Romeo's Town (Mike Romeo Thrillers Book 6) Read online

  “So,” Sophie said, “let’s arrange a guest appearance.”

  I wanted to see her again. And I didn’t. There was a murky fog ahead and I didn’t want to crash into a mountain. And bring her down with me. But as Pascal said, the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.

  “Okay,” I said. “Why don’t we—”

  My phone buzzed. It was Ira.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I have to take this.”

  Sophie nodded.

  “Ira,” I said.

  “Michael, where are you?”

  “I’m downtown, sitting with a friend.”

  “Can you meet me at the juvenile detention center on Eastlake?”

  “When?”

  “Half an hour. We have a client.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I put the phone away and said, “Looks like I have to go to work.”

  “It was nice running into you,” Sophie said. “Though the circumstances were certainly unique.”

  “I do want to visit your class,” I said. “Can I call you to arrange something?”

  “Please.”

  I liked the way she said that.

  “How’d you get down here?” I asked.

  “Subway,” she said.

  “Can I walk you to the station?”

  “That’d be nice,” she said.

  “I’m working on that,” I said.

  “On what?”

  “Being nice.”

  She laughed then, and it was a good laugh. Pure as the air at Paradise Cove. We walked up Hill Street. It was eerie, what with all the businesses closed down. What should have been a bustling Central Market was now more like a cemetery with two or three funerals going on.

  At the subway entrance we paused for a moment. I put out my hand like some doofus insurance salesman. Sophie shook it. If the angry lady at the bookstore had seen that, she would have screamed bloody murder.

  Central Juvenile Hall is a long, ugly, one-story warehouse for what they used to call “wayward kids.” Row upon row of 8x12 rooms for minors incarcerated for various offenses, or awaiting their day in court. Juvenile law is its own system. Originally, it was set up with the thought that kids—overwhelmingly boys—do stupid things that sometimes end up in criminal acts. Instead of dumping them in prison, the theory went, let’s give them a break and time to mature and learn some discipline. Then they can become productive adults.

  But that theory is being severely tested now, as kids become more violent earlier, doing things as a twelve-year-old that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Why is that? Why aren’t consciences being developed as in the past? It’s not hard to figure out if you really want the answers. But not everyone does. A depressingly large contingent doesn’t want to hear about the crisis of fatherlessness and the erosion of values like study, hard work, and respect for elders.

  Ira calls me a young dinosaur.

  So I couldn’t help wondering what kind of kid our client was going to be.

  I joined Ira in the attorney interview room. These days most lawyers meet with clients via video. Ira prefers it to be in person. We were both wearing the required face masks—Ira carries extras for me. We sat at a table with a Plexiglass separator. Ira took out a file.

  “His name is Clint Cunningham,” Ira said. “Sixteen. His mother used to attend my synagogue. She called me last night.”

  “What’s he been arrested for?” I asked.

  “Dealing drugs.”

  “Terrific. What kind?”

  “We don’t know yet. Whatever it was, his mother insists he’s doing it under some kind of duress.”

  “Naturally.”

  “I believe her.”

  “You believe that’s what she believes,” I said.

  “Is that a crack?”

  “You like to see the best in people.”

  “Is that why I put up with you?” Ira said.

  “That,” I said, “and the fact that I am the best.”

  Ira closed his eyes and shook his head. I think he prays for me when he does that.

  The door opened and a deputy sheriff led Clint Cunningham into the attorney room. The kid was a chunk, had big eyes peeking over his mask, and messy, shoulder-length brown hair. He wore a dull gray T-shirt a size too small, black sweatpants, tennis shoes. The deputy sat him on the bench on the other side of the Plexiglas.

  “Ten minutes,” the deputy said, then left the room.

  Clint Cunningham’s eyes, big as they were, had a deadness to them. Kids his age should have eyes that gleam and ask and demand and laugh, with an occasional dance thrown in. His were empty warehouses at midnight. Maybe once there were items inside—favorite toys, a bike, a first suit and tie. Now there was nothing but dark space and cobwebs.

  “Clint, my name is Ira. This is Mike.”

  Clint’s expression, what we could see of it, didn’t change.

  Ira said, “Your mother asked us to talk to you. I’m a lawyer. I’ll be handling your case.”

  “Why?” Clint said in a flat, distant voice.

  “Because you’re being charged with a serious crime. You need help.”

  He shook his head. “I did it.”

  “Well now, we’ll need to talk about that,” Ira said. “What I want for you, what your mother wants, is what’s best for your future.”

  “Prison,” Clint said.

  “You’re not going to prison,” Ira said. “You’re a juvenile and a first-time offender. But the facts of the case matter. Why don’t we go through them step by step?”

  “They gonna keep me here?”

  “For now,” Ira said. “I’ll arrange a hearing as soon as possible to see if we can get you out. Now, how about telling us what’s been going on, from the beginning of things.”

  “Beginning?” Clint said.

  “How you got involved in selling drugs, if that’s what you were doing.”

  “I already told you I was.”

  The kid sure seemed anxious to cop to the crime. But not out of any sense of remorse. I tried to read his face, but the mask made it next to impossible.

