L. A. Outlaws Read online

  Is it Bradley’s truth, too?

  You can see the pickle I’m in. Few mothers on earth would send their son into the world as an outlaw, even the world’s most handsome and potentially successful. But if Bradley is who I think he is, he suspects already. He’s seen me the same way Hood and my mother have seen me, and although Bradley hasn’t quite put it all together, he might. The truth can make us free but it can also lead us to prison or get us killed.

  I may say nothing to Bradley and let him figure it out or not. In spite of the long reach of history, there is plenty of free choice to be had: I didn’t have to carry Bradley to term but I chose to, and I didn’t have to kill Lupercio but I did.

  But without my great-uncle Jack I would not have found the beginnings of my story, and without me Bradley might never find his. Send him into the world without the truth of who he is? I don’t know. Maybe an absence of truth would be the most valuable gift I could ever give him—a chilling notion.

  Jordan’s dad is dead of cancer and that’s a shame. Great guy. Ernest means a lot to Jordan although there is an empty and yearning place in the heart of a boy whose father has died. Jordan told me that he was very impressed by the calm and bravery of Deputy Hood because he fought in Iraq.

  When Jordan asks if he’ll see Hood again, I tell him I’m not sure.

  To be honest I can’t blame Hood for what he did. I said some ugly things to him but that was just anger and humiliation. Allison may well be the death of me, and for Hood to have seen me in her puts him on a different plane than other people. My mother told me that someone would see that Allison was me, or that I was Allison, and that person would have a special connection to me. My mother has a strangely fated but romantic view of things—half Mexican folktale and half paperback bodice-ripper. I don’t know how romantic it is, but Hood was the one who made the connection. He saw. And boy, did I see him.

  But as soon as Hood saw, he was really stuck because he’s a cop and it’s his job to put people like me behind bars. The fact that I was, and still am, abundantly hot for him only made matters worse. I played him like a good guitar. Talk about star-crossed.

  I don’t see a way to keep Hood. The DA might drop the charges against me but Hood won’t. I might be able to persuade him into an occasional sexual escapade but that would be small potatoes to us now. There for a while, when he was having me and knowing who I was, it was hard on Hood’s soul. I weakened him. I think he’s stronger now that I know he knows. The spell is broken. I really wish I could cast it again but Hood has that thing inside, the simple Man Thing that you just can’t get around. He let me around it while he made up his mind what to do with me. But I can’t get around it without his permission. And I don’t think I’ll get that again.

  If Allison vanished, never to return, Hood might accommodate me. Might not. I think it would stick in his craw forever if he let a car-thieving armed robber who committed murder go free on his watch. Hood’s not wired to let that happen. And Allison isn’t going to vanish, because I need her. I’m not wired to let that happen.

  There are three things I want to square with Hood.

  One is that secret of his, from Iraq. He never told me what happened there but I know it’s something he believes he did wrong and it haunts him. I think it hurts him to keep it inside. A gusano. I want to know so I can bear a little of it for him, my contribution to the war.

  Second, I’d like to say good-bye to Hood with my whole body and heart, a true extravaganza—you know, the kind of good-bye where you’re making love and crying at the same time and what you feel is the sweetest love there is because you know you’ll probably never see that person again. I don’t know if he’d allow that. I think I can seduce him one more time. I’ll certainly try. Maybe that would be a good time for him to reveal his war ghosts to me.

  Third is the necklace I had made for him, that elegant H of diamonds. Guess I’ll have to keep it to myself for a while, which is too bad because I know he’d love it.

  Then there’s the problem of Guy, that spooky bastard with the fancy computers who was helping Lupercio find me so he could kill me and take my diamonds. My source inside the LASD has come through for me. Guy is actually Captain Reginald Wyte—one of Hood’s superiors. As I suspected. And thanks to the little GPU that I shoplifted from the Sports Authority not long ago, I know exactly where to find this hideous man who is a buyer and seller of all things, an employer of murderers, and a law enforcement officer.

