Secret Relations, page 17
part #3 of Finn O'Brien Series
Cori looked at Finn.
"What shall we give it? Forty-five minutes?"
"We have to meet Gregorio in an hour and a half," Finn answered. "We can get a lot done by then."
Cori nodded.
"Okay then, folks, enjoy yourselves." Detective Crane said as he turned to leave. But Finn caught him before he left. "Any chance there might be some coffee around here?"
"I'll rustle you up some. I just won't promise it's any good."
"We're easy," Cori said.
Detective Crane shut the door while Cori and Finn rolled up their sleeves and started sifting through the files looking for assaults and murders committed against Hispanic men between the ages of fifteen and twenty five.
The man sat on the running board of the truck, one of his hands pushed through the open window and holding onto the doorframe, the other resting in his lap, fingers curled in on themselves. His chest hurt. His head was swimming, and his good eye pulsed. He was thinking that he shouldn't have worked today.
He had been so tired when he got out of that child's bed that he didn't think he could drive, much less lift a shovel or a pipe. He sat on the edge of that bed trying to catch his breath, hobbled by his failing health. Knowing that he would need all his strength to see the day through, he made a concession and took the gun from its hiding place.
Not that he needed to hide it. The woman downstairs never came into his room. All she cared about was the order of things: sign in, sign out, eat, sleep. He was a name on a list. Once he had managed to disappear for quite a while, but then they found him and back he went. Happily, because of the new laws the system spat him back out almost as soon as it took him in. They kept an eye on him, he kept an eye on them and it all worked. Still, he had a few secrets and the gun was one of them. It had proven to be a godsend, for his strength had been used up just getting to this place and dealing with that boy.
He shook his head knowing he should have aborted this one. This place was the wrong choice from the get go. It was too far away for one thing. Then the worker he picked up caused a ruckus when they got on the freeway, banging on the back window, afraid to sit in the bed of the truck. The man couldn't chance anyone calling the cops, so he pulled over and let the boy into the cab. Let him sit right beside him. It made him sick to have him so close, but there was no turning back.
No llores.
Don't cry.
Now he dropped his eyes and looked at the gun. The little noise he made came close to a laugh while he thought about the comedy of errors. Still and all, it ended up okay. Justice was done. Not like what had been done to him. His lawyer said 'show remorse and it will go easier'. Well he had shown true remorse but the judge called him a liar. Bullshit, that's what their justice was.
Lo siento.
* * *
I'm sorry.
* * *
He had tried to make it right.
No llores.
He cut his eyes to the grave and the boy lying in it and shook his head. Damn if that kid didn't have a sixth sense. He knew something was up and that's why he turned his head when he did. What the man wouldn't have given for a sixth sense all those years ago. He could have protected himself if he had known what was coming and none of this would be necessary. Instead, they came out of the blue like vultures, like sharks, surprising him every damn time.
Ah well.
He let his hand drop away from the truck door. He needed to get on with it. He would have to buy a new shirt somewhere 'cause that boy had come at him like he wanted to fight, like he didn't know he was dead. That's why the man was all bloody. He couldn't go to the house with a bloody shirt but he couldn't be late either. Nor could he leave things unfinished here. He would never sleep if he shirked his duty.
Pushing himself off the running board, he left the gun in the car and shuffled over to the grave. He walked through piles of pine needles, lifting his feet over fallen branches. The trees around him weren't faring well in the drought. Some had a few sprigs of greenery. The pines shed their needles if you breathed on them. He hadn't really noticed the sad state of things the first time he came here but it had been winter then. He thought it would be beautiful in the spring but it wasn't. It was just a dead place.
The ground, while not hard, was laced with heavy roots that had made it impossible to dig the hole properly but the boy had done the best he could. The man bent down to check for a pulse, but he moved too fast and the blood rushed through his body making him light-headed. He lowered himself to the ground, concentrating on his breathing while he considered what he had to work with. The top of the hole was shallow, the boy's head rested sideways on a big old root that looked like a brown and gnarly pillow.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three breaths.