  Ira said, “Tell us how it started then.”

  Clint looked at the table.

  “I can’t help you if you don’t work with me,” Ira said.

  “I don’t need you,” Clint said.

  “You’re wrong, kid,” I said. That just popped out, and it came with a wave of feeling I wasn’t prepared for.

  Ira quieted me with a hand on my arm. To Clint he said, “Won’t you give me chance? I’ve worked with kids your age before. I’m happy to say they’re all doing much better now. Sometimes you just need a break in life, and a chance to start over.”

  Our client—if he was our client—stayed silent.

  “Tell you what,” Ira said. “I’ll have a talk with the prosecutor, right after I leave. Let’s see what she’s willing to do. We might be able to settle this thing quick, and get you out on probation. That’s a lot better than jail time, don’t you think?”

  Clint didn’t indicate a thing.

  “We’ll be back to talk, okay?” Ira said.

  Clint kept looking at the table.

  Ira and I walked to the parking structure. Ira was using his arm braces today, rather than his wheelchair. The wound he’d received years ago as a Mossad agent mandated that he use one or the other.

  “What did you observe?” Ira asked.

  “Somebody’s pressuring him not to talk,” I said.

  “His supplier?”

  “Most likely.”

  “Let’s take it step by step,” Ira said. “Start by interviewing his mother.”

  He gave me the address. It was in the Valley.

  “When I called you,” Ira said, “you said you were with a friend.”

  “Sophie.”

  “Ah, from the bookstore.”

  “A chance encounter,” I said.

  “Or Divine Providence,” Ira said.

  “It’s time to say goodby
e, Ira.”

  “Don’t keep running from human connections.”

  “How about if I just walk fast?” I said, and headed for my green Mustang convertible, Spinoza.

  I hopped on the 10 heading west. Sunday traffic was nice and light and the sun was starting its leisurely swan dive into the Pacific. It only took twenty minutes to get to the good old Pacific Coast Highway. Half an hour after that I pulled into Paradise Cove. I couldn’t wait to get into the chop for a swim. The weather was cool, the water bracing. I parked Spinoza in my spot in front of the mobile unit Ira owns and where I live. It’s cozy and I breathe the same air as the billionaires on Broad Beach.

  Bim, bam and I was on the beach, running to the water, diving into a wave. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Clint Cunningham. How he reminded me of me. I’d been a pudgy, cerebral, so-called genius who got admitted to Yale at age fifteen. That’s the definition of an outsider. I didn’t even binge drink. My only poison was Dr. Pepper. And girls? Forget about it. I was a plump insect in their terrarium, an object to look at with curiosity, but never to touch.

  After twenty minutes or so I body-surfed a wave all the way to the sand. It was one of those rare perfect rides you get from time to time. It delivered me softly, like a mother putting a sleeping baby in a crib.

  “Nice ride, dude.”

  C Dog was standing on the dry sand. Carter “C Dog” Weeks is a twenty-something rocker with his own band, Unopened Cheese. He’s also a recovering pothead. I’ve been trying to help him use his brain, which has been mostly awash in a cannabis fog for the last several years. He’s been responding positively.

  Except now. He was wearing a mask.

  “Take that thing off,” I said.

  “Whu—?”

  “You’re outside! And alone.”

  “You’re here.”

  “Am I in your face? Take that thing off and breathe free air.”

  Sheepishly, he slid the mask off. “I was only—”

  “I know what you were only. Have a seat.”

  He dropped to the sand. I picked up my towel and started drying off.

  I said, “Did you read the book?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Now that is a good thing, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “So what did you think?” I said.

  “Think?”

  “It’s called literary analysis.”

  “Oh man.”

  “Let’s just start with this. What was it about?”

  Brow furrowed, C Dog said, “Well, it’s about this old man who hasn’t had luck fishing, and he goes way out and has this fight with a big fish. Epic. Finally he gets it, ties it to his boat. But sharks come along and eat it. So all he has left is bones. Which bites the cosmic dog, man.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” I said.

  “So what’s the point?”

  “What do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Yes, you do. You just don’t realize it yet.” I tapped the side of my head. “Think!”

  He looked up at the sky. Then down at the sand. “Life pretty much sucks.”

  “Why?”

  “Sharks.”

  I nodded. “Do you know what symbolism is?”

  “Sort of. Something is supposed to be something else.”

  “Let’s suppose sharks are a symbol,” I said. “What is the something else?”

  He thought about it, then earnestly replied, “A symbol that life sucks?”

  “Leave life aside for a moment,” I said. “What do the sharks do?”

  “Eat fish and people sometimes.”

  “What did Santiago do for a living?”

  “Fished.”

  “Let’s say somebody is a doctor. Or a lawyer. Or a rocker.”

  “I’ll take rocker!”

  “Are there things or people who will try to eat your work? Destroy it?”

  His eyes widened a little. “Oh yeah, I think I see what you’re saying.”

  I said, “What if you got arthritis in your hands. Would you stop playing guitar?”

  “No way, man.”

  “You wouldn’t give it up?”

