An excerpt from MY SON by Robert McClure

I.

THE FATHER— JOHN LEONARDO “BABE” CRUCCI

1.

(May 23, 2006)

I am a week out of San Quentin when my son pulls to the curb in his Crown Victoria

Police Interceptor, an unmarked one that reeks of crack. The odor stings my nose when I lean into the passenger window and say, “Hey, want to come inside, maybe have a

drink?”

“At ten in the morning?” he says, and the way my son looks at me makes him a

kid again in my mind: He is ignoring my question about a book he thinks I’d never

understand, or he is behind the glass wall of a prison visitation cubicle gawking like I am

a snake on display at the zoo.

What I sorely want to say to him is, What, you would rather us cruise around and

get stoned in your pig rig? but I know that would ignite the tension hanging in the air

with the crack fumes. So instead I say, “After paying my eight-year debt to society, I am

entitled to twenty-four happy hours per day. C’mon, let’s get reacquainted before we get

going.”

1 His bloodshot eyes burn holes through the windshield.

No, it would take a logging chain and two-ton truck to drag him inside my house.

I realize at this moment that my son has a bad feeling about the shitty little bungalow he grew up in, this nostalgic juju that has his head spinning with thoughts of where we started and where we are now, of where we are going to end up.

I toss my car keys in his lap and I am thinking, Son, please, do not make our journey more complicated than it is.

He exits his car and flops behind the wheel of my new Caddy. I tell him to skip the expressway and take the scenic route through the heart of Boyle Heights, Cesar Chavez

Avenue, a street called Brooklyn Avenue when I grew up there. I say I want to enjoy the sights—the crazy murals painted on buildings, the street vendors, the new businesses that have sprung up here and there, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

He does what I say but does not like it.

I do not care what he likes.

Even after enjoying a week of it at full throttle, freedom still makes me so giddy that nothing much bothers me, not even a mute son I have not seen in nine years. The things I notice out the window are a punk boutique, a tattoo joint and two chink babes I know are streetwalkers, and I savor the fact I can patronize any of these conveniences at my whim, permission needed from no one.

2 My son ignores my comments to that effect, seems somehow put off by them, so

in a further effort to break the ice I tell the boy a lie: “Well, uh, you look great, kid, really

great.”

He says nothing and here I am, vainly expecting a return compliment.

For laughs, I slap his thigh and he jerks as if I had grabbed his dick.

My son, you see, never adjusted to the touch of other human beings. Even refused

to let his mother breastfeed him, and would let her hold him just long enough to suck his

bottle dry. I picture her in the rocking chair by his crib with her arms crossed, returning

my son’s stare and saying, “It’s unnatural for him to cry every time I hold him. It’s too

fucking strange to contemplate.”

“Well, look at that,” I say to him, pointing to my left, “La Parrilla is still open

after all these years. Say, how ‘bout we pull in and order up some burritos for a late

breakfast? You still like steak burritos for breakfast, right?”

He looks at his watch, his anxiety self-evident: His eyes appear ready to pop their

sockets and sweat dots his brow. He knuckles his right eyeball as if to re-seat it and cuffs

the moisture from his mouth. “We don’t have time. Macky’ll get pissed if we’re late.”

I smile. “I will handle Macky. How many times do I have to tell you I will handle him, huh? How many?” I have repeated this fact to him often over the last two days, probably more often than I have ever said any one thing to him.

He looks relieved in a hesitant way; like the only time I ever took him to the

doctor, the time I told him the penicillin shot would hurt just a second then make him feel

brand new.

3 “I really want to get this over with,” he says. “Let’s eat after we meet with

Macky.”

For an instant I forget all about that lump-of-shit Macky, am jubilant to the point

of almost wetting my shorts. It is shameful, I know, to get so excited just because my son

agreed to eat a simple meal with me. It is nonetheless a heartfelt reaction that, in fact,

makes my heart race, and I actually feel it pound against the tickets tucked in my breast

pocket. I almost ask if he wants to catch the Dodgers’ game this afternoon then decide to

save the invitation for breakfast.

My smile gets bigger. After all these years, sometimes I actually know when not

to push my fucking luck.

Not that my so-called Life of Crime has been an unfortunate one, at least when viewed in strict economic terms. I have hijacked semi-trailers chocked with electronics and cigarettes, burgled mansions and jewelry stores, smuggled drugs . . . and took only two falls in the process. The falls were hard ones, I admit, that consumed almost a third of my fifty-two years. To me, though, living The Life has always been about taking big risks to achieve big rewards. I got caught two times, so what? I say think positive, consider I got a free pass on the thousand other times I did not get caught. Seventeen years, two months and thirteen days served for a thousand and two criminal acts, all profitable. Not bad, especially when you further consider prison was not totally unbearable for a connected guy like me and, though never what most people would call rich, I always had enough money tucked away to provide for the wife and kid in absentia.

4 Some say that was my big mistake, throwing away so many hard-earned shekels on people who turned out to be ingrates—a sexoholic wife and everything-oholic son, two slightly different animals of the same species. They are right about the wife, to my eternal embarrassment, but women who forget their marriage vows are easily disposed of

(to say nothing—repeat, nothing—of the so-called friend who induces her to break said vows while you are incarcerated). Sons are different. Whatever indignity he suffers at the hand of his son, a father cannot beat him to within an inch of death, finish him off with a bullet to the head then reduce his body to sludge in a barrel of nitric acid. A son is the product of his father’s labors—or the lack thereof—and for that reason a father’s love for his son depends on nothing except that his son is his son.

Believe me when I say these things. These are things I know above all else.

We leave Boyle Heights when we merge on 60 East toward Pomona, are on 605 a few minutes then take I-10 toward San Bernardino. We are at the West Covina ramp before you know it.

We drive side roads for about fifteen minutes then pull into the parking lot.

My son says, “It’s a set-up. I can feel it.”

He parks at the end of a row of luxury cars. I say, “Nah, this old warehouse has just got you spooked, that’s all.” I look it over and make some professional observations:

“We are, what, over four miles outside the nearest town? Christ, you could fight a war out here and never upset a civilian ear. It is a perfect place for a hit.”

This is not what he wants to hear.

5 I recognize this and say right away, “But Macky would’ve already whacked you if that’s what he wanted to do. Relax.”

He asks me a question that comes from nowhere, as if it is something that has occupied his mind all along: “Why are you doing this for me? Why?”

