Simple Justice (3 page)

When Harry was gone, I poured a glass of wine and drank it fast, standing right at the kitchen sink.

I began to feel better, and poured a second glass as the six o’clock news was coming on.

There was no hard liquor in the apartment; it was too dangerous to keep around. For self-medication, I relied on an economy jug of white wine kept cold in the refrigerator, with a reserve bottle in a nearby cupboard so that I was never without. It was a gutless drink, no soul or muscle, and I didn’t like the thin taste, all of which helped keep my consumption in check.

The City of West Hollywood had cable television, but only if you paid. I adjusted the rabbit ears on Jacques’s old TV set and sat through a thirty-second commercial that reminded me we were at mid-summer in an election year. The spot was on behalf of U.S. Senator Paul Masterman, a former lawyer who managed to soften his notorious misogyny and homophobia each time the microphones and cameras were turned his way. I’d once interviewed Masterman about his well-documented record of flip-flopping on human rights issues, a meeting he’d abruptly terminated when my questions had turned toward his history of marital strife, specifically the charges of spousal abuse that his wife had suddenly dropped after he’d offered her an unusually generous divorce settlement.

In the ensuing years, media scrutiny had done some damage to Masterman’s image, but he had still engineered two close reelections. He was the quintessential Nineties politician, a shrewd manipulator of public sentiment who used the medium of television especially well, which was pretty much all that mattered these days.

“Senator Masterman,” I said, as his telegenic face appeared on screen. “And where will we find you exploiting misery today?”

His current series of commercials was a brilliant demonstration of cynicism and ambition masquerading as public concern. Each spot found him in a new section of Southern California, delivering a potent anti-crime message targeted at a specific voting bloc, but cleverly fashioned to tap the fear of violent crime that preoccupied a broad cross-section of voters. So far, I’d seen commercials taped at a Jewish convalescent home, where a burglary and murder had recently occurred; at a family-owned Mexican restaurant in east Los Angeles, the site of an armed robbery; and at a barbecue in upscale Malibu, where money was being raised as a reward for the capture of a child molester who was preying on local children.

In the ad airing that night, Senator Masterman stood on a street corner in South Central, the scene of a recent drive-by shooting, with his comforting arm around a weeping black mother whose young daughter had been killed in the cross fire. Like his other spots, this one had been shot quickly and cheaply, with a handheld camera, giving it the look and feel of a news report. It was another deft touch that had kept Masterman even in the polls with his opponent, in what was shaping up as his toughest fight yet to retain his Senate seat. If he repeated his previous pattern of campaigning, he would flood the airwaves during the final weeks with a series of negative ads filled with innuendo and half-truths about the other candidate, winning over as many ignorant or undecided voters as he could.

At 5:59 p.m.,
Eyewitless News
, as L.A. print journalists preferred to call it, blasted into my room with shameless electronic fanfare and a blitz of crass promotional teasers for the evening’s upcoming stories. Harry had made me promise to tune in. I figured I could give him that much.

The producers led the show with the Billy Lusk murder, starting with old sports footage of Phil Devonshire, when he’d been a money leader twenty years earlier on the professional golf tour.

Then the director cut to a photograph of Devonshire’s murdered stepson, zooming slowly in on Billy Lusk’s pretty face. It was a head shot, taken from a modeling portfolio, that showed a clean-cut young man with soft blue eyes, an upturned button nose, and a curly crown of hair tinted surfer blond. Completing the portrait was a practiced smile, about as fresh and natural as processed cheese.

In short order, viewers were informed that the victim had died instantly from a single gunshot to the face from a .38 revolver; that it had happened a few minutes past midnight in the parking lot of a gay bar called The Out Crowd; that a teenaged gang member named Gonzalo Albundo was in custody; that Albundo had signed a confession, and was being held on half a million dollars bail.

A shot of The Out Crowd bar was followed by footage of the handcuffed suspect as he was transported from a patrol car into downtown Parker Center for booking. He wore baggy pants but no shirt, just as the detectives had found him at his parents’ Echo Park home, and he appeared younger than his eighteen years. He was of medium height but slightly built, his coal black hair cut short and a soft mustache just starting to show against his copper-colored skin. I thought I saw the potential for a handsome face, if he lived long enough for his boyish features to develop, which at that point seemed unlikely.

Then I saw something that caused me to sit forward in the chair, and to feel my first spark of interest in Billy Lusk’s murder.

