Hard Bite (9 page)

Jpeg photos are attached to the file. Doug clicks one and a naked-torso shot of Mateo reveals a full-chest tattoo of San Judas Todeo, patron saint of hopeless causes. A soft chuckle from Doug. A third son, by the name of Ambrose, has no criminal record, and seems to be distanced from the others.

Doug leans back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head, and lets the information sink in.

So far they have nothing on the mother and son who sold their ID to Orella and Ambrose. They are ghosts. If he does find Orella Malalinda, what will he charge her with? Body snatching? She's still the real mother with a right to claim the body. He taps his forehead wondering why the thought didn't occur earlier. Orella Malalinda sent her son back to Mexico. She'll have to go back to bury him, won't she?

Doug pulls up a search screen on the computer, finds the number for feds in Sinaloa and dials. He's a little worried about his Spanish but there's no need because the answering officer speaks perfect English. "I was wondering if you could check with customs and find out which funeria claimed the body of Hector Stamos," Doug explains.

"Sure. I'll pass along your request to Detective Lanzoa and have him get back to you."

Doug digs into some paperwork, figuring he'll hear back in a few days, when his cell rings. It's a Mexican area code. Doug picks up. "Detective Lanzoa?"

"The body was claimed by Funeria Celzuna, but it was released to another place which turned out to be bogus."

"Ahhhh dang."

"What do you want him for?"

"I want his mother. You might've heard of her. Orella Malalinda."

Lanzoa clicked his teeth. "What do you want her on?"

"This time around: fraud."

"Fraud? She's drug cartel."

"Yeah, but right now it's just fraud."

"I can't put a watch on the airport and every funeral home in Sinaloa because of a fraud charge…I thought you were homicide."

"Come on, sometimes it's complicated."

Lanzoa sighs. "Yes, I know."

"Thanks for getting back to me. I'll call you if I get a hit."

Finishing up notes for Leone, Doug adds, "Hope your tooth feels better." He attaches the document to an email and pushes "Send."

***

At the house in Cerritos, Mateo labors to end another call explaining why his mother is not taking visitors, and wanders into the front room just in time to see her pull up in front of the house. He leans in closer to the window. She's dressed in uncharacteristically shapeless clothing and flat shoes as she flies up the walk. Even the two pit bulls in the front yard whine and look at her strangely. Mateo sees her pause at the front door, swiping the biometric fingerprint scan pad three times before she gets it right. Something is making her hands shake.

"Luis," he calls in a warning voice. "She's home."

Luis appears as Orella blusters in the door. "I found him!" she blurts. "I found the man."

Luis steps forward, calm and collected, a liar from zero to sixty in a heartbeat. "Did you talk to him?"

Orella loses grasp of her keys and the clatter noisily to the tile. She scrabbles to pick them up as her sons exchange looks over her head. "He has a monkey," she announces to the floor.

Luis says nothing. Mateo folds his arms.

Straightening up, she continues. "With teeth. That animal—teeth white and sharp. I saw!" She knows her voice is getting shrill. The keys in her hand are rattling again. She has to gain control of herself, the boys are looking at her strangely. Why aren't they reacting?

"Mama, why don't you come in and sit down." Luis has an overly soothing tone.

The demon inside her, that even their father dreaded to face, surfaces. For a second her lips purse, her eyes flick from one to the other as an internal countdown to combustion starts. The men imperceptibly lean away, checking for an exit. Her entire body seems to puff under the dark clothing, like an excited bird. Not a harmless bird. This is a bird of prey—all sharp beak, talons and wings that beat you all over.

"YOU" she says ominously taking a step. "I want YOU…" Her forefinger with its long, painted nail stabs in the direction of their chests, back and forth. Her eyes blaze like black suns as her lips disappear in a snarl. "I WANT YOU TO fiiiiiind hiiiiiiiimmmmmm."

The last two words fade into a whisper as she leans farther forward with that long claw stabbing. White rises in both their faces. This is the Orella their father feared when her rage blew. This is the full-frontal iron witch who held onto power that normally would have vanished when their father died. They aren't afraid she'll do them harm, it's that her rage will turn on itself. More than once they've stopped her drifting through the house after midnight, playing with a knife in a bloody nightgown.

She hisses on like a pot boiling over. "A man with legs that don't work. A man with one arm. He gets the best of you? He makes fools of the sons of Alejandro Malalinda?"

Luis and Mateo look at the floor, arms hanging loose at their sides.

"He's not a man. He's not half a man. He's a bug. SQUASH HIM!"

"Yes Mama." they say in unison.

"VAMOS!" she shrieks, and they stumble from the room.

***

Blattlatch insists on wheeling me down to the parking garage, even though I can wheel myself, to load into her state-issued disabled-access vehicle. Or "The Cripple Coach" as I like to call it. She can barely refrain from hitting me when I use that name and when Sid sees the look on her face he almost pees with glee. Almost.

Blattlatch pulls the coach onto Washington like she's manhandling a school bus. To get to the 91, which will take us east to Dr. Klanski's office, we take Admiralty Way. There's a left turn at Mindanao which is always tricky for Sid and me to navigate in the van because you have to drift over to the right lane if you're going to make the lineup for the 91 exit. Blattlatch is at the wheel so I just practice the turn in my head. You can tell Blattlatch is an LA native, though. She doesn't use the turn signal. Nobody does. It's part of the laid-back vibe, LA-wide.

Never one to let a moment of silence go unfilled, Blattlatch starts with an interrogation that passes as conversation with someone of her personality type. "So Mr. Drayhart, what is your profession?"