My son and I are communicating here, making progress, and a small lump rises in my throat. I think a few beats and almost come clean with him, almost reveal all there is to know about the meeting with Macky. I change my mind when I realize I cannot predict his reaction, that he might spoil the dynamics of it all.

“Why else?” I say, and change the subject. “A condition of the sit-down is that we

be unarmed. Hand over your weapons.”

He un-holsters his department-issued Sig Sauer from under his jean jacket, hands it over with no complaints—something of a surprise to me.

I tuck the pistol under the seat then look him in the eye. “Your throw-down, too. I know you have one.”

He pouts and I hold out my hand and wiggle my fingers. “C’mon, c’mon . . .”

He sighs and reaches for his right ankle, unsnaps the peashooter he has strapped there and palms it to me while looking the other way.

“You got a knife on you, can of mace, stun gun, any other weapon at all?”

“All I have now is you,” he says to the window, and turns to give me that hesitant look of semi-confidence again.

6

2.

We no sooner set foot on the pavement when a guy walks on the loading dock wearing a beat-up black suit, white shirt and black tie. I recognize him as Jack Barzi, a mass of muscle with hippy-long and graying hair; everybody called him “Chief” in the old days because he resembled that big Injun in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He has not changed much.

I stroll up to Chief like I am here to buy the place. He is standing a good four feet above me on the dock and looks twenty feet tall. I remove my Ray Ban Aviators. “Chief?

You work for Macky now?”

He nods and twists his mouth around to make it resemble a smile. “Long time,

Babe. You ain’t changed a bit.”

I give him a smile that is genuine. Finally someone recognizes Babe Crucci for the Grade A physical specimen he is, living proof of the adage that Age is Only a

Number. My youthful appearance is mostly genetic; the rest of it is attributable to the weights I humped religiously in prison and the food in there I could barely eat enough of to stay alive.

7 I say to Chief, “Except for the hair, you’re hanging in there pretty good yourself.”

I take out my wallet, dig inside it. “Look, here’s my hairdresser’s card. Call her and she’ll

get rid of that gray for you. My treat.”

“You get your hair dyed?” he says, takes the card and says, “I be damned,” while

squinting to examine my hair. He fingers the locks on his shoulder, inspecting them like

they are someone else’s, and laughs that grunty laugh of his. “Macky says you only been

outta The Q a week?”

“Macky speaks truth.”

He digs in his wallet and hands me a card. “This’ll connect you to the best call

girl service in LA. First pop’s on me. Just tell ‘em I sent ya.”

“Good deal,” I say, though I am certain I have already found the best call girl in

LA, best in the world even.

Chief looks satisfied before he looks at my son then his lips snap back to their natural snarl. After a few seconds of this he squats, motions me over with a tug of his head. In a low voice he says, “Babe, listen, between you and me. I don’t know everything going on here, but I’ve heard bits and pieces that worry me. Macky pays me—all

right?—and I gotta do my job—okay?—so, you know, be careful. Don’t do nothin’

loopy.”

“Hey,” I say, “you know I do not do loopy things.”

“Maybe,” he says with the slightest twinkle in his eye, “but you never been

convicted of bein’ careful neither.”

8

Chief frisks us then leads us inside. Through an area big enough to store the cargo off an

ocean liner that now contains nothing but hundreds of wooden plats stacked against support beams and concrete walls. Into a maze consisting of two stairwells and three

hallways, all of it dark and dusty and in need of pest extermination and paint, then into an

elevator. We exit the elevator and are walloped with blasts of cleanliness and fluorescent

light, walk down a blue-carpeted hallway.

We stop before a metal door and Chief raises an eyebrow at me, no doubt a

reminder of the friendly advice he rendered outside. “See ya later,” he says. “I have’ta go

back downstairs.”

“Hold down the fort,” I say, and give him a wink that I can tell makes him

uncomfortable.

I open the door.

Three goons are in the reception area, Macky’s A-Team. They are polluting the atmosphere with wiseguy talk until they see me, then silence grows so thick in the air you can hear the humidity rise.

They sneer and shrug and straighten their jackets and ties.

Before I can say Where’s Macky? the fat hump appears at his office door.

“Babe Crucci!” he says with outstretched arms, “Paisan!”

Paisan, shit. Macky is no more Italian than Sammy Davis, Jr. was. He is a fucking mick with a Godfather complex, a punk paddy with Pacino pretensions. He has the kind

of Irish face Mama always warned you about—dirty red hair, rheumy eyes and a bloated,

splotchy complexion that reminds me of a diseased lung.

9 I do not usually allow men to hug me—call me homophobic, go ahead, it is still behavior that sends confusing signals on the old cellblock—but circumstances dictate I let Macky do so today.

The Hug is over with and Macky turns to my son. “So, you’re Leo.”

“Wow,” he says, “you figured that out all by yourself?” and starts to light a smoke.

At which point Macky slaps him in the mouth so hard the cigarette ricochets off the wall a good twenty feet away.

Macky steps back and smiles at his bodyguards, who have all pulled their weapons by now.

I prevent my son from doing something suicidal by placing my hand on his chest.

Macky turns to me. “Sorry you had to see that, Babe.”

I hold out both hands in a conciliatory manner. “You had the right,” I say, and part of me is in total agreement, that part of me that wishes I had been around more to properly discipline my son.

The other part of me wants to rip out Macky’s heart and bite a chunk from it before his horror-stricken eyes.

It will be that kind of meeting.

Macky closes the office door and sits behind his too-big desk. Me and my son ease into the chairs across from him and Macky takes a chrome-plated revolver—which is also too big—from the desk drawer and makes a production of assuring it is loaded, unlatching

10 and spinning the cylinder then flipping it shut. He places it on the desktop, grinning like

the cocky asshole he has just confirmed himself to be.

“No disrespect intended, Babe, but I was shocked to learn that you are standing up

for this pitiful excuse for a son.” He looks at him. “A cop. A drug addict. A lousy gambler who don’t pay his debts. Pathetic is the nicest word that comes to mind.”

I seethe a few seconds before I say, “He has certain compulsions that he cannot presently control. But—and I say this as objectively as any father can—he also has certain qualities that make him worthy of redemption.”

This is a true statement.

