Go-Between

Chapter Fifteen

Danny’s hearing was today.

She forgot about that for a while, during yoga. That was one of the reasons she liked yoga, because she could get out of her own head. “Breathe. Breathe.” And sweat. Take her body to the edge and then pull back. And this was yoga on the beach, just Michelle, Caitlin and their instructor, feet in the sand, waves pounding in front of them, seagulls and pelicans wheeling in the late morning sky.

She was fine as long as she was moving.

But as soon as they lay down on the packed sand for Corpse Pose at the end of the session, the point where you were supposed to completely relax, sink into the earth and feel nothing, the thought snaked back.

Danny’s hearing was in an hour.

Why am I even worrying about it? she thought. Derek could produce letters from half of Humboldt County saying what a great guy Danny was, how much he’d contributed to the community, it wasn’t going to make any difference.

They weren’t going to let him out.

“That was really fun,” Caitlin said, as they scuffed up the beach to the bike path.

“I’m glad you liked it,” Michelle said.

“I did. I mean, you know, I used to work out. Do Zumba.” She snorted, like the whole notion was too absurd to contemplate. “I need to get back in the habit of doing this kind of thing.”

The reasons she’d stopped, the great fracture in her life, seemed to yawn in the air between them.

“Is there anything in particular you’d like to do today? Anything… anything I can do?”

“I don’t know. Find us a place for lunch, I guess.”

They paused at the bike path, waiting for a pair of roller-bladers and a family on rented beach cruisers to pass by.

“Oh, and why don’t you see if you can get a hold of that man from, what was it, PCA? The one we met last night.”

“Troy Stone?”

“Yeah. Might as well see if he’s available. Since he wanted to meet with me.”

Caitlin said this casually, but Michelle had a feeling she’d been giving the matter some thought.

Why would Caitlin want to meet with Troy Stone? Was she really interested in what he had to say, when they’d “been playing opposite ends of the field”? By that Michelle figured he was a supporter of the two propositions on the ballot here, to legalize pot and reduce prison sentences for non-violent crimes. The propositions Safer America was raising money to defeat.

We’re going to look for answers everywhere, Caitlin had said last night.

Michelle hadn’t thought she’d meant it.

After seeing the way Caitlin had performed, seeing Caitlin’s acknowledgment after her speech that it had in fact been a performance…

What did Caitlin really want? Who was she, underneath the performance, underneath the role of tragic victim?

You can’t trust her, Michelle told herself. For all you know, she might be part of Gary’s game.

“Well, it’s not good news.”

“I didn’t expect any.”

Why lie?

“Emily, this is far from over,” Derek said.

“Just tell me what happened.”

She’d slipped outside the hotel and powered up her Emily phone while Caitlin was finishing up a spa treatment before their lunch. Walked to where the sand was deep and powdered and checked for a signal-cell service had always been spotty around here.

Hardly anyone hung out on this middle part of the beach. Most people went down closer to the water, where the sand was packed, or stayed on the boardwalk.

“They denied bail.”

“You were expecting something different?”

“To be honest? No. For whatever reason they’ve really got a hard-on for Jeff. The judge might as well be taking dictation from the prosecution.”

She could feel the rage and panic rising up from her gut, taste the acid bile in her throat. She wanted to scream.

Instead she said, “So. Tell me. How is this ‘far from over’?”

“Well, there’s no trial date yet. They say they need more time to prepare their case.”

“And that’s good?”

“For us, yes. If they hadn’t delayed, I’d be doing it myself.”

“Why?”

A moment of silence. Michelle stared at the shoreline.

Was that a dolphin, surfing in the waves? She’d have to get closer to be sure.

“I don’t think they want this to go to trial,” Derek finally said. “I think they want to make a deal. They’re making things rough on Jeff, threatening a long sentence, denying bail, to increase the pressure so he’ll take it.”

A deal? Was that even possible, with Gary pulling the strings?

“What kind of deal?”

“Well, there’s no way to be sure. No one’s put anything on the table, yet. But typically, they’ll want any information Jeff could provide on the other players involved here. If they can roll up a couple of bigger fish, that might be enough for Jeff to walk. Or at least get a lesser sentence.”

How does this make sense? Michelle wanted to ask. There was no way Gary was going to let Danny go if he informed on Bobby and whoever it was who’d bought his cargo. Those people weren’t worth anything. Not to Gary.

And the last thing that Gary would want was for Danny to really start talking. About what he knew. About the things he’d done.

She tried to think it through.

Maybe Gary could set Danny up. But maybe he couldn’t control what happened after that. Maybe the prosecutors were honest actors, in their own way. Maybe they’d be willing to cut some kind of deal.

