Justice at Risk (8 page)

“Noon, I guess.”

“Noon it is.”

“You’ve really been terrific, Ben. I mean it.”

He laid a hand on my arm, left it there a moment, then shuffled down the steps and the front walk, stopping along the way to say good night to Maggie. I watched him climb into the VW, heard it sputter as the engine caught, and stood on the porch as it putted off down the street, thinking about the line I’d just crossed.

Inside, the phone rang. I dashed in and grabbed it in the kitchen. It was Oree Joffrien returning my call.

Peter Graff and his girlfriend lived on one of the narrow walk-through streets that run perpendicular to the beach in Venice, lined on either side by quaint cottages and aging apartment houses filled with surfers, artists, graying hippies, and monied yuppies eager to rub up against bohemia and pretend they’re part of the counterculture, as long as they don’t have to give up their new BMWs and five-hundred-dollar cappuccino machines.

Peter’s place was on the north side, across Windward Avenue, in the heart of the action that had turned the funky little beachside community into one of Southern California’s busiest tourist attractions. I arrived at half past ten, in time to find a parking spot on a nearby side street before the masses of weekend visitors swarmed in from every direction like buzzards descending on fresh roadkill. I pared away some time strolling Ocean Front Walk, where the vendors and sidewalk entertainers were busy setting up, and the morning breeze was brisk and salty. The Mystery Annex of Small World Books was open, and I bought their last copy of Walter Mosley’s
Gone Fishin’
, then turned south along the broad walkway toward the basketball scene. Out on the courts, the pickup regulars made their showtime moves and dissed each other as they sprinted up and down the warm asphalt wearing down the soles of their hundred-dollar air shoes. Nearby, the narcissistic Muscle Beach boys pumped iron in the open-air weight-lifting arena, displaying their grotesquely developed bodies to passing gawkers while lithe gymnasts swung on the high rings a hundred feet away, performing graceful flips before landing in the sand feet first. I dodged some speeding in-line skaters, weaved through a flock of half-naked surfers, bought a corn dog, and turned in the direction of Peter’s apartment.

He and his girlfriend shared a one-bedroom unit in a single-story duplex, a modest wood frame with a narrow porch and two doors, one on either side of the short front steps. I’d walked Peter as far as the front gate on Monday night, after driving him home from the Sunset Tiki Motel; I hadn’t gone in, though I’d glimpsed his girlfriend’s silhouette through a window, as she waited up for him. I pushed open the gate to a small yard covered in concrete and littered with cheap lawn furniture corroded by salt air, and draped with faded beach towels. The door I wanted was on the left, with a number that ended in a half. It was open, but the screen was latched from the inside, where the theme music from
Titanic
was being played. I rapped my knuckles on the warped frame, and a few seconds later Cheryl appeared, pulling a robe closed while tying the sash at her waist. An easy smile creased her pleasant face.

“You must be Mr. Justice.”

“I am.”

“You’re early.”

“Should I go away and come back?”

“Oh, no. Please, come in.”

She unlatched the screen and pushed it open, and I brushed past her into a small anteroom, where I faced her for a better look. She was on the short side, conventionally pretty, with warm brown eyes and an open, friendly face. Her hair, light brown and cut neatly, fell in soft curls, just hiding her ears. Around her neck, on a delicate chain, hung a small silver crucifix that lay atop a cluster of freckles on her upper chest. Despite her bulky terrycloth robe, I could see that she was narrow-waisted and small-breasted, with slim legs that tapered to tiny bare feet.

“It’s really nice of you to help Pete out like this, Mr. Justice.”

“Not at all. I take it you’re Cheryl?”

She threw out her hands, palms up.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. Yes, I’m Cheryl.”

We stepped into a tiny living room filled with sealed boxes, a few pieces of luggage, and not much furniture. What there was looked thrift shop purchased.

“As you can see, we don’t have a lot. Can I get you some coffee?”

“Maybe later, thanks.”

“Pete tells me you’re a journalist. He said you’re very well known out here.”

“Is that how he put it?”

“Pretty much. He said you used to write for the
Los Angeles Times
, and that you’ve done some magazine work. And now you’re moving into television.”

“He’s very generous to put it that way.”

“He probably mentioned that I’m going back to Minnesota to teach.”

“He also said something about a trial separation.”

She pulled her robe a little tighter around her.