My son has a good head for academics, especially for math, and has a business administration degree. And he was always as proficient and enthusiastic a street fighter as his father ever was; just ask any of the old neighborhood bullies who don’t walk or talk quite right anymore. Better yet, ask any of the so-called criminals who have filed complaints of excessive force against him, and I hear there are quite a few.

Macky looks so bored he is practically yawning, so I take a thick envelope from

my breast pocket and toss it over the desk to him. “In any event, this is not about him. It

is a matter of honor with me,” and I say this because this is the kind of corny goodfella

crap that I know impresses Macky.

And he is, in fact, impressed. He sighs after a long few seconds and says, “Well, I

certainly understand that,” and nods and shrugs as if he would never allow a stand-up guy

like me to dishonor himself, like he is only accepting the money for my benefit.

He finally picks up the envelope and peeks inside it, thumbs through the bills

absentmindedly like he knows it is all there. He looks up. “I demanded that both of you

11 be here in person so I can make something very clear.” He points a fat finger at my son.

“The only reason you’re not dead or at least seriously fucked up is because I’ve known your father for years. This is the only pass you get. Ever welsh on another betting tab with one of my guys? I’ll have you slaughtered like an Easter lamb—Crucci or no Crucci, cop or no cop. Understood?”

My son barely nods.

Macky looks at me.

I nod.

Macky appears satisfied.

I rise and prepare to say, We now have no conflicts and no debts between us, a take on a line from Godfather III that I know will make Macky want to hug me again.

But Macky does not stand. Instead he leans back in his chair, picks up the revolver and rests it on his bloated stomach. “Not yet, Babe. I want to talk about something else.”

I sit.

“You need work?” Macky says.

My son rustles in his seat.

I am not surprised by the question because my so-called employment with Joe

Sacci, the man I have worked with for years, is the subject of much talk and conjecture

on the street. “Why do you ask?” I say.

Macky smiles. “Sacci says you’re not on his fulltime payroll no more.”

“That is correct,” I say.

This is a true statement.

12 “He says you’re available to the open market.”

“I am.”

This is also a true statement.

“Good, I have plenty for you to do.” A grim smile. “You know about Viktor

Tarasov?”

“Very little.”

This is not a true statement.

Macky turns solemn and his face becomes even more inflamed than usual.

“Tarasov’s a Russian who’s been establishing a presence here in LA for about a year now. I thought me and him were becomin’ friends, but now it looks like that ain’t gonna happen. Last week we had some disagreements, and— Well, let me be frank, eliminate me from the face of the fuckin’ planet is what he wants to do. I need good men like you to protect my interests. Men who will permanently see to it that Tarasov will no longer present a competitive threat.”

He winks as if a wink is necessary for me to understand the underlying meaning of the latter comment.

I pause as if I am thinking it over—though I am really savoring the irony of all this—then we talk amicably about money, about fees, the expenses he will cover, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Then I say, “Sure, on those terms I will help you address this

Russian menace.”

This is not a true statement.

13 I say further, “I have admired and respected you from afar these many years,”

which is not true either, “and swear upon the soul of my dead mother that I will be loyal

to you ‘til my bones turn to dust.” Ditto.

Macky is so clearly moved by this goombah bullshit, the likes of which I have heard uttered only in movies, that his eyes mist up.

He rises from his chair, places the revolver on the desk and walks around the desk to give me The Welcome-Aboard Hug. “I’ve always wanted you in my family. C’mere, you big wop, you’re one of us now.”

I am very relieved he does not hold out his fucking hand for me to kiss, which would have sent me into such a fit of uncontrolled laughter that it would have spoiled everything.

He gives me The Hug and I enthusiastically return it.

We separate a few inches and look into each other’s eyes. I pat his cheek affectionately. “Macky?”

He smiles. “Yeah, Babe?”

“Viktor Tarasov wanted me to say goodbye to you on his behalf,” and I clutch his trachea by sticking three fingers just below his voice box on one side and poking the thumb behind the other side, then squeeze my fingers together and twist with all my might.

To learn how to crush a trachea, surround a fat carrot with, say, two sticks of celery. Wrap a flank steak around the entire concoction. Anchor it in a vise then hold the top steady with one hand and perform the above procedure with your dominant hand—a forceful squeeze followed by a mighty twist. The carrot should be cleanly broken and the

14 celery reduced to a juicy pulp when you unwrap them. If the latter two events do not

occur, do not try to kill someone in this fashion—instead, go to the gym.

Macky’s unconscious if not dead already, his face turning reddish blue and

streaked by a very pallid white.

At the other end of the spectrum is my son’s face, which is drained of all color.

He lights the wrong end of a cigarette and takes a deep drag before his eyes go wide at

the flaming tip. He nonetheless takes another drag then stares at me and moves his mouth soundlessly, like a big fish that needs to jump back in the lake for a dose of oxygen.

I have my son’s rapt attention.

So I allow the weight of Macky’s body to lower itself to its knees. I halt its descent, step gingerly behind it, cup the chin in the palm of my left hand and grab a hunk

of hair with my right. In a rapid counter-clockwise motion, I twist the head.

The neck snaps.

My son flinches.

Try as I might, I have never figured out the right combination of inanimate

materials that realistically simulate the sensation of snapping a human neck. You can, of

course, practice on stray dogs that shit in your yard, the bigger they are the better. But, if

you are a kid, I do not recommend you do this to your father’s pet German Shepherd he

named Adolph who bites you one too many times. It will give your father yet another

excuse to pummel you senseless, and the Department of Children and Family Services will take you away.

15 I ease the carcass to the floor.

My son’s elbows are propped on his knees and his head is in his hands. He uncovers his face, which is flushed from the neck up. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were going to do that?”

An odd sense of rejection hits me in the gut. I thought he would be impressed— won over, even—by the physical prowess and sheer cunning I just displayed, the élan.

Stunned mute by his reaction, I step over Macky’s remains to retrieve the cigarette smoldering on the floor; it has burned a patch on the yellow carpet, and I fear the stink will alert the bodyguards outside. After extinguishing the smoke in the desk ashtray and

stowing the butt in my pocket (fingerprints, fingerprints), I lean down to quietly address

him. “Is this really something you would want to know about ahead of time? I mean,

think about it.”

“What? I—” He shakes his head, blinks, as if waking from a bad dream. “You

used me. You claimed you wanted to help me just so you could burn Macky.”

