Don't Leave Me Page 5

  “Are you Jamaican?” Chuck asked.

  She turned around and looked at him like he was an escapee from the asylum.

  Chuck finished, “'Cause Jamaican me crazy.” He knew it was a corny line, but after three tequila shots he believed anything he said would sound like it came from George Clooney.

  She rolled her eyes and started to walk away. Chuck grabbed her arm. “Wait a second,” he said. “I’m here. What were your other two wishes?”

  “Aren’t you the guest of honor?” she said.

  “I guess I am. It would be my honor to talk to you.”

  She pursed her lips, which were full and inviting. “Aren’t you a Navy chaplain or something like that?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Are you going over there to teach them how to drink and deliver bad lines?”

  That tore it. The little glow of tequila charm melted into hot embarrassment.

  “I’m just asking,” she said, lightening the tone. “You want to start again?”

  “I’m just trying in my own stupid way to meet you.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. “Why don’t we grab a couple of Cokes and go sit in the backyard?”

  Which is exactly what they did. And she told him about herself at his insistence. She was a journalist, working for an alternative weekly in LA, both print and Internet. She covered stories on City Hall and did the occasional offbeat profile of things in and around the city. Like the bacon hot dog vending underground. Chuck remembered reading that one, though he hadn’t noticed the byline. It was about the vendors who operate like guerrilla warriors on the streets. And showed how the crackdown on this culinary practice was related to rich developers pressuring the mayor to clean up downtown so they could make it sterile for the tourists. It just wasn’t LA without the smell of grilled bacon-wrapped hot dogs and onions, but that’s what the money men wanted to do, suck the life out of the city.

  It was an article that made Chuck happy. And that was her story. Here she was, talking to him now. It took him five minutes to fall in love.

  His host was playing Nirvana and U2 CDs and piping the music outside. Then somebody threw a switch and Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood,” of all things, came on. The people in the backyard laughed, and so did Julia and she said she loved this kind of music and why don’t they dance?

  On the grass? Yes, on the grass, with the moon out and planes taking off and landing at LAX, their flickering lights like Christmas displays under the stars.

  Chuck remembered the rudimentary swing step he’d learned in high school, and with her gentle prompts he started getting into it. And pretty soon several people were watching them and clapping and urging them on.

  Yes, he thought then, I’m going to learn how to really dance. I want to keep up with this one.

  And he went after Julia Rankin like a laser beam on steel.

  When he went out on a limb and asked her to marry him after going out with her exactly three times, he was only partially amazed that she said yes. Because of the connection that was so obvious between them. He knew she would say yes. And they did one of those quickie weddings they used to do back in World War II, before the G.I. shipped off to France or England.

  They said it would never last, his friends and hers. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t know himself. But it did. For six great weeks.

  It wasn’t the same when he got back. How could it be? There was a distance between them now, as real as an unwelcome guest that refused to leave. Time was what they needed, a lot of it, to heal.

  But they didn’t get that time. The arguments started, and he knew it was his fault. He was messed up and had unrealistic expectations. He tried, God knew––if God was still hanging around this show somewhere––he tried to clean up the chaos in his mind. But when she said she had to move out for a time, he wasn’t surprised.

  Then they had that blowup, at the restaurant. He felt himself lose it, helplessly, and talked too loud and she left. The next day she went off to do her story, some stupid thing on an alligator farm.

  He never got the chance to say another word to her.

  And his life took the freefall he was still in, wondering if he would ever dance again.

  Chapter 13

  “Could the guy look any more guilty?” Mooney said.

  “Come on,” Sandy Epperson said. “What’s he guilty of, except not liking questions?”

  They were in Mooney’s Crown Vic driving up Topanga. Sandy looked at the sun-drenched rocky peaks of Chatsworth, straight ahead. The day was a lot clearer than the matter before them.

  “He’s a poster boy for tells,” Mooney said. “What’s he hiding?”

  “Maybe he just doesn’t like being Q’d at his place of work,” Sandy said.

