Sing Her Down, page 17
Follow it back until you bang your head on another dead end. Diana Diosmary Sandoval’s record was clean until the moment two years ago when it wasn’t.
Florence Baum is a different story. There are marks and smudges all over the place. Little transgressions. Larger stories in which she was often the defendant, not the accused.
Taken across the border as a minor.
The passenger in a drunk-driving accident where the driver was charged with possession.
There has to be something somewhere that shows how she got to today. Because there’s always an incident that tips the balance, a point of no return, the final moment that makes you who you are.
A coffee cup thrown at your head.
Insults as you pass down the hall.
Your husband’s hand around your throat.
Another instance of violence excused. And another—the one that turns you into a victim. It’s there. For victims and criminals alike.
Ronna. Ronna Deventer. Her name linked to Florence’s several times. Also brought across the border. Also charged with possession and let go. Another rich girl generating her own problems.
Deceased. Overdose six years ago.
Also with a childhood home in Hancock Park. Deventer. There’s something there too. Jan Deventer. Lobos searches for the name. A newspaper article.
CLUB PROMOTER ARRESTED IN NEAR-FATAL ASSAULT OF HOLLYWOOD MEGA-AGENT JAN DEVENTER
And then buried on a back page: Charges dropped when Renny Toth was alibied by a friend of Deventer’s daughter, Florence Baum.
You see. It’s there. Something that didn’t make it into Florence Baum’s file, something either ignored, overlooked, or suppressed.
That fire, that accessory-after-the-fact charge, wasn’t her first turn at the rodeo.
She’s been at this for a while now.
* * *
At the sight of Lobos standing up and gathering her things, Easton bounds to her side. “You don’t need to come.”
“I’m coming.”
Lobos gives him a look—don’t complain if this is a timewaster.
But really, she wants to go alone. Renny Toth’s address is on the far side of Skid Row at the edge of the Flower District, which gives her blocks to cover in her search for her husband. Find him before he finds her, before he can surprise her again. Find him, and then what?
Whatever it is, she doesn’t need Easton along to see.
“I won’t complain,” he says.
“I didn’t say anything,” Lobos replies.
* * *
Where are you? Where are you among these tents and shanties, under these tarps and along these sidewalks? In front of these murals. That mural—the one that seems to be alive?
She’s a master tracer: credit cards, bank accounts, phones. He’s either lost them or given them up. Friends, relatives—she’s checked and rechecked. Nothing.
He’s not there.
Which leaves here or somewhere like here.
“Lobos?”
“What?”
“You haven’t said a single word.”
“Maybe I’ve got nothing to say.”
“You could say where we are going.”
Lobos checks the street sign. How far have they come from the station? Seven blocks at least. “Renny Toth,” she says. “Seems like he was a nightclub manager who got tangled up with Florence Baum when she was a teenager.”
“And?”
“I don’t know the and.”
She can’t figure it. Not yet. But there’s something there. Or maybe there isn’t. Maybe this is just another excuse to pace the streets, her eyes bouncing from tent to tent, scanning, scouring, trying to figure which ones might be worth revisiting without Easton. Faces, some masked, others bare. Some hyped, some drugged, some just waiting out the day.
“Lobos?”
He can’t be calling her out for another long silence already.
“You still not going to tell me who you’re looking for?”
“I told you. Renny Toth.”
“I mean in the tents,” Easton says.
“I’m just looking.” Lobos’s eyes bounce along the dirty tarps.
Faces. Weathered and worn. Defiant and proud. Lost and diminished.
Will her husband join their ranks? Will he become part of this world instead of an interloper? Will she cease to recognize him? When will he reach his point of no return?
“And you think this guy Toth knows where Baum is?”
“I don’t know what he knows,” Lobos says.
“Okay, okay,” Easton says, holding up a hand. “You told me I didn’t have to come.”
“I’m just trying to paint a brighter picture of who we’re after.”
Lobos scans the street, tent after tent, face after face. Fewer faces here. Fewer tents. More space in between.
She knows this street, this block.
“Let’s go.”
“We are going,” Easton replies.
Here is where she nearly kicked the man who’d fallen to the ground. He could be any one of the bodies sleeping off the day, strewn and scattered on the sidewalk.
“Let’s go faster.”
If only it were that simple to outdistance yourself.
* * *
They pass through the Flower District, where open stores are making only funeral wreaths. These blocks would normally be gridlocked with shoppers, cars, and small carts selling hot dogs and tacos to the vendors and their customers. Today the only people are those who sleep outside the empty storefronts.
They stand across from Renny Toth’s building—a small, blue two-story warehouse between two flower wholesalers.
“Let’s do this,” Easton says, “whatever this is.”
As they step into the street, Lobos’s shoe snags on something she’d overlooked, a shape, a person huddled on the curb.
She stumbles but catches herself before she falls, now face-to-face with her human obstacle.
It’s a young woman—younger than the average undomiciled—her dirty face smeared with dried blood, her eyes red.
She holds Lobos’s gaze as if she’s challenging her, daring her. And then she lowers her head and hides it in her folded arms.