  I’m going to fix his wagon like I did Lupercio’s and I want Hood to know why.

  Of course I can’t tell him.

  If I tell Hood what I know about Wyte and how I know it, I may as well drive to his apartment in Silver Lake, sit down on his couch and put on my own hand-cuffs. Actually that could be a lot of fun, but enough.

  I know how to handle Wyte. But I don’t know how to tell Hood about him.

  I stand in the kitchen with the windows open and the AC on, trying to get the house aired out and cooled down. I look out at the boys and Ernest all doing what they love to do. I have their diamond jewelry in my satchel, which I picked up from Quang the day I evened my score with Lupercio. While my sons and Ernest are outside, I get the gifts. Before setting the black boxes on their bed pillows, I peek into each one. Few things in life have struck me as this beautiful.

  I’m very happy and content and I tell myself to enjoy it because it never lasts long.

  A couple hours later Ruth calls: charges dropped.

  “But the heat’s not off, Suzanne,” she says. “They’ll keep looking and digging.”

  “They can knock themselves out.”

  “Strive to be a model citizen for a while.”

  “Easy. I’ve got history to teach.”

  “Shifting gears, I’ve had fourteen people call my office about you—print, television and radio. Film and book agents. Producers. Some of these people are serious and big, Suzanne. Interested?”

  “Of course.”

  “It will be a little like selling your soul.”

  “I can’t wait to get started.”

  “You would have no privacy for a month, maybe two.”

  “I can make some interview time. Only the really important stuff.”

  “Let me try to establish some kind of priorities, thin out the field. There will be more inquiries, believe me. I may need to sell myself into some of this. You can’t buy publicity like this. It’s priceless.”

  “Cut right in.”

  Ruth went quiet for a beat. “It’s nice getting to know you a little better, Suzanne. If the media or the cops harass you, call me immediately. Don’t talk to anybody but through me. Anything you say to them now reduces the value of what you say later. I told the DA you were not interested in a wrongful arrest suit, but reminded him that people change their minds. When Ruth Mayer says wrongful arrest, people listen.”

  “You’ve got big feet, Ruth.”

  “They’re size four.”

  By nine o’clock we’ve had dinner and teamed up on the dishes and we’re watching TV just like a regular family. I’ve answered six calls on the home phone and screened six others. All media, except for Betty Little Chief welcoming us back. I don’t know how the reporters and producers come up with unlisted numbers so fast.

  My cell throbs against my waist and I take it outside.

  “Hello. It’s Guy.”

  “I thought you’d call sooner.”

  “You’ve been a bit busy. Ruth Mayer is terrific but I hope I never need her.”

  “I have unpleasant memories of you.”

  “Mine aren’t pleasant either.”

  Silence then.

  “I made some mistakes,” he says.

  “Lupercio got what he deserved.”

  “I agree absolutely. I failed to understand you. But now I do. We’re alike. We’re gifted. Trust can make us wealthy.”

  “You already said all that.”

  “But now I know your secret. In my opinion you are a criminal geniu
s. Allison—I want to work with you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you do. Laura. Suzanne. Allison. It doesn’t matter what you call yourself.”

  I’d like to say: It’s a big city. Let’s go our own ways. We’re free and prosperous and it can’t get much better.

  But my position is precarious—I’m a budding celebrity schoolteacher who tried to sell stolen diamonds. If Wyte finds out that I know who he really is, he’ll kill me. Without question. He doesn’t have the stones to do it himself but he can find another Lupercio. There’s always another Lupercio. My ignorance, in his eyes, is what makes him want to work with me, and what keeps me alive.

  I look inside at Jordan’s face flickering in the TV light and I see the potential cost of doing business with this man.

  “I’ve thought about this a lot,” he says. “And I have a very interesting proposal for you. Name the time and place. No Angel and no Rorke. Just us. I have a way for you to achieve everything you desire. Bring the diamonds and I’ll give you your price. It will get us off on the right footing. Forty-five grand is nothing compared to what fortune will come later.”