  “Why’d he get threatened by a guy with a knife?”

  “Does he have to know? Maybe it was random.”

  “It wasn’t,” Mooney said. “He saw the guy a few minutes before. Why’d that guy come after him?”

  “That doesn’t link him to Nunn’s death. If anything, it links the other guy.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. You put enough links together and you get back to Samson.”

  “A stretch,” Sandy said.

  “Then his house is on fire. Come on. I want to know what this guy’s into.”

  “This is homicide, remember?” Sandy said, her tone mildly rebuking. Mooney had to remember who was senior, who called the shots. “Let’s keep connected to our opens.”

  “What I’m doing,” Mooney said, with more snap in his voice than Sandy cared for. “But maybe we connect up a lot more. Maybe that makes us look very good.”

  “Don’t be so anxious to get down to RHD, Mark. You got time.” RHD was Robbery-Homicide Division, the elite of LAPD detectives, working out of downtown.

  “You could look good, too,” Mooney said.

  He gave her a sideward glance. Without him saying anything, Sandy knew what he meant by it. She was damaged goods and needed some rep polishing. She’d been sent to this far corner of the department after being on the Robbery-Homicide shortlist. Because they knew if she raised a stink about what her captain pulled on her at Central, she’d be seen as just another black shouting discrimination. They knew how to cover their collective butts, oh yes.

  She could have sued for the groping and the slurs, the private threats. Even without extrinsic evidence, she could have scored a nice settlement and retired.

  But she was a cop, and that’s all she ever wanted to be. She’d outlast them, outwork them, out-detective them. She’d show them in a way that could not be denied.

  Mooney was right, though. There were things Chuck Samson wasn’t saying. And she would look good if they uncovered more. It would be nice to stick something right back up the brass’s rectal canals.

  “Let’s talk about Jimmy Stone,” she said.

  “Oh yes, our little Westie,” Mooney said. “You think he ordered the hit?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Mooney shrugged. “Esperanza Gomez was into gangs deep. Who knows who did her?”

  “Jimmy Stone did, but the prosecutors had to drop the case.”

  “We can keep beating the bushes for one,” Mooney said.

  “Which means working with the narco squad.”

  “Or we can squeeze the stones of Mr. Stone.”

  “Hard core,” Sandy said.

  “Don’t get too excited.”

  “Please.”

  “Come on, admit it, working with me is—” Mooney tapped his Bluetooth earpiece. “Mooney . . . uh-huh . . .”

  He gave another sideward glance at Sandy. This one was full of promise and a half smile. Mooney looked like a kid with a secret, about to tell.

  When he clicked off he said nothing, but the smile grew wider.

  “Well?” Sandy said.

  “That was Friedman,” Mooney said. Bart Friedman was another division detective, working drugs and gangs.

  “And?”
>
  “And you are not going to believe what Mr. Chuck Samson is into.”

  Chapter 14

  “Hello,” Stan said.

  The woman with the child nodded.

  Stan liked it when they nodded.

  He handed the woman a specials flyer.

  She said, “Thank you.”

  Stan said, “You’re welcome.” He smiled. It was easy to smile at moms with kids. They were always friendly. Unless the kid had done something wrong and was crying.

  A big man in a USC Trojans jersey came in. He was as big as a car. A very big car, if it was painted cardinal and gold. Cardinal and gold were the official colors of USC, the University of Southern California, located near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which was built in 1923. Stan knew that from a program when Chuck took him to a Trojans football game last year.

  “Hello,” Stan said, holding out a flyer.

  The man did not smile. He walked by Stan without saying anything.

  “Have a nice day,” Stan said, and meant it. He wanted everyone to have nice days, because they should. If people had nice days they were more likely to be nicer to other people. If you had bad days, you were meaner. Stan had figured all this out by himself and who needed fancy psychology? People were pretty simple when you got right down to it.

  He wanted Chuck to have good days for the rest of his life, because he deserved it. Chuck was the best person in the whole world. He was better than the President of the United States even. If he wasn’t the best person in the whole world, he was the best big brother.

