ABSTRACT

FRIDAY 10:03 (TWO-THIRDS OF A NOVEL)

The following thesis represents two-thirds of a yet-to-be completed novel. During September, 1966, California is preparing to execute Eusebio Viramontes, condemned under a “Little Lindberg” law for kidnap, robbery, and sexual assault. He has authored two books and become a cause célèbre during eleven years on Death Row. His sister Felicia, a film student at UCLA and weekend participant in the Delano Grape Pickers’ Strike, hopes to gain public sympathy for a reprieve, but she is hampered by pregnancy and a strained relationship with her boyfriend, Albert Brofield. In a separate thread, Philip Tseng was prosecutor at Eusebio’s trial. Now he is a superior court judge and husband of a candidate for state superintendent of schools. French-born and half-Chinese, he is facing mid-life self doubt. In his spiritual questioning, he is drawn to Tom Garcia, pacifist and a leader of the capital punishment abolition movement. Just as Felicia sets in motion a UFW-style march from San Quentin to Sacramento, both Felicia and Judge Tseng are visited by Anna Sorenson, once Eusebio’s kindergarten-aged victim. Though emotionally fragile, she claims forgiveness for Eusebio. The novel contains a cameo appearance by Episcopal Bishop James Pike and historical references to Cesar Chavez, Chinese expatriates in France, Charles De Gaulle, and Capital Punishment as it was practiced in mid-20 th -century America.

Brian T. Carroll May 2009

FRIDAY 10:03 (TWO-THIRDS OF A NOVEL)

by Brian T. Carroll

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno May 2009

APPROVED

For the Department of English:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree.

Brian T. Carroll Thesis Author

David Anthony Durham (Chair) English

Craig A. Bernthal English

Alex Espinoza English

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies

AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS

I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

X Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.

Signature of thesis author:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the many family members, teachers, and friends who have read portions of this novel and given me helpful feedback. Most important of these are my wife, Vicki; my children, Matthew, Aileen, Lucien, Rebecca, and Timothy; my sister, Sally; Gloria Valladolid; my thesis committee chair, David Anthony Durham, and committee members Dr. Craig A. Bernthal and Alex Espinoza; unnamed judges of the 2007 American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis Contest; novelists James Scott Bell and Joseph Bentz; and the members of two workshops, the first at California State University, Fresno (Spring, 2005), under the direction of Dr. Bernthal, and the second at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers’ Conference (2008), led by Dr. Randall Ingermanson. Over the course of the nearly forty years that I have had this project in mind, I have lost track of many who gave me helpful information. However, certain individuals stand out. A young man whose name I forget gave me a walking tour of Hick’s Camp during the week before bulldozers razed it. Reginald Carroll gave me memories of working in Los Angeles’s Hall of Justice Building before it was condemned following the 1971 earthquake. Joe Hare gave me his memories as an assistant warden at San Quentin State Prison, and Ramon Rogers gave me an inmate’s view of Death Row. Rev. Michael D. Lampen, archivist at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, both furnished historical material and critiqued the chapter in question. My father, Donald N. Carroll, seeded much of my early thinking with his personal memories of growing up in Los Angeles and his dinner- table conversations about controversial issues.

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However, although I have attempted to faithfully research the era and the locations, unless the characters portrayed in this story have appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, they are fictitious. In a couple of places, I have even tampered with geography or the historical record. None of it happened the way I tell it.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page 1. SAN QUENTIN, CALIFORNIA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1966, 9:16 A.M...... 1 2. BEL AIR, THURSDAY, 5:38 P.M...... 18 3. BERKELEY, THURSDAY, 6:15 P.M...... 29 4. BEL AIR, THURSDAY, 6:26 P.M...... 41 5. HIGHWAY 99, NEAR CHOWCHILLA, THURSDAY, 9:27 P.M. . 54 6. BEL AIR, THURSDAY, 9:40 P.M...... 57 7. DELANO, THURSDAY, 11:12 P.M...... 68 8. BEL AIR, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 6:15 A.M...... 71 9. WEST LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 1:22 P.M...... 75 10. DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 11:20 A.M. . . . . 90 11. WEST LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 3:05 P.M...... 95 12. DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 5:00 P.M. . . . . 112 13. DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 5:27 P.M. . . . . 129 14. DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 6:10 P.M. . . . . 138 15. EL MONTE, FRIDAY, 6:56 P.M...... 145 16. BEL AIR, FRIDAY, 8:14 P.M...... 152 17. WEST LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 9:10 P.M...... 157 18. BEL AIR, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1966, 12:20 A.M. . . . 164 19. WEST LOS ANGELES, SATURDAY, 1:00 A.M...... 168 20. BEL AIR, SATURDAY, 7:30 A.M...... 170 21. HWY 99, NEAR FAMOSO, SATURDAY, 10:48 A.M. . . . . 172 22. HWY 5, NEAR PYRAMID LAKE, SATURDAY, 11:17 A.M. . . 179

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23. HWY 99, NEAR MCFARLAND, SATURDAY, 12:00 NOON . . 189 24. ALTAMONT PASS, SATURDAY, 6:20 P.M...... 195 25. RICHMOND, SATURDAY, 6:38 P.M...... 201 26. SAN FRANCISCO, SATURDAY, 9:15 P.M...... 204 27. SAN QUENTIN, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1966, 7:10 A.M. . . 214 28. SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, 9:25 A.M...... 222 29. SAN QUENTIN, SUNDAY, 2:10 P.M...... 235 30. SAN QUENTIN, SUNDAY, 2:26 P.M...... 243 31. SAN QUENTIN, SUNDAY, 2:59 P.M...... 251 32. SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, 7:00 P.M...... 252 33. SAN QUENTIN, MONDAY, 1:30 P.M...... 261 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 270

Chapter 1

SAN QUENTIN, CALIFORNIA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1966, 9:16 A.M.

Countdown: Eight days and forty-four minutes The signal lamp atop the smoke stack glowed green. Five hundred yards to the east, up a steep hillside, and behind a set of white lace curtains, the young woman who confirmed that color nodded to herself, picked up a tie-dyed shoulder bag for the few seconds it took to pull out her driver’s license, and returned the bag to the Naugahyde sofa. From the back of the cottage, a gray-haired lady laid the newspaper across her lap. “Give him our greetings and tell him we’re thinking of him.” “Thanks, Nanna.” The standing woman clasped the doorknob in one hand. “I’ll stretch it as long as they let me.” “Yes, of course. Lunch is whenever you get back.” As the door opened, a gust of cold air burst into the room and the woman in the chair hollered to be heard. “Careful on the stairs.” Out on the porch, the young woman placed the driver’s license between her teeth while she grabbed the knob with both hands to yank it closed. Overcoming the wind, the door smacked into place with enough force to shake the whole wall. She turned to face San Francisco Bay, her long hair swirling around her shoulders and head. She used both hands to gather it at the nape, looked across the distance to the prison, and suffered an instant of indecision. Then she gave the hair a twist and dropped it inside the back of her smock. She took the ID from her

2 mouth, cupped it in one palm, and glanced again at the smokestack. No matter her personal agitation, green meant that the prison itself was quiet. With the same hand that held the paper card, she pulled the cotton blouse against her swollen belly, adding support, and crossed the stoop. As she started down the stairs, her other hand kept contact with the railing. She was muscular and large-boned, with Mesoamerican coloring made richer by the smock’s turquoise-and-yellow flower print, though she chose the outfit only to meet visitors’ regulations: it would distinguish her from the various categories of inmates and staff. The wooden stairs zigzagged their way to the street. She carried the baby high, with her shoulders back, making it difficult for her to see her feet on the steps. She was aware, from a slight movement at the gate, that she had attracted the attention of the guard. How they stayed awake, she could not fathom. At the bottom of the stairs, she glanced for traffic and scurried toward the protected walkway outside the visitor processing center, one hand still wrapped in front of the baby. Her sandals clapped against the blacktop as she did the best she could to lean into the wind. At the entrance, she grabbed the handrail to pull herself up the three stairs. Then she moved to a counter against the wall and picked up a blank form and a pencil. On the first line, she wrote her name: Felicia Viramontes. On the line below, for inmate, she put Eusebio Viramontes , his identification number, and the time of her appointment. Then she took her place behind three other visitors in line at the admittance desk. She guessed the well-dressed man to be a lawyer. Behind him, she took a tired-looking woman and a boy of perhaps nine or ten to be a grandmother and grandson, no doubt visiting the prisoner who connected them. The boy’s face showed Down syndrome. The muscles across Felicia’s

3 brow tightened ever-so-slightly, and she probed with her fingers for the baby, trying to remember its last movement. It kicked, her frown loosened, and she clutched her arms against her chest for warmth. The boy took a step toward the turnstile and the grandmother caught him by the sleeve. With her thumb and forefinger, Felicia tugged at her own sleeve. What had this woman done to deserve her situation? Felicia had not thought to bring a sweater. She had spent the previous day in similar lines, registering for classes at UCLA, but temperatures had been in the nineties. When her turn came, Felicia handed the visitor’s form and her driver’s license to the officer. He slid the paper into a time clock, removed the carbonless copy, and handed her back the original and her ID. “Maybe you ought to sign in for two, just in case you pop that baby in the next hour or two.” She shielded her belly behind one hand. “I don’t think so.” “Can’t get him out if he weren’t signed in. Otherwise, you’ll have to leave him with his daddy.” Felicia shook her head. “I’m not here to see his daddy.” She turned away from his smirk and dropped her hand to her side. In doing so, she rediscovered that the smock had pockets at each hip. She deposited her ID. Then she pushed through the turnstile and began her way down a long sidewalk bounded by chain link fence. She glanced toward the signal light above Death Row. It was still green. With the trained eyes of a photographer, Felicia noted the harsh morning light against the buildings, and the sharp contrast of shadows. Most of the complex could have passed as a factory, with function more important than aesthetics. The cell blocks featured tall slits of windows, set deeply into the

4 heavy, poured-concrete walls. The drab red brick of the administrative quarters, had it been anywhere else around the bay, in Oakland, or San Francisco, would have passed unnoticed as a warehouse or sweatshop. In contrast, the ornate entrance directly ahead of her, with sandstone-tan bricks, seemed worthy of a medieval palace gate, topped with miniature parapets. Its strength almost called for a moat. Two broad towers stood out from the wall in bold relief. Had Felicia tried to sketch them from memory, their imposing size would have required five levels of the narrow, pointed-arch windows, so it always surprised her to count only three. Her imagination placed archers behind the parapets, their crossbows trained in unison at her breast. Yet in actuality, only seagulls stood sentry atop the wall. She glanced left to look at the North Block’s sixth floor. Her brother’s cell would be on the Bay side, though it had no windows. A quick spasm jerked at her spine, partly a shiver from the cold, but also a reflex against his years spent disconnected from the sun, the wind, and the Bay that stood so close. Even slowed by her pregnancy, Felicia gained on the grandmother and plodding grandson so that they pulled aside to let her pass. She nodded her appreciation, and sped up, animated by this recognition that the baby had not completely stolen away her natural athleticism. Even feeling bloated, she enjoyed walking. The wind came from her left, across the employee parking lot, and up a hillside of ice-plant. Whitecaps dotted the surface of the water. From the far side of the inlet, a sightseeing boat pulled out of a big, lazy loop and slowed to give its passengers a view of the prison. Felicia stuck out her tongue, then remembered the gun tower, and looked up—embarrassed—to see if she had been observed. A guard tipped his hat.

5

As she approached the heavy bars of the next checkpoint, she reached into her pocket to retrieve the ID and her hand brushed against something cool and damp. She made no move to identify it, but placed her documents in the metal tray beneath the window. Then, while the guard checked her face against the picture, she remembered having plucked the branch of hinojo from beside the road as she walked with Mrs. Noland to the beach before breakfast. Tempted by the licorice flavor, Felicia had ventured into the purple-flowered sea-fig and nearly lost her balance, a mistake that could have cost her a nasty slide down the fifteen- foot cliff. The older woman shot a hand out and Felicia grabbed hold to steady herself, maintaining her grasp while she carefully returned to the pavement. Then she had stripped away tufts of feathery leaves, placed a green sliver between her molars, and bore down to savor its milky juices. She offered the remaining portion to the older woman, who declined, and Felicia had dropped it into her pocket. Felicia pinched her lips together, considering what to do with the hinojo. She had never been frisked coming into the prison, but technically, anything beyond her ID ranked as contraband, no matter how harmless. She stared the guard in the face and tapped her finger on the counter. He returned her documents, pressed the release on the heavy-bar carousel, and nodded her through. Coming out the other side, it had been Felicia’s intention to avoid looking left, some two hundred feet, to an unobtrusive door, but the glance came automatically. She quickly caught herself, turned back toward the towered entrance, and slipped the wad of hinojo into her mouth. She chewed several times and swallowed. Nothing had changed about the entrance to the death chamber’s witness room.

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Ahead of her, dwarfed between the dominating towers, stood a white, three- sectioned door. As a unit, it served to fill an opening large enough for the covered wagons that had entered here when the prison was new, but now only one of the sections stood open. She entered, finding herself second in line. Felicia pulled her hair back while the guard gave a cursory paw through the lawyer’s briefcase. When it was her turn, she handed the guard her documents and leaned to sign the register. A second guard held open the barred door of the sally port for her. She hurried into the enclosure. As she heard it slam and lock behind her, she moved through and joined the lawyer waiting for a third guard to unlock and open the far gate. The cage itself seemed ancient, the grating suffering from too many layers of black paint. She gave a small nod to the officer who worked this end of the sally port and then a smile to the lawyer as he pushed wide the final, heavy, wooden door that put her inside the prison. There, the plaza was almost empty. One trustee pruned roses. Nearby, a second inmate dusted the bushes with sulfur, a light cloud of the yellow powder trailing away in the wind as it circled within the protected courtyard. Felicia closed her eyes, tucked her nose into her bent elbow and suspended breathing while she hurried through the traces of fungicide. September seemed an odd time for a spring chore. Perhaps this was institutional make-work, or a warden obsessive about his roses. She glanced over the top of the Adjustment Center to the sixth floor of the North Block, and to the green light on its smoke stack. She had come this far before, only to be turned back. At the entrance to the main visiting room, Felicia showed her documents to the guard. Several general-population inmates sat with their wives and older children, while small children played on the floor. Felicia had to move white

7 plastic chairs out of her way as she made her way across the large room to the far side. Then she took a slip of paper from a rack, filled it out, and handed it to the officer standing beside the door to the special room for Death Row. “You can take a seat, Ma’am. There’s another inmate in there ahead of you.” Felicia nodded, put the documents into her pocket, and sat in a chair with its back against the wall. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the brick. She rubbed her palm across her forehead and cheeks to wipe away any last traces of the sulfur, and looked across the room to the drinking fountain. Even if she washed her hands, she would have nothing for drying them. The room held less than a third of its capacity, but several faces had turned to watch her as she made her way to the Death Row entrance. She gave a quick look around the room, took the paper from her pocket, and made a point of studying it. She let her shoulders sag. El primero de septiembre . How could it be September already? Four weeks until the new school year started. Nine weeks until the baby. A bare eight days for Eusebio to win a reprieve. She folded the paper in halves, halves again, and halves once more. Then she unfolded the paper and looked at the eight rectangles on its back side, each one empty. She needed an idea, some way of helping Eusebio. Felicia repocketed the form and looked around the room. By the time her classes started, she also needed an idea for a six-minute documentary. ¡Qué lástima! All the stories passing through this very room, but she had no camera with her. On the opposite wall, near the door, the grandmother and Down syndrome grandson waited for their inmate.

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With eyes closed again, Felicia asked herself what she might want from her short film. She didn’t need anything dark. Something bright. Something with sunshine and laughter.

FADE IN:

EXTERIOR. HICKS FARM LABOR CAMP – DAY

MEDIUM SHOT. Nine-year-old FELICIA is barefoot, dressed in a faded cotton jumper, sitting in the dirt, playing jacks by herself in the mottled shade of a pepper tree. She looks up. PULL BACK TO INCLUDE nineteen-year-old EUSEBIO, wearing a wide-rimmed, black, pancake hat and a white, narrow- strapped undershirt. A watch chain droops from his pocket, nearly to his knee, and then back up to the belt on his pleated black slacks, which are loose through the thighs but tight at the ankles. His black shoes are highly polished and have pointed toes.

CUT TO:

TILT UP at EUSEBIO from FELICIA’S POV, with the sun behind his head filtered by thousands of tiny leaves.

EUSEBIO (grinning) Hermanita, tengo algo para mostrarte. (Subtitle: Li’l Sis, I have something to show you.)

CUT TO:

EXTREME CLOSE-UP of FELICIA’S face. She will follow that grin anywhere he wants to take her.

CUT TO:

TWO SHOT

EUSEBIO Get your bathing suit. Let’s go to the beach.

FELICIA Mam i told me to stay in the yard.

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EUSEBIO (Shaking his head) We’ll be back before they get home from the fields .

ANGLE IN ON FELICIA.

FELICIA (Considering) How are we going to get there?

CUT TO:

CLOSE-UP.

EUSEBIO (Playing his trump card) Tengo un coche . (Subtitle: I have a car.)

JUMP RETURN TO:

FELICIA (Incredulous) ¿Un coche? (Subtitle: A car?)

WIPE TO :

LONG SHOT, PANNING as the siblings exit the labor camp along the dirt road and turn toward the dry RIO HONDO river bed. FELICIA has changed to a swimsuit, a long-sleeved cotton shirt, white socks, and white and black saddle shoes.

CUT TO:

DOLLY SHOT, as they enter shady clump of cottonwoods and willows to find a mint-condition 1953 DESOTO FIREDOME CONVERTIBLE, black with its white soft-top up and already covered by a few leaves .

ANGLE TO:

CLOSE UP.

10 FELICIA (With admiration.) Where did you get it?

PULL BACK TO:

TWO SHOT.

EUSEBIO A friend of mine had to take the train to Chicago for a few days. He asked me to take care of it for him.

WIPE TO:

BIRD’S EYE VIEW, HIGHWAY 101 through DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - DAY.

The top is down on the convertible. EUSEBIO is weaving in-and-out of traffic at high rate of speed. A driver honks as they swerve in front of him, and EUSEBIO flips him off. FELICIA’s hair is flapping around her head.

VOICE-OVER:

EUSEBIO and FELICIA (laughter)

DISSOLVE TO:

EXTREME LONG SHOT, SANTA MONICA BEACH - DAY

Hundreds of PEOPLE are in the water and on the sand.

CUT TO:

TWO SHOT. EUSEBIO lifts FELICIA by the arm pits and throws her over the top of a large wave. She comes up sputtering and laughing.

FELICIA Do it again!

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A strong wave of tightening across the top of her abdomen pulled Felicia from her reverie, wrung her insides like a dish towel, and caused a sharp pain in her lower back. She tried to straighten up in the chair, and wiped her sweaty palms on the sides of her pants. The hinojo. Felicia struggled to remember her Aunt Socorro’s tutelage. Hinojo would cure colic, stimulate the liver, combat flatulence, and improve lactation. Did it also bring on contractions? ¡Ay, Nuestra Señora! Oh Mary, no, please. Ask of me what you want, but not this. Don’t let the hinojo bring on labor. She looked again at the drinking fountain. She had been told that walking could either start contractions, or cause them to stop, but drinking plenty of water would stave off early labor. She stood and crossed the room. As she leaned over the fountain, the door to the Death Row visitor’s room opened. A guard steadied it while an older couple stepped through, looking like the leads in a film about sharecropping. “Eusebio Viramontes.” The guard anglicized his name almost beyond recognition—shifting the stress and turning both the first and last names from four syllables in the Spanish to three in the English. Even while drinking, she raised her hand to get his attention, and then trekked back across the room and through the door. The officer followed her in. “You know the routine?” “Yes.” The claustrophobic room was divided in the middle by a table, with one chair across from her, and two chairs on her side. She sat down in one of these, and leaned an elbow on the Formica surface. “He’ll be down in a minute. They have to get the other guy back to his cell.”

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Felicia nodded, and the officer closed the door, leaving her alone. The acoustics of the room brought clanging noises from somewhere in North Block. From beyond the closed door at the opposite end of the room, she could hear the squealing hum of the elevator as it climbed to the sixth floor. How could it be the first of September? She slid a hand side-to-side across her stomach, testing to see if she would set off another contraction. Neither her uterus nor the baby showed any activity. Then she rubbed again under her nose, to catch any last hint of the sulfur. When she heard the elevator again, it was descending. It landed, the cage door opened, and then a second door. Finally she heard the key in the lock across from her. Eusebio led, and two guards followed. “¡Hermanita! ” He turned to the guards, “Mike, Oscar, you’ve both met my sister?” Both guards nodded. “Several times,” said the older one. “It’s good to see you, Miss.” He pointed Eusebio to the chair across from Felicia. “Aw, Mike, I been good.” “Okay, ten second hug.” “With the cuffs behind my back?” “Yeah, cuffs on. We’ll save the best for the goodbyes.” Felicia steadied herself with one hand on the table top. They each leaned as far as they could manage, her belly pressing against the Formica. She slipped her free hand a few inches around his waist and lightly pulled him in her direction and felt the baby parry with a kick. With Eusebio’s arms joined behind his back, he could only press the inside of his elbow against her wrist, but he winked. “They never tell me who my visitor is, so I never know how to dress.” He wore the standard blue denim slacks, shirt, and slippers. “I was afraid it might be

13 one of my lawyers. They have nothin’ good to tell me, but you bring the sunshine. Thanks for coming.” Felicia smiled and returned to her chair. Eusebio raised his wrists behind him while Mike undid one cuff. Then Eusebio turned to face the guard while the loose cuff was refastened, this time in front of him. That done, he sat down. “Hey, Dodgers and Giants are in L.A., Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Why don’t the four of us take in some games?” Mike shrugged, “Getting you out of here would be the easy part. Hard part would be finding tickets.” “See what I’m up against, this whole place is full of pessimists.” She scrutinized his face, trying to calculate the ratio of bravado to apprehension. A pun, pesa mucho , came to mind, but she had not come to remind him of the weight of events. Mike leaned back against the wall and the other guard slipped back into the North Block. “Did you come up this morning?” Eusebio rested his hands on the table. “No, late last night. I stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Noland.” “Good people.” He turned to face the guard. “Did you hear that Mike? You’ve got some fine people working in this place.” “Yep.” Eusebio turned back to Felicia. “Did Mami come?” She shook her head. “Mami doesn’t travel any more. Magdalena will try to bring her next week. I haven’t seen Mami since I saw you. I call her sometimes.” “And Albert?”

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“No.” She felt her face start to tighten, and tried to hide it. She didn’t want Eusebio to launch an attack on Alby. “I came without telling him.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Hermanita, you just make the little man smaller.” Felicia dropped her eyes, and Eusebio changed the subject, “You drove by yourself?” She nodded, and he continued, “How’d it run?” “It boiled coming out of Castaic, but I had jugs of water to splash on the radiator.” “Car’s kind of old to be running up and down the state.” She shook her head. “Did you get the picture I sent? I wish you could sit in it.” Eusebio swiveled in his chair. “You hear that Mike? First car she’s ever owned is out in the parking lot, and she wants to show me. Can you run that by the warden?” “We only do that for new Excaliburs. What’cha driving Miss?” “Eleven-year-old Bel-Air.” “Almost. Those used to be on the list, but we had to take ‘em off.” Eusebio shrugged. “Picture might as well have been next year’s model to me. I’ve been in here a long time.” He looked up at the little window, and then at the wall to his left, as if he could see through it to the parking lot. “You know another picture I’d like?” “What’s that?” “Papá.” She blinked in surprise, but began to make a mental list of the various pictures she had seen of her father, three or four in all. “Socorro has one. Alby knows how to make copies.”

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He pursed his lips, sat silent for a moment, and then grinned. “I hear they’re voting today in Delano.” “Oh yes!” She waved her hand back and forth. “I didn’t stop on the way up, but tonight, I want to be there. I just wish I could’ve got a camera.” “Why not?” “Other students had ‘em checked out.” “Whatever they’re shooting, it can’t be half as important.” “I know, but they reserved them several weeks ago. I didn’t even know I was coming ‘til yesterday.” Eusebio nodded. “Well, if you get there tonight, give a grito for me.” Then he tilted his head in an exaggerated motion of inspecting her. “ Pareces dos veces más grande de lo que estabas la última vez que te ví. ” She smiled. She did feel about twice as big as the last time he’d seen her. “The baby’s growing fast. It’s been a month.” “Oh, yeah, you were here the day after Atlanta hit Sadeki for seven runs in five innings. I remember we talked about that. Did you see what the Phillies did to him Monday?” “Yeah.” “Four runs and he was out in the third inning. He’s four and seven with an ERA about five and a half.” He hung his head and shook it back and forth. “Cepeda got four hits in the double header in Pittsburgh, with two RBI.” “Giants are still in first place.” “Yeah, tied. But they’d be six games up, with Cepeda.” She let him vent about the Cepeda/Sadeki trade. When he ran out of steam, she asked, “What do you hear?”

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“Nada ,” he said quickly, and then more slowly, “ nada, nada, nada . My guys are filing appeals, state and federal, but I don’t hear nada .” For a few moments, there was only the clanging from North Block. Then he flicked one of his cuffed hands. “But Smokey’s had me closer than this before. You watch. I’m gonna learn Sanskrit. I’ve had the textbook two weeks, and I can already recognize about a hundred and fifty words. I’m going to be reading it fluently, long before they ever put me down.” He stared again at the wall that hid the parking lot. “What are you taking next semester?” “Motion Picture Editing, that’s three hours of lecture and three hours of lab, and Film Project I. I’ll write and shoot something this quarter. Post production and editing is Film Project II, during Winter. When I’m done, I’ll have a six minute movie, if I can find the money to shoot it.” “How much?” “Just the raw film is $22 a minute, and some of it gets cut during editing. I can use student actors and crew. We help each other.” She looked down at her hands, and back up. “Even before that, registration fee is sixty dollars, and Alby just bought me the car.” “What did gas cost, driving up?” “Near the apartment, I can find it for twenty-nine. In Stockton, I had to pay thirty-seven cents a gallon.” Eusebio slowly rolled the cuffs against the tabletop. Then he raised his eyebrows, leaned closer, and lowered his voice. “ Pues, apúntame cinco minutos .” His offer caught her off guard. Five minutes of film would help tremendously, but how could he afford more than a hundred dollars? She did not know how to answer.

17

Eusebio leaned back in his chair, rested his manacled hands behind his head, and grinned. “ Tengo métodos ,” he said. Somehow he had ways.

Chapter 2

BEL AIR, THURSDAY, 5:38 P.M.

Countdown: Seven days, sixteen hours, and twenty-two minutes “Philip, come look! There are people in front of the gate, with picket signs. I can see at least two of them—three—there’s a child.” Philip Tseng had been sitting on the four-poster bed to buff his shoes, half listening to a one-one tie in Pittsburgh, but now he set the black wingtips on the floor, rose, and went to stand beside his wife. A small alcove separated the window from the rest of the bedroom. It contained a roll-top desk and the entry to a large walk-in closet. Betty stood as far from the line of vision as she could position herself while still watching the driveway. He stepped closer to the window, pulled aside the lace curtains, and looked beyond the wide lawn. An oleander hedge hid most of the street, and where the red-brick drive gave way to concrete, the iron bars of the rolling gate cut the view into vertical strips. Unmistakably, though, two men and a young girl stood with their backs to the house, their placards facing the street. Philip pulled aside a cuff- linked sleeve and checked his watch. Their guests would begin arriving in about twenty minutes. Betty moved in behind him, pushed her thumbs through his belt loops, and leaned her head from behind his shoulder for a better view, careful not to smear her makeup on his white shirt. “What do you think they want?” “I don’t know, but I can go out and ask.” “We don’t want any trouble.”

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Philip let the curtain drop and she stepped aside to let him pass. Against the green of her silk blouse, the tint of her hair seemed to him more auburn than usual. Perhaps it was the late afternoon sun. He returned to the bed, pulled on a shoe, and was tying it as an older man paused at the bedroom door. “Knock knock.” Betty beckoned the newcomer to the window. “Kenneth, have you seen them?” He answered, “Yes,” and joined her at the window. “What can we do?” Betty fidgeted with her pearl necklace. Philip reached for his second shoe. “You—ignore them. Me—I’ll go out and see what they want.” Betty raised a hand to stall Philip. “What’s your advice, Kenneth?” “Well, if the Judge wants to go out and talk to them, it just needs to be real low key.” The campaign manager turned to Philip. “But it would obviously be better if they weren’t there when your guests arrive.” The three stood together, peering out the window. At the curb, a tall man with black hair and light-brown skin turned toward the house. His hand-lettered sign read, END STATE SPONSORED MURDER. Philip smiled. “I don’t think it has anything to do with you, Betty. It’s about Viramontes, not the election.” “After all these years, Philip? Why would they pick on you now?” “It’s not me either. They’ve heard the Governor’s going to be here tonight.” Kenneth nodded. “He’s right. They’re after the Governor. You don’t have to worry about it.”

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“That’s easy for men to say. The deck is already stacked against women candidates. Any little thing can trip us up. Couldn’t the police chase them away?” Philip ran his hand from his forehead back across the top of his head, then rubbed a tight spot in his neck with one thumb. “The street is public property.” For a moment they watched in silence. Then Philip said, “I think I know that Mexican-looking fellow. I met him through Rotary. He was an officer from a club out in the Valley. I think he owns an insurance agency in San Fernando, or Sylmar maybe. Quite a nice guy, actually. I haven’t seen him lately.” “Do you think you could ask him to leave?” Betty released her hold on his elbow. He leaned and kissed her on the forehead. “I can go talk to him, but I doubt if he’ll leave before the Governor sees their demonstration. Is everything else ready?” “Yeah,” Kenneth smiled. “Everything’s gorgeous downstairs. But we want the candidate near the front door as people arrive.” Betty led the way, with Kenneth behind her. Philip moved to a full-length mirror that hung on the wall. Two suitcases blocked the view at floor level, but he only needed to comb his sparse hair and straighten his tie. Despite the heat, he pulled on a suit coat, and turned off the radio. The Dodgers would have to face the Pirates without him. Then he descended the stairs. As he passed Betty, she took his hand and squeezed it. “You be careful.” Philip nodded and opened the door. Flagstone stairs gave way to a driveway sufficient for parking a dozen cars, though now it was empty. Three of Betty’s lawn posters, evenly-spaced, lined each side. They sported a pencil design and the simple message, Tseng for State Superintendent of Schools .

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Tom Garcia saw him coming. “Judge Tseng! Good to see you, Your Honor. Are you running for Superintendent of Schools?” “No, that’s my wife.” Philip shrugged. “But maybe she can put me in charge of summer vacation.” “When I saw this house, I was afraid maybe I’d made a mistake. We heard the Governor was going to be here, and I saw your name as the host, but when we drove up, I thought, nobody I know could live in a mansion like this. What an amazing house, sir.” Tom stretched his hand between the bars, and Philip took it in his own to give it a firm squeeze. The second demonstrator turned and nodded. Philip recognized him as an actor from TV commercials and westerns, though he couldn’t remember the man’s name. Philip swiveled to look back at the Tudor-style house and saw Betty step back from the main entryway. Above her, the bedroom window projected forward and up into a gable under the slate roof. A lower-story of red brick served as the pedestal for a larger second story, where a pattern of dark brown, roughly sawn posts and beams contrasted with beige stucco insets. “I’m afraid I can’t claim any credit for the house,” he said. “My father-in-law built it, and my wife inherited it. I just struggle to pay the taxes.” “Your Honor, I hope you don’t mind us being here tonight. We don’t want to mess up your party. We’ll leave as soon as the Governor sees us.” “Yes, I understand.” From his pocket, he pulled the remote control for the gate. He motioned Tom to stand back, and pushed the button. The iron bars retracted to the side. “But my wife is a little concerned. Tonight kicks off the campaign. This is very important to her.”

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“I didn’t realize your wife was in politics, Your Honor.” From close behind Tom, a girl of about ten peeked at Philip, and Tom reached his hand around to hug her shoulder as he spoke. “Angelica, did you hear that? His wife is running to be head honcho over all the schools in California. That’s something you could do someday.” Tom looked back at Philip. “Tell her she has my vote already.” “Ah, that will help, but I still don’t think she’s going to be happy with you being here. And I told her I knew you, so now she’s going to be unhappy with me.” “I apologize for that.” Garcia cocked his head to one side and gave a palm- ups smile. “I don’t want to be the cause of any marital disagreement.” “I think you’re also going to have to wait a long time for the Governor. We’re going to set him a plate, but he’s scheduled for three different dinners tonight. He’ll probably sneak in late, work the crowd quickly, and leave early. You might even get wet. There’s a possibility of rain.” “A little rain won’t hurt us.” Philip lowered his voice, and tried to add a note of playfulness. “Tom, here’s the situation. My wife’s watching me, and in order for me to go back to the house a hero, I need to be able to report that I’ve haggled for some sort of a concession. What can we negotiate here?” “What do you have in mind?” “Well, the Governor won’t show up until everybody else has arrived. His limo will pull into the driveway, here, but most of the folks will have to park in the street and come past you on foot. What if I can promise her you’ll stand back a little from the driveway, so nobody feels threatened?” “Of course, that’s what we’d do anyway.”

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“I appreciate that,” he smiled and tried to put some twinkle in his eyes, “but I need to be able to tell her I skillfully brought you over to that position.” “You can tell her that.” Tom returned the smile. “Thank you.” Philip gave Tom a pat on the shoulder. “Now, negotiations call for you to get something in return. Can I bring you some coffee, or sodas?” “Thank you for offering, but we have an ice chest in the car.” Philip frowned. “How come I haven’t seen you lately?” “Well, I had to back away from Rotary for a while. You know how it is, with family, and job, and now I’m working against the death penalty.” “Ah, you are, what we would call in France, un homme engagé.” Tom looked unsure. “Is that bad?” “Oh no, it means you’re involved in everything, living life to the fullest.” Tom pulled the girl at his side forward. “Judge Tseng, I’d like you to meet my oldest daughter, Angelica.” With his hand behind her shoulder, he put a slight pressure on her arm, and she raised it to shake hands. Philip shook her hand gently, “I’m very pleased to meet you, Angelica.” She smiled, but seemed too embarrassed to say anything. Philip let go of her hand, and looked at the actor’s cardboard message, CLEMENCY FOR VIRAMONTES. Inwardly, Philip weighed a rebuttal—surely, of those present, only he had ever actually met Viramontes—but in the end, he turned back to Tom, “There’s nothing I can get you?” Tom paused, as if considering, then spoke, “I don’t suppose you have any idea whether the Governor might spare Viramontes, do you?” “Oh, I’m not even the person to ask. I hardly know the Governor. He wouldn’t be coming here tonight, except he was in the area, and he’s a compulsive politicker. Superintendent of schools is a non-partisan job, so he can be seen with

24 us. I’ve been close friends with Lieutenant Governor Callahan since we were in law school together. The Governor knows I’ll be voting for Callahan, so he’ll hardly speak to me tonight.” “Well, if you get a chance, I’d appreciate it if you could put in a good word for us.” Garcia smiled expectantly. Philip paused. He hated to disappoint such a personable friend—well, not quite a friend, but an acquaintance he’d enjoyed whenever they crossed paths. Finally, Philip spoke in a low voice, “Tom, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but twelve years ago, when Viramontes was on trial, I was the prosecuting attorney. I think Viramontes is exactly where he belongs.” Garcia shook his head, “No, sir, I didn’t know that.” “Well, don’t let it worry you. Like I said, the Governor won’t listen to me, and he won’t be here very long when he finally shows up.” Philip wanted to say something more, but he didn’t know what. The pause seemed awkward and long. He looked again at the girl, “It was nice meeting you.” He realized he’d already forgotten her name. Then he turned and walked back toward the house, studying it from what he imagined might be Tom’s perspective. Tom was right. From any perspective, it really was an amazing house— large, pleasing to the eye, well situated, and tonight they would have a visit from the Governor—not bad for a chintoc .

“Chintoc, sale chintoc .” The Paris alley provided neither protection nor escape. Two boys blocked the path ahead of him, while a bigger, meaner-looking youth closed in from the rear. “I’m not Chinese. My mother is French.”

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“What kind of French woman would marry a dirty Chinese?” The bullies edged closer and Philip turned his back to the wall to keep all three in his vision. His only weapon was the lengthy baguette he had been carrying home from the bakery. To his left, the bare-headed big kid seemed intent on quick blood, but Philip sensed the hard eyes on his right, staring from under a wool cap, belonged to the leader. Those eyes seemed most interested in the bread. Philip shifted the crusty loaf to wield it like a club. “Look, the chintoc doesn’t know what bread is for.” The leader displayed a smirk of bravado. “Why don’t you give us the bread and go back to your rice.” “I’m not Chinese.” The leader stepped closer. Philip swung the baguette with all his strength, but the boy caught the other end and yanked it loose. The victor clasped it, mimicking Philip, and used it to give his friend a wallop on the shoulder. The second bully spun to face the first, and Philip darted away. From behind him came their laughter. “Dirty chintoc.”

