Only Child (24 page)

• • •

"¿
Habla español?"
"Poquito. Muy poquito."
"¿Y que?"
"Bodega, botanica, bruja, plata, jefe . . ."
"¿Y que mas? . . ."
"Pistelola, gusano, violencia, puerco, ropa, compadre, mordida . . ."
"¿Maricón?"
"I've heard the word."
"What does it mean?" Felix asked me. His voice was still sable-soft, but his eyes were freezer burns.
"It's a word for—"
"No,
hombre
. Not what it
is,
what it
means, comprende
?"
"I'm not follo—"
"Somebody calls you
un maricón,
that means you have to
do
something, yes?"
"Oh. Yeah, maybe. Depending on who's saying it. Or where."
"A man calls you
'maricón'
in prison, he is saying— what?"
"Inside? Depends who's doing the calling. Some cliques, that's the conversation. Play the dozens all day, every day. But that's only between them
selves,
see? If you mean to someone you don't know— like for an insult?— never happen. Nobody
challenges
you to a fight in there. If you're really after a guy, you don't warn him. There's none of this 'I'll see you after school' stuff," I said, wondering if he was asking, or testing.
He nodded. Not like he was agreeing, like he wanted me to keep talking.
"Not much fistfighting in there, either," I told him. "Except for when a guy just loses his temper— it's mostly the young ones who do that. Now, in the bing, solitary, guys call each other out all the time. You see a lot of cell gangsters, mouth-artists who get real brave when everybody's locked down. It's 'You're dead, nigger!' this, and 'My homeboys are going over to your house and fuck your daughter in her white ass!' that. Around the clock. Never stops. But it's just background noise.
"The only reason you might call names in there would be an intimidation thing. A test. You wouldn't hear
'maricón,'
though. You'd hear 'pussy' or 'punk.' "
"And what must you do then?"
"Stick 'em or slice 'em," I said, as no-option flat as when I'd first heard the rules explained to me a million years ago. "Maybe not right that minute, but you have to do it. And pretty soon. A man calls you something like that, he's trying to break you with words. But behind the words, if you don't give it up, there's always a knife. His or yours."
"But outside of prison? Then, for an insult . . . ?"
"Sure. That's right. Then it
is
a challenge. Or something you yell out your window at a guy who just cut you off."
"A
great
insult," he said. "It is calling someone a coward, yes? To most people, means the same thing.
Maricón,
it means you have no courage?"
"Like another word for 'punk'?" I said. "Yeah, that's right. I guess it all comes around in a circle, words like that. When I was a little kid, I thought 'punk' meant someone who wouldn't fight— like when you 'punk out,' okay? But as soon as I got Inside, I found out 'punk' is what you are if some jocker owns your ass."
Felix leaned forward, lit a cigarette. "In my . . . culture, in my world, you understand what it would mean, to be thought of . . . that way?"
"Yeah. I did enough time with Latinos to—"
"I don't think so. I don't think an Anglo
could
know. It's different from prison. When you were there, did you know of
maricónazo
who could fight?"
"Sure. Hell, I knew some that
loved
to. I mean flat-out gay guys who were way too bad to fuck with. One guy, Sidney, he was a sensational boxer. Lightheavy. Take you out with either hand, and look pretty doing it. I knew some who were blade men, too. Everybody walked soft around them."
"So they are not all alike?"
"Nobody's all alike."
"That is the difference between our worlds, Burke. In mine,
un maricón
could be accepted. He could do work— there is a contract killer,
muy famoso,
everybody knows what he is— but he could never
lead,
you understand?"
"If you say so."
"I read once, in World War I, some white men died because they would not take a blood transfusion from black men. I do not know if this is true. But I know this. For those who play
'mas macho,'
they would never follow a leader who was not, in their eyes, a 'man.' And that will never, ever change."
"Maybe not."
"You give nothing away, do you?"
"You called this meet, Felix. I thought Giovanni would be here, too. So I drive all the way uptown, find this place, and . . . it's just you."
"You are very trusting," he said, sarcasm dusting his voice.
"You had plenty of chances, if that's where you were going," I told him. "From the very first meeting. Way before you spent any money."
"So? I brought you here because I wanted you to understand that this thing you are doing, it is a very delicate matter."
"I always knew that."
"And you also knew . . . about me and Gio, didn't you?"
"Not before I met you."
"But then, yes?"
"Yes."
"You think it is so apparent?"
"No. Not at all. You
let
me see, didn't you? A test?"
"Of a sort. If it was, how do you know if you passed?"
"Because I'm not dead," I said.
"You think I am a killer?"
"I think you just told me you were."
"Gio thinks it is a
federale.
" Felix tilted his head, as if Giovanni were in the room with us. "He already told you why. But there is another possibility. One I believe you have not considered."
"What's that?"
"That the message was not for Gio; it was for me."
I watched his eyes, asked, "A message that whoever did it knows things?"
"Yes."
"What would be the point?"
"For me to step away. Gio would not be a problem for . . . for the people in my organization. He is not one of us. Who you do
business
with, that is just business. If I moved aside, whoever took over for me, that man could continue with Gio, as before."
"That doesn't add up for me," I told him.
"Why not?"
"If somebody knows something, something that would make you move over, if they had proof, why wouldn't they just mail you a sample of
that
? What's the point of a homicide?"
"Because they would need me to move away," Felix said. "But they would need Gio to stay."
"So what are you telling me? That Giovanni
would
stay?"
"
Sí,
he would stay. This they would expect. Business is business. And Gio doesn't know any other business. In their minds, he would not be . . . emotional about it."
I didn't say anything.
"They don't know him," Felix said, very softly. "Gio would defend me. But, if he had to fight on two fronts, he could not win."
"Why tell me all this?"
"Because I am trapped," he said calmly, a man who'd been there before and recognized the landmarks. "I cannot tell Gio. I cannot tell him that maybe his daughter was killed because of someone who wants something from
me
. That would mean it is one of my people, not some 'fed.' But I know information is a weapon. And I want you to have it all, for what you must do."
"What happens if I can't find out, not for sure?"
"Then it could end as if each of our bosses called me and Gio
'maricón,
' " he said, almost in a whisper. "What choice would we have?"

