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  “Pets? You like ’em?”

  “Sure. They’re fine.”

  “Dogs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How come you don’t have one?”

  “No one to take care of it. I’m out a lot. Working.”

  “Taking pictures of people who don’t want their pictures taken. When they don’t know you’re doing it.” I swept my hand across the room. Went to a wall. Pulled a framed eight-by-ten of Laurie off, crashed it to the ground. Shattering glass. He jerked back in the ugly chair.

  “Whadda you want? I haven’t hurt anyone.”

  “Leave Laurie alone.” I crashed another picture to the ground.

  “I’ll call the cops.”

  “No you won’t.” I picked up the camera with the foot-long telephoto lens on it that he’d left on the desk when he came home and smelled the fire. There was a 50mm lens in a case. I switched it with the telephoto. Snapped pictures of the room. Proof, if the cops ever asked. When the roll of film was finished, I rewound it, put it in my pocket.

  “Leave Laurie alone.” I slapped him across the cheek. “She’s not interested in you.”

  “Okay. Okay.” He covered his face with his hands, cowering back in the chair.

  “Have you ever been arrested?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me the truth. It’s easy enough for me to find out.”

  “No, goddamnit. No.”

  “How long have you been stalking? Is Laurie your first?” Jeez, it sounded like a first date. First kiss. First lay. First stalk. Society was crumbling around me. And Nero fiddled on.

  I grabbed his collar. Shook him.

  “No, she’s not the first one.”

  “How many others?”

  “I-I don’t know. Two. Three.” He paused. Took a deep breath. “Women like me. I can’t help it. They like it when I shower them with affection. It’s just part of their act, playing hard to get, to pretend like they don’t want it.”

  “When was the first one?”

  “About four years ago.”

  “What made you do it?”

  He looked at me like he didn’t know what I was talking about. Do what? You could see it in his eyes.

  “What makes you do it? Why do you hound these women? What about the first one?”

  “Hound them?” His hands covered his face. Rubbed his temples. His eyes were red. Teary. A revelation hit him: “I-I don’t know. She didn’t really like me I guess. I wanted her to so bad I made it up. I believed it. It didn’t seem made up to me.”

  “What happened?”

  “She moved away.”

  “’Cause of you?”

  “Yes, I think so.” His voice shook. Reality breakthrough. The truth was hard to take.

  “Why? Why do you do it?”

  “I don’t know.” He gulped air. “I guess ’cause no one likes me.” His whole face seemed to drop when he said it. Shattered. Reality infused with his dream world. He didn’t like the reality.

  “You know any other stalkers?”

  He laughed. “What, do you think we have a society? Stalkers Anonymous?” His laughter was uncontrollable. I shoved a picture of Pilar Cruz in his face. He wiped his eyes.

  “You know her?”

  “Never seen her.”

  “Her?” I put a picture of Teddie down for him to look at. He picked it up. Held it close. Recognition crossed his eyes.

  “I-I’ve seen her before. Movies. TV. Can’t remember.” He held it closer. Pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket. Looked at it again. “Didn’t she get—”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shit. I don’t know anything about it.”

  I believed him. He was scared enough at this point to tell the truth.

  “Stay away from Laurie.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And don’t harass anyone else either.” I headed for the door.

  He was muttering behind me: “It’s not stalking. It’s—”

  I was too far out of range to hear what he said.

  The drive home was uneventful, cruise control smooth, except for a thought that kept roiling my mind: Was I any better than the rioters? I also used force to get what I wanted. I figured mine was for a better cause. I was trying to help someone. A couple of people. The looters just wanted free candy. They may have had some legit grievances. Looting wasn’t the way. Was bracing Craylock? I don’t think he would have talked otherwise.

  CHAPTER 21

  The answering machine light flashed. One message. Rita. I didn’t call her back. Crashed on the living room sofa, strands of golden-hour sun beaming in through the Levelors. It was quiet. Every part of me ached with exhaustion. I wasn’t a SEAL anymore.

  Dancing sunlight.

  Candlelight dinners.

  Dinner with Rita.

  Dinner with Lou.