She wanted to believe that. But she really didn’t.

“You know Jeff,” she said. “Not that I think he did anything wrong, but… he really values loyalty. So… this whole idea that he’d, well, betray other people, if he had any knowledge like that…”

“I do know,” Derek said. “But I’m telling you, it may be our best option. And I might need you to convince Jeff of that.”

Like she had that power. When had Danny ever listened to her?

“Because look, Emily, realistically… you’re one of the points where they can apply pressure. It’s only a matter of time before they do.”

“I’ll talk to him,” she said.

Troy Stone was available to meet later that afternoon.

“I’m in Venice,” he’d said. “So easy for you to get to. How about Hal’s on Abbot Kinney? They have valet parking.”

“Do you think… is it safe for us to walk down?” Caitlin asked.

The question took Michelle by surprise. “Sure,” she said. “It’s a nice walk. People come here from all over the world.”

“I hate arriving places all in a sweat. But it’s not too hot. And the breeze is nice. I just thought…” Caitlin hesitated. Her cheeks reddened. “I need to start getting out more. And it’s a pretty day.”

So they walked. It was a pretty day. Most of them were, here. One thing Michelle supposed she missed. The sky was that slightly desiccated blue, with high, wispy clouds; you could follow the quiet roar of the low waves as they rolled across the long, flat beach, heading up the coast, like some kind of stereo demonstration. Her parents had an old vinyl LP like that, with airplane and train sounds. She and Maggie played it incessantly when they were little kids.

The Venice boardwalk hadn’t changed much. The same T-shirt and sunglasses stores, a poster shop, a lot of food stands and restaurants-a couple of which did seem more upmarket than what had been here a few years ago-interspersed with newer condos that looked like concrete bunkers had mated with aquariums. On the beach side, vendors sold crafts, incense, political bumper stickers and buttons and 9/11 Truther literature. There were tarot readers, a freak show, performers, some playing music, others juggling chainsaws, and that guy who wore a turban and roller blades and played an electric guitar, singing about a man from Mars. He’d been in so many TV shows and commercials that he had to be living pretty well off his residuals by now, Michelle thought. The crowd was the usual mix of tourists and locals, people riding beach cruisers and skateboards, street kids begging for change, would-be gangsters walking their pit bulls. A homeless man worked on a cartoonish sand sculpture of a mermaid with huge breasts, the magic marker scrawl on a piece of cardboard requesting no photos without a donation. Another man with a boa constrictor wrapped around his neck pedaled past on a unicycle.

“Oh, would you look at that!” Caitlin said, with an exasperated chuckle.

Michelle looked to where she pointed.

Medical Marijuana Evaluation, the sign said. Also, Botox by the Beach.

“Nice to know you can get everything you need in one place,” Caitlin said, rolling her eyes.

They passed another cannabis clinic, this one a smaller fluorescent-green storefront, tucked between a tattoo parlor and a shop that sold “tobacco water pipes and smoking accessories.” Two women barely out of their teens wearing bikini tops, cut-off shorts and leis made of fake marijuana leaves stood out in front. “Get legal!” they called out. “Free evaluation!” The customers waiting inside looked mostly young, scruffy and stoned, some holding skateboards and grimy backpacks.

“I’m sure there’s all kinds of legitimate medical needs going on there,” Caitlin muttered.

“I think we go this way,” Michelle said. This was not a subject she wanted to talk about.

Abbot Kinney had gentrified a lot in her last few years in Los Angeles, but walking down the street now, Michelle could see it had gone even more upscale during her time away. Expensive boutiques, designer-furniture stores and foodie restaurants filled the mostly low, vintage brick and California Spanish stucco buildings, with the occasional modernist cube thrown in. New faux lofts had sprung up behind the main street in places.

When Michelle was younger, Venice had been bohemian, cheap and somewhat dangerous. It looked like none of those things now.

Michelle watched Caitlin as she paused to look at a purse in a display window. “Now that is cute,” she was saying. Like they were two girlfriends out for an afternoon of shopping and cocktails.

There was danger here, all right, but not from gangbangers or meth heads. The danger came from very high places, likely from Caitlin’s own inner circle, and it was following them both, Michelle knew.

And Caitlin had no idea.

At least, Michelle didn’t think she did.

x x x

“Thank you for agreeing to see me.” Troy Stone rose, and offered his hand. He’d secured a booth on the bar side of Hal’s restaurant.

Hal’s was a neighborhood fixture and Industry hangout, even back in the days when Abbot Kinney had been on the border of a gang war. Michelle had always liked the place. Dark granite floors, white walls with rotating art, a high ceiling, and acoustics that during the day actually allowed for conversation. A good choice for a meeting.

