Authors: Baxter Clare Trautman
He mumbles, “One Bloods.”
“What's he go by?”
“Lil' Hook.”
“Alright.”
She stands. Her leg is cramping. She gives his shoulder a squeeze and leaves to find Tatum. “I'mma take the car. You finish up here.”
“Where you going?”
“Find their boy.”
Frank idles through late afternoon traffic, pausing next to the furniture store she pointed out to Braxton. Every 1Blood and F13 tag is crossed out with a 59 HCG tag. “Shit.” She turns around and heads for the Rec Center.
An ex-banger and old street friend runs the center, and she's glad to find him in. “Colgate.” She pumps his hand and they catch up briefly before Frank hands him the print. “You know this boy? One Blood, goes by Lil' Hook?”
Colgate squints at the grainy print. “Yeah, I know him. He just a tagger.”
He hands the paper back. “What you want with him?”
“I think he's jumped in. SomeoneâI got a hundred bucks on a 59 HCâiced his baby sister, and Lil' Hook's gonna take me right to him.”
“Last I heard, Ones be kicking over to a
casita
somewhere by Roosevelt Park.”
“That's east side.”
“Yeah, you know the lines blur all the time. Street word is F13 making a big push into 18th turf and scooping up all the little sets, promisin' a nibble of the eMe pie.”
“Hm. Tasty. Hollah at me if you hear anything?”
Colgate nods somberly. “Will do, Frank.”
She places a call while driving east. The sergeant at the bureau Gang Enforcement Unit is out and she speaks to another GEU cop, trying to narrow the
casita
's location, but the guy is clueless. She hangs up, staring at her phone, wondering what in hell he gets paid for. Scrolling through her address book, unconsciously reading the surrounding street traffic, she presses the number of a Newton Division cop. “Stacy Vandewort. Frank Franco. How you doing?”
“I get any better, I'm gonna be dancin' with the stars. How about you? Long time no see.”
“Nothing's changed. Same shit, different day. Stacy, tell me what you know about a Florencia
casita
somewhere on Central, might be starting to blend with One Bloods.”
“Yeah, I can think of one or two. Why, what's up?”
She explains how Lil' Hook is probably gathering his posse even as they speak and that she'd like to preempt a payback. “The Warthog,” as the overlarge woman is called, promises to meet her in forty. Frank cruises into the neighboring division, slowing to check out Newton's graffiti.
She calls Caroline to tell her she won't be able to make it after all, and is oddly relieved. Not wanting to know what that's about, she concentrates on a west-side tag over an east-side click, surprised the westies have expanded this far. A woman walks a dog on the other side of the street. The dog is black and thin, like Bone, with only a stub for a tail. She double-takes the owner, certain it's not Sal, and then she is sitting on the shore of a gold-dappled pond under green trees and blue sky.
There are women before her, younger women, laughing and splashing in the cool water. The sun is a comfort to her old bones. Her fingers blindly work long stems into the start of a basket. Beside her rests a grizzled hound, head on its paws. Spying a spot in the circle of blue sky, she glances up with a greeting for the vulture whirling there. The younger women laugh at her. She accepts the harmless derision with a warning that they will see, they will see.
A truck honks and returns her to the black tar and brown air of South-Central. She takes a breath to clear her head and looks for the dog. It is gone.
The afternoon is spent surveilling
casitas
with The Warthog, checking in with Tatum and later the GEU sergeant. He doesn't have any intel on Lil' Hook or who capped his sister, but he assures Frank he will keep his ear to the ground. Back at the station, night is coming hard. Frank pushes away the purple mountains that rise in her head. She grabs Tatum and they start running down sources and snitches. Colgate calls just before midnight with a name. They run it through the system and by four a.m. have enough information on the 59 Hoover Criminal to wake a judge for a warrant.