Philip opened the big door and entered to find Betty waiting. “Will they leave?” “I don’t think so. But they’ve agreed to stand back and give people room to get in. And it doesn’t reflect on you, Betty. It’s the Governor they’re after.” “I hope you’re right. I have too much to think about right now. Could you go check on the tent?” “Yes.” Philip nodded. No doubt Kenneth had everything under control, but if it made Betty feel better, he could perform redundancy. He stepped from the hallway into a game room. To his left sat a pool table, and to his right a bar.

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He nodded to acknowledge the bartender and two waiters. “You fixed up with everything you need?” “Yes sir, all set.” Philip crossed a large salon, skirted around the grand piano, and sauntered into the back yard. Fifteen round tables had been set to seat a hundred-twenty guests. Risers elevated two long tables for the honorees, and behind it hung a banner-sized version of Betty’s campaign poster. In the far corner, Kenneth was giving instructions to the hired photographer. They had planned an open-air event, but with a surprise forecast for scattered showers, the rented tent went up. Two large fans kept air moving, but the mugginess still seemed oppressive. A Filipino waiter scurried from table to table, lighting candles. From the front of the house, Philip heard Betty’s high voice, welcoming the first arrivals. Rothman, the caterer, walked up and down between the rows of tables, looking nonchalant but businesslike as he checked his crew’s work. At one place, he spotted a salad that lacked its cherry tomato and barked at one of the waiters. Though Philip appreciated Rothman’s attention to detail, the curtness with his employee irritated Philip. Having waited on tables as a youth, Philip’s sympathies still lay with the garçon. Philip retraced his steps to the front of the house where Betty held court with two couples at the open door. Philip had only a casual relationship with the young psychologist who worked in Betty’s practice, but shook his hand warmly, even while maneuvering into a position to watch down the driveway. Howard Hansen, Betty’s pastor since childhood, stood talking to the demonstrators. Philip turned to the second couple. He’d only met them once, a professor of education and her husband, but he greeted them both by name, a pay-off for time spent studying the guest list. Part of Philip’s smile was for himself: He could do this

27 political hustle. If any challenger faced him when it came time to defend his seat on the bench, Philip was ready. As Betty guided the two couples deeper into the house, she touched her fingers against Philip’s waist, directing him to escort them, but he edged toward the door. Betty gave him a questioning look. “Reverend Hansen’s out front.” Philip pointed. She nodded agreement and Philip stepped out, onto the porch, and down the five steps. The octogenarian Hansen had disengaged from Tom Garcia and proceeded toward the house, cane in hand. Philip met him half way. “Good evening, Reverend.” “Good evening to you, too. I was just talking with your welcoming committee. They were quite civil. I recognize that one man from somewhere. I think he’s an actor. But the other man did all the talking—the Mexican—I suppose the man they’re trying to help is a Mexican. Is it true the Governor is planning to be here?” “Yes.” Philip offered an arm and Hansen took it. “What did they say to you?” “He says we misunderstand the Bible; that capital punishment was only God’s second choice; that God’s original intent shows up when he didn’t execute Cain for slaying Abel. I think he’s an Anabaptist. Who ever heard of a Mexican Anabaptist?” “Now you’re talking over my head.” Philip glanced back over his shoulder. “Do you think if I went out there, he could explain it to me in layman’s language?” “Anabaptists are like the Amish, or the Mennonites. Germans, mostly. They’re pacifists. Nice people, but they’re stubborn as all-get-out. They’re so

28 stubborn it will provoke you to punch ‘em in the nose, and then what’s the good of all that pacifism?” Philip chuckled, and slowed for the older man to steady himself as they climbed the five stairs. Then he helped Hansen over the threshold and turned back to look again at the gate. A city councilman and his wife stood talking to Tom, but it looked friendly. Philip couldn’t quite come up with an excuse to go out there. As Philip escorted Hansen slowly through the salon, he surveyed a book shelf recessed into the wall. His eyes fixed on one slim volume. He did not break stride, but after accompanying Hansen to a seat under the tent and pointing him out to the waiter bringing around drinks, Philip returned to the salon. He pulled the hardback from the shelf, flipped open the cover, and examined the inscription: Prosecutor Tseng, I hear you’re becoming a judge. Flowery justice, weighed and sold, The sacrifice lies, flayed and cold. A fleeting moment, jade and gold. --Eusebio

Philip closed the book, clasping it with both hands as he glanced toward the door. It was the wrong prop, and this evening was the wrong venue. As much as he wanted to talk further with Tom, other duties called. He took the book in his right hand and slapped it twice on his left palm. Then he returned it to its spot on the shelf. But how could a man with a daughter the age of Tom’s seek clemency for Eusebio Viramontes?

Chapter 3

BERKELEY, THURSDAY, 6:15 P.M.

Countdown: Seven days, fifteen hours, and forty-five minutes The nap had been a good idea, but she’d slept much longer than she’d planned. Then Mr. Noland had come off shift and they’d talked, while Nanna fixed hamburgers. As a result, by the time Felicia made it across the Richmond Bridge, rush hour traffic had backed up through Albany and Berkeley. As her right foot hopped back and forth between the gas pedal and the brake, her eyes dropped periodically from the traffic to the dashboard. There they alternated between the clock and the temperature gauge. Thinking about Eusebio, she had forgotten to add water to the radiator. Now, without the circulation of air from forward motion, the engine began to over-heat. Felicia pulled off the freeway, found a gas station, and chose the self- service island. Even so, a middle-aged attendant came out to check on her, but she waved him away. Aware that he still watched her from behind his cash register, she pulled a rag from under her seat and popped the hood on the Bel Air. With the engine still running, she squirted water through the radiator coils until confident that she could safely remove the cap. Maybe the attendant had never seen a pregnant lady do that before. Felicia filled the reservoir, gave the coils a final spray, dropped the hood, and ran water over first one hand and then the other. She pulled a paper towel from the dispenser to wipe her hands, turned off the engine, took the nozzle from the gas pump, and set it to fill her tank. Then she stepped back to admire her work. Alby could not have done it as well.

30

She would need to fill both water and gas again, midway through the trip. Pushing it, she might make Delano, but she could have trouble finding an all-night station. Fresno would be better. The attendant came out again. When the tank was full, she paid him, and asked for the key to the restroom. Stuck in traffic again, Felicia turned on the radio and found a Spanish- language station out of San Jose. Rain began to fall. She studied the dashboard clock. Even with no traffic, Delano would be four-and-a-half hours. Almost 11:00. An extra hour of stop-and-go would be midnight. Likely, if Cesar had given a speech, she would have missed it. Whatever time she spent in Delano, it would be another three hours beyond that to L.A. She would be lucky to arrive by sun-up. Maybe it hardly mattered. Even with all the monumental events in the making, she had not been able to get her hands on one of the department’s cameras. History would be played out in front of her eyes, and she wouldn’t be able to catch the footage. Maybe she’d been foolish to even try and get to Delano. This week she had her own lucha . She didn’t need anyone else’s struggle. But on the other hand, what could she really do for Eusebio?

Speeds finally picked up a little south of Oakland, but the San Jose station gave out east of Livermore. The rain lightened, but with the cloud cover and the bending and twisting of the highway between hills, the available stations faded in and out. She settled for a frequency shared by two Spanish stations and the Fabulous Forty disk jockey out of L.A. One moment she’d get a clear signal. The next she’d have all three programs on top of each other. Annoying as it was, she needed the noise to keep her awake.

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Before her pregnancy, Felicia could hold her own in all-night activities. Now drowsiness caught her at unexpected moments. She had never feared the dark, but now she wondered if she should have spent a second night at Nanna’s. Or maybe she should have made the round trip by Greyhound. Greyhound would not have allowed her to make the side-trip to Delano, but arriving so late, what good had it done her? Driving did mean she could make the trip without asking Nanna to pick her up from the bus station, or for Alby to drop her off. She pursed her lips. Sometimes she needed to get away from him to take a deep breath. If he’d known she was coming, he probably would have given her an argument. He might have insisted that both of them make the trip together in his little Studebaker. She slowly shook her head side to side. She’d needed the private talk with Nanna. She also needed the solitude of the open road and the time to think. Felicia reached for a turtle-shaped ocarina on the seat beside her and steadied the wheel with her left hand while she fingered the small flute with her right. She put the cool ceramic to her lips and blew a series of soft, whistled tones while trying to imagine the conversation she might have had with Alby. Maybe she could have tried a non-negotiable statement, something like, “I’m going to visit Eusebio—by myself.” She shook her head. Odds were good it would have triggered another shouting match, with Alby cawing and flailing his arms like a tethered crow. She might never have gotten away. Felicia set the ocarina back on the seat, trying to make out the newscast that fought to be heard over the Beatles singing “Yellow Submarine.” “... El Presidente Lyndon Johnson de los Estados Unidos dijo que And our friends are all aboard Vietnam Many more of them En béisbol, los Gigantes de San Francisco se cayó a los Mets de Nueva York, dos a uno. Mientras tanto, los Dodgers de Los

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Angeles y los Piratas de Pittsburgh están atadas una a una en la séptima entrada .” Depending on who pulled it out in Pittsburgh, the Giants would lose a game to either the Dodgers or the Pirates. Eusebio would be angry. No results yet from Delano, and no mention of any stay for Eusebio. Felicia’s head lurched forward and she snapped it back erect, took a look in her rearview mirror, and reached to redirect the wind wing to blow at her face. Already, she had gotten ahead of the storm and the atmosphere smelled only muggy, not wet. She took deep breaths of it, wondering how much of the weariness was the baby, and how much the weight of Eusebio’s situation. Then she reached beyond the ocarina to her right, picked up a gourd rattle, and began to shake it. If Alby had come with her, at least she could have slept while he drove. Alby could have written some kind of magazine piece and they could have claimed the 900-mile round-trip as a business expense. That he would understand. But to him, the trip she’d made—and the way she’d done it—would seem frivolous, especially if she needed to do it again on Tuesday. ¡Qué antipático! This man with all the rapport of a cockroach! No trip could be frivolous if her brother was about to die! How had she gotten stuck with un gabacho like Albert Brofield?

FADE IN:

EXT. – DAY

CLOSE-UP of sign for EAST L.A. CITY COLLEGE. PAN to reveal FELICIA and ALBERT crossing a parking lot amidst a sea of cars.

CUT TO:

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They enter the registrar’s office. She is seventeen, awed by the size of the campus, and a little fearful. He is twenty-one and holds the door open for her.

CUT TO:

ALBERT (pulling an application form from a rack) This is what you have to fill out.

CUT TO:

LONG SHOT: FELICIA and ALBERT exit the building. They are holding hands.

For several seconds, Felicia did not make a sound with the rattle, but only ran her fingers over the smooth lacquer finish. Then she carefully shook the stressed beats as her lips played with an unvoiced rhythm, Pica-poco-poco/ Pa- poca-pica/ Pica-poco. Three times, Felicia repeated the tricky six-five-four pattern. Then she set the gourd back on the seat and took the steering wheel with both hands, suddenly aware of the strong smell of freshly cut alfalfa. In the field to her right, a mower worked by head-lamps, some farmer hurrying to get his crop off just ahead of the storm and the possibility of fields too wet to support the weight of the machinery. She hunched forward over the wheel. It would be a long night, and then she would want to make the same trip again within a few days. Monday? Tuesday? Even if this wasn’t the end for Eusebio, her university classes wouldn’t be starting for another four weeks. She and Alby could make a quick visit sometime in the upcoming week, and another before the first day of classes. Or, if this did turn out to be the end, they could come Tuesday, and stay. Alby could get an interview to make the trip qualify as business. Such a strange man, her Alby:

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Money itself held little value for him, but he reveled in expenses he could write- off from his already-meager taxes. Felicia crested a small rise and found a straightaway pointing into the distant lights of the Tracy business district, not particularly special compared to other cities, but pretty against the black night. Yet even if she caught it on film, she’d be prohibited from taking it in to show Eusebio. Special or not, the roadside businesses would have a restroom and a cup of coffee.

As Felicia merged onto Highway 99 at Manteca, she could see no traffic, in either direction. For the first time all night, she found herself utterly alone, accompanied only by what her own headlights could illumine. A film crew would need to add light to even attempt to capture the quality of that aloneness. Felicia glanced around the inside of the car, visible only by the reflection of lights on the speedometer and clock. The camera shot would need to combine both Felicia driving, and the emptiness outside. Maybe the camera could be mounted on the hood, to first shoot through the window and then pan into the darkness. Soon, she would even be without Eusebio, unless she could find a key to the puzzle, unless . . . unless what? A shudder surprised her, running the full length of her spine. Felicia took one hand from the steering wheel, rubbed her neck, and tried to pinpoint the source of the involuntary spasm. She could not afford to have her body playing tricks on her. She was tired. She was pregnant. In a week, Eusebio would be executed. The light posts looked like sentries, as if everything back in the darkness was a prison, though she knew it to be cotton fields, vineyards, and pistachios.

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From behind her, several cars had appeared in the Bel Air’s mirrors, gradually entering her awareness as they advanced upon her. As they grew closer, blinking highlights from back in the pack pulled her completely from her musings and focused her attention, the stark light exposing the inside of her car like the flashbulbs of insensitive reporters, like smelling salts, or like sulfur. She ran the back of her hand across her upper lip and nose. The tiny hairs on her neck tensed. When it wasn’t Alby, inside the house, it was strangers of the same insolencia coming to the front door, “Miss Viramontes, do you really feel your brother stands a chance with his appeal?” “Are you hoping the governor might change his mind about another stay?” ¡Simón! ¡Claro qué sí! Of course she believed. Of course she hoped. Only a fool would even ask. The lights flickered again and she glanced at her rear view mirror, not with apprehension or fear, but only with a tinge of excitement. She picked up the ocarina, but immediately set it back down. Out in the darkness, the imaginary camera crew would want to get this right on just one take.

FADE IN:

EXT. HIGHWAY – FLAT AND STRAIGHT - NIGHT

LIGHTNING flashes to reveal parched VINEYARDS, leaves blowing loose in the wind. Torrents of RAIN begin to fall.

TILT DOWN to reveal roadway with two lanes each direction. FOUR CARS approach single file in fast lane, with a FIFTH CAR beside them in slow lane.

DISSOLVE to EXT./INT., through windshield of front car to reveal FELICIA. The RAIN pounds harder, spurts and a pause, then another spurt. The windshield wipers should have been replaced before the rainy season began.

WHIP TILT over all the cars to LAST CAR, which blinks its HIGH BEAMS, three times.

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CUT TO:

INT. CAR – ANGLE ON FELICIA who clutches wheel and leans forward, jerking her eyes to the rear-view mirror.

FELICIA (angrily) ¡Pendejo! (subtitled: Idiot!)

The highs flash again, lighting up the inside of her car. Her eyes are fixed more on the mirror than the road. Catching herself, she makes an effort to relax, grinding her shoulders against the seat and one hand gently stroking the hair that rolls over her shoulders and drapes all the way to her lap.

FELICIA (to herself, with a small smile) Vamos a ver. (subtitled: We will see.)

She turns the mirror on herself and straightens her collar, then returns the mirror to its place. Flashes again light up the inside of the car.

WHIP TILT over row of cars to show TWO MIDDLE CARS moving into slow lane. The last car, a HEAVY CADILLAC surges forward, blinking HIGH BEAMS.

JUMP CUT TO:

INT. PARKED CAR – RAINY NIGHT

HEAD SHOT, FELICIA and ALBERT kissing.

ANGLE ON ALBERT’S HAND, sliding up the outside of FELICIA’S THIGH, pushing her skirt away.

FELICIA No!

RETURN TO:

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TILT. With high beams still blinking, CADILLAC charges just shy of BEL AIR’S rear bumper, then slides to the left, across the double yellow line, as if ready to force a passing lane into the center divider’s unmowed weeds.

CUT TO:

OVER-THE-SHOULDER, FELICIA’S POV ON SIDE MIRROR to show one overpowering HEADLIGHT.

CUT TO:

EXTREME CLOSEUP OF FELICIA’S FOOT, lightly tapping her BRAKE PEDAL.

CUT TO:

EXT. SIDE SHOT, BOTH CARS, as brake lights go on. CADILLAC backs off two car-lengths.

CUT TO:

INT. ANGLE ON FELICIA, looking in mirror and smiling.

RETURN TO:

SIDE SHOT, as CADILLAC inundates BEL AIR with flashing brights and charges forward.

RETURN TO:

FELICIA repeats tapping her brake pedal. PULL BACK as headlights reveal her SMILE.

CUT TO:

INT./EXT MEDIUM SHOT

FELICIA slides from fast lane to slow lane and CADILLAC charges by. She glances sideways and steers back into the fast lane. ANGLE DOWN to show FELICIA’S FOOT on gas pedal, accelerating.

38 JUMP CUT TO:

LONG SHOT

EXT. RIO HONDO DRY RIVER BED – DAY

Nine-year-old FELICIA is alone, looking up at the sky.

DISSOLVE TO:

MEDIUM SHOT

A MOCKINGBIRD is dive-bombing a HAWK, even though seriously outsized. The MOCKINGBIRD lands on the HAWK’S back, grabbing hold and riding the bigger bird, pecking at its head and pulling feathers loose.

RETURN TO:

LONG SHOT

FELICIA walks unsteadily over the rocky surface while watching feathers fall.

CUT TO:

CLOSE-UP as FELICIA picks up a feather and tucks it into the hair above one ear.

RETURN TO:

INT. BEL AIR

BACKGROUND MUSIC (beginning with flute and adding drums as it crescendos through final scene, flutes and drums) Pica-poco-poco/ Pa-poca-pica/ Pica-poco.

ANGLE ON FELICIA’S LEFT FOOT, pressing on and off her high beams.

CUT TO:

OVER-THE-SHOULDER, FELICIA’S POV of CADILLAC attempting to escape her, in the light of her flickering BRIGHTS. ANGLE AROUND to reveal

39 FELICIA’S EYES. She is avenging so many crimes. There can be no latifundia on the highways. She will parcel out his holdings among the poor and helpless.

CUT TO:

EXT. TILT, following the two cars as FELICIA tailgates the CADILLAC. They continue for what seems a LONG TIME, but eventually the CADILLAC slides into the slow lane, and immediately exits the highway onto an off ramp.

GO TO BLACK.

For three-quarters of a mile, Felicia continued along the freeway, adrenalin to the floorboard, still clutching the wheel with angry fists. The spoils were hers. The campesinos could now claim the estate and turn the master out to exile. She replayed the battle footage in her mind, again and again, exuberant in her victory, until she glanced at her speedometer and realized—her brain pulsating with the hypnotic six-five-four rhythm—that her speedometer read 85. She gave up the imaginary rain and the film crew. Suddenly feeling terrified, she stepped lightly on her brakes. She relaxed her grip on the wheel, and slowly ground her shoulders against the seat. Then she stretched her head from side to side to work a kink out of her neck. In relaxing, Felicia felt the baby roll over within her, in its own attempt to find a more comfortable position to rest. The baby would be a boy, a crazy fighter, un vato loco . Many years before, when she had been in elementary school and Eusebio was already on the streets, their Tia Socorro had explained to her that babies who kick and punch within the womb would be girls, and babies that slide and lurch would be boys. A boy. Pues. ..a girl would be easier to raise. She experienced a quick fear of what it would be like if the baby suffered from some kind of deformity, but forced that thought out of her mind. A handsome son would be a pleasure and a

40 strength. But if Alby thought she was going to stay with him just because a boy needed a father, she would show him just how wrong he was. She slapped an open palm against the dash board to show herself how much she meant it, blurted a vulgar epithet at this man in her life, and felt herself about to cry. In desperation, she looked to the side of the road for a safe place to pull over, but nothing looked good. She fought back her tears, terrified that she would lose her ability to see the road in front of her. But Eusebio was going to die. He was really going to die.

Chapter 4

BEL AIR, THURSDAY, 6:26 P.M.

Countdown: Seven days, fifteen hours, thirty-four minutes Philip had been moving among the crowd as best he could, making polite conversation and pointing guests in the direction of the tables. Now he stood in the doorway between the salon and the patio, pondering whether he should take his own seat on the dais. He surveyed the guests both in the house and out, and concluded that he had greeted and exchanged pleasantries with each attendee. Betty seemed happily in her element: face radiant, voice sparkling, laugh contagious. Reverend Hansen, alone on the platform, sipped a drink, cigarette in hand, and watched the activity all around him. Philip circled behind Hansen and took his seat beside the Reverend, who would open the meal with a blessing. “Well, Howard, I hope you don’t mind supping with a backslidden Papist.” “Philip, if I had ever had any objections, I should have made them when Betty first brought you home after the war. I’m afraid that now I must forever hold my peace.” Hansen paused to search Philip’s face. “So tell me, how are you doing?” He tapped a finger on Philip’s knee. “No polite half-truths, now. Really, how’re you doing?” Though Reverend Hansen was thirty years older than Tseng, he had considerably more hair. It was white and curly, with ringlets covering the tops of his ears. At the temples, it almost seemed to join his eyebrows. The skin was wrinkled but tanned, and his hands strong.

42

“If you don’t want half-truths, you’ll need to seek a change of venue. We have now entered the world of politics, where half-truths, whether polite or nasty, are coin of the realm.” Philip took a sip of wine and continued. “I’m much more comfortable in deep conversation with one or two people than in this kind of milling and glad-handing, but I guess it’s necessary.” “Yes. So, how will you and Betty ever see each other if she’s elected State Superintendent of Education and you’re appointed to the appellate court?” “A very premature question.” “I just read the papers.” Hansen leaned back in his chair and locked a penetrating gaze on Philip. Philip shrugged. “It’s a free country. Columnists may write anything they wish. I think Betty is the odds-on-favorite. And if she’s elected, she will be gone considerably. We’ll see each other on weekends. The other can be chalked up to one commentator’s pressure to come up with something before deadline.” “And so, if Callahan is elected, as it looks he might; and if there is a vacancy, and we could expect a couple; and if he wanted to appoint you; you would—of course—turn him down, your long friendship not-withstanding.” “Howard,” Tseng leaned towards the older man and continued in a conspiratorial whisper, “Bob Callahan will nominate someone with more talent and experience than I have. But you know what my real ambition is?” “No, tell me.” Philip raised one eyebrow and lowered the other. “Once I have friends and family in high office, I want to be Minister Without Portfolio.” “What do you mean?” “It’s not an American tradition, but it’s very popular in Europe. Minister Without Portfolio is an elder statesman who’s appointed to the Cabinet and has all

43 of the Cabinet prestige, but none of the Cabinet responsibilities. He gets to sit at the table and tell the president what he thinks, but he doesn’t have to spend the rest of his week running some department. And he gets to pick and choose his special assignments.” Hansen pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it across his forehead. “That does sound like the best of both worlds.” “Yes, and in my case, I would only take assignments that involved— literally—no portfolios, no manila folders of any kind. My office would be a manila free zone.” “You’ve seen enough of that, have you?” “Why, I’ve spent my whole life as a file clerk.” Hansen pressed the cigarette into an ash tray. “Philip, you’re too hard on yourself.” “No, really. It started during the war. It’s a little known fact that Hitler’s whole scheme collapsed because of my gallant service in the file repositories of London.” “Now that you mention it, perhaps I do remember seeing that in a documentary on television.” Hansen’s eyes followed Betty as she stepped from the house. “And I do remember you worked downtown as a file clerk and messenger boy while you were going to law school.” “Ah, that was the high point of my whole career. I got to ride a bicycle from City Hall all the way up and down Bunker Hill, and explore all those tunnels under the Hall of Justice and down to the Plaza. It flashed on me just this morning. I started the day with a stack of manila folders this high.” Philip held one hand about 30 inches above the other. “Bring the prisoner in, appoint a public defender, take his plea, set his bail and put him on the calendar. Move the folder

44 to the other stack, and go on to the next folder. A judge is just a glorified file clerk. Instead of a bicycle, I have a gavel.” “That all just flashed on you today, did it?” Hansen looked at Philip over the rim of his glasses. “Maybe you need a vacation.” “Maybe I do.” Philip took another sip. “I apologize for burdening you with my perverse little epiphany. Perhaps we could change the subject. Tell me, how are things in the salvation business? Betty and I haven’t been invited to a good tent meeting in a decade, or maybe two.” Betty stood, waiting everyone’s attention. Between her seat and Philip’s, places for the Governor and a San Gabriel Valley assemblyman sat empty. Hansen leaned close to Philip’s ear. “Yes, well, fashions come and fashions go, and I think that one’s left the greater Beverly Hills metropolitan area, completely.” Philip raised his eyes and nodded in acknowledgement to Hansen as Betty gave a short welcome. Then she called on the Reverend for an invocation. Hansen stood. “Father in Heaven, thou dost provide all good things.” His voice carried throughout the tent without a microphone. “We beseech your blessings on this meal, on our evening together, and on Betty as she offereth herself up as a candidate for this high office of trust. Strengtheneth her, Lord. Giveth her wisdom. Guideth her. Protecteth her. We approach Thee in confidence, oh Lord, that whosoever asketh receiveth.” He paused as if considering another thought, but then simply ended, “Amen.” Betty thanked Hansen and encouraged the guests to begin eating. Neither the Governor nor Hayashi had yet appeared. Hansen picked up his salad fork, but instead of eating, looked intently at Philip. “Will you be glad to have the Viramontes case finally closed?”

45

Philip stabbed a piece of cucumber. “In a way, I suppose, but it really hasn’t been my case since the jury found him guilty. I didn’t work any of the appeals. But I’ll tell you, Howard, off the record, and perhaps not as impartially as behooves a judge: After twelve years, the wheels of justice need to turn and be done with it.” “Well, hasn’t it mainly been a case of Viramontes managing to play the system to drag it out? It’s not the justice system’s fault.” Hansen lifted a forkful of greens to his mouth. “Oh, sure, and you can’t blame Viramontes for stalling. In many ways he’s been a pawn of all the bleeding hearts, and the lawyers. It’s symbiotic. They’ve used him and he’s used them. But between them, they’ve managed to make an empty satire out of justice. When Viramontes was sent up there, the average stay on Death Row was under a year. If he’d been executed within even twice that, no one would have been bothered. He was simply one more dead-end kid with a long record. He’d committed a horrible crime against a little girl, and the world would have breathed a sigh of relief to be rid of him. But now...” Philip waved his hand in disgust, “he’s had, or claims to have had, this marvelous experience with God— or the gods, however he sees it—and he’s written these foolish books, and people want to kiss his feet and acclaim him the great religious mystic of our time. The problem is that the man we’re executing is not the same man we convicted. He may have only moved from common, ordinary crime to a sophisticated scam, but the media frenzy is based on this new public image, not the shell of a creature we convicted.” Philip paused to take another bite. The Reverend seemed annoyed by his hearing aid, and fiddled with it while he spoke. “Of course, I haven’t actually read either of his books. But some time ago, I came upon a review. And again, I don’t have the very least knowledge

46 about the reviewer. However, what impressed me most was the amount of scholarship that Viramontes seems to have put into his books, especially considering the limitations placed on him by his education and the quality of the prison library. He must have been writing ten letters a day to professors on the outside, and then gotten answers. That alone is quite an accomplishment. It would interest me to know how sincere he was in writing them, because the religious questions are quite fascinating. All of us face death. We start dying the moment we’re conceived. Nobody escapes. Most of us can push the thought to the back of our minds, but that’s not true on Death Row. Even if his execution date keeps changing, he’s still spent a decade with some date and hour fixed on his calendar. There’s no doubt but that a man who spends so long facing imminent death has to undergo some kind of intense self inspection or religious experience. Of course, you might argue with that, or maybe suggest that a man who commits this kind of crime can’t possibly have any religious feelings, but I doubt that very much. Have you ever read his books?” Tseng shook his head, and wiped his mouth with his napkin, “Howard, my mother used to drag me to mass several times a week, and I fought it every step of the way. Religion was the bane of my childhood, if you won’t take that personally.” “Of course not” “But if suddenly, in my old age, I should feel a need to prepare to meet my Maker, I think I would owe it to my poor mother’s memory to study my religion from a good Catholic priest. Or maybe I owe it to Betty’s father to let you give me Protestant instruction. But somehow, I can’t see myself studying to save my soul at the feet of some crummy rapist.” Philip pushed his salad aside and a waiter reached over his shoulder to clear it.

47

“Ah, but St. Paul said, ‘I was the worst of all sinners,’ and when he realized that, then he was closest to God. You and I can think of ourselves as pretty good people. But someone on Death Row either has to be delusional, or face up to what they’ve done. To me, the important question becomes whether Viramontes was inspired from a true desire to understand God—or to understand himself—or is he so diabolically clever that he realized untold numbers of sympathetic readers would put pressure on the system to spare his life.” “Well,” Tseng thought for a moment, “if it takes one to know one, I’m certainly no judge of religious sincerity.” He pinched his bottom lip between a thumb and forefinger. “I’ve told you before, my father was a Marxist. His god was the Chinese motherland. My uncle, my father’s brother—whom I actually knew much better—may have been a Marxist at one time, but I think by the time I was nine or ten, he’d reverted back to the old Chinese superstitions, literally just mumbo jumbo stuff. And, of course, my mother was a Catholic and sent me to a Catholic school, which my parents argued about bitterly until the day my father left. I don’t suppose I’m a very good candidate to give you an unbiased opinion of religion.” He snapped his wrist as if brushing off a bothersome mosquito. Just then, the waiter had been reaching over Tseng’s shoulder with the entree. Philip bumped the young man’s arm, just above the wrist. The plate fell, first to the edge of the table, where it shattered, and then—ceramic shards, asparagus , steak, potato, and gravy—in Philip’s lap. Philip immediately stood up, and turned with his napkin to see what might have splattered on Hansen. The Reverend brushed small drops from his pants, but Philip had suffered the more serious splattering. The waiter’s face flushed and he attempted to apologize in broken English, while he knelt to wipe away what he could.

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Rothman appeared out of nowhere. He took the towel from the now mute waiter and continued wiping off Tseng’s pants, “I am so sorry, Your Honor. We will get this suit cleaned for you.” Still kneeling, he turned to the boy and ordered sternly, “Don’t ever be so careless. Do you see what you’ve done? Get a bus tub from the kitchen, and pick up this glass.” Philip brushed Rothman away and took the towel himself, “No, no, it wasn’t his fault. I bumped his arm.” “But we’ll get your pants cleaned.” “Nonsense. These things happen.” “These Filipino boys...” “No, no, it was my fault for bumping him.” The Judge waited while Rothman wiped carefully over the chair. Betty arrived with another towel. “Are you okay?” “Yes, but I do think I’ll change into a clean pair of pants, if you’ll excuse me.” Philip hurried up stairs. Before opening his closet, he turned on the radio, low. After changing clothes, he went to the window and looked out at the figures on the sidewalk in front of his house, standing, Tom Garcia and his daughter holding hands. There was no sign of the governor. The Dodgers led four-one in their half of the tenth. Philip turned off the radio. Downstairs again, as Philip passed through the kitchen, the young waiter lugged a tub through the door. Seeing the Judge, he lowered his eyes. Philip gave him a big smile, “Hey, forget about it. It was my fault. If Rothman gets on you about it, let me know. My wife will shame him so bad you’ll get a raise.” The boy edged towards the trashcan. “Thank you very much, but is not necessary.”

49

Philip detected the carefully constructed sounds of night-school English. “How long you been in this country?” “I am two months here.” “What about your family?” “With me is one cousin.” “You’re students?” “Next year, will starting at Los Angeles City College.” “Good for you. California has a wonderful system of community colleges. I’m an immigrant, too, twenty years ago. My wife and her dad helped me a lot, but our junior college system is almost as good as having a rich wife. Right?” “Yes. I think true.” The boy gave a nervous smile, nodding politely but embarrassed at being singled out for this lecture. He edged over to the trash, and began scraping out the tub. Philip nodded a greeting to the chef, moved toward the door and stepped outside to see Betty showing Assemblyman Hayashi to his seat. Philip joined them and extended a hand to Hayashi as a different waiter brought two entrées. “Assemblyman, I’m Philip Tseng. Very pleased to meet you.” “Judge Tseng! Likewise. It’s always nice to meet another Asian in politics. There aren’t that many of us.” Philip gave a faint smile and an even less perceptible shake of his head. “Oh, I’m really not that Chinese.” Yet even as he said it, he realized that the gesture he had just made reminded him of the same Uncle Yüan he had referred to in his comments to Reverend Hansen. With his hand, Philip directed Hayashi to sit. “My mother was French.”

50

The assemblyman took his seat and unfolded his napkin. “You have a beautiful home. It makes me think of Hollywood stars of the silent era. When was it built?” “Early 1920s, and it was a star-studded hangout in that era. My father-in- law imported European furniture and art, and sold mostly to a Hollywood crowd. Did you grow up in the San Gabriel Valley?” “Yeah, for the most part. I did three years of high school interned at Manzanar, and four years of college at the University of Nebraska.” “What did you do before you landed in the Assembly?” “Raised berries and taught high school. My parents’ farm had to be in my name because Japanese citizens weren’t eligible to own land. They never really learned to speak English, either, or Spanish, so I got the crews started at dawn, then did my teaching. I learned my politics organizing a berry co-op.” Even while Hayashi spoke, he sliced pieces of steak and his eyes scanned the other tables, like a deal-monger on the make. Philip’s small talk alternated between Hansen and Hayashi, but he, too, kept part of his attention on the crowd, pondering the after-dinner remarks he would be called upon to make. The notes he’d prepared suddenly seemed lifeless. As deserts replaced entrees, Hayashi rose to speak, but Philip only half listened, mulling memories brought to mind by the conversation in the kitchen with the waiter. Hayashi didn’t seem to be saying anything profound. On the question of teaching with traditional methods, or shifting to more permissive models, he managed a funny story that could be taken to endorse either position. If Hayashi had been profound, Philip would have felt compelled to match him, but the assemblyman’s little jokes took the pressure off. “When I was in school, the Board of Education was about four inches wide, and it was applied directly to the

51 seat of learning.” He challenged Betty to strive to institute high academic standards for all students, within a structure of fairness and openness, and promised to help out in any way he could. There was mostly polite applause, with a few individuals standing out for their enthusiasm. When it began to die away, Betty stood and thanked him for the compliments he had paid her, and wished him the best of success in his own reelection campaign. Then she introduced Philip. Tseng stood, and coughed into his fist for dramatic effect. He forced a mock sternness into his voice. “I suppose many of you have heard the nonsensical charge that my wife doesn’t have the background in the field of education to make her competent to fill the post to which she aspires. However, I can assure you, after 22 years of marriage, that Betty has been quite an education to me.” There was a small ripple of laughter, and he continued, his voice now warm and affectionate, “And, of course, I don’t need to convince those of you in this room that Betty is the best candidate. You’re the friends who have watched Betty up close as she prepared for this. You watched as she earned her degrees. You watched her during her years with L.A. Unified. You watched as she launched out on her own. You saw her consulting with school districts across seven western states, advising school boards in both big and little districts: how to reorganize, how to train their staffs, and how to deliver a better educational product. You know as well as I, that the quality of our schools has been an important concern to Betty, day in and day out, for all the years we’ve known her. “One of my very first memories of Betty comes from our time in London during the war. All of England was being bombed, but especially London, and the government organized an evacuation of children to the countryside. Almost all the children were sent away from the city. Betty missed those kids. She had a craving to be around children. So on weekends, she led a group of us—mostly Yanks, but

52 a couple of Brits, and I was serving with the Free French exiles—and she took us north of London, where she’d found a group of kids who’d mostly lost parents in the bombing. She was befriending these children, and their teachers, and was giving her off-duty hours to make those children’s lives better. But even more significant, as I look back on it, was that she wanted to organize all of the rest of us to join in the task. I look around this room, and realize she’s still at it. She’s found a group of children—all the children in the State of California—and she sees them in a time of need. Maybe it’s not as dramatic a crisis as the bombing of Britain. But it’s the crisis that our children and our culture are facing in our times.” Philip continued with a few more thoughts and sat down, both pleased with his own comments and marveling over how different they were from the notes in his pocket. Betty thanked all of those who had come. Just as she began to list some practical things they might each do to help her campaign, the sound of motorcycles caught everyone’s attention. Betty laughed, “Well, I’m not even going to attempt to compete with the governor’s motorcade, so I’ll just say, ‘We can use all the help we can get,’ and leave it at that. And now, if you’ll just keep your seats for a minute, I think I probably ought to answer the door.” Together, Philip and Betty hurried through the house. By the time Philip opened the door, the governor was already at the bottom of the stairs. At the curb behind him, Tom Garcia and the others were waving their signs, and shouting. At the top of the stairs, the governor turned, waved his hand, and called out, “I see you, and I appreciate you letting me know what you think. Good night, now.” Then he turned to Betty and Philip, “My, I’m sorry about that. I never imagined my coming here would bring them out. How are you both tonight? Judge Tseng, it’s good to see you. Betty, how’s your campaign going?”

