In Big Trouble

Chapter 15

Tess was jumping rope in her room on the next morning when the pounding started. She assumed it was the hooker next door, who couldn't sleep through her hopping. Even with the carpet muffling her slow double-bounce jumps-she was much too tired to jump proper pepper-style, like a boxer- La Casita did seem to shake a little each time she landed. Too bad. After all, Tess had slept through her noises last night, which were much louder and less rhythmic than rope-skipping. But as she continued jumping, she realized the pounding was coming through the door, not the wall. She had a guest.

"Some guard dog," said Rick Trejo, using his soft leather briefcase to shield his double-breasted suit-Armani, or a darn good copy-from Esskay's affections. "You ready for our meeting?"

"Where's Crow?"

"He's a loose cannon, and I don't need the hassle of shuttling artillery around San Antonio. Besides, it's my understanding you're not his favorite person right now."

There was a question in Rick Trejo's eyes, one she didn't want to answer. "I wasn't expecting you for another hour."

"I moved things up. I was going to eat breakfast first, but it's better to talk to this guy on an empty stomach."

"Give me five minutes to get ready."

In six minutes, she was out of the shower, in fresh clothes, and plaiting her wet hair. Rick Trejo, who seemed to have a talent for making himself at home in the world, had removed his jacket and was stretched out on the bed with Esskay. They were watching the local news segment that came at the end of each thirty-minute chunk of the national news.

"Fatuous," he declared. "If it bleeds it leads, indeed. The dip in the homicide rate has sure been hard on local news here. We're seeing a lot more car crashes and freak accident footage. Is your news this bad?"

"As a point of local pride, I would have to pit Baltimore's television news against any major market for sheer awfulness."

Rick tried to change the channel, only to find that the television set had no other channels.

"Nice place," he said. "I can see you're accustomed to traveling in style. Oh well, Channel 5 is good enough. The important thing is, Guzman played fair. He didn't leak the fact that Crow had been questioned to the Eagle or the television stations."

"How could he? Crow wasn't charged. I used to work for a newspaper. We never would have identified someone unless he had been charged or named in a warrant."

"You don't know the San Antonio Eagle, querida. They have ways with punctuation. When in doubt, just put a question mark at the end of the headline. ‘Is there a killer cop in San Antonio?' ‘Is the mayor's marriage falling apart?' Sometimes, they get so carried away, they ask questions where simple statements of fact will do. ‘Is Governor George W. Bush elected easily to a second term?'"

"Was there?"

"What, a George W. Bush? Believe me, he's all too real."

"No, a killer cop."

"In fact, there was, a long time ago. He's dead now, killed by his partner, who was then acquitted. And the mayor's marriage was falling apart, but he put it back together again, just like Humpty Dumpty. So maybe the reason the Eagle doesn't get sued is because it asks the right questions." He glanced at his watch. Not a Rolex, but it might as well have been. Its gold casing was no wider than a dime. Funny, how small had become a status symbol in some things. Tess bet Rick Trejo had a cell phone the size of a credit card. "Let's go. Although I don't know why I'm in such a hurry. It's not like he's going anywhere. But the earlier in the day we talk to him, the less stoned he'll be."

"Sounds like a classy guy, this ex-client of yours."

"Sweetheart, you don't know the half of it."

As Rick Trejo's car headed west along Commerce Street, Tess was quickly disabused of any notion that she had begun to get her bearings in San Antonio. The trip had been familiar for a few blocks-she recognized downtown, caught a glimpse of the police station where she had spent Sunday morning-but then they passed under a freeway, and it was as if they had entered a different city. A different country, really, with signs in Spanish and rundown bungalows painted in once-bright Southwestern colors, now faded from the harsh sun.

"Welcome to the barrio," Rick said. His Spanish always sounded faintly ironic, as if he were mocking himself. Or mocking others' ideas about him.

"It's not so bad," said an ever-competitive Tess. "Baltimore's slums are much worse."

Trejo smiled. "Actually, some parts of the west side are very nice. I grew up on this side of town, my parents still live here, in as nice a neighborhood as you could ask for. But I'll let you walk through the Alazan-Apache Courts at midnight, see how ‘not bad' you think it is."