By 0730 hours they are assembled with backup at a derelict home under the Harbor Freeway. At Tatum's announcing knock, bangers in boxers and T-shirts leap from windows like fleas from a dead dog. One is the 59 they're looking for. The rest of the day, she and Tatum take turns breaking him in the box. The case is only thirty hours old when Braxton comes into the squad room waving a plastic bag with a crappy Raven MP-25 recovered from the banger's baby momma's apartment.
Disgusted and exhausted, Tatum asks the 59 what the hell he was thinking. “What makes you keep such a piece-of-shit gun when it's so hot?”
The dissed banger is exhausted, too. He looks at the wall and yawns.
Frank chimes in, “Yeah, you can replace that junk for a hundred bucks, easy. What you such a cheap ass for?”
“Ain't cheap,” he argues, then says proudly. “I'm prudent. Ain't rich like you policemans.”
Frank nods. “You got a point. We get new weapons every six months whether we want 'em or not.” Tatum twists his head toward her, but she continues, “Guess if I was buying my own I'd be prudent, too. But, man, couldn't you have got nothing better than a Raven? I mean, if you're gonna be keeping 'em and all, why not step to something dope, get you' self a
real
gun?”
“Shit, motherfucker, that ain't my only piece. I got others way better 'an that.”
Frank gives him a big smile. The 59 has just tied himself to the weapon. With luck, ballistics will tie his weapon to the murdered girl. Frank steps out of the box and lets Tatum finish. On the way downstairs she calls Pintar with the update.
“Nice work,” her boss says. “You must be one happy detective.”
“Yeah,” she lies. “See you tomorrow.”
Frank unlocks her car. She sits, scrolling through messages. Two are from Caroline. Frank puts the phone down and reaches into the glove box. Extracting Drum and Buglers, she slowly rolls a smoke. The October evening is chilly. Lights wink at the dusk and encourage night to come along. She fights onto the freeway and drives with the
window down, cigarette balanced in the corner of her mouth. Ash falls into her lap. It would be so easy to keep driving north into the dark hold of the mountains, to sleep under their quiet watch.
The cigarette burns her lip. She squints through the distracting smoke and pain. Disappointed she can't bear the heat anymore, she flicks the butt away. The phone rings into the passenger seat. She flips it over, reads Caroline's number, and switches it off. A couple miles later, she relents, texting Caroline that she has to get some sleep and will call tomorrow.
Caroline texts back,
Are u avoiding me?
Don't be silly. Beat. Up 36 hrs. xxoo.
Frank hits Send and powers the phone off again, satisfied that at least the middle of the text is true.
There are no new cases during the week, but Frank stays busy. She cruises with her cops on their cases, visits with Colgate, Miss Lacy, and a dozen other contacts. Out of respect for the family, she attends the funeral of a Rollin '60s banger, and stops in at Drew Memorial to see an old informant dying from AIDS. She stays in touch with Mary and goes to lots of AA meetings because that helps keep her from thinking about Sal and the mountains.
When Caroline calls, Frank makes excuses not to see her. But the weekend looms, and she can't put her off anymore. They make a date for dinner at Caroline's. Frank arrives with flowers and Caroline's favorite chocolate truffles. She goes through the prescribed motions, by turns gracious, attentive, and charming. It is only after they are in bed that Caroline wonders, “If I ask you something, will you promise to be straight with me? No pun intended.”
Frank smiles thinly in the dark. “Sure.”
“Why do I feel like you are a million miles away?”
“Not a million,” she admits. “Just a couple hundred.”
“In Soledad?”
“Afraid so.”
Caroline removes her hand from Frank's thigh. It leaves a cool spot the same temperature as Frank's insides.
“Is there someone else?”
“No.”
“Not that woman up there, your victim's daughter?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Then what is it?”
Frank snaps the light on. She pushes her pillow against the
headboard and sits up. “It's crazy. I don't even know how to tell you.”
“Start at the beginning.”
Frank does, repeating everything she told Marguerite. “I feel like I've suddenly come alive up there. Like my whole life's been fake up to this point and all of a sudden I've discovered my real one. I know that doesn't make sense. I don't expect you to understand.”