As two detectives led Gonzalo Albundo into police headquarters, he wheeled around to flash angry eyes and shout defiantly at the camera, a brazen display of teenage machismo. But as I zeroed in on those dark eyes, I sensed that Gonzalo Albundo wasn’t feeling angry or defiant at all. He looked seriously scared, close to trembling. His outburst was an act, badly performed, and I wondered what that meant.

There was also something else in that brief footage, something insisting to be noticed, that I couldn’t put my finger on. And when Albundo was gone from the screen, I found myself seeing the ghost of his image in my head, as I tried to figure out what I’d missed.

Next came a taped interview with Billy Lusk’s roommate, conducted in the mid-Wilshire apartment they’d shared for three years.

Physically, the two men couldn’t have been more different. Derek Brunheim was tall, husky, and dark-haired, with an oily, pockmarked face and a coarse beard that no razor could hope to even temporarily erase. The news report failed to note his age, and it was difficult to guess. He might have been forty, but Brunheim was one of those heavily bearded, prematurely balding men, not unlike myself, who often appear older than they are.

On-camera, however, a soft-spoken and effeminate manner belied his bearish look.

“Billy had his problems like everyone else,” Brunheim told the reporter, “but inside, he was a good person. A beautiful person who didn’t deserve to die like that.”

The reporter thrust her microphone closer to Brunheim’s scarred face, and asked why he thought his friend had been killed. Anger flared in Brunheim’s red-rimmed eyes.

“Ignorance, bigotry, intolerance,” he said, lisping more heavily as he spoke more rapidly. “What every gay man and lesbian faces every day of their life.”

Sixteen seconds of sound bite; for
Eyewitless News
, an in-depth interview. And Billy Lusk was history.

*

I refilled my glass, grabbed the chair, and carried them out to the stairway landing, where I settled in and put my feet up on the rail to think.

Fred was home from his fishing trip; his mud-spattered Cherokee was parked in the driveway, looking solid and manly, like Fred himself. I could see his bulky form through the kitchen window as he cleaned trout at the sink, while the three cats mewed about on the countertop, sniffing wildly. Maurice puttered around the kitchen behind him wearing a silk robe, fresh from the shower, stopping once to peck Fred on his unshaven cheek. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony ascended from the open windows, and out on the street couples walked their dogs.

I thought of Jacques, because on an evening like this, if we’d been on speaking terms, we would have been out walking too. Sometimes remembering him felt good, but sometimes it came like a stab in the gut, as it did at that moment. I anesthetized myself with more wine, and watched the light change.

Dusk settled over the neighborhood like a veil dropping. The birds became quiet, and the air slowly lost its crackle of heat. Maurice and Fred came out to eat on the patio, with the cats following, and told me there was enough food for another plate. I thanked them but declined.

My thoughts had drifted to Gonzalo Albundo.

I let the news video replay in my head: I saw the suspect handcuffed and shirtless, his brown skin smooth and unmarked; his baggy pants riding loosely on his narrow hips, as he faked a macho swagger; his young face, not quite pretty, not quite handsome, somewhere in between.

Most of all, I saw the terror in his eyes that he’d attempted so manfully to conceal.

Then I tried to envision the inexcusable act of violence to which he’d confessed: the heavy revolver gripped in his slender fingers; the lanky arm extended boldly, just before he pulled the trigger; the mask of hatred on his young face as he blew Billy Lusk away. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t conjure up that vision, couldn’t make it all fit.

Something was wrong with the picture.

I turned the whole thing over in my mind, formulating questions the cops might have overlooked. They had a prime suspect, identified at the crime scene, with blood on his clothes, who had quickly confessed. It wasn’t a situation that would cause an overworked cop to put in much time or thought on the case, especially one who wasn’t too concerned if another faggot had been eliminated from the population, or, for that matter, another gang banger.

“Don’t do it,” I said.

I could feel the curiosity surging through me like a drug taking over.

“Stop now, Justice. Don’t get involved.”

But it was too late, and I knew it. I finished off my wine, slipped on an old pair of running shoes, and trotted down the stairs and out to Norma Place. A block east, I reached Hilldale, where I turned right, heading down past well-kept cottages and faded apartments to Santa Monica Boulevard.

At the corner, hundreds of stylish men paraded by like peacocks on their way from club to club. I could feel my heart pound against my chest, as insistent as the dance music that pulsated through a nearby wall.

