I got down on a knee beside the dying man.
“Who shot you?” I asked.
“White man.”
“Which one?”
The perplexed look on Saint Angel’s face made me regret the attempt at humor.
“Do you have the deed?”
He shook his head sadly.
Feeling a little guilty, and not knowing why, I said, “Lie still, brother, I’ll call the ambulance.”
“White man. He wore... he wore a dark and light jacket, like a, like that game, you know.”
I asked the operator to get me an ambulance.
“Man fell through a glass windah and is bleedin’ a lot,” I claimed.
After making the emergency call, I went back to the dying man and took the wallet from his pocket. He roused, trying to stop me, but the big bad boar had become as weak as a little piglet.
I searched the house but found nothing.
I had put everything away by the time the paramedics arrived. The problem was — the police came with them. I identified myself to the cops, saying that Santangelo had retained me, that I was there to make a report and found him in that condition.
They didn’t believe any of that.
I wouldn’t have either.
20
County jail, the only official place worse than the California penal system. County jail, where they stack prisoners one on top of the other and then leave them to figure out the pecking order. The same county jail that welcomes drunk drivers, those who fail to pay child support, and unemployed parents who shoplift milk; it also sequesters murderers, perverts, and gang members, especially gang members.
County jail. That’s where they put me. I could have been up at my house, my house that had an actual mountain stream flowing through. My home where I could leave the door unlocked and open wide and never would I get burglarized. My home where there lived a killer dog who would die to save me.
“Hey, bruddah,” somebody said, a little sing to his words.
I had to control my response to the auditory stimulus. In county jail you needed to be ready to fight to the death at the drop of a hat. But you also had to be judicious. Not every stimulation meant war.
“How you doin’?” I replied.
“Okay.”
The man speaking was probably my age, though he looked older, Hispanic, probably Mexican, with faded brick-red skin and dark eyes that studied me almost lazily. He was seated on one of the comparatively few bunks, which told me that he held sway in that overcrowded cell. He patted the space next to him. This gesture said that he was the one who was going to vet me.
I accepted the invitation. There was no other choice.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Easy. Yours?”
“Carlos. Carlos Ortega. What they got you for?”
“I was,” I said, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it, in that specialized and volatile environment. “I went to a guy’s house to tell him some things. Door was open and he was bleedin’ on the floor. I called an ambulance. They called the cops, and here I am.”
“The man your friend?”
“No. A client.”
“What kinda client?”
“I’m like a... a private investigator. This guy hired me to find his aunt.”
“Find her for what?”
“His grandmother, her mother, who lives down in Texas, hadn’t heard from her for a while. I guess she was worried.”
“And him lookin’ for his aunt got him shot?” Carlos asked. He seemed honestly interested.
“I sure hope not.” I was speaking truth in that man-made hell.
“You gonna ask him?”
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t make it.”
Looking around, I saw that other men in our cell built for twenty that held forty-five, many of whom were also Hispanic, probably Mexican, were watching me. These were specialists in maintaining the pecking order.
“That’s too bad,” Carlos said. “They gonna blame you?”
“They might. But I’m not too worried.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first, I didn’t shoot the man. Second, I really am a private investigator, so they don’t have any reason to not believe me. And lastly, they won’t find a weapon, at least not the one that shot him.”
“You’re so cool. Don’t nuthin’ bother you?”
I laughed easily. “Well, Carlos. Sometimes you got to face what’s in front of you. When it comes down to that, there’s not much time to be bothered.”
Carlos made the slightest motion with his left hand, and the men who were watching turned away.
After that, the jail cell bossman interrogated me, asking many questions about my profession; how did I start looking for people, did I ever work for the police, how much can you make being a detective, what happens if, when you find the missing person, there’s been a crime committed?
I answered his questions more or less honestly. When he asked if I worked for the police, I said no, that sometimes they might be looking into some case that held my interest too, but never had I taken money from them to find anyone.
It was a pleasant conversation. A good way to take my mind off the beating I could have received and might still receive in that cell.
“Why you askin’ all this, Carlos? You wanna be a detective?”
I expected a laugh, but instead he got serious.
“My father, his name is Rafael. He’s from Sinaloa, out in the country where he farmed tomatoes. He’s an old man but he still knows his family and his prayers.”
“You’re lucky. My dad died when I was eight.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he said, his eyes connecting with mine. “My father is a good man. He taught me much.”
“So, I take it, he’s missin’?” I asked, wanting to get down to the real reason he called off his soldiers.
“Yeah. Me and him take walks around the neighborhood a few times every week. He likes to take walks, have a beer, and look at the girls. But now they got me in here trying to figure out if they could, you know, prosecute me for something a friend of mine might have did. And so, my dad don’t have nobody to walk with. He usually waits for me, but now I don’t know when I’m gonna be home and my sister tells me that he’s gettin’ kinda restless, you know? He has his mind, but he forgets. He knows his name and where he live at, so usually he can make it home with no problem.”
“Not the last time?”
Carlos’s nod was almost a bow. That was to show respect.
“He went out three days ago and didn’t come back. My people are lookin’ for him but he’s not at any of the usual places.”
“Where’s your father’s house?”
“On Hamel Street in East LA.”
“He talk to people around there on his walks?”
“Yes. He has many friends.”
“Gimme the address and I’ll see what I can do.”
“How much?”
“I think we both know that you already paid me.”
Not long after that, a phone call I’d made when I was being processed bore fruit.
Two guards came to take me out of the cell.
I shook hands with Carlos, taking a slip of paper that contained pertinent information about his father.
The uniformed escorts took me to a part of the jail I’d never been to before. It was like a lounge for the guards and their superiors. Off from the lounge was a room they had for special circumstances. In that room Anatole McCourt and Melvin Suggs were waiting.
“Easy,” Melvin said, jumping up and shaking my hand.
“You want coffee?” Anatole offered.
“Sure. Yeah.”
“Why don’t you take a load off, Easy,” Melvin suggested. “They never have enough places to sit in those cells.”
I sat and Anatole placed a paper cup of black coffee before me.