The Death Sculptor

Fifty-Eight

In a blink of an eye, both detectives sprang into synchronized action, Hunter moving left and Garcia right, widening the distance between them, and drawing their guns at the same time. Both of their aims dead on Tito’s chest. They moved so fast that it made Tito freeze in place.

‘Easy there, lacy panties,’ Garcia called out. ‘Let me see your hands, nice and easy.’

‘Hey, hey,’ Tito jumped back and lifted his hands high up in the air. He was holding a stereo remote-control unit. ‘Holy shit, homes. What the hell is wrong with you all? I just wanted to turn down the music.’ Almost imperceptibly he jerked his chin towards his left shoulder. The same nervous tic that gave him away in the CCTV footage from his armed-robbery adventure seven years ago.

Hunter and Garcia thumbed their safeties back on and holstered their weapons.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Garcia replied. ‘You should know better than to make sudden moves like that in front of cops. You’re gonna get yourself killed.’

‘I’ve done OK so far.’

‘Tito, sit down,’ Hunter said, pulling a chair from the round wooden table that occupied the center of the small living room. Tito’s lounge/diner was dull and dark, decorated by someone with no taste and probably half-blind. The walls were a dirty shade of beige, or maybe they were white once. The laminated wooden floor was so scratched it looked like Tito wore ice-skates in the apartment. The place reeked of pot and booze.

Tito hesitated, trying to look hard.

‘Tito, sit down,’ Hunter repeated. His tone didn’t change, but his gaze demanded obedience.

Tito finally had a seat and slouched back on the chair like an angry schoolboy. His flabby bare torso was covered in tattoos, as were his arms. His shaved head displayed several scars. Hunter guessed he’d acquired most of them in prison.

‘This is bullshit, man,’ Tito said, nervously fidgeting with a yellow plastic lighter. ‘You guys have no right to be here. I’m as good as gold. You can ask my parole officer. He’ll vouch for me.’

‘Of course you are, Tito,’ Hunter said, staring directly at him and softly tapping the tip of his nose three times. ‘White gold, you mean.’

Tito pinched his nose then looked at his thumb and forefinger. A white powder residue clung to them. He quickly re-pinched his nose four or five times, snorting with each pinch to clear away what was left. ‘Oh man, that’s horseshit. We were just having a little fun in the room, you know what it is? Nothing heavy, man. Just something to liven us up. It’s my day off. We were just letting off some steam, you feel me?’

‘Relax, Tito. We’re not here to bust your balls, or spoil your little party,’ Garcia said, tilting his head in the bedroom’s direction. ‘So just secure that hard-on for five minutes. We really just want to talk.’

‘You must be tripping, homes. If I had a hard-on I’d tip this table over.’ He nodded, smiling. ‘That’s right, homes, I’ve got more game than a pheasant hunt.’

‘OK, whatever, King Ding-a-Ling,’ Hunter said, standing directly across the table from him. ‘We just need to ask you a few questions and then we’re out of here.’

‘Questions about what?’

‘About another inmate from CSP in Lancaster.’

‘Fuck, homes, do I look like information services?’

Garcia clapped his hands once, bringing Tito’s attention to him. ‘Pay attention, homes, ’cos I’m not saying this again. I said we’re not here to bust your balls, but I can easily change my mind. I’m sure your parole officer would love to hear about these little drug-fueled parties of yours. How would you like to spend the remaining three and a half years of your term back inside?’

‘More than that,’ Hunter said. ‘If you get busted for possession and possibly distribution of drugs, that’ll add at least a couple of years to your sentence.’

Tito bit his lip. He knew he was fighting a losing battle.

‘Look, Tito, we just need to know if you know where we can find a guy called Ken Sands.’

Tito’s eyes widened like a shark’s jaw. ‘You gotta be shitting me.’

‘I take it you know him then,’ Garcia said.

‘Yeah, I know him. Everybody in Facility A knew him. He was a bad mother, man. And I mean real bad, you dig? Did he escape?’

‘No, he was released six months ago,’ Hunter said. ‘He served his term.’

‘And he’s already got the cops after him again.’ Tito chuckled. ‘I’m not surprised.’

‘So you guys were friends inside?’

‘Screw that, man. I knew who he was, but I stayed the hell away from him. The guy had a temper like an atomic bomb. Hated the world. But he was smart. Every time the guards were around the guy acted like a pussycat. Real polite and respectful. He barely ever got into trouble in Lanc. And he was always surrounded by books. The guy read like a champion. Like a man with a mission, you get me? But he sort of had a reputation, and people just didn’t mess with him.’

‘Reputation?’ Garcia asked.