53

“Oh, it’s all very exciting, but I’m sure nothing at all like what you’ve experienced.” “Don’t you believe it. The elements are all the same, whether you’re running for president or dog-catcher. I’m sorry I’m so late. I saw cars up and down the street. That must mean you still have a few guests left.” “Oh yes, and they’re all waiting for you in the back yard.” “Wonderful. Betty, you look gorgeous tonight. I think the political life brings out the best in you.” “Why, thank you, Governor. You’re looking well, too.” “Thank you.” He turned to Philip. “What a beautiful house!” Then he moved toward the door, and Betty led him through the house, into the back yard and directly to the speakers’ lectern, though he paused to shake a few hands at the closest tables as he passed. Philip stood off to the side as Betty welcomed the governor and he launched into his comments. The man could certainly talk: fast, smooth, full of platitudes and blarney. He mentioned four members of the audience by name, and asked the city councilman if his mother had recovered from her recent surgery. Even with his polls down, this was not a candidate that Callahan could afford to under-estimate. At the end of his talk, the governor took Betty by the hand and led her table-by-table, to shake hands and schmooze. He recalled a remarkable number of first names, and remembered personal information. Philip wondered if there was any way the governor could have been briefed, or seen an advance copy of the invitation list. Betty looked like the Queen of the Prom.

Chapter 5

HIGHWAY 99, NEAR CHOWCHILLA, THURSDAY, 9:27 P.M.

Countdown: Seven days, twelve hours, thirty-three minutes. Felicia caught her head nodding forward and glanced at the dashboard clock. Calculating a bit over two hours to Delano, it would be midnight, with another three to L.A. She gulped a deep breath of air and sat all tall as she could. It would be tempting to stop at the pink house. Somebody there might remember her and offer her a cot for the night. A station out of Calgary was coming in stronger than anything local, playing country music, and reporting high school sports and Canadian economic news. The wheat crop would be the biggest ever. A new railroad was pushing north from Edmonton to harvest coal and gypsum deposits. The country was in a huff over a former associate defense minister who had been sleeping with a Russian spy. Felicia turned the dial to the right, finding little. A preacher with a Texas twang was in the middle of comments about Esther, “So the queen acknowledged that God had placed her in that social position, at that moment in history—the Bible says, ‘at such a time as this’—to perform a specific task that God had in mind.” Felicia moved on, edging through static, changed her mind, and came back. “She could have been satisfied. She was a beauty queen. She was Miss America. She had servants and her own wing at the palace. But she was willing

55 to put her own comfort on the line, willing to risk her own safety, so she could achieve the safety of her people.” Felicia went on again. To the side of the highway, the occasional light from a truck’s headlights or a farmer’s front porch reiterated the sameness of the valley’s landscape: mile- upon-flat-mile of vineyards, interrupted only by other crops or the occasional lights of a small city. She had outrun the rain, or it was sweeping north, leaving the southern valley with the day’s heat still radiating from the concrete. In her rear-view mirror, every car that approached took on—for the time that elapsed as it gained on her—the shape of the Cadillac she had vanquished, now back for a rematch. She studied each one, her eyes darting forward only long enough to keep herself in her lane. Then, as each one took on size or color to distinguish it from her foe, she felt again the sweet satisfaction of her victory and wondered where in the dark the Buick might have hidden for refuge. Someplace out in the dark, too, she hoped the growers would be licking their wounds, as well—one in particular.

FADE IN:

EXT. – DAY. There is early-morning FOG.

LONG SHOT: FELICIA is near one end of about a dozen FARM WORKERS, each carrying a hand-made placard, standing at the edge of a paved strip just a few feet from rows of leafless grapevines. One PICKETER has a bullhorn and is calling in Spanish to SCABS who are in the field, pruning the dormant vines. Other demonstrators are yelling at random.

CUT TO:

CLOSE-UP FELICIA (yelling)

56 ¡Vengan y únanse a nosotros! ¡Si nos dividen, siguen abusarnos! (subtitle: Come and join us! If they divide us, they continue to abuse us!)

WHIP-TILT to grape vines just behind FELICIA, where a spray rig darts from between the rows, the DRIVER hidden behind a white spray-suit and visored head-covering. The rig is expelling a cloud of powdered sulfur from pipes at head-level.

CUT TO:

LONG SHOT, PANNING to follow spray-rig as the cloud of sulfur expands to engulf all the picketers.

CUT TO:

CLOSE-UP on FELICIA, her face screwed up tightly under a coating of sulfur powder. With her hands she tries to wipe it from her eyes, nose, and mouth.

In the darkness of the car, Felicia wiped her hand across her face. Then she dropped her hand to her belly and felt for the baby. It kicked back.

Chapter 6

BEL AIR, THURSDAY, 9:40 P.M.

Countdown: Seven days, twelve hours, twenty minutes Then, as abruptly as he had arrived, the Governor began working toward the door. He had Betty’s hand again, and brought her to Philip. “Betty, can I borrow your husband for a few minutes? I’ll have my aides bring him back after a little bit.” Betty looked confused, but nodded, “Yes, of course.” “Thank you, very much.” He shook a few more hands, smiled at everyone, and directed Philip toward the limousine, which had already been turned around. The police escorts started their motorcycles, an aide closed the door behind them, and the limousine pulled out of the driveway. As they slid from the gate, Philip met eyes with Tom Garcia. “Thank you for coming with me on such short notice, Phil.” “Well, Governor, what can I do for you?” “I’ve been having some trouble, Phil, going over the facts of the Viramontes case. There are a couple of things that just don’t sit right, and I wanted to ask your opinion about them.” “By all means, shoot.” “Thank you. First of all, it doesn’t seem to me that Viramontes had a very strong defense during his trial. It was the very first substantial trial that Cooper had ever fought on his own.” “Well, okay, he was young. We were both young. But you have to remember: Los Angeles pioneered the whole concept of a public defender’s office.

58

Just because Cooper was personally inexperienced doesn’t mean he didn’t have experience to fall back on. The department had forty years experience behind it. They led the whole country. They were setting the standard for everybody else. Max was sharp. Look where he is today in private practice. Maybe he wasn’t quite as polished as a more experienced attorney, but I don’t think he made any major mistakes. I never thought of it as a weak defense. It wasn’t like the outcome was ever really in doubt. The car was stolen two days before the kidnapping. He’d been tried as an adult since he was sixteen, which gave him a prior conviction for car theft. Witnesses saw him driving this one, three different times over those two days. His finger-prints were on everything. Her toy purse was found underneath the driver’s seat. And for all of it, Viramontes had no explanation.” “She never identified him.” “She couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. She couldn’t tell us very much at all. But the jury believed—beyond a reasonable doubt—that Viramontes did it. And now, a whole string of the nation’s leading lawyers have taken their best shots in the appeals courts, and come up empty.” “But even a bright young man like Cooper had no right being chief attorney in a capital case before he’d had a few other cases under his belt…” Philip cut in. “That’s how I started. That’s how you started.” “That still doesn’t make it right. We’re not talking about training lawyers here. We’re talking about sending a man to Death Row. If ten men had committed the same crime in the same county, half white and half Negro or Mexican, and half rich, half poor, would all ten have been condemned to death, or just Viramontes and his social equals?”

59

“Hey, we’re talking almost a decade before Gideon , yet this decision survived a review under the Gideon standard. What standard do you want to hold it to? When a poor defendant is arrested, do we have to wait until a rich person is arrested for an identical crime, and then try them before the same jury? I mean, let’s be reasonable.” “But Phil, would a good, expensive lawyer let a jury come back with a death sentence under ‘Little Lindbergh’ for just the 35¢ she had in her purse? That law was never intended to cover a crime like this.” “The law says, ‘kidnapping,’ quote... ‘to exact from another person any money or valuable thing...’” “But that’s the ransom clause. There was no ransom demand here.” “But then the same sentence goes, ‘or any person who kidnaps or carries away any individual to commit robbery.’ It never says robbery over a certain amount. As a parallel clause in the same series, it requires the same implication. The law says, ‘any’ amount. That’s the way the legislature wrote the law in 1933. They left it that way when they rewrote it in 1951.” “But is has changed, now. I signed the bill.” “But this was the law as it was written at the time of the crime, and the way the courts have interpreted it ever since. There are no degrees of kidnapping. That was the ruling in the Beltran case. It’s either kidnap or it’s not, and we absolutely have kidnap in this case. When the law has been successfully challenged, it was when the victim was forced to make minor movements during a robbery, like from the front of the store to the cash register, and the movement did not place the victim at any greater risk of harm. Obviously, the record shows that this little girl was placed at greater risk of harm by being pulled into the car during the robbery.”

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“For 35¢.” “Governor, there’s no principle in law that says a punishment must be in proportion to the criminal’s value received. There are thousands of guys doing two-year hitches for $20 liquor store stickups. That’s $10 per year. They’d have earned more by taking the same hour they used to rob the store and spending it in line at a soup kitchen. The whole idea is to impress upon the criminal mind the thought that crime doesn’t pay. A life of crime is a life wasted in stupidity. We don’t ever want a criminal to say, ‘Well, I did such-and-such and received ‘x’ amount of pleasure and satisfaction, and was sentenced to so-and-so which brings me ‘y’ amount of pain and dissatisfaction, but you know: x equals y, or even comes out a bit better. In the end, I’m ahead for my crime.’ We want to criminal to say, ‘That was stupid. I don’t ever want to do that again.’” “That’s blue collar crime. What about white collar crime?” Tseng considered the case just begun in his own courtroom earlier in the day, a grandmotherly bookkeeper who had embezzled her construction company into bankruptcy. The testimony promised to be lengthy and complicated, but if she was convicted, he imagined she might spend two or three years behind bars, “Yeah, okay, sometimes it looks like ‘x’ beats ‘y’ in your more spectacular white collar cases. But the answer is to stiffen penalties in white collar cases, not to ease up on violent crimes.” “So you don’t have any problem with a death penalty for 35¢?” “No, not for 35¢. For a brutal crime against a little girl—for which a Harvard-educated, independent psychologist testified she would have permanent emotional injury, and a gynecologist testified she might never be able to bear children—and after which the monster took the 35¢ from her purse and bought himself chewing gum. The clerk remembered him laughing uproariously as he

61 was buying it, and the police remembered him doing the same thing when they questioned him about it. We gave him the death penalty for the whole series of actions, in their entirety.” “But the kidnap for monetary gain was the only crime punishable by death.” “Governor, maybe you’re just playing devil’s advocate here, and that’s okay. But let me go back over it again. When you prosecute a crime as heinous as his, you prosecute under any law you can find. He kidnapped her at knife-point. Maximum sentence: 25 years. He beat her like you couldn’t believe, horribly molested her, and dumped her in an alley. Maximum sentence: 20 years, served concurrently with the 25. It was a miracle she lived. But because she didn’t die, in the State of California, the best we could give him for all that was 25 years, and he could be back on the streets with parole, as soon as he had served a third of the sentence and convinced two members of the Adult Authority of his ‘rehabilitation.’ A third of 25 is less than nine years. Before his victim even outgrew her dolls, he could be peeking into her window some night. But because he still had her purse in the car—a stolen car, mind you—and he’d spent her lunch money, it became kidnap for monetary gain, with bodily harm, and for that we could get rid of him permanently under ‘Little Lindbergh.’ Now, maybe you want to call that a loophole, but it certainly isn’t any bigger a loophole than the one that could have let him back on the street in nine years.” “Yes, but by the same token, a more experienced lawyer would have zeroed in on the intent. Did he look at that little girl and say, ‘Oh she has a purse, I need to get her into the car so I can take it away from her,’ and then later decide to commit the sexual battery? Or did he put her in the car for sexual purposes and then later see the purse? If the intent of the kidnapping was sexual, the Lindberg

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Law doesn’t give grounds for execution. But I have a hard time believing that Viramontes thought he could only grab her purse by getting her in the car. And a child’s purse! For crying out loud: What could he have expected to find in a child’s purse?” “Cooper made that argument. It’s in the transcripts. But the jury—the triers of fact—didn’t buy it. Looking at the facts and circumstances presented in court, they found that robbery was at least one of his motives for the kidnapping. The judge could have over-ruled them, but didn’t.” Tseng realized how hard he was perspiring inside his suit, and loosened his tie. The motorcade had come down Roscoemare to Bellagio Road, and now approached the decorative gates that marked the entrance to Bel Air Estates, but its ornate metalwork, massive masonry walls, and terracotta roof tiles barely registered in his mind as motorcycle officers roared out onto Sunset to stop traffic for the limousine. They turned left, toward downtown. The Governor breathed in deeply. “And the fact that Viramontes was just another Mexican punk in Los Angeles had nothing to do with it, the same Los Angeles as the Zoot Suit riots and the Sleepy Lagoon fiasco. It wasn’t because, as the policeman testified in Sleepy Lagoon, ‘their Aztec ancestry makes Mexicans biologically prone to violence and crime?’” “No. It wasn’t the same Los Angeles. Sleepy Lagoon was 1941. We’re talking thirteen years later, ten years after Sleepy Lagoon was overturned. The police never beat Viramontes, never roughed him up. We had two Mexicans on the jury and a Black.” Tseng awkwardly worked an arm out from the sleeve of his coat while continuing to talk, “The Aztec thing he did to himself, and it wasn’t until three or four years after the trial. If he wants to draw parallels between Aztec mythology and the Hindu warrior stuff, and call it the primal religion, that’s his

63 right. But you can’t go back and insert it into the trial, and you can’t say we did it to him. We didn’t ghost write Viramonte’s book, and we didn’t have it in 1954 to put on the stand.” “Now Phil, I know that as a minority person yourself, you probably gave Viramontes as fair a trial as you could give him in the State of California. I’m sure you’re very sensitive to any kind of prejudice. But still, you have a Mexican hoodlum attacking a little blond girl. Don’t you think the racial hot-buttons might have made some difference to the whole mood of the trial?” Tseng sensed a racial put-down even in the Governor’s magnanimity, which threw him off and left him unsure how to answer the Governor. “Okay, let’s go back over the facts. It’s obvious you’ve read the transcripts of the trial. Do you have any doubt that Viramontes is the man who kidnapped the girl?” “No.” “Good. Do you have any doubt that he beat her, attacked her sexually, took her purse, spent her money, and dumped her in the alley?” “No. I think he belongs in jail. But I think we’re executing him because he was a Mexican kid without an experienced lawyer. Personally, I don’t think that should ever happen.” “But see, now you’re getting away from the law, and into this whole realm of nebulous human issues...” “Isn’t that my job? After the courts have dealt with all the legal issues, isn’t it given to the Governor to stop and ask, ‘Okay, are there any human issues that the law has overlooked?’ Don’t we, as a people, want someone to look at the case from the big picture, and say, ‘In this specific case, has the law given somebody a raw deal?’ Our system wants somebody to do that before anyone is asked to pay the ultimate penalty.”

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“Okay. That’s your job, within the limits of the law. My job was to convict him on the facts. You have my opinion. Use it to whatever purpose you want. I guess I don’t envy you a whole lot. How’s your mail running?” Both men looked out the right side window, as they passed the UCLA campus. “Very heavy, almost three hundred letters just today, a third of them from out of state or even overseas; and fifty-fifty, for him or against him.” The Governor paused. “No, it would be more accurate to say it’s ten-ten-ten-ten-etc. Ten percent cold-blooded racist wacko, ten percent pious/self-righteous in favor of execution, ten percent pious/self-righteous opposed to execution, ten percent thoughtful and polite in favor, ten percent thoughtful and polite opposed, etc. But among the people who care, it’s a deadlock; and for everybody else, it’s too ugly a question to even face squarely. Have you ever been to an execution?” “No. I’ve been invited twice, but it never worked out.” “Conveniently inconvenient?” Tseng scowled. The phrase was too harsh to characterize his reasons for not attending the two executions, but rather than defend himself when any defense might seem flimsy, he conceded. “Well, maybe. How about you? Have you witnessed any?” “Yes, once, many years ago. The man killed his wife, three kids, a neighbor and a cop, and I prosecuted him. But going to the execution was a mistake. There were more reporters than could crowd into the little room, and some of them thought they were going to a circus. Some had to stand outside. Then the cyanide fell and one reporter fainted. I got all the way outside before I wretched. I didn’t actually leave the prosecutor’s office for two years, but my disenchantment started that Friday morning at 10:03. Now, either I’d be a better governor if I’d never gone, or this state would be a better place if every single

65 citizen had to attend the next one. I think about that execution every single time I’m faced with one of these. Even when they average ten a year, it never becomes routine. I can’t tell you how much energy it drains out of me that the people of this state could use in a better way.” “You can’t just tell yourself, ‘Okay, this is a miserable task, but if it deters one other potential murderer, someplace in California, then it’s worth it’?” “Phil, you’ve read the literature. I’ve yet to see one study that can get any correlation to establish deterrence. If anything, a couple of studies seem to indicate a higher murder rate after a sensational execution like the one we’re talking about for next week. Maybe you saw the picture in the papers last week, of the public hanging in one of those Muslim countries. They were hanging pickpockets, and the report said that while everyone had their attention on the hangings, teams of pickpockets were working the crowd.” “Yeah, I did see that.” “So much for deterrence! Here in California, the example that keeps coming back to me is an inmate who helped install the gas chamber, a fellow named Wells. He was in on burglary, or something, but was trusted enough to do the plumbing and mechanical set up. He had hours of hands-on experience to impress upon him the reality of the death penalty. Then he was paroled, and a couple of years later, he murders his brother and a couple of women. He was lucid enough to carry out a rather complicated crime, and never once thought about the gas chamber. For crying out loud! What would you have to do to make it a deterrent for a guy like that?” “Yeah, I’ve seen the studies, but I think they’re flawed. It’s counter intuitive. There’re some guys you’re simply never going to reach. But there has

66 to be a group that are on the edge, who are calculating everything, and need one more thing to hold them back.” “Phil, when was the last time that the threat of a death penalty was what held you back from committing murder?” Tseng inadvertently let go of a smirk. “Governor, I think that’s probably one of those questions I shouldn’t answer without a lawyer, but I think I know where you’re going with the argument.” “Of course you do. For you, or me, other things hold us back. But for people who have lost those other things, or never had them in the first place, the threat of a death penalty won’t hold them back one minute. Wells said as much, when the warden asked him about that. He said, ‘When the devil gets in you, you don’t remember anything.’ There’s only one way it has a deterrent effect, and I take that very seriously. I believe it deters lynch mobs. I think that as long as potential vigilantes believe the state may execute a man, the mob is deterred from feeling they have to do it themselves. Every time I have to rule on one of these, I pray we’re executing the criminals just often enough to maintain that thought, and not once more than we need.” “I wish you luck working it through. Seriously.” “Thanks, Phil. I don’t find myself praying over very many other decisions, but I come up against these and I hope against hope for some guidance greater than myself.” “Well, if there’s a God out there someplace, I wish you all the luck in the world finding him.” “Thank you, Phil. We can pull over here, and my follow-car will run you back up the hill.” The governor extended a hand as Philip prepared to get out of the car. “And greet Bob Callahan for me, next time you talk.”

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Philip nodded. “I’ll do that.”

Chapter 7

DELANO, THURSDAY, 11:12 P.M.

Countdown: Seven days, ten hours, forty-eight minutes As Felicia had predicted, she reached Delano just minutes before midnight. She took the bridge across the freeway and turned at the second corner. The street was empty. No cars stood at the curbs, but lights lit up the front of the Portuguese Community Hall. She drove past it, and into the parking lot. Three cars remained from what must have been a big crowd. Felicia parked and got out. It felt good to stretch. She walked back around front, and through the open door. At the far end of the main room, one man was wrapping up the chord to a microphone. Two others were collecting folding- chairs. To the side, a woman with her hair pulled back in a red scarf was consolidating several picked-over trays of pan dulce that sat beside a coffee urn. Felicia waved at this woman and took several steps in her direction. “I just drove down from Frisco. What did I miss?” The woman smiled. “Delores is up there now, watching them count the ballots. She thinks we lost in the packing sheds, but won in the fields. I think that’s what Cesar expected. He looked pretty happy. Would you like some bread?” Felicia nodded. “Thank you. Is there still any coffee? I’m driving to Los Angeles.” “That pot’s almost full. Let me find you a big jar. What you don’t take I have to throw away.” The woman scurried toward the kitchen.

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Felicia picked up a soft half-bun with a sprinkling of sugar and held one hand under her chin to catch the crumbs. She had missed it. Whatever celebration had been here, it was over. Her eyes examined the room for some image she could hang onto. The woman came back with a quart-sized glass jar, filled it, and screwed on the lid. Then she slipped it into a paper bag so Felicia could hold it without being burnt. “Can I set it here while I use the restroom?” “Of course.”

By the time Felicia returned, the bag and its jar had been set out of the way, on the floor beside the door, and the men were folding up the table. Beside it sat another bag with half a dozen pan dulce. Felicia picked up both bags and took a last look back into the room. For such a time as this . . . and she had missed it. Felicia walked back to her car, set the sweetbread on the seat, unscrewed the lid, and took a sip of uncomfortably hot coffee. Then she replaced the lid and started the car. At the street, she continued south, past the loading dock at the cold storage plant and to the corner with the little market and the pool hall. Parking was tight. She noted several slant-six Valiants, the car Chavez swore by. The celebration had moved here, but it would be mostly men. She turned and drove past it, across the freeway, six blocks, and turned left. At the end of the street, she parked behind two others in front of a stucco house. As she walked across the lawn, the door opened and a girl stepped out, her face briefly recognizable in the light from inside. Felicia couldn’t remember her

70 name, but they had walked together a couple of hours during the peregrinación to Sacramento. She was a student at Berkeley. “Hi, I just drove down from the Bay.” The girl carried a duffle bag. “I’m just heading back that direction. How’s the rain?” “I was just ahead of it. But I missed everything that happened here.” “I think all the cots are taken. There’s a couple of people making posters in the kitchen. Cesar wants to start picketing some new places tomorrow. Don’t go into the laundry room. It’s being used for developing film.” Felicia nodded. The girl got into one of the cars at the curb and left. Felicia stood for a few moments looking west at three tall radio towers just outside of town, their red lights at the top blinking against the stark darkness. Then she returned to her car, took several sips of the coffee, and turned her car back toward the freeway .

Chapter 8

BEL AIR, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 6:15 A.M

Countdown: Seven days, three hours, forty-five minutes Philip got out of the shower, toweled dry, and stepped into the bedroom. Betty had two suitcases open on the bed, and clothes in neat piles. She wore her bathrobe after an earlier shower. A newscast came from the radio beside the bed. “I know, I told you I was all packed, but I’m re-thinking things.” She pulled a skirt and matching jacket from her closet. He scrunched up his nose and took an audible breath. “Warn me if the re- thinking gets down to me.” “Well,” she stopped and looked at him, “you could take a week off and come with me.” She emphasized the “could.” “Reverend Hansen did tell me last night that he thought you might need a vacation.” “He said something to me, too, but I took it in jest. He caught me in a cynical moment.” “Well, it stuck with him, because he mentioned it to me.” “I have a hard time thinking of ten, 18-hour days of politicking as vacation, but I know how it energizes you. I enjoy talking to people, but five or six hours is my limit.” “Well, we’ll break it up with time in the car. It won’t ever be 18 hours straight.” “Close enough.” He opened his underwear drawer, though trying to stall before getting dressed. Ideally, the bed would have been cleared and he could

72 have nudged her onto it with a kiss, but the moment didn’t look promising. “What time will you be able to call me tonight?” “The evening meet-and-greet is 7:30 until the last voter leaves, 9:30 or 10:00, probably, and then whatever time it takes to get back to the hotel.” Philip kept a guess of midnight to himself. There was no sense sending her off on a sour note. “And then an 8:00 breakfast in Santa Maria? You’ll have to be out the door before 7:00.” “Yes, but you don’t need to try and get there for that, or even for San Luis Obispo. Come for tomorrow night, at the Mark Hopkins.” She reached into a drawer, removed a jewelry box, checked its contents, and set the box in the suitcase. “Everything is so exciting. I haven’t calmed down from last night, and already I’m off for nine days. Do you think it went okay last night?” “Oh, yes. You did great.” “Wasn’t the governor darling? Of course, we have more leftovers than you’ll ever be able to eat. Don’t force yourself. You can eat out if you want.” She pointed to his bedside table, “I’ve left a list of our stops, but we’ll be getting in very late, every night. Are you sure you’ll be okay?” In his mind, Philip saw the governor leading Betty from table to table by the hand. They were so much alike—both of them erect, shoulders back, hair perfect, always in purposeful motion, remembering every name, ebullient, determined to please—Betty certainly, but the governor even more-so. “Yes,” he replied, “I’ll be okay.” “Did you enjoy yourself last night? You looked tired. Maybe some vacation would be good. You have to use the days up before New Years.” “I’m fine. I’ll be looking forward to you coming home, but I’ll be okay.”

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She picked up a slip and pulled off the bathrobe. “The meals are right in the front of the refrigerator, right at eye level. I love you. I’m going to miss you.” He walked around the bed and took one hand in each of his. “I hope you knock their socks off at every stop. Wow ‘em.” He let go of her hands and took her head between his palms, running his thumbs along the sides of her chin. Then he put a hand on the small of her back and kissed her. She stepped away. “Philip, what are you trying to start? There’s no room on the bed, and we’re both going to be late.” “Maybe so, but it could be a long week. Besides, we were both too tired last night, but I want you to remember who’s holding your hand, in case you run into the Governor someplace up north.” “You’re not jealous of the Governor, are you?” Philip shrugged, and tried to put a note of playfulness into his voice. “I don’t know, you looked pretty happy holding his hand.” “Don’t be silly. It’s politics. Politicos spend blarney like Monopoly money. You can’t take that seriously.” She turned toward her closet and finished pulling the slip over her head. Philip took a slow breath and let it out. Then he came back around to his side of the bed, chose an undershirt and a pair of briefs, and sat on the bed. “Did the Governor mention anything besides Eusebio Viramontes?” “No. Nothing.” “Do you think he might come out with a formal endorsement? Last night sure looked like he wanted to encourage me.” “How do you cut through the blarney?”

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“Kenneth will know. He’d be worth it at ten times what I’m paying him. He catches so many little details I’d never even think of.” Philip glanced around as she pulled a pink dress down over her slip. “Well, find a different way to express it, or he’ll want his full value.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but it would have to do.

Chapter 9

WEST LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 1:22 P.M.

Countdown: Six days, twenty hours, thirty-eight minutes Exhaustion pressed Felicia to avoid the apartment as she approached the end of her trip. She preferred to face Alby in the daylight, after some sleep. She also needed to be inside their place, with him the one coming up the stairs. To that end, she had not gone home, but across the city to the flat shared by her friend Imelda, Imelda’s mother, and a younger sister. In the 3:30 darkness, she’d knocked on the door and whispered, “¡Viva el movimiento! ¡Viva la Raza! ¡Viva la causa!” The awakened Imelda pulled a camp cot from the back of her closet and the two young women set it up. They kept the camp cot for just such a purpose: hermanas traveling to conferences, or hermanas hiding in the night. Shorter than Felicia, and more muscular, Imelda had been sleeping with her hair in a long, loose braid down her back. Her oversized t-shirt read, “East Los Angeles College.” “Alby called looking for you. Twice.” “I went to see Eusebio. If he calls again, don’t tell him I’m here.” Imelda moved her own pillow from the bed to the cot, “You’re getting too big for the cot. You take the bed.” Now, after almost seven hours of sleep, Felicia drove down Sepulveda Blvd., still tired, but forcing herself to be alert. Near Pico, she turned up a side street, just before her coche would have become visible from the apartment window. Alby’s sporty little Studebaker was not parked along the curb. Felicia decided to gamble on an hour to cash her food stamp voucher and stock the house

76 with groceries. That would make her hand just that much stronger. Even so, she would have to answer for not having enough groceries in the house for the two days. Alby either starved the whole time, or spent his real money for food. Either way, she would hear about it. Forgetting the groceries had been a foolish mistake, and totally unnecessary. Twenty minutes spent in the store before she’d left for San Quentin would have saved her an awful lot of trouble now. It gave Alby just one more excuse to hold off giving her the money for her school fees. On top of that, he would not like having her teatro troupe meeting at their apartment again, even though it meant free cheese and wine. He would just have to accept it. She had promised use of the room a full two weeks earlier, half hoping she could get Alby out of the apartment for the night. Felicia hurried back with the groceries, and once again circled the block, looking for Alby’s red, sporty, two-door sedan. Then she pulled her own Bel Air to the curb in front of the apartment, placing it carefully to use up two spaces. Let Alby park around the corner when he arrived. He would appear just that much more like a visitor. She left the ocarina and the gourd shaker on the seat, but collected her comb and shawl and tossed them on top of one bag of groceries. With three bags, she would need to make three trips up the stairs, and no matter what Alby started to accuse her of, she would demand to know where he had been when she had had to carry his child up and down the stairs three times to bring up the groceries. Her father had lugged freight for a living and Alby must think that was her job, too. The mailbox was full. She decided to come back and look at it when she had the first bag of groceries upstairs. Two newspapers waited on the bottom step. Felicia walked around to a motorcycle parked under the stairs and cautiously lifted

77 her ankle and held it near the muffler: cold. Alby must not have been home for more than just a short time since she’d left. Her hand grew stronger all the time. Upstairs, the telephone rang, but she didn’t have the energy to hurry. As tired as she was, she didn’t care how long Alby had to wait. She did kind of hope, though, that he would stay on the line long enough for her to get upstairs and answer. Otherwise, he’d wait an hour and call just as she was lying down for a nap. If she hurried, she could clean up the place and then grab another hour of sleep before welcoming her teatro friends at 7:00. Maybe exhaustion came with the pregnancy. Maybe it was the pressure of everything else. Halfway up the stairs, she shifted the bag of groceries to one arm, so she could use the other hand to fumble in her beaded shoulder bag for the apartment key. Just then, a sudden movement on the landing startled her from her thoughts. She looked up, afraid she would find Alby. Instead, a girl of maybe sixteen or seventeen rose up from a seated position on the welcome mat. She had been leaning against a dark blue duffel bag, propped against the door. Felicia stopped three stairs from the top and looked at the girl, waiting for her to make the first move, or say the first word. The girl was blond—una gabacha —fairly heavy, and taller than Felicia, wearing a brown turtleneck sweater, a plain gray skirt and white canvas shoes. Felicia held the key in her fingers, but kept her hand hidden in her purse. “What do you want?” “Mrs. Brofield? Oh, praise God.” The gabacha suddenly realized her duffel bag blocked the door, “Oh, I’m sorry.” A shoulder bag much like her own rested on top of the duffel, and a Bible on top of that. The girl scooted the whole pile to the side, and turned back to Felicia, smiling.

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As Felicia went to the door and inserted the key, she realized that the phone had stopped ringing. As usual, the door wouldn’t open easily and Felicia started to set the grocery bag at her feet. The gabacha reached for the paper bag, “Can I hold that for you?” Felicia hesitated, but then gave up the bag and held the door latch with both hands as the girl continued, “The phone has been ringing a lot. I was afraid somebody might be hurt.” “How long have you been waitin’ for me?” “I guess about three hours.” The door gave way and swung into the apartment, but Felicia turned to face the girl, in the process blocking the doorway. “You waited three hours jus’ to see me?” “I’ve been praying to find Albert Brofield.” “He’s not here.” Felicia studied the girl closely, trying to imagine why she’d come. Things would be complicated enough with Alby when he finally arrived. Felicia didn’t need another complication, but the girl’s eyes displayed a determination to stay. “I don’t know where he is. Maybe that was him on the telephone. Does he know you?” “Um, no. At least I don’t think so. My name is Anna Sorensen.” The name meant nothing to Felicia. “I know about Albert Brofield because he writes a lot of articles about Eusebio Viramontes. That’s a man who’s on Death Row. And, uh, I was the girl that, um, you know...” she had begun the sentence looking Felicia full in the face, but now dropped both her eyes and her soft voice, “I was the one he kidnapped, and everything.” She looked up briefly, “I guess you heard about that.” The girl’s eyes darted up and down several times, between Felicia’s

79 face and the contents of the grocery bag, as she waited for Felicia to acknowledge this information. Felicia’s first impulse would have been to say, “That’s a lie. I don’t know who you are, or what may have happened to you, but my brother never kidnapped anyone”—but she hesitated to give away her relationship to Eusebio. Instead, she said nothing, but reached to retrieve her bag of groceries. The girl gave it up quickly, her bangs hanging all the way to her eye lashes, above blue eyes and freckled cheeks. When Felicia actually had the bag resting on her own hip, she replied, “I’m sorry. I don’ know where he is. If you give me your telephone number, I will have him call you.” “Um, I don’t, really, have a phone number right now. It’s kind of complicated. I just came to Los Angeles this morning, and I don’t have anyplace I’m actually staying.” “Where did you come from?” “Nebraska, near Lincoln.” “And you came all the way here? You shouldn’t do that.” The girl’s disappointment was obvious. She looked down the stairs, and then back at Felicia, “But I had to. It’s important. If Mr. Brofield knows Eusebio Viramontes, he can get a message to him. I want Eusebio Viramontes to know that I forgive him in the name of Jesus, and I love him.” “You love him?” Felicia’s face contorted. This gabacha was playing some kind of scam, and Felicia instinctively knew that Eusebio was going to get hurt in it. She wished she could actually talk to Eusebio and ask him what to do. Eusebio always seemed to see the opportunity in every development, and could come up with a plan on the spot. In fact, just imagining Eusebio’s reaction gave her an answer: If this really was the girl, there was a chance she could prove Eusebio’s

80 innocence. Maybe the gabacha’s appearance could work to sway the Governor to stay Eusebio’s execution. Felicia tried to quickly assess the chances that this might help, against any possible risks she couldn’t yet see. The sharp fatigue in Felicia’s back and a dulling pressure in her forehead kept her from thinking clearly. She needed a nap. She wanted to get out of the sun, set the grocery bag down, and use the toilet. And she wanted time to consider where all this might lead. Alby could show up immediately, or not return for a day or two. Felicia shifted the groceries to the other hip. “I guess you could try back in a couple of hours.” “Is it okay if I just sit here?” The gabacha pointed to the spot where she had been sitting. Direct sunshine had begun to climb up the wall. “Maybe he’ll come home.” Still trying to imagine what dangers the girl might present, Felicia now had to weigh them against common courtesy. Even bringing the girl a glass of lemonade seemed inadequate. “I guess you can wait inside. You can leave your bag where it is.” Felicia led the way through the door. Just beside the entrance, she set the grocery bag on a small dinette table, careful not to upset a tray that held the fittings for a dentist’s electric drill and—on a bed of crumpled tissue—a delicately carved egg shell. “Oh, that is so pretty.” The girl had pulled her duffle behind her, and studied the emerging hummingbird design without approaching too closely. “How did you do that?” “It’s not me. Alby—Albert—is doin’ that. A dentist gave him an old drill,” she pointed to the drill’s bulky housing, laying on the floor beneath the table, “and he uses it to cut designs like that.”

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“The shells don’t break?” The girl seemed sincere. “Sometimes, but when that happens, he jus’ starts over with a new egg. He’s always carving something.” She pointed behind the girl, to a corner of the living room. “He made those for me,” indicating two hollow log drums, one upright, with leather pulled taught over the top, the second horizontal and open at both ends. The girl turned. “Oh, those are so pretty! Do they have a special name?” “The tall one is a huéhuetl . I jus’ showed him a picture. He went and found a Eucalyptus log in his step-brother’s wood pile, and carved it.” “It’s so beautiful. He is very talented.” “The designs don’t really mean anything in Toltec or Nahuatl. He jus’ made them up, but he thought they looked Aztec.” “I wouldn’t know the difference.” “The other one,” Felicia pointed to a heavy tube of dark red wood, “is a teponaztli . I didn’t even know he was making it. He jus’ surprised me.” At each end, the angular sculpture portrayed the open-mouthed faces of crouching jaguars. “Where did he find that beautiful wood?” “It’s called palo de corazón , from the Amazon jungle.” “Did he go there?” “No. But he likes to search for things. He gets it in his mind what he wants, and finding it becomes like a game to him. He’s always doing that. After he carved these for me, he made some other ones, but he sold them.” “Does he sell his egg shell carvings?” “Yes.” The girl looked around the rest of the room, still holding her duffel bag, and taking in what must have been some strange sights for una gabacha.