“That’s part of it. We both felt—well, mostly Pete—he felt he needed more time. To find himself, to become a more complete person, before he made a final commitment in terms of our relationship.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Honestly? I’d hoped we might be married by now. Pete’s the only person I’ve ever been involved with, the best person I know. He’s my whole life, really. I guess that’s not a very modern way to be, a woman whose identity is so tied up with one man. Maybe that’s part of the reason Pete needs to be away from me for a while.”

“It must be hard leaving him here.”

“I respect what he’s trying to do. He feels it’s important to change, to grow. I think that’s the main reason he wanted to come out here in the first place.” She did her best to reinforce the smile. “If he needs more time—well, I’ll just have to wait, won’t I?”

“He’s lucky to have someone so understanding.”

She widened her eyes, along with her falsely bright smile, and bobbed her head from side to side like a metronome.

“I’m doing my best.”

There was a clatter on the porch, and we turned to see Peter leaning a wet surfboard against the wall. Then he was coming into the house, while I tried to keep my eyes above his neck.

“Ben, you’re early.”

“A little.”

“I wanted to catch some waves one last time before I headed inland.”

“I can see that.”

I used the moment to steal a better look at him. He was wearing a bright red thermal wet suit that extended down not quite to his knees, with a healthy bulge midway between his hips, where things had been kept warm. He’d unzipped the top, freed his arms, and peeled the rubber suit down to his waist, exposing a finely muscled torso that was glistening wet from a quick shower on the beach. His nipples were still taut from the cold water, and a lovely web of soft golden hair spread lightly across his upper chest and into a narrowing trail down his rippled belly, which still heaved from his run up the sand. My eyes retraced their steps to his face before I spoke again.

“Cheryl and I have been getting acquainted.”

He crossed the small room and kissed her on the cheek. When she spoke, it was without much sincerity, and the tightness in her voice gave away a little more of the pain she had to be feeling.

“How was the surf, honey?”

“A little blown out. I got a few good rides.” He put an arm around her, pulled her close. Then, tenderly: “How are you doing?”

“I’m OK.”

He kept his arm around her, but glanced my way.

“Let me jump in the shower and pull on some clothes, and we can get my stuff loaded up.”

When he was behind the closed bathroom door, I asked her if she had met Tommy Callahan before he disappeared. Her curls bounced as she shook her head.

“Pete talked to me about him. Told me how Mr. Callahan had taken him under his wing, given up his personal time teaching Pete about the new editing systems.”

“He had a crush on Peter. Were you aware of that?”

She turned away, rummaging through a box.

“Let me show you something, Mr. Justice.” She handed me a framed, wallet-sized photo. “This is Pete when he was seventeen, the year we met. I transferred that spring to his high school. We started dating late that summer, just before our senior year. He was generally considered the cutest boy in school, the most popular. You can see why from the picture.”

I studied it a moment, handed it back, and she tucked it away, still talking.

“With most people, you assume they’ll gradually lose their looks as they grow older. Sometimes, when you run into people you knew in high school, it’s almost shocking how much they’ve changed in just a few years. With Pete, it was just the opposite—he grew into this incredibly beautiful man. The amazing thing is, he seems almost totally unaware of how attractive he is, the effect he has on certain people.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.”

“When we’re out, photographers stop him, wanting to know if he’ll pose for pictures. People offer him modeling jobs all the time, promising all kinds of money. He just gets embarrassed, has trouble relating to it. So it didn’t surprise me when Pete told me how Mr. Callahan felt. I’m accustomed to seeing the way some men look at him.”

“What about Peter? Was he upset? Or has this kind of thing happened to him before?”

“Pete doesn’t have any conflicts about his sexuality, Mr. Justice. Curiosity, maybe. Pete’s curious about everything, it’s one of the things I love about him. But he’s a heterosexual man, I can assure you of that, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Actually, it wasn’t.”

For the first time, her smile faded, and her face lost its sweetness.

“No, he wasn’t upset by the way Mr. Callahan felt.”

The bathroom door opened and Peter appeared, wearing a pair of cutoffs but still toweling dry. As he joined us, Cheryl took the towel from him and used it to wipe away the dampness on his chest and arms, as routinely as one might scratch an itch.

“My plane leaves at three, Pete. I should get to the airport early. You know how busy it is on weekends.”

“I’ll drive you, honey. If Ben doesn’t mind driving a load of my stuff back to the apartment without me.”

“No. You go with him. I’ll catch the shuttle.”

“You sure?”

She touched his lips with two fingers, while her eyes roved his face.

“The sooner I get used to being without you, the better it will be.” She stretched up and kissed him on the lips. “I’d better get dressed. It’s almost noon.”