Lobos hesitates, her hand on her phone, wondering if she should call this in. But why this one and not the hundreds of other people she passed on her way here? “Are you okay?”
A slight nod in response. Nothing more.
Easton is waiting across the street. Lobos hurries to join him. A woman is blocking the doorway to Renny Toth’s building. She lies surrounded by a mess of small objects strewn about like religious artifacts, her prostrate form so deep in narcotic slumber that she doesn’t move as Lobos and Easton step over her. Easton finds the bell and lays into it.
But Lobos’s mind is no longer here. She’s in the squad room, back in front of Florence Baum’s file.
Florence Baum.
She spins around. The woman who’d been sitting on the curb is gone.
“Easton!”
Lobos yanks his hand from the bell. She doesn’t wait for him to follow as she charges back across the street. She dashes south, checks up and down the wide expanse of Olympic, then doubles back. She runs east. Makes a tour of the entire block, then backtracks, racing past Easton a second time. He grabs her arm as she passes, slows her to a halt.
“What the fuck?”
“It was her. That was Florence Baum sitting on the curb.”
Lobos pounds a fist into her thigh. All that time looking for a different face has dulled her senses and taken her mind off the job. And who’s fucking fault is that? Her husband still messing with her head, still making her dull and slow.
“Give yourself credit. I didn’t mark her at all.”
Lobos tips the remainder of her mints into her mouth, cracks them so hard she worries she’s split a molar. “Let’s go.”
Once more they step over the woman in Renny Toth’s doorway. Her trinkets and knickknacks are arranged in some sort of symbolic order. She’s bedded down on an assortment of overstuffed plastic bags and newspaper.
Easton presses the bell. “No answer a few minutes ago.”
“Try again.”
“If he’s not here, he’s not here. All this ringing isn’t going to change that, Lobos.”
Lobos crouches, close to the woman’s face. Her skin is a network of dirt and deep scars. A curtain of greasy gray hair covers her eyes. Lobos puts a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
“LAPD, wake up.”
“Dead to the world,” Easton says.
“LAPD.”
The woman’s eyes flutter open—yellow whites and dilated irises. Then she nods off again.
“Wake up,” Lobos says, lifting her to sitting.
Easton shuffles in place. “What do you think she’s got for us?”
Lobos slaps the woman’s cheeks lightly. “I said wake up or I’ll order you to move on.”
The woman opens her eyes, brushes her hair away. “I’ve got every right … you don’t have any right.”
Lobos flashes her badge. “I have every right and then some. What’s your name?”
“Empress Amber.”
“This your spot, Empress Amber?”
“You can call me Indira.”
“Okay, Indira. You live here? You know the man who lives inside?”
“He calls me Goddess India.”
“Goddess, you know him or not?” Easton says.
“He’s not here. That’s why I guard the place for him. He needs me. I’m his watchdog. I am all the eyes of the night. I am Durga. I am the all-seeing Argus.”
“That’s why you’re sleeping?” Easton asks.
“They come in the night,” India says. “They come with the moon. So I sleep with the sun.”
“And where is Renny Toth?” Lobos says.
“He brings me food when he comes back. He comes when he knows I’m hungry.”
“When’s that?” Easton asks.
“Today. Tomorrow. I don’t know the days.”
Lobos stands. “How long has he been gone?”
“Two nights. There was the first night with the raccoon. Then there was the night with the intruder. You see why he needs me here. The raccoon I scared with my voice. He heard the power of my call and knew that this was not his place. The woman I took care of with my stick.” She holds up a large wooden stick with a taped handle.
Lobos is down by the woman’s side again. “What woman?”
“This is his house but this is my spot,” India says. “I thought I could leave for a moment, but when I returned she was in my spot. She was asleep in my place. This is where I build a shrine to myself. This is where I make myself queen.”
“I thought it was empress,” Easton says.
Lobos shoots him a warning look. “Who was this woman?”
“The enemy. The one in my spot. But I defended my place. I fought for what’s mine.” She raises the stick, brandishing it like a weapon. Lobos places a hand on the wood, lowering it. “I beat her and took my place. But she’ll be back.”
“Why?” Lobos asks.
“I have something of hers.”
“I’ll take that.” Lobos holds out her hand.
The woman fumbles in her pocket. “It’s my prize, you know.”
“We don’t have time for any law-of-the-streets shit,” Easton says. “Whatever you stole from this woman—”
“My prize,” India says, and drops a bank card into Lobos’s hand.
Lobos flips it over. JPay Progress Mastercard. “DOC issue,” she says, holding it out to Easton. She presses her finger onto the plastic: Florence Baum.
“I won it,” India says.
“Tell you what,” Lobos replies, pulling out one of her business cards. “I’ll give you one of mine. If she comes back, you can pass it along. Tell her I have her cash card.”
India stares at the card. “Lobos,” she says. “Are you the lone wolf?”
“Just a cop,” Lobos replies.
* * *
Whose voice do you hear in your head? Who is speaking in your ear? Through whose eyes do you see?
Don’t look.
Don’t check.
