Presumed Guilty, page 28
The woman gave him another hard look, only this time it had a dose of understanding in it. “You got a notion about the two of you, I mean the three of you?”
“Maybe. Maybe that’s a crazy, stupid thing to have. The only thing I know for sure now is I want to see her again and just talk things through.”
After a long pause, the woman said, “All right, young man. Wait here.” She quickly added, “But if you go on and hurt that girl you’re gonna have to deal with me, you understand?”
5.
“. . . think ill of me,” Vic Lu was saying, still pacing and ranting. “I mean, come on. If it weren’t for people like you and your ex-husband, we — ”
“Not ex.”
Lu shrugged. “Hey, who am I to get involved in your personal affairs, huh?”
“Holding me prisoner is pretty personal.”
“You’re not listening!” He stomped his foot, a petulant child. “I’ve got a point. Nobody gives me credit for a point, or for making art! I write my films, lady. Did you know that? I got nominated for an Eros Award last year. Does that matter? Why am I talking to you?”
He gave a wave to Derek, as if it was time for him to take over.
In two minutes he bound Dallas to the chair. She prayed. She asked God to consume Vic Lu and Derek with fire. Why not? It was a prayer for protection, and God would work out the details.
The moment she was secured, the door to the studio opened.
Chad McKenzie came in.
“I believe you two know each other,” Lu said.
Chad smiled. “Hey, babe, how are you?”
She glared at Vic Lu. “Him? How low have you sunk?”
“You hear that?” Chad said. “I used to get that all the time.”
Lu pointed at Chad. “Shut up.” Chad did as he was told. Then Lu looked at Derek. “Better tape her mouth,” he said.
6.
“You reading that Bible again?” Ernesto’s head hung down from the top bunk, looking at me.
“You know,” I said, “I think I’ve discovered that the Bible is reading me.”
“What are you talking about, man?”
“You really want to know?”
“I got nothing else goin’ on.”
I sat up. Ernesto dropped off his bunk and sat on mine. We had reached a point of mutual tolerance and even, on occasion, conversation. It usually happened like this, in the twilight time between chow and lights-out. Ernesto sometimes got downright chatty then.
“It’s like this,” I said. “I used to read the Bible just to get something out of it for me, like for my sermons or to back up something I was going to say in a book.”
“Yeah.”
“But the Bible is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword.”
“What’s that mean?” He looked interested. But I must say he was a true example of a captive audience.
“It means it reads me. It cuts me up. But I have to let it.”
“You sound a little out there, man, you want to know the truth.”
“Yeah, it sounds a little nuts. But God is doing the cutting, see, inside me. He’s cutting out all the stuff I don’t need, that I used to let get in the way. Now I’ve got plenty of time to let God do his work.”
Ernesto was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “My grandmother used to try to get me to go to Mass. I couldn’t take it. I got bored. Guess I had some of that attention thing.”
“Deficit disorder.”
“You gringos are great with the labels. But I always thought when I was in church that there was something going on, something I couldn’t see, but it was there. It was floating around. Think that was God?”
“Definitely. But then I’d go one step further and say there’s a way to know all about that presence. And it’s in this book.”
Ernesto took the Bible from me and looked at it. “I never got into it. Lots of stuff I couldn’t understand when I tried.”
“We can talk about it if you want.”
“You gonna try to convert me?”
“No. If that happens, it’ll be because of the Word and the Spirit. But I’m thinking maybe there’s a reason you and I were put in the same cell together.”
“Yeah, so I can keep you from getting stabbed in the back. You are so white.”
“Maybe I can return the favor.”
“If I get bored, and I tell you to stop, you stop, got it?”
“Deal.”
I took the Bible back and in that moment asked God what I should start with. The beginning. It didn’t take a bright bulb to catch on to that.
So I started with, “In the beginning God . . .”
And for two straight hours Ernesto was not bored. He did not ask me to stop, and I felt for the first time in years that my preaching was anointed by God. Right there in a prison cell.
7.
Dallas lay in the backseat of the car where Chad had thrown her like a sack of laundry. The duct tape across her mouth chafed. Plastic restraints, pulled tight, held her wrists and ankles fast.
The night was black and she had no idea what direction they were going. She had a vague idea they’d hopped on the 118 Freeway, but she couldn’t be sure.
About ten minutes into the ride, Chad lit a cigarette. Dallas could smell the smoke. She tried not to breathe deeply. She didn’t want to cough against the tape. But he rolled the windows up, like he intended to torture her with the smell.
Then he started talking.
“Dallas, you have to know that I never wanted it to work out this way. I loved you. You think that’s funny, but I really did. You think when I hit you I didn’t love you? It was because I couldn’t stand the thought of you walking out on me, that’s why I did it. You know what I did the night you left me? I mean, the night I figured out you were gone for good? I could have come after you, but I didn’t. I released you, like a butterfly. I bet you didn’t know that. Instead, I went down to the beach and beat up a couple of guys, just because I needed to get it out of me, you know? That’s something you never understood, that I had to get it out of me. If you really loved me you would have understood that. But you never did, so now it has to end this way. Man, this is hard for me. I mean, we had a lot of good times, didn’t we?”
