelry.”

I watched the policewoman slip one cuff onto Danny’s left wrist, ratchet it down, then attach the other to the bed rail.

“You’re staying here under twenty-four-hour guard until your doctor says you can be moved,” DeWinter said. “Then you’re going to the jail ward at County-USC.”

“He’s dying,” I said.

“He can die just as well there as here.”

DeWinter began reading Danny his rights.

The room felt like it was spinning at crazy, topsy-turvy angles. The last thing I saw before I escaped was the resignation on Danny’s face, a mask of passivity and hopelessness that couldn’t quite hide the deeper fear.

Then I was running. Along the corridor, past startled nurses, through a door marked
EXIT
, into a stairway, and down.

Down and down and down, until finally I was bursting into dazzling sunlight, desperate for the kind of drink that would take me far, far away, to the land of the numb and the blind.

Outside the hospital, blustery winds continued to scorch the city, blasting every bit of moisture from the air. I waded into the early evening traffic on San Vicente Boulevard, forcing cars to slow, daring them not to.

Rising above me was the Beverly Center, a seven-story shrine to merchandise where the fashion-addicted could worship at the altar of materialism. Fortunately, along with its quick shopping fix, the complex offered alcohol for those of us who needed something stronger than a new set of throw pillows or Calvin Klein cologne to get us through the night.

I made straight for the Hard Rock Cafe, which anchored the ground-level northwest corner.

Above the restaurant, a big-finned Cadillac convertible—metallic blue detailed with orange flames—could be seen plunging into the rooftop, like a symbol of civilization plummeting toward self-destruction. Below the Caddie, one electronic scorecard ticked off each new addition to the world’s population while another kept track of the corresponding loss of rain forest acreage. The computer-fed numbers never stopped changing—a new addition and a new substraction each second—the management’s way of keeping the public dutifully informed while advertising its admirable social conscience.

Inside, the early dinner crowd munched burgers and french fries, surrounded by loud music and a display of rock ’n’ roll memorabilia that hung from the walls like sacred artifacts.

The bar was big and oval, womblike, with reassuring rows of glittering bottles behind it, presided over by a tall, blond bartender with a good chest and shoulders and a solid shadow of beard that gave some character to his well-cut face.

I leaned into the railing and demanded a double Cuervo Gold straight up. My tone was urgent enough for him to give me a long look before he reached for the bottle.

When he set my drink in front of me, I ordered another double. When he brought that one, the first one was gone.

“I was wondering something,” I said.

“What’s that, partner?”

His deep voice came with a soft drawl—Texas, maybe—and his eyes were baby blue. He had a fine face, but no better than the thousands of others that crowded the file drawers of casting offices around town in the form of glossy eight-by-tens.

I shifted my gaze out to the dining room.

“Where does the beef for all those burgers come from?”

He grinned.

“Cows, I ’spose.”

“You don’t think any of those cows grazed on land cleared from natural forest, do you?”

“Never really thought about it.”

“No, I don’t imagine you did.”

I emptied the glass with one motion, set it down sharply, and ordered another.

I could feel the alcohol seeping through me now the way good jazz makes its way through a lonely house in the dead of night, finding and filling the cold, dark corners.

The bartender hesitated a moment, then went to pour the drink. He had strong hands but worked gracefully with the bottle and glass, like a seasoned priest handling the items of religious ritual.

When he set the third double in front of me, he said, “Maybe you better slow down, fella.”

He said it so nicely, so thoughtfully, I felt obliged to comply. I sipped some of the golden liquid off the top, closing my eyes and rolling it around my tongue. It had been more than a year since I’d anointed my body with hard liquor, and I trusted it to do its job the way some trust God to end suffering.

I opened my eyes. The bartender was still there.

“I used to be a newspaper reporter.”

“Is that right?”

“Until I won a Pulitzer prize and they found out I’d made the story up. That kind of put a damper on the old career.”

“I guess it would.”

“Covered a big conference once on the environment, back in the eighties. Sponsored by the entertainment industry. How to save energy, stop pollution, take personal responsibility for saving the planet, that kind of thing. I’m talking now about the real planet, not Planet Hollywood, the restaurant. I wouldn’t want you to get confused.”

He didn’t seem to like that.

“Why don’t you finish your story, partner, so I can get back to work.”

“I didn’t cover the speeches that day.”

“No?”

“I counted cars.”

“No kidding.”

“I stood at the parking entrance with my notebook open in one hand and a calculator in the other, watching guests arrive. Celebrities, producers, agents, big-shot executives. Want to know what I found out?”

He glanced over his shoulder at his other customers.

“If it doesn’t take too long.”

“Approximately eight hundred arrived by cab, limousine, or in private automobiles, most of which were of the expensive, gas-guzzling variety. Seven arrived on motorcycles. Three came on bicycles. One arrived in an electric-driven car. Carpooling appeared to be at a minimum.”

“That so.”

“They didn’t like me reporting that. They wanted me to cover the speeches. The next year, I didn’t get invited back.”

He glanced again toward the other end of the bar.

“So what’s the point, partner?”

“I’ll bet you’re an actor, aren’t you?”

“When I’m not workin’ here.”

“Looking for an agent, I’ll bet.”

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

“Hoping for a regular gig on a daytime soap.”

“I wouldn’t mind.” I smiled a little, comfortably drunk and very pleased with myself.

“Now how did I know that?”

I tipped the glass, draining it, and requested another.

“Maybe you should get some food in you before you drink anything more. Or some fresh air.”

“One more. Then I’m gone.”

I said it in a way that let him know I was starting to feel combative, and the battle wasn’t worth it.

He went away, poured the drink, and brought it back.

