January Justice Part 1

JANUARY JUSTICE.

by Athol d.i.c.kson.

"Justice, justice shall you pursue."

Deuteronomy 16:20.

1.

One of the strangest things about the city was the sudden way it disappeared around the edges. One minute you were down on Sunset Boulevard surrounded by gla.s.s and concrete, and the next thing you knew you were up on Mulholland Drive, alone in the rough country. From a high window or a rooftop almost anywhere in Los Angeles you could see the mountains, and there was always something ravenous up there looking down.

I was up among the hungry creatures, standing at the edge of a cliff, with Hollywood and Santa Monica far below me in the distance. One step forward and I would be in midair. I was looking down and wondering if Haley had considered how suddenly you could go from city to wilderness. Then I wondered if it was a distinction without a difference, if the city might be the wilderness and the wilderness the city, and maybe Los Angeles's edges seemed to disappear so suddenly because there really was no separation between sidewalks and mountain paths, buildings and boulders. Up in the mountains or down in the city, either way the carnivores were in control.

I imagined Haley, out of her mind, running full speed off the cliff. I wondered what it had been like, that final second or two before she hit. Had she realized what was happening? Did she recognize the city lights below for what they were, or did she really think she was flying toward the stars? And did she think of me?

Stepping closer to the edge, I slid the toes of my shoes into the air. I looked down two hundred feet, toward the spot where she had broken on the rocks. I stood one inch from eternity and tried to imagine life without her. I could not summon up a single reason why I shouldn't take that final step, except for one. I thought about the kind of animal who would drive someone to do what my wife had done. Predators like that were everywhere. I should know. I had trained for half my life to be one of them. I was hungry, looking down on the city. If I was going to live, the hunger would have to be enough, for now. But I would sink my teeth into him, sooner or later. I would do that for Haley, and for myself, and then maybe it would be my turn to see if I could fly.

I stepped back from the edge.

Studying the ground, I walked slowly back toward the limousine. There were no signs of the trailers or equipment that had been in place that night, or of the people in the production crew. There was no indication anywhere of what had happened. If the police had missed anything useful, nature had removed it. Seven months was a long time in the wilderness.

Still, there was no place else to look, and giving up felt like a betrayal, so I walked around that level place another hour, searching every inch between the cliff edge and the place on the far side of the road where the mountainside continued its steep climb toward the sky. The only signs of humanity were the road itself and the usual things people threw out of the windows of their cars. Finally I got behind the wheel of my Mercedes limo. It was an open question whether I should have been driving. Colors still seemed brighter than normal, and sounds were still too loud. Sometimes I still saw things that most people would agree were not actually there. But I turned the key, pulled onto Mulholland, and descended toward the city anyway.

In an hour I was at the driveway outside Haley's estate on Newport Harbor. I entered the code on the keypad and watched the ma.s.sive gates swing open. I followed the winding drive into the estate and parked the limousine between the Bentley and the Range Rover in the garage. I got out and walked across the grounds. I didn't look at the main house. Her house. Instead, I focused my attention on the flagstone path beneath my feet. When I reached the guesthouse, I went in and crossed the living room and entered the bedroom. I took off my shoes and dropped my shirt and blue jeans where I stood and crawled into bed. It was two thirty in the afternoon.

The next day I had a job, so I got out of bed at nine thirty. The client had been referred by Joel Cantor, one of my regulars who produced a lot of films at Universal Studios. It wouldn't have been wise to turn down a friend of Mr. Cantor's. Besides, it was my first job since they released me from the hospital. I had been out a week. I had sent out emails letting my regular clients know I was available again, but none of them had called for a ride. Maybe it was the fact that my last pa.s.senger had gone out of her mind and flung herself off a cliff. Maybe it was the fact that I had almost done the same. Whatever the reason, I figured I should take whatever work I could get.

I shaved off three day's worth of whiskers. You fall out of the shaving habit when they won't let you have a razor. I took a long hot shower. Then I put on the white cotton shirt and the black suit and the solid black tie that Haley's man, Simon, had set out for me. In the mirror I looked like a fairly normal specimen. Sandy brown hair, square jaw, clean shaven and true blue. A little taller than average, a little broader in the shoulders, and maybe a little better looking, at least that's what I had been told by a few women who should know. Maybe not quite up to casting as a leading man, but not bad. More like love interest material in a supporting role.