• • •

"I
've got something for you." The note was under my door in the hotel. Signed "C."
I walked through two sets of connecting doors to the last suite. Cyn was sitting in an armchair. Rejji was kneeling in a far corner, her back to me. She was nude except for a pair of red stiletto heels. Her hands were bound behind her back with a red silk scarf.
"I got your message," I said to Cyn.
"She's so pretty when she's been bad," Cyn said.
"You said you had something for me?"
"Don't you like her?"
"I like you both."
"Ooo!"
"Cyn . . ." I said, shortly, in no mood to play.
"We found her."
"Who?"
"The sorority girl."
"From the tape?"
"Yep. The one using the paddle."
"Are you sure?"
"We looked at that tape a hundred times, Burke. We bothered the Mole so much that . . . Michelle— is that his wife, for real?— Michelle went off on us.
"So he showed us how to stop the frames and do everything ourselves. Then we took the yearbooks, that the kid got us? It was a long shot, but we had to do
something
to kill time out here, so . . ."
"Let me see."
"Look," she said, pointing to a blown-up photocopy of a picture of a teenage girl whose most striking features were long straight hair and a prominent nose. "And here's a still from the tape. The Mole hooked it up with some cables so we could just—"
"Sssh," I said.

• • •

"D
o you know what calipers are?" I asked Cyn.
"Sure. To measure. In school, we had to—"
"In the room where we keep the equipment, on the long table, there's a whole set of them. Little ones, with metal points at both ends. They're in a leather case, blue plush lining. Could you get them for me?"
"What do you need them for?"
"I'll show you when you get back."
"Okay." She walked over to where Rejji was kneeling and lifted her thick dark hair with one hand, revealing a red collar and a short length of chain. Cyn grabbed the chain and pulled it sharply, forcing the brunette's head all the way down until her nose was in the corner. "Stay!" she said.

• • •

"W
as she a good bitch while I was gone?" Cyn.
"Perfect."
"I doubt it," Cyn said, taking a leather riding crop from a dresser drawer and walking purposefully over to the corner.

• • •

"W
hat are you
doing
?" Cyn demanded, a few minutes later.
"It's a very good match," I told her. "And whoever thought to make the two blowups the same scale knew what they were doing—"
She leaned over, very close. "That was Rejji," she whispered. "But she's still being punished, so I'll tell her later."
I nodded, went on: "But we're comparing a relatively sharp photo, from the yearbook, with one that has a lot more grain, from the videotape. And they weren't taken at exactly the same angle, so I'm trying to narrow things down."
"With those?" she asked, meaning the calipers I was holding.
"Yeah. There's things about your appearance you can change— hairstyles, gum in your cheeks, a mustache— but there's some things that always stay the same. A guy named Bertillon discovered this a long time ago. Way before fingerprints. The distance between the pupils of the eyes, that's one of them."
"
Your
eyes, they . . ."
"Yeah, I know. But that's one in a million, Cyn. For most people, even with plastic surgery on other parts of their face, like, say, a nose job, that distance would stay the same. Nobody's going to get their eye muscles severed just to change their appearance. You lose your—"
"I didn't mean . . ."
"It's okay. Here, look: this thing is measured in tiny units. Every time you move the points, there's a little click. . . . See?"
"Oh!"
"So we lock it in like this . . . one tip in the center of each of her eyes, okay? Now we move it to . . . here, and . . ."
"It's the same!"
"I think it is, girl," I said cautiously. "I think it is."

• • •

"Y
ou hauling the load, you get to pick the road, Schoolboy," the Prof said.
He had just finished telling me how he and Clarence had run down a couple of members of the crew that had beaten the Latin kid. "Our boy, he don't just pop up on the set, bro. This video guy, he pulls one of the gang aside. Says he knows they jump in new members; maybe they want a tape of the next time they do one? The guy he speaks to,
he
goes back to the whole crew. Or maybe just to the boss, I don't know. Anyhow, he gets permission. I asked the ones we spoke to, why didn't they just kick the video guy's ass and take his tape when he was finished? One of the boys, he says, yeah, that's exactly what
he
would have done. But the leader, he put the kibosh on it."
"Sure," I said. "The boss wanted to be in a fucking movie."
"That's what I say, too, mahn." Clarence. "It is true what you tell us from the start. These young ones, they are insane for this."
"You get anything on the video man?"
"Same as you, Schoolboy. White man, nothing special."
"They didn't know him? From around?"
"Nope. They said he was a little older than what
your
guy said, but I figure that's just in the way people see things, right? Your man Ozell, probably Mr. Video looks like a punk kid to him, so he comes up younger in his eyes. The kids we talked to, they were— what?— nineteen, tops. So a guy twenty-five, he's old, to them."
"Not even his car?"
"Zero, bro. Never saw it."
"Out here, if he's driving some generic, nobody in that age group
would
see it. Unless he's
trying
to make his wheels stand out, they'd be invisible."
"That's why it's your play to say, son. You want to use those obey-for-pay broads, it's your call, that's all."
"There's only so many ways to get people to talk," I told them. "We've got a lot of cards in our hand. And we can put most of them on the table. But we can't make people tell us what they don't know. And if Cyn and Rejji are right, and it
is
the same girl, she knows more than anything we've got so far."