  Breakfast with Mrs. Matson.

  Ice cream.

  Baron.

  Mary.

  Craylock.

  Lou.

  Jack.

  Firefight.

  Firestar.

  Blam.

  Blam.

  Blam.

  Warren.

  Warren?

  Weasel.

  Cruise control smooth.

  Cruz, Pilar.

  Cruz, Ben.

  Martinez, Ramon.

  Martinez, Anna.

  Teddy bears.

  Teddie Matson.

  Teddie.

  Teddie.

  Teddie.

  Image shards crash my brain.

  Dreaming.

  The good life is just a dream away.

  Door slamming. Startled awake. Grabbed the Star off the couch. Walked noiselessly to the back of the house. Press against the walls, peek out windows. Room to room, ready to fire. No one. Nothing. Unlocked the backdoor, drove it open with a foot. Charged out. Aim left. Aim right.

  Noise.

  Straight arm the gun at the noise.

  Trigger.

  Squeeze.

  Shit.

  Heart stop.

  Lay off.

  Mary came out of the garage holding a crinkled bag. Seeing the pistol aimed at her gut wiped the smile off her face—fast. I’d forgotten about her, or thought she’d already come and gone.

  “It’s only me. Friend. Not foe. The wind slammed the garage door shut.” Her voice was cheery. Her eyes were scared. I lowered the gun. Some people have been known to pull a trigger unintentionally in a moment of crisis from the tension in their finger. I was relieved I wasn’t one of them.

  “I heard a noise. I’m a little jumpy.”

  “Who isn’t?” She lowered the sack, revealing a chrome-plated .32 automatic aimed at my heart. I wondered if fearful eyes betrayed my cheery voice, as she slipped the gun into the black leather purse that hung on her shoulder.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s cyanide,” she said, opening the bag for me to see the ice cream container. “But I’ll run it to make sure. I’ll also run the laser note you gave me. Don’t think it’ll be much help though.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s a million laser printers in the naked city. How you gonna track one down? Sure, I can tell you the brand and model number most likely. But after that it’s almost impossible to find whose it is. It’s not like the old movies. Unless you have access to the machines and can compare them, there’s no way.”

  We sat on a bright white wood-slat bench in the yard. Birds sang. I remember thinking about them singing, thinking it was corny. I liked it anyway.

  “I don’t have a lot of friends,” I said. It just came out. I wasn’t sure why.

  “You know people all over.”

  “Close friends.”

  She was silent a moment.“I know what you mean. People you can bare your soul to. People who, if you haven’t seen or talked to them in years, you can pick up right where you left off.” She put her hand on my knee. “People like Baron.”

  It was a silly thought, thinking of Baron as a person. It m
ade perfect sense to me. Maybe that’s why I kept Jack on as a friend, I thought. No pretenses there. No bullshit. He said what he thought. I said what I thought. No judging. Other people may think he’s a bigot and worse. But he was a good friend. That’s what counted. Same with Mary. I’d known her a long time. And we’d gone for long periods when we hadn’t talked or seen each other. But we always drifted back together, our friendship undiminished by the time gap. And here she was now, doing me a favor, her hand on my knee. A good friend.

  In the heat of the moment with Mary, thinking about Baron and cyanide, I’d again forgotten to give her the notes to Teddie and Pilar. It was a stupid oversight, one that I hit myself for, but one that I wouldn’t let stand long.

  By now, the riots were officially over. You wouldn’t know it by the troops on the street and the fights breaking out everywhere. And the looting that continued. And the name calling from politicos covering their fetid asses. It was such a nice L.A. day, I decided to go for a drive. To East L.A.

  Over the river and through the dale to ganger’s house we go. To Indian country. Another world. Signs in Spanish. Graffiti everywhere. The rental car rambled down the last street Pilar Cruz had written in her address book for Anna Martinez. Above it, her address had been crossed out and rewritten seven times. Took up a whole page in the book.

  Some newer Toyotas and Nissans mixed in with plenty of faded yellow or shit brown or bright orange junkers, ancient Oldsmobiles, Chryslers, Fords, and more Toyotas and Nissans. I pulled up in front of an old stucco house. One story. Small. Locked the car, walked to the front door. Before I got there, someone popped out of the driveway.