He headed south, then west, south again-she could tell only because his dash had a built-in compass, as well as an inside-outside themometer-and finally stopped the car in a small business district. There was a group of men hanging on the corner, and a little chorus of hisses went up when Tess got out of the car. She hissed back at them, which was met with a great whoop of delight.

"Ignore them," Rick said, rounding the corner. "They're harmless. Just day workers waiting for someone to come by with a job for them."

"But it's so rude," Tess said.

"Yeah, well, after we talk to this guy, you'll be begging for that kind of rudeness."

They walked up a shady street, to a house where a shirtless man sat on the steps of the front porch, drinking a beer. The house and garden were well-tended but shabby, usually the signs of an older woman living alone. Yet here was this seemingly able-bodied man who could have made the small repairs it needed.

"A little early for a beer, Al," Rick said.

"And good morning to you, abogado. You come all the way over here just to see what I'm having for breakfast?"

He was small, with narrow shoulders and a thin, sly face. Tess watched his dark eyes shift, saw his gaze follow a group of children walking down the street. He held his tongue between his teeth, in the unselfconscious style of a little boy concentrating on a task.

"Stop it, Al," Rick said.

"It's legal to look, isn't it? I know, I know-the priest says it's a sin to even think it, but the judge's law is different from the church's law. The judge lets you think all sorts of things, as long as you don't do them. The priest lets you do things, as long as you confess to them. Is this your girlfriend? She's a little big for my taste. I like them flatter-chested. But you know that."

"This is Tess Monaghan, who's working on a case with me. Tess, this is Alberto Rojas, a former client."

"Nice to meet you."

To Tess's relief, Rojas didn't offer his hand. Although he looked clean enough, he had a too-sweet smell, as if he had to douse himself in cologne and deodorant soap to mask a terminally sour body odor.

Trejo put one shiny loafer on the lowest porch step, but didn't come any closer to his one-time client. "How long you've been out of Huntsville, Al?"

"You should know." His words came out wet and soft, as if there was too much moisture in his mean little mouth. "You was my lawyer, for all the good it did me. My mama paid you all that money, and for what? I still went to prison."

"For two years. They wanted to put you away for twenty, remember? They were going to put you in there for a good long time, and all but plaster a bumpersticker on your ass that said ‘Honk if you love baby rapers.' Instead, you were convicted for grand theft auto."

"So next time," Rojas said, "I won't steal no fucking car."

"No next times. You gave your word. Remember? You sat there in my office and cried in front of your mama, and said you would learn to control yourself if you got a chance. Besides, your neighbors all got letters. They know you're back in the neighborhood, they know what you did to that little girl. The elementary school has your picture up, the bodega, the ice houses. You'll never get near another child."

"It's a big city, abogado. There are many schools, many bodegas, many ice houses. Parks and playgrounds, too."

"Which is why you have that thing on your ankle." Tess looked down and saw the cuff used for electronic probation peeking beneath the hem of Rojas's loose gabardine slacks.

"Yes, more of your good work, Counselor. You were really looking out for me."

"In fact, I was. You make any friends in Huntsville?"

"I was a nice boy. My size, you have to be."

"There were two men from here, Laylan Weeks and Tom Darden, pulling a long haul for kidnapping. You know them?"

"Huntsville is a big place, bigger than some cities."

"Yeah, but all the boys who like little boys and girls manage get to know one another, don't they? I did a little checking on Darden and Weeks. There was a rumor that they took this kid, Danny Boyd, for sex, not money. It was hushed up for the kid's sake, but the story's still out there. You know anything about that?"

Rojas smiled. His teeth were as brown as the beer bottle he was sucking on. "They told everyone who would listen that they were in it for the money."

"So you knew them."

"A little. From afar. They liked to tell everyone that they were big, bad hombres who had done terrible things, important things." He sucked on the bottle-didn't drink from it, just stuck the long neck in his mouth and popped it in and out of his cheek. "Personally, I always thought they were full of shit."

"So I guess you didn't make any plans to catch up with them when you all came home to San Antone."

"Like I said, we weren't really friends."