The corpse's butt was nice and deep and the feet deeper still. He looked very strange. He would not be laid out properly but there was nothing to do about it now. The man got to his knees. He would do what he could and God would know that his intentions were honorable.
Very carefully he got to his knees, reached out with one hand and arranged the boy's arm. He wasn't able to reach the other one since he had fallen on it, so he put that one hand over the boy's now-still heart, placed a card under it and then sat back. He didn't bother with the boy's feet. Instead, he paused and caught his breath again. When he had filled his lungs as best he could he reached for the shovel. Taking hold of the shaft, he was pulling it toward him when a foot slammed down on top of his hand.
The man cried out in pain. He pulled away in terror, lost his balance and tumbled into the grave. The pain in his body was excruciating and when his head fell back he was looking up the bloody nose of the dead man. He could not open his lips to scream so he made the same sounds he had made so long ago when he lay helpless on a cold concrete floor. He threw his arm over his eyes and waited for arrest or death or something worse. Instead, the day went a little dark as a shadow fell over him. Tentatively, he moved his arm. He opened his eyes, the one good one and the one that looked like milk. Above him stood a man the likes of which he had never seen. This person had planted the shovel in the earth and was leaning on it like it was a silver-tipped cane. He was smiling.
"Whatcha doin' old man?" he asked.
CHAPTER 20
"Come on. Come on, now. Let's get you out of that stinky pot."
The man didn't move because it was hard to know which was the worse: to be in a grave with a dead man or standing upright next to a crazy one.
The fellow reaching for him was a mess from the top down. His dark hair was short but not shaved, and it looked like he had taken scissors to it himself. There was a round spot of white-blond that made it look as if he had slept with the left side of his head in a pie tin of bleach.
His face was an impish triangle with its broad forehead and pointy little chin. There was a scabby sore above his left eye and he used the stubby, dirty fingers of his free hand to pick at it. There were teeth in this person's head, but they looked none too healthy. His face was deeply lined and old before its time, yet there was a youthfulness about him that made it seem as if he was wearing a mask.
He was dressed in old clothes, dirty clothes: a work shirt, over a t-shirt with a picture on it, a wool suit coat of black and brown checks. The coat pockets sagged, the back rode up his skinny bum. His jeans were so worn and faded that they looked as if they had been fashioned out of a baby's hide. His shoes were thrift shop specials, the cast offs of some businessman partial to wingtips. One shoe had a lace; the other was fastened with wire.
Despite the man's disarray and the face that looked like a tulip bulb waiting to be planted, he was quite the dandy, full of cocky energy and good humor, an odd thing considering. The man with the tulip bulb face stopped picking at the sore above his eye, tossed away the shovel and put both hands out to the live man in the hole. He wiggled his fingers.
"Come on. Up you go."
"I can do it," the man mumbled, struggling to extricate himself from the narrow hole and the sticky blood.
"Aw, shit, you can't," the man laughed. "I been watchin'. You can't hardly move. Come on. Come on now. Give me your hand."
"You've been picking at yourself," the man groused.
"What?" The younger one put his wretched dirty fingers behind his ear. "You mumble, buster. Can't hardly hear ya." He put his hands down on his knees and looked a little closer. "Oh, say, sorry man. Looks like somebody tried to carve you a new mouth and sewed 'em both up by mistake. No wonder you can't talk proper."
The man turned his head, not wanting to be looked at that way or to have to explain his scars, his eye, his body. He didn't want to touch the man's hand because he'd been picking at himself, but he had no choice. This guy wasn't going away. He had his hand out and was popping his lips:
comeonupcomeonupcomeonup.
The man reached out and the young one pulled him up and over the top of the grave, so that he felt like he was flying. The young man caught him, held tight with one hand and dusted him off with the other.