  “Qué quiere?”

  Someone else to deal with. On the one hand this was getting old, on the other I could understand people being wary of outsiders in their neighborhood. Mine was the same.

  “Hi.” My Spanish wasn’t very good. I think he wanted to know what I was doing there. He wore a white tank top and lowrider pants. Had nervous hands, moving this way and that, stringy biceps flexing as he did. Coal-colored eyes. Solid. Steely. No emotion in them. A raggedy black moustache adorned his upper lip. “I’m looking for Ramon and Anna Martinez.”

  “Quien?”

  “Ramon and Anna Martinez?”

  “Ramon y Anna Martinez? No los conozco.” He shrugged.

  I thought he was giving me a line. Not so much from what he said, but how he said it. He was playing me. I wasn’t in the mood to be played. I also knew better than to try anything. I was out of my turf. Couldn’t speak Spanish. At least not well enough to talk to him. I needed something. Something I didn’t have. I used what I did have.

  “I’m looking for Pilar Cruz.”

  His eyes showed nothing. They were as dead as the Dead Sea. I backed away from him. Headed for the front door. Rang the bell. A haggard Mexican woman opened the door.

  “Habla Inglés?” My Spanish was rusty but I could get that much out.

  “Poquito.”

  “I’m looking for Pilar Cruz, or her friends Anna and Ramon Martinez.”

  The woman’s dark eyes became liquid. Almost young. Before she could say anything the boy from the driveway stepped between her and me.

  “No Mama, Ramon va a estar enojado.”

  “No me digas qué hacer. Soy tu Madre.”

  “Le diré lo que hiciste. Le diré a Ramon que tu hablaste a este gringo. Le diré todo.”

  “Bueno. Dígale. Qué más se puede hacer a mí?”

  I thought I understood the gist of it. Junior was threatening to tell Ramon if Mama blabbed. Mama didn’t intimidate easily.

  “Why,” she said, pleading in her eyes, “why you want Ramon? Policía?”

  “No, no policía. Yo estoy looking for Pilar Cruz. I thought Ramon could tell me where she is.”

  “What do you want with Pilar?”

  I could understand her reluctance. If things went down the way I figured Pilar might have had a stalker. To her family I might look like another one. I showed her my P.I.’s license, told her I was looking into Teddie Matson’s murder. She was quiet a few moments, then finally spoke.

  “Pilar.” The liquid in her eyes spilled over, running down her cheeks. You can fill a pool only so high, then one ice cube and it’s over the edge. My guess was that the old lady—Ramon and Anna’s mother?—had been holding a lot in. Wanted to talk to someone. She was clearly afraid of her younger son, who stood menacingly in the background, flashing gang signs with his hands to no one.

  “Ramon es un muchacho bueno, pero he, how do you say, gets off on the wrong foot. He comes home only when he wants. Not when his mother wishes to see him.”

  “What about Anna?”

  “I have not seen her since Pilar has left.”

  “Are they together.”

  “I do not know.”

  “Calláte Mama.”

  She shoved him aside with a strong forearm. He didn’t stand aside long.

  “I’m not after Ramon or Anna. I want to find Pilar Cruz. To help her.”

  “Gringos don’t help Mexicanos. Cabrones,” the kid said.

  I understood that. I wanted to slug the kid. Jack would’ve slugged the kid, then told him to go back to Mexico if that’s how he feels. He needed someone to discipline him. I figured his mother tried to no avail. Not her fault really. He needed a father. Of course, I’d had a father, and it wasn’t a lot of fun growing up around him. There are no pat answers I guess.

  “I’ve talked with Pilar’s father, Ben. That’s how I found you. He trusts me. He gave me Pilar’s address book. He wants me to help. Ayudar.” I pulled it out of my pocket, showed it to her. She clutched it in her hands, then gently flipped through the pages, stopping at her daughter’s name. Staring. Lost in a past that wouldn’t come again, and a hoped-for future that wasn’t ever going to come.

