I gave my head a little shake to clear it. I checked my watch. Since I was alive, I would continue. There was time for at least one more interview that day.
I started the engine and pulled away from the curb. I drove aimlessly for a few minutes, then found a parking spot in the shade of a sycamore on Wilshire where it crosses MacArthur Park. I decided I might have better luck if I tried talking to some people who were playing for the other team. I drug my cell phone out of my pocket, wincing at a sharp spike of pain from my ribs. I called Congressman Montes and left a message with a man who said he was the congressman’s personal assistant. I leaned my head back against the seat, closed my eyes, and waited.
Time passed. I fell asleep.
The phone rang. I woke up and answered, and the congressman’s assistant said he had scheduled an appointment with someone at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services field office in the Federal Building. I thanked him, then started the Escalade and drove out of Pico-Union.
Over at the Federal Building, a woman came into the waiting room and invited me to follow her. I stood up slowly and trailed along a hallway after her. The woman said her name was Elizabeth Peterson. She was large-boned, pushing sixty, with straw-colored hair as short as mine, that pallid look you get when you spend too much time under fluorescent lights, and a brown suit that looked as if it came off the rack at a men’s big-and-tall shop.
She led me into a small conference room. Before I could sit at the table, she looked me up and down and said, “What happened to you?”
“A little accident,” I said, settling slowly into a chair.
“You look half-dead.”
“Not to worry,” I said. “The other half is fine.”
She didn’t smile. “Normally I don’t liaise with the general public, Mr. Cutter.”
“I’m sure Congressman Montes appreciates it.”
“Yes. And what exactly is your connection with the congressman?”
“Tenuous, at best.”
In spite of my witty banter, her lack of amusement seemed to deepen. “I’m very busy,” she said. “What can we do for you?”
“I need a copy of everything you have on Alejandra Delarosa; her husband, Emilio; and their daughter.”
“I’m sorry. Who?”
“The woman who kidnapped the congressman’s wife, Doña Elena Montes. I’m especially interested in the woman’s family.”
“I see. If you would wait just a few minutes, I’ll see what we can do.”
She left the room. I remained seated. I swung left and right in the swivel chair while I waited, flexing my midsection to explore the way the motion caused me pain. I took a few deep breaths, just to make sure I still could. I thought of what was excellent and true.
In about ten minutes, Elizabeth Peterson returned with a few pieces of paper in her hand. She sat, slid the papers across the table toward me, then said, “I’m afraid we are confused.”
I started looking through the papers. “We are?”
“We are. The congressman’s office requested this same information just a few days ago. It seems strange that he would send you here for it again.”
I said, “He gave me a copy of that file. There was nothing in it about Delarosa’s husband or daughter.”
“That is incorrect. We were asked for everything related to the woman, and that is what we sent, because that is all we have.”
“Are you sure? Maybe there was a mistake.”
“That is unlikely.”
I nodded. “Yes. I’m sure it is.”
I flipped through the little stack of paper. In addition to the information I had already seen about Alejandra Delarosa, there were a few pages on Emilio Delarosa and their daughter, including two photos, both of which looked like mug shots. The quality of the images was no better than the one I already had of Alejandra, extremely vague and grainy. Photocopies of photocopies of faxes, most likely. With such poor resolution, the man could have been any of a thousand Latinos I had seen before, and the girl any of a thousand children.
I said, “There’s nothing more recent on the husband?”
“Our records end with that standard deportation file. He was sent back to Guatemala a few months after the incident. The daughter went with him.”
“Are you sure there aren’t any clearer photos in the database?”
“I just printed that from the database, Mr. Cutter. Now unless you or the congressman needs something from a different file, I’d like to get back to work.”
I left the Federal Building and drove back to El Nido, where I spent a troubled night in bed, trying to find a position I could lie in that didn’t cause me pain. The four or five glasses of Scotch I drank didn’t seem to help.
The next morning I felt stiff of body and of head, but the pain from the beating had subsided slightly. I decided to look into one more item from the congressman’s file. I rose early and looked at myself in the mirror. My legs and torso were covered with bruises, but other than a slight swelling along the right side of my jaw, all my facial features appeared to be in the usual places. They hadn’t managed to break my nose, and because it had survived the beating intact, the skin around my eyes hadn’t been bruised.
Haley had always said she loved my eyes the most. She used to try to get me to stare straight into hers. It was something that didn’t come naturally to me, but after a while, I got used to it. People said my eyes were like black holes into my head. Hers were more like windows into heaven. I told her that one time, and she said it was some pretty corny dialogue. I pointed out that I was just a leatherneck who didn’t know much about words, but I did know heaven when I saw it. She had smiled when I said that, and her smile lit up her eyes, confirming my description.
I put on faded Levi’s, my usual white polo shirt, and my New Balance workout shoes. I rubbed a little sunblock on my neck, face, and arms. I checked myself a final time in the mirror and had a funny feeling, as if I were still naked. I removed the shirt and went back to the closet. I found a green-and-brown-plaid cotton shirt two sizes larger and a Kevlar armored vest. I put on the vest, cinched it tight, and then put the larger shirt on over the vest. It occurred to me that I was wearing the vest from force of habit. It wasn’t that I cared all that much if I was shot. It was just what you wore on reconnaissance in hostile territory.
I put on a black gimme cap and a pair of Ray-Bans. I wore my shirttail untucked in case I needed to clip the holster onto my belt later, but when I got to the garage, I laid the handgun on the passenger seat of the Range Rover.
At the last minute, I decided it might be good if someone knew where I was going. I left the garage and looked around for Teru. He was by the big house, trimming a hedge. I walked over and filled him in on my plans. He pulled the pipe out of his mouth and asked when I’d be back. I told him to start worrying around three in the afternoon. He said he would do that.
The Ortega Highway wound through the Santa Ana Mountains from San Juan Capistrano to Lake Elsinore. It was a beautiful two-lane drive along deep canyons, but the road had lots of hairpin turns, and it climbed up pretty high in places. Guys on Japanese motorcycles loved to take it doing anywhere from sixty to one hundred miles per hour, leaning so far into the turns that their knees almost scraped the pavement. Guys in sports cars also tended to take the turns too fast. Several of them lost control every year and had to be scraped off the canyon floor below.
After the beating the day before, I was in a careful mood. I took it easy that morning, cruising about fifty on the straightaways and slowing to thirty on the turns. The Range Rover was extremely quiet. Too quiet after a while. I turned on the stereo, and Perry Como’s voice flowed from the speakers, one of Haley’s favorites. I realized it was what she had been listening to the last time she took her Range Rover out alone. I thought about her sitting where I was sitting, touching the same places on the steering wheel and listening to the same music. I turned the music off. I lowered the driver’s-side window and let the roaring wind and road noise flow into my head. The views ahead and beside me were beautiful. They were excellent. They were praiseworthy. The same God who took Haley from me also made those views. I did my best to think about the one thing and ignore the other. To me it made no sense to be angry with God. Might as well be angry with gravity.