Silent Joe

Chapter Eleven

The letter with the cramped handwriting was from my father, Thor Svendson. It was the first one he’d ever written me.

I read his signature first. Just that glance was enough to make my heart beat faster and bring a choking thickness in my throat. My hands shook. A comet of pure white pain streaked across my face.

I set down the letter. I could smell the fear on myself — metal and ammonia. I took three deep breaths, got up and walked outside. The neighborhood looked like it always did, but everything was wavering and outlined in a faint haze of red. It was hard to get air, so I concentrated on my breathing.

All I could think to do was climb to the quiet spot, up into those trees where no one can see me but I can see everything. I found the tree. I climbed. I backed into the leafy branches, disappeared, stared out. My focus was back. The neighborhood was clear and specific.

I stayed there for a long time before going back into the house.

This is what the letter said:

I sat in the backyard patio and ate the take-out food. The evening was cool and damp, like the night Will died. Not long after sundown the fog rolled in and I could see the swirling droplets of moisture, then the misty cloud of it around my patio lights.

I got a jacket and went back outside. I pictured Thor Svendson from the newspaper and magazine photographs I’d seen of him — plenty were published after he was arrested, more when he was sentenced to thirteen years in Corcoran State Prison, more when he was released after seven. I had quite a collection of them at one time, and sometimes I’d read about him and myself, just like any other subscriber would. I looked at the pictures. In almost all of them he looked friendly enough, with no obvious malice. But then, true malice isn’t obvious.

No, Thor was somewhat large and potbellied, with longish white hair and a white beard and large, very blue eyes. He looked like Santa Claus. He would be sixty-four years old, though even in those pictures taken just after his arrest, when he was forty, he looked old.

For reasons I’ve never understood he’s smiling in many of his pictures. Not many men would smile after being convicted of mayhem and attempted murder, then sentenced to thirteen years in Corcoran. Thor did. It was a sorry smile, a smile that suggested hard-won wisdom. It’s the ugliest smile I’ve ever seen.

When I dream of him and what he did, he’s always smiling as he reaches out with the coffee cup and pours. His big blue eyes seem to be pitying. He’s smiling a smile that looks genuine and caring. Very sincere. Like he doesn’t truly endorse this but he has to do it anyway. In the dream I always wonder why he has to do it — but that’s an important aspect of the dream — I can never know why. Because I deserve it? Because God told him to? Because it’s the only way to teach me some hugely important lesson?

In my dreams, his expression terrifies me twice as much as the acid does. I don’t actually remember his face at the time it happened. I don’t remember him at all. I really only remember one thing: diving deep into myself to get away from something huge and evil, like diving under a monstrously large wave to get to that peaceful zone near the ocean floor, where you can dig your fingers into the sand and hang on for dear life.

According to the newspapers, Thor took me to a fire station after he did what he did. He told one magazine, months later, that God had told him to throw the acid, and God had told him to take me to the firehouse. The firemen took me to the hospital and called the cops on Thor. I don’t know why he didn’t just run for it and leave me screaming, and I don’t want to know.

I don’t dream about my real mother. Her name was Charlotte Wample and she was eighteen when I was born, so she’d be forty-two now. I don’t know where she is, never have. She and Thor were not married. According to the news accounts and court testimony — I’ve read every word of transcript several times, every umm and hmm and uhh — she wasn’t home at the time Thor lost it. She was out getting family staples: diapers, bourbon and cigarettes.

I’ve only seen one picture of her. It was a newspaper shot taken as she left the Orange County Courthouse, though I didn’t see that issue of the Journal until almost fourteen years later. She was a wiry, unhappy looking woman with long white hair and hard eyes. She’s lighting a smoke as she comes out the door. Under cross, the prosecuting attorney got her to tell the court her nickname when she rode with the Hessians: Harlot. Charlotte the Harlot. Not hugely imaginative, but the Hessians are better at the meth racket than humor.

Six years ago, when I was eighteen, I looked up every Wample I could find in Orange County directories, and found two. I called them both. One was a man who said he’d never heard of a Charlotte Wample, but he’d been born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and talked for a while about that city. Nice guy.