  “Where can I find Ramon?”

  “No digas nada, Mama, o diré a Ramon.”

  “Mira cómo tratas a tu Mamá. Sin vergũenza. Si estuviéramos en México no me irrespetaría como esto.”

  “México, México. Si le gusta tanto, por qué no volver allí.”

  That stung Mrs. Martinez. She had probably come here for her kids, a better life for them, and this was her younger son’s gratitude. She wasn’t looking as old now. The lines around her eyes and mouth were softening. Even her hands appeared more supple. Thinking about the way things might have been, thinking about how it was when her kids were young and happy and carefree. Innocent. It was the power of memory. The power of love. Her own private fountain of youth. I had nothing to base this thesis on. It just seemed right.

  She handed back the address book, looked squarely in my eyes: “Ramon goes to una cantina, La Revolución, on Whittier Boulevard. He is there a lot.”

  “Muchas Gracias.”

  “Cuidado. Be careful. Lots of bad people there.”

  I tipped my non-existent hat to her, retreated to my car to the sounds of yelling from her younger son. The front door closed, muffling the sounds.

  I drove by the bar. It was a nasty neighborhood. Rough. Dirty. Even the rats were afraid to come out at night. Not a gringo in sight. Not on the streets, not driving by in cars. Nowhere. What did they know that I didn’t? I drove to a payphone, parked close and put my quarter in. Suspicious eyes followed me, from the gas station, from the street. I put on a look that I hoped said, don’t mess with me.

  “Jack.”

  “Yo, old buddy. Where are you? Sounds like you’re calling from a sewer.”

  “I’m in East L.A.”

  “Didn’t I say sewer?”

  Whether or not one considers East L.A. a sewer, it was uncanny how Jack could sniff these things out.

  “How’d you like to party this afternoon? I found a great bar.”

  “Not down there, I hope.”

  “Hell no. Pick you up in half an hour.”

  “Thirteen hundred. Check.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “Party time,” Jack said, gruffly. I didn’t t
hink he had believed me about the bar. But he was wearing dress slacks, a black silk shirt and snake-skin cowboy boots. “I need somethin’ to relieve the tension after the past few days-a this shit.”

  “Beethoven’s Ninth” blasted from the CD player. The volume made my ear drums cringe. I felt sorry for his neighbors. Jack’s apartment was microscopic, cramped—the iron lung he called it. One room with a kitchen and dining area off to one side, a small bathroom on the other. A Murphy bed, now folded away. Busts of Beethoven and Mozart on end tables. Posters of Dewey Weber, from the glory days of surfing, and Hobie boards on the walls. A picture of the old Team on a small desk. In one corner, a six-foot board and a mini, twin 38 SCUBA tanks and a weight belt. Stacks of books in the other corners. He read everything from trashy romance novels to Kafka to How-To books on just about anything. A small nine-inch television sat on the dining table, hooked up for cable TV.

  Jack’s kit bag sat on the dining table. “Let’s go,” I said, picking it up to toss to him. It was heavier than usual. I wasn’t prepared for the weight and almost dropped it. “Jeez, what do you have in there, a cannon?”

  Jack pulled out a Colt .45 Officer’s model. Grinned at me.

  “You never carry a piece, man.”

  “Nobody’s gonna Reginald Denny me. They might get me, but I’ll take a few of them with me on my way down. ’Sides, I hear hell ain’t so bad. ’at’s where all the fun people go.” He said it with a straight face. No irony there. “Segue, man. Segue.” He didn’t want to talk about the gun. I tossed him the bag and we jammed out the door.

  We pulled away from the curb. He took a cassette out of the kit bag. Stuck it in the player. “Peer Gynt: In the Hall of the Mountain King.” He cranked up the volume. We sat at a light between competing blasts of Nirvana and Ice-T hell, it all melded together like an artillery barrage of sound. We won.

  We headed downtown. The streets looked bombed out. Charred skeletons of buildings hulking over dead sidewalks. Ravaged. War-torn. Was this really the U.S.A.?

  “Hey, where is this great club?”

  “Party time, Jack.”