I adjusted my cuffs and turned away from my reflection to leave the guesthouse and walk underneath the sycamores over to the garage. Again, I didn't look at the main house.

I selected the stretch Mercedes again and headed back toward Los Angeles. It was a good thing I turned on the radio. They said there was an accident at Beach and the 405, so I took Newport Boulevard to the 5 and then cut back across on the 22.

The traffic made me nervous. It never did that before, but now everything seemed to move in rapid fits and starts. In spite of all the therapy, my nerves still felt as if they had crawled outside my skin. I remembered something I had learned in the hospital. Focus on the truth you know. It was not true that the car beside me was drifting into my lane. It was not true that the car behind me was inching closer, or that the one in front was about to slam on the brakes. It was true that the limousine was whisper quiet, the air conditioning was cool, and I was safe and somewhat sound. So I may have gripped the wheel too tightly, but I persevered. I was good at perseverance.

It took forty-five minutes to reach Inglewood. The hotel was the Renaissance, just north of Century Boulevard and within walking distance of LAX-not that anybody ever walks to the airport, of course. The Renaissance was one of those overnighter places for white-collar travelers with expense accounts who just wanted a meal and a bed and didn't care about the local color.

I rolled up to the porte cochere and parked front and center. The valet hurried over. The stretch Mercedes had that effect on valets.

Getting out I said, "I'm here for a Mr. Brown."

The valet nodded and went inside the lobby. A minute later he was back with two men, both of them middle-aged Latinos, both of them wearing blue jeans and running shoes and oversized, plaid shirts with the tails hanging out. I stood waiting by the open rear door.

As they came closer, I saw deep pockmarks on the first one's cheeks. He seemed to glare at me with sickly yellow eyes. I told myself the hatred in his eyes must be imaginary. I told myself I was okay.

The other one had a strong jaw and high cheekbones. He reminded me of something. Maybe an old photograph of Geronimo.

"Good morning, Mr. Brown," I said to both of them. "My name is Malcolm Cutter."

The one with the bad skin ignored me and got into the limo. The second one said, "Thank you," and followed the first.

As each of them bent to enter the car, I saw bulges underneath their shirttails. I never understood why a man would holster a weapon at the small of his back. It makes sitting in a chair or a car very uncomfortable.

I closed the door, walked around the limo, and got in behind the wheel. Before shifting into drive, I touched the b.u.t.ton that lowered the darkly tinted gla.s.s between the front and rear compartments.

"Where to, gentlemen?" I said after the gla.s.s was down.

"North," said the man who had spoken earlier. Not the pockmarked one; the other one. Mr. Brown, I supposed.

"No particular destination?"

"We were thinking of a visit to your Hollywood. You have possibly heard of the Musso and Frank Grill?"

I smiled and said, "Of course."

"It is a place where famous movies stars are seen?"

"Sometimes."

"Good. Then we will go there."

"Yes, sir."

As we followed the driveway to the street, I touched the b.u.t.ton again. Before the gla.s.s closed completely, the man said, "Leave it open, please."

"All right," I said.

"We might need to ask you something."

"Certainly."

We were on the 405 rolling north before he spoke again. "You are Malcolm Cutter?"

"That's right."

"The gunnery sergeant, Malcolm Cutter?"

I looked in the rearview mirror. "I haven't been a sergeant for some time."

"In the United States Marines."

I stared at him a little longer. So it wasn't Geronimo he reminded me of after all. I said, "Where was it? Guatemala?"

He nodded.

Speaking Spanish, the man next to him said, "I tell you, we cannot trust him."

"Idiot," replied the one called Mr. Brown, also speaking Spanish. "He can understand us."

"That is true," I said, also in Spanish.

"Please forgive my friend," continued Mr. Brown in his native language. "He finds it difficult to believe Americans can be trusted."

"Sadly," I said, "I must admit not all of us are trustworthy."

"Do you remember me?"

"I think so. It was Chiquimula, was it not?"

"Chiquimulilla."

"My apologies."

The man in the mirror shrugged. "A common mistake."

I changed lanes to avoid a dump truck trickling gravel onto the freeway up ahead. I gently pressed on the accelerator, gradually increasing speed. In the mirror I saw the bouncing pebbles. .h.i.t a black Chevrolet Suburban. The Suburban swerved and ended up in the lane behind me.