But the other was a woman, Valeen, who said her daughter Charlotte was a whore, hopefully dead, definitely better off that way. I asked her if Charlotte’s boyfriend hurt her baby and she hissed yes, that sonofabitchin’ bastard Thor Svendson threw acid on him but what the hell is it to you, mister?

The short conversation made me feel much worse, rather than better. I don’t know exactly why I called, what I expected to hear or say. If a Charlotte Wample had actually answered the phone, I probably would have hung up. What would I say? How come you never tried to see me? Don’t you love me?

I’m sure Charlotte has moved away, married or at least changed her name by now. I have no interest in seeing her. But I did put the phone number for Valeen in my wallet, way down in one of the credit card slots. The last time I looked it was still there.

My grandmother was a scary lady. Even just on the phone. But blood is blood and you can’t change it. I think about Valeen Wample occasionally. Grandmother. Grandma. Grams.

I called the Amtrak station in Santa Ana and got the recorded arrival schedule for the Coast Starlight. It was set to bring the devil himself, on a quest for forgiveness, into Santa Ana at 10:17 P.M. the next day.

Just after nine, Rick Birch called. “Meet me at Lind Street in one hour. Bring what you’ve been holding back, Joe. Do you understand?”

I said I did and Birch hung up.

Lind Street. I felt the hair on my neck rise, felt my scar throb when I stepped in behind Rick Birch and smelled the same bacon and cigarette smoke I’d smelled there before.

You killed him. You killed him. You killed him.

Same worn-out carpet, worn-out pad, same sheets on the windows. Same everything, except for the fresh smudges of fingerprint powder and the location tags left by the crime scene investigators.

“Nice place,” said Birch. His eyes were clear and gray in his old, lined face. “Guess who paid the rent?”

“A guy with Alex Blazak’s face and somebody else’s name.”

“Right. Paid first, last and a cleaning deposit on Monday, June the eleventh. His CDL said Mark Stoltz, useless address and phone number. Two days later, it all went down in the alley behind.”

“What about the woman who was here?”

Birch brought out his pad. “Anaheim PD helped me out. Rosa Descanso. Bonded, licensed baby-sitter. Hired by Stoltz through an agency down on Katella. I went to see her. She said the guy wanted a sitter with her own wheels. Descanso got here at seven o’clock that night. Alex and Savannah were here. Getting along real fine, she said — brother and sister. She liked Savannah right off, thought her brother was a ‘not so good a person.’ Alex left a few minutes later. You and Will got here at ten-fifteen, she said. When the shooting started a few minutes after that, she jumped into the bathtub. She figured it was some business with the Lincoln 18th gang.”

I walked slowly across the small living room, down the hall, into the room where’d I’d first seen Savannah Blazak.

I’m Savannah. How do you do?

I’m not sure. Please come with me though.

I turned to Birch. “It’s like having a bad dream twice.”

He nodded but said nothing.

Being there stoked my memories, brought back images from that night: the headlights, the Tall One, the muzzle flash, Will slumped and bleeding.

Oops.

I heard a car zoom down the alley behind the apartment. The voice started up inside my head again: you killed him you killed him you killed him.

I could barely hear my own voice when I spoke. “I haven’t lied to you, sir. But there are a few things I left out.”

Birch shook his head and stared at me. “You ready to fill them in?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. And cut this yes sir, no sir shit. I had enough of that in the Army.”

I told him everything: Will’s nerves that night, his conversations with Jaime and the Reverend Daniel, the roll of money he gave to Jennifer Avila. Their words. Mary Ann being blue. I told him about the transmitter on the BMW, the date in his appointment book with Carl Rupaski and Dana Millbrae. I told him what the Blazaks had said about Savannah’s kidnapping, and about their psychopathic son. I told him about Bo Warren and the offer to hypnotize me so I could tell them what I’d seen and heard. I told him about Lorna Blazak giving me Alex’s warehouse address, and what I’d found there. I told him about Will’s meeting with Ellen Erskine of Hillview Home for Children. I told him about Chrissa Sands talking to Savannah, and to Jack. I told him that she’d seen Will with Alex and Savannah the night before he died. I gave him the postcard that Alex had written to Chrissa.