“My pleasure, Mr. Stone,” Caitlin said, taking his hand briefly. Her guarded look was back, the politeness held at a distance.

“Troy, please.”

Today he wore a Lacoste mustard polo shirt and khaki chinos. The polo showed his broad chest, the sleeves cutting across his biceps. If he hadn’t been an athlete, he looked like one, a recently retired jock who still hit the gym to keep his gut in check.

Caitlin and Michelle sat down across from him.

“What can I get you ladies to drink?”

Caitlin wanted chardonnay, of course. Troy opted for beer. Michelle stuck with Pellegrino. “She’s trying to be a good influence on me,” Caitlin said with a grin, that flirtatiousness typical of her returning for a moment. “I’m not sure it’s taking, though.”

Troy chuckled. “In wine there is wisdom. In beer, there is strength. In water? There’s bacteria. I don’t know if that’s true, but I saw it on a T-shirt once.”

They both have their charming masks on, Michelle thought.

“Have you lived in Venice long?” she asked.

He leaned back and sipped his beer. A Red Stripe. “You might say that. I’m in my grandparent’s old house, a few blocks from here. We were able to keep it in the family, when they passed.”

“Oakwood? Michelle asked.

He held himself still for a moment.

Was he insulted? Maybe it was another assumption she shouldn’t have made.

“Yes,” he said. “You’re familiar with the history here, I take it.”

“I lived in LA for a long time.”

Troy smiled easily. Turned to Caitlin. “Oakwood has been a black neighborhood from the time they built Venice, over a hundred years ago. Mostly due to employees of Abbot Kinney, the founder. He wanted to make sure there was a place where his chauffeur could live, seeing how black folk couldn’t own property in much of Los Angeles. Of course there’s fewer of us here now, with all the gentrification going on.”

“I heard Google moved in,” Michelle said.

“Yep, and a Whole Foods. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying that Whole Foods. But there are still plenty of people around here who can’t afford it. They’re living just a few blocks away, but it’s a different world.”

He was working his way into his pitch. So many people in LA had a pitch, and Michelle had heard so many of them.

Their screenplays. Their bands. Their high-concept restaurants.

Their charities.

Now it was Caitlin’s turn to smile. “Tell me more, Mr. Stone-Troy.”

Caitlin, apparently, had heard her share as well.

A small grimace crossed his face, and then a short burst of a sigh. “Look, we can sit here and talk about economic opportunity and social justice and all of those big issues, but that’s not why I wanted to talk to you, and I think you know it.”

Caitlin seemed surprised. Maybe she’d expected a little more small talk before getting down to business. “I’m not sure that I do. Though I assume it has to do with our election efforts here.”

“It does. Look, I believe your intentions are good, but those propositions have the potential to make a positive impact in a lot of communities here.”

“Really? Legalizing pot is good for communities?” She smiled deliberately. “Like liquor stores are?”

He leaned forward. Not quite in her space, but closing the gap. “What you need to understand is that people of color who are not wealthy tend to have very different interactions with law enforcement and the justice system than white, affluent folks do.”

“I do understand that, actually.” Her voice had turned hard. Defensive. “I realize there are some problems with how the law is applied. But that doesn’t change the need for appropriate laws. And it doesn’t remove the danger of being too lenient in how we deal with criminals.”

This had gotten offtrack very quickly, Michelle thought. Troy and Caitlin were bristling at each other when they’d barely started talking.

“It goes beyond ‘some problems,’” he said. “If you need statistics, I can quote them all day. But here’s one that’s relevant to your efforts. Whites and blacks smoke marijuana at about the same rates. On average, a black kid is four times more likely to get arrested for possession. In some places? Up to thirty times more likely. In poor neighborhoods where there’s a heavy police presence, a lot of black kids end up with a so-called extensive criminal history that’s nothing but minor possession busts. And that record follows them around for the rest of their lives. You know that blacks are ten times more likely to go to prison for a drug offense than whites?”

Michelle could see Caitlin’s grip tighten on her wine glass. She had to know these statistics already. And hadn’t she expressed doubts about the whole marijuana focus at the last board meeting? But her tone, her body language-she didn’t want to hear it now. Not from Troy.

“I’m not saying there aren’t problems,” she said. “But addressing them by wholesale legalization? You really think that’s a way to help poor kids of color do better in life? Making it easier for them to smoke pot all day?”

“I’d rather have them smoking pot than sitting in prison, learning nothing except how to be better criminals. But you know what, I can understand why people have doubts about legalization. I can understand why your group is against that, even if I’m not so clear on why an organization from Texas is dumping a ton of money on an election in California. Shouldn’t we be left to make our own decisions about this?”

