Wild Instinct

11

Late, free from the Grove, Daniela opens her front door about the same time Gale does.

Her old Tustin house is on C Street, a cramped, century-old two-bedroom two-bath Craftsman bungalow into which she and Jesse barely fit. Square wooden columns support the roof over the front porch. Jacaranda trees tower over the little house, and in spring the fallen blossoms carpet the lawns and sidewalks and half of the street.

Mendez can tell by the lights being on that Jesse — to her surprise after his call today — is home. Even from here in the tiny living room she can see his closed bedroom door, and the mute flicker of his gaming monitor along the floor.

She knocks on the door her usual three times, then pushes it open.

Jesse turns to her in the LED-spangled dark, his face covered by opaque goggles that make him look like an otherworldly praying mantis. His gaming keyboard is actually two keyboards, one on his left and the other on his right. They’re littered with tiny red, purple, and chartreuse light-emitting diodes, some pulsing, some still. The monitor displays the usual bloody sword decapitations, axe dismemberments, and machine gun slaughters that so fascinate him. He’s playing against people all over the world, people he’s never met.

“Sorry I called you at work,” he says.

“Sorry I barked at you. It was my first day with this new partner.”

“Yeah, you said. Catch a good case?” he asks, a fan of TV cop shows.

“The developer who everybody thought was killed by the mountain lion.”

“Weird story. Shot in the head, I heard on X.”

He takes off the goggles, revealing his trim, handsome face, his mother’s intense brown eyes, his seemingly perfect balance between boyhood and manhood. Shiny black hair. A ghost of a mustache. His arms and legs skinny but muscled. He lifts weights in PE.

“I thought you were with Lulu tonight.”

“She went out instead.”

“Homework done?”

“Just about to get started.”

It’s almost midnight, and Daniela is used to her son’s late nights. She fought him for years over this, then gave in, mainly because he gets up with the sun almost every morning, energized. Ready for school, work, homework, Lulu, gaming, gaming, gaming. Hard for her to believe he gets by on so little sleep. No drugs involved, no whacky supplements or diet. She watches for those things while covertly tracking him through his phone, with her TeenShield app. Twenty-nine bucks a month to know exactly what he’s up to, when, where, and with whom. She can even activate his video and audio, sent to her own phone live, with real-time Google locators.

She’s deeply ashamed of herself for this, but Daniela is ruled by fear.

She’s seen a lot.

Still, she dreads the idea of Jesse discovering her spying.

“Something to eat?” she asks.

“I’m good.”

He dons the mantis mask and returns to his world.

Daniela heats leftover enchiladas, take-out from last night. Eats them standing up in the small kitchen, rinses the dishes.

In the privacy of her room, she calls Father Malone as she often does late at night.

“Dear Daniela.”

“Bless me, Tim,” she says softly.

“Jesus loves you and forgives your sins.”

“My first day as a homicide detective.”

“How did it go?”

She sits on the bed. “It’s Bennet Tarlow.”

“A sad horror.”

“Interesting man. He built homes. Thousands of them.”

“I have parishioners who live in them.”

“I left five years in Vice to take this assignment. From Vice to Homicide. I don’t know if that’s moving up in the world or down.”

“You have always burned for justice, Daniela. The Lord marked your heart for it.”

“I feel foul around the dead,” Mendez says. “I keep seeing the body, and what the lion did to it. To him.”

“You were cleansed when you were baptized. You are human, but you are God’s daughter. And when He looks on you He sees you are good. His work is good.”

She thinks about this. Hears Tim Malone’s soft breathing.

“I love you, Father,” she says.

“I love you, Dani. How is the beloved son?”

“I don’t know. I honestly do not know.”

“Bring him back to the Church. It will put Jesus back in his heart.”

“I’ll try.”

Father Tim tells her about meeting with the cardinal today, as part of Tim’s quest to be named a bishop.

To Daniela this journey seems to be a lifetime project that weighs heavily on Father Malone’s good and generous soul. He broods on his conversations with his superiors, scrutinizes the innuendo and cryptic asides, parses inflections, ponders true meanings.

She hurts at the hurt in his heart.

Later she showers, puts on her sleep shirt, and props up the pillows in bed.

Gets about three more pages of Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway and is lost to exhaustion, but not before she affirms how good her life is, compared with so many other people. People on the run from criminals, drugs, poverty, and violence at every turn. Persecuted for who they are.

The people she has sworn to protect and serve.

Her people, not that long ago.

She starts her nightly prayer to the Virgin Mary and falls asleep before amen.