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“You can put your bag next to the sofa. Then maybe you could do me a favor. There’s two more bags of groceries in the car and I need to use the restroom.” “Oh, yes, I’ll go get them.” The girl was quickly out the door and down the stairs. Felicia watched until the girl reached the bottom of the stairs, and then turned, crossed the small living room to the even smaller bedroom, and through that to the toilet. Felicia stayed behind the closed door longer than she really needed. She heard her car door slam at the curb, and the reverberation through the building as the girl came up the metal stairs. Then she heard the dull clunk of the bag of canned goods set gently on the table. The girl seemed pleasant enough, but somehow—Felicia’s mind raced—this girl was going to embarrass Eusebio. Somehow the girl had a racket going. Felicia struggled to imagine a motive, or how Eusebio might be vulnerable. How Alby might react created a whole new set of questions. Actually, Alby might be harder on the girl than the gabacha could be on Eusebio. If the girl hoped to pull something on Eusebio, or...or what? Felicia was at a loss to even guess who the girl might be. Had there really been a girl? Felicia realized she had spent so many years arguing Eusebio’s innocence that in her own mind she had negated the crime itself. Okay, the police didn’t need to make that up. There could have been a crime. This might really be the girl. She wouldn’t know that the police had pinned the crime on Eusebio. The police, the newspapers and the jury all said it was him. Even Alby sometimes talked as if he believed Eusebio had done it. Felicia tried one more time to sort through the fragments of a long-ago memory, trying to decide for her own satisfaction, what had actually happened. Droplets of sweat ran down her back, and between her breasts, and she

83 realized her heart had been racing. She took a washcloth from its rack, and wetting it in the sink, mopped her neck and forehead. In one sense, it didn’t really matter. If the girl had come to regain some kind of dignity through this, she’d come to see the wrong man in Alby. Or, on the other hand, how could Felicia know? Maybe Alby would charm the gabacha, or the girl would charm him. Felicia sensed her own defensiveness and wondered whether she most needed to protect Eusebio, the girl, Alby, or herself. Thinking about Alby, Felicia wondered if there might be some way she could use the girl’s sudden appearance to keep him from hassling her about her absence. Maybe the possibilities outweighed the dangers. Besides, the girl was already in the apartment. If her story was straight, she was two thousand miles from home. Where else could Felicia send her? When Felicia came out, the girl was on the aging sofa, reading her Bible, looking very Anglo, middle class, and out-of-place beneath the two posters that dominated the wall behind her, one of Ché Guevarra and the other of Quetzalcoatl. The girl looked up and smiled, but Felicia turned her attention to putting away the groceries. “Mrs. Brofield, do you know that Jesus loves you?” Felicia put a half-gallon of milk in the refrigerator and closed the door, but paused and pursed her lips before turning to the girl. “I’m not Mrs. Brofield. My last name is Viramontes.” The girl tightened her brow, but sat silent for a moment, as if unsure how to voice her next question. Then she asked, slowly, “Are you married to Eusebio Viramontes?” “No,” Felicia retorted sharply, “I’m not married to anyone.” She paused, and then added, “Eusebio is my brother.”

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The girl’s face lit up in a smile of wonderment, “You’re his sister? Oh, praise the Lord.” She leapt from the sofa and took each of Felicia’s hands in one of her own, “I am so glad to get to know you. I have waited so long for this. Is your name Magdalena?” “No, Magdalena is my sister. She’s ten years older than me. My name is Felicia.” “Oh.” The girl seemed to be trying to put together the pieces in a puzzle, “I imagined you as younger than me, but I guess it was an old article that I read.” Though Felicia let the girl hold her hands, she did not squeeze back. The girl let go and took a small step away, though still kept the laughter in her face as she pursued an obvious effort to be friends. “When’s your baby due?” “October 25th.” Felicia studied the girl’s face and tried to mentally compute an age. She’d never really considered that while the girl in the court files would forever be six years old, any real-world counterpart would grow up. “I pictured her—or you— younger, too. How old are you?” “I’m almost eighteen.” The girl seemed a little young-looking, even for the seventeen Felicia had first guessed, but Felicia supposed that she herself must appear an old-looking twenty-one, weather beaten from field work as a child, and tired from a pregnancy and the ever-present weight of Eusebio’s situation. “You told me your name, but I forgot already” “Anna. Anna Sorensen.” “Every place they called you Ann Doe.” “I know. When I see that, it makes me seem like a different person. This was the address I found for Albert Brofield. Does he live here, too?”

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Felicia wished she’d let the girl keep thinking that she was Alby’s wife— even Alby sometimes introduced her that way. If the girl was all holy-holy, Felicia needed to be careful. The girl already knew much more about Felicia’s family than Felicia knew about the girl. After a slight pause, she nodded and said, “Yes. He lives here.” Felicia continued to study the girl carefully. At the trial, a psychologist had testified that Ann Doe had suffered such an emotional trauma that she might never recover. If the psychologist was wrong, maybe that would be grounds for an appeal. “How did you find us?” “Oh, God just opened the path before me. I had some different names— Albert Brofield, and your sister—and I thought at least some of you must still live in Los Angeles, so I took the bus and prayed all the way. When I got here, I looked in the phone book, and found the address for Albert Brofield.” “The bus station is downtown. How did you get out here?” “I bought a map, and found the street. Then I asked at the station what bus would get me closest.” Felicia considered how much she hated the L.A. buses. This girl had come all the way from Nebraska—no doubt passing within two blocks of Magdalena and Mami in Albuquerque—and then found her way through the L.A. bus system. That in itself pretty much disproved the predictions of the court psychologist. Maybe the Governor would listen to this. The phone rang. Felicia let it ring three times before she picked it up, “¡Viva la causa!” At the other end, Alby prefaced his response with an obscenity. “Don’t give me that ‘causa’ nonsense. Where have you been?” “I went to see Eusebio.”

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He swore again. “Next time you tell me before you decide to go running off.” “You weren’t here either. You didn’t even bring in the newspaper. Where were you?” “What was I supposed to eat, the dirty dishes? I had to go stay with my brother. His wife tells him when she’s not going to be there.” Felicia was about to remind him that she wasn’t his wife, but decided better of it, “The girl is here, Ann Doe—only her real name is Anna Sorensen. She wants to talk to you.” Alby was quiet for a moment. “The girl?” He whistled a long note from between his teeth. “The girl from twelve years ago?” “Yes, and if you want to talk to her, you better get home right now, because I’m tired and I need a nap. And my teatro is comin’ tonight and I need to clean up the apartment. You can’t be here when they get here.” “Call everybody and tell them you can’t do it tonight.” “No, I’m not goin’ to do that.” “You have to. This could be big. Don’t let her get away.” “She’s not goin’ to run away.” Felicia realized that her Spanish accent grew stronger when she got excited. She could speak English well when she had better control, but fatigue—or anger—caused her to bring back the intonations and syntax of her first language. “She came here to find you, all the way from Nebraska, on the bus.” “Okay, until I get there, just talk to her really nice, and find out as much as you can, especially the kinds of things that would be just between girls. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Alby hung up.

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“¡Metichi! ” Felicia slammed the telephone into its cradle. The man was a snoop, nosing around in other people’s privacy. She stopped herself and admitted that such prying was one of the things he did for a living: his digging in other people’s embarrassments helped pay for this apartment and cover her school costs. His writing had also helped them to keep Eusebio’s name in the public eye. She turned to Anna, “It will take him about thirty minutes to get here.” She looked around the kitchen and living room. There was visible dust on the teponaztli, and paper plates on the floor at each end of the sofa. As much as she needed a nap, there was plainly too much to do. She turned to the kitchen table and started to move the groceries from the paper bags to the shelves. She also set the stopper in the sink, squirted detergent, and began running dishwater. Anna picked up a stack of dishes from the counter and edged between Felicia and the sink, “You’re tired. Let me do the dishes. You sit down.” Felicia yielded the sink. “Thank you very much. I really am tired, but I can’t sit down yet. I have too much to do.” Felicia needed something to eat, but hesitated to pull out food. This gabacha had shown up on her doorstep like a stray cat. Feed a stray once, she thought, and you are stuck with it. But the girl had volunteered to wash the dishes. She couldn’t be all bad. “Are you hungry? I haven’t had any lunch.” “Me neither. That would be very nice. Can I help you fix something?” Felicia opened a can of baked beans, poured the contents into a small pan and lit the back burner under it. While it heated, she sliced several hotdogs, added them to the pan and set out two plates. Then she pulled a bag of tortillas from the refrigerator, drew one tortilla from the bag and toasted it on a front burner, flipping it quickly with her fingers to heat it evenly, without scorching it. “Is that how you fix them? I’ve never eaten one of those before.”

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Felicia buttered the first one, set it on one plate and flipped a second tortilla onto the fire. This girl really was una gabacha of the first degree. “Don’t they have any Mexicans in Nebraska?” “Yeah, I guess. I just never went to a Mexican restaurant.” “When did you leave California?” “When I was five, or maybe six, I think. First we lived in Portland. Then we moved to Idaho. My mom and I moved to Nebraska when I was ten. My dad still lives in Idaho, so I go there pretty often.” Felicia poured beans onto each plate, and moved the plates to the table. “Leave the pots for later. Let’s eat.” Anna wiped the dishwater from her hands and sat down across the table from Felicia, who was about to ask another question when Anna clasped her hands together and bowed her head. After about twenty seconds of silence, Anna raised her head, and picked up her fork. She took a bite of beans, and then, copying Felicia, picked up the rolled tortilla in her other hand and took a bite. “Mmm, this is good.” “They’re jus’ store bought. My mother still makes all of hers by hand, even though she’s blind and has arthritis. They taste so much better. But I’m too busy, so I have to buy mine. I can tell the difference, but Alby doesn’t know any better. He never had any before he met me, either.” “How did you meet him?” “He came to my house to interview my family. He didn’t speak Spanish— well, he’s beginning to now, but that was five years ago—so I translated for my mother, and then he interviewed me. And then he jus’ kept comin’ back.” “Are you going to get married?” The girl’s big smile indicated that the thought pleased her.

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“Maybe.” Sometimes the thought appealed to her. Sometimes it didn’t. When she’d first met him, he’d been attending UC Berkeley. She couldn’t even imagine what that might be like. Now that she was at UCLA herself, the world had grown so much bigger. She said it again, “Maybe.”

Chapter 10

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 11:20 A.M.

Countdown: Six days, nineteen hours, twenty minutes On the bench, Philip caught himself slipping into drowsiness. Not wanting to draw attention away from the testimony being given by the accountant on the witness stand, tedious and hard-to-follow as it was already, Philip shifted carefully in his seat and glanced at his watch, then at the jury. Several members looked like they, too, were battling slumber, but most seemed attentive. The defense attorney wrote something on his legal pad and slid it in front of the grandmotherly defendant. She read it, tried to steal a surreptitious look at the jury, and turned back to write something in answer. He nodded. The prosecutor finished his questioning. Philip looked again at his watch and banged the gavel. “The court will take a fifteen minute recess.” Then he stood and took the six steps from the bench to the door that protected his private chambers. Inside, he went first to the window. From the sixth floor, his view crossed the 101 freeway, swept across Chinatown, and settled on Dodger Stadium, high on a ridge just left of center. It was a light smog day. For a moment, he dropped his attention to the freeway that ran like a trough through the city. Then he turned back to his desk, standing while he dialed home. He let the phone ring to the count of twelve without any answer. Betty had made it off on her trip. Philip returned to the window. Betty was up this freeway, one hundred miles, in Santa Barbara. Breakfast tomorrow would be another 75 miles to Santa

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Maria, the evening reception at the Mark Hopkins another 250 miles beyond that, with stops along the way in San Luis Obispo and Salinas. She would be gone another nine days. He glanced across the blocks of one- and-two story buildings immediately in front of him, and looked again at Dodger Stadium. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Dodgers would be here against the Giants. If he didn’t leave town, he’d attend all three games. If Mrs. Hostetler’s trial finished by Wednesday, he could still go up Thursday and join Betty’s campaign tour. His gaze concentrated on Dodger Stadium, but his thoughts pictured San Francisco. Then he focused for a moment on the Pasadena Freeway that ran along the foot of the hill below the stadium, separating it from Chinatown, and at Highway 101, just beyond his own building’s parking lot. How strange, he thought, that state and federal jurisdictions could merge so smoothly in the traffic lanes, but stumbled so awkwardly in the justice system. Tseng pondered Eusebio Viramontes, locked in a cell some 450 miles north, but just barely off this same Highway 101. If Viramontes had been tried for the same crime in each of the fifty states, how many would have returned a death sentence? Georgia, Florida, and Texas, probably. Maybe one or two others. Philip looked at Chinatown. In Mainland China right now, they executed common thieves—and unlucky judges from the bourgeoisie, who represented the old legal system. Philip checked his watch, straightened his tie in the mirror, and opened the door and waited for his clerk to announce, “Please rise.” Philip strode to his seat, and sat down. “Counselor, are you ready to proceed with the witness?” “Your Honor, may we approach the bench?” “Yes.”

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Both attorneys came close. “Your Honor, my client is prepared to change her plea. She appreciates an offer from the State and she’ll admit guilt on the three charges of embezzlement.” Philip turned to the prosecutor. “I assume the State is also making concessions?” “Yes, Your Honor. The State will drop the conspiracy and money- laundering charges, and recommend a sentence of 18 months.” The Judge looked out at the grey-haired woman seated at the defense table. “Will there be restitution?” The defense attorney nodded. “She’ll pay whatever she can raise, selling her car and both houses. When she gets out, she’ll be on Social Security, but will continue to make token payments.” Philip directed a finger at the prosecutor. “This is acceptable to the victims?” “Yes. They’ve given their approval.” The Judge looked out at the defendant, who carefully kept her eyes on the stack of papers in front of her. “Okay.” The attorneys returned to their seats and they went through the formalities. Philip asked Mrs. Hostetler to stand and asked if she intended to change her plea. The prosecutor made formal the charges he was dropping. Philip put a date for sentencing on the calendar, and asked both attorneys to submit recommendations. Philip thanked the members of the jury, and ordered them to report back to the jury assembly room for further instructions. Then he adjourned the court and disappeared into his chambers.

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Back at the window, he watched the cars flowing past on the freeway and considered Mrs. Hostetler’s eighteen months, not even half the four year term Betty hoped to be elected to. Philip weighed four years in his mind. It equaled the time it took to earn his first degree. It took up less time than Hitler had occupied France, yet people survived Hitler’s presence, doing what they had to do. Some American POWs had lived through four years in Japanese camps, never hearing from wives or family. Betty would be home every weekend. If this was what she wanted to do, he owed it to her. She had taken a chance on him, when he was a long-shot, and it had enabled him to gain all the pleasure and perks that had come his way, this window being one of them. Philip savored the view stretched out before him. Beyond Highway 101, three blocks to his right, Olvera Street celebrated the city’s Mexican past. Just beyond that was L.A.’s little train station—certainly no match for the giant stations he had experienced growing up in France, but quaint in its own way—and a few blocks beyond that, the main county jail. Straight ahead of him, on the flatland, and running up the side of the hill toward the stadium, Chinatown had suddenly exploded with new immigrants, after many years of stability. What would become of these people? He knew the buildings within his sight teemed with sweatshops, many unregistered. What kind of vice would this neighborhood breed as it grew continuously more crowded? From the dinner of the previous evening, he considered the strange comment made by the Governor, “as a minority person.” Obviously, the people in this neighborhood at his feet were not “his people.” He could only remember a handful of words from their language, and had never understood their customs. Even the physical features of his face could be missed unless one was looking for them.

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Until just the previous year, the Chinese had gone eight decades legally excluded from immigration, yet when Philip had applied for immigration, he had been accepted without question. The only thing that tied these people to Philip was a family name, the barest hint in the shape of his eyes, and a father he hadn’t seen in forty years. Philip wondered if even one of these new immigrants had ever heard of his father. Pretty far fetched, he thought, as ideas go. Philip turned to the phone, dialed a four-digit number, and waited. “William, this is Philip. The Hostetler trial pulled a plea bargain. I think rather than adjust any schedules, what I’d like to do is take it as an opportunity to use up a week of my vacation time.” He glanced out the window, toward Dodger Stadium. “Yes, Monday to Friday.”

Chapter 11

WEST LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 3:05 P.M.

Countdown: Six days, eighteen hours, fifty-five minutes A car door slammed outside at the curb. Somehow Alby had managed to squeeze his car behind hers. The little red Golden Hawk’s tail fins must be sticking out to partially block the neighbor’s driveway. Felicia took a quick look around the apartment, but then decided to stay where she was. They could be continuing their conversation when he walked in, rather than waiting at attention for his arrival. She asked Anna, “Are you still in school?” “I graduated from high school in June. I might go to college, someday. Right now I’ve been looking for a job.” Felicia could hear Alby on the stairs, but continued, “What do you want to study?” The girl glanced slightly toward the window that faced the landing, but followed Felicia’s lead. “I don’t know. I’m thinking about Bible school, maybe.” Alby opened the door and entered, tall and gangly, his bushy hair nearly brushing against the door frame. He looked first at Anna, and then at Felicia. He leaned to give Felicia a quick kiss on the forehead, his mustache damp with perspiration. “I missed you, sugar.” Felicia lifted her face to receive the kiss, and conceded, “Next time, we can go together.” Maybe she could smooth things over, and with the girl here, Felicia and Alby could move on without an argument. Alby looked again at Anna and went to the stove to see what was in the pan.

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Felicia called after him, “If you want some beans, I have another can.” “Yeah, I’ll have some, and a couple tortillas.” He put his hands on Felicia’s shoulders and lightly massaged her neck. She dropped her head and shoulders forward to let him get at the tight muscles along the spine. He supported her forehead with one hand, and worked up and down her neck with the other. “Did you call your class?” “No, and I’m not going to. We have to meet tonight, and I promised we could do it here.” She straightened up, and Alby let go. Alby turned to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. He held it in Anna’s direction. “You want one?” The offer flustered her. “No…no thanks.” Felicia went to the cupboard beside the stove and pulled a can from the shelf. Anna asked, “You have a class that meets here in your apartment?” Felicia nodded. “It’s not a class where I get a grade. It’s more of a study group.” Alby explained, “It’s actually more of a club, like a theater club. They do plays together, kind of guerrilla theater. Stuff about the Revolution.” “The revolution?” Felicia turned with the can opener and beans in her hands. The tone in la gabacha’s voice told Felicia that Anna had no awareness that a revolution surrounded her. Maybe in Nebraska they had no revolution. She burst out in a rapid stream, “We’re struggling against the slave-master corporations that exploit the people and repress them. Our plays help to educate the people about racism and genocide. We raise their consciousness about how our country is dropping napalm and burning bronze babies in Laos and Vietnam, and about how the

97 corporate farms and the immigration police manipulate the farm workers to keep them in poverty. One of our plays shows how they spray agricultural poisons on the farm workers—women and children. We want to be a catalyst to help overthrow the patriarchal system that holds down the women, and to begin to organize the people to overthrow the judicial system in this country that funnels men like my brother into the gas chamber. That revolution!” “Oh.” The girl seemed to retreat from Felicia’s outburst. Alby took the third seat at the table while Felicia stood up to fix another can of beans. Anna leaned for a closer look at the carved egg shell. Felicia recognized the wonderment in Anna’s eyes. Everyone marveled that Alby’s hummingbird could hover—from the shell but no longer a part of the shell— almost with no more support than a rubythroat at the mouth of a flower. “How can you do that?” “Oh, it just takes practice.” “For me, it would take a miracle.” Alby’s smile betrayed the pleasure he took in Anna’s praise. But Felicia could begrudge him that satisfaction: The man was good with his hands. The last one sold for $45, though with each one, Felicia worried about breakage, from the very moment he began working. Alby laid an arm on the table, and leaned back in his chair. “So, you’re Ann Doe.” “Yes,” she shrugged, “that’s what they called me.” “And what brings you here? Start at the beginning.” “At the beginning?” Anna tightened the muscles across her forehead and cheeks, as if trying to decide when it began. Felicia emptied the can of beans into the pan, and flipped a cold tortilla on the burner with one hand while she sliced a

98 hot dog on a cutting board with her other hand. All the while she stole quick glances at the girl. “I guess it began about three years ago, sort of, when I remembered about Eusebio Viramontes.” Alby straightened up in his chair, “Before that you didn’t remember anything?” “Well not really, or maybe just a little. It’s hard to describe.” She dropped her hands from the table into her lap. “What I remember is that when we moved to Idaho, my parents started to yell at each other a lot, and I knew it was my fault somehow, but I couldn’t remember what I had done to make them so angry. It was really confusing. Then they got divorced, because they were fighting so much, and my mom and I moved to Nebraska, but I still couldn’t remember what I did.” “They got divorced because of you?” “Uh-hum. At least I think so.” Alby leaned forward, and crossed his arms over his chest, “That’s weird, because the same thing happened to me.” Felicia knew about Alby’s parents’ divorce, but she wondered why he had never before called it his fault. She looked away from the table and concentrated her vision on her task at the stove, but her ears labored to pick up every nuance of the conversation. Alby continued, “So what happened after the divorce?” “I moved to Nebraska, and I was just going to school. But then in tenth grade I had to write this paper for my English class, about the death penalty. And I found an article you wrote about Eusebio Viramontes. And I was reading it, but I still didn’t connect it to me. But then my mother saw what I was reading and she

99 started screaming and crying, and she pulled it out of my hands and ripped up the magazine that I got from the library.” “Wow.” “And the next day, she wouldn’t let me go to school, but I still didn’t remember anything, until about two weeks later. And it all suddenly just hit me.” Felicia turned to look. The girl had closed her eyes, just briefly, and then looked back at Alby, “It was like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.” Alby tucked his right thumb behind his forefinger, as if shooting marbles, but instead fired his thumb against the thumbnail of his left hand. He repeated the motion, with the resultant clacking first accelerating, and then slowing. Finally he asked, “You remembered everything?” “Yes. Everything. And I was just like my mother, crying and screaming. I was so angry. I couldn’t even finish writing my paper. I got an F in English and two other F’s on my report card.” Felicia buttered the tortilla, set it on a plate and set the plate in front of Alby, intentionally brushing her arm gently against his as she did so. Then she turned back to the stove to give the beans a quick stir. From a poster on the cupboard door above her head, Pancho Villa looked out across the room, his smiling face bordered by a huge sombrero. Alby picked up the rolled tortilla, “What kinds of grades did you usually get?” “I used to get mostly A’s and B’s. A few C’s.” “What about now?” “Well, I graduated in June. I passed all my classes. Jesus did it for me.” “Jesus? You mean, like, God?” “Yes! Are you a believer?” Anna leaned forward with an expectant smile. Alby shrugged. “Well, I guess there’s lots of things you can believe.”

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“But do you understand the Bible?” “Oh, yeah.” Alby pushed the hair out of his eyes with the wrist of the same hand that held the tortilla, “I had to go to Sunday School, even after I was in high school. I’m really hip to all of those old Bible stories.” Felicia looked at Anna while brushing the chopped hot-dogs from the cutting board to the pan. Anna’s eyes darted back and forth between the couple, “Do you ever go to church any more?” Alby shook his head while he took a bite of the tortilla, and then used the rest of it to point at Felicia, “Her family’s Catholic and my family is Presbyterian, so it’s kind of hard to go to either.” Felicia started to shake her head, as well, but then stopped and offered, “My mother had a mass said for my brother. We both went to that.” Anna leaned back. “You’re missing so much. Jesus is so good to me. He carried me through these whole past eighteen months.” Alby’s thumb-clicking grew more intense, but then stopped. Felicia looked to see him counting on his fingers. Then he began clicking again, “A minute ago you said this started about three years ago. And now you said Jesus carried you for the last eighteen months. What happened in between?” He raised his index finger and shook it. “You know what? Would it be okay if I took some notes?” “Yes.” Alby set the remaining portion of the tortilla on the plate, but continued to chew while he disappeared into the bedroom. He returned with a yellow legal pad, a tape recorder and a box of cassette tapes. Sitting down, he pawed through the box, reading the penciled notes on each tape, looking for one he could record over. He finally inserted one in the machine, pushed the record button, and leaned towards the girl.

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“Is it okay if I record?” Anna nodded. “Okay, so what happened during the first year-and-a-half?” Anna shrugged, “I was so angry. I felt so dirty. And I felt so bad about what I’d done to my mom and dad. I couldn’t think of anything else.” “Real bad, huh?” Felicia brought the pan to the table and hovered above the plate until Alby picked up his tortilla and pushed the plate in her direction. She scooped out the beans, and then put the empty pan back on the stove with a loud clunk. She was angry with herself for not having sent the girl away before Alby could talk to her. This was not going to help Eusebio. She washed her hands under the running water and dried them on a dish towel, thinking she would leave the kitchen and go into the bedroom. But another part of her wanted to hear the rest of what the girl would say, and watch how Alby responded. In the end, she set out three tender cactus leaves—nopales—two tomatoes, several stalks of cilantro, two onions and two avocados. She began vigorously chopping the onions. She would make a salsa and guacamole for the teatro. Alby glanced at Felicia, and though he didn’t say anything about the noise, he did edge the tape recorder closer to the girl, “Then what?” “What I couldn’t see was how Jesus was reaching out to me all this time, calling me to him. But I had a friend who used to tell me about Jesus. And little by little I began to understand, and I became a Christian.” “What were you before?” “I was just all wrapped up in hate and bitterness.” “But I mean, what religion were you?”

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“I wasn’t anything. I just went to church with my mom sometimes, but I didn’t know that God loved me, and that Jesus is really alive. So I didn’t know any better, and I hated Eusebio Viramontes so much and I had nightmares that he was chasing me and I couldn’t do anything about it. I would lay awake at night thinking about his execution, really looking forward to it, like you’d look forward to a party.” Felicia stopped chopping and turned to watch as the girl continued, “Both times they set a new date, I would look at the calendar and see how far away it was. I even hated you, because you were trying to help him. I prayed that you would die, too. I’m sorry about that now. I need to ask if you can forgive me.” Alby shrugged, “Sure, don’t worry about it.” “Thank you very much.” “No big deal. It’s okay.” “I was even writing you a letter to tell you how wrong I thought you were for trying to get him out of the death penalty. I started it so many times, but I’m glad I never finished it. Hate just colors the way you look at everything in life. It was horrible. Have you ever really hated someone?” “Oh, yeah, but let’s not even talk about that.” Alby waved his hand. “We’d be here all night.” Felicia wondered who he might be talking about. Maybe his step-brother. Anna looked at Felicia, “Have you ever hated someone?” Felicia shook her head slightly, wanting to be more convincing, but unable. Anna raised both hands, chin high, with her open palms upward, “But it’s so different now! Jesus has completely changed the way I look at things. When I stopped hating everybody—really it wasn’t just you and Eusebio Viramontes, I

103 hated everybody and my whole life—when I stopped hating everybody, I could understand things so much clearer.” “What exactly did you understand?” Alby seemed genuinely interested. “All the time I was feeling so alone, Jesus was right beside me, waiting for me to call to Him, and all the time I was feeling so dirty, Jesus was waiting to make me clean. I was hating instead of loving, so God called me to him and told me that I needed to tell Eusebio that God loves him, and that I love him and forgive him.” Alby was clicking his fingernails again, annoying Felicia, though she kept her irritation to herself. The girl’s tone changed, “Do you want to hear my favorite verse?” “You mean, like, in the Bible?” Alby folded his hands on the table. “Yes.” “What is it?” “‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’. . . Rest! . . . It’s this unbelievable rest, rest from all my hatred and rest from all my guilt! And Jesus says, ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ Can you imagine what it’s like to be given that kind of rest?” In her mind, Felicia saw a quick picture of rest: no pending execution, no papers to write, no fighting with Alby, no pregnancy, no teatro coming to the apartment in a few hours. She glanced behind her, where Alby was nodding, “Well, yes, I can see how after everything you’d been through, some rest would be real nice. But, how did you decide to come find us?”

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Anna looked intently into Alby’s eyes, “God sent me to save Eusebio Viramontes.” Felicia turned to face Anna directly, her back to the sink, half an avocado in each hand and the paring knife tucked between her ring finger and her pinkie. “To save him?” Alby seemed amused, “How did he send you?” “I had been praying about it for a long time, because I didn’t know what to do, or even what I could do. Then, last Thursday, it was like God just told me to come to Los Angeles, to find you, or somebody. I knew I’d find somebody that would help me. I thought it would be you.” “God told you to come find me?” Alby spoke too loudly, and pointed to his chest. “He mentioned my name?” “Well, I already knew your name.” “It wasn’t some deep voice from heaven?” He held his arms above his head as if to supply a conduit from on high, “‘Ann, go find Albert Brofield, in an apartment I will show you off Pico Blvd., in West Los Angeles. Zip Code 90025. Follow the star I will send before you.’ Not like that?” “No.” “Don’t be silly.” Felicia cut in, hoping Alby would drop the smirk from his face. Instead, his smirk grew more exaggerated, “It’s just, you know, if God is talking about me behind my back...” “No, you don’t understand. God speaks through the quiet voice of His Spirit.” “Yeah, yeah, okay.” “Alby!” Felicia shook the avocado halves in exasperation, “You shouldn’ make fun of God in front of someone who believes in him!”

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“It’s not me,” the girl looked first at Felicia, but then at Alby, “It’s God himself who’s listening. But God is a big God. We say things, and it grieves him, but he overlooks it, for now, because he’s very patient, and he loves us. Did you know that?” “Sure.” Alby shrugged and took another bite of beans. He swallowed and had a second bite in his mouth as he asked, “So how exactly did God tell you to come see me?” “I was praying.” She looked up as Felicia turned back toward the sink. “I’d been praying for several days. And I was reading the Bible. You see, I’ve been trying to memorize Romans 12, so I’ve been reading it over and over again. In the middle of the chapter it says, ‘Bless them which persecute you,’ and ‘Recompense’—that means like pay back—‘no man evil for evil.’ It also says, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.’ The whole chapter is actually all about how to love other people, and starts out, ‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,’ and it ends, ‘ Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.’ “So I was praying and asking God how I could overcome evil with good. I didn’t understand what it would mean to present my body as a living sacrifice, but I knew I had to do something specific to help Eusebio Viramontes. I couldn’t, you know, just think good thoughts about him. I had to take some kind of action. Besides, I...” the girl looked down at the tape recorder and lowered her voice, “I still don’t always think good thoughts about him.” She raised her eyes again, and looked back and forth between Alby and Felicia, “But love is how we act, not how we feel.” She paused, and then went on, “So after I had been praying like that for

106 a couple of days, I just got a really strong impression from God that I should come to see you.” Alby rocked back in his chair, holding the plate in his hands and scraping the last remnants of the beans into his mouth. Felicia took the pan from the stove and set it in front of him so he could clean it out. He used the serving spoon to scrape the few remaining beans onto his plate, and then from the plate into his mouth. For a moment, the only noises were the big spoon and the slight whirring of the tape recorder. Then he set the spoon on the plate, pushed the plate aside, brought the legal pad back in front of him and studied Anna carefully. “That’s pretty heavy: ‘Love is how we act, not how we feel.’ Is that in the Bible?” “Not in those exact words. But the idea is there. When the Bible talks about love, that’s the kind of love it’s talking about.” He clicked his thumbnails twice and then looked at his watch, “We don’t have a lot of time. Magazines are no good for us. Newspapers are a possibility, but TV would be even better.” He picked up the big spoon from his own plate and reached across to Felicia’s place, where he retrieved the few cold beans left on her plate. “I’m really not the boss here. There’s a couple of lawyers who are working to win over the governor. They’re really in charge. But what if we took you to see the governor? What would you tell him?” “Of California? Do you think the governor would talk to me?” “Yeah. I think we could work that. What would you tell him?” “I don’t know... I guess that I’ve already forgiven Eusebio Viramontes, so I don’t want them to kill him.” “That would have to be tomorrow—or after the weekend. We have to find him first. We might have to go to Sacramento. Depends where he is.” He looked at his watch again, “But we have one more news cycle. Maybe we can do

107 something else.” He turned to Felicia, “See, sugar, this is why I told you to cancel your theater group.” “They can still come. I can call Imelda to come early and be here. What do you want to do?” As he considered how to proceed, Alby made a series of deliberate lines on the legal pad, but they made no sense to either Felicia or Anna. Felicia had seen him do this often—absent minded doodling as he contemplated something—but the girl’s silence as she watched gave Felicia a strange sense of watching herself as she must have looked the first time Alby had come to her home for an interview. That interview had taken place during the summer between her sophomore and junior years of high school. Alby had already begun his senior year at Berkeley, studying journalism. He’d come to her home in the labor camp. After the interview with her mother, Felicia had taken him for a heat-of-the-day tour of the barrio, and a walk along El Monte’s recently cemented Rio Hondo River Channel. After exhausting her memories of Eusebio—who had been in prison since she was nine—Alby asked about other members of the family, and life in Hicks Camp. Then he asked her what she wanted to do after high school. She’d answered that she wanted to work in a sewing factory. Indoor work would be a luxury after picking bush beans or strawberries all day in the hot sun, or bending at the hip all day to cut weeds with a short-handled hoe. She wanted to work sitting up straight in a chair, and to save up as much money as she could before she got married. Alby had asked her why she didn’t want to go to college. She laughed because the thought was so far out of her mind. No one in the Viramontes family had ever even finished high school. If she finished—and her good grades made it

108 look like she might actually do it—she would be the very first one. Magdalena had a job in an upscale Mexican restaurant, and with her husband’s help, was supporting Mami. But still, in all her memory of the small Hick’s Camp Barrio, only two youngsters had gone to college, and they were both angabachados — Americanized school-boys—the children of la Señora Sevillano, who did not let them out of the house, except to go to school. Persistently—as was his style—Alby had pressed her over whether she would like to try college if she could. Just five years ago, at that first interview and somehow embarrassed by the thought, she had told him quite plainly that, no, she had no desire to go to college. And yet now, graduation was only the rest of this year; a few major projects, a tall stack of books and three fee payments away. She even had hopes of going on and getting a Master of Fine Arts. Alby inched his chair closer to Anna, ready to explain what he could do to help her save Eusebio. It bothered Felicia to realize both Alby and the girl had identical blond hair and shirts that were nearly the same shade of brown. Sweat darkened the armpits on Alby’s t-shirt, and Felicia wondered how Anna could stand wearing the long-sleeved turtleneck. “Would you like somethin’ else to eat, Papito?” Alby didn’t look up, “No, I’m fine, thank you.” “Another tortilla?” He pushed slightly with both hands against the table, and extended all ten fingers in a gesture that Felicia recognized as indicating slight irritation, but he seemed to catch himself, and nodded, “Yeah, sure.” Then he turned back to the girl, “Have you ever been on TV before?” “Me? No. Never.”

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“Part of the beauty of your story is how far you’ve come, all the way from Nebraska, and the hardships you’ve faced.” He looked directly into her eyes, “Does your family know you’re here?” “I kind of left my mother a note.” “Kind of?” “I told her I was going on a trip for about a week. I didn’t tell her where I was going. I told her not to worry.” “What would they do if they knew?” “My mom would yell a lot. She’d ground me. I know I should have told her, but it’s just better if she didn’t know exactly where I was.” Felicia flipped the tortilla over on the burner, “You’re almost eighteen.” “Yeah, almost. I guess it’s not a very good example of honoring my father and mother, no matter how old I am.” “You can always tell them later.” Alby leaned back in his chair, “But here’s what I’m thinking. A press release this late in the afternoon probably wouldn’t get much attention. So what we want to do instead is tweak it somehow to make it attractive to the evening news people. We have to toss them something photogenic. You couldn’t know this, but it’s not as good a news story when it comes from me, because I’m paid by the defense team to turn out press releases and try and get the newspapers to keep us somewhere close to the front page. What happens is, people won’t trust us if we say that you came to me, even if that’s what really did happen. They’ll think that I set it up.” Anna frowned, but Alby waved his hand from side to side, “No, no, you did the right thing. I think it’s going to work out okay. We can set up something believable.” “Like what?”

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“Okay, there are people around who are very much in the public eye, and at the same time, involved up to their arm pits in this case. For instance, do you know who Philip Tseng is?” Alby took the rolled tortilla that Felicia gave him, holding it gingerly so as not to burn his fingers, and folded up one end to keep the melted butter from dripping out. “I don’t think so.” “He was the prosecutor at the trial. Did you ever talk to him?” Anna shrugged, “I might have, a long time ago. I don’t remember.” “Okay, well, the world has been very good to the guy since the trial. He’s very prominent, now. He’s a judge. It would be real easy for you to go up to him as he’s leaving his office—probably in an hour and a half or so—and I’ll get some reporters there from the TV stations, and the papers, and you can introduce yourself and beg him to help you save Eusebio. It’ll be too late for the six o’clock news, but with a little luck, they’ll use it at ten.” Felicia broke in, “Alby, what if . . .” but Alby raised a hand to shush her. “What would I say?” asked Anna. “The thing you need to be ready for is that it will all happen very fast, so you have to get right to the point. TV needs to have everything compressed into just a few seconds, so your plea needs to be fairly dramatic, but short. It would be nice if you could actually sway him to our side, but that’s not really likely. Even recently, he spoke before a class of law students, and it was pretty obvious he still stands behind the death penalty. Stress the idea that the crime was against you, but you don’t want to see Eusebio die.” “Alby, ¿Fíate de la historia?”

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Alby turned to look at Felicia, but she couldn’t be sure whether his silence was to consider an answer, or to make sense of her Spanish. As much as he was trying to learn, he might not yet know the verb “to trust.” Felicia turned on the faucet to wash her hands. “Anna, could you excuse us for a minute? I need to talk to Alby in the other room.” She turned off the water, and carried the towel with her as she started for the bedroom. Alby stood slowly, and followed. Felicia closed the door behind them. “What if she’s lying? What if this isn’t the real Ann Doe?” Alby clicked his thumb nails several times before he spoke. “Well, we’d have to apologize, and people would forget about it pretty quickly. But what if she’s telling the truth? Your brother is out of tricks, and almost out of time. This could be pay dirt.” “And how will she introduce herself? ‘I’m Eusebio’s victim.’? That’s jus’ another way of saying he’s guilty.” He clicked his thumb nails. “‘Victim’ might not be the best word. Jesus, I wish we could think of something better to call her.” Alby paused to think before continuing. “But, if she’s not a victim, her forgiveness isn’t worth much. He’s been trying to say he didn’t do it for twelve years, and it hasn’t got him anywhere. Maybe it’s time to play the forgiveness card. Come on.” Alby led Felicia back to the kitchen.