"What did ya think? You gonna get cooties from me? Hell, man you been laying in somebody else's blood…" he twirled the old man like he was dancing with him and swatted at his shoulders. "…that's skanky, know what I mean…skankier than anything I got…"
He swatted the man's behind and that's when the tables turned. The old man snapped his hand out of the younger man's. He was on the shovel faster than a cat on a mouse. Raising it above his head, blind with rage, he brought it down, hoping to deliver a deathblow, but the younger man scuttled out of range. His hands were up, but not defensively. It seemed he wasn't afraid of the old man – even with the corpse lying in a grave.
"Whoa, whoa, you old dude. I'm cool. Sorry. Didn't know your butt was sensitive." The younger man turned his palms upward and curled his fingers in a come-on gesture. "My bad. Come on. Come on. I'm 'bout the only person in the world who don't care 'bout your butt or that body."
The tulip-faced man ogled the corpse and then threw back his head and cackled, showing his broken teeth.
"Man, that was good. Gotta remember that one. Butt. Body. Hey, I'm a lover not a fighter." He stopped moving, dropped his hands to his hips, scooted over and checked out the grave. "Looks like you're the fighter, man. Good to know. Yeah, good to know. I ain't gonna tangle with you and I ain't gonna do you wrong. I keep my mouth shut. I'm in the brotherhood. Yep, your business is your business 'cause I don't want to get involved. Everybody knows my lips are zipped, my eyes are blind 'cause that's how I roll. I'm a pragmatic fellow, you see. If my time has come then it's come, but I don't think it has. That's why I don't have fear of you or pretty much anyone else. Last thing I want is the man coming down on my head, so whatever this is, it's your business, brother."
The old man stood with the shovel high on the shoulder again. He was breathing hard but at the ready, distrusting and upset that he could not finish his job in peace. But he was exhausted too and the tulip-faced man kept grinning. What was he to do? He hadn't the strength for another fight.
"Adolph, man. Name's Adolph."
The vagrant raised his eyebrows and that made him look very young, indeed. Twenty-one? Twenty-two? The old man lowered the shovel. He knew a meth head when he saw one and Adolph was one.
The old man mumbled.
Adolph leaned forward and cupped his ears again.
"Didn't catch it. Sorry, man, you gotta work on your pronunciation."
The man said: "It's not deep enough."
"I see that. Yes, indeed I do."
Adolph turned to the grave and nodded. He pulled up his chin in contemplation; acting like this was business as usual. Suddenly he swooped down and looked close, seeing what was underneath the hand. He swiveled his head and gave the man a glorious smile.
"That is such a nice touch." Adolph put his hand over his heart. "And I mean that sincerely."
"Necessary," the man said.
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't know about that. But, hey, you look worn to a nub. That's what my mom used to say. Worn to a nub. Always wondered, a nub of what?"
Adolph stood up straight and held out his hand for the shovel. The man pulled it back. Adolph kept coming, talking like he was going to take a bone from a big old ornery dog.
"I'm not stealing it, man," Adolph soothed "What would I do with a shovel, man?"
He went for it again, all gentle like. The old man pulled back again but not so fast nor so far this time. He was tired. The tumble had hurt his hip so bad that he wasn't sure if he could stand one more minute. Adolph's fingers were on the shaft of the shovel. Yep, the big old dog was ready to give it up. Just a few more steps, a few more words.
"Come on, man. I'll finish it up for you, and you give me a ride back to the city. Sucks out here. Killed me a squirrel two days ago, but that's the last real food I had me. Come on, I earn my keep. I'll do it right. Promise, man. Just a ride back to the city is all I'm asking."
The old man thought about this. He was tired and it was getting late. He would give the man a ride. He gave up the shovel and Adolph was pleased.
"There you go. Not so hard." Adolph scooped up a shovelful of dirt and heaved it over the corpse's feet. He looked back at the old man and wiggled his eyebrows. "Huh? Huh? Didn't I tell you? Tit for tat. Quid pro quo. You go on and rest your bones."