Don’t glance or even wonder. Keep your head in the game at hand, away from those tents. Who is in there?
On the way back to the station, Lobos trains her eyes ahead, her ears tuned to whatever Easton is saying about the probability of Florence Baum turning up at Central PD for her debit card. Slim to none is Easton’s prediction.
“You never know.”
“Never know what?” Easton asks. “I know criminals don’t just present at the precinct. If they did, we’d be out of work. Anyway, you owe me.”
“Owe?”
“Told you we’d find Baum within forty-eight.”
“Jesus, Easton. For real?”
“Just sayin’. We found her.”
“No fucking way. Not paying.”
Ticky. Ticky. Ticky.
“You got a rattlesnake in there, Lobos?”
She holds out the mint canister and shakes it once hard. “Want one?”
“I couldn’t deprive you.”
“I’ll pay you when we catch her.”
Twice she’s been face-to-face with Baum and twice she’s let her slip. What are the odds in this sprawl of a city—a city perfect for anonymity and concealment—that Lobos would corner her quarry and let her slip?
Perhaps Easton would care to bet? Slim to none.
“You like a good bet, Easton.”
“You know it.”
“What’s your racket?”
“The Super Bowl, sometimes March Madness. Football poker.”
“The fuck is that?”
“An excuse to drink.”
Lobos stops walking. “You want to wager on Baum turning up?”
“That’s a sucker’s bet.”
“Take it or leave it.” She holds out her hand. “Double the whiskey.”
“You just want to get me drunk, don’t you?”
“No, I want to win,” Lobos says.
“A couple of days ago you thought we’d let her slip and now you think she’s going to come calling. That’s a fool’s bet on your part.”
“Let me worry about my part.”
They shake.
How many more chances will she get with Baum?
Chances. Even her thinking isn’t her own. Chances are out of her control. Opportunities are her own making.
“She’ll come or we’ll find her. You were right—in fewer than forty-eight hours we’ve sighted her twice.”
“I’m not saying we won’t get her. I’m saying she won’t come to us,” Easton says.
“We’ll see.”
* * *
Skid Row is sleeping, stirring, stumbling. Each tent a temptation for Lobos. Instead, she narrows her mind to the case at hand, trying to put blinders to her surroundings.
“Where would you go?”
“How’s that?”
“If you had nowhere to go? Like Baum.”
“Everyone has somewhere,” Easton says.
“That’s not true,” Lobos says. “Look around.”
“This is where they go. This is their home. They have their spots, either chosen or accidental. It’s not all random down here. You know that.”
“True,” Lobos says.
“It’s a decision. Along the freeway. Underneath an overpass. In a community or solo. On Skid Row or adjacent. There’s a magnet for everyone, something that draws them to a place. Maybe you think you’re going to be that magnet with that debit card but I’m guessing there’s a stronger one somewhere else.”
Lobos stops walking in the middle of Seventh and stares at her partner.
“What?” Easton asks.
He’s right. These tents, they’re beside the point. She is the magnet. Her husband will come for her. He already has.
“Lobos?”
She looks up and down the street at the clustered tents. It’s people, not places who exert the pull.
No cars. No one passing through downtown on their way to somewhere better. The only movement is in the air. The choppers circling and circling.
“But what about the other one—Sandoval?” Lobos says. “What’s her magnet?”
“Beats me.” Easton puts a hand on her back, trying to usher her out of the street. But his caution is unnecessary. Lobos could pitch a tent right here in the middle of Seventh and sleep soundly.
“Well, there’s some reason she broke parole and got on that bus. Something pulling her toward Los Angeles.”
“Lobos, get out of the street.”
It’s hitting her all at once. A cascade of thoughts too hard and fast to sort them from one another. “They’re not together, Baum and Sandoval.”
“Yeah, so? We know.”
“Why?”
“Lovers’ quarrel?”
“Come on, Easton. Think. They boarded the bus separately. They got off separately.”
“Maybe they just want to make our job harder,” Easton says. “Them deciding to split up. Two trails. Two chases. Double trouble.”
“Unless…”
Lobos tips her mint canister into her mouth. She rattles the candies between her teeth. Then closes her eyes, her head tilted toward the gloomy sky.
“Are you gonna get out of the street or what?”
She waves Easton away, waves away the street, the sounds, and the accompanying smells. There is no street now. Instead, Lobos is in Chandler, waiting for the bus. Baum already on board. Sandoval coming after—a last-minute passenger before departure. Then Baum exiting first. A stop early. Forty miles from her destination.
Why would she jump parole, risk a trip to LA, but bail before her destination?
Why would Sandoval follow?
Unless … Here it is.
Sandoval is pursuing Baum. Baum is running from Sandoval. Baum gets on the bus first. Sandoval follows. Baum exits almost as soon as she can. Sandoval maintains her chase.
Baum is the magnet. Sandoval the magnetized.
Lobos opens her eyes. “Why would Baum run from Sandoval?”
“Scared.”
“Right. Exactly. Scared.” Lobos exhales. “We’re looking for the wrong woman. We need Sandoval.”