I sensed a crack in Harry’s “cut-and-dried” case, and I knew my mind wouldn’t rest until I found out just how significant a crack it was.

Maybe Harry had known that all along, when he’d tantalized me with the background details. It was Harry, after all, who’d pressured me to watch the evening news, knowing that its superficial treatment of the Billy Lusk story would raise more questions than it answered.

Clever old Harry.

I slipped a quarter into a pay phone, punched in his number, and heard him pick up.

“Here’s the deal, Harry. I’ll help Templeton with research, and I’ll offer suggestions as the Billy Lusk story develops. That’s it.”

It was more than I wanted to give, more entangled than I wanted to become. But Harry was right about one thing: I did owe him, big time. He’d been more than an editor to me at the
L.A. Times
. He’d been my mentor, the one who’d let me find my voice as a writer and my courage as a reporter. And I’d repaid him by filing a series that had won a Pulitzer and then, when my story was found to be fraudulent, had cost us both our jobs and our reputations.

I’d work with Templeton just long enough to pass along what Harry had taught me, so Templeton could take my place and get Harry off my back. Meanwhile, maybe I’d find some answers to the questions about Billy Lusk and Gonzalo Albundo that nagged at me like an unfinished crossword.

Just this once, and that would be the end of it.

Harry tried again to sell me on a sidebar carrying my byline. I abruptly cut him off.

“Take it or leave it, Harry. It’s all you’re going to get.”

He took it.

The agreement I’d struck with Harry left my mind jumpy and troubled, and I didn’t get much sleep that night.

In the morning, Alex Templeton was on another assignment, with a noon deadline, so our meeting with Harry was set for early afternoon.

I welcomed the temporary reprieve, no longer so certain I could hold up my end of the deal.

I passed the morning in an air-conditioned Century City high-rise, grinding out press releases for a fiftyish lesbian named Queenie Cochran, who owned and operated one of the most powerful public relations firms serving Hollywood’s stars. Fortunately, veracity has never been a high priority on most PR agendas, and Queenie had no qualms hiring someone with my blemished reputation.

In practical terms, I worked not for Queenie but for one of her assistants. Queenie had become so influential in the area of media relations, virtually dictating how print editors and TV producers covered her famous clients, that she no longer had time to deal directly with part-time freelance hacks such as myself. That task fell to Kevin, an amiable and efficient young man who moved through Queenie’s offices in a classy Electric Wilshire wheelchair, and who was sometimes seen in Boy’s Town club-hopping with his Chinese-American boyfriend.

Kevin had the lean, angular looks that invariably stirred my blood, along with the most intense pair of blue eyes I’d ever had the pleasure to look into; the frailness of his paralyzed lower limbs added an erotic dimension that I’d fantasized about more than once. His pleasant personality, however, cooled any genuine romantic heat I might have felt for him. He was much too normal and uncomplicated, with no apparent vices or compulsions other than his singular obsession with James Dean.

Framed photographs of the legendary actor adorned Kevin’s desk, lobby cards from
Giant
and
Rebel Without a Cause
hung on his office walls, and James Dean’s personal copy of the
East of Eden
screenplay was encased in glass on a side table, along with a 1955 edition of
Daily Variety
reporting the young actor’s death. Kevin regarded James Dean as a tragic example of life lived in the Hollywood closet, something of an irony given Kevin’s employment in a show business firm that helped create a cover for everything from drug addiction and infidelity to abortions and pedophilia.

For a few days each month, he paid me fifteen dollars an hour to reorganize, tighten, and punch up the rough drafts of the firm’s flacks, many of whom were journalism school graduates who lacked the writing skill and backbone to succeed as reporters, and who apparently had never heard the truism, You don’t get paid to write, you get paid to rewrite.

That morning, I found Kevin taking a break at his desk, sipping herbal tea and thumbing through a new book of James Dean trivia. He handed me a floppy disc that contained the rough drafts of several press releases in need of salvaging.

“Just do your usual good job,” he said, and smiled his implacable smile.

Down the hall, I found an empty desk with a computer, inserted the disc, and scrolled through pages of mangled syntax and ludicrous hyperbole promoting one of the firm’s clients, a professional tennis star named Samantha Eliason.

Eliason, who was in the later years of her career and attempting the transition to sportscaster, operated in a circle of attractive and successful lesbians who went to great lengths to keep their sexual orientation a secret from all but their closest friends and colleagues.

