CHIMERAS (Track Presius) (12 page)

CHAPTER 16

____________

Wednesday, October 15

Two women laughed out loud, their chortles stifled by the hisses of the milk steamer. A tanned man in a black shirt paced impatiently while waiting for his macchiato, his pompous gait slicing the space around him like Moses sliced the Red Sea. The woman in front of me swayed her long dreadlocks and pointed to a blueberry muffin, her un-deodorized body odor covering for a moment the aroma of brewed coffee.

“One latte and one espresso, Detectives.”

I took my small cup and downed it in three long sips. “An elm tree?” I said.

Satish shook his second bag of sugar, tore one corner off, and emptied it on the foamy surface of his latte. “
The
elm tree.”

“How was the espresso, Detective?” the barista asked me.

“Next to perfection, Mike.” Where perfection of course was the one I brewed at home. Mike grinned and showed me his thumb.

The first time I’d ordered an espresso he handed me some washed down concoction in a paper cup. I scowled, walked around the counter and showed him how to make an espresso. I told him if he were ever to serve it to me in a paper cup again I’d take him in. The next day he made it as the coffee deities command, watched me sip it, and then asked, “You were kidding, weren’t you? When you said you’d take me in?”

I sniffed the air. “About the coffee, yes. The joint though, I might still change my mind.” As far as I can tell, he never smoked a joint on the job again.

A smoky downtown swallowed us as Satish and I shouldered out of the Starbucks doors. The gripping noise of a jackhammer blasted off for a full minute, then died, making the everyday sounds tramping down the block sprout back to life: high heels clacking on cement, a black suit and tie jabbering in a mobile, a screaming child in an impatient stroller. The street trees along the sidewalk rustled their leaves, their nutty scent choked by the exhaust of a DASH bus idling at the red light.

I said, “We were talking about Chromo.”

“Yes, we were,” Satish agreed. At the light, we crossed First Street.

“So then, what the hell does this elm tree have to do with Chromo?”

“No, Track, you got confused. Not with Chromo. With my old man teaching me how to climb trees.”

I snorted. “Sat. I thought we were talking about Medford and individuals who don’t talk to us unless their lawyers are present.”

Satish sipped his latte and nodded. “Exactly. Tarantino was a dedicated, hard-working soul. If he’s done anything wrong, though, Medford wouldn’t know. He’s the number one at Chromo, and yet if somebody under his wings screws up, he’s got nothing to do with it, and his lawyer is right by his side to prove it.”

The Glass House loomed before us, three skinny palm trees doubled on its shiny façade. By the water fountain, three granite slabs held the names of our men fallen on the line of duty. Satish said, “Medford calling up his lawyer reminds me of my elm tree.”

“I figured,” I said in full resignation. My cell went off, Gomez’s name flashing on the display. “I’m down on Los Angeles Street,” I told him.

“Don’t bother coming up. We got a hit on Huxley’s car.”

*  *  *

Satish slid behind the wheel and asked, “Where are we heading?”

“San Vicente Mountain Park. The son of a bitch ditched the car along the unpaved stretch of Mulholland Drive.”

He jammed the key into the engine. “Give the man some credit, Track. The spot is beautiful.”

As Satish whipped through the busy lanes of the One-Oh-One, I made a few calls to the coroner’s office to notify them of the dead body found in Huxley’s car and arranged for a tow truck to come pick up the vehicle and transport it to one of our garages. I closed the phone and stared blankly at the billboards promising me luxurious cars, excellent medical care, and instant gratification.

“Huxley’s dead,” I mumbled.

Satish raised a brow. “Correction. Huxley’s missing, and her car just turned up with a stiff inside.”

“Huxley’s body.”

Satish exhaled through his nose. He hummed for a little, then out of the blue said, “I loved my elm tree. I loved the way it smelled, and the sound its leaves made when the breeze ran through its branches. But my favorite part, Track, was to climb it. I was small, light, and so nimble I could get all the way up to the highest boughs. Until the day my mom caught me and freaked out.”

“Why?”

“She said back in India children died falling from trees. She said their heads cracked open like coconuts. I was grounded for climbing the elm tree. My siblings went to bed and got a good night kiss. I had to stay up in a corner and wait for my old man.
You wait and see what he’ll do to you
! Mom said. So I waited. Eyes heavy with sleepiness, I waited.

“My old man finally comes home, dirty and tired. Mom walks to the door and talks to him. She yells, most likely, but I don’t remember a word. I remember her black braid swaying angrily down her shoulders, and her thin waist wrapped by the apron strings. Pa listens quietly. He’s exhausted. He mumbles something to mom, then goes and takes a shower. When he’s back, he sits at the table without even looking at me. He starts eating and asks,
What’d you do
?

“
Nothin
’, I screech.
I done nothin’, Pa
!

“Pa raises a hand.
Sat
.
What did you do
? And this time he speaks each word slowly.

“I sigh.
I climbed the elm tree
.

“My old man eats his dinner. When he’s done, he wipes his mouth and drains his beer.
Go to bed, Satish
.
Tomorrow you wake up with me.

“The next morning he gets me out of bed at dawn. We have breakfast together while the sun rises. Then he takes me outside.
Show me how you climb, Satish
.

“My eyes go wide.
Mom’s sleeping.

“We won’t tell
, he promises. I clutch one of the lower branches and pull myself up. My old man watches. Every now and then he says,
No
, and stops me.
You put the foot in the wrong spot
, he says. Or he corrects the way I hold on to the branch to support my weight. He shows me how to do it properly, how to be safe.

“There
, he says when I get back down.
Now you know how to do it the right away. Don’t get caught again
.”