"I'm a professional spastic, Miz Blattlatch. Pays well."

"Now Mr. Drayhart, you had a good profession before the accident," she says, unflappable. "You were in insurance, I believe."

Blattlatch has me nailed, but I'd rather throw myself out the door than bring up my former life. It won't do to appear rude, so I nod my head and answer, "You are absolutely correct. I was in insurance. That's why I am so well-provided for. How's about some music while we drive? Maybe a little talk radio?"

"What about my music," she answers with a twinkle in her eye. "Do you like Marvin Hamlisch?"

I'd say yes to marching anthems from the Third Reich at this point and if Marvin Hamlisch is the guy who can rescue, swell by me.

Tinkly piano clatters through the speakers and I think about
then
…

I started out as a junior underwriter. Fresh out of university Laidlund Insurance Co. hired me—commercial general liability, specializing in new-home construction, underwriting division. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Underwriting was where I learned the world was a maze of peril. My job was looking for risk, however it might visit, no matter what innocuous place it might hide. I moved up from junior to full-fledged underwriter. I got married. I had a child. I purchased health and personal liability insurance. Moving higher still, to actuary, I reviewed loss data, risks, perils, disaster, and pored over statistics and odds.

I thought I knew life—had all our exposures categorized. Then the accident. Buddy, there's a difference between being covered for an accident and having karma on your side so no accident happens. I was not clear on that back then. Now I get it.

The CD changer spins and the theme from Cats brings me back to the present. Blattlatch is tapping the wheel enjoying herself. Sid is making little squeaks. He likes the jaunty beat, too. I look out the window and keep my yap zipped. We're heading for Cedars-Sinai, hospital-to-the-stars. Every time some starlet ODs on X and vomits over herself in Bel Air, she goes to Cedars where they pump her out and prop her up for another episode of self-destruction. But Cedars also sees regular people and is home to some truly great, unsung doctors, nurses and hospital staff.

We enter on George Burns Drive, named for the old comic who was still telling jokes at age a hundred. My favorite line of his: "Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you got it made." Famous showbiz names are all over the place: The Spielberg Building, the Max Factor Family Tower. These are the names that made good and gave back. Or maybe they just wanted their names slapped on the side of some cement. Who cares? It's a hospital.

***

Doctor Klanski settles into his chair and tries to get me focused in his trifocals. The glasses are new and he's having a bitch of a time adjusting. He opens my sizeable file and brings himself up to date on my condition, a cervical spinal core injury diagnosed as "incomplete." That means a few scattered fibers are intact, enabling the use of my right arm and hand, and still enabling maintenance of an erection, which is enough proof for me that there is a God and he has a sense of humor.

"Digestion," Klanski states in a flat, distracted voice, like it's hard for him to pull his focus off the page and onto the living, breathing person. "How's that been since I saw you last?"

"Oysters on the half shell for breakfast and prime rib every night, doc."

His smile is diluted, and he doesn't dignify my comment with an answer.

"It's the same, Doctor Klanski," I say.

He asks how I'm adjusting to "life on wheels" as he puts it. I'm tempted to say, "Just great now that I've found my new hobby—murder." But that would be indulging my ego. I've read that serial killers have to be very careful about that ego thing. It's where madness takes over. I may be partially mad, but it hasn't taken me over completely. I make a mental note to remind myself of humility, everyday. Where there is humility, madness doesn't go. Or madness flees. Something like that. Maybe I can't finish the sentence, but I know what I mean.

Klanski clears his throat. "Nurse Blattlatch is concerned about your bowel movements. When your bowel was perforated in the crash, segments had to be resected."

"Meaning?" I say this like I don't know, when I know all too freaking well.

"The tract is intact but significantly shortened. If you're not getting rid of waste properly, you can become toxic."

"It's none of her fucking business," I snap, making Klanski rip the trifocals off his face and fix me with a pale stare. "Angry. So angry. You can't stay so angry."

"My anger keeps me alive."

"It will kill you."

"So it'll keep me alive till it kills me."

He sucks his teeth and shakes his head. I decide to be a little nicer. I need Klanski for the reports he sends to my disability insurance provider. I try a helpful tone, "I'm taking a natural herbal supplement to feed my adrenals."

"You what?"

"For my adrenal glands. Anger exhausts the adrenals. I'm already taking a natural herbal supplement for it."

Now he thinks I'm crazy. Crazy-angry, instead of just angry. I should know better than to talk alternative health with a Cedars-Sinai doctor. That's crazy. I shut up and let him poke and pry, occasionally jotting notes in my enormous file.

He gives me advice. Blah, blah, blah. I nod my head up and down, looking grave. My mind is already on the next phase of the day…

Rehabilitation therapy. At the Cedars pool. I undergo intensive underwater arm exercises and stretching, followed by a deep tissue massage that makes my eyes water. I don't complain and always encourage everyone who works with me to push to the max. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

***

On the way home, I feel the need to take some air, and request that Blattlatch let us off a few blocks from home. Reluctantly, she pulls over, but Sid won't go. He's busy with a treat, he likes being chauffeured in the cripple coach and he wants more Marvin Hamlisch.

"I'll take Sidney home, Mr. Drayhart," says Blattlatch. I'm reluctant, but figure Sid could use a break from me. So I hit the sidewalk and head away from the main drag, rolling aimlessly toward Marina Elementary. A bell rings, a series of doors burst open, and a geyser of chattering pattering school kids spill down the steps and into the yard. I pull my hat down a little farther and my muffler up a bit more so my face won't be quite so alarming.