Dallas couldn’t help answering him in her mind. Good times? Perverse, ugly . . .
“Just want you to know that we could have worked something out if you hadn’t been so, I don’t know, self-righteous. Pretty slick move, I must say, going on TV and telling about the photos and naming me right there in front of the whole world. You know that was bad for business? I couldn’t even give ’em away. I tell you, you were a lot more fun back in the old days, back before you hooked up with that preacher and got all saved.”
Save me now . . .
“I also want you to know you’re not going to suffer. It’s not going to hurt. I wouldn’t do that to you. You believe that, don’t you? I’ll use the amyl nitrate on you, the way Rafe used it on Jared. You don’t know about that, do you? They had your son marked from the start.”
They. Vic Lu and Bernie Halstrom.
“When this Rafe dude found out who Jared was, he decided to get in on things. Lu hired him.”
Rafe? Why would he care about Jared? And what were the chances of his random orbit intersecting with Chad’s? And Vic Lu’s? When had this universe she was trying to make sense of become so small?
Chad’s voice dropped an octave. “Then that Rafe tried to strong-arm me. Big mistake. I’ll tell you something, he felt it. When I did him, he felt it real bad.”
He drove in semisilence for a time, humming softly, a rock medley. She recognized a couple of the tunes, then realized they were songs she had liked when they were together. Rolling Stones. Pink Floyd.
And then one tune that came to her in a flood of disgusting memories.
Meat Loaf, “Bat Out of Hell.”
She remembered what they did to that song.
He was purposely taunting her.
It may have been two hours, maybe three, before the car finally pulled to a stop. Chad came around the side, opened the door, and yanked her out, pulling her by the plastic restraints. They cut into her skin.
She saw a darkened house. She smelled wet scrub and dirt and figured they were somewhere in the desert. She could not see lights anywhere else but in the sky. The night was alive with stars.
Chad put an arm around her neck and made her shuffle to the door. He unlocked it and pulled her inside, then flicked on a lamp with a yellowed lampshade. The soft orange light made only a slight dent in the darkness.
Dallas could see it was a small house, ranch style. Chad pushed her down on an old sofa. Musty, like it was from 1950.
“You believe they actually use this place?” Chad said, looking around. “They made a porno Western here. But some of the rooms are like little studios.”
He appeared to be looking around for something.
And then found it.
From a table he took a large hunting knife, so large it looked like a small sword.
“After the amyl, you won’t feel this, Dallas. And the good part is you’ll get to be out in your God’s creation. You’ll just be lizard food, of course, but if it makes you feel any better, that’s where you’ll be.”
Dallas looked at the knife and at Chad holding it, smiling. She had no doubt he was going to do it. He wanted her to suffer right now. He wanted her scared.
But she noticed, amazingly, that her heart was not beating wildly, nor was her breathing — through her nose — labored.
She was calm.
One thought raced into her mind, a confirmation of the sovereignty of God. He was ultimately in control, despite what men might do in rebellion to him. Evil men like Chad McKenzie and Vic Lu and, sadly, Bernie Halstrom, could not escape. Even if they killed her, God was ruler over all.
She would die now, but she was not afraid.
Chad was studying her face.
She looked right back at him, talking to him with her eyes. Do this and you will be punished, and deep down you know it, you know it right now, don’t you?
Suddenly, anger seemed to engulf him. He cursed at her.
You are the dead one, Chad. You are the dupe.
“You make me sick,” he spat.
You know it, you’ve always known it, and you’re dead. Don’t do this. In killing me you’ll be killing yourself.
“Shut up.”
His frenzy was almost comical. She hadn’t said a word, couldn’t through the tape. Yet he had heard everything.
He held up the knife and looked at the blade. “Maybe the amyl’s a bad idea. Maybe you’d rather have the experience without drugs.”
He brought the point of the knife down slowly, like he was drawing a picture in the air. With a slight flourish he stopped with the point just in front of her face.
“I can start anywhere I want.” He examined her face like a butcher considering where to make the first cut.
You are the dead one, Chad.
“You want it done quickly, Dallas? Are you ready to meet your God?”
God, watch over my family always. Protect and keep them.
“If you want a chance to call God a liar, I might be able to let you go — ”
Preserve Ron, bring justice, protect Jared and Cara, comfort them.
“ — or I can just get started right now.”
Let them live and know that I am with you.
“So if you want to curse God, just nod your head, Dallas.”
She looked him in the eye, held the look, peering into his dark pupils. They were empty caves with no flicker of light inside.
He took a handful of her hair and snapped her head back. She couldn’t see his eyes now, or the knife. She only smelled his breath, beer and cigarettes. He held her like that for a full minute.
Then she felt the tip of the blade on her throat. He poked her without breaking skin.
“You are so stupid,” he whispered. “It’s better for you to die.”
Something creaked. A floorboard.
Chad released her head and whipped around to his right.
