He stomped and snorted, and with that he was gone.
“Well, how do you like that?” said Gilles, setting down his mug. “So he’s the one who dropped her off! Now, how would he even know a child like that? Standing around with us playing dumb … and what did he mean ‘she’s in jail.’ We should probably call the police, Lani, no? Don’t you think? Maybe he knows her folks. Maybe he—” A lurid brainstorm darkened his face, cheapening its features. “Lani … do you think there was something funny there? ‘My girl,’ he called her. Something ‘Fritz Lang’—you know the Peter Lorre film — I mean, going on—between him and—?”
“No,” said his wife, still trembling. “No, Gilles, I do not.”
Shaken by the homeless gentleman’s tirade, she steadied herself against one of the steel mixing machines and was overcome by shame, the shame of what she already knew: that her entire life she’d taken pride in doing the right thing—“by the book.” The useless right thing.
Carroll Avenue was cushy, but the once right and honorable George Fitzsimmons knew it would not last forever; he was under the 4th Street Bridge sussing old digs when an unmarked car pulled over.
“Hi there — can we talk a moment?”
Seated beside the detective was Someone-Help-Me, who, having successfully brought hunter to quarry (he knew Fitz and Will’m were “tight”), busied himself with a grotesque celebratory lap dance solitaire, a seizure of freakish, self-satisfied gesticulations.
Samson Dowling stepped from the car and approached. Fitz put both hands on his crutch, cockily casual. The dirty dynamo got out too, sneering and twitching and muttering, and Fitz was not unhappy when Half Dead, gray rag of rat in his jaw, flew from the concrete stanchioned underslope and leapt at the traitorous fucker, knocking him backward.
“Mutant peesuhshit!” He frothed and feinted as the mongrel went for a mouthful. “Kill ’im, I will, crackhead Half Man!”
“I’ll suck your dick first.”
“You!” barked the detective at his scurvy partner. “Outta here—now. Now!”
Someone-Help-Me lurched toward the L.A. River, peppily escorted by man’s best and mangled friend; the duration of Doppler’d vocalization made it apparent the dog’s enthusiasms took more than a moment to diminish. That the detective cared not a whit about the attack (really only bluster) and seemed near the end of his tether with this varminty vermin, viz. the cocksucking snitch, endeared him to Fitz just a little. For Fitz had no great love of the Man.
Dowling cordially introduced himself, adding that he’d seen Fitz on the streets the last year or so. Something about his interrogator put him at ease, which of course made him more defensive than ever.
“It’s my understanding you know a man who goes by the name of William.”
“I do not.”
“He has a nickname — Topsy.”
“I don’t know a William and I don’t know a Topsy.”
“Are you sure? Tall fellow, British. Bearded. Seems he’d be hard to miss! Not sure how I have. Used to go to St. Vincent’s now and then, but they haven’t seen him there lately. I heard you have. Heard he was your running partner.”
“ ‘Running partner’!” he spat contemptuously, withdrawing a civility already overextended. “May I go about my business, Detective?”
“Wears strange … suits. Are you sure, Mr. Fitzsimmons?” The one-legged transient, mildly startled to be addressed in such a way, let it ride. “Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”
“I don’t run with nobody.”
“You have been seen in the past with someone of that description.”
“Seen? By who?” He nodded toward the river. “The scumbag snitch?”
The detective laughed. “And others. I heard the two of you shared an encampment—”
“I ain’t asshole buddies with no one.”
“—right around here, no? Look, I understand you wanting to protect your friend, but there’s been a murder. A little girl is involved.”
“Got nothin’ to tell you.”
The detective changed tack.
“You used to be a caseworker, didn’t you?”
“Who told you that?”
“You know, Mr. Fitzsimmons, you’re something of a legend over at the DCFS. They said you were one of the finest to ever pass through, and I believe it! One of the good guys — someone who cared. Life doesn’t have to be this way, George. If you want help getting off that pipe, I can take you someplace right now. Just hop in and I’ll personally see you’ve got a bed in a detox so you can kick this thing. That’s no bullshit. In six months you can be back doing your thing. Helping kids. Making a difference.”
“TPR, my friend.”
“What’s that?”
“Termination of Parental Rights. I’m done with mom and dad — some of us are, you know: Welfare and Institutions Code, Section 366.26, Senate Bill 243, confer January first, 1989. Baby, I was fully successful in all hearings, petitions and permanency plans. Who did they think they were playing with? The Department willfully demonstrated neglect, cruelty, abandonment and moral depravity — and let me tell you something else, Officer: it was demonstrated by my attorneys as such.”
“I’m going to give you my card,” said Dowling, reaching into his wallet. “If you see our friend, tell him I’d like to talk to him. It’s for his own good. Maybe he can help us clear some things up. And my offer to you still stands.”
“Look to the parent, Detective, always look to the parent,” Fitz said, shuffling after him. “If the minor has been sexually abused or there is substantial risk the minor will be sexually abused, as defined in Section 11165.1 of the Penal Code, by his or her parent or guardian or a member of his or her household or the parent or guardian has failed to adequately protect the minor from sexual abuse when the parent or guardian knew or reasonably should have known that the minor was in danger of sexual abuse”—the detective got into his car and started the engine—“and for the purposes of this subdivision ‘severe physical abuse’ means any of the following: any single act of abuse which causes physical trauma of sufficient severity that if left untreated would cause permanent physical disfigurement”—Fitz lit out after the Taurus as it pulled away, pulling on the crutch with all his strength—“permanent physical disability or death! any single act of sexual abuse which causes significant bleeding, deep bruising or significant external or internal swelling or more than one act of physical abuse, each of which causes bleeding, deep bruising, significant external or internal swelling, bone fracture or unconsciousness; or the willful, prolonged failure to provide—”
The car was out of sight. Fitz leaned on the crutch, panting. A broad smile came to his face and he laughed out loud. Then his brow furrowed; he would have to make sure his friend Will’m relocated — fast.
He called out: “Half? Half, baby? Darling, come …”
And limped toward the river.
CHAPTER 19. Gatherings
Tull and the Dane still went for walks in the sheltered park of La Colonne, yet without the innocence of earlier explorations. They came and went as they pleased, traipsing through wild savanna and fields of lawn sedge studded by fifty-foot purple beeches — and tramped amid the whimsical all-in-black Mourning Garden, designed by Trinnie between halfway-house stints. It was filled with bat-like devil flowers, dark-blood Queen of Night tulips and bamboo “Noir” that shot up like bayonets. Mr. Greenjeans, who seemed born to the place and surely would die there, waved jovial greetings from afar; it was from him Tull learned that his mother had recently passed nights in the tower’s bridal suite.