“Last one,” he said. “On the house.”

I drank half of it down while he looked on.

“You know that hospital over there?”

“Cedars-Sinai? Sure.”

“I got a friend over there. He’s dying.”

“That’s tough.”

“The cops won’t let him go home. You know why?”

“I sure don’t.”

“They think he murdered somebody. So they got him handcuffed to his bed. You know what else?”

The bartender shook his head.

“Maybe he did murder somebody.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Not as sorry as I am.”

I finished the drink, set the empty glass on the bar, and did my best to focus on his photogenic face.

“I hate this fucking world.”

I shoved some money at him and turned to go. He caught my arm and made me take back everything except what I owed him for the drinks.

“Get yourself a cab. There’s a line of ’em at the curb, right out front.”

His strong hand felt good on my arm. It was a beautiful hand, tanned and burnished with dark blond hairs the sun had turned golden at the tips. Or maybe it had been a tanning salon. Either way, I would have liked to see the rest of him.

“I’m walking thanks just the same.”

I could hear my words slide together into one; they sounded as if they were far away, at the end of a long tunnel, spoken by a voice that wasn’t mine.

I made my way toward the door, negotiating the space fairly well until I reached the ramp leading up to the foyer. I tilted sideways as I started up and landed against a wall, hard enough to rattle Pete Townshend’s autographed guitar.

A pretty hostess in a long summer dress took my elbow and guided me to the door.

Outside, the heat smothered me, making the hair all over my body crackle. The office buildings had emptied and the streets were bumper to bumper with cars and the sound of anxious drivers using their horns like anger. On the sidewalks, the pedestrians seemed in just as big a hurry, moving together like a school of stupid fish lost in a sea of asphalt, concrete, and glass. Hovering over it all were the enormous billboard images of beautiful young men and women in fleshy, narcissistic poses designed to make the rest of us feel inadequate and ugly—and desperate to buy the brand names attached to the seductive pictures.

Money. In the end it was all about money. And the high priests of wealth had most of us tithing our lives to it.

I sat down on a bus bench and pulled my notebook from the knapsack. I found the page where I’d charted the names, determined to figure out who had murdered Reza JaFari and Leonardo Petrocelli, and how.

Please God let it be someone other than Danny
.

My mind felt thick and fuzzy, ten or twelve ounces of Cuervo Gold on an empty stomach. I shook my head, blinked, ran my eyes down the list.

Dylan Winchester

Roberta Brickman

Leonardo Petrocelli

Gordon Cantwell

Christine Kapono

Lawrence Teal

Reza JaFari

(Raymond Farr)

Danny Romero

Bernard Kemmerman

Anne-Judith Kemmerman

Hosain JaFari

Constance Fairbridge

I finished drawing in the lines that connected the names to Reza JaFari, and to one another, noting the reasons they were linked. The only name not connected directly to JaFari’s was that of Constance Fairbridge.

I also made a note beside certain names indicating those who might have had a motive for wanting JaFari dead. I came up with at least six.

Leonardo Petrocelli and Bernard Kemmerman I crossed off the list, since both were now dead themselves, and no longer reasonable suspects.

Then I turned to a clean page and drew a new list. It took a while and the printing wasn’t too straight.

Reza JaFari (Raymond Farr)

Dylan Winchester

Roberta Brickman

Gordon Cantwell

Christine Kapono

Lawrence Teal

Leonardo Petrocelli

Danny Romero

Bernard Kemmerman

Anne-Judith Kemmerman

Hosain JaFari

Constance Fairbridge

Where appropriate, I drew a line connecting each name to Leonardo Petrocelli. This time—again, because they were dead—I crossed out the names of Reza JaFari and Bernard Kemmerman.

Then, as before, I started down the list looking for motives.

The answer I was looking for was right before me on the page—who, what, why, where, when, even the crucial how—but the alcohol overwhelmed me before I got to it. My attention drifted to nothing in particular. I no longer remembered quite what I was looking for, or what had led me to this point.

Tequila, as they say, has a way of sneaking up on you.

I found myself staring off at the hills rising to the north above Sunset Boulevard, about a mile away. The hills Jacques and I had hiked so often before he’d gotten sick, the same ones I’d been climbing in recent days to ready myself for the glorious treks I would take with Danny Romero. The hills where you could stand above all the noise and lights and madness for a little while and feel yourself rooted to the earth.

I shoved the notebook into my knapsack, got up, and started putting one foot in front of the other in an attempt to reach the corner. I got there and crossed against the yellow light, which turned red before I reached the other side. The cacophony of horns picked up until they merged into a single din.

Fuck ’em.

Harry’s favorite phrase, when the assholes were ganging up on him. Good old Harry. I hadn’t seen him in awhile. Too long. I had to make a point of getting in touch.

I wanted another drink, quickly, so I stopped at Morton’s, halfway home. I drank two more doubles of Cuervo Gold served by another good-looking bartender who knew enough not to talk too much in a place like this.

Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams were coming in as I staggered out. I pushed hard on the door, making them step back. A middle-aged man in a well-tailored suit who was with them said something, so I flipped him off.

I didn’t give the slightest shit about any of them. I was as big, as important, as powerful as any other sonofabitch on the face of the earth. I could do anything.
Anything!

In the parking lot, I unzipped and peed on the gleaming grillwork of a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. Then I heard Spanish-speaking voices behind me and felt hands grab me by the shoulders and hustle me rudely back toward the sidewalk while I dribbled urine on my pants that smelled of last night’s asparagus.

I zipped up, feeling badly, knowing that the dutiful valets would have to clean off my piss, that the big shot who owned the big car would probably never even know about it.