When I was finished I found myself standing at the window, looking at the floral pattern in the dirty sheet that served as a curtain. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d somehow let down Will by telling everything I knew about that night. Or the feeling that I’d betrayed him as payment for keeping me in the dark about so much of it.

When I turned, Birch was looking at me over the tops of his rimless glasses.

“You did the right thing.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you think Alex kidnapped her, or do you think she ran away?”

“Ran away.”

“Any idea why?”

“Absolutely none.”

“Scamming the rich old man?”

“That occurred to me. She’s awfully young to be doing something like that.”

“Alex is about the right age, though, isn’t he?”

“And Jack and Alex hate each other.”

“I’ll take the postcard into evidence,” he said.

“I figured you would, sir.”

“But I’ve got something for you,” he said.

He slipped a folded sheet of paper from his notepad, handed it to me. It was the phone company readout, showing all cell calls to and from Will’s phone on the night he died. The phone company security division had translated the numbers into names and billing addresses, which were neatly printed in the margins.

I eagerly looked for the last three calls of that terrible night.

Two were incoming, one outgoing.

Will had received the first at 9:38 P.M. I remembered it very clearly, when he’d said “Trona,” then listened and asked, “You’ve got it, right?”

Then he’d given me the Lind Street address. According to Birch’s annotated sheet, the number was for a phone belonging to Alex Blazak.

Alex, I thought, confirming that he’d gotten something, probably the tennis bag I’d left on the court bench. Ransom. Then, Lind Street.

Next, at 9:57 P.M., Will got another call. He said: Things are lining up. I’ll do what I can do, but I still can’t turn coal into a diamond.

And it had come from a telephone number belonging to Luz Escobar. Her address was on Raitt Street in Santa Ana. In the margin Rick had written, “Escobar’s brother Felix popped for gang murder. Luz aka Pearl-ita. Shot caller.”

I remembered Jennifer Avila’s words on the phone that night, while I eavesdropped on Will and Jaime: Get Pearlita.

The last call of his life was placed at 10:01 P.M., placed by Will to a residential line in Newport Beach belonging to Ellen Erskine.

Looks like we’ll be there on time.

Will, confirming the Lind Street pickup of Savannah Blazak, was how I read it.

“I talked to Erskine yesterday,” he said. “After I got the call list. And guess what? Will wasn’t going to return Savannah to her parents that night. He’d arranged to deliver the girl to Erskine at Hill view Home for Children.”

“I don’t understand that. Why?”

“Erskine had no idea. Will didn’t give the girl’s name. Didn’t describe the girl’s circumstances, except to say she needed to be safe. Will was due to meet Erskine at Child Protective Services between ten and ten-thirty. He obviously didn’t show. When Erskine saw the news the next night, she went straight to Marchant.”

I couldn’t make sense of it, no matter how I tried.

“Joe, what kind of ugly stuff was your father mixed up in?”

“I can’t answer that. I don’t think there was anything ugly. I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Yeah?” he said. “I almost believe you this time.”

“It’s the truth.”

I stood on the stairway and waited for Rick to lock up the Lind Street apartment. When he was done we walked down the stairs and toward our cars.

“I’ve called Bernadette Lee. No answer. I’ve gone to that address you gave me. Not home. Maybe Sammy can shed some light.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I left Lind Street with John Gaylen’s strange lilting voice in my head. I replayed his conversation with Will as I drove to the address I’d seen gummed to Birch’s Interview Contact form.

I found the number and parked across the street, two houses down. It was a sixties housing tract, well kept. Gaylen’s house was yellow, with planters and window trim that looked faintly Swiss. The palm trees in the yard didn’t.

It was a little after eleven. Houselights were on inside. The porchlight glowed dully and I could see moths fluttering against the fixture.

Will! Ah, Will Trona! Let’s talk.