  Stan smiled at the old man who came in with a cane. It was Mr. Manchester. He was always nice, Mr. Manchester was. He might have been the best old man in the whole world.

  “How are you, Stan?”

  “Fine, thank you, Mr. Manchester,” Stan said. “Granny Smith apples, fifty-nine cents a pound.” Mr. Manchester liked apples. “And Angel Soft bath tissue, five-ninety-nine.”

  “You mean toilet paper, don’t you?” Mr. Manchester said, giving Stan a wink.

  Stan laughed. “You’re not gonna trick me, Mr. Manchester.”

  “Back in the day, when men were men, it was called toilet paper. We liked it rough, too. With wood chips in it.”

  Stan didn’t know what to make of that, but he liked Mr. Manchester because he always joked with him. Stan gave him a flyer.

  And that’s when he noticed the man by the tomato paste. He was standing at the mouth of the aisle, like he was hiding almost. But he wasn’t hiding. He was looking right at Stan. Right into his eyes. At least he thought so. He had sunglasses on. In the store. Stan didn’t like that. He didn’t like that one bit. It wasn’t friendly.

  People sometimes looked at him strangely when they heard him talk. He knew he talked funny, kind of from the nose, and it was because of his brain.

  But this wasn’t that kind of look. Not a funny look. It was a mean look. He wasn’t very tall, this guy, and he looked younger than Stan. Older than a teenager, but not by much.

  “Hey Stan.”

  Stan jerked around, as startled as if someone had popped a balloon behind him. It was Mr. Cambry. He was pointing at something. Stan looked and saw two women, maybe a mother and daughter, backs to him, walking away.

  He’d missed them.

  He hated that!

  He started to follow them. Mr. Cambry caught his arm. “It’s okay, Stan.”

  “But they won’t know—”

  “We’ll let them be this time,” he said. “You’re doing a bang up job.”

  “I am?”

  Stan looked over Mr. Cambry’s shoulder, toward the tomato paste.

  The mean looking man was gone.

  For some reason that made Stan feel like the man was sneaking around. Like a spy. Like in the CIA. Once, when he was eleven, Stan told Chuck he wanted to go into the CIA. He wanted to be a spy. He thought that would be cool. He thought he could use his brain to remember things. Like secret maps and things. But he found out it was too hard to get into the CIA, especially for somebody like him. But he would have been a good spy.

  “Just wanted you to know that,” Mr. Cambry said, and walked on toward the deli section. A bang up job he’d said. Stan wasn’t a spy, but he was going to be the best on door there ever was at Ralphs Fresh Fare.

  But he was spooked now. Even if that mean guy wasn’t really a mean guy, there were lots of mean guys out there, and one of them had a knife and didn’t like Chuck.

  If Stan ever saw that man again he’d want to help Chuck. But he’d have to be brave to do that.

  He wondered if he could be.

  Chapter 15

  Wendy Tower’s apartment was warm and filled with the smells of sea and spices. As she attended to final touches in the kitchen, Chuck and Stan sat in the living room. Stan had a smile on his face, a Cupid grin. With his eyes Chuck warned Stan not to say anything or else.

  Stan’s smile widened.

  Keep it up, baby brother and I’ll give you a wedgie. This whole thing didn’t feel right, it was like a boat listing and it would keep on till it capsized. But Chuck was sick of things not feeling right. He had to get over what he couldn’t change, namely the past. Now was as good a time as any. Grit your teeth and just do it, pal.

  A Native American-style artwork—beads and feathers on a buff backdrop—hung on one wall, right over a small entertainment center with a TV, receiver, and set of small speakers. He remembered an old joke about Indians without electricity, having to watch TV by firelight. The joke did not make him smile. For some reason he felt the juxtaposition of the two images was just not right. Things were together that shouldn’t be.

  Or maybe he was just nervous. Standing outside Wendy’s door, only a few short minutes ago, he felt like he was sixteen and going out for the first time with a pretty girl, hoping he wouldn’t come off like a doofus with pimples and non-matching socks.