Her eyes and fingers lingered on his face, and I wished I’d had the foresight to leave them alone for a while. I was about to excuse myself when she turned my way, trying to find the smile she’d lost in the last few minutes.

Her words were simple, her voice steady.

“Take good care of him, Mr. Justice.”

Late Sunday morning, Templeton swung by the house in her freshly waxed Infiniti, draped in a casual weekend outfit from Saks that would have qualified for the pages of
Vogue
.

You can travel in style when you’re the only child of a moneybags lawyer who sets you up in a half-million-dollar condo with an ocean view, puts a new car in the garage every other year on your birthday, and slips a platinum credit card into your Christmas stocking, lest you forget that you’re Daddy’s favorite little girl.

Templeton was, which made it all the more amazing that she was still grinding away on the crime beat at the
Sun
, determined to work her way up in the trade and become the best reporter in the business. Not the best female reporter. Not the best African American reporter. The best reporter, period.

We were meeting for brunch, and this time the meal was on me, in honor of the high-profile assignment Templeton had landed as the lead reporter on the developing police chief story and her initial front-page article in that morning’s
Sun
. We called Oree Joffrien to see if he could join us, but he was on his way to speak at a symposium at USC and asked for a rain check. When we tried Harry, his machine told us he was downtown at the newspaper, catching up on his work, which caused Templeton to frown, and me to fret aloud about Harry’s deteriorating health.

We were in the kitchen, near the window, with the two cats rubbing around our ankles. It was nearly eleven, and Templeton was getting hungry.

“I guess it’s just the two of us, Justice.”

That’s when she spotted Peter Graff in the backyard, roughhousing with Maggie, who was romping on the grass, getting in touch with her inner puppy.

“Who is that?”

After helping Graff move in the previous afternoon, I’d done my best to put him in the back of my mind, preferring to keep my radar pointed at Oree Joffrien. But there he was, right in my own backyard, freshly showered and shaved, looking like a young Robert Redford, though somehow more golden.

“That’s Peter. The guy I tried to tell you about Friday afternoon when I dropped by the
Sun
and you didn’t have any time for me.”

“The one whose friend they found in the mountains?”

I nodded. She stared out the window, her jaw hanging.

“He’s adorable.”

“That’s what I tried to tell you Friday afternoon.”

“What’s he doing in your backyard?”

“Playing with the dog.”

“Yes, I can see that.” She gave me a look. “Justice?”

“He’s staying in the apartment until Fred and Maurice get back.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient.”

“It’s temporary, Templeton. Until he finds a place of his own. By the way, as far as I can tell, he’s homosexually challenged.”

“Straight? And that good-looking? Hard to believe.”

She was staring out the window again. I noticed that her upper lip was slightly moist.

“Shouldn’t we invite him to join us, Ben?” She looked over, her eyes soft, her voice syrupy. “It would be the polite thing to do, don’t you think?”

Graff accepted our invitation, and the three of us sauntered down to Santa Monica Boulevard, swung left, and headed toward Boy Meets Grill. I hadn’t seen so many heads turn along the boulevard since a dark-haired, doe-eyed actor named Esai Morales had ridden through with a bunch of his Hollywood pals on their Harleys. As we passed the sidewalk tables outside Rimbaud’s, where the brunch champagne was flowing among the older crowd, there were the usual murmurs and low whistles. By the time we’d passed A Different Light and reached Boy Meets Grill, we’d left several cases of whiplash in our wake.

All three of us got high on caffeine, passing on the complimentary bubbly, while Templeton interviewed Peter with a reporter’s relentless curiosity and the savvy of an experienced single woman closing in on her prey. When Graff excused himself to use the restroom, I warned Templeton that she was in danger of scaring him off.

“You think I’m overdoing it?”

“You haven’t let up on him since we left the house.”

“You’re right. I’m being a complete fool. It’s just that—”

“He’s totally delectable, in every imaginable way.”

“He must have some flaws, Justice.”

“Let me know when you find one.”

“Someone should put him in the movies.”

“Yeah, playing Jesus.”

“I suddenly feel like I’m fourteen again. I haven’t felt this flustered since my first Michael Jackson concert.”

“Exactly my reaction the first time I met him. Completely disorienting.”

She paused with a forkful of eggs Benedict poised in midair, offering me an ironic version of a happy face.

“Isn’t it nice when we see eye to eye on something, Justice?”

“How about getting me a copy of the police report on Tommy Callahan’s murder? Maybe the autopsy as well. You think we can see eye to eye on that?”

“I guess I could find some time. Since you’re giving Peter to me.”