Dallas followed his look, saw a shadowy form ten feet away. A full second of time froze in the room, then came the flash of a muzzle and crack of a gunshot, and Chad fell backward. The knife fell out of his hand as he grasped his chest, already seeping red.
The form didn’t move from the shadows.
Chad gurgled and thrashed. Blood smeared the floor as he struggled like a felled deer, his legs jerking outward to find traction.
Dallas expected the shadow to move forward and finish her too.
But it waited. Chad’s movements slowed into an agonizing spasm of death. He turned his head toward Dallas, eyes terrified, as if he saw something horrible behind her head. His lips quivered as he opened his mouth in a long, excruciating, and silent scream.
And then he moved no more. His dead eyes stayed open, horror filled.
The shadow figure came into the light.
8.
“What?”
Tiana looked out the door of the little tract house in Eagle Rock, an expression of complete surprise on her face. The woman Jared took to be her sister stood by her side. There was a striking resemblance.
“Tiana,” Jared said, “I — ”
He heard scuffling feet, looked down, and saw Jamaal. The boy smiled up at Jared and said, “Where you been?”
“I had a few things to take care of. How’s that arm?”
“Huh?”
Jared made a passing motion.
“Good,” Jamaal said.
“Hold it!” Tiana said, hands on her hips. “How’d you find us? What are you doing here?”
“The neighbor lady from your old place gave me the address. I told her I had to find you, I — ”
“After you ran out on us?” Her voice betrayed hurt mixed with the anger.
“Wait — ”
She slammed the door closed.
A moment later it swung open again. This time the sister was alone with Jamaal. “Mister,” she said, “what are you about?”
“I didn’t run out on your sister. Or Jamaal.”
The boy pointed at him and said, “You better not be lyin’.”
“Believe me, kid, I’m done with that.”
The sister gave him a hard, examining look. “I can’t let you in here unless I’m convinced you’re being straight. I’m not going to let my sister get hurt anymore, you hear me?”
“Give me five minutes,” Jared said. “That’s it. If you want me gone after that, I’m gone.”
She considered it a moment, then stepped aside so he could come in. “My name’s Lavonne,” she said.
“He’s Jared,” Jamaal said.
Jared followed Lavonne inside. Tiana was on a blue sofa, her head in her hands. She looked up. When she saw Jared she started shaking her head.
“We can at least listen,” Lavonne said.
“Five minutes,” Jared said.
“I can’t take any more of you,” Tiana said. “You’ve got to leave us alone now.”
“Three minutes, then I’m gone.” Jared didn’t wait for permission. “The night we argued up in Bakersfield, I went out and I was going to drive away, for good — you’re right about that — but I got picked up by the highway patrol. They found my bench warrant on the DUI I skipped, and back I came, and I was in jail and a guy wanted to kill me, only this other guy in my cell talked Jesus to the guy and he stopped, and it freaked me out, but it woke me up and turned me around. I don’t want to go back to the way I was again, no more booze, no more drugs, I’m gonna stay clean, but mostly I don’t want to be away from you and Jamaal. And that’s it, that’s the whole thing.”
The others looked at him as if he was slightly nuts.
Then Jamaal said, “Cool.”
“That’s a good one, all right,” Lavonne said.
“All true,” Jared said. “And that’s why I’m here. And I want to know if you’ll forgive me.”
Tiana looked at him, thinking.
“Forgive him, Mom!” Jamaal said.
Slowly, a smile broke out on her face. “I do.”
9.
If duct tape had not covered her mouth, Dallas would have gasped. The shadow was in full light now, and there was no mistaking who it was, though the face was terribly puffed up and discolored.
Gilda was shaking, gun in hand. Her eyes widened through the black and blue rings that were not makeup. The loud purple hair was unkempt. It looked like a handful had been torn out of one side.
She looked down at Chad and pointed the gun at him. Dallas thought she’d fire again, but instead, she kicked his side with full force. Chad McKenzie was very clearly dead.
Gilda turned her attention to Dallas, looking as if she didn’t know what to do next.
Dallas tried to talk comfortingly with her eyes, but Gilda wasn’t listening. She didn’t look like comfort was in her vocabulary.
Still holding the handgun, Gilda examined Dallas’s restraints, then slowly pulled the duct tape off her mouth. Dallas suspected a layer of skin came off with it.
“Why are you here?” Gilda said.
“He was going to kill me.”
Gilda shook her head slowly. “Then we’re both dead.”
“Cut me loose,” Dallas said.
Eyes wide, body still shaking, Gilda used the gun to point to her face. “Look at me! He did this to me!”
“I know.”
“What?”
“He used to beat me up too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Cut me loose, Gilda, so we can talk.”
“Talk now.”
“All right. He was my boyfriend once. A long time ago. He tracked me down when my husband and I made the news. He somehow got hooked up with Vic Lu.”
“You got that much right. I was a present. Vic gave me to him. Now look . . .” Gilda’s words stuck in a short sob.
Vic gave me to him.The thought jarred Dallas, but it made perverse sense. Men like Lu and Chad were into total control.
“Gilda, I can help you.”
“No way. It’s over. Vic is going to kill me, and he’ll get you too.”