  Now, inside, seated, he was still trying to work himself into fitting here, being comfortable. He knew it was the knife guy and the fire and the stirring up of his bruised and battered psyche, but come on! He couldn’t let things outside him dictate his every move forever.

  Wendy had music going from an iPod in a dock. Somebody that sounded like Nat King Cole was singing. And then Chuck reminded himself that no one sounded like Nat King Cole except Nat King Cole. He smiled at last.

  On the coffee table was the big book Baseball, from the Ken Burns documentary. Chuck and Stan loved it when it first appeared, watching it together while eating popcorn and peanuts and even hot dogs. “You a baseball fan?” Chuck said toward the kitchen.

  “Totally,” Wendy said.

  “Me, too,” Stan said. “I’m Stan the Man.”

  Wendy appeared at the pass through. “That was Stan Musial’s nickname.”

  “Yes!” Stan said.

  “One of the greats,” Wendy said.

  “You know about Musial?” Chuck said.

  “My grampa is a die-hard Cardinals fan. He told me so many Stan the Man stories I began to think he came from Mount Olympus.”

  “No!” Stan said. “Donora, Pennsylvania. Born November 21, 1920. Stanislaw Franciszek Musial. Career batting average .331. Hit total, three thousand, six hundred and thirty. Four hundred and seventy-five career home runs.”

  “Wow!” Wendy said.

  “Ask me about Dizzy Dean,” Stan said.

  Chuck put a hand on his brother’s arm. “Maybe after dinner—”

  “Real name Jerome Herman Dean, or Jay Hanna Dean. Career Earned Run Average 3.02. Win-loss—”

  “Thank you, Stan,” Chuck said, squeezing the arm.

  “Ow,” Stan said. He took his arm back and rubbed it.

  “I’ll ask you more later, Stan,” Wendy said. “You’re amazing.” She went back to the kitchen.

  “I’m amazing,” Stan whispered hard, in firm rebuke.

  “So true,” Chuck said.

  “She likes you.”

  “Slow down, Stan the Man.”

&n
bsp; “I’ll look away and you can kiss her.”

  “Almost ready,” Wendy called from the kitchen.

  “See?” Stan said.

  “She meant the dinner,” Chuck said.

  Stan punched Chuck’s shoulder, with a little extra oomph than usual. “I was just joking you. You think I’m stupid or something?”

  What was no joke was the paella de marisco. In presentation and aroma and, most important, taste. As they all finally sat around the table, Chuck lifted his wine glass. “Here’s to baseball, fine food, and good company.”

  Wendy smiled and joined the toast, as did Stan with his preferred drink, 7-Up.

  Then Stan said, “Do the knife trick.”

  “What’s that?” Wendy said.

  “Nothing,” Chuck said.

  “Chuck does magic!”

  “Did magic,” Chuck said. “A long time ago.”

  “Oh please,” said Wendy. “Do it.”

  He did not want to do it. He did not want to do any of those little magic tricks he’d done as a kid, then for awhile at a bar during the summer after college. He got to be pretty good, and the tricks rendered Julia open-mouthed the first time she saw them. To do them again was going to bring that last memory back in full color.

  “I’d really like to see it,” Wendy said. She wasn’t to blame for anything in his life. And he was her guest. He could do it, sure, and maybe get past the memories. Maybe Julia would have wanted him to.

  “All right,” Chuck said. “Please notice that my hands will not leave my arms at any time.”

  “He always says that,” Stan said.

  Chuck placed both his hands over his knife, slid it toward him and off the table, into his lap. He kept the motion smooth and put his hands up to his mouth and pretended he was swallowing the knife.

  But as he did the knife slid off his lap and hit the floor with a clank.

  “Oops,” Stan said.

  Chuck had not blown that trick in twenty years. He looked at his hands like they were foreign objects who had betrayed him.

  Wendy laughed good-naturedly. But when Chuck looked at her, she stopped laughing.