Tito’s head jerked again. ‘There was this guy who dissed him once. You know the type, big-muscle gorilla who thinks he’s king ass-kicker. Well, this guy dissed Ken right in front of everyone. Ken did nothing for a while. He just waited for the right time. He was patient like that, you know? Never rushed anything. Well, the right time came and he got to the guy in the showers. The guy never saw Ken coming.

‘No one saw it happening. So much time had passed between the initial dissing and the attack that it was hard to link the two things together, you know what I’m sayin’? Ken never got heat for it.’

Hunter and Garcia knew that stories like that were common inside prisons.

Tito shook his head and started fidgeting with the plastic lighter again. ‘That guy doesn’t ever forget, man. If he’s got a beef with you, you’re positively screwed in red, white and blue with fifty stars, you feel me? Because one day he’ll come for you.’ Tito coughed like a sick man. ‘I was in the yard on the day big gorilla-man dissed Ken. I saw the look in Ken’s eyes. A look that I’ll never forget. It made me scared, and I wasn’t even involved. It was like bottled hate, you get my meaning? Like he had a devil inside him, or something.

‘I haven’t heard his name since I left Lanc. And if I never hear it again, that’ll be too soon. That guy is bad news all the way, homey.’

‘Well, we need to find him.’

‘Why are you asking me for? You’re the detectives, aren’t you? So detect.’

‘That’s what we’re doing, genius.’ Garcia walked over to the open-plan kitchenette. The smell of pot mixed itself with that of rancid milk. The old-fashioned sink was piled high with dirty dishes. The counters awash in paper plates, takeout containers and empty beer cans. ‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ Garcia said, pulling the fridge door open. ‘Do you wanna beer?’

‘You’re offering me my own beer?’

‘I’m trying to be nice here, but you’re spoiling it, big time.’ Garcia slammed the fridge door shut and stepped on the pedal for the flip-top trashcan. As the lid came up, so did the overpowering smell of cannabis. ‘Damn!’ Garcia took a step back and screwed up his face. ‘Are those joint butts? There must be over a hundred of them.’

‘Hey, what the hell, man?’

‘Tito,’ Hunter sat down in front of him – a much less intimidating position, and he wanted Tito to relax a little. ‘We really need to find Sands, do you understand?’

‘How the hell would I know where he is? We weren’t even friends.’

‘But you were friends with others who might know a thing or two.’ Hunter observed Tito’s eye movement. He was searching his memory. Seconds later the eye movement stopped and his stare became fixed and a little distant. Hunter knew he had thought of someone specific.

‘I don’t know who to ask, man.’

‘Yes you do,’ Hunter hit back.

Tito and Hunter locked eyes for an instant.

‘Listen, man.’ Garcia circled the table to the other side. ‘The only thing we want is some information. We need to know where we can find Sands, and that’s very important. In return, you get to avoid a visit from your parole officer and a few of our friends in vice squad in the next hour. I’m sure they’d love to search these premises, especially that room with your two young friends.’

‘Ah, this is bullshit, homey.’

‘Well, it’s the only deal we’re selling.’

‘Shit.’ One more nervous tic followed by a heavy sigh. ‘I’ll see what I can find out, but I need some time.’

‘You’ve got until tomorrow.’

‘You’ve gotta be kidding me.’

‘Does it look like we’re kidding?’ Garcia asked.

Tito hesitated.

Garcia reached for his cellphone.

‘OK, homey, I’ll see what I can find out, and I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Can you leave now?’

‘Not yet,’ Hunter said. ‘There’s someone else too.’

‘Oh, no way.’

‘Another inmate – Raul Escobedo. Heard of him?’

On their way to Tito’s house, Hunter had told Garcia all about his meeting with Detective Seb Stokes and his mention of Raul Escobedo.

‘Who?’ Tito’s eyes narrowed.

‘His name is Raul Escobedo,’ Hunter repeated. ‘He was a guest at Lancaster as well. A sex offender.’

‘A rapist?’ Tito cocked his head back.

‘That’s right.’

‘Nah, man, are you high or something? Are police donuts made of hash these days?’

‘I don’t like donuts.’

‘Me neither,’ Garcia added.

‘I was in Facility A, man, which houses real bad mothers and the Seg – the Segregation Unit. There’s no way in God’s creation they’d put a rapist with us, you feel me? Unless the police wanted him dead. He’d be gang-raped and dead within the hour.’

Tito wasn’t lying. That was the way prisons in California worked and Hunter knew it. Every inmate, no matter which crime they’d committed, hated rapists. In prison, rapists were viewed as something lower than scum – as cowards who didn’t have the guts to commit a real crime, and who weren’t good enough to get their own women without the use of force. Plus, every inmate in the country had a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, a girlfriend – someone who could easily have become a rapist’s victim. Rapists were usually placed in a separate prison ward or block, away from all other inmates, otherwise they’d surely be given a dose of their own medicine, before being brutally murdered. That had been proven many times over.