Rick pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. Rojas took it, rolled it tight as a cigarette, then blew through it, making it sound like a kazoo.

"The cops gave me fifty," he said.

"The cops have already been here?"

"Oh, yeah." He smiled at Rick's consternation. "They even asked the same kind of questions, but they were nicer to me. Much more respectful."

"What did you tell them?"

"How can I give to you for twenty what I gave to them for fifty?" Rojas asked sweetly, as if he were a man who dedicated his life to such questions of fairness and ethics. Trejo pulled out another twenty, and a ten, which Rojas tucked into his waistband, like a stripper saving tips in a G-string.

"They said they had money coming to them, when they got out. They said they were set for life."

"You told the cops all this."

"Maybe." Rojas had now unfurled one of the twenties and was edging it in and out of his teeth, like a wide piece of dental floss. Tess felt sorry for the unsuspecting cashier whose hand might one day close over this bill. "Maybe I told them more, told them about the things that Darden and Weeks bragged about, the things they never got popped for. I don't know, abogado. Every day is the same for me, you know. I just sit on the porch and watch the little children go by. It's up to me to put some variety into it. Variety is the spice of life. Or so they say."

A woman's shadowy form appeared at the screen door. "Quienes son, Alberto?" she called sharply.

"Señor Trejo, my wonderful, wonderful lawyer, and some grandota," Rojas replied. "Remember Mr. Trejo? The one you paid all that money, so you could have me back home, chained to you like a little monkey?"

A torrent of Spanish poured out of the woman. At first, Tess thought Mrs. Rojas was berating Rick, but she soon realized the angry words were for her own son. They didn't seem to affect him at all. Smiling, he stood, pretended to hand one of the twenties to Rick, then snatched it back, still smiling.

"Wouldn't it be funny, abogado, if I used this very bill to get a little girl to come into the yard?" he said. "There are a few who walk by my fence every day. All I have to say is, ‘Want to make some money? I'll give you twenty bucks. Come around to the back of the house, I have something to show you. Shhh, shhh. Don't tell. It's our secret. C'mon, it will feel so good. You make me feel good, then I'll make you feel good. But don't tell anyone. They wouldn't understand. Grown-ups don't want you to know how good you could feel. But I do. I do.'"

He turned and climbed the porch steps, whistling a pretty little melody, letting the screen door bang behind him. His mother's harsh, frantic words rained down on him, but Rojas didn't seem to hear her.

"My money's on his mother," Rick said, his voice light, his fists clenched at his side. "She'll never let him out of her sight again. I can only hope she outlives him."

"How could you represent someone like that?"

"Because it's my job," he said. "And because his mother goes to church with my aunt, and I couldn't say no when my aunt asked for a favor."

"Still-"

"The police caught Al driving a stolen car, then coerced a confession out of him about the assault on a neighborhood kid. The confession was inadmissible, and I got it thrown out. I have to defend all my clients to the best of my ability, Tess. I have to fight for the Al Rojases of the world as hard as I'm going to fight for Crow. Would you have it any other way?"

For the first time in their short acquaintance, Rick's speech had lost its slightly arch, ironic quality. Tess scuffed her toes along the sidewalk, thinking about what he had said. She wanted to protest: But Crow is innocent. Nothing came out.

Back in the car, speeding away from Mr. Rojas's neighborhood, she said: "So Texas has a Megan's law, too."

"A what?" Rick had been lost in his own thoughts.

"A Megan's law. One of those laws designed to inform people when a child molester moves into the neighborhood. That's some small comfort."

"Such laws don't apply to Rojas. Didn't you hear? He had a real sharpie for an attorney, who pleaded him down to grand theft, auto. He's got no record as a child molester."

"So how did those fliers go out with his photo? How did the school find out about him, and the local shops?"

"I really couldn't say, although I do happen to have a brother-in-law who owns a print shop near here. Someone might have dropped off a photo of Rojas, told him when he was coming home, given him a mailing list."

Tess smiled. "Of course, a lawyer could never do anything like that, even to a former client, because he would risk being disbarred."

"Of course." Rick started to whistle, then stopped abruptly when he realized the melody he had picked up was Rojas's sprightly tune.