I thought about my time in Chiquimulilla. There had been a clearing at the edge of the mangroves that line the Rio Los Esclavos, just north of town. In the center of the clearing was a long depression in the soil, perhaps one hundred feet by ten. In the depression, underneath the soggy soil, had been about two hundred bodies.

"If it was Chiquimulilla," I said, "then you must have been with the URNG."

"Yes."

"Comandante Valentin Vega, was it not?"

"That was a long time ago. You have a good memory."

The Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca, or Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit, was an unlikely combination of organizations, Marxist rebel groups, and liberation theology Catholics. Each group had been too small and poorly organized to have much effect on the Guatemalan military individually, so they had banded together with the support of the Sandinistas and the Cubans.

On my first deployment to Guatemala, back in 1996, I had been a corporal in a squad that briefly encountered about twenty URNG guerrillas in a jungle clearing. Valentin Vega, the man in the backseat, had been there. It had been a green-ops mission, covert intelligence gathering only, during the final year of Guatemala's b.l.o.o.d.y civil war. Although the Marine Corps and I parted later on decidedly uneasy terms, I still couldn't discuss a mission that had been conducted without the knowledge or consent of the Guatemalan government. I decided to change the subject.

Still speaking Spanish, I looked into the rearview mirror again. "I do not recognize your unhappy friend."

"You may call him Fidel. Or Castro."

I was amused.

Vega apparently saw my smile in the mirror. "It is not the name his parents gave him. He chose it to honor Comrade Castro."

"I am sure your friend has made all of Cuba proud."

"It would be better if you did not mock Fidel."

In the mirror I saw Fidel Castro's namesake twist in his seat and reach behind his back. Since he didn't appear to be scratching an itch, I a.s.sumed he had removed his handgun from its holster. Or maybe I was imagining things again. It was hard to tell the difference. But the better part of valor is discretion, so I decided to accelerate a little more.

Comandante Valentin said, "It is an honorable name."

"In certain circles, I suppose. Not in mine."

"Seriously. You should use more care in your choice of words."

"You do realize I am going ninety-five? about a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour."

"Perhaps it is too fast."

"Perhaps. But it also makes it inconvenient for Senor Castro to fire his weapon."

"Shooting you would not be inconvenient," said Senor Castro.

"In that case," I said, "I will drive a little faster."

I took us up to one hundred and ten miles per hour. It involved a lot of rapid lane changes, but somehow I found enough holes in the traffic to keep going, which was a minor miracle in LA at that time of day. The signs and barricades and other vehicles left long trails of color as they flashed past on either side. I was pretty sure the trails of color were not real.

"Please," said Vega. "This is not necessary."

"Neither is Senor Castro's weapon."

"He will replace it in his holster."

"If you do not mind..." -I swerved to avoid a beer truck in the lane ahead-"I would prefer he dropped it on the seat up here beside me. Yours, too."

Vega sighed and turned to look out the window at his shoulder. "Do it," he said.

Castro made no move.

"Do what he said, Fidel," Vega repeated.

I glanced into Castro's yellow eyes in the rearview mirror. Then I had to pay attention to the traffic up ahead. The glance had been enough to confirm my earlier suspicion about the man's hatred. It isn't paranoia when it's true. I focused on what I knew to be true.

I cut left into the HOV lane to pa.s.s three cars, and then back to the right to barely miss the rear b.u.mper of a van we were approaching fast. The van honked as we roared by. It sounded distant in the heavily insulated coc.o.o.n of the Mercedes' interior. I could barely hear the engine, and there was only a hint of wind noise. By virtue of impeccable design, the outside world had almost no effect on my pa.s.sengers in the Mercedes. But I had modified the suspension personally, so my sense of contact with the road was excellent. Even at one hundred ten miles per hour, the limo handled as well as some sports cars. Still, it would only take one driver changing lanes without warning, and we'd be finished. I didn't enjoy putting the other drivers in danger.

I was hoping for a patrol car or a CHP motorcycle in the rearview mirror, when Valentin Vega's hand appeared in my peripheral vision. A Glock 26 dropped onto the leather seat beside me. I heard heated whispering in back. After a couple of seconds, another pistol joined the Glock, also a 26, the smaller size, convenient for concealed carry.

I removed my foot from the accelerator and touched the window b.u.t.ton.

As the gla.s.s began to rise between us, Vega said, "Please leave it down. We did as you suggested."

"Your friend Senor Castro might have a knife."

"He does not."