I sank dowrn in the seat a little and leaned my head back. Just like Will used to do. I tried to imitate his drowsy look but alert, moving eyes. I tried to look judgmental but somehow possessive, too, like I was trying to figure a way to improve things.

While I watched the house I thought about Will. I remembered, very clearly, the first time I’d met him, at Hillview. It was a rainy Saturday. I was five years old, hidden in the corner of the Hillview library, almost reading Shag: Last of the Plains Buffalo. I could almost read it by that age because I had spent a lot of time with books in general, and with that book in particular. I loved it. I loved Shag. The pictures were fabulous.

I was a deeply suspicious and profoundly fearful five-year-old lost in a book. More than lost — lost isn’t quite right. When I was in a book I was looking down, so no one could see the bad half of my face. No one could see the hideous, painful, red pulp of skin and muscle that was what I had to greet the world with.

But with my face hidden from sight I could forget about it, and my mind could travel wherever I wanted to go in space and time. I could travel thousands of miles from Hillview, to the American plains of two hundred years ago, and I could watch this magnificent animal Shag as he fought a grizzly, took an arrow, fled into Yellowstone with the last of his kind.

I was there with Shag in Yellowstone.

So I paid no attention to the person who had walked in and sat down across from me at the little table. Because I was with Shag. The man — I could tell he was a man by the sound of his walk and the cologne he wore — drummed his fingers. But I ran with Shag.

“Son,” he finally said. “Look at me, because I’m looking at you.”

So I did, and into the wisest, kindest, most handsome and sad and humorful face I’d ever seen in my life. I’d never thought about it before but when I saw that man I understood what a man should be. Him. It was as clear to me as it was clear to Shag that he had to get away into Yellowstone.

“It’s only a scar,” he said. “Everyone’s got ’em. Yours is just on the outside.”

I’d looked away by then, of course, but I found the courage to answer in a whisper: “Shag’s got scars on his sides, from the bear.”

“See? They’re nothing to be ashamed of.”

I really don’t know what gave me the impossible courage to say what I said next. But I did. “Where are yours?”

“I’ll answer when you look at me again.”

I did.

He hit his chest lightly with his fist. “I’m Will Trona,” he said.

Then he stood up and left.

I didn’t see him again until the next Saturday. I was in the library again. He gave me a package wrapped in Sunday comics. Inside was a brand-new copy of Shag: Last of the Plains Buffalo.

“I thought you might like to have your own,” he said.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Mind if I sit?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ve been talking with some of the people here about you. They tell me you’re quite a boy.”

I said nothing. I looked away and felt the hot scream beginning in my cheek.

“Joe, I was wondering if you’d like to blow this joint for a while, maybe go get ice cream or goof around on the pier down in Newport. It’s a nice day. There’s fishermen and skateboarders and pretty girls and all sorts of stuff to look at. I got these keepers of yours to cut you loose for two hours. What do you say?”

I knew what I wanted to say, but it was hard to say it. So few decisions had been mine to make, I wasn’t sure how to answer for myself. The institutions had always answered for me: the courts, the hospitals, the state, the county, the homes.

At that moment I experienced the first flutter of liberty, and the first pain of freedom. I felt like I was standing on a high dive the width of a shoe box, wind blowing hard around me, trying to make my mind up whether to dive in, head back to the ladder, or just stand there and tremble.

Will Trona said nothing. He didn’t prod me or hurry me or ask me again or drum his fingers or sigh.

Instead, he put his hands behind his head, leaned back and looked at me very calmly, almost sleepily. Like he was imagining a way to make me better.

“Okay, sir. Yes.”

“Excellent, young man. Let’s get out of this dive. I got a red 1980 TransAm with the big V-8 and a five-speed. Guaranteed to blow your hair back, Joe.”

After an hour of sitting outside John Gaylen’s house, nothing had happened, so I turned on the radio.

After another hour nothing had happened, so I turned it off.

I thought some more about Will.

After another hour it was pushing two-thirty and nothing at all had changed at Gaylen’s house, except maybe the moths.

I sat up, started the car and drove home.