“Sorry, Templeton, you have to earn him.”

She looked up, across the room.

“Here he comes. What should we be talking about?”

“How about your new assignment at the
Sun
?”

Graff took his seat, and placed his napkin back in his lap.

“The people in here are really friendly.”

Templeton and I exchanged a glance, and worked hard not to laugh.

“Alex and I were just discussing her new assignment.” I dug into my Belgian waffle. “You might fill Peter in, since he’s something of a newcomer to the city.”

In a nutshell, Templeton laid out the evolving story: After two successive police chiefs who were African American, it appeared that Los Angeles might once again have its first white chief since the notorious Daryl Gates. Gates, a public figure of unsurpassed arrogance and insensitivity to social issues and minority groups, had presided over the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992, a period when crime and racial tensions in the city grew to an all-time high, along with complaints against the department for racism, misogyny, homophobia, and brutality. Gates’s tumultuous reign culminated in the videotaped beating of African American Rodney King in 1991 and the full-scale rioting that swept the city after the acquittal of the four white officers criminally charged in the King incident by an all-white jury in suburban Simi Valley. After Gates’s forced resignation, a new charter amendment established a maximum of two five-year terms for the police chief, who came under the scrutiny and supervision of the five-member Board of Police Commissioners. Due to deaths and resignations on the board, and new appointments by the current mayor, the board was now predominantly white and largely conservative. The most recent chief had unexpectedly resigned for health reasons. Pressure was building for the appointment of a Caucasian chief from among the LAPD’s so-called “rank and file”—comprised primarily of white male veteran officers—who were concerned that too many recruits were being drawn from among minority applicants, reversing the hiring patterns of the Gates regime, while promotions were going less often to white officers.

“There are several veteran officers in the running,” Templeton told us, “all of them well qualified, with the requisite experience and credentials. A mix of races, even a Jewish candidate, which is unusual. But the selection process has become politically charged, and the feeling seems to be that Taylor Fairchild is the front-runner for the job. He started his climb to power during the Gates era and is currently the assistant chief.”

I put down my fork, getting interested.

“A Gates crony?”

“From what I understand.”

“Eager to turn back the clock?”

“That remains to be seen. But there’s definitely plenty of controversy swirling around him.”

Graff wiped his mouth with his napkin, looking confused.

“Why are people so upset? I mean, if he’s risen so high through the ranks during three different administrations, he must be pretty good at what he does.”

“I know that he’s a devout Christian,” Templeton said, “which has caused concern in some quarters. His mother is Rose Fairchild, one of the wealthiest women in the country.”

“You’re saying a Christian shouldn’t be police chief? Or somebody who happens to be rich?”

Templeton smiled benignly.

“I’m not saying that at all, Peter. I was raised a Baptist myself, and my father earns a bundle. If I’m not mistaken, the last two chiefs, who were black, were both Christian and regular churchgoers.”

“But you just said—”

“I said there’s concern in certain quarters, apparently because Fairchild is rather rigid in his religious convictions, which lean toward fundamentalism. He’s also very close to his mother, who reportedly funnels millions of dollars into fundamentalist right-wing causes, while keeping it quiet. Some people question whether a man with such strict religious beliefs and extremist political connections can run the day-to-day operations of the police department in the most culturally diverse city in the world with an open and flexible mind. The issue isn’t religion or money so much as tolerance.”

I smiled weakly.

“Or the lack thereof.”

Peter glanced at me, offering a small shrug.

“I guess I can see where that would be a problem.”

“Not here in West Hollywood, thank God.”

“Not directly,” Templeton said. “But anyone who takes over the LAPD inevitably has a profound impact on the entire region. The chief commands more than nine thousand sworn officers, the second largest police force in the country. His annual budget exceeds a billion dollars. It’s a very powerful position. Some people feel Fairchild wants to use the chief’s position as a stepping stone to higher public office. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Sounds like a meaty assignment for a reporter with some
chutzpah
.”

“Does it make you wistful for the old days, Justice?”

“Not at all. To my utter amazement, I’m a documentary writer now, getting a new start.” I glanced across at Peter. “With an ace associate producer to show me the way. Right, Peter?”

He turned an endearing shade of crimson, and stared at a sprig of parsley on his otherwise empty plate.

“I’ll do my best.”

Templeton fixed him with her lively dark eyes.

“I hope Ben leaves you enough time for a social life, Peter. You know the old adage about all work and no play.”

We all smiled, while the busboy warmed our coffees and cleared away our empty plates.