“Pull yourself together and lower your voice,” I say, giving the closed door a

quick glance. “Listen to me: There wasn’t any other way to get to him.”

He stares at me as if I am speaking in tongues.

Try another tack: “He slapped you, for Christ sake.”

No dice: “I was going to pay the fucker back someday but, goddamn, I wasn’t—”

Another shake of the head, another blink. “That was psycho,” he says. “Even coming

from you that was fuckin’ psycho,” and he runs both hands through his scalp and looks

away in disgust. “I don’t know what—” and his expression of shock and anger quickly

16 mutates to one of concern. He jerks his head at the door. “You got any idea how we’re supposed to get out of here alive?”

“Oh, them,” I say. “They will be no problem,” and I reveal my straightforward plan: I surprise the bodyguards outside with Macky’s pistol and tie them up with the pull cords from the window blinds and phones.

“What about Godzilla downstairs?”

“Chief? I will tell him what happened then offer him a job. Me and Chief are friends, plus he needs work now. He will present no problem.”

He stands. “I want out of here, now.”

“Let’s go, then,” I say, and retrieve the revolver from the desktop then snatch the fat envelope of cash resting next to it. I move toward the door with my son in tow, conceal the gun behind my back and grip the doorknob. I pause an instant to think, then whisper, “I’m starving. You’re still up for breakfast at La Parrilla, right?”

His reaction makes it obvious to me that the ballgame is out of the question, too.

17

3.

About fifteen minutes later we walk into the bright sunlight that bathes the loading dock

and find Chief leaning against a support beam. A cigarette dangles from his lips and a

crooked length of ash falls to his lapel when his facial muscles attempt to form a smile.

The smile, such as it is, dissolves into a bewildered expression when Leo floats past him

wordlessly, expressionless, like a ghost in a residual haunting, a mere time stamp on the environment.

“What’s up with him?” Chief says.

“Kids these days have no respect. Forget about him.”

Chief shrugs as if he forgot him already. “How’d it go up there?”

I stroll toward him. “You know how Macky gets with us Italians. He got all choked-up.”

Chief nods. “Really laid it on him thick, huh?”

“I left him breathless.”

“Breathless,” he says and cuts his eyes at me. He squints one eye against a wisp of

cigarette smoke, tilts his head as if pondering a riddle and studies my midsection, where

the bodyguard’s pistols tucked in my waistband bulge against my sport coat. “Choked-

up.”

18 He doesn’t get it yet, but he is close.

I move closer to him and lower my voice. “Say, Chief, how would you like to

work for me?”

He toes out his spent cigarette on the pavement, lips a new one from a pack he

pulls from his breast pocket and fires it up with a vintage Ronson lighter. “You,” he says,

“not Joe Sacci.”

“Right. Do not get me wrong. Me and Joe are still alright. It is just we are not joined at the hip any more. I wanted to be an independent contractor, in a manner of speaking, and he agreed.”

He nods while he thinks this over, his face simmering with curiosity until something occurs to him. “Say, how come you didn’t ask me to work for you when you got here?”

“You had an employer then.”

Now he gets it.

I smile.

“I knew you were up to something,” Chief says, takes a nervous drag from his smoke and tilts his head toward Leo, who is now entering my car. “So that’s what’s eatin’ him.”

I nod. “He will be okay.”

“I dunno, bein’ a cop and all . . .”

“Chief, I said he will be okay.” I wink. “Trust me.”

A roll of his eyes heavenward. “Trust you, right . . . Tell me, how’d you do

Macky?”

19 I describe how I did him.

“Oh, yeah, okay, choked-up and breathless, sure, now I get it. . . . What the hell you do with the other guys up there, the bodyguards?”

“Bound and gagged them very securely. Hope they’re not friends of yours.”

He shakes his head. “Nah, the pricks treated me like a rented mule. . . . What’s gonna happen to ‘em?”

“Tarasov’s guys will stop by to question them soon, after I make the call. Joe and

Tarasov believe they possess information that is crucial to a smooth transition of power.”

“Sacci’s in on this, too?”

“Does that bother you, Chief? I mean, being that Sacci and Macky were friends and all?”

Chief shows me his palms in a gesture of submission. “Oh, no, not me ,no. I’m just—” He clears his throat. “Look, tell you what, when Tarasov’s guys are finished

questionin’ the assholes up there and, you know,” he slashes his forefinger across his throat, “tell ‘em I’ll help—get rid of the bodies, whatever.” He takes another drag from his cigarette and his fingers tremble just enough to be noticeable. “And I’ll answer any question they got about Macky’s operation. I know where more than a few skeletons are buried.”

“No, it would probably be in your best interest to get as far away from here as you can before the mad Russians arrive.”

He pauses and lifts an eyebrow that breaks into two pieces from the scar tissue that has formed there. “They plan to kill me too?”

20 “Not you specifically, no. But all persons on the premises are potential witnesses.

So,” I shrug, “bottom line is I am sparing your guinea ass.”

Chief shakes his head, grins sheepishly. “Guess that don’t leave me a lot of room to haggle over what you’re gonna pay me to work for you, huh.”

I put my hand on Chief’s shoulder, say as gently as I can, “Chief, my friend, I do not remember offering to pay you shit.”

I shut the front passenger door to find Leo gripping the Caddy’s steering wheel for dear life, his eyes burning yet another metaphorical hole through yet another windshield. We stew in silence a few seconds before he speaks. “I’m a cop, and just held a weapon on three men while you bound and gagged them. That makes me an accomplice to you and to whoever the hell is comin’ over here to murder these guys. A total of at least seven felonies that could get me life in prison without parole—if I get lucky and don’t get a jolt of Jesus juice along with you.”

“Quit acting like a boy scout. You work for Joe Sacci, and lost your cleanliness and reverence months ago.”

“What I do for Sacci is like boosting candy compared to what you just did, to what I just did.”

“And you’ll get paid in proportion to the risk you’re taking.” I reach into my breast pocket to remove the envelope of cash I handed Macky earlier, extend it halfway across the cab to him. “Will this make you feel any better?”

21 His expression is one that can only be described as “avaricious.” He licks his lips and works his mouth as if to think it over, says, “Yeah, it will,” and reaches for the envelope.

I withdraw it beyond his reach.

He flushes and talks through clenched teeth. “Old man, you shouldn’t fuck with me like that.”