Chapter 12

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 5:00 P.M.

Countdown: Six days, seventeen hours Philip typed a few words into the final box on the page, and pulled the form from his typewriter. Then he separated the copies from the carbon paper, and glanced at his watch. In Cincinnati, the game would be starting in time for him to catch a portion on the drive home. He stood up from his typewriter and looked out his window. By habit, his blue Buick sat parked where he could just see it from the sixth floor. Tseng took the judges’ private hallway to the elevators that ran up and down the Spring Street side of the building, facing east. Sheriff’s vehicles and members of the judiciary parked in the narrow lot between Spring Street and the private entrance. The general public used an entrance on the south side of the building, along Temple Street. If any death penalty abolitionists were demonstrating, they would be there, where he would see them as he circled the building on his way to the Highway 101 onramp. Philip wondered how much time Tom Garcia might be giving to this crusade. Coming into the hallway near the elevators, he heard castanets clacking as two different cars arrived at the sixth floor. He chose his favorite operator, and greeted her as he entered, “Molly, how long until game time?” “Pre-game show starts in twelve minutes, Your Honor. Lobby?” Tseng nodded, “Yes. Thank you.” “Y’ordered your series tickets yet?”

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“You still think we’re going to take this? Catch both San Francisco and Pittsburgh?” “Yes I do. We’re only two games back, with thirty to go. With Koufax and Drysdale, we got two arms. Maury Wills, we got two legs. If we can keep two bats above two-eighty, we’re gonna take it all.” “Who’s pitching tonight?” “Claude Osteen, and he’s gonna win his 14th game. We’re gonna sweep three from Cincinnati. Giants lost last night in New York. They’re gonna drop two out of three in St. Louis. Giants and Pirates have seven more games against each other. They’re gonna split ‘em while we sweep the Mets and the Cubs. We’re gonna finish two games ahead of San Francisco, just like last year, and three ahead of the Pirates. God is a God of justice. Giants can’t be muddying up the base paths on our Maury. Marichal can’t be taking a bat to Johnny Roseboro. God don’t truck that kind of misbehavior.” The elevator slowed and Molly signaled their arrival at the lobby with her castanets. As he stepped from the building, Judge Tseng saw a TV camera crew and a half dozen individuals waiting on the sidewalk near the sheriff’s entrance, but he did not, immediately, think about them being for him. They carried no placards, and he supposed the camera had been sent to cover some other scoop. He recognized two of the reporters—both men who covered the courthouse regularly—and as the path to Tseng’s car would take him near their location, he tried to come up with some little joke to amuse them. But the attention he attracted as he stepped into view warned him that for some special reason, he was going to be the subject of their newscasts. He supposed first that the Governor had granted the commutation. They had therefore collected to ask his reactions. Well, he would tell them that he was very happy for

114 the family and friends who had stuck by Viramontes all these years, and for all those who had worked so hard to win this mercy for Viramontes. Philip, for his part, had done the job given him, and he still believed that the death penalty constituted a necessary option within California’s system of legal justice. Somehow, though, the reporters were not jumping to question him as they should have under his imagined scenario. The camera was running, but the cameraman seemed to be working his camera angle, as well, to include a heavyset girl waiting—almost cowering—out in front of the others. Philip did not like the feeling he had of being set up. He glanced to see where the deputy might be who usually patrolled the parking lot to prevent just such confrontations or mischief. The judge also tried to avoid making eye contact with the girl, looking instead to identify the surest route past the crowd, while at the same time trying to appear relaxed and nonchalant. Unfortunately, the knot of individuals obviously intended to block his path. The girl, for her part, glanced back and forth between Philip and another young woman, this one pregnant and Mexican. Philip nearly reached the corner of the building before the heavyset girl could confront him. “Judge Tseng? Um, my name is Anna Sorensen, and I was wondering if I could talk to you about something?” At first, the girl’s name carried only a vague familiarity for Philip. He looked at her as closely as he could without stopping completely. “This is highly irregular. Have we ever met?” “You might remember me as Ann Doe.” Philip turned so that his back was to the camera. “Tell me again what your name is now.” “Anna Sorensen.”

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The cameraman had come around to his left, but as Philip turned away again, he made the connection between this girl and the five-year-old who had not wanted to talk to him twelve years earlier. Philip glanced at the camera, and then back to the entrance of the Hall of Justice, and forward to his Buick: eighty yards verses fifteen...or just twelve to the sheriff’s entrance gate, where prisoners were admitted and bodies delivered to the morgue. Philip opted for the car. “Of course.” He gently put the tips of two fingers to her elbow. “Would you like to go some place for a cup of coffee, or a bowl of ice cream?” With his other hand he pointed to his car. He set a quickened pace, not looking back at the girl, though she seemed to be following as he guided her. He didn’t physically push the newsmen aside, but they did yield their ground to the sense of authority he presented, forcing them to adjust to what they had planned as a stationary encounter. Just a few steps carried them beyond the scene of the ambush and around the corner of the car, as a reporter called out, “What will you be talking to the Judge about?” The girl answered, but perhaps too softly for the reporter to catch it, “About Eusebio Viramontes.” In that instant, Philip caught the look on the girl’s face: terror. Her eyes had focused on the door Philip was opening. He had removed the light touch on her elbow to unlock the door, but caught himself now—half way into a motion meant to guide her into the passenger seat. Instead, he withdrew his hand as he saw the panic and horror displayed on her face. Instinctively he sought to comfort her, “It’s okay.” “No!” she seemed trapped in mid step, unable to either advance or retreat. The reporter continued to holler questions, but the girl—after having blurted out

116 the one word—only opened and closed her mouth, twice more, with no words coming out. She seemed transfixed on the car door. Philip shut the door, but did not even take the time to lock it. Instead, he took a deliberate step away from the girl, “It’s okay. We won’t get in the car. We can find another place to talk. You don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.” He turned in the direction of the baby-faced deputy who stood, alert but awkwardly unsure how to intercede. “Officer! Could you help me?” “Yes, sir.” The deputy charged forward, “Please step back. Everyone needs to clear the area.” “Could you open the gate for us?” “Yes, sir.” He held his arms wide against the others, “Please clear the area,” and then hurried to the gate. Philip pointed, for the girl’s benefit, “Right inside that gate, you’ll be okay.” As she moved in the direction he pointed, the terror in her face began to subside. But as the tension subsided, she began to shake and gasp for breath. “That’s okay, you can relax. We’re in no hurry.” As they stepped through the entrance, the gate rolled shut behind them. Philip glanced behind him, “Thank you, officer.” From the gate, the subterranean entrance at the far corner of the building required another hundred steps, with the reporters shouting questions from behind them and the officer loudly ordering the group to clear the area. Philip consciously ignored the commotion and worked to project an aura of benevolent authority. By the time they entered into the wide basement corridor, Tseng realized how tense their escape had left him, on his own part, and hoped that as he relaxed, she might relax as well.

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Still walking rapidly, they passed the trustee shoeshine stands. Tseng took a deep breath—partly to help him relax, partly to fill his lungs with the smell of shoe polish before they walked past the smell of death and chemicals that emanated from the coroner’s office—and allowed himself some time to look at the girl closely. She was not particularly attractive, a plain-looking face and dumpy- looking clothes. It wasn’t that she looked like a street person—her hair was nicely brushed—but it did look like she’d been in the same clothes for several days. “We have a couple of choices,” he told her. “We could go back up to my chambers. There’s a back stairs, so we could avoid the circus, and there are still some clerks and officers working around up there. Or there’s a private cafeteria that only employees can use. Or we could go someplace outside of the building, if you wanted to walk. But we don’t have to go in the car.” “Thank you.” She smiled, even though she was still shaking. “What would you prefer?” “I need to catch my breath.” “Yes. We’re not in any hurry.” She closed her eyes, and Philip saw her lips moving ever-so-slightly, as if speaking to some unseen person. Then she opened her eyes, and spoke in Philip’s direction, “Maybe the cafeteria.” “That’s fine.” He pointed down the hallway, “There’s an elevator around the corner. Are you okay in an elevator?” “If I can look into it first, and I’m not being rushed.” “Yes, of course.” “I’m sorry I acted that way. Sometimes I just panic. I can’t help it.” “No, that’s quite all right. Don’t let it worry you. I’m not sure where we might have driven, anyway. You might say I acted in a bit of a panic when I saw

118 the reporters. How did you get there, or how did they get there, or how did you all get there together? She had stopped shaking now, and managed a sheepish grin, “Oh, that was Mr. Brofield’s idea. I didn’t think it was such a good idea to start with. I just wanted to come and talk to you, one-on-one, like the Bible says to do.” “Where does it say that?” “In Matthew. It says if you have a problem with someone, go talk to them about it, first. Then, if you can’t work it out just the two of you, you can always bring more people the next time.” “Does that mean we have a problem?” “Well, not exactly. I don’t know if I ever actually met you before.” Philip stopped before turning the corner to the elevators, and faced her directly. “Yes, we met, but I couldn’t get you to talk to me. You answered some questions for the police, but never for me. I suspect now, you don’t remember any of the things I wanted to ask.” “I apologize for that. Are any of them still important?” Philip pointed down the new hallway as he pondered the question. “No, I don’t suppose they are.” He pushed the elevator call button. They waited for just a few moments, until an elevator arrived, castanets clacking. “Why Judge Tseng! I just let your twin brother off in the lobby, not five minutes ago.” Philip held back and the girl entered ahead of him. “In that case, Molly, let’s avoid the lobby and go straight to the sixth floor.” “One sixth-floor express coming up. Hold on to your hats.” The elevator began its ascent. “Young lady, I hope you’re not from Pittsburgh or San Francisco.”

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“No, Ma’am. I’m from near Omaha.” “Omaha? So do you root for St. Louis or Chicago?” “I don’t follow baseball.” “Don’t follow baseball? I’ve heard of people like you, but never met one in person. When you get up there on the sixth floor, you have the Judge show you Dodger Stadium. That’ll be a memory you can take back to Omaha.” Anna nodded. Philip pondered the distance to Omaha and tried to calculate the girl’s age. “Sixth floor . . . be sure to collect all your personal effects. Thank you for riding with us today.” “Thank you, Molly.” “Three minutes until the pre-game show.” “I may have to miss it, tonight. Let me know what they say.” “I surely will.” The door closed behind them. Philip pointed down a long corridor. “So who is this Mr. Brofield, and how did he find you to bring you here?” “No. Actually, I found him. Do you know him?” Tseng shook his head slightly, “No. Was he downstairs?” “Yes. I just met him today, and I guess he’s not really what I expected.” “What did you expect?” “Um, I don’t know. But it wasn’t like he is.” “I guess I’m still wondering why he brought you to see me.” “I’m not sure exactly what his plan was. He said you might be able to help me talk to the Governor about Eusebio Viramontes.” “The governor has a telephone, and an appointments secretary. Anybody can call his office. I don’t even know him very well.” He paused for a moment.

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“I guess, by coincidence, we did talk last night, but he doesn’t do that very often. In fact, that’s the first time, ever.” “Did he want to talk about Eusebio Viramontes?” The girl looked at him hopefully. “As a matter of fact, he did. It was totally unexpected.” “So, see, you can help!” “Anna, I need you to back up a minute. What is it you want to accomplish with the Governor?” “I want the Governor to stop the execution. I want him to know that I forgive Eusebio Viramontes for everything he did to me.” “You forgive him.” Philip calmly repeated her statement, not to express disbelief, but in hopes she would expound further. “Yes. I forgive him completely. It’s from the love of Jesus that I can love him, too.” “When you say, ‘him,’ you mean Viramontes?” “Yes.” Tseng wondered what Anna would have said twelve years earlier. She had been a difficult witness. She’d answered questions for the police right after the crime, but by the time he’d received the case, she’d clammed up, and wouldn’t talk. On the stand, she responded to questions with only mumbles, nods or a shake of the head. Tseng pulled a chair and held it while the girl sat down. Would it have made any difference in the trial if she’d been able to tell what happened? Maybe not. The jury voted to convict, even without that. Maybe her behavior on the stand helped nudge the jury during the penalty phase. Would her sudden appearance and strange announcement make a difference as the Governor

121 considered clemency? Maybe. Tseng pointed at the Coke machine, “What would you like?” “Nothing, thank you.” Tseng put in his coins and pulled out a can. “Tell me, Anna, what do you mean when you say you forgive Viramontes?” “Just exactly that. I don’t want to hold anything against him.” He sat down. “And how did you reach that conclusion? Do you remember what he did to you? How badly you were hurt?” “Yes. I remember.” “I do, too. I remember the photographs of all your cuts and bruises. Your face was so swollen you were almost unrecognizable.” “Well, maybe I forget some of it.” “That’s probably good. Maybe our bodies and brains protect us by helping us to forget some things. But how can you forgive that?” “It wasn’t as bad as what they did to Jesus, and He forgave us for that.” “Anna, I’ve been in courtrooms for twenty years. I’ve never seen anyone put on trial for a murder that happened before they were born.” “But when Jesus died, it was for us. He chose to die to pay for the sins I’ve chosen to commit. So see, His death was partly my fault. It actually costs me much less to forgive Eusebio Viramontes than it cost Jesus to forgive me.” “Does it really make a difference if you forgive Viramontes? Is the difference for you, or for him?” “Both! And for Jesus.” “Okay, start with telling me how it helps you.” He popped the seal on his can.

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“My pastor explained it all to me. It means I can live again. I’m not trapped any more.” “Did I see you feeling trapped downstairs at my car? Does that ever happen at other times?” “Okay, yes, sometimes it does.” “And is that in any way the result of the trauma he caused you?” “I panic sometimes, and maybe that’s because of what happened. But there are much worse traps when you hate someone.” “Worse than what I saw happen to you downstairs?” “Much worse. When I panic now, it’s really, really bad for a few seconds, and then it’s gone. But the hate I used to feel for Eusebio Viramontes ate at me all the time. It never let up. Have you ever hated someone? I mean, really, really hated someone?” Philip breathed in deeply and exhaled. “Yes.” “But forgiveness frees you.” “Okay,” he cocked his head to the side, “I’ll accept that. So that’s how it helps you. Has it already helped Eusebio Viramontes? Or does it only help him if he hears about it, or if it gets him off Death Row?” “I think there are different ways it could help him, depending on what actually happens. If he dies with everything else the way it is right now, he’ll spend eternity in Hell, but at least he won’t carry this with him.” “Explain what you mean.” “Um, do you have a Bible?” “No...not here in the building. I have one at home.” “I left mine at Mr. Brofield’s house. Actually, I have two there. I wish I had one with me, because there’s a whole chapter I want to show you. It’s the

123 same chapter I told you about a while ago, when Jesus said that when someone has a problem with someone, they need to go talk to them one-on-one, and then later if they need to, they can go with more people. There’s a bunch of other important stuff there, all about forgiveness. One of the things is a parable about a slave that had a big debt, and his master forgave the debt. But then that same slave went to somebody that owed him just a little bit, and he wouldn’t forgive it. The first slave had the second slave thrown into prison because he couldn’t pay. So then the master heard about it, and called the slave in and said, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you your whole debt—which was more than what the other slave owed you—you should have had mercy on your debtor, too.’ And the master handed him over to the torturers. Then Jesus ended the story by saying, ‘My heavenly Father will do the same to you, if you do not forgive whoever sins against you.’” Anna leaned forward intently, “Jesus forgave me everything! That’s ten- thousand times what Eusebio Viramontes did to me. But if I won’t forgive Eusebio Viramontes, God won’t forgive me for everything I’ve done. My pastor explained that to me.” Tseng scoffed gently, “Anna, I have a hard time imagining you guilty of ten-thousand times as many crimes as Viramontes.” “Your Honor, most sins aren’t crimes. Pride and bitterness and anger are in the heart, where no one can see them. I’m not responsible for any other sins that Eusebio Viramontes ever did, only the ones he did to me.” “If he did them, why are you responsible?” “It’s my responsibility to forgive him.” “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” “Yes.”

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“So why does it become your responsibility? Why do you owe Viramontes a single thing?” “Because I owe Jesus everything. I can’t repay that debt to Him. I can only pass it on to others who need it, in His name.” She paused, but when Tseng made no comment, she continued, “Right in the middle of that same chapter, Jesus says to His disciples, “‘Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.’” “How do you apply that?” “I have a choice . . . okay, there’s my choice and his choice, Eusebio Viramontes’ choice. He has the choice about whether he goes to Hell, or not. God never forces anyone to choose to love him. We choose. Jesus gives us the choice, and we choose. And if we choose to reject Jesus, by our choice we’ve chosen to be separated from His presence for eternity. He gives us the choice to be far away from Him, if we choose, and the farthest place away from Him is Hell. God is love, and there is no love apart from God. Any place where there is no love has simply got to be the worst hell imaginable. So Eusebio has to make the choice whether he’ll spend eternity in Heaven or Hell. That’s his choice. “But my choice is whether he will go into Hell bound up in the sins I could have forgiven him of, or whether he will go into Hell without them. Hell is a horrible place. No love, no light, no peace, no comfort or relief. All of the good things that Jesus is are absent from Hell. That same chapter of Matthew says it’s better to have your hands cut off than to be cast into the lake of eternal fire, or better to have your eyes poked out, than to be cast into fiery Hell. I think it’s partly the fires of regret. People may be able to tell themselves that there is no God now, or no Heaven or Hell. But at the end of time, every single person will stand in the presence of Jesus—at the Judgment. Even when sinners are waiting to

125 be judged, Christ’s very presence will be so wonderful that everyone will want to be with Him forever. But the people who rejected Him on this earth won’t have a second chance. They’ve made their decision and they chose to be separated from Jesus, forever. I can’t force them to change their minds. But I can make it so that when they are out there, crying for eternity in regret, the weight of what they might have done to me doesn’t add to their burden. I have the power to set them free from that. When I forgive them, I loose them of that burden in Heaven, before the Judgment.” “You explain that very well.” “Praise God.” “How long have you been studying the Bible?” “About a year-and-a-half.” “That’s remarkable. I have a friend—and he really is a friend. I don’t want to sound like I’m criticizing him. But he’s been a minister for almost 60 years, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him explain what you’ve just explained. How did you learn all that in just a year-and-a-half?” “Well, my pastor. There’s so much I still don’t know. But the Bible lets me see God. And when I was trapped, with no way out, my pastor showed me in the Bible how to find the way out. I want to know everything there is to know about it. I want to be able to worship Jesus more completely, by understanding every single reason I have to worship him—really, there’s more than anybody could ever find out in a whole lifetime—but I want to get as close as I can.” “Is that how this helps Jesus? You said forgiving Viramontes helped you, and Viramontes, and Jesus.” “Yes. If Eusebio Viramontes understands that I love him because Jesus loves him, maybe he would choose to worship Jesus, too. When Jesus died, the

126 price he paid was high enough to pay for every sin that anyone ever did—every single sin in the history of the world! But some people never get to enjoy it. Jesus already paid the price to give it to them, but they just turn their backs on him and walk away. I think that’s what Eusebio Viramontes is doing right now, and it’s almost too late. But if he sees how much I love him, maybe it will make him turn around and take one more look at Jesus before he dies. Every time someone dies without receiving God’s free gift, it wastes what Jesus died for. It’s too precious. I don’t want any of it wasted. Can you help me talk to the Governor?” The Judge nodded, “Yes . . . yes. We can use the phone in my office.” Philip would have liked to continue the conversation where they were, but Anna was already on her feet, “Thank you, Your Honor.” He stood up and they started towards the door. “Anna, what will you do if the Governor says ‘No’?” “Why would he say ‘No’?” “He has the whole state to think about.” “The crime was against me.” She tapped a finger against her chest. “And the sin was against God. If I’ve forgiven him, and he asks God’s forgiveness, shouldn’t that be enough?” “But the crime was also against the State of California, and all the people of the State of California. It’s the governor’s responsibility to protect every citizen. If criminals are allowed to go unpunished, no one is safe. The crime Viramontes committed against you also cost the taxpayers hundreds of hours of police time, and court costs, and prison costs. When you were five years old, you weren’t grown up enough to make a decision like forgiving him. If you had, or if your parents had tried to do it for you, the State couldn’t allow you to do that. No little girl in the state would be safe, or thugs would be coming around to every victim

127 they’d hurt, twisting their arms for forgiveness. The governor can’t allow things like that to happen.” They stepped into the hallway. “Your parents were very hurt, as well. Have they forgiven Viramontes?” Anna let out a big sigh and slouched slightly, “No.” “Do they even know you’re here?” She shook her head, “Unh-unh.” “Do you think you should call them?” “Not now!” She straightened up, the muscles of her face taut. “Please, maybe later, but not yet.” Philip stopped. “Anna, how old are you?” She dropped her head, “Almost eighteen.” “But not yet?” “Unh-unh.” He opened the door to a private hallway. “I’ll tell you what. First we call your folks, and then I’ll help you call the governor.” Anna followed him down the corridor, and around a corner. “It’s a long distance call to Omaha.” “The good people of Los Angeles County will gladly foot the bill.” Tseng led the way, through two doors, to his desk. He pointed Anna to his chair, and pulled the telephone closer to the edge of the desk. Anna hadn’t sat down, but he picked up the receiver, pushed the button for an outside line, and handed her the phone. “Um, would it be okay to use the restroom before I talked to my mom?” Tseng nodded and hung up the receiver, “It’s back where we came in, off the main hall, just inside the door.”

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Anna left and the Judge went to the window, to wait. He could not see if anyone remained at the gate where he had escaped them, but his car had no one around it. He did not know how long he had been waiting before he checked his watch the first time, but it had been seven more minutes by the second time, and another four by the third. He walked to the elevators, pushed the call button, and checked his watch again while he waited for Molly’s castanets. When the elevator arrived, he moved to the door, but did not enter, “Molly, the young woman who was with me a little while ago, did she take the elevator down?” “Yes she did.” Molly’s hand went to her ear and removed the tiny speaker. “I’m sorry, Your Honor. If I’d known you wanted her to stay, I’d a kept her here listening to the game. Dodgers got two in the bottom of the first on a home run by Ron Fairly. That’s all they’re gonna need. Osteen’s gonna hold ‘em to just one run. I didn’t realize you still needed to see her.” “Don’t let it bother you, Molly. Enjoy the game.” After the door closed, Tseng looked back in the direction of the office, and then down as if he could see through floors and walls to the freeway on-ramp. From down the elevator shaft, he heard the castanets at another floor. He didn’t have the energy for another conversation. He decided to use the stairs at the far end of the hall.

Chapter 13

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 5:27 P.M

Countdown: Six days, sixteen hours, thirty-three five minutes Trudging along Temple Street, toward the top of Bunker Hill, Felicia and Alby had the late afternoon sun in their eyes. A hundred yards short of the signal at Grand, she turned around to see how far they had come. They had risen to about even with the fifth floor on the Hall of Justice. Anna could be almost anywhere inside. In her mind, Felicia imagined a descending camera shot, beginning from the greenish metal roof. The building’s most dramatic feature, a row of closely spaced, three-story high pillars, high on each side, gave these floors a classical elegance that belied a jail unit. Between the columns, the deep-set windows were barred. Eusebio had been held there during the five months from the day of his arrest until the week after his trial. Next, her camera tilted to view the middle five floors, with their rows of identical windows. These belonged to courtrooms, the County Sheriff’s Department, and the District Attorney’s office. Below those were two floors of lobby, elevator landings, and lines of people standing at a multitude of look-alike counters, and finally, the basement into which Anna and the judge had disappeared. The building held a maze of corridors, back passageways, and restricted entries. Felicia felt a double frustration. First, they had bungled the confrontation. The television crew went away with nothing that could be used on the evening’s news. And secondly, Felicia didn’t have the reporter’s film, nor had she brought a camera of her own. Her classes at the university might be preparing her for a career producing and directing

130 documentaries, but in what might turn out to be the most dramatic week of her entire life, she had no means of grabbing the footage. “Are you going to make it, sugar?” Alby, too, had turned around to look back at the Hall of Justice. “Why did you have to park so far away?” “This is where I always park. You can walk to anyplace downtown from up here.” “You can walk to anyplace. You like walking up and down mountains. I think the parking up here is free because nobody else wants it.” “How are you gonna get around campus when school starts? You’ll have to walk even farther.” “I don’t mind walking if it’s flat, or even when it’s cooler. I like walking. If I park near the theater arts building, I’ll just have a few staircases. There’s even some elevators.” “I just think it would be so much easier for you if you took one semester off.” “One quarter , not semester. I keep telling you: they’re changing to a quarter system. It’s only ten weeks long.” “Okay, quarter: half a semester. That’s even less time off. You could still go back and finish after the baby is born.” Alby turned to look at the little bit they still needed to climb, as if to encourage her to make the last effort. Felicia continued facing downhill. “If I don’t do it now, I will never finish. You know that as well as I do.” Alby turned back again, following her gaze. “Do you think we should wait for her?” “At least let me catch my breath.”

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With the sun on the back of their necks, the signal beyond them turned green, red, and green again, but they stayed watching downhill. Alby looked at his watch. “We still have a couple hours of daylight.” He sorted through the faces that dotted three blocks of downhill. “She at least has to come back to our place to pick up her stuff.” “What could they be talking about?” Alby shook his head, but made no other answer except to turn uphill again towards the car. “We could wait another half hour and still get you back for your teatro.” “Could we go to El Monte?” “El Monte? What for?” “Eusebio wants me to find him a picture of my father.” “No kidding?” Alby turned again to face the Hall of Justice, picked up his wrist to look at the watch, and then put both hands into his pockets. “He must really think this is the end. How else could you explain that?” “I don’t know.” “You don’t have any pictures, anywhere?” “Where would I get one? He was dead before I was two.” “Does Aunt Socorro?” “She has a big one, on the wall in her bedroom,” she held up her two hands, thumbs spread at 90 degrees from the fingers to indicate an 8x12, “from when my father was about 25. He’s carrying a big basket of walnuts. The sunlight is sparkling from his sweaty forehead and he looks like a movie star.” “Do you think she’d let you borrow it?”

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“Somos familia.” We’re family. “Even if everything else is gone, that doesn’t change.” She turned, walked in silence to the corner, and crossed when it turned green. At the car, Alby unlocked the passenger door for Felicia, but while he went around to the driver’s side, she held the door open and rolled down the window to let the inside of the car cool off. She tried resting her hand, first against the roof of the red Golden Hawk, and then against the white tailfin, but the color made no difference. The chrome burnt even hotter. Careful not to touch the car again, she took a newspaper from the back seat and spread it on the leather where she would sit. By the time she sat down, Alby had closed his door and was putting the key into the ignition. Felicia wondered how Anna would fit into a visit with Tía Socorro. Maybe she could leave the two gabachos in the car. “Do you think she wants us to wait for her?” Alby shrugged, “We can wait twenty minutes, or half an hour.” He turned on the radio to find the final refrains of The Supremes pleading, “Stop in the name of love, before you break my heart.” When that faded away, James Brown burst out with “I Got You.” Felicia lost herself in thoughts about trying to get a copy of the film the TV reporter had just shot. The station would never use it, but someday she might find a need for it. She was only vaguely aware of an announcer beginning a newscast. “In Phnom Penh today, French President Charles de Gaulle and Cambodian Chief of State Prince Norodom Sihanouk issued a joint declaration calling for the evacuation of all foreign troops from Vietnamese territory. The two leaders called attention to the extreme gravity of the situation and said that the United States must agree to pull out its troops before negotiations to end the war would be possible.

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“San Francisco—The AFL-CIO United Farm Workers Union has been officially declared the collective bargaining agent for field workers at the Di Giorgio Corporation grape ranch near Delano, in Central California . . . ” “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Felicia clenched her fists and shook them at the level of her eyes. “. . . with 530 ballots for the AFL-CIO affiliate, 331 for the rival Teamsters union and 12 for no union, the official vote totals were substantially the same as those prematurely released Wednesday by United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez.” “Yes! Yes! We did it!” Felicia turned to see a grin on Alby’s face. “Washington, D.C.—Lawyers for death row celebrity Eusebio Viramontes said today that they have failed in their latest effort before the United States Supreme Court to find support for a new trial. Viramontes, author of two books on Aztec and Hindu religion, is scheduled for execution in San Quentin’s gas chamber, one week from today.” Felicia dropped her hands to her sides and slumped back in the seat. Alby took the hand nearest to him and held it tightly. “There’s always hope, sugar. We can’t give up hope.” As tears began to run down her cheeks, he continued to hold her hand with both of his, and rotated in his seat to face her more directly, “There’s still time. A lot can happen in a week.” Sitting in silence, Felicia pictured Cesar Chavez in her mind. On separate weekends in October and February, she and Imelda had joined pickets in Delano, without seeing Chavez, at all. But on a weekend in March, they had driven to Porterville, and walked behind him for two days, as Chavez made a 350-mile Lenten pilgrimage from Delano to Sacramento. They actually caught up with the marchers mid-morning, a couple of miles north of town, and then took turns

134 marching and bringing the car along behind. Groves of blossoming orange trees, walnut orchards and vineyards in new leaf, and roadside bouquets of wildflowers had all given the world a sense of potential. Perhaps a hundred-and-fifty, or two hundred people followed the flag bearer and his dramatic red eagle on a black and white background. Some carried rosaries and prayed silently as they marched. Felicia’s best views of Chavez had mostly been the back of his head as the marchers walked single file beside the highway, until in Lindsay, they stopped for the night and held a rally in the park. He was not a large man, nor did he stand out in a crowd, but when he stepped in front of an audience, and spoke his simple words, he projected a magnetic power. That Sunday, she and Imelda marched part of the way to Farmersville, but had to leave early to get back to Los Angeles. Then, three weeks later, on Easter, they had rejoined the march—grown for the final day to ten thousand members—as it arrived in Sacramento. And now, five months later, Chavez had won. Felicia turned toward Alby. “What if we did a march, from San Quentin to Sacramento?” Alby frowned. “How you gonna do that?” “San Quentin to Sacramento is only . . . ” she tried to visualize the distance on a map, “maybe a quarter or a third as far as Delano to Sacramento. That march took 25 days, so . . . well, we might not be able to make it all the way, but we could at least start.” “Sugar, you only marched one weekend—parts of two days—and a few miles the last day. And that was when we weren’t even sure you were pregnant.” Alby held her hand in both of his. “So maybe San Quentin to Sacramento is a hundred miles. How long would it take you to walk a hundred miles today? You were tired just walking to the car.”

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“It’s mostly flat. I’m okay on the flat.” “No, think about this. Walking in the middle of nowhere, how are you going to find a restroom every ten minutes?” He let go of her hand, and thought about it for a few moments. She also pondered the realities. Everything Alby had mentioned was true, and what she really wanted right now was a nap. Yet, the march had been the turning point for Chavez. The self sacrifice helped to build credibility, and establish the moral high ground. “What else can we do? We only have a week.” Alby rested both hands on the steering wheel and began to click his thumb nails. “Of course, I guess we could tap the donors and see if they could come up with a camper truck that could follow behind you. The two of you walking together—marching on the Governor—really would grab some attention.” He thought in silence for a moment, and then shifted to face her. “You could brief reporters at the prison gate, with Death Row right there over your shoulder, and then just start walking east, through Novato and around the North Bay through Vallejo. If enough people joined us, you could slip into the camper and rest while the other people walked—as long as you were out periodically through the day, during the prime window for each news cycle.” Felicia found herself surprised at both Alby’s obvious concern for her, and that he had taken her idea so seriously. She was also surprised by her own response to him. He could be such a dud one minute, and the next minute be so sweet. Alby continued, “You know what else? What really worked for Chavez was they stopped along the way and said mass, off the back of a pick-up truck. If you visited Eusebio Sunday morning, and then walked into San Rafael in time for

136 five o’clock mass—wow, powerful stuff, you and Anna together. Reporters would eat it up.” “Do you think she’d do it?” “Mass?” Alby scratched his chin. “You think she’s anti-Catholic?” “Well, that too, if she’s all Holy-holy, maybe she wouldn’t want to. But the whole march thing?” “She took a bus all the way from Nebraska. I think she’s seriously ready for a crusade.” “We’d have to drive up there tomorrow.” “Yeah.” He calculated silently. “Or even tonight. If we went to Aunt Socorro’s, and then packed up, we could leave tonight. Sugar, the other thing we need to do tonight is get you some new walking shoes. You’ll need to break them in by alternating shoes a couple of hours each day. But you can’t start a walk to Sacramento with just the sandals you’re wearing.” Felicia thought about her shoes, and imagined a camera right on the ground to get a worm’s eye view of the marchers passing by. They didn’t really have the money for a new pair of shoes, and as soon as they got away from Nanna’s, they’d need to rent a motel room. And somehow, she still needed sixty dollars for UCLA. But Alby was right about the shoes. The tennies she’d worn to Porterville in March were starting to fall apart, and even then, she’d gotten blisters on the bottoms of her feet. She suddenly felt more tired than she had ever been in her life. She had just set in motion a walk of a hundred miles. Yet how could she not do this? This was Eusebio’s last chance. Perhaps, for such a time as this had she been born. Silently she prayed, “O, Madre de Dios, help me please.” From over her shoulder, Felicia became aware of Anna, behind her, standing a few paces away from the car.

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“I’m sorry I took so long. Thank you for waiting.” Felicia opened her door and pulled the seat as far forward as she could, to let Anna squeeze in behind her. “What happened with the judge?” “He wanted me to call my mother.” “Did you?” Alby turned around in his seat to face her. “No. He thinks I’m in the bathroom.” Alby turned to Felicia. “You still want to go to Socorro’s?” “Yeah, I think so.” Alby started the car, and headed downhill. In front of the Hall of Justice, he turned left, and then right, parallel to the freeway. No one said anything.

Chapter 14

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, FRIDAY, 6:10 P.M.

Countdown: Six days, fifteen hours, fifty minutes Philip exited the parking lot onto Spring Street, and turned right, going uphill on Temple to pass back in front of the Hall of Justice. He turned right again on Broadway, but saw neither Anna nor any demonstrators. He crossed the freeway, but decided to make a larger loop, and continued past his on-ramp. He turned right on Sunset, crossed Spring and went south again on Main, west on First, and north on Hill. He saw no sign of Anna. Where would she go? She’d come from Omaha. She’d found somebody named Brofield. Then Brofield had called the TV stations. Where would they go now? Back on Temple, Philip went downhill, turned onto Broadway for his second time, and got onto the Freeway. Traffic was heavy. He switched on the radio. Fourth inning. Dodgers 4-0. Gilliam took one, low and outside. Where would she go? Philip stayed in the slow lane to make the transition from the 101 to the Harbor—as it inched through the four-level interchange—and then to the Santa Monica, where it began to pick up speed. For that matter, where would Philip go? Tonight, the house would be empty, but he’d also arranged for a week of vacation. He could catch the campaign tonight, in Santa Barbara, with a two-hour drive. If he caught it tomorrow in San Luis Obispo, it might take five hours. If he got too far north, it would be hard to get back for the home games. For dinner tonight, he decided on a restaurant at the beach. He could watch the sun go down over the Pacific.

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Homerun, Parker. Dodgers 5-1. Traffic on the northbound 405 was slow and go. Philip took his usual exit from the freeway—putting him again on Sunset Boulevard—but he turned left toward the beach, rather than right, toward home, so that for the second time since leaving work, Sunset took him away from his original destination. Philip crossed over the freeway. Though he had just come from it, he experienced a sense of terror at the speed with which the southbound cars zoomed beneath him, pouring from Sepulveda Pass. If he were to crash through the concrete guard-rail and fall to the freeway below, it would be all over before a single driver could reach his brakes. The pain of a quick but involuntary muscle spasm—almost a cramp—in the pit of his pelvis left him wondering about the source of his fear. Why now? How many times had he crossed that bridge and never even considered falling through the guard-rail? How had he become a representative “minority person?” The governor must be reading too much social legislation for his own good. Was it just last night, or had Philip been living through the same kind of comments over the years without ever being aware of it? Was he really a respected judge, or just a token “minority person?” Minority persons were teenagers not yet old enough to drink, vote, or be alone on the streets of LA. Where might Anna have gone? God had brought her all the way from Nebraska, to L.A. Now where would God take her? Strange concept: God. Philip recoiled from the question. If God truly existed, and He felt that Philip ought to believe in Him, He ought to kick Philip out of bed in the middle of some night and blind him with a flash of light.