“That's good,” Caroline murmurs. “Because I'm not sure I do.” She stares at the ceiling while Frank traces the pattern on the bedspread. Finally she says, “I feel like you've told me you're seeing a man. I don't know how to compete with something like this.”
“You can't. There's nothing to compete against.”
“That's my point.”
They lie in the strained silence until Caroline sighs. “Seeing as you're not really here anyway, it might be better if you went home.”
“Yeah.”
Frank tries not to bolt from the bed. She dresses patiently while Caroline looks on. Zipping up her hoodie, Frank sits on the edge of the bed. She takes Caroline's hand.
“I'm sorry it's not working right now.”
“So am I. I miss you.”
“I know. I'm sorry. I wish I could give you more to hang your hat on, but I don't have it to give. I've got to see this through. I don't know why, I just do.”
“And I wish I could help you but I don't feel like you need my help. Or want it. Do you?”
Frank shakes her head. “I think this is something I've got to do alone.”
Caroline nods. “It looks like that tarot lady was right.”
“Maybe.”
She kisses Caroline's cheek with a twinge of remorse. But her lover's comfortable familiarity is no match for the mystery of the mountains. As she lets herself out of the condo, she feels like a prisoner stepping from jail. She drives fast through the red darkness, windows down, fog wrapping in her hair. At home she drags her mattress and blankets out to the backyard. The night settles her cool, damp
hair on her face, and she ponders the insanity that drives her from the warm bed of a desirable woman. But it's an idle question, because Frank already knows the answer.
Frank gets to the squad room early on Friday, but Lewis is already there. Before Frank can even greet her, Lewis grins and waves a sheaf of papers. “Guess what I got?”
“Winning lottery ticket?”
“Almost as good,” she gloats. “Remember all those ledgers I found? I've been working them steady, running down names, making calls.”
Frank lifts a finger. “Hold on.”
Her detective has switched from casual ghetto slang into an Ivy League idiolect. Frank thinks it's an unconscious habit, but it always signifies Lewis is onto something hot. She pours coffee and perches with it on Lewis' desk. “Alright. Tell me.”
Lewis is almost bouncing in her seat. “Jim McKinley. In 1968 he was an apprentice plumber and he worked for Saladino Construction. He's retired now. I talked to him last night. He remembers Domenic Saladino.”
Frank nods.
“McKinley remembers working with Saladino. Said that he was a good worker but he drank too much. Recalled that he usually came on in winter, that he lived somewhere up north. Never stuck around too long. I asked him, did he recall the last time he worked with Saladino, and he said yeah, at a block of commercial buildings they were building on Western.”
She pauses, unable to keep the grin from splitting her face.
“He says he remembers because Saladino's daughters pulled up to the job site one night and started screaming at him that he'd murdered their mother.”
Frank sets the cup down. “What else did he say?”
“That ain't enough?”
Frank shrugs. She keeps her hands in her lap so Lewis won't see them shake.
“He left after the girls got there. It was almost dark. He was helping Saladino do some framing because they were gonna pour concrete the next day. They were almost done when the girls pulled up. Saladino told him to go home, that he'd finish up. So McKinley did. Said he was uncomfortable with the daughters being upset and screaming, so he got the hell out of there.”
“Where's this guy at?”
“West Covina.”
“Guess we better go for a ride.”
She gets up and carries her coffee into her office with two hands. Not bothering with the light, she locks the door and puts her back against it. She is unmoved when a wave of dizziness warns a vision is imminent. She surrenders to the oncoming flight, spiraling high like a condor over the sunset-bloodied mountains. The canyons flicker below her in golden orange and red flame. The sea washes blackly to shore to break ruddy on the sand, and all of itâmountains, fire, sky, and oceanâis forever a great endless circle of beginning and ending, leaving and coming, birthing and dying, and always, always, alwaysâ“Fuck.”