The man mumbled. What he said was that, yes, Adolph could do the work. Yes, he would go rest. Yes, he would take him back to the city. Even if his words were understandable, Adolph wouldn't have heard. He threw himself into the chore with gusto, as if happy to have been hired.
He heaved a few more shovelfuls over the feet and legs and then looked over his shoulder again. The old man was in the truck and his head was back. He looked like he was asleep.
Adolph began to whistle, a thing he did very well. He whistled a beautiful song. A tune written by Bach that he learned when his mother made him take piano lessons. She said it was restful. Most people turned to see where the beautiful sound was coming from when Adolph whistled, but the man in the truck did not so Adolph got on his knees and rummaged through the dead guy's pockets.
He almost stopped whistling when he came up with some damn good treasure. In the dead man's jean pocket, way down deep, Adolph found jewelry. Good stuff, too. A narrow chain with a gold disc and inside the disk a diamond – a carat at least. Gold bands set with rubies and sapphires interspersed with diamonds.
Adolph whistled louder, checked to make sure the old guy was still out and then went in once more. He found a chain and a locket in the brown boy's pants. There was nothing inside the locket except some initials, almost worn away. The thing wasn't worth much, Adolph was sure, but the other items were pricey. He would be having some very fine food as soon as he could unload this stuff.
Satisfied that he had what there was to find, that the old man was none the wiser, that if he didn't hurry it up they would get caught in hellish traffic and he'd have to spend more time than he wanted with mumbly-peg, Adolph pocketed the goods and picked up the pace. He switched tunes. I've Been Working on the Railroad seemed more appropriate.
A few minutes later he was done. It was a decent job. The night critters would eat away the guy's face because it was impossible to cover it propped up the way it was. All that dirt kept rolling off.
"Let's get this show on the road, old man!" Adolph hollered as he swung up his pack, tossed the shovel into the back of the truck and then hopped into the passenger seat. He sat down on the gun, pulled it out from under him and put it in the glove box while the man woke and centered himself. It took a minute, but Adolph was patient. He had done a bit of work and it had paid off handsomely. There was some good food coming and a bed to sleep in once he found a pawnshop. Yes, indeed, he had been lucky that day.
When the man had figured out where he was, what he was doing and remembered who Adolph was, he put the key in the ignition and drove over the forest path to the highway that led back to the freeway that would take them to Los Angeles.
Neither of them looked back.
Neither of them saw the earth move.
"You doin' okay there, Gregorio?" Cori asked.
Paul and Finn were already through the door that led to the cold room where the bodies lay. Cori pulled up the rear, stopping when she saw Gregorio hesitate. This room was hard to take for a seasoned pro; a normal person found it freakish. She put her hand on Gregorio's back as much to guide him as support him.
"It's tough. I'm not going to lie to you."
"Si," was all he said.
Cori gave his back a pat, threaded her arm through his and walked him into the room.
"Point the way boys," she said and Finn gave her a wink, grateful for her help when she was personally conflicted by the situation.
Paul led them down an aisle to the gurney in question. Finn stood on one side, Paul at the head of the body and Cori and Gregorio on the other side.
"Doctor Craig is going to uncover the body, okay?" Cori said.
Gregorio nodded. Cori let go of Gregorio but stayed close in case she was needed. After Paul unzipped the body bag they all stood silently for a minute. Finally, Finn said:
"Gregorio?"
"No. I don't know his name. I may have seen him. It's hard to tell. His face." Gregorio's hand circled his own. "It is hard to know."
Paul zipped the bag and they moved two tables back to the next one, going through the paces again. Gregorio shook his head once more. He knew neither of the victims.
"Well then, I'm believing we're done here. Thank you, Paul," Finn said.
His voice reflected the disappointment and frustration they all felt. Cori and Finn pivoted to leave. Paul adjusted the table but Gregorio didn't move. He was looking over his shoulder, seemingly deep in thought.