  “The L.A. River,” I say. “Midnight tomorrow. First Street Viaduct, down at the water.”

  “It’s September. There is no water.”

  “There’s always a little. Stand out in the open where I can see you.”

  39

  The night is starless and a half moon resting on its back dangles light over the river. I trot across the railroad tracks and the gravel crunches under my feet. The power lines above me buzz as I stop beneath concrete stanchions acrawl with graffiti vibrating green and red and yellow and blue even in the darkness. I stand and watch. A man waits at the bottom of the channel, down-river. I scan the banks of the channel and the walls of the bridge and the deep-cut shadows beneath the caissons, but I see no one else. I sidestep down the gently angled side of the viaduct.

  At first it looks empty. But as I jump from the steep side to the flat bottom of the channel I see a faint gray ribbon winding toward the ocean. It’s no more than a stream and almost invisible as it reflects the featureless sky above.

  The man is wearing a Dodgers warm-up jacket. His hands are in the pockets. He studies me as I approach. He has the big torso and short legs of Wyte. I’ve got my Colt Gold Cup .45 in my right hand, out where he can see it. My left hand is empty and down at my side, and Cañonita is in the left pocket of my coat.

  “Suzanne.”

  “Guy.”

  “That’s a big gun.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I brought high hopes to this meeting. I’m unarmed.”

  “Take your hands out slowly.”

  “Of course. I like your new haircut.”

  “Thank you.”

  Wyte slips his hands out, turns his palms toward me, lowers them. “This is going to be a challenge, trying to make a legitimate business proposition at gunpoint.”

  I lower the .45. “Why’s that?”

  “It suggests a lack of trust. But that will change. A year from now we’ll be sitting across from each other at the Peninsula, say, or the Edison, sipping single malts and toasting our many successes. I believe in that future. Tonight we’re going to begin something unique, enduring and shamelessly profitable. Do you have a vision of your life at forty years old?”

  “By then I want a big solid house, piles of money in the bank, acreage, my boys and a drawbridge.”

  “Crocodiles in the moat?”

  “Very large ones.”

  “You can have them, and more. Suzanne, I can sell everything you can acquire. Everything. I’ve never once paid anyone over thirty-five percent of what I earn but I’ll make you an equal partner—fifty percent each. You’ve shown determination and courage. There’s nothing I respect more than respect.”

  Wyte studies me. “I’m getting top, top dollar for all things American. Even our enemies love our cars and trucks and light planes and boats. They love our guns and ammo and our copper wire and our sheet metal and our cigarettes and porn. I’ve got arrangements within the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles that afford me virtually unlimited use of containers—unopened and unin spected except for random radiation scans. Which is fine because we have no intention of exporting nuclear devices unless, of course, you think you can steal one.”

  Wyte is smiling. It’s a dry, big-toothed smile but even at night I can see the twinkle in his eyes.

  “Suzanne, listen. Because of my connections I know where all this product is. I know who has it and how they protect it. I have security information on harbors, ports, marinas, railway and bus stations, airports and hundreds of Los Angeles County institutions. Hundreds. Consider: when a beautiful new shipment of Mercedes-Benz automobiles comes in by rail this Friday, I know when the yard security will be lax and where the fence can be breached. Or, as we’ve seen, when an unfortunate diamond broker tries to pay off his gambling debts in stones, I know when and where it’s going to happen. You might not ever like me, but you’ll love my information.”

  He stops and lifts his nose to the breeze.

  “How can you know all that?”

  “It’s what I do. I work hard at it.”

  “The merchant of menace.”

  Wyte sighs and lifts his chin but I can’t tell if he’s sniffing the breeze again or showing me disappointment.

  “Why me?” I ask.

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He looks up, maybe at the power lines throbbing overhead, maybe at the recumbent moon. When he looks back at me there’s a different glimmer in his eyes, something wild.