Caitlin snorted. “What happens in California doesn’t stay in California. I think you know that.”

Now Troy sat back in the booth. He chuckled. “Well, all right, you have a point there. And look, I know I’m coming on strong. I get impatient sometimes. I’ve just seen too many kids get screwed up by the system. You see them when they’re little, running around and playing without a care, and you watch them turn hard and hopeless. It’s got to stop. Even if we disagree on legalization, can we at least agree on that?”

Caitlin nodded slowly. “I guess we just disagree on how to go about it.”

“Can we talk about sentencing reform, then? Because I’m having a hard time understanding why Safer America is so dead set against it.”

“Because longer sentences work. Why else have we seen crime rates drop the way they have?”

“Now, there’s absolutely no proof that longer sentences have anything to do with that. Rates started dropping before longer sentences kicked in.”

“What does it have to do with it, then?”

“Demographics. Not as many young people since the Boomers aged up. Smarter policing in some cases. Less opportunity to commit crime in others-increased surveillance, cell phones-”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Cell phones?”

Something had shifted between them. Michelle couldn’t exactly call Caitlin’s attitude playful now, but she was interested. Engaged. Troy had relaxed, too, leaning back against the bench, arm stretched along the back.

“Yeah. Cell phone videos. Crime’s just harder to get away with than it used to be.”

“But you can’t just pretend punishment doesn’t play a role in that. A criminal in prison doesn’t have an opportunity to commit crimes, now, does he?”

“All right, I’ll grant you that. But how does a drop in violent crime correlate to locking up non-violent offenders for longer and longer periods? There isn’t a country in the world that incarcerates a greater percentage of its people than the United States. And about a half a million of those people are behind bars for drug offenses. That’s over a thousand percent increase since the War on Drugs started in 1980. You can’t tell me that’s what winning a war looks like.”

“Maybe not. But legalization? Isn’t that just giving up? We passed a few of your pot ‘clinics’ on the way over here. Aren’t those bad enough? Waiting rooms full of kids working the system to get high legally? You want even more of that?”

“Oh, you were down on the boardwalk.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Look, I agree there’s abuse. I just disagree that this abuse is worse for our communities than criminalizing behavior kids are going to engage in anyway.”

Caitlin nodded slightly. Not because she agreed with him, Michelle thought, but just to show that she’d heard what he had to say.

She sipped her wine. He drank his beer.

“Besides, some of those clinics are doing good work,” he said. “I can take you to one, if you’re interested.”

Caitlin laughed a little, uncomfortably. Maybe she was picturing all those stoned kids on skateboards and not particularly wanting to mingle with them. “I don’t know that we have time for that.”

“It’s just up the block. I mean, literally. On this street.”

Abbot Kinney’s marijuana dispensary was hiding in plain sight, between an old bungalow turned shoe boutique and an art gallery. It had a cheerful neon green sign that said Organic Medicine, a display window with hoodies and Chinese herbs and medicinal teas. Outside, there was a rack of T-shirts and a table and chairs, with a big aluminum water bowl for dogs. But the most unusual thing about it to Michelle’s eye was the large, open door. That wasn’t how these places generally did business. Usually if they even had windows, they were shuttered, protected by iron bars.

This one looked like an ordinary retail store.

“We’re an open clinic,” the young woman at the counter explained. “You don’t have to have a prescription to come in and look. We sell all kinds of other medicinal products. And our herbalists can recommend things other than cannabis, if you’d like.”

She didn’t look like the sort of person you’d expect to find working at a pot dispensary. She wore a tailored white blouse and black slacks, tortoiseshell-framed glasses. The store didn’t look like the dispensaries in Humboldt Michelle had seen either, with its neat racks of T-shirts and sweatshirts, shelves of teas and herbs, aromatherapy burners and neti pots.

But then there was the main counter, filled with pipes and vaporizers and edibles, and the large glass jars of buds that lined the shelves behind it, the pungent scent somewhere between pine sap and skunk that they couldn’t completely seal up.

There were a couple of customers at the counter, being serviced by two twentysomethings, a man and a woman wearing logo T-shirts.

“I’ll take two grams of the Fire OG Kush and what do you have in a top-shelf Sativa dominant today?”

He looked like a studio exec, thirtysomething, swept-back hair, expensive, slouchy suit.

“I’ve got a dank Jack Herer,” the clerk said.

“Organic?”

“It’s indoor. This time of year, that’s what you’re going to get.”

The other customer was a woman in her sixties, frail, with the sort of gray pallor that came with a serious illness. “Why don’t you try the 420 Bar?” the clerk was saying. “And another thing you might like are these tinctures. They’re great for making tea.”