  “There is absolutely no way. Not my guitar.”

  “That’s the lesson here,” I said. “There is something noble and heroic in not giving up. And that is why, at the end, Santiago could have his dream of the lions.”

  For a long moment the only sound was the waves lapping the beach.

  Then C Dog said, “Wow.”

  “And that,” I said, “is literary analysis.”

  He nodded. “Awesome.”

  “How about a beer, my friend?” I said.

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  We went back to my place and I got out a couple of Coronas. I cut two wedges from a lime and stuck them in the bottles. We sat on the porch and drank and watched the big orange ball sink.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about sharks.

  Monday morning I drove out to Studio City to talk to Clint’s mother. The neighborhood got its name back in the 1920s when a silent comedy producer named Mack Sennett built a studio in this part of the San Fernando Valley. As houses sprung up around it, they decided to call the place Studio City. Sennett was known for originating slapstick, which is a perfect way to describe the politics of this town.

  Trista Cunningham’s home was on a nicely appointed street called Bellingham. It was a sky-blue house with white trim and a yellow front door. It had a neatly clipped front lawn and a hedge along the driveway. There was a trellis just off the front porch with a hearty spread of nasturtiums. I’m a fan of this genus, especially the “flame thrower” variety as these were. The yellow, scarlet and orange petals are optimistic and merry—two things sorely lacking in the dismal weeds of contemporary society.

  I knocked on the door and Trista Cunningham answered. She was in her late thirties, smallish, with short brown hair. She was wearing a flowered shirtdress with an open lapel collar, and big side pockets.

  “I’m Mike,” I said.

  “Thanks for coming over,” she said.

  “Would you like me to wear a mask?”

  “No at all,” she said.

  I immediately took a liking to this woman.

  “Can I offer you some coffee?” she said.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  There was a dining room table near the front window with a computer and lots of papers stacked around it. As she poured the coffee she said, “Please excuse the mess. I’m working on a big project and don’t have a filing system here at the house.”

  “No problem.”

  “I manage inventory for a fresh produce company.”

  “Oh? What kind of produce?”

  “Blueberries, mostly. We’re headquartered here in L.A. We’ve got warehouse operations here and in New Jersey. We also operate a blueberry packinghouse in Aurora, Oregon.”

  “So basically you keep track of berries.”

  She smiled and handed me a cup of coffee. “You could put it that way.” She was trying for easy, casual conversation but you couldn’t miss the crush of anxiety just below the surface.

  We sat in the living room.

  “How does he look?” Trista asked.

  “Like a kid his age would look in these circumstances,” I said. “Scared, trying not to show it.”

  “They won’t let me see him. That’s inhuman.”

  “It is,” I said. “There’s a lot of that going around these days.”

  She looked at her coffee.

  I said, “Let me assure you that Ira Rosen is a great lawyer and we’ll do everything we can to get Clint the right disposition.”

  “What happens next?” Trista asked.

  “An initial hearing before a judge. At that time the judge is going to ask for a plea or see if a plea deal has been worked out.”

  “What about a trial?”

  “Clint insists he wants to enter a plea. That would mean no trial. But he sho
uld be given a light sentence, considering it’s his first offense. No jail time. Except…”

  “Except what?”

  “The Deputy D.A. may not consider a plea bargain unless Clint gives up his supplier. We think that’s why Clint isn’t saying anything. He may be facing pressure from the outside.”

  Trista put her cup on the coffee table and then her head in her hands. “I don’t know how it got to this.”

  “Tell me about his schooling,” I said.

  She lifted her head, took a breath to compose herself. “He goes to private school, Elias Hall. It’s almost bankrupting me.”

  “Why not public school?”

  “L.A public school? Are you kidding? Clint is smart. Tests almost genius level. But he’s insecure about it. He’s always been the youngest in his classes and got picked on a lot. I thought Elias would be better for him.”

  “I understand,” I said

  “Do you? You don’t look like you ever got picked on.”

  “I’ll tell you something. I was a pudgy smart kid, too. I know all about hazing and demoralization.”

  “You were pudgy?” she said with a slight smile.

  “A butterball,” I said.

  “Good heavens, look at you now.”

  “I try not to,” I said. It was supposed to be a flippant remark, but the moment I said it I realized I meant it in a deeper way. I pulled myself out of the deep and said, “How has he gotten along in the new school?”

  “It started out well,” she said. “Last year he got a little more life in him. Seemed happier. He had a girlfriend for the first time in his life.”

  “Do you know if he was doing drugs?”

  Trista Cunningham shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not that I could tell. But he probably was. They all do, don’t they?”

  “Not all.”

  “More than my generation,” she said. “But I’m not that far removed. I had Clint when I was twenty.”

  “His father involved?”

  “Barely. We’ve been divorced ten years. He didn’t fight for joint custody. Used to see Clint once or twice a month. He’s dropped off lately.”

  “I should talk to him.”

  “Good luck with that,” she said.

  “Hard to find?”

  “Hard to talk to.”

  “Name?”

  “Brian.”

  “What would be the best way to contact him?”