  “Because you are youth. You are health and strength. You can do things I can only dream of. You can do things you haven’t dreamed of, yet. Suzanne, listen. You have to let go of Allison, quit the fast-food stickups and the publicity. The risk is much too high for the reward. Find a new way to taste your own adrenaline. Don’t contribute to charities—create one of your own, a tax-free shrine to comfort the afflicted and coddle your soul. You must steal more cars. You must also steal motorcycles and personal watercraft. You must graduate to higher-cost items, such as light airplanes and motor yachts. These require more planning and less luck. Let Allison go into history beside her great-great-great whatever he was. Secure her legend by allowing her to vanish. If Allison is never heard from again, she’ll be talked and written about for decades. Maybe longer. The cover of People magazine—that’s a triumph—what more can Allison want? You must continue to be an award-winning schoolteacher and a terrific mom. They’ll want you to go on television to tell the story of your relationship with the outlaw Allison, the killing of Lupercio, your wrongful arrest. This is the real mask that hides you. Let them worship the silent Allison Murrieta. The most powerful stories are told in whispers.”

  I hear what I think is a grocery cart rattling down the channel behind me. Wyte looks past me but I can’t tell if he’s curious or expectant. I aim the Colt at his chest, step back and turn my head. The cart glistens dully toward me, more sound than sight. The wheels clatter on the concrete and the loosely jointed steel shivers and clanks.

  Wyte’s chest reappears atop my gun sight. “I’ll put my hands up if you’d like.”

  This is exactly what he’d do if he had a handgun holstered under his coat and behind his neck.

  “Don’t move.”

  He watches the cart.

  I turn again for a look at the pusher: a man, hooded in a dark sweatshirt, baggy pants. He’s a hundred feet away. The cart is filled with what looks like grocery bags. It veers left then right as if it has its own mind, and I figure the guy is drunk or acting that way. I look back at Wyte. Hands still up, good boy. I slide my left hand into my jacket pocket.

  With the Colt still aimed at Wyte I step back from Cart Man’s path so I can see both of them with a minimal turn of head.

  “He’s a bum,” says Wyte.

  When Cart Man is fifty feet away I can see he
’s a black guy. Maybe Rorke. The cart veers and shakes and rattles.

  “Don’t move,” I say to Wyte.

  “Move where?” he asks.

  Cart Man at thirty feet is still lost inside his hood. The cart makes a racket. At twenty feet it veers right. Cart Man appears to be fighting a bad wheel but he looks at me.

  I draw Cañonita at him and he stops. “Hands up, Rorke. Let go of the fucking cart. Now.”

  I see the whites of his eyes. He takes his hands off the handle and raises them high. The cart starts to roll toward the water, the back end coming around and one front wheel buckling over and over. It picks up speed. I can see it’s going to hit the water about the time it tips over. So Cart Man makes a move for it.

  “Daz all my stuff. Everthin’.”

  “FREEZE!”

  I look at Wyte but he hasn’t budged. Cart Man actually does freeze, like a kid in a game, one foot in the air and both hands extended toward the cart. I’ve got Cañonita trained on his dark sweatshirt. The cart rolls into an even tighter turn and goes into the river. But the water stops it. It doesn’t tip over. When I turn back to Wyte I can hear the water lapping against the steel.

  “Take off that hood then put your hands back up,” I say to Cart Man.

  “But I’m gonna fall.”

  “Then put down your foot.”

  He lowers his foot to the concrete, then slowly pulls back the hood and I see his matted hair, his sunken eyes, the dark patches of beard. I know that Wyte could employ more than one black man but I also know this guy isn’t one of them. I can smell him. I pocket Cañonita.

  “Get your cart and get out of here,” I say.

  “Yes, ma’am. You sure got the guns.”

  He looks at Wyte for the first time, then back at me, then pulls the hood back up and follows his cart into the river. He’s ankle deep when he gets to it. He pulls it out by its front end, leaning back to use his weight. He gets it clear of the water and grabs the handles and looks back once at me then pushes hard into a wobbling walk-run as the lame cart starts veering again.