I ignore the death wish that tinges that statement. “You’ll get the money after you agree to some conditions.”

“What conditions?”

“We’ll talk about it at La Parrilla, over lunch.”

“You really think I’m gonna eat lunch with you now?”

“You promised.”

“Tell me what your conditions are and give me the fuckin’ money. I’ll find a way home.”

“You promised, damn it.” I look out my window and work my jaw so hard my molars hurt, then give him my best Fuck You glare. “Turn me in if you want, go ahead, but you don’t get one dirty dollar unless you eat lunch with me.”

22

II.

THE SON— LEONARDO DOMINIC CRUCCI, DETECTIVE II, LAPD

23

4.

Driving through the heart of Boyle Heights, I spotted a liquor store appears ahead to my right and the thought that hits me is tequila . . . I need a bottle of tequila . . .the only question being the purpose I’d put it to: would I drink it or smash it over the old thug’s skull?

Achieve two objectives in one stop, shit, buy two bottles of tequila. . . .

That thought flies away when sweat drips into my eyes; it stings so bad it’s like somebody threw battery acid in my face, and when I take my eyes off the road to cuff them dry the front tire scrapes the curb as I’m hanging a right from Soto onto Cesar

Chavez.

“Damn, kid, those are brand new tires.”

I don’t even look at him.

Every time our eyes have met since leaving the warehouse parking lot I’ve seen

Macky’s face, purple and distorted, eyes set to rocket from their sockets any second.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t give a rat’s ass that the fucker’s dead when death began to glaze Macky’s bulging eyes, I realized the world’s going to be a better place without this man’s life in it, and I deleted all sympathy for him in the instant it took to process the thought.

24 The thing that jammed my circuits was the sheer magnitude of my old man’s criminal insanity.

Look at him there in the passenger seat next to me, digging the street scenery and humming along with a Cranberries tune on the radio. Relaxed, happy, your basic SoCal businessman on lunch break.

And he slaughtered a man forty-five minutes ago.

A complete absence of shame or remorse, of any concern whatsoever.

My knowledge of psychology is pretty basic in the academic sense, but you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to conclude that what sits before you is a criminal sociopath.

The thought occurs to me that I never really knew him until I watched him kill

Macky. Not that I thought I knew him before then—at least not since I was a kid—but

I’ve kept tabs on him. Have had his rap sheet at my fingertips since I joined the force seven years ago and even got my hands on some old files through a back door of

Organized Crime and Vice that detailed his movements for days on end. So before today

I knew my father was as street-smart as any hood to ever have proceeded him, could be a charmer when it suited him and could be your basic bad motherfucker when that suited him.

But I never really knew him until I witnessed his profile spring to life in that singular act of cold-blooded murder.

I look up to see La Parrilla restaurant, just where we left it a hundred years ago. I curb park just west of the place, exit the car. Loud pastel paint and neon trim deck the façade

25 of La Parrilla and make me feel like a kid again, set off a shit storm of memories. This place is near my childhood home, the prime venue for the few normal times me and the old man ever spent together—some very edgy times, too, often coming here to dodge my mother when she was bingeing on booze and downers and reds, or when she was just flipping out for no apparent reason.

We approach the restaurant entrance and images of her are fast-forwarding, looping, fading in and out.

My mother, God, talk about a Subject To Be Avoided.

Maybe there’s a self-help manual on the subject (“Dysfunctional Family

Relationships for Dummies”?) but, really, how do you deal with your father after you find out he whacked your mother?

And after he finds out you found him out?

Times like this make me wish I hadn’t ditched psycho-therapy.

As nervous as a feral cat, I glance over at the old man, who opens the restaurant door for me and says, “Brings back memories, doesn’t it, kid?”

Uh, yeah.

Inside, he enchants the hostess, a cute young Latina. Flat overwhelms her with his smile and a whispered comment that has her giggling and hanging on his arm like a paid escort. She clutches his hand and leads him through the crowd to a booth in the southwest corner, and I roll along behind them like the third wheel he’s reduced me to, wondering if she’d keep his hand tucked against her breast like that if she knew it had the residue of death on it.

26 We get to our booth, and, as if he’s read my mind, the old man says, “I’m going to hit the men’s and wash up.”

I slide into the booth, my back to the wall, the crowded main dining room spread out before me, check out the assortment of piñatas that dangle from the ceiling and the murals painted on the walls. This décor’s been in place here since I was a kid, and it’s making me feel weird, small and naïve, transported back in time.

A Chicano waiter appears and takes my order for a pitcher of beer and four tequila shots, nods when I tell him to come back when my father does.

The old man returns sooner than I thought he would and pauses at the head of the booth. “I would like to sit where you are, with my back to the wall. Since it looks like I’ll be doing most of the talking, it will give us more privacy.”

I let loose an exaggerated sigh and slide from the booth, stand and nudge past him to climb into the opposite seat.

My sense is that his request to have his back to the wall has less to do with a desire for privacy than it is a defensive tactic, a product of his institutionalization. Ex- cons are notoriously paranoid, having learned to be hyper-vigilant for signs of threat in stir. Very rational behavior when you’re in constant danger of catching a shank in your back and impossible to modify in a week.

The waiter sets mugs of beers, tequila shots, tortilla chips and three little clay pots of salsa before us. The old man places his usual order: a steak burrito with all the fixings.

Meanwhile, I flip down a shot of tequila and chase it with beer. “This is all I’m having,” I say to the waiter when he turns to me, “so keep ‘em comin’.”

“Yes, sir,” the waiter says with a goofy grin, and leaves.

27 The old man sips beer. “No appetite?”

“I haven’t had anything to eat in over twelve hours and it may be another twelve

before I even think about it.”

He frowns. “Was it that bad?”

“Compared to what, for Christ sake, a chainsaw massacre?”

He’s silent a few seconds. “I am sorry. I really am.”

This gives me pause as I inhale a second shot.

Arriba abajo, senor.

This one doesn’t burn my throat as much as the first one and is beginning to

warms the capillaries in my fingers and toes.

I slap the glass on the table, slide it against the other one. “For the life of me,” I

say, “I can’t remember those words ever coming from your mouth.”

“It was easier than I thought it would be.”

“I’ve got to hand it to you, it’s not a bad icebreaker. Now what, you plan to ask me for an introduction to the chief of police so you can strangle him to death?”

“Know anybody with a lot of scratch who wants him dead?”

With a shake of the head I burn the third shot.

I’m getting smashed in a hurry, and this could be a good thing to do or a very bad thing to do.

Savoring the warmth, I run the cuff of my shirt across my mouth. “Old man, don’t you feel anything?”

He breathes deeply and leans forward with his elbows on the table. You can’t help but notice how fucking huge his hands and forearms are. “Spare me the high and mighty

28 attitude. I spent the last eight years in prison on a manslaughter beef that you and

everybody else knows should have been life or the needle for murder one. Yet you

accepted how much money from me while I was away—thirty, forty grand, all in hard

cash? Forget what I doled out before that for college tuition, your cars, clothes,

everything else. You knew beyond doubt where all that coin came from. Why do you

complain now about how I earn my money?”

I lean into him and respond in a low hiss. “Because the way you earned it today can land my ass in prison.”

“Never happen.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

I lean back. “Somehow I’m having a hard time buying that prediction from a man who’s spent over a third of his life behind bars.”

He actually chuckles. “Now, there’s the mouthy little bastard I remember. Hard to

believe I have missed your insults these many years, but I have, I really have.”

His smile fades away then returns just as gradually. He copes with my stone cold

stare by leaning back to take in the entire room—the crowd behind me, the walls, the

ceiling, seemingly everything. The seconds tick by like hours. “This is nice,” he finally

says, “being here with you, having a conversation. Like old times.”

“That’s the worst thing you could say.”

“Hey, we had our moments in this place. We had your birthday parties here.”

“Your goin’ away party is the one I remember.”

29 Which went down when I was nine, and was hardly what you’d call a party. He brought me here to give me a little heads up that he’d be going away for a while.

On business.

A long while, as it turned out:

Nine years.

At the time I idolized my father the way nine-year olds do, and it flat broke my heart to think I would only be able to see him once, maybe twice a month. I threw an out- and-out tantrum that ended with me throwing a plate of food at him. After he went away, mostly due to my whacked-out mother, our relationship slid straight downhill. We saw each other once a month for a while.

Then once every two or three months.

Twice a year.

Our best years lost, I was seventeen the first time he was released, the day after I played the last football game of my career.

My mother disappeared barely a month later.

He killed her. This, this I know.

And he knows I know this.

A month or two after that, I was coming out of Botach Tactical store on

Broadway, a boxed-up set of night vision goggles in my hand (don’t ask me why I bought them), and ran smack into him.

At first he looked at me like I was serving him with an arrest warrant (though I was years away from becoming a cop), and we regarded each other in awkward silence for a brief few seconds.

30 “Hey, how you doin’?” he eventually said.

I turned on my heels and walked away.

He called over the years, and sent money unsolicited, but I would never agree to

see him face-to-face until today, when I had no other choice.

Now he says, “That time I broke the news to you I was going to prison was a real bitch, yeah. A rare occasion, so why not forget it? Try to think positive for a change, give me a hand. It is difficult enough as it is trying to reconnect with you after eight years.”

What?

After a comment like that, all I can do for a few long seconds is shake my head.

Finally I say, “Old man, if there is a good way to reconnect with me, you missed

it by a million fuckin’ miles.”

This gives him pause.

He reaches across the table for my fourth tequila shot, holds it up to the light,

inspects it, drinks slowly, savoring every drop. “Ahhh, Patrón, made from pure agave,

premium stuff,” he says, and dabs his mouth with a napkin. He sighs. “You know, exactly

one week and one day ago I had my chow in the sour innards of a prison mess hall with a

bunch of smelly losers. Guards marched me there and told me where to sit, what to eat

and when to leave. Now, just look around.”

No reason to look around, having already scoped out the main dining room behind

me. The Giants are in town and Dodger Stadium is about three miles down the street, just

beyond where Cesar Chavez turns into Sunset. The restaurant’s buzzin’ with pre-game

energy and the people wearing Dodgers caps and jerseys are hustling out the door to get a

jump on game traffic.

31 He says, “You don’t have to look because you’ve never been deprived of this. But

me? It flips me out.” He gazes wistfully over my left shoulder. “The women are

chattering and flashing cleavage and leg. The men, they are all speaking in normal tones and dressed in clean clothes. Nobody stinks or acts afraid. Nobody hocks and spits.

Nobody farts. . . . This is paradise.” He leans forward. “And I don’t want it to end,

especially—”

“So seven days into paradise you whack a notorious hood and arrange to have a

cop witness it. You keep that M.O. going, old man, you better not get too accustomed to

nice tits and good food.”

He leans forward again and places his elbows on the table. “You seem to forget

the cop I had at the scene also happens to be my son.”

“No, I haven’t forgot that, not yet. I’m only on my third tequila.”

I gesture to our server for another round.

He leans even farther into me. “There is absolutely no way I could pass on this

Macky thing; the money was too good. And, I repeat, we won’t get caught.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

He shakes his head and lowers his voice even more. “Nobody will ever be able to

prove Macky and the bodyguards are dead. Some guys are on the way now to pick up the

bodies and incinerate them and—”

Jesus.

I halt him with a show of my palm. “I could’ve lived happily for a hundred more

years without knowing that.”

32 “Yeah, you say that now, but you’ll be happy you heard it when you wake up in

the middle of the night, sweatin’ your ass off with worry. If you want the money I

offered, shut up and listen to what I have to say. It’s for your own good, and mine.”

I re-direct the stone cold stare at him, griiiit my teeth.

He doesn’t flinch. “News of Macky’s ‘disappearance’ will leak out fast, but his crowd ain’t the kind to file a missing person report. Cops will catch wind of it sooner or later, but do you guys ever get bent out of shape when a bad guy disappears? I mean, why complain when somebody disposes of your trash for you, right? Cops won’t pursue any lead that somebody doesn’t shove in their faces, and nobody will do that.”

Not that I’d ever admit it to him but he’s right. There are a slew of cold cases frozen solid in the Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit that involve dead hoods and their associates. Some LAPD detectives call them “society cleanses,” what others call

“brass verdicts,” and they have all been written off as victims of professional hits.

This, this I know. My mother and her lover are two of them.

I check my watch. “So the condition attached to the money you haven’t given me yet is that I don’t worry?”

“Worry all you want, just don’t panic. Don’t get antsy and say something to somebody you shouldn’t.” He removes a cheap cell phone from his breast pocket. “This is disposable, and it has the number of my disposable programmed into it. Call me if anything arises I should know about—anything.” He jabs a finger at me. “We clear on all that?”

I stare at his finger like it’s the turgid dick of a mangy dog. Delivered in that fashion, there’s no way I’ll answer his question.

33 He. Has. No. Right.

He’s pissed that I don’t answer him, his lips pressed together in a thin line, and he

starts working his mouth, as if chewing up the words that would blow this lunch to

smithereens.

Silence hangs over the table like a storm cloud, the atmosphere growing charged

with it.

A new waiter announces his arrival, merrily slides the old man’s steak burrito platter before him then shrinks away when he notices that our eyes are exchanging lightning bolts. Our primary waiter makes his follow-up appearance to dole out more beer and four fresh tequila shots and I give him a curt, “Nope,” when he again asks

whether I want anything to eat.

I hammer down a shot; it neither cures my headache nor moistens my dry mouth,

causes even more sweat to cascade down my brow.

He finally draws a heavy sigh. “I admit I misjudged you. I really didn’t think

you’d take this as hard as you have. You beat hell out of so many kids when you were

young I lost count, and the only reason you didn’t kill at least two of them was because

your buddies pulled you off. And the other shit you got into, Christ,” a shake of his head.

“And Macky, I didn’t think you’d give a damn about him, of all people.”

“This isn’t about Macky. It’s about you. It’s about me. It’s about you putting me in this position. I’m a cop, Jesus.” I snatch another shot but halt it halfway to my mouth, stare at it, burp, and decide against it—for now.

“That’s another thing. I never pictured you as a cop, at least not a cop without an ulterior motive.”

34 My primary ulterior motive in becoming a cop was to spite him, which I’m sure

he’s figured out by now. He just doesn’t know the rest of it, and wouldn’t understand if I

explained.

“Hell,” he smiles, “when you were a kid, I always thought odds were good we’d

be cellmates someday.”

Fuck you, is what I think.

I don’t say it out loud because his statement’s so true.

I was a childhood terror who drove my parents crazy, particularly my mother

since she was the one stuck with raising me until I was sixteen, when I decided to live with my Aunt Connie, my mother’s sister (which is another story altogether). My mother hated me.

This I know.

Once, when I was about twelve, a gaggle of her friends were coming over to get loose and for fun I planted a cassette recorder under the living room sofa before I hit the streets. Played it back later that night, and in the midst of their drunk-and-stoned gossip about who was fucking who and what assholes men were, a slurry-voiced woman asked

my mother, “Hey, Lorraine, what’s the latest on Rosemary’s baby?” As if that’s how her

friends referred to me all the time, my mother replied, “I refused the mean little fucker

food for a whole day after he got caught dropping soda bottles on cars off that highway

overpass—then what’s he do? He comes home with a canned ham he boosted from

Albertson’s. I tell you, that devil’s spawn is beyond salvation.”

35 The old man says now, “I was shocked when I heard you had applied to be a

cop.” He shakes his head in wonder. “Did you know a background investigator actually

interviewed me? She said you put my name on the application.”

I shrug, saying nothing. The fact of the matter is I was going to claim he was

dead, but a cop I knew said I’d never get away with it.

He tilts his head, thinking back “This broad visits me at the Q, reading questions from her checklist. The one I remember is, ‘Please comment upon your son’s suitability

for the position of peace officer.’ Christ, I almost gagged. I told her I didn’t know you

anymore, that we had disowned each other. The truth, as far as it went. The whole truth

and nothing but would have hosed you.” A shrug. “I figured what the hell. If the kid

wants to be a cop, it is his life; let him ruin it.”

“I bet you also figured, old man, there’d be a day when you could corrupt me to

your advantage.”

“No, you are wrong. That thought never crossed my mind until I heard you were

working for Sacci’s crew. Then I figured you wouldn’t give a shit what went down with

Macky so long as you got cut in on the action.”

Slowly shaking my head, I look away to think before addressing him again. “Now

it’s you who’s wrong. I do give a shit. I was a mean kid, I’ll give you that, and hadn’t

improved much before I joined the force. But I don’t see that as being my fault. The

uniform, the badge . . .” I have to look away again for a couple seconds to think of the

right way to phrase my thoughts. “I don’t expect you to understand this, but being a cop

made me feel good about myself, like I was one of the good guys. It filled a hole you

and—” I almost bring my mother into this but I can’t—I won’t—and pause yet again to

36 weigh my words. “Face it, the way I was raised made dysfunction seem normal, made

wrong seem right. I got to the point where I wanted to be normal, to do right.

“And I’ve been a good cop—a great one, actually. Considering the brass knows

you’re my father, I’d raise too many eyebrows if I didn’t kick ass and take names. And

the stuff I do for Joe hasn’t changed any of this; Joe’s crew is something I got pulled into because the money dried up from you and I needed it—bad. There’s a big difference between collecting shylock payments to make ends meet and sanctioning murder.”

His face, his eyes, reveal nothing before he says, “I always heard addicts get all gushy and reflective when they are crashing from a cocaine binge.”

“Fuck you.”

This time I say out loud.

“I am not judging,” he says, “but I would feel guilty if I failed to bring up what I perceive to be a problem you are having.”

“You? Pointing out my problems?”

He holds up a palm. “Forget me for the moment. All I am saying is you should address your drug and gambling problems before they doom you.”

“Drug problem, gambling problem, Jesus.” I rub the back of my neck. “Old man, if you can’t see the biggest problem I have at the moment, look in the mirror.”

This doesn’t set well with him.

The truth hurts.

From the time I was eighteen until a month ago, drugs and gambling were little more than hobbies. Take gambling: My first shrink, a skinny old woman named Kruger, administered a battery of psychological tests and reviewed my high school and college

37 transcripts, all of which revealed I had a natural aptitude for math. She concluded my

talent for gambling is attributable to the fact I am decidedly left-brained. Theoretically,

she said, this left-brain dominance makes me naturally adept at recognizing patterns from

known quantities and using them to formulate statistically reliable conjectures. Skills

which can be put to good use picking ponies at the race track, counting cards at the blackjack table, or, not so coincidentally, solving crimes.

These skills are worthless at the roulette wheel, a game of pure chance.

And I never played the roulette wheel until about a month ago.

Cut to one month ago, when some wild woman I met at a bar turned me on to smoking crack and pot again—recreational activities my Aunt Connie introduced me to that I quit, cold turkey, no problem, three months before I applied to the police academy.

Not coincidentally, one month ago is exactly the time my blackjack game went to

shit, as did my ability to pick ponies, and me and this wild woman ended up at one of

Macky’s gambling dens where I lost a pile at the roulette wheel.

Not coincidentally, this all happened the day I learned the old thug was getting

out of prison.

So from where I sit I don’t have a drug or gambling problem.

What I have is an old thug problem.

“Fine,” he says, “let’s get the most pressing problem you have with me out of the

way right now. Just promise to keep your mouth shut and I will hand over the money I

pretended to give Macky.” He hesitates before saying, “And I will chuck in another

thirty-five grand and some change to make it an even fifty.”

He stuns me almost as much as he did when he wasted Macky.

38 “Fifty grand.”

“You heard correctly.”

A lot of fuckin’ jack.

So much fuckin’ jack that doing the right thing flies from my mind, as do thoughts of overdue notices and calls from debt collectors. These thoughts are replaced by images of me in Bellagio’s high-roller room in Vegas; I’m decked out in a tailored silk suit, a Cuban panatela’s stuck in the corner of my mouth, and coked-up, sexually depraved women in tiny dresses stand at my side.

“You got a deal.”

“You are sure.”

“Yes.”

“Do not take the money if you are the least unsure of your intentions.”

“You’re not gonna get a blood oath. When I say it’s a deal, it’s a deal.”

He works his mouth, his thoughts churning as if he wants to hammer down the understanding more securely but doesn’t know how to do it without fouling the air with a threat. He doesn’t have to express the threat. It’s all right there behind his eyes.

I say, “I have a condition of my own.”

He nods but not in a way you would describe as agreeable.

“Don’t ask me to do anything else for you. I’m finished with The Life.”

This concerns him. “You are quitting Joe.”

“Yes.”

“You should let today blow over before you do that. Joe and some other people might get the wrong idea.”

39 “And whack me.”

He shrugs his hands and eyes affirmatively. “You know the people you are dealing with as well as I do.”

I think this through. “Okay, I’ll give it a couple weeks before I say anything.”

“Good,” he says. “On that condition, your condition is agreed upon.”

And that, seemingly, is that.

He finally digs into his food.

Another uncomfortable interval of silence passes between us.

At least it’s uncomfortable from my end.

One reason for this is the old man’s eating style—a study in anal retentiveness.

He separates his burrito and rice and charro beans so they’re certain not to touch.

Carefully slices the burrito. Cuts the burrito into four equal pieces. Dabs four dots of green tomatillo sauce on each piece, then four dots of red Tabasco. Cuts each fourth into eighths. He will eat seven pieces and not touch the eighth, as if leaving it in tribute to his pagan gods. Only then will he eat any rice, and will eat every grain before moving on to the beans.

The primary reason for my discomfort: the old man hasn’t handed over my fucking money.

“In my considerable experience,” I say as he’s slicing the last fourth of his burrito into eighths, “when a cop accepts an offer of cash in exchange for illegal services, the offeror immediately coughs up said cash unless otherwise agreed.”

He looks up. “I don’t want you to leave yet. . . . Say, tell me how Nico’s doing.”

40 This would be Nico Wang, an old family friend and the guy who got me

connected to the Sacci Family.

“Nico’s Nico, you know.” I check my watch again. “Look, I really have to go.”

“You mean you have to leave here, right now?”

“Yeah.”

“You have to?”

“You could say it’s an urgent necessity, yeah.”

“When we arranged the time of the meeting with Macky yesterday, you said you were free all day after ten in the morning until eleven at night, when you go on shift.”

Cornered.

Never a good idea to back me into a corner.

I down my mug of beer and try to pour a refill from the full pitcher on the table.

The mug overflows and my hand’s so numb I can’t feel the moisture.

“Frankly, I don’t have anything else to say to you. One could even say I’m

becoming uncomfortable in your presence.”

His eyes become round and moist and innocent, like those of a disappointed child.

“That saddens me more than you know. I was hoping to recover enough of your esteem so you’d go to the ballgame with me today.” He pats his breast pocket. “Dodgers and

Giants, two tickets in the lower level, third base line. I even lined up some girls for after the game.”

“A ballgame? Whores?” I look away and bite my lip to keep from laughing. “If you think dangling a whore in front of me is going to get me to a ballgame with you,

you’re deranged. It just ain’t gonna happen. Today, tomorrow, nev—.”

41 He throws out his hands, beseeching me. “C’mon, Leo, gimme a break. What’s

the matter with you? I—”

“What’s the matter?” The way I laugh reminds me of the way mad scientists cackle in old movies. “What’s the matter?” I stand too quickly and become lightheaded

in the process, having to place both hands on the table for support. Reeling, the room tilting, I slur my words. “You’re a fuckin’ killer, man, that’s what’s the matter. You kill

everybody who gets too close to you.” I jab my thumb into my chest. “So me? Me? I’m not gettin’ any closer to you than I have to.”

He stands slowly and leans across the table, his expression as slack as a dead

man’s. “So, that’s it. Your mother.”

I clench my fists and place them on the table before me for support. “I cannot

believe you’re stupid enough to bring her up.”

“You are stupid for even suggesting what happened to her was wrong.”

“Gimme the money, now, or I’ll turn in your ass the instant I walk outta here.”

He shakes his head. “Never a good idea to pass money in public, kid.”

“Give it to me.”

“Fine,” he says, and takes the envelope from his breast pocket and tosses it on top

of the untouched basket of tortilla chips. “That’s the dough I gave Macky.”

I snatch the envelope and take some tortilla chips along with it, stuffing it all in

the hip pocket of my jeans. “Where’s the rest?”

“Not with me.”

I stand as straight as I can and my equilibrium slips off the charts. Can’t even feel

my scalp when I run my fingers through my hair. “Shit,” I say, and list so completely to

42 my left I have to grab the edge of the table with both hands. My stomach chugs hot acid up my esophagus. I swallow, burp. “When’re you gonna give it to me?”

Stone cold silence.

The word, “Fuck,” tumbles from my mouth before I half stumble, half walk away from my father like the building’s on fire.

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