During the past year, the tennis pro had been on a mysterious sabbatical from competition and out of the public eye. Office scuttlebutt had it that she had been holed up at an ultra-private clinic somewhere in Europe, returning to the U.S. only recently, which generated rumors of chemical dependency or an emotional breakdown. According to Kevin, only Queenie Cochran, who moved in the same social circles as Eliason, knew the real story.

The press releases I’d been assigned that morning were the agency’s latest efforts to convince the public that Eliason was in seclusion writing a book, and to keep her name current until she was ready to resume her highly public profile. Later, Queenie could announce that her client had changed her mind about the book—the kind of lie publicists purveyed as routinely as brushing their teeth.

Personally, I couldn’t have cared less where Samantha Eliason was or what she was doing, as long as I got paid for my work. I dutifully polished up a dozen pages of shameless puffery and probable falsehood, taking my time to pad my hours.

Just before lunch, I left an invoice for sixty dollars on Kevin’s desk, and had the receptionist validate my parking ticket, saving me the eight-dollars-per-hour charge downstairs.

I ran into Kevin as he wheeled into an elevator on his way to lunch, cradling the trivia book in his lap. We rode down together chatting while I gazed unabashedly into his Paul Newman eyes and secretly wondered who did what to whom when Kevin and his boyfriend were alone and feeling sexy.

“Did you know that James Dean had a heart tattooed on the inside of his thigh?”

Kevin’s words came at me out of nowhere, triggering a minor landslide in my memory.

“A tattoo,” I said.

“It was up high, hidden by his scrotum, where no one could see it. A doctor discovered it during an insurance physical for
Giant
, but kept it to himself for years.”

I heard Kevin only distantly now; my mind was on Gonzalo Albundo and his image from the evening news.

“There was a letter
S
tattooed inside the heart,” Kevin said. “Some people think it stood for
Sal
. You know, Sal Mineo, the actor. Of course, it’s just hearsay. So who really knows.”

I stared down at him, dumbfounded.

“A tattoo,” I said.

He nodded. “Isn’t that interesting?”

I ran a hand through his shaggy hair.

“Kev, you’ll never know how interesting.”

The elevator doors opened. Kevin rolled out, turning his wheelchair toward a group of coworkers who were waiting for him in the lobby. I reminded him to keep me in mind for more work, and to leave a message with Maurice if he needed me.

“It would be nice if you got a phone, Ben.”

I told him I’d think about it as the doors closed. I pushed the button marked “P2.”

In the news footage of Gonzalo Albundo being led to jail, he’d been shirtless, his upper body completely exposed. Ordinarily, gang markings were proudly displayed on the neck or wrist, sometimes the upper arm or chest; I’d covered gang activity for awhile at the
Times
and knew the basic profile. Gonzalo Albundo was supposed to be a hard-core gang banger, a badass
vato
, but there hadn’t been a single tattoo marking his smooth, brown skin.

That’s what I’d looked so hard for in the video without realizing it, but hadn’t seen. Because it wasn’t there.

Gonzalo Albundo. No tattoos. Why?

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

The underground garage was cool and dim, filled with the squeal of tires rounding distant corners on smooth concrete. I handed over my ticket to an attendant with a thick Mideastern accent, who went to collect my car.

The murder of Billy Lusk was all that occupied my mind now. That, and where my impending appointment at the
Sun
might lead me.

As the attendant brought the Mustang around, my insides felt like walls collapsing, the way they did when I started needing a drink.

The Mustang was a ’65 convertible, a classic I’d once restored to mint condition with my early paychecks from the
L.A. Times
. Now the red paint was badly oxidized, the grillwork showed more rust than chrome, and the tattered top fluttered like dead skin. Amid the glistening Mercedes and Lexuses of subterranean Century City, my neglected car reminded me of how far down I’d personally sunk and how little I really cared.

I drove toward the glare of sunlight and back into the heat, wishing Harry had never sought me out, wishing he had as little faith in me as I had in myself. It would have left everything so much simpler.

A minute later, I was on Olympic Boulevard, heading twelve miles east, downtown. Back to Harry’s domain. Back to the newspaper world.

Each passing mile took me closer to a place I told myself I didn’t want to be. Yet I could have hit my brakes and turned around at any one of several dozen intersections. I kept my foot on the accelerator, making every green and yellow light, and running each one that was red.