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Fairly scoring Gilliam on a sacrifice. Team play. Black man scores. White guy gets the RBI. Philip passed the Will Rogers Ranch. Had Rogers been only a token “minority person?” Obviously not. Some talent can’t be held down. With Rogers’s warm humor and keen insight into human nature, America had caressed the Cherokee cowboy with as much love as a nation could muster. Philip tried to imagine his own face wearing a Will Rogers smile. He leaned back in his seat, realizing how tensely he had been clutching at the wheel. If this had been God in Philip’s office during the afternoon, where had He been in recent years? Tseng tried to pinpoint the number of years that had passed since he’d given any serious thought to God. He occasionally attended the church where Betty belonged, and even served on committees. He had many friends there, and respected the many good things these people put their energies into. Philip generally put up with the sermons, though in fifteen years, he could not remember one preached with the directness of Anna’s explanation in his office that afternoon. He frequently socialized with Reverend Hansen, but Hansen never pushed Philip. In fact, if Philip was going to posit a God, it couldn’t be the comfortable God that Hansen believed in. Religion demanded that people give up their own priorities, selflessly. It was pick-up-and leave Nebraska, or it was hypocrisy. (Was Abraham from Ur?) Better to be a comfortable agnostic and only worry occasionally about what followed this life, than to talk about picking up a cross daily while living with the question: How much cross is enough? But even joining the debate was dangerous. The whole God impulse could play crazy and painful tricks. Philip realized that he owed part of his turmoil to Viramontes. If only Viramontes had been a Rockefeller. Just once, execute a Rockefeller and silence all the loudmouths arguing that minorities never get their rights. The executed anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, should have been switched

141 for the rich-kid murderers, Loeb and Leopold, with their life sentences. What had Viramontes meant with his cryptic inscription? Stupid! So stupid! For starters, Philip would not allow the pressure over Viramontes to upset his rational disbelief in God. Neither could he let it upset his belief in an ordered society. It was difficult—granted. Viramontes had succeeded in proving that he could finally be of some benefit to at least some members of society, no matter how questionable that benefit might seem. Philip could allow himself to sympathize with Anna, and Viramontes, but then he had to draw the line. If a society should become too soft to punish its criminals, that society would cease to exist. That much he knew. He could allow himself any relaxation of his position, as long as it did not cross that one sacred boundary. Philip realized he had been crouched forward tensely again. He tried to refresh his Will Rogers smile. Whatever possessed Anna? If he could just talk to her one more time. As Sunset approached the cliffs above the Pacific, the boulevard slid into the large S-shaped curve that would deliver it to the seashore. Just downhill from the road, Philip’s headlights reflected on a tiled roof with a Hindu flavor to it. He’d read about it in the newspaper: a shrine with statues of Krishna, Jesus, Saint Francis, the Madonna and Child, a Dutch windmill, and a one-thousand year old Chinese sarcophagus with the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi. What a collection of religious chicanery! The blind leading the blind: as bad as the mumbo jumbo stuff practiced by his Uncle Yüan. All they needed was an altar to Marx. Once—1927? 1928? Philip might have been eight or nine—in Paris, Yüan Shu-shu had taken Philip to help build a parade shrine. Carefully, Philip held the nails for his uncle as the small crew of Chinese built their wooden pagoda— singing their happy songs and attempting to invoke a land that Philip had never

142 seen. On the way home, Uncle Yüan took him to flower stalls where they bought large bunches of bright red peonies. But then, his mother had not allowed him to go to the parade itself. Instead, she took him with her to church. No one else had been there. With just the two of them occupying the cavernous building, Philip sat silently, swinging his legs, while his mother repeated the Hail Mary, over and over again. Somehow, Philip had always believed that his father had been in that parade, but that was impossible. Philip and his mother had moved from the Place d’Italie when he was eight. Father was deported when Philip was seven. Perhaps Yüan Shu-shu had just been talking about his father. Or perhaps Philip was remembering a composite of parades. Sunset Boulevard finally reached the beach. The Will Rogers smile was failing to perform its job. Philip sat in the left-turn lane at the red light, trying to decide where he really wanted to eat dinner. Perhaps he’d be just as happy with whatever Betty had left in the refrigerator. When the light turned green, his turn left was more automatic than carefully reasoned. Philip got onto the Santa Monica Freeway—this time back toward downtown—more because he was in the necessary lane than for any other reason. He crossed over the 405 and got off at Overland Boulevard, not because he had a reason to, but because a car cut closely in front of him and he suddenly felt out of place on the freeway. Somehow, there was no place to go. Philip pulled to a stop behind the wooden arms that protected the railroad crossing near Exposition Boulevard, though the train had not yet come into sight. Behind him, a Volkswagen pulled close enough that its own headlights were hidden from Philip’s rear view mirror, but they reflected from his trunk back into the driver’s face. He watched the young Asian woman as she mouthed the words of a song as if singing along with her radio. Her face was animated by the song.

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Philip turned on his radio, hoping he could find the same station. He wanted to listen to the lyrics that could bring her such contentment. Perhaps they could explain why the car had swerved in front of him on the freeway, or why Anna had run away from him. With urgency growing inside him, he kept his eyes on the image of the girl in his rear view mirror. Her lips opened and closed like the delicate valves between the chambers of his heart. But if the rich warm blood was leaving one chamber, it didn’t seem to be arriving in the other. As hard as he tried to breathe, his tissues were suffocating to understand a riddle for which the girl seemed to have an answer by intuition. Across the dial and back, none of the stations he discovered yielded the girl’s secret. Still, her lips kept moving. The crossing lights kept blinking. The wheels kept clacking. For every one blink of the lights, there were three beats of his struggling heart and a hundred clacks of the wheels whirling by. Her face seemed to light up and she patted the steering wheel to emphasize a favorite line in the song, but her words couldn’t reach Philip. He was cut off from ever communicating with her, as if she was teasing him by moving her lips without any sound, as if she was only pretending to be saying something, just to torment him. The blood rushed into his face and eyes, flooding in front of his vision to limit his sight to just that tiny six inches of mirror above his dashboard. She was seemingly so much at the center of the world right now, and yet she would not let Philip join her. She was saying, “Old man, quit trying.” The honking seemed to be drowning out the clacking of the wheels, leaving just the echo of the emptiness. The honking: My God, she was honking at him! He glanced forward to realize that the train was past and the long wooden arms were pointing again at the heavens. He was obstructing traffic. Automatically, he

144 stepped on the gas and released the clutch, only to have the car lurch forward and die. He was still in third gear. The honking continued. She was not content to taunt him for not being able to understand what was moving her soul. Now she was honking at him for obstructing her own movement. He turned the ignition and floored the gas, lunging across the intersection. In panic, Philip turned onto the first side street, to let the girl pass. He pulled the car to the curb, but left the engine running. One by one, he locked each car door. Then, leaning his head back against the seat, he took off his tie, and stared at the porous material that lined the underside of his ceiling, horrified almost as if he were staring at the underside of Heaven. Philip caught his breath slowly. Then he drove around the block to take another look at the railroad crossing. He studied it carefully, but nothing seemed out of place. Philip decided it was time to go home.

Chapter 15

EL MONTE, FRIDAY, 6:56 P.M.

Countdown: Six days, fifteen hours, four minutes In the heavy freeway congestion, the fourteen miles took forty minutes. Then the surface traffic stopped them, signal-by-signal. As they waited for a long red light, Felicia looked north across a dry wash, still not at ease seeing the river basin with straight concrete walls. So many of her childhood’s most carefree moments had been shared with playmates chasing lizards and building forts among the rocks, sand, and scrub willows now missing. She looked beyond the railroad bridge, and wondered what might have possessed her to bring Anna along on this errand to Hick’s Camp. As Alby turned onto the first side street beyond the wash, they passed the entrance to a small alley. Felicia turned in her seat, just barely, wanting to see if the spot brought any reaction from Anna. Anna paid no attention to the alley, but watched the neighborhood carefully. They passed two blocks of small houses, stuccoed in dull oranges, pinks, and browns. Some were bricked to the bottom of the windows. Some had pitched roofs of tar-paper shingles. Others had flatter roofs of crushed white rock. Alby eased the car slowly over a short rise with railroad tracks. “I remember these tracks,” said Anna. “I think I lived somewhere near here.” The pavement gave way to a dirt road at the edge of the camp, and Alby moved the car even slower, not wanting to kick up dust at the dinner hour, when many of the families sat in their small yards, eating. Friends recognized Felicia,

146 and called greetings. Felicia answered with waves of her hand. Chickens ran from the road, through porous fences constructed of lumber salvaged from freight pallets. Other fences made use of wire frames salvaged from old mattresses. Though the fences served to mark the limits of the little yards, they tended to lean either back into the swept-earth enclosures, or forward into the road, as the passage of years took its toll on the bailing wire that wove the slats together. Many of the small, wood-sided houses displayed repairs, where tin cans had been opened, flattened, and nailed over gaps in the wood. A large pepper tree sat between Tía Socorro’s home and the home of her neighbor. Drooping branches rested on each roof, and as Felicia opened the door and swung her feet out, she felt her weight pressing the BB-sized pink seeds into the sandy earth. An herb garden filled most of Socorro’s small yard, leaving only a narrow path from the gate to the house. Vines twined over the fences. A pomegranate bush at the front corner stood tall enough that it shielded the bedroom window from the setting sun, though the sprinkling of small red fruit still lacked eight weeks for maturity. Felicia stood and pulled forward the seat, so that Anna could escape from the back. “This is my Aunt Socorro’s house. I grew up in that one, next door.” She pointed. Anna nodded. Both houses had sagging front porches. Socorro stepped from the house, wearing the black she had worn for a decade. “¡Qué milagro de verte!” What a miracle to see you. Outwardly, Felicia smiled to protect herself, but inwardly she winced at the barbed greeting, though she knew she deserved it. She had not been to see Socorro since Christmas. Felicia glanced at Anna, who stood clutching the inside

147 of the open car door, but Alby had already come around the car, and had almost reached the porch. “Hello, Aunt Socorro. It’s so good to see you.” He stepped onto the porch and took her elbows in his hands, kissing the old woman on her proffered cheek. To Felicia, it meant that Alby was picking up the rituals. “Yes, tank you for comin. Otherwise I don see Felicia never.” Alby stepped aside and Felicia lifted herself to the step below Socorro, to stand eye-to-eye with her shorter aunt. As they clasped each other’s arms, Socorro took a quick up and down look at Felicia. “ ¿En qué te metiste el pie ahora?” What did you step in now? Socorro leaned forward slightly—a gesture that seemed to exaggerate her care over the swelling in Felicia’s belly—and tilted her head to receive Felicia’s kisses on each cheek. “ ¿Y por esta razón nunca me visitabas?” And this is the reason you haven’t been to visit me? “No, Tía. Nos venimos cuando la escuela nos permite.” We come when school permits us. Socorro turned to Alby. “And I never hear from her mother, not even a letter. We were best friends since we were muy pequeñas, en Mexico.” She dropped one hand to the height of her knee, for emphasis. “Then I married with her brother, and she married with my brother, and we live together in these two houses for twenty-nine years. But now we are both widows, and she forgets I am here.” “It’s her eyes, Tía.” Felicia still clutched Socorro by her once-thick arms, realizing how thin they felt. Yet certainly, Socorro must still be picking berries in the spring and grapes in the summer, raking walnuts in the fall, and harvesting oranges during the winter. Socorro looked to be in her late sixties, yet she would

148 be fifty-six, the same as Mami. “Está ciega, Tía. Y las manos no pueden agarrar la pluma.” She’s blind, and her hands cannot hold a pen. Socorro continued to address Alby, “To call to the telephone, I have to walk all the way a la gasolinera.” She pointed a hundred yards to a white building with a single gas pump. “Tell her she must visit me.” Then she stooped to pick up a fallen twig from the pepper tree. “This oil treats el reumatismo, but how I can I help her mother if never I see her?” “Tía, I want you to meet our friend, Anna.” Felicia beckoned the girl to come. “We were all downtown together, when we decided to come see you.” “Oh, I didn even do my hair today, because no one ever comes to visit me any more.” “No, Tía, you look just fine.” Anna approached, Socorro extended a hand, and they shook. “I’m very nice to meet you.” Socorro turned back to Felicia. “But I’m so sorry, I didn know you were comin, so I didn prepare nada para comer.” “No, Tía, we came to visit you, not because we were hungry.” “I could slice some tomatoes.” Standing behind Socorro, Alby tapped his watch for Felicia’s benefit, but she gave him a slight shake of her head. “Oh, that would be delicious on such a hot day.” Felicia turned to Anna, “Socorro grows the best tomatoes in the whole world.” Socorro took a pair of clippers from the window sill, and stepped to a carefully trellised vine. “Thees year, the tomatoes are not as good as last year.” She clipped an enormous, bright red fruit, and handed it to Alby. “Hold thees.” She reached for another tomato. “What do you hear from your brother?”

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“It’s not good, Tía. If the governor doesn’t grant him a stay, the execution will be next Friday morning.” “Friday?” Socorro held the tomato and clippers to her chest, but said nothing for a long moment. “He was such a sweet boy.” She passed the red gem to Alby. “But then he fell out of that tree.” She pointed to the pepper. “After that—sometimes sweet, sometimes he could be very mean. He hit his head very hard. He like to climb way up the very top: way, way up.” She glanced at Felicia. “El mismo invierno, se murió tu papá.” The same winter, your father died. “I know, Tía.” “What a winter that was! Your poor mother. And you had such erupción de pañal. How do you say that in English?” “Diaper rash.” “Yes, diaper rash. You couldn sleep. You cry all the time.” Alby looked around at the assortment of herbs. “What do you use for diaper rash?” Felicia supposed that Alby intended the comment to encourage Socorro, but when she looked at him, he added, “We’re going to need to know that kind of stuff.” Socorro shook her head, “The best is la pulpa from the inside of walnut husks, but in winter, you never can find them.” She turned to a rosemary bush. “We had to use this. It works, but not so fast.” Felicia crushed a sprig between her fingers, and sniffed it. “Tía, I went to see Eusebio, yesterday.” Anna’s gaze had drifted around the garden, but now she turned back to face Felicia. Socorro also faced Felicia. “Does he look well?” She glanced at Anna, “Her brother is very handsome.”

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Felicia nodded. “Yes, but I don’t think he gets enough exercise.” “Nunca leí sus libros. No los entendí.”—Socorro hadn’t read Eusebio’s books. “That’s okay, Tia. Many people don’t understand them.” With darkness falling, Socorro led the way into the house. Alby passed through the small front room and set the tomatoes on a counter in the kitchen. Anna stood just inside the door. “Come in. Come in. Sit down.” In the dim room, two wooden chairs and a worn loveseat lined the walls, facing a small table in the center of the room. A crocheted white doily decorated the table, and a braided-coil rug covered most of the floor, its edges exposing linoleum that did not quite reach the walls. The floor rose unevenly to the kitchen threshold, and then tipped downward on the other side. The opening to a third room was covered by a blanket, hung from the ceiling. Socorro lit a candle. Then she pumped the tank on a kerosene lantern, and touched the candle to the mantle. She set the lantern on the table and then carried the candle into the kitchen. She came back with a plastic pitcher and handed it to Felicia. “Hazme un favor, por favor.” Felicia nodded and hurried outside to a faucet in front of the neighbor’s house. By the time she returned, Socorro had sliced the tomatoes and was sprinkling them with chopped onions and cilantro. Alby leaned against the entryway to the kitchen, from where he could both chat with Socorro, and watch the car through the window. Anna sat forward on a wooden chair. “Tía, Eusebio asked me to find a photograph of my father.”

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“Oh. I have one.” She handed two plates to Alby, and two to Felicia. Then she wiped her hands on a dish towel. “It’s a very nice picture. He was muy guapo. Like a movie star.” Socorro ducked behind the blanket, and into her bedroom. Felicia set the plates down on the table, and followed in time to see Socorro pulling the picture from the wall, the only framed picture among a collection of others fixed to the wall with thumb tacks. Socorro held it in her hands, and tipped the photograph toward the last hint of light from the window. “¡Qué triste!” So sad. “Tell Eusebio that we will miss him forever, comó el papa.”—Just as with your father . Socorro pulled a handkerchief from the dresser top, and held it to her upper lip. Felicia wrapped her arms around her aunt, and they stood together for a short while. Then Felicia took the picture. “Alby knows a place that can make copies. I’ll bring this back to you in a couple of weeks.” With one arm still around Socorro, Felicia lifted the blanket and led them back into the harsh light of the lantern. She tipped the photograph toward the light, and though its glass cover reflected a glare, they stood together looking at the image of a twenty-five-year-old man carrying a big basket of walnuts. Earlier, Felicia had described him to Alby as looking like a movie star, the same description she had heard so often from Socorro. It occurred to Felicia that this was the sum total of her relationship to her father: one photograph, and the memories of a few family members, repeated like canon. Yet her father would forever be twenty-five as in the picture, or the thirty-seven of the last memories he left to his family. Felicia was now twenty-one, Mami and Socorro fifty-six, and Eusebio thirty-one. Her smiling father was a very handsome man. He looked a lot like Eusebio.

Chapter 16

BEL AIR, FRIDAY, 8:14 P.M.

Countdown: Six days, thirteen hours, forty-six minutes Fifty yards from his driveway, Philip activated both the big iron gate and the garage door. Each had already closed behind him by the time he got out of the car. Betty had left one bulb burning at the side of the house. He flipped the outside light off, a kitchen light and the radio on. In the refrigerator, he found a stack of plastic containers, no-doubt leftovers from the kickoff. He would get to know these plastic containers very well if Betty won the election. He emptied a steak and potato into a sauce pan, turned on a burner, and raised the volume on the radio. Dodgers had won big, while Giants were losing a twelve-inning squeaker to the Cards. Ex-Giant Orlando Cepeda supplied the heroics in that one, using a double and a stolen base to score twice. L.A. now trailed San Francisco by just one game. Of course, Pittsburgh also won and still led the Dodgers by two. Three more RBIs for Roberto Clemente put him over a hundred for the season. Philip got a fork and flipped the steak. Already cooked, it only needed warming. At the current pace, Clemente would probably go over a hundred-twenty, and Stargell would be right behind him—maybe at a hundred. Fairley’d gotten three tonight for the Dodgers, giving him forty-three. Roseboro’d gotten his forty-eighth. Lefebvre blanked, but last night he’d gotten his sixty- sixth. Maybe he’d finish with seventy or seventy-five. Philip shook his head: the Dodgers’ big gun, and Lefebvre was barely batting .282. Philip flipped the steak again. How does a team like that beat a team with four guys hitting above .300?

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But give the bums credit: It was September, and the Dodgers were still in the thick of it. The players’ wives must be ready for the season to be over. He broke the potato open to heat the inside. April to October—that’s a long season for husbands to be away from home. But somehow, the wives managed it, even when they had small kids. If baseball wives could do it, so could he. He owed it to Betty. Philip took the pan from the stove and pulled a hot pad from a hook on the wall. What a gamble Betty had taken in marrying him! At the time, she already had the promise of a life with everything, while he’d had only empty pockets and citizenship in a devastated countryside. She’d brought him to the greatest nation in the history of the world, paid for his education, and introduced him into circles of wealth and power. She’d believed in him and encouraged him along the way, even when he had nothing to offer her in return. If she wanted public office now, he needed to encourage her any way he could. But that didn’t make the house less empty. Philip ate the meal from the pan. The potato was dry, but even so, the food perked him up. He squirted detergent on the pan and utensils, ran a sponge over them, rinsed, and set them to dry. Then he studied his watch. A quarter past eight. Her reception would go until nine. Stragglers would stand around talking until ten, and Betty would be in her element. The custodians would be sweeping away the crumpled napkins before Betty’s assistants would be able to get her out of the building. And then—even while leaving—she would ask the custodians if they had children in school. She might call about eleven. He had almost three hours to wait.

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Philip poured himself a glass of wine and carried it into the game room, pulled a cue from its cabinet, and chalked it carefully. The balls had been left racked, and he began to shoot. Tom Garcia might know where to find Brofield, but what would that solve? Anna didn’t want to call her mother. Philip’s main excuse for finding her was to persuade her to do just that. Otherwise, Philip was a 48-year-old man stalking a 17-year-old girl. How could she be so confident that God had sent her on this errand? He finessed the last ball into the pocket, and reracked the balls. Then he took a sip of wine and looked at his watch. He’d used up four minutes. He returned the cue to its cabinet, carried the glass of wine across the hall to a telephone, and tucked the receiver to his ear as he dialed the single number and waited while the plate rotated back into position. “What city?” “San Fernando, or maybe Sylmar. Last name is Garcia. First name is Tom. It might be an insurance agency, or it might be a private residence.” “I don’t see an insurance agency. Do you have a street address?” “No. Do you have several Tom Garcias?” “I see seven in San Fernando, and four in Sylmar.” He thanked her and replaced the receiver. Was he being silly? Find Garcia, in order to find Brofield, in order to find Anna, in order to . . . what? He reentered the game room and retrieved the cue, but he did not begin shooting. Instead he held it while he studied the table. After about twenty seconds, he took- in a deep breath, and let it out. Then he put away the cue, went upstairs to his office, opened the bottom drawer of his desk, and from a file labeled “Rotary,” pulled a mimeographed address list. He glanced down the list and flipped to the

155 second page. He went back to the first page, took a pen, and underlined a name. Then he picked up the phone, and dialed. “Gene, this is Philip Tseng. I’m sorry to be calling so late on a Friday night. How are you doing?” They traded the necessary pleasantries. “Gene, this is why I called. I’m trying to get in touch with a fellow who used to be active in a club out in the Valley. I thought you might have a phone number. His name is Tom Garcia.” Philip waited while Gene looked for the number, then copied it into the margin of the mimeographed page, thanked him, and set down the receiver. He looked at his watch. Just past eight-thirty. He stood up from the desk and walked to the window, looked out into the darkness long enough to imagine Garcia drifting back and forth in his driveway like lint in a soft breeze. He returned to the telephone. He dialed, waited, and recognized Tom’s voice. “Hello, Tom. This is Philip Tseng.” “Judge Tseng, what a surprise.” It occurred to Philip that Garcia’s voice would serve an insurance agent well. It put him at ease with its friendliness and sincerity. “It’s been a day of surprises. To make a long story short, I’m looking for a fellow with the last name Brofield. I don’t know his first name. He’s somehow tied into the Viramontes case.” “Yes. First name is Albert. There’s actually a double tie-in. His girl friend is Eusebio’s sister, and he writes press releases and occasional articles for Viramontes’ legal team. Would I be violating confidentiality to ask what’s up?”

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“No, just a peculiar interview today. A girl visited my office. Seventeen- year-old. Said she was the Ann Doe that Viramontes beat up and raped. Said she’d come from Omaha without her parents’ knowledge, somehow hooked up with Brofield, and was trying to get the governor to commute Viramontes. I wanted her to call her parents first, and she snuck out on me. I worry about her being out on the streets.” “Well, if she’s with Brofield, I think they live somewhere on the west side. Eusebio’s sister is a student at UCLA. I don’t have a number for him here, but maybe he’s in the book. I’ll be at the headquarters tomorrow morning. I can probably find a number for him there. You want me to call you?” “Yes, I’d appreciate that.” “It would be before ten, because after that I’m driving up to San Quentin.” “Are you demonstrating in front of the prison?” “Yeah, we’ll have a vigil.” “I’ll wait for your call, then.” Philip gave Garcia his number. After hanging up, he reached for the directory. West L.A. had one Albert Brofield. He looked again at his watch, thought a moment, copied the address and number onto a notepad, and closed the book. Then he got up from the desk. He couldn’t remember where he’d set down the glass of wine.

Chapter 17

WEST LOS ANGELES, 9:10 P.M.

Countdown: Six days, twelve hours, fifty minutes Even before she reached the bottom of the stairs, Felicia could hear a rehearsal from the apartment above, but she did not recognize the lines of any acto they had done before. FIRST VOICE: Who’s dees? Felicia pictured Tony, their leader, comically emphasizing a poor English pronunciation. SECOND VOICE: Just us. We always come first. That would be Imelda, in the overly-correct enunciation of the straight man. Felicia used the railings on both sides to pull herself up the stairs. She could hear Anna a couple of steps behind her, and Alby not yet at the bottom. FIRST VOICE: Who’s dees on first? SECOND VOICE: Just us. The door stood open for ventilation. As she entered, Felicia glanced at the table and the sink. Imelda had done a nice job of setting out chips, the guacamole, cheese, and wine. The mess that Felicia had left on the sink in the afternoon had been cleared away. In the living room, Tony and Imelda had their backs to the door, while an audience of three sat on the sofa, beneath the posters of Ché and Quetzalcoatl. Tony wore his stock rasquachi costume: a threadbare poncho with patches cut from bean sacks, a baseball cap with another remnant of bean sack tucked under the back seam to protect his neck, patched pants that covered only to mid-calf, and

158 huaraches for his feet. Imelda had a white blouse and skirt. She also wore a white bandana tied as a blindfold, but as Imelda turned to greet Felicia, it became apparent that the blindfold completely missed one eye. In one hand Imelda held a machete and in the other a rusty set of scales. Around her neck she wore a label: “GRINGO JUSTICE.” Tony’s label read, “FIELD WORKER.” “Ola, todos .” Felicia scanned the room to make eye contact with everyone. “What have you got?” Tony set one foot forward, tilted his head as if looking into stage lights, and pulled his hat off in an elaborate sweep that ended with the hat resting against his knee. “A righteous repudiation of racist justice.” Then he relaxed the pose and gave his shoulders a quick shrug. “We just started putting it together.” Tony replaced his cap. “We’re taking off from Abbott and Costello’s ‘Who’s on First?’” “I don’ know that one.” Imelda held the machete and the scales far enough apart to exchange kisses on each cheek with Felicia. “Tony and I saw the movie in our drama class. It’s a radio acto from the ‘40s.” “If the audience doesn’ recognize it,” Felicia leaned for abrazos with Tony, “how will it work for us to do a take-off?” “I’ve seen it before,” Tony said, as he kissed her. “It’s one of the classics.” The small audience had risen from the sofa, two young men and a woman. Felicia greeted each with matching kisses. Tony continued, “I’ve even seen other take-offs. For gabachos, everybody’s seen it.” Felicia turned back to Tony, just as he caught sight of Alby and Anna. Tony waved to Albert. “Alby, you know ‘Who’s on First?’”

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“Yeah. Great shtick.” Felicia stood for a moment trying to decide how to introduce the girl. Then she said, “Everybody, this is my friend Anna.” She shrugged. “ Es muy complicado .” Anna stood stiffly, but gave a collective nod to everyone in the room. “Pleased to meet you, Anna. I’m Tony.” He took one step toward offering an abrazo, but Anna stiffened, and he stopped. He pointed around the room. “This is Imelda. That’s Frank, and Chuy, and Esbeyde. Did you ever hear, ‘Who’s on First?’” Anna nodded. “My mom and my aunt used to try to do it, every time we had a party.” “I’ll bet they had about five lines perfect, and after that it kind of fell apart.” Anna looked uncomfortable in the spotlight, but nodded feebly. Tony turned back to Felicia. “See, they all know it.” “How’s it work?” “It’s all repetition and double meaning.” He chopped one hand into the other. “ Pum-pum timing. They have a baseball team and the names of the players are all pregunta words: Who, What, Why. Every statement sounds like a question. They get really frustrated because what one person says as a question, the other person takes as an answer.” Imelda cut in, “But we have some other puns. The farm worker tries to read ‘justice,’ and it comes out like ‘who’s dees?’ La gabacha says ‘justice,’ and it comes out ‘just us.’” Felicia nodded. “ Está bién . How soon can it be ready?” “You got a gig?”

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“Tell me what you think about this. We drive to San Quentin, and call some reporters. Then we do a couple actos, and we start off marchin’ to Sacramento, with actos every day along the way. ¿Qué piensan?” “Pues , this one isn’t even close to ready yet. ¿Cuándo empezaremos?” “Drive up tomorrow. If everything works out, start Sunday.” “We’d have to work on it in the car.” “We have all our other actos. We can rotate them along the way.” Chuy shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m working ten-hour shifts, every day next week.” “Who can be there?” Tony raised his hand and its pointed index finger to the level of his ear, “I can come up Monday.” Imelda nodded. “I’ll have to talk to my mom. Maybe I can ride with Tony. Do you have to start on Sunday?” “Sunday’s usually a slower news day.” Alby spoke with chips in his mouth, but the others turned to listen. “It’s harder to get reporters out, but if they film you, you’re more likely to get airtime.” He bit into another chip. “Monday’s the Labor Day holiday, but it kicks off the fall campaign. Newscasts will be following the elections.” Felicia set her purse on the table. “I’m goin’ up there tomorrow. We’ll start with whoever is there, an’ people can come when they can get there. The rest of you can keep workin’, but tonight I need to pack.” She started for the bedroom. Before she could gather her clothes together, she would need to run a couple of loads of laundry. Behind her, Imelda and Tony picked up where they’d left off. WORKER: Who’s dees on first?

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Tony held his own hand-written script, but Chuy held up a page for Imelda to read. JUSTICE: Just us. WORKER: Who’s always first? JUSTICE: (Shifting to a poor-white drawl—relaxed vowels and slang plural—to almost rhyme with the answer) Just uses. WORKER: Chistosos? Even with her back to the actors, Felicia could see Tony delivering that line with the mocking face he did so well: chistosos , little things to be laughed at. JUSTICE: (Formal pronunciation again) Just us. WORKER: Naturally. JUSTICE: Naturally. Felicia came back to the door of her bedroom, carrying a pillowcase full of her undergarments and cotton blouses. Anna hovered near the far doorway, arms folded across her chest. Alby would drive. Anna and her duffle bag would be tight in the small back seat. The trunk would hold Alby’s suitcase and their sleeping bags. Once her clothes were clean, they would go back into the same pillowcase that held them now. She needed quarters to run the washing machines downstairs, but didn’t want to walk between Imelda and Tony. She waited, shifting her focus between the acto being rehearsed and Anna. The girl had recognized the railroad tracks at the edge of Hicks Camp. Felicia had spotted no obvious errors in her story, yet if Anna was actually Ann Doe…then what? Anna accepted Eusebio’s guilt, but only because the magazine stories presented it that way. Felicia thought back to the days spent at Socorro’s house, too young to attend the trial, and too protected to hear accounts from her mother, who had. In the deep recesses of her mind, she occasionally saw doubt about her brother’s

162 innocence, but hope always beat it back. Even weaving in and out of traffic on their way to Malibu, in her heart she’d known Eusebio didn’t have permission to drive the convertible. He’d said that he’d borrowed it from a friend, and she had let it stand. How might all these years have been different if she had challenged him on it? She shook her head. She could not afford to daydream, or even ask questions that she had no energy to answer. WORKER: You gotta left fielder? JUSTICE: We keep everybody in the field. WORKER: The left fielder’s name? JUSTICE: Why. WORKER: ¡Mira! When he comes out of the field, who collects his paycheck? JUSTICE: (scoffing and anglicizing the Spanish) Who gets the moneditas ? Yes, Felicia nodded, the small change. WORKER: Claro, juguetes las moneditas . Oh, even a better pun, who gets/the little play moneys, but Felicia needed to get the machine started. She ducked under Imelda’s upheld scales and made it into the kitchen to find Alby. “Do you have any quarters?” Alby shook his head as he pushed a chip with guacamole into his mouth. “Pennies and nickels.” Behind her, she heard Anna. “I have quarters.” Felicia turned. “I have a roll of quarters in my duffle.”

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Felicia looked past Tony to the duffle sitting beside the sofa. What would she eventually owe Anna? She turned back to Alby. “I have no cash. Can you buy some quarters from Anna?” Alby nodded and reached for his wallet. Anna scurried between Imelda and Tony, apologizing for interrupting. Felicia watched as she pulled clothing and toiletries from the duffle and set them in piles in the protected corner by the huéhuetl and the teponaztli. JUSTICE: I believe Why collects the paycheck. WORKER: Why collect the playcheck? JUSTICE: Well, sure, it’s what you call, ah, meager. WORKER: You call la migra ? JUSTICE: (Looking self-satisfied) Well, eh… WORKER: (Running from stage) ¿Qué huele? Felicia gave a smirk—¿Qué huele? /What stinks?—and then joined the three on the sofa in applauding. Anna, with a roll of quarters in her hand, half turned, came up on one knee, and with her free hand, politely patted what little of the other hand the quarters left free. Her wide eyes betrayed an expectancy that someone might explain the punch line to her, but Felicia pretended she hadn’t seen. Anna stood and brought the quarters to Felicia. Felicia smiled, and nodded thanks. Then she picked up her pillow case full of laundry, and started down the stairs, wondering how much of the girl’s story she could stand to hear.

Chapter 18

BEL AIR, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1966, 12:20 A.M.

Countdown: Six days, nine hours, forty minutes The ring woke Philip, but he had been dozing with the bedroom lights still on and his hand resting on the telephone, which he had moved to a position beside him on the bed. “Is that you?” “Yes, dear, are you still up?” “I wasn’t but I am now.” He sat up and rolled his feet to the floor. “How did it go?” “Oh, it was all so wonderful. Everywhere we went, people encouraged me.” “Good crowds? “Small group at lunch, but it was just district superintendents. Thirty-five tonight for an open forum. Every question was good, and I think they liked my answers.” “Excellent.” “How about you?” “I’m fine.” “I’m so glad you are. It would be hard if you weren’t. Philip, we got almost eight-hundred dollars in donations, from these little crowds. And nine people signed on to help with the campaign. Lots of very nice people.” “Tomorrow Santa Maria, Pismo, and San Luis Obispo?”

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“Yes, and a breakfast in Santa Maria with the League of Women Voters. Do you think you might join us tomorrow night?” Her voice turned the question into an imperative. He accepted that he would need to go at some point, but hoped to negotiate his terms. “I’m still trying to decide.” “Oh, I’d love to have you. I know you don’t usually enjoy the politicking, but everyone is being so wonderful.” “I did tell William I’d take next week as vacation. The embezzlement trial ended early. But if I get too far north, I won’t be able to get back for the Dodgers and Giants.” “Well, what if you fly up tomorrow and join us in San Francisco? You can fly back Monday morning, in time for the game. Tomorrow night is at the Mark Hopkins. Sunday is slow, shaking hands on the Embarcadero, and a town-hall thing in the evening. Monday morning we’re touring an elementary school in Chinatown.” “That might work.” “Did you go out tonight?” “No, I ate left-overs.” “Did anything come in the mail?” “Oh, I haven’t even checked yet.” “Is there something on your mind?” Philip paused. He hadn’t been able to hide his malaise from her, but he didn’t want to upset her, or cause her to pull back from her campaign. He could safely share the incident with the girl. “Well, as a matter-of-fact. A strange thing did happen. A girl came to see me, claiming to be the Ann Doe that Viramontes hurt so badly.”

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“Oh, goodness. How old is she now?” “Seventeen. I think she got set up by the anti-death penalty people, but her story is that she’s a runaway from Omaha.” “Oh, that’s horrible. What did you do?” “Well, I tried to get her to call her parents, but she bolted on me.” “Did you report it to the police?” “No.” Philip wondered how many run-away seventeen-year-olds the police saw on the streets of L.A., and how the police handled them. “But I did call the fellow who was out front here last night, to see if he might have a bead on her.” “And did he?” “He’s going to call me back in the morning.” On the bedside table, Philip had the paper where he had written Albert Brofield’s address and telephone number. “Well, don’t lose any sleep over it. I’m glad you decided to take some vacation. Will you fly up in the morning?” “Oh, I may play a little golf, and look for a good book. Maybe I’ll catch a flight mid afternoon.” “I appreciate that, Philip, so much. We’ll get there just in time for dinner. If you get there before we do, the rooms should be ready. With you there, we can shake twice as many hands.” She quickly softened her voice. “I know, that’s not your cup of tea. You don’t have to shake a single hand if you don’t want to. I just appreciate you coming, and you can fly back Monday for the game.” “And I appreciate that.” “We’re at the Mark Hopkins, both Saturday and Sunday nights.” “You must be bushed. Are you starting to wind down?”

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“Oh, I’ll be exhausted when I get home next week, but I’m just getting started now. I’m having a wonderful time. I’d better say good-night, though. I’ve got some thank-you notes to write.” Philip imagined she might get three or four hours sleep—all she seemed to need. “Well, you know me. I need my beauty rest. Don’t stay up all night. I love you.” “I love you, too, Philip. I’ll be in bed by 1:30.” He hung up the phone, pondered the paper on his bedside table, and pulled back the sheets on his bed.

Chapter 19

WEST LOS ANGELES, SATURDAY, 1:00 A.M.

Countdown: Six days, nine hours Felicia’s last load came out of the dryer at nearly 1:00 A.M., well beyond the posted 10:00 P.M. cut-off, and though no one confronted her—nor even glanced accusingly from behind pulled curtains—she avoided that possibility by sending Albert to collect the final basketful. Then she traded her blouse and preggy pants for a cotton nightgown, and slipped into bed, exhausted. Her legs hurt from fatigue so bone numbing that she could not find a comfortable position, whether on her back or side, though on her left side with a pillow underneath her, the baby’s weight rested more comfortably. With her right hand, she felt for the baby, but could detect no movement. A sudden panic clutched at her: What if something was wrong with the baby? Albert brought the laundry into the already-darkened room, set it on the floor, and closed the door behind him. She heard his shirt land in a pile on the floor, and then the buckle on his pants unclasp. He sat on the bed and kicked off his shoes. His pants landed on the floor. Then he snuggled in behind her, gathered her hair and moved it away from his face, and placed his arm around her. “I missed you, sugar.” To herself, Felicia counted backwards, trying to remember how many days it had been. Probably five. “We need to get up in about four hours.” “Yeah, and who knows what the week is going to bring. We may not be alone again for a long time.” “Anna’s on the other side of that door.”