Satish fell silent. He changed lanes and passed a red pick-up truck hauling a boat. I waited. He was still silent.

“And the moral, Sat?”

“Ah, Track, you and your morals. There ain’t no moral this time, okay?” I grunted and slouched back in the seat. “I mean,” Satish resumed all of a sudden. “If you’re a good employer, you can’t wash your hands of what happens in your company. You take responsibility. You either tell your people no, you can’t climb the dangerous tree, or you check that when they climb, they do it the right way and don’t fall off and get caught.”

“You’re assuming something went wrong at Chromo.”

Satish shook his head sideways. “I don’t assume nothing, Track. I just told you how I learned to climb trees.”

I smiled and stared out the window. Partly disguised by the drooping head of a palm tree, the advertisement for an online degree program read, “Knowledge is power.”

Is it really
? I wondered.

*  *  *

“What did I tell you?” Satish said, getting out of the car. “This spot is spectacular.”

During the Cold War years, San Vicente Mountain Park was one of the Nike Ajax launch sites in L.A. county. Today, the radar tower had become a romantic venue thanks to its stunning views at sunset—provided the Santa Ana winds swept away the dome of pollution lingering on the valley, and the revolting stench of ripe corpse didn’t sting the air.

It was a breezy day, with eastbound winds twirling dust in the air and rolling down yarns of tumbleweeds. We left our car at the end of the road, where the trees spread out to yield a glazed view of the Encino Reservoir. Wispy clouds cruised the sky and caressed the haze blanketing the San Fernando Valley. Studded in white and yellow wild flowers, the slopes were populated by the typical chaparral vegetation of sagebrush,
toyon, chamisa
, and scrub oaks. Black fingers of past fires scarred the slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains, stabbed here and there by the skeletons of burnt trees.

We had Huxley’s car moved away from the shrubs and all
doors, including the trunk, popped opened. Insects spilled out in swarms and funneled in our ears and nostrils. My skin crawled at the sweet stench of decomposition. One of the West Valley officers turned green. He excused himself, ambled a few yards away, and barfed behind a bush, the sound of his retching adding yet another layer of pleasure to the whole experience.

Three men climbed out of the coroner’s white van and pulled a tarp-lined stretcher out of the back. I emptied Huxley’s glove compartment, set everything on the hood of our vehicle, and sifted through all the papers: car manual, registration, insurance documents, car repair receipts. “Damn it,” I mumbled. Holding the lapel of his jacket to his face, eyes watery from the repressed bouts of nausea, Satish came to tell me that no ID had been found on the body either. “How long can you hold your breath?” he asked.

“Still testing,” I replied.

“Fill your lungs and come check the trunk.”

The removal crew heaved the body out of the car. At the other end of the vehicle, Satish and I stared dumbfounded at the pool of dried blood and decomposition fluid at the bottom of the trunk. I read on my partner’s face the same questions running through my mind: a second victim? And if so, where was the body?

“A-ha! The trunk is where it happened.”

The voice made me jump. Blinded by the overwhelming reek of putrefaction, I hadn’t sensed the new presence behind me. “Vic’s been shot in the trunk and then moved afterward. Dr. Russ Cohen, pleased to meet you, Detectives.” The man stretched out a gloved hand. He had a noticeable nose, red and crinkled like an old sponge. Shreds of yellow hair randomly covered his head. “Come on over. Let me show you what I mean.”

“Dr. Ellis told us they had a new man on the team,” Satish said, as we walked to the gurney.

“Just moved from Maryland,” Cohen replied. He bent over the stretcher and stripped the gray tape from the corpse’s mouth. A maroon tongue poked out of purple lips. The face had swollen beyond recognition. Dark eye globes popped out of their sockets. Covered in blisters, the skin had taken green and gray hues, the flesh frayed by blackened vessels. There were moths crawling through the hair and maggots chewing off the flesh. The only sign of humanity left on the corpse was a cross hanging from a chain around the neck, an eerie oxymoron of gold over putrefaction.

Hideously humming in our ears, a black cloud of flies faithfully followed every movement we made. We talked while swaying our hands in all directions, looking like dancers in a clumsily choreographed ballet. We were comical and pathetic at the same time.

“My mother-in-law called yesterday,” Cohen said, his wrinkly forehead rolling up and down like a swag. “They’re having eighty-eight percent humidity right now, over there. I’m not moving back
ever
.” He severed the ropes around Huxley’s wrists and ankles and passed them over for us to examine. They were made of thick cord, rough to the touch.

“This is hemp,” Satish noted, pulling the two ends to test its sturdiness. “The kind they use for sailing is tarred though, and this one doesn’t seem to be. Maybe rock climbing?”

“Those are made of nylon and they come with an exterior sheath,” I replied. “Too bad they don’t sell cadaver-binding cords at hardware stores. Our job would be a hell lot easier.”

Cohen produced a shrill laugh with a feminine pitch. “Ah. I like you guys. You have a sense of humor. Must be the nice weather and all. Back east—”

“Tell us about the vic, Doc,” I interjected. I already knew more than a hundred reasons to live in Southern California and nowhere else in the world. My only problem has always been how widespread such opinions seem to be.

“Female, I would say maximum thirty years of age.” Cohen handed the knife to one of his assistants and got a pair of tweezers in return. The assistant had a meaty face that glistened with perspiration, his cheeks so large they looked like they’d sucked his nose in. In such circumstances, it wasn’t a bad idea.

“I understand the owner of the car disappeared?” Cohen asked. He plucked a couple insects for every species he spotted and collected them in small glass containers.

“Eight days ago,” Satish confirmed.

“And apparently she just showed up.”

Satish gave me a dirty look.