“Well, this is pretty interesting,” Caitlin said. She turned to the woman behind the register. “So if I told you I had a particular condition, you’d recommend something for me?”

“I wouldn’t,” the woman said. “I’m not an expert. I mean, I know the basics. But it’s really best if you consult with one of our herbalists and decide on a course of treatment.”

“I’m just curious,” Caitlin said. “You medical-marijuana people make all kinds of claims on what it’s good for. If I came in here with a doctor’s note, saying I wanted something to treat, I don’t know, insomnia or PTSD or something, you’d tell me there’s some kind of pot that’s good for that?”

“A lot of our patients use cannabis for insomnia. And there are a few small studies where veterans are finding cannabis helps them with their PTSD. You really should talk to one of our herbalists about it, if you’re interested.”

Caitlin hesitated. “That’s all right,” she said. “I’m from out of state, anyway.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem with edibles,” the clerk was saying to the older woman, nodding. “They can take a long time to kick in. If you don’t want to smoke, have you considered vaporizing? There’s a couple vaporizers I can recommend that don’t cost too much.”

“I think I do want to try that,” the woman said. “I’d like something that works right away.”

x x x

After that, they walked up to the Oakwood Recreation Center. All the years she’d lived in Los Angeles, and Michelle had rarely been to this neighborhood. It had been the ’hood, after all, one of the few places on the Westside where the ’92 riots had flared, where rival gangs murdered each other. That’s how she’d always thought of the place, anyway. The truth had probably always been more complicated (if she’d learned anything the past few years, it was that).

And Oakwood had been changing for a while. Expensive houses were being built. Tom had looked into projects here, though he’d never managed to put anything together, as far as she knew.

Oakwood didn’t feel dangerous now. Tree-shaded streets with low bungalows and Craftsman cottages, a few dense stucco housing project apartment buildings, new concrete condos here and there, and designer bunkers that looked as though they’d been dropped onto a lot that was too small to contain them. People pedaling slowly by on beach cruisers, kids on scooters and skateboards, a Mexican vendor selling ice cream from a pushcart.

“Yeah, it was pretty heavy for a while,” Troy said. “Things have calmed down a lot. I don’t know if it’s because most kids now don’t want anything to do with the crack cocaine, seeing what it did to their elders, or if enough bangers got priced out of the neighborhood, or what. I think maybe people just got tired of it all.”

“Or cell phones,” Caitlin said, with a sideways smile.

He laughed. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“How’re you doing today?” a man called out from his porch.

“Oh, just fine,” Troy said. “You?”

“Can’t complain. It’s a beautiful day.”

“You know, it really is,” Caitlin said.

At the rec center, Latino kids played soccer. On the other half of the field, there was a kickball game going on, two teams of mostly white hipsters. A few middle-aged black men and women sat at the picnic tables around the fringes.

“There’s all kinds of great programs here for the kids,” Troy said. “Not just sports. Music, art, cooking, tutoring for school. What we really need are more things like that. Support for kids who have problems at home. A better education. And jobs at the other end. Not a pipeline to prison for smoking weed.”

Caitlin stared at the soccer field, watching the children play. Michelle thought they looked to be about seven or eight years old. They played with a combination of intensity, laughter and tears.

Had her little boy, Alex, played soccer?

He probably had, Michelle thought. Most kids his age did these days.

They stood outside Shutters by Troy’s Pathfinder, where valets parked a succession of BMWs, Porsches and Benzes.

“I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me today,” he said.

Troy had driven them back to their hotel. “Come on, it’ll take forever for a cab to come. And it’s really no problem. I need to get back to the office, anyway.”

“Well, thank you for the discussion and tour.” Caitlin shook herself, like a cat who’d gotten sprinkled with water. “And I mean that.”

“I don’t imagine I talked you into anything though.”

Caitlin stood just at the edge of his open car door. “It’s a little soon for that.”

Troy paused by the door frame. “Can we keep talking?”

“I can’t see any reason why not.”

“Good.”

They smiled at each other. He got into the car, swung his legs inside like his back was hurting, reached to close the door.

“Lead,” Caitlin said.

“Lead?”

She seemed almost embarrassed. “I read somewhere that there’s a strong correlation between lead in the environment and violent crime. And the decline of lead tracks with the decline of crime.”

“Really? I’d love to read that.”

“I’ll see if I can dig up the link.”

Watching the two, Michelle could still sense tension between them, but a different kind than there had been before.

She’d bet money what she was seeing now was attraction.

The back of her neck prickled.

She was pretty sure that this could not be good.