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“She can’t hear us.” “Of course she can hear us.” Felicia wondered what Anna had looked like as a kindergartener. Would she still be awake? Albert waited a few moments in silence, and then lightly stroked her belly. The baby kicked. “The baby’s awake.” “The momma’s asleep.” The kick lessoned her anxiety about the baby, but did not clear it away completely. He took a deep breath—more loudly than he needed to—and let it out slowly. Then he rolled away from her. For the most part, Felicia slept soundly, though she was occasionally aware of his restlessness.

Chapter 20

BEL AIR, SATURDAY, 7:30 A.M.

Countdown: Six days, two hours, thirty-five minutes A ring of the telephone caught Philip pouring cereal into a bowl. He continued to hold the box in one hand as he picked up the receiver with the other. “Good morning.” “Judge Tseng, this is Tom Garcia. I hope this isn’t too early.” Even at 7:30, the voice was cheerful. “No, I’ve been looking forward to your call, whenever it came.” He set the box on the counter. “Hey I got the number, and I just called over there, but nobody answers. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re already headed north. If I see them at San Quentin, is there a message you’d like me to pass on?” Philip gave a low hum to let Tom know he’d heard the question and was considering it. “You know, I appreciate the offer, but at this point, I don’t so much have something I’d like to tell Anna, as I’d like to ask her some things.” He pulled a pen from a drawer. “But I would like to be able to reach you up there. I’m in the process of putting together some plans to be in San Francisco, myself. My wife is already on her way, and I’m thinking of joining her.” “Sure. I’ll be staying at the Motel 6 in San Rafael. Are you driving up?” “No, I was going to look into a flight.” “Hey, you’re welcome to ride up with me. That drive is a lot shorter with someone to talk to. I can drop you wherever you need to be.”

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Philip’s first impulse was to decline—partly from not wanting to impose, and partly from not feeling that he knew Garcia well enough to commit to six or seven hours in the car—but an opposing inclination followed rapidly on the first. Garcia intrigued him, and a trip through rural California would be a pleasant break between the urban centers of L.A. and San Francisco. Driving, he could still be there before Betty. The price would be a morning of golf. “Actually, Tom, that’s a very attractive offer. How soon will you be leaving?” “My suitcase is in the car. I could swing by and pick you up in about 30 minutes.” Philip hesitated for an instant, but then began to nod. “In that case, I’ll hustle around here and be ready.”

Chapter 21

HWY 99, NEAR FAMOSO, SATURDAY, 10:48 A.M.

Countdown: Five days, twenty-three hours, twelve minutes By 10:00, the temperature along Highway 99 had risen above 90 degrees. They traveled with the windows down on both sides of Albert’s Golden Hawk, talking little. Felicia had even slept from somewhere south of Gorman. She half woke, briefly, to see machines scooping carrots from the ground and running them up a conveyor belt to a giant canvas sack. Then she closed her eyes again to childhood recollections of working carrots herself. Following behind her mother, with Magdalena and Eusebio nearby, she collected stray carrots, missed by older members of a crew that stretched farther in each direction than she could then fathom. She remembered the hot sun, and how slowly they had worked, turning the endless carpet of green back into bare dirt. In her last moments before reentering slumber, Felicia tried to imagine filming the scene from a helicopter. When she stirred again, the stretch to the horizon on both sides of the highway had turned to grapevines. “Are you waking up?” She turned to face Alby. “Um-hm. Did we already pass through Bakersfield?” He nodded. “How long was I asleep?” She glanced over her shoulder. Anna sat quietly, but alert. “About an hour-and-twenty minutes.”

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She looked at her watch. “I really need a restroom. What’s the next town?” On the far side of the road they passed a bright yellow pile of pure sulfur, standing perhaps half-again her own height. It commanded a site between the railroad tracks and a two-story building of corrugated metal. She wiped across her face, and then rubbed her belly to feel for the baby. “Delano, in about twenty minutes. You want to stop there for lunch?” “What’s before that?” “Not much. You’ve driven it.” “Not when I’ve been this pregnant.” Alby accelerated slightly. Anna spoke loudly to be heard over the wind, “Do you drive this often?” Felicia considered, and then called back, “Seven or eight times in the last year. Three times to Delano. Four or five times to see my brother.” They rode in silence for a few minutes. In the vineyards, workers stacked wooden crates of grapes on trailers towed behind tractors. Pallets stacked with empty boxes stood ready to re-supply the workers for their return down the long rows. From the back seat, Anna asked. “Is this near where there’s been all that trouble?” Felicia turned around. “Yes, this is where the grape workers have been on strike. Delano is just ahead of us.” “I saw something about that on TV in the bus station.” “The election was on Tuesday.” “What was the election about?”

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It shocked Felicia that after a full year of the huelga , Anna still had to ask this question. Felicia wanted to answer, but the urgency of controlling her muscles tightened even her face. Alby answered for her, “The workers were voting whether they wanted to be represented by a union, and if so, which union.” “Oh.” If a year of making headlines, of confrontations with growers and their goon squad police, and a month-long march to Sacramento had been able to penetrate middle America no better than this, what chance did Felicia have to help her brother in just six days? With her elbow out the window, she leaned her head against her fist and, for a moment, let the wind beat against her face. Then she straightened and set both fists in her lap. Anna spoke a little softer, “Which side is Caesar Chavez on?” Felicia contorted to turn and face Anna. “Cesar,” she corrected Anna’s pronunciation, “is the leader of the United Farm Workers. They won the election.” “I’m hurrying as fast as I can, sugar.” Anna leaned back. “Have you ever seen him?” Albert nodded. “We actually shook his hand once. And he told us, ‘Thank you for coming.’” He held up his right hand. “Shook that one, right there.” “What were you doing?” Felicia took one fist from her lap and pointed a finger vaguely into the fields. “We’d stand along the roads, and shout to the scabs to come out . . .” Alby cut in, “During the strike, the growers brought in new workers from Texas, or Mexico. But there’s thousands of acres, so it’s hard to know where the crews would be picking or pruning on any given day. We’d wait at the

175 headquarters while scouts drove around the vineyards. Then when they spotted a crew, we’d hurry over there and set up pickets. We’d try to get the scabs to join the strike.” Felicia added, “We did that twice.” “Yeah. That was pretty fun.” Felicia punched him on the shoulder. “You didn’t get sprayed with sulfur.” “Sorry, sugar.” He glanced back at Anna. “That’s kind of a sore point. I shouldn’t have said that.” He accelerated a little more. They rode in silence for about twenty seconds. Then Alby pointed his thumb at Felicia. “Another time she came with Imelda. Maybe you saw in the news about the march to Sacramento.” “I don’t know if I saw about that, or not.” Felicia turned to look at Anna. “It was for twenty-five days. You didn’t see any of it?” “I don’t watch the news very often.” Felicia slid back around to face forward, rocking side-to-side. What did someone have to do to break through to the consciousness of White America? In her mind, she saw Eusebio strapped into the chair. Cyanide pellets plopped into a beaker of acid, but the fumes smelled strangely of sulfur. Anna leaned over the seat. “How far is Sacramento?” Alby pointed his thumb backwards. “The sign back there just said 256 miles, but that’s the straight shot up 99. The march kind of zig-zagged.” “And you walked all that way?” “I didn’t.” Alby shook his head. “And not everybody walked the whole way. About 75 started. The last day there were 10,000.”

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Felicia rotated and rested her bent knee on the seat. “I came up on a Saturday, for that afternoon and the next morning. But we were spread out along the road.” She leaned to put her hand on Alby’s knee. “What’s the straightest shot from San Quentin?” She could see him working it out in his mind. “Probably, Richmond Bridge, but I don’t think they’ll allow pedestrians.” “What’s the second choice?” “Well . . . on the north side, it’s all narrow roads that cross a lot of swamp. After I drop you off at the Nolands’, I’ll do some exploring.” He turned to see her face tight in pain. “What can I do for you?” “Get off here. I can’t wait any more.” Though they were approaching an exit, it held no sign of roadside businesses. Alby seemed to be evaluating it. “Here!” She barked, “The pickers have port-a-potties.” Albert exited and Felicia pointed to a crew picking beside the two-lane road. Two outhouses sat side-by-side on a small trailer. She stepped out from the car, caught the attention of a man with a clipboard, and pointed at her destination. He gave her an agitated look, but then nodded permission. His look left her slightly unsettled, but in her urgency, she could not stop to interpret it. Though the trailer rested unsteadily, and the unit carried an unpleasant smell, Felicia could remember working on farms that supplied no facilities at all, and workers had no choice but to relieve themselves among the very crops they were harvesting. Things had begun to get better, even before Cesar. A distant siren invaded Felicia’s thoughts. It came up the same freeway exit they had just traveled. Whatever vehicle carried it turned in her direction and seemed to rush directly at her, as if it had targeted her—exposed and vulnerable— in the confines of the tight plastic hideaway. But the vehicle just did miss her, and

177 the siren died away as wheels crunched in the dirt, slowed, and came to rest just a few feet beyond where she sat. Doors opened and a jumble of voices called out. Felicia hurried to finish and step outside. Two members of an ambulance crew were just entering the vines, carrying a stretcher. The man with the clipboard—no doubt the crew chief —followed close behind them. Albert and Anna stood by three other men and two women, with everyone following the paramedics with their eyes. Other pickers ran down parallel rows. Felicia went to stand beside Albert. One of the men glanced at her. “ Un infarto. Ya se murió .” The ground was uneven, and Felicia steadied herself on Albert’s arm. “He thinks it was a heart attack, and the person is already dead.” “Un Viejito, casi setenta .” “An old man, almost seventy.” Down the row, farther than they could see into the grapes, a woman’s voice wailed in anguish. They stood waiting a long time before they sensed the commotion moving back in their direction. Pickers stepped from the rows, still carrying their clippers, but not burdened with lug boxes of fruit. They huddled in pairs and trios, but few spoke, and those only in hushed voices. The ambulance attendants reemerged from the vineyard, followed by the sobbing woman and the crew chief, but all eyes rested on the old man on the stretcher. His face covered by a towel, but his shirt unbuttoned to the waist. A smattering of crinkled grape leaves clung to the crisp white hospital sheet. Felicia continued to cling to Albert as the crew secured their silent cargo in the ambulance and helped the woman step up into the compartment. One attendant followed her while his partner closed the door and then took the driver’s

178 seat. The ambulance pulled forward enough to get a clear view of the roadway, pulled a u-turn, and left. Everyone turned and followed it with their eyes. It entered the freeway without using its siren. Albert turned and guided her back to the car. Anna scooted into the back. Then Felicia took her seat, her mind replaying both the terror she’d felt when the siren had been coming at her without her being able to see it, and the patch of grey hair on the victim’s chest. She had looked on death. In a week, this would be her brother.

Chapter 22

HWY 5, NEAR PYRAMID LAKE, SATURDAY, 11:17 A.M.

Countdown: Five days, twenty-two hours, forty-three minutes “So anyway, her father and my grandfather were both in import/export, hers from this end, and mine from France. They did some business together. So when she arrived in London, somebody sent me her address and I looked her up.” Cattle grazed on the steep mountainsides that flanked the long slope climbing toward Gorman. “I can’t imagine all that dead grass is very tasty.” “I can’t understand how they can stand at that slant without falling over.” Garcia kept the Rambler station wagon right at the speed limit, but never over it. “How long did you know each other before you got married?” “Oh, she says she remembers meeting me when her family toured Europe in ‘31, but I can’t believe there was much about me as a thirteen-year-old to be worth remembering. She would have been eleven. For sure we met in ‘42. Then I was in Africa for a while, and very briefly back in France. My service ended July 31, 1945. We got married August 4.” Philip put both hands behind the back of his neck, and stretched. “We were honeymooning at Folkestone when the news came about Hiroshima.” “How long had you been in England?” “Actually, I moved to London in ‘37, to study English. My grandfather traveled quite a bit, and I think he saw the war coming. He wanted me out of France. De Gaulle arrived in June, 1940, right after Dunkirk, and I signed on a week later. And you?”

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“Your Honor, I was too young for World War II. I graduated high school in ‘49. Then I enlisted when Korea broke out in ’50.” Philip looked carefully at Garcia. “My wife’s pastor talked to you out front the other night. He pegged you for a pacifist.” “Credit Korea for that. I was gung-ho going in. I was Mr. Marine. ‘Point me at the enemy, Sir, Yes Sir!’” Tom shrugged. “And I finished my hitch. But I decided I’d shot my quota, and didn’t need to re-up. You live and learn.” “Hansen used the word “Anabaptist,” and thought only Germans could be Anabaptists.” Garcia chuckled, “Well, yes, or Swiss, or Dutch. But I wasn’t born into it.” “How’d it happen?” “Well, I grew up a cultural Catholic. You know, if you’re Mexican, you’re Catholic.” “Same thing growing up in France. My mother was Catholic, anyway. My father was a Chinese Marxist. That didn’t mesh real well with being Catholic. But he was deported when I was six. After that we were Catholic.” “That’s a combination you don’t see very often.” “Well, it didn’t work very well. France hired a couple hundred thousand Chinese to do factory jobs while all the French and German men butchered each other in the trenches. That left a distinct shortage of husband material. So my mother gambled on a long shot. Anyway, you were Catholic because you were Mexican.” “Yeah, you know. And both my parents came here when they were little kids. And both sets of grandparents chose to live outside the barrio, so there wasn’t a lot of pressure on us to be Catholics. It was mainly important to a couple of my aunts. But on the enlistment papers, you had a check a box—the choices

181 were Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish—so I checked Catholic. And when I got to Korea, I really did start going to mass—you know, people are dying all around you.” Philip nodded. “But the two guys who really impressed me—scared the dickens out of me, to tell the truth—were a couple of Mennonite medics. They’d run around under heavy fire, trying to help guys, but they wouldn’t carry a gun. To me that was nuts, but they said it was because of instructions that Jesus gave in the Bible. I think what that did was make me afraid to read the Bible.” “I can understand that.” “But after I was home. I thought a lot about those guys. What did we get for four years of war? It went back and forth, but ended up a truce, back where it started. I think about the buddies I lost, and I wonder why. And I don’t know how many of the other guys I killed—at least one. I saw three go down, but two were so far away, it’s hard to tell what the damage was. Were you in battle?” “Just the Battle of Britain. We were in and out of London. Betty was actually stationed in the city. De Gaulle was outside a little ways, but I still spent a lot of hours down in bomb shelters—played hundreds of games of chess.” “Our game was Hearts.” Philip nodded. “I helped dig through the rubble after the bombings, but other than that, I spent my four years pushing paper. I hear stories like yours, and it makes me feel a little guilty.” “No, you shouldn’t. What I felt guilty about was the one guy I know I killed. He was Chinese—older than us—probably had a wife and kids, and after I shot him, he was lying so close we could hear him shrieking, and the medic I told you about went out and dragged him in. I’d gut-shot him, and it took him another

182 half-hour to die. So here’s my friend, doing everything he could to try and help him, while I tried to keep my attention on the field in front of us, so I’d be ready to shoot the next one.” Philip shifted in his seat. “So, after it was over, I thought, ‘What did I accomplish, compared to those two medics?’ Then later, I ran into another Mennonite. We were in a jury pool, only he said he opposed the death penalty on religious grounds, and the prosecutor excused him.” “A murder trial?” “Yes—a drug deal gone bad—and he didn’t have much of a defense. We listened to three-and-a-half days of testimony, and only took about forty-five minutes to convict him. Just listening to the story was hard. And he ran with such a bad crowd. I think if we could have, we would have voted to sterilize all the witnesses. I don’t know how you can face that ugliness every day of the week.” Philip gave a quick smile, but said nothing. Faces came to mind from his own courtroom. “But it was different from shooting guys at 100 yards. In Korea it was shoot or be shot, a simple reaction to a moving target. You had a lot of time to sit and think about yourself dying, but you can’t afford much time thinking about that being another human being coming over the hill. It has to be an impersonal target. But in that trial, I had four days to look into his face, and his mother is in the row behind him, holding back tears the whole time.” “Don’t you think the defense attorney was very careful to put her there?” “I’m sure he did. And the defendant had probably never worn a suit and tie before the attorney chose it for him.” Philip nodded.

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“But it’s a human being. After we convicted him, we voted nine-three for the death penalty, but I couldn’t do it. I held out, and eventually we sentenced him to life.” Philip shifted to look directly at Garcia. “But doesn’t the Bible say, point- blank, ‘a life for a life, a tooth for a tooth, whoever kills shall be killed’?” Garcia started slowly. “Yeah, maybe.” With his tongue, he poked out the side of his cheek. “I guess the problem I have with the point-blank verses of the Bible is that they sometimes seem to cancel each other out. You get one that says if someone kills someone, they should be killed, but then you get one that says if someone strikes you, you should turn the other cheek. But it’s always easier to insist on the ones we like, and ignore the ones we don’t. The Pharisees obeyed all the point-blank verses, and even made up a few extras, and Jesus wasn’t impressed.” Garcia shrugged, “But can you name one murderer from the Bible who was actually executed?” “Oh, I don’t . . .” Philip slowly shook his head, while running a mental inventory. After twenty years of attending church with Betty, he couldn’t plead total unfamiliarity with the Bible, but Garcia had him at a disadvantage. “I guess the murderer who comes to mind first is David, but I don’t recall he was executed.” “No, nor was Moses.” Garcia tapped his thumb against the steering wheel. Nor was anyone else. Cover-to-cover, I can’t find one execution for murder. Your Honor, I can find revenge killings. I can find public executions for collecting wood on the Sabbath. I find Jesus saying anyone who hates his brother or calls him a fool is just as guilty as a murderer, but I can only find one actual murderer facing government execution—Barabbas—and Jesus literally took his place.”

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“You mean you would approve of execution for collecting wood, but not for murder? That makes no sense at all. And just because the Bible doesn’t tell us about the executions for murder doesn’t mean they never happened. You think because one murderer lucked out when Jesus died, we have to stop executing anybody who ever kills someone?” “No, it’s the point-blank statements I think we need to get away from. I think we need to stand back as far as we can, and look at everything the scripture says on the subject, and the Bible really does say a lot.” “Okay, start with why you execute somebody collecting firewood, but not a mass murderer. What is it we’re really supposed to be punishing?” “I don’t think punishment should even be part of the picture.” Garcia shrugged. “God says, ‘Vengeance is mine.’ It always ought to be God that punishes. Forgive me, Your Honor, because I know this is what your job is, but when governments punish, they always do it wrong. In the Bible, whether it’s Daniel in the lion’s den or John the Baptist’s head on a platter, in the Bible, the one thing governments consistently punish for is believing and obeying God.” “Whoa. Wait a minute. Your jury had an honest-to-goodness murderer.” “We did. But the one time Jesus was in a position of addressing a jury—so to speak—was with the woman caught in adultery. That was a death penalty case, and whether she’s actually guilty doesn’t seem to be an issue. Her guilt is assumed. They do seem to be setting a trap for him, because the Romans didn’t care about adultery, and the Jews didn’t have permission to do executions for anything. And we don’t know what he was writing in the sand. But the outcome was, nobody was willing to pick up the first stone.”

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They topped the pass and started their decline. Pine trees lined the slopes of Mount Fraser, and a long valley ran perpendicular to the highway. “So instead, you stone a guy gathering wood.” Garcia shook his head. “Different time, different needs.” He measured his words carefully. “During the forty years in the desert, I think God was taking a bunch of people and turning them into a nation. He wanted them to be different from the people around them. For God’s plan to work, those people really needed to be obedient. That first guy who went out by himself on the Sabbath would find all the easy stuff, and everybody else would have to walk farther from camp to get theirs. Next week, they would all break the Sabbath. The first guy had to be an example to teach that God was serious about this.” “So God does care about deterrent value.” “Yes.” Garcia continued to sprinkle his words with pauses. “I think on the positive side, God really cares about strengthening the fabric of society. But from a negative side, God doesn’t want us punishing out of revenge. When Cain murdered Abel, God didn’t have him killed. Instead God banished him. Then Cain complains that even that’s too harsh. He says other people will want to kill him. Even though God didn’t have him executed, other people would. Or it could even be Cain feeling guilty. Maybe Cain knew that if the shoe was on the other foot, he would have come after the killer. I think we always see people wanting to punish, even when God doesn’t. Don’t you?” Philip nodded. “So God says that if anybody kills Cain, seven of those people will die. But mankind takes it way out of proportion to what God says. By the end of that very chapter, a guy is demanding revenge of seventy-seven enemies if they kill

186 him first. Jesus turns that around. Peter asks, ‘Should I forgive somebody seven times?’ and Jesus answers, ‘Seventy-seven times.’” “The fellow your jury gave life to, instead of death, how will you feel when he’s back on the street for good behavior, and he kills again?” “I’ve started writing to him.” “You write to him?” Philip turned to look into Garcia’s face. “It took me seven years.” “Even if it took you twenty—you’d already saved him from the gas chamber. Why would you run the risk of writing to him?” “Why did the medic run the risk of dragging that Chinese guy in?” “I don’t know.” “The piece I didn’t tell you is that after the trial, I looked up the Mennonite from the jury pool, and we started meeting once a week for breakfast. I’ve come to understand that Jesus has given us orders, and it’s not my job to look into the future and know what this guy will do if he ever gets out. My commitment, Your Honor, is to submit to the person of Jesus Christ, listen for his instructions, and obey them.” Philip looked out across a rock-strewn creek bed on his right. Certainly, Rev. Hansen wouldn’t have gone out under fire to pull the gut-shot soldier under cover. Nor would Philip write social letters to any of the prisoners he had ever sentenced. Half a mile from the highway, two vultures circled high above three steers. The cattle looked healthy, but maybe the grass hid some little animal—a ground squirrel, or a rabbit. Garcia had been a Marine. Sir, yes Sir. Now he obeyed a different commanding officer. Philip turned back to Garcia. “I made a similar commitment once.” “What was that?”

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“When I joined the Free French—craziest thing—the paper we signed didn’t pledge our loyalty to France, or to the Free French forces. I had to pledge my oath of allegiance to the person of Charles de Gaulle, for the entire duration of the war. I shudder sometimes when I think about it. If the war had ended like Korea, with just a truce, I would have been bound by my signature to Charles de Gaulle, even now.” Garcia ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess that could describe my relationship to Jesus.” He repeated the motion, finishing behind an ear and holding his fingers there. “It’s kind of like Satan has a foothold on earth, and Jesus is commander of the Free Earth forces. Is that too hokie?” “No, I can understand it that way, but it takes a mind-boggling arrogance to make something like that work. I don’t think you can imagine de Gaulle if you have never seen him—the glory, the grandeur, the haughtiness—very few people could pull that off. De Gaulle wasn’t exactly a nobody, but pretty close to it. He’d taught history at a military school. He’d written a book about tanks, which was ignored in France but carefully studied by Hitler. And he’d served a few weeks as a junior member of the government, but still, a nobody: no army, no following. And to say, ‘I am France.’” Philip swung his hand, as if sweeping away the foolish idea. “Louis XIV could say it. Napoleon could say it. At least Napoleon had the army. De Gaulle had only his own audacity. A month earlier, he’d barely been a colonel. But as France is falling, he rises like a phoenix from the ashes and announces, ‘I am France.’ And what little army France had once had, Hitler had already demolished.” “But Hitler is dead, and de Gaulle is President of France.” “Audacity has its place.” He shifted again in his seat. As the Rambler rounded an outcropping of rock, the highway descended rapidly toward a distant

188 curve. “But even de Gaulle never said he was God. Do you think Jesus really claimed that, or is that only something his followers made up after Jesus was gone?” Garcia took his eyes briefly from the road. “I think it’s the central idea of the whole Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. Jesus claimed it, and the prophets had predicted it.” “That’s a pretty audacious claim. It’s enough to make Charles de Gaulle look like Donald Duck.” They watched the curve approach, and then looked out as the narrow gorge opened up over a flat basin without end. Garcia kept his eyes on the highway. “You mentioning Napoleon reminds me of something my pastor said. You know what Napoleon said about Jesus?” “No.” “Napoleon said, ‘I know men, and Jesus was not a man.’” A dirty haze rested in the valley in front of them. In Philip’s mind it formed the screen for two superimposed images. The famous painting of Napoleon crowning himself in the presence of the Pope blurred into El Greco’s crucified Christ. Whizzing by a line of slow trucks, he caught a strong whiff of scorched brakes.

Chapter 23

HWY 99, NEAR MCFARLAND, SATURDAY, 12:00 NOON

Countdown: Five days, twenty-two hours They drove in silence. Alby found her hand on the seat and covered it with his own. When he finally spoke it was to ask if she still wanted to stop in Delano. “Yeah. Not very long. I jus’ want to see what’s happenin’.” Felicia alternated between pondering the drama of death and wondering how a camera might have caught the scene she had just witnessed. What aspect of death most warranted recording? An old man and his wife got up in the morning and went to work together, picking grapes like they had done a thousand times— ten-thousand times—before. Eusebio would wake up in a cell, like he had done ten-thousand times. How would a camera tell the story? Alby took the first exit at the edge of town and crossed over the freeway, west six blocks through a neighborhood of small houses, the oldest ones with wooden siding, and slightly newer ones with stucco. He turned left beyond the last house at the edge of town, and drove two more blocks—again to the last structure at the end of a row of houses. A simple rectangular building sat with its narrow end facing them. Its false front bore a simple sign: United Farm Workers Union. Alby pulled the little Studebaker onto the dirt parking space in front of its door. He looked back at Anna. “Well, here we are. If Delano is the end of the world, this is the end of Delano.”

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Felicia made no effort to get out of the car. “I don’t think anyone’s here.” No other cars sat beside the building. “We can find out.” Alby swung out of the car, strode to the door, and tried the knob. It was locked. He shielded his eyes from the sun’s glare and tried looking first through the panes in the door, and then through a window just beside it. Not seeing anyone, he returned to Felicia’s side of the car, put his hands on the door, and leaned to look at Anna. “Look at the design of this building. It always makes me think of a frontier hardware store or a saddle shop, or something. But it’s Chavez’s headquarters. Can you imagine trying to change the whole world from a little shoe box like this? Come out and take a look.” He opened the door, helped Felicia out, and then leaned her seat forward to free Anna. Across the road, dozens of yellow butterflies flitted above a field of alfalfa. Anna stood up, but stayed within the arc of the door. Felicia walked passed the corner of the building and looked beyond it to a pink-stuccoed house on the neighboring lot. Someone would be there, even if they were only napping. Alby followed her gaze. “You want to see if anybody’s there?” She shook her head. “Middle of the day, they could be anywhere: Out picketing, or maybe over at the food bank.” Alby turned to look west across the field of alfalfa. She guessed what he might be thinking, and shook her head again. “We can’t really go eat at the strike kitchen. We’re not here to strike.” Anna came to stand beside Felicia and examined the long side of the building. “Is Mr. Chavez nice?” Felicia nodded. “He’s more like Jesus than anybody I could even imagine. He’s very humble. You can see how gentle he is in his eyes. You hardly even

191 know he’s there until they call him in front of everybody to speak, and then he’s jus’ this very meek man, speaking what’s true.” Alby held one arm over his head, stretched and counted almost-silently to ten. Then he switched arms and stretched the other way. Then he put his arms at his sides and turned to face them. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t want to be up against him. He’d be humble and meek, all the time he was waiting for you to make the one little mistake he could use to chew you up with. In the time it takes a grower to blink, Chavez has already calculated every weakness the guy has.” Felicia continued, “If he’s on his way someplace, and there’s anybody with a problem, he’ll stop and try to help. Jus’ like Jesus. That’s the way he is. It makes him late everywhere he goes. He’s the one that holds this all together, but he never thinks he’s on a different level from people. Kindness is jus’ part of who he is.” Alby cut in, “But don’t kid yourself: He plays hard ball. The growers have underestimated him at every turn. That’s part of his brilliance.” Felicia leaned her back against the building. “It’s not an act. He really is humble and kind.” “Yes, he is, but he knows how well being humble and kind serves his purposes. I’ll bet under different circumstances, he’d stuff a ballot box if he thought he could get away with it.” “No!” “Of course he would.” Alby pointed vaguely beyond the alfalfa and the butterflies. “He knows the growers would, and they’d do it even when they thought they might get caught. They can risk it because the police and the courts are on their side.” “But Cesar’s whole thing is non-violence.”

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Alby gave a series of exaggerated nods. “And shrewdly so. When you’re a David going up against a Goliath, you can’t afford to play the other guy’s game. Cesar’s whole thing is to win. The growers are violent, and have the system on their side, so he’ll be non-violent.” Anna followed Alby’s gaze toward the alfalfa. “But David wasn’t non- violent. He killed Goliath with a stone.” “Okay, bad analogy. But you get my point, don’t you? The growers have all the guns. They’ve been trying all year to sucker the strikers into turning violent.” He extended an upturned palm toward Felicia. “That’s why the guy sprayed you with sulfur. Then it’s a twofer. The growers’ thugs get to beat up the strikers, and then the police arrest the strikers for getting beat up. But Chavez knows every time the news cameras catch the growers trying to provoke the workers, and the workers peacefully taking the abuse, or even kneeling for prayer, the workers reap sympathy. He’s just like Gandhi, or—like you say,” he pointed to Felicia, “—Jesus.” Anna leaned back. “Well, I don’t think he’s exactly like Jesus.” Felicia continued to study Alby’s face. “How can you say he’d stuff a ballot box? And how would you apply all this to helping Eusebio?” Alby shook his head and put his hands in his pants pockets. “It’s really hypothetical, anyway, ‘cuz Cesar could never dream of getting away with it. The growers own the apparatus.” He turned back to look at her. “It’s a very different situation with your brother. Cesar has time on his side. The growers have a deadline for getting the grapes off the vine before they go bad. Every delay Cesar can arrange costs them money. With us, though, time is the enemy.” Felicia had no reply.

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After a moment, Anna spoke, “One thing about Jesus—like when he stood silent while the soldiers beat him—I don’t think he was trying to win anybody’s sympathy. He controlled even his own death. He could have called down angels, but he chose not to. When I think about Jesus being meek, it’s the power he could have used, but didn’t.” Felicia glanced at her watch, then at Alby. Alby took his hands from his pockets, looked at his own watch, and then began picking dead butterflies from the grill in front of the radiator. When he finally spoke, he said, “Well, we’re not trying to say that Chavez is another Jesus. He’s a very sharp guy, and gentle, and wants to help people. And he’s humble. But maybe he doesn’t have enough power to be meek. He’s trying to accumulate enough power to do what he’s trying to do, but he’s not going to hold back once he has it.” He put his hands back in his pockets. “In the meantime, he’ll wait them out. Humility is something that waiting people learn to do well.” Anna nodded. “Jesus was even in control of time.” “What do you mean?” “Herod and the Jewish leaders didn’t want to kill him during the Passover, but that was the exact day Jesus had to die to fulfill prophecy.” “Is that true? It had to be that Friday?” Anna nodded. “Um-hum.” The baby pushed out on opposite sides of her belly, and Felicia placed her hands to add support. Then she looked back at the car. “Friday is in six days.” Alby nodded. “Yeah, we better go.” Felicia turned to go back to the car, but had to wait for Anna to get in first. She looked once more across the field. “I guess if Cesar had been here, we could have asked him for advice.”

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“Well, sugar, if you want to go over to the strike kitchen, we could look for him.” “No, we still have a long way to go. There’s no way to tell where he might be.” She set herself gently into the seat. Alby took a rag and wiped away what he could of the insect splats on the windshield. Then he got in, put his key into the ignition and turned to look at Anna. “Well, at least you got to see about the humblest headquarters any world- changing movement ever had.” Anna sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “Jesus had even less.”

Chapter 24

ALTAMONT PASS, SATURDAY, 6:20 P.M.

Countdown: Six days, eighteen hours, fifty-five minutes The traffic from Tracy over Altamont Pass was light, but Philip and Tom found themselves driving into the glare of a low sun, aggravated by the splattered evidence of flying bugs. “Kind of hard to see, isn’t it?” Philip stretched forward and extended his right hand out the open window to try scraping one accessible splotch with his fingernail. “Those little yellow butterflies were beautiful flying around in the fields, but the beauty kind of fades when they’re spread across your windshield.” “Yes, the sulfurs. Wait until you see how many we’ve picked up in the radiator.” Philip gave up scraping the windshield and pulled his hand back inside the car. He tried adjusting the sun visor, but it couldn’t quite protect his eyes. “I’ve never driven this route before. If I do it again, I think I’ll try to do it earlier in the day.” “It’s kind of pretty, in its own bleak way.” “I don’t go to San Francisco very often, but when I do, I usually fly.” “I haven’t flown anywhere since I came back from Korea.” Garcia wore a Dodgers cap with its bill dipped low against the sun. “We’re kind of a low-budget movement. I don’t come up here for every execution, but even done three or four times a year, flying can get pretty expensive.” As the highway curved north, Tom pulled the bill even lower over his left eye. “Then you still have to rent a car, or use taxis. San Quentin is a long way from the airport.”

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Philip shifted in his seat to look directly at Tom. “So where do you draw the line? When you’re trying to please God, how do you know how much is enough?” Garcia shook his head. “I don’t think that’s the way to look at it. In my experience, God doesn’t ask me to do everything. He just puts specific things in front of me. Then it’s a matter of my obedience.” “But when you give yourself to a cause, you give up time with your family. You take away energy from your career. Where do you draw the line?” Garcia sat silently for a little while. Then he began slowly, “I guess the line keeps moving in front of me, but I’ve never actually reached it yet.” “Okay, let me give you an example.” An image of Betty almost pulled Philip from his original thought, but he decided the better of it. “Take my father. He worked days in a Renault factory, but he was totally caught up in organizing a revolution. Every single night, he’d get together with his Marxist comrades, and they’d be arguing politics, or writing pamphlets. I was pretty young, but as I try to piece my memories together, he must have pretty much ignored my mother. She was an educated woman—a school teacher before she married him, and she actually learned to read some Chinese—but all of his energy went toward this great cause of his.” “Is he still alive?” “I haven’t seen or heard from him in 40 years. Whether he’s alive? I rather doubt it.” Philip took off his glasses and shielded his eyes with his hand. “I saw him get on a train in 1924. Three years later, there was a blood-bath in China. Chiang Kai-shek formed an alliance with the Communists long enough to get their membership lists, and then his people rounded up and slaughtered hundreds of

197 them. I don’t have any facts to base it on, so maybe I’m just trying to settle it in my own mind, but I picture him dying in that massacre.” “How old were you the last time you saw him?” “Six.” Philip shifted again to face forward. “But even reconstructing it as an adult, I can’t make all my memories mesh. My mother wouldn’t talk about it much. I had a Chinese uncle—my father’s brother—who’d been crippled and stayed in France, but the few times I saw him, I think he lied to protect the family honor. So I had to guess. For a long time I thought we had been living in Italy, but when I went back to France at the end of the war, I realized we’d been living in a part of Paris called Place d’Italie. And I’d always had the idea that he’d been deported. There actually were a bunch of Chinese deported after some violence in 1924. But when I was in Paris, I searched all the train stations, trying to find the last place I saw him. For them to put him on a boat, it would have had to be one of the stations with trains going south or west, but none of those stations fit my memories. But I did recognize the Gar du Nord, where the trains go east, to Berlin, Warsaw, or Prague. I’m guessing now he was headed to Moscow for study, and my mother wouldn’t go with him. When he had to choose between his cause and his family, the cause won out.” Tom raised his eyebrows to their limit, and flashed a smile. “Fortunately, I’ve never really had to make a choice like that. At the time I started to feel God calling me to help in the abolition movement, my business was doing okay—not great—but my wife and I prayed about it, and we felt I could give it eight hours a week. Then once I got involved, I met some Hollywood people who were active in the movement, and they started sending some big-money business my way, so I was making more money with less time on the job—fewer nights out making

198 house calls. I was able to give ten or twelve hours a week, without short-changing my family. God’s been faithful.” The road curved south and Tom moved his hat to protect the other eye. “You have any contacts in China?” “No.” Philip tried again to adjust the sun visor. “My uncle died about 1934. He was the only contact we still had, and he was in a tuberculosis sanitarium. Some of the friends my father had are probably famous men now. The ones who survived make up the highest echelon of the government, but I couldn’t tell you who they are. Do you have family in Mexico?” “Not that we’re in touch with. Both sides of my family came in 1913, 1914. They were on the wrong side in one of the revolutions, and had to get out of town quick. I think some of their relatives died, and others dropped out of sight.” He tipped his hat still further. “Mexico finally outlawed capital punishment in the 1930s, because it had been abused so bad. It was used a lot for political reasons.” “I get the feeling China has gone the other way, using it . . .” “Ooh!” A jolt from the back left corner propelled the Rambler into a spin. Instinctively, Philip pulled his hands around his head, as the car tipped right, rolled over and then went skidding on its lid. There was the sound of metal scraping furiously, very near Philip’s ear. Then the car bounced over again, upright, onto the right shoulder. The Rambler hit a barbed wire fence, snapping the strands, and climbed a small rise before coming to a stop. A thick cloud of dust churned through the open windows. Philip ran his tongue over his teeth to see if any were missing. Then he muttered, “What the . . .” Tom reached his hand and found Philip’s thigh. “Are you okay?”

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“I . . . I don’t know.” Philip still had his hands protecting his head—afraid of another blow—but as he felt confident they had stopped moving, he dropped his lands to his lap. “Yes, I think I’m in one piece. What about you?” Dirt still floated in the air between them. Tom took a few seconds before answering. “I don’t think anything is broken.” Philip inspected himself, and undid the seatbelt. “I whacked my elbow, but I can still move it.” He replayed the rolling in his mind, trying to imagine what it might have looked like from outside. Then he looked over at Tom. “You’ve got blood on your forehead.” A man came to Philip’s window, “You guys alright? The guy who hit you ran. Do you need me to help you, or chase him?” Philip turned back to Tom. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but now he had it on both hands. Philip looked out at the highway, and then back to the man at the window, not knowing what to say. Tom finally answered, “No, a chase would be dangerous. You could cause another accident. Stay here.” Several cars had pulled over, and someone was trying to pull Tom’s door open, yanking hard and shaking the car. Philip’s door opened easily. Philip took hold of one of the proffered hands, but made no effort to pull himself out. “I’m okay. Just let me sit here a minute.” Tom’s door finally swung free with the noise of a complaining hinge. Someone had a towel pressed against Tom’s forehead. Philip had been taking rapid, shallow breaths, but now took one long, slow one. “That guy could have killed us.”

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Tom held his bloody hands out, and grinned. “Yeah. I’d say we got off pretty cheap. Praise God.” Philip swung his feet around and set them on the ground. Then he decided he wanted to sit a little longer.

Chapter 25

RICHMOND, SATURDAY, 6:38 P.M.

Countdown: Five days, fifteen hours, twenty-two minutes Felicia and Anna had both been dozing until Alby stopped to pay the toll on the Richmond side of the bridge. “Are we over the water?” Felicia looked back over the seat as the roadway began to climb. “Yes.” “Oh, man, this is high. How long is this bridge?” Alby fixed his eyes on the road ahead of them, and held the wheel firmly in both hands. “Four miles long, and it seems like two miles high. Just think, at Disneyland they call rides like this the ‘E Tickets.’” “It’s too narrow. It scares me.” Felicia continued to look back. “You never been over water before?” “The Missouri River, but it’s not like this.” “You’ve never been to the ocean, even when you lived here?” “If I was, I was too small to remember.” Felicia remembered her day with Eusebio at Malibu, maybe the best day of her whole life. Behind them, Oakland and Berkeley were in shadows, while windows on the Frisco skyscrapers blazoned the sun’s last rays. She pointed out Alby’s window. “Over there is San Francisco.” Even across ten miles of water, the reflected sunlight burnt with an intensity that hurt the eyes. “Would an earthquake knock the bridge down?” Alby shook his head. “You don’t even want to think about it.”

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They crested the high point and started back down. Just beyond the end of the bridge, lights had already come on at the prison. Felicia turned to look at the flat areas at the north end of the Bay, already indistinct in the dusk. How many hours would it take her to walk what she could see in one sweep from here? “Is this the Golden Gate Bridge?” “No.” Felicia pointed back in the direction of San Francisco. “You can’t see the Golden Gate from here. It’s hidden behind that peninsula.” “This is really big. How far can you see?” “I don’t know.” Felicia shrugged her shoulders and turned her head in the direction of Sacramento. As they reached the north shore, Alby took the off ramp and braked to the stop sign. A second sign announced San Quentin, with an arrow pointing under the freeway. Anna sat up straight. “Are we there already?” “Yep.” Alby made the left turn. “Are we going to the prison tonight?” Anna’s voice held an element of fear. “No. We’re staying with Mr. and Mrs. Noland. They live a few houses this side of the gate. Mr. Noland is a guard. Mrs. Noland takes care of me when I come up here. She’s a very nice lady. We’ve been friends a long time. I call her Nanna.” “Um, could we stop a minute?” Alby had already slowed to a crawl on the narrow street. “What’s the matter?” Now he stopped completely in the middle of the road. “I just need to catch my breath. I didn’t realize we were going to be this close so quick.” She covered her mouth with two fingers. “People have houses so close to the prison?”

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Although they had the entire road to themselves, Alby edged the car to the curb. “It’s all safe. Nobody breaking out. Nobody breaking in.” Anna looked out at the Bay, then back at the prison. Finally she said, “Okay, go ahead.” Alby slowly pulled forward. “Light’s red on the vent pipe.” “¡Madre de Dios! Damn it!” Felicia turned to Anna, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’ swear like that.” “That’s okay. What’s the problem?” Alby pointed at the light above the North Block. “When that light is red, it means Death Row is locked down. The inmates can’t leave their cells, and no one can visit.” “Why?” “Could have been a fight, or they might have found someone with a shiv.” “How long will it last?” Felicia undid her seatbelt as the car pulled to the curb. “As long as they jolly-well feel like it.”

Chapter 26

SAN FRANCISCO, SATURDAY, 9:15 P.M.

Countdown: Five days, twelve hours, forty-five minutes Philip entered the hall room. As he caught Betty’s eye, his leg began to buckle beneath him, and he locked his knee and fought to regain control. He did not want to lose his composure here. She brightened, excused herself from a group of five, and came across the room with no apparent notice of a shake in his hand that he could not hide. “Kenneth told me you were in the building. You look very nice.” She straightened his tie. “Did you get into the room?” “Yes, I got a key. I needed to shower.” He kissed her. “I had kind of an adventure getting here.” “Oh? The flight was okay?” He smiled. “I ended up not flying. Do you remember the fellow out front Thursday night? Tom Garcia? We wound up carpooling.” “Philip!” She kept her voice low. “No, it was very pleasant . . . until we were bounced off the road by a careless driver.” “Whatever possessed you?” “It wasn’t his fault, and we’re both okay. Tom’ll be a little sore in the morning, and his car took a beating. I took a little whack on the elbow.” His glance indicated the elbow she had taken hold of, and she released it. “How did you get here?” “I rented a car in Livermore, and dropped him off in San Rafael.”

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“Philip, tell me you’re joking.” She inspected him quickly for evidence of injuries. “I’m fine, and the Dodgers beat Cincinnati, 7-3. Frisco lost. Willie Davis went three for four, with a triple.” She gave him her what-can-I-do-with-a-fool-like-you-but-I-love-you- anyway frown. He smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “They’re all alone in second.” “I don’t care about the Dodgers. What were you thinking to ride with someone you hardly know?” “Darling, Tom didn’t cause the accident, and except for those few minutes, we had a very pleasant day. How’s your reception?” Betty took both his hands and stood looking at him as if not sure she was ready to let him change the subject. Finally she said simply, “A little earlier, we had quite a crowd. Bob Callahan came by, but he was having his own rally in Menlo Park. I told him I didn’t know what time you’d be here, even if you made it. But I’m glad you came.” She let go of one hand and turned to face the room. “It’s starting to thin out, now.” A big banner across the wall had her slogan and a black-and-white picture against a yellow background. Smaller copies on poster board adorned tables and anchored helium balloons. She led him back to the group of five where she had been talking. She introduced him, but he caught only the name of an older woman in pink. Betty turned to a woman on her other side and asked a question that must have gone back to something in the conversation before he’d arrived. Philip checked his watch. It had taken about four hours after the accident to reach Betty’s reception.

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Philip relaxed. With his mission accomplished, he no longer needed any adrenaline. The muscles in his shoulders and back sagged involuntarily, betraying exhaustion. He glanced at Betty, and then around the room. If he couldn’t find an immediate way to be useful, he would collapse in a chair. Philip considered a question for the lady in pink, but nothing came to mind. While he pondered, she got a turn to ask one of Betty. Philip looked at the other small clusters of guests, and then toward the exit. He could hardly leave, having just arrived. He saw no familiar faces, except for Kenneth, studying the room from beside the bar. He put his hand to the small of Betty’s back. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get something to drink.” Betty nodded and continued her answer to the others. Philip shifted some chairs to clear his way, and then extended his hand to Kenneth as he arrived. The campaign manager pulled him toward a stool. “What are you drinking?” “Right now I need something to flush down a couple of aspirin.” He looked hopefully at the bartender, who held up a finger to signal action, and then reached for the telephone. “Did you tell Betty about your accident?” “Just the bare outline. She mainly needs to know I’m okay.” “The car rolled, and you walked away without a scratch?” “I was riding with a saint of God. Call it a miracle.” Together they turned and looked at Betty. Kenneth took a note pad and pen from his pocket, wrote something quickly, and returned it to his pocket. “She did real well tonight. Her stump speech gets better every time she gives it.”

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“Good turnout?” “Very. The movers-and-shakers were here early and left, but we had chancellors from Stanford and San Francisco State, one county supervisor, teachers’ union leaders from five different school districts, five or six major donors, and all the expected local newspapers. No TV, but that will come.” “I apologize for getting here late. Is there anything I can still do to contribute?” Kenneth straightened up, “Yeah, come to think of it. Are you up for an interview?” “Umm . . . Who’s interviewing?” Kenneth pointed to the far corner of the room. “Fellow in the chair, the sumo wrestler with the Elvis hairdo and his back to us—Dempsey Wu—writes a couple columns each week in the Chinese daily. Don’t let him rile you. He likes to put people in the hot seat, but he mostly wants to see if you squirm. Stay cool and he loves you for it.” Kenneth put his hand on Philip’s shoulder. “And remember, statewide, Betty’s name recognition is under two percent. That’s no comment on Betty. That’s just Superintendent of Schools. But we want to see her name in the paper.” Philip shrugged. “I’ve already survived one wreck today. Maybe my luck is still with me.” Together, they worked their way toward a group that included Wu and three Chinese women. Kenneth broke into their conversation. “Dempsey, I know you’re interviewing teachers, but I thought you might also like to meet the candidate’s husband, Judge Philip Tseng.” Dempsey stood up with a greeting, “ Ni hao .”

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Philip feared his face showed fright, but he answered instinctively, “ Ni hao ma .” “Hen hao .” They shook hands. “Are you from Hong Kong or Taiwan?” Philip shook his head. “Well, my father was from Hunan, but you’re toying with me. That’s the first Chinese I’ve spoken in thirty years. I’d forgotten it was in there.” Dempsey introduced the three teachers—reading their name tags—and motioned him to a chair. “Well, you spoke it like a native. Have a seat. I’m curious, in China, yellow is the color of the imperial family, but in the European tradition it is the color of cowardice. What is the significance of yellow in your wife’s campaign?” Kenneth stepped away a few steps and sat down. Philip rubbed an eye with his finger and studied Dempsey. He carried a lot of weight on his body and wore a white shirt with a collar that went unusually high at the back of his neck, brown pants that reached only mid-calf, and orange flip- flops. Kenneth had said the most important thing was to stay cool. “I have a yellow tie I wear on special occasions, and Betty always liked that tie. I think that’s all it means. Will it keep her from winning your vote?” Dempsey shrugged and smiled, “No, don’t misunderstand me. Yellow is a beautiful color. Only, once a week I have to be inscrutable to stay in practice. Tell me, what’s the Chinese population of Los Angeles?” “Goodness,” Philip paused, pictured the community that rested near the foot of Dodger Stadium, and took a stab, “fifty thousand?” “Um, probably high. Twenty thousand in the ’60 census, but maybe double that by the next one.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his

209 lap. “How many of your Chinese-speaking students have to study in a language they don’t understand?” Philip rubbed his eye again. “I would guess more now than there used to be, but Betty probably knows. My business is criminal justice.” “I already asked your wife, but she didn’t know. Nobody really does. Maybe two thousand in San Francisco, but I don’t know about L.A.” He leaned forward and stared into Philip’s eyes. “How many Chinese in California prisons?” Philip looked down at his hands, and back up at Dempsey. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a number, have you?” Dempsey continued to stare. “Department of Corrections only counts Caucasians, Negroes, Hispanics, and Others. We’re among the ‘Others’.” Philip held his hands in front of him, palms up. “Then the good news is— the total is too small to be significant.” “Only insignificant to the statisticians, Judge Tseng. Have you ever heard a statistic cry at night in a lonely cell?” ”But you’re a journalist.” Philip regretted the degree of irritation he’d let his voice reveal. “Certainly you use statistics. How many Chinese do you think are in prison?” Dempsey shook his head. “At the turn of the century, Chinese went to San Quentin at four times the rate of whites.” “You think it’s still that bad?” “Not now, but it’s going to get worse.” “Why’s that?” “The new immigrant kids who can’t compete in English drop out of school. What else can they do? Many of them end up in crime.”

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Philip’s headache had grown more intense. He rubbed the back of his head, and then his elbow. “I don’t see a lot of Chinese coming through my courtroom. The last one I had actually spoke Spanish. The family had come by way of two generations in Cuba.” “The last wave of Chinese immigrants is already second or third generation. They’ve made it. The new wave isn’t in your courtroom yet, but wait a couple years.” “You already talked to Betty?” Dempsey nodded. “She said all the polite things, but you need to help her understand. A superintendent of schools could act. These teachers can act. But a judge can only react. You’re not even allowed to look for truth. After a long stream of crimes, you can only assess blame when the last person in line gets caught.” “There’s certainly truth to that.” The bartender came with aspirin and a glass of water. Philip tore open the packet and swallowed the pills. Dempsey continued, “So many of them are there because they were abused themselves. But we haven’t figured out how to fix them. Until we do, the best we can do is try and break the cycle by getting them off the street.” Philip nodded, but said nothing. Dempsey looked across the room at Betty. “Judge Tseng, have you considered the fact that if your wife is elected, she will be the first Chinese surnamed person ever elected to statewide office in California?” “Were you hoping to save that for someone else?” “Oh no. Tseng is a very fine name. I myself come from a Mandarin tradition. In China we were poets and government officials, like yourselves. How could I be prejudiced against you?”

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“I really don’t know much about my family.” “Oh, Tseng Kuo-fan, no doubt your kinsman, from Hunan, was a great general, a fine poet, and legendary as an administrator. He raised the army that put down the Taiping Rebellion. Over twenty million people died, but Tseng Kuo-fan earned the Qing Dynasty an extra fifty years before they finally collapsed.” “Twenty million? That’s the whole population of California.” “Yes.” Philip rubbed his eye. “You’re being inscrutable again. Do you consider Tseng’s victory good or bad?” “The Qing were very weak. They could not protect the people from criminals, or from invaders. The first job of any government is to protect the people against disorder. But the Taiping rebels were not a good answer. They were a theocracy, and said their leader was the younger brother of Jesus. It was a good time to leave China. My great-grandfather left, came to California, and put together work crews for the railroads.” “Was that a job a mandarin could do?” “Yes, he never had to dirty his hands. After a while, he realized the railroads were as evil as the Taiping, so he quit, and started a newspaper. The government here was too weak to protect the people from the railroads, but my great-grandfather realized the struggle would sell a lot of newspapers.” Over Dempsey’s shoulder, Philip saw that Betty had adjourned the five-some and was headed his way. Dempsey also turned to look at Betty, but finished his thought. “That, and hangings of the Chinese that the railroads didn’t need any more.” Kenneth stood and put his hand on Philip’s back. “The Judge may not look it, but he survived a roll-over coming through Altamont Pass this afternoon. I

212 suspect he’s ready for bed.” With Dempsey turned away, Kenneth flashed Philip a quick thumbs up. Philip nodded and stood, as did Dempsey. “But it’s been interesting. I’ve learned some Chinese history.” Betty started to take his right elbow, and caught herself. Kenneth guided Philip past Dempsey. “Mrs. Tseng, go tuck this boy into bed. Dempsey will walk these lovely ladies to their cars, and I’ll lock up here.” Philip and Betty shook hands all around and headed for the door. In the corridor, she took his left elbow. “The Governor’s office has been trying to reach you today. Monday, he’ll have an informal hearing at the apartment of his clemency secretary. It’s just over here at Chestnut and Grant, the other side of Chinatown, at 2:00. He’s inviting all interested parties.” “I think he thinks I’m more interested than I am.” “The other thing that’s happening, right here, two blocks away, is tomorrow morning at Grace Cathedral. Bishop Pike is preaching his farewell sermon. Would you like to go to that?” “Would we be going to see the alcoholic, womanizing, Sky Pilot of Christ, or to see the heretic before they burn him at the stake?” She looked up at him with one eyebrow raised. “And since when did you start worrying about heretics?” He said nothing, so she continued, “After all, he’s been on the cover of TIME. He’s built this beautiful new cathedral. We don’t have anything scheduled, and it’s right here. It’s his farewell. You won’t ever have another chance to see him.” Philip straightened and bent again his right elbow, several times, trying to loosen the joint. “Do you realize, I’m a mandarin?”

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“Is that what Dempsey Wu said?” “In his own inscrutable way.” They halted in front of the elevator. “But that’s what my mother once told me. My father always wanted to be a government official. In the old China, he was studying for the mandarin exams. But the old China collapsed, and he decided the new China would be ruled by the Communists. So he went over to them.” The elevator door opened. “But here I am, in California, doing just what he always hoped to do.” And to himself, he added: Ruling over people’s lives, and without getting my hands dirty.

Chapter 27

SAN QUENTIN, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1966, 7:10 A.M

Countdown: Five days, two hours, fifty minutes Felicia took the steps carefully, as did Mrs. Noland. “Nanna, if it’s a boy, I want to name him Eusebio.” “Aw, Felicia, honey, don’t.” “You don’t think I ought to?” Mrs. Noland shook her head. “How’re people going to make him feel? Every child ought to start with a blank slate, nothing they have to either live up to or live down.” They reached the bottom stair, and stepped into the street. Sharp rays of early morning light—coming from over the Richmond Bridge—glistened against the prison walls. The light atop the smoke stack remained red. “I want him to know that I loved his uncle, and I want to keep Eusebio’s name alive.” “Eusebio has his books. Books are for the ages. But a little boy—or a little girl—needs to have someone he can look up to, that everyone else looks up to, too.” “I look up to Eusebio. He’s stood by me my whole life.” The older woman stopped and looked into Felicia’s face. “But he took risks that affected your life, didn’t he?” “But Nanna, think about it. I’m a poor Mexican girl from Hicks Camp. My whole family are migrant fieldworkers. My father spent his earnings on drink, women, and cards. When he was shot, he left us with nothing. But here I am, one

215 year away from graduating from UCLA. How did that happen? It happened because of the attention that came my way after Eusebio was on Death Row. I’m where I am because Eusebio is where he is.” “In a thousand families, that might happen once.” Felicia bent to pull a branch from the hinojo growing in the margin. Then she bit into the licorice juices. Ahead of them, Anna had already taken the stairs down to the beach. “It’s more common for my kind to get into San Quentin than into UCLA.” “You told me you had good grades in high school.” “That didn’t get me into UCLA. Eusebio is famous. The President of Mexico wrote a letter to the Governor about him. A famous professor in India wrote one. A professor I’d barely met wrote me a recommendation.” Her open hand tipped south. “But even the grades: You know how that started? In 9th grade English class, the teacher gave me the job of recording the tests and quizzes in his roll book. I had neater printing than he did, but I always got C’s on my essays. But when I compared the papers I was recording, mine were better than the A’s. So I showed him some of those papers. Then I told him that my brother had published a book. I told him that he might think we were stupid because we were Mexicans, but we weren’t. After that, I got all A’s from him. His was the first ‘A’ I got in high school. But it was almost like, once he did it, it was okay for the other teachers to do it. And he even wrote a recommendation for me when I applied to college. But if Eusebio hadn’t written his book, where would I be?” They turned from the pavement to the wooden stairs. They each took them carefully, not speaking. Then they steadied each other as they walked in the sand. Nanna nodded. “Okay, lots of people get breaks, but if a door opens and you walk through it, what you accomplish on the other side is because of the work

216 you put into it. Eusebio never wrote a paper for you, or put together one of your films. You did that for yourself. Give yourself the credit.” “But Nanna, he was always cheerin’ for me. I knew he was always behind me.” “And you were always cheering for him. You’ve been his main visitor for all these years. It was you and your mom, or you and your sister, or you by yourself. You were always coming. There are 4,000 men on the other side of that wall, and the bigger half of them never get a visit from the day they walk in until either the day they walk out, or the day they get carried out. You were 14, and your mother lost her eyesight, and you’d accompany her here by yourself, all the way from L.A., on the bus.” “Thank you for picking us up all those times, Nanna, and letting me sleep on your sofa.” “Honey, that’s been my pleasure.” Anna already had her bare feet in the foam left by the feeble waves, holding her shoes in one hand. “Felicia, you’ve always said you thought your brother was innocent.” Felicia frowned, but did not answer, so the older woman went on, “I’ve been here 30 years. At any given time, there are thirty or forty men on Death Row. My Frank goes over there every day and works on the Row, and then comes home and tells me about the neighbors I’ve never met—or talks about them as much as you can get a man to talk. Very few of them have been there as long as your brother. In thirty years, there’s been over a hundred executions—maybe a hundred and twenty men, I lose count—and two women. And I felt like I knew every one of them, even though I’d never been face to face with a single one of the men. I did meet one of the women. But out of all of them, there’s three I think

217 were actually innocent. Now with Anna here, what do you think about your brother?” They moved a few feet away from the water as a slightly bigger wave claimed more sand. Then Felicia pulled Mrs. Noland to a stop, her eyes on the shore birds at the water’s edge, but her thoughts far away. “I know he stole the car. We rode around in it that whole day, the day before they say he kidnapped Anna. We drove all the way out to the beach, and up to Malibu, just the two of us. It was the best day of my whole life. I had Eusebio all to myself, and we had this beautiful car. People on the freeway didn’t know where we lived.” Mrs. Noland patted Felicia’s hand, and waited for more. “Deep down I knew it wasn’t ours, but he told me it was. I felt so safe with Eusebio. I could go out in the big waves and he would take care of me. How could he take such good care of me, and then do what they say he did to Anna? It jus’ doesn’t make sense, Nanna. What are men thinking?” The older woman patted her hand again and they returned to walking. “I think we need to start by realizing how hard it is to be a man.” They could not see the prison over the short peninsula that protected the beach, but she pointed her chin back in its direction. “There’s 4,000 over there, and California has men’s prisons all up and down the state. But there’s only one for women. If you judge failure in life by how many people go to prison, and how hard a role in life is by how many people fail, then being a man is ten times harder than being a woman.” “Is that the only way to measure failure?” “Honey, don’t take this wrong, because I’m very proud of you. You are well on your way to being very successful with your life. But when we talk about a boy getting into trouble, we mean he’s in jail. When we talk about a girl getting into trouble, we mean she’s pregnant. As long as a girl is on the outside, she can

218 always do something with her life. She may face serious obstacles, but once you’re over there, all you can ever hope is that some day you’ll be out. I know you love your brother, but give your baby a name from outside. If you want to name him after somebody, why not call him Albert? “No, Nanna. How could I name him after Alby?” She slipped off her sandals and stood with water washing over her toes. Mrs. Noland stopped, but remained away from the water. “I go back and forth. Sometimes I want to be with Alby. Sometimes I need to get as far away from him as possible. Maybe I can stay with him until I graduate, but then I need to be on my own. I don’t want my baby to grow up like Alby.” “Like Alby, who didn’t have a father either?” Felicia pursed her lips tightly. “Honey, those 4,000 men over there mostly have warm things to say about their mothers. There’s some exceptions. A few of them had abusive mothers. More of them had neglectful mothers. But the men even say good things about those. But most of them hate their fathers, or have completely blocked them out of their minds, or never even had one to start with. Lots of boys never had fathers, and still manage to stay out of prison. But the two surest things you can say about the men who do end up in prison are, first, they didn’t have a good relationship with a father, and second, they never learned to read very well.” The two began to walk again, arm-in-arm, and seagulls lifted into the air as they approached. “You can teach your boy to read, all by yourself. But as a mother, you can’t ever be a good father. And you don’t ever want to come back and visit this prison again, if your brother isn’t here.” She paused. “I would like you to come back and visit me, though.” “I will Nanna. But how can I stay with Alby?”

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“Right now, put your hands on your belly, and tell your son one good thing about his father.” “What do you mean?” “You’re going to want your son to think his father is the greatest man in the world, so tell your son something good about his father, right now.” Felicia thought for a long moment. “I can’t.” “Then I will. Alby is a very fine artist. Tell your baby that.” “Now?” “Now.” Felicia freed her hand from the older woman, and spread her fingers across her belly. “Baby, your father is very artistic. He carves some beautiful things.” “There. That wasn’t hard, was it?” “No.” “I want you to do that, every day for the rest of your life, and be as creative as you can, always looking for something new and different to say.” They had reached a stone breakwater, and turned to start back. Just at the level where the little waves broke and flattened into inch-deep foam, a pair of black and white birds stalked, eyes intent on the drifting spume. Felicia had seen them before, but did not know what to call them. Their small bodies and long legs made Felicia think of cameras set on tripods. The knee on each orange leg bent to the rear, as if the leg had been put on backwards. Felicia lifted her own knee and bent the leg, trying to imagine how it would feel to be able to glide her foot forward with the bird’s grace and agility. The birds moved so gracefully through a difficult environment. Felicia tried to imagine footage shot from such a low angle: not what one usually meant by “bird’s eye view.” “Nanna, what’s the angriest you’ve ever been with Mr. Noland?”

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Mrs. Noland thought for several steps. “Two things happened at the same time.” They continued to walk slowly. “First, he brought me out here from Saint Louis. I’d spent all my life there. My family was all there. And I saw no reason to go anywhere else. I knew it was the Depression, and there were no jobs in Missouri, but we didn’t have anything lined up here, either. We were stepping off the high dive, not knowing what we were landing in. “Then on the way out here, I lost a doll I’d had since I was a little girl. I remember packing it in a box, and putting it in the car, but when we got here, it was nowhere to be found. My grandmother had given me that doll. And logically, I knew that he’d not intentionally lost my doll, but I figured if we’d stayed in Saint Louis, I’d have had my doll, and my family both.” “You don’t seem mad at him any more.” “It’s hard to stay angry at a gentle man.” She reflected for a few steps. “Not that I didn’t try. I kept myself in a pretty deep funk for about four years. Then one morning like this, I was walking my two oldest on the hill behind the house—walking one and carrying the other—from the top there, you can see water on both sides—and when I looked across the Bay, I realized I was living in one of the prettiest places on earth, and I’d grown to love it in spite of my funk.” “Eusebio says it gives him the creeps to be surrounded by so many murderers.” As they walked by Anna, she joined them. Mrs. Noland still held Felicia’s arm. “Your brother is right. There are some very scary men in there.” She raised her chin toward the unseen prison. “But there’re lots of others who just did something foolish, ran with the wrong crowd, or ran into some bad luck. But it’s a very nice neighborhood on this side of the wall. It’s like there’s two different atmospheres. Out here the air is fresh and good. On the other side of the wall, the

221 air is stuffy and stagnant. Out in the good air, we enjoy so much freedom. Over on the other side, its bars and buzzers, and years and years of sitting with nothing to do. The food is bad, and you can’t risk turning your back on anyone.” They were back to the bottom of the stairs, and stopped to slip on their sandals. “Nanna, if I can’t get in to see Eusebio today, the other thing I need to do is buy a pair of walking shoes. Do you think we could go into town before Alby gets back?” Mrs. Noland nodded. “Yes, we can do that.”

Chapter 28

SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, 9:25 A.M.

Countdown: Five days, thirty-five minutes Even thirty-five minutes early, the crowd outside the Cathedral had backed up near the bottom of the staircase that zigzagged up from the corner of Taylor and California Streets. Philip tilted his head to study the façade and its towers. Without dropping his vision, he commented to Betty, “It looks more French than Anglican.” Then he looked along Taylor toward the Bay, but—blocked from view by Russian Hill—he could not see even Angel Island or Mt. Tamalpais, much less Alcatraz. Behind him a cable car clanged its bell. Betty took his hand right hand, but he passed hers to his right. “Elbow still bothering you?” “Yes. It will for a few days.” “I’m sorry. I’ll try to remember.” She brushed something from his suit. “It does resemble Notre Dame. That’s ecumenical. Churches can share traditions.” She also looked up at the matching towers and the pointed center that connected them. “I think it’s very imposing.” “It is.” They both turned to watch the trolley. Philip made a motion with his hand to indicate a building just out of view. “The combination looks a little silly, though, with it sitting in front of an office building that’s ten stories higher.” Philip had thought this as they walked the two blocks from the hotel. He looked up again at the towers. “What is it about architecture from the Middle Ages that makes mankind feel closer to God?”

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“I don’t know . . .” She wobbled slightly on her high heels as she looked up, and he steadied her. “The immensity . . . or maybe the sense of time. The old cathedrals took so long to build. Dozens of generations worked on just one project.” The crowd in front of them began to move. Betty leaned her head closer to Philip’s and whispered. “It’s the vastness of a cathedral, I think, that puts us in a meditative mood. It’s something so much larger than ourselves.” “Kind of like train stations.” “I know.” She squeezed his hand. “And baseball stadiums.” He knew she’d seen the radio in his pocket, and the earphone, but she’d made no other comment about it. The Dodgers’ afternoon game in Cincinnati would already be in the first inning, but he doubted he could find a San Francisco station that would be playing it. The Giants and Saint Louis would start in an hour. He leaned toward her. “Sometime today, I’d like to check on Tom Garcia. He took a pretty good whack yesterday.” He did not mention that perhaps, also, Tom had located Anna. She glanced at him, faced forward for a few steps, and then looked up at him again. “You don’t sense any incongruence?” He shook his head. “No.” He could see the struggle between the wife who disapproved of his association with Garcia, and her own professional training which taught trust of a client’s instinct. After a few steps, she nodded, “Well then, come to Fisherman’s Wharf with me. We’ll have lunch, shake a few hands, and then you can slip away.” He patted her hand. “I appreciate that.” She pointed at the Cathedral and asked, “Do you miss this?”

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Philip considered the question. She would be comparing the Notre Dame of his childhood to the New England-style architecture of what he still called “her church.” “I don’t think so,” he said. “You know my story about praying with my mother in Notre Dame.” He had told the story often, with various friends. As a boy, while his mother sat and prayed in the almost-empty cathedral, he would find some other mother’s son, and together they would play tag, racing among the pews. Each would dutifully dip one knee toward the altar and cross himself whenever they entered the center aisle. The tag-advantage went to the fastest genuflection. Philip would finish the story with the quickest head-chest-shoulder- shoulder he could muster. She nodded acceptance of his statement. They had reached the top of the stairs. She tugged him away from the side door they were about to enter and toward the closed center doors. “I want to look at this.” She inspected the massive doors carefully. “They’re copies of the bronze Ghiberti doors in Florence.” Philip studied them, but made no comment. “Historians say that Renaissance Art started with these doors.” “I must not know my Bible stories very well. I’m not sure I can identify even one. . . maybe this one: That’s Moses on Mt. Sinai.” “Well, this one is David, slaying Goliath in the foreground, and other scenes from his life behind that. That one is Abraham. In the background, he’s about to sacrifice Isaac.” Philip examined the first panel she had pointed at for some hint of Bathsheba, but saw none. “Yesterday Tom made a point about Moses and David both being murderers, but God not insisting on their execution.”

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“The corner one is Cain and Abel.” She pointed to the top scene. Then she turned again to Philip. “Why would you spend time with that man?” Philip took his lip between his teeth, shrugged and grinned. “Carl Rogers would say that to be healthy, a person shouldn’t deny the things he’s experiencing. The chore is to be open to the experiences and assimilate it on a symbolic level. Perhaps I’m reprocessing the gestalt of my self-structure.” “Harrumph.” She scowled. “I should have kept my Rogers to myself.” When she seemed satisfied with her look at the doors, they returned to the open side doors, and entered. They took the offered bulletins, went down the center aisle and found a pew on the left, though it was nearly full. Those already seated edged tighter to make room. She set her purse on the floor, looked around her, and turned back to whisper in his ear, “The campaigner in me wants to get up and shake hands. Do you think God would notice?” He also whispered. “Would you like me to stand in the pulpit and announce you? I’ll ask the organist to take a breather. Nothing else is going to happen for fifteen minutes.” She playfully covered his lips with her fingers. “Shhhh. Someone will hear.” Philip put his left arm around Betty’s shoulders. “Kenneth told me we have to get your name recognition up.” With his right hand he clasped hers and set it in his lap, gently, so as to go easy on his elbow. Then they sat in silence, each studying the Cathedral, glancing at the bulletin, and watching as the last-to-arrive began to line the walls. In Cincinnati, it could be the second inning. Philip examined the intricately ribbed ceiling and the pillars that held it up. It made sense that his mother had found solace in going to Notre Dame to sit and pray. Life—God—had dealt her a difficult hand, but in a place like this, God hid

226 his mysteries in the dark corners, while blazoning his glory in the bright stained glass. The organist filled the great cavern with something Philip did not recognize, yet it seemed perfect for the moment. Why—if there was no God—did man achieve his greatest artistic and musical accomplishments in the name of God? He rotated his head to take in the full sweep of the ceiling, from the back of the hall to the brilliant windows above and beyond the altar. In his mind, he pictured the church empty, with just his mother sitting in a pew. What reward, now, did she enjoy? And if Philip had been coasting, all these years, on the Hail Marys his mother had repeated on his behalf, how close might he have come to depleting the account? He looked around at the other congregants. Some whispered with their neighbors. Others sat with eyes closed and lips silently moving. What was the ratio of doubt to belief in each of these people? Betty, too, seemed to be watching alternately the building and its people. His thoughts were interrupted by three great, booming, brass knocks on the Ghiberti doors. With the sound still reverberating through the Cathedral, Philip rose in unison with the congregation. All heads turned to see the great doors opening and the waiting procession silhouetted in the breach. It was a large procession, led by a middle-aged man wearing a dark purple robe and carrying a silver-tipped wooden rod. But Philip found himself watching the second-in-line: A white-robed youngster carried a cross, straight out in front of him. It occurred to Philip that he knew only the French term, le porte croix , and not the English for this particular acolyte, flanked on either side by boys in similar dress carrying candlesticks. While Philip had still been too young for the job, he had harbored le porte croix as an ambition. Yet by the age when he could have been chosen, he had lost interest. What a grand role for a youngster! Concentration showed on the youth’s face, holding high the cross and carrying it for an august audience of

227 adults. In what other role could one so young perform so simple an act, live, for such a large crowd? Perhaps only as a bat boy. Behind le porte croix came the choir, twenty boys singing treble parts and fifteen grown men singing base and tenor. All wore white robes over purple cassocks. The boys wore ruffled collars. The choir sang without amplification, yet they were so close to Philip that their distinct harmonies could be heard over the massed singing of the congregation. As he watched le porte croix and the choir proceed down the aisle, he realized another group of acolytes and priests had now passed, over a dozen altogether, in various combinations of white and purple, the clergy wearing wide academic collars. He turned his attention to Pike just as the Bishop was almost even with Philip’s pew. Pike wore the two-pointed, gold- brocade hat of a bishop, with a white cape bordered in the same brocade. He carried a long staff. Only with the hat did Pike rise above the men ahead of him. Philip had read little in Pike’s face. How could a man who so enjoyed people’s attention give this all up? By now, the leaders of the procession had already gone to the right of the altar and were climbing the stairs and assuming various positions around and behind it. Pike removed his hat and cape. Philip marveled at the ritual of it, so unlike Betty’s church. There, the pastor slipped in through a side door while the congregation’s attention was on a hymn, almost a direct rejection of this spectacle before him. In his own courtroom, a bailiff announced his entrance, and everyone present stood—no singing—but Philip did wear a black robe. These traditional symbols and actions carried enormous power. Even execution had a ritual and a proscribed procession from the holding cell to the death chamber. Like no other animal, man had refined

228 rituals. Philip realized those around him were reading aloud from the bulletin, and opened his. As he understood it, on Thursday, Viramontes would say goodbye to the other condemned inmates, take the elevator one last time from the sixth floor, and be locked in a holding cell just a few feet from the Green Room. A TV would be wheeled in front of the cell, or he could choose radio or record player. He’d be issued a new set of denim trousers, cotton shirt, and cotton slippers—all blue. He could order out, any meal he had in mind. He would have company, all night, two guards and, if he so chose, a chaplain. A fresh pot of coffee would be brewing. In the morning, he would get breakfast. The guards would roll out a green carpet, from the holding cell to the execution chamber. The prison psychiatrist would come and pronounce Viramontes’ full name as a question—as if they might have the wrong man, or as if the man they had was so far gone he might not recognize his own name. The warden would come, chat briefly, shake his hand, and wish him good luck. Two guards and the prison doctor would come. Viramontes would strip, stand patiently while the doctor listened to his heart beat and taped a monitor to his chest. Then he would dress in a white shirt and another new pair of denim trousers. He would go without underwear. Philip didn’t know whether or not Viramontes smoked and would want a final cigarette. Then a signal would be given, and Viramontes would be expected to walk unassisted from the holding cell to the execution chamber, and to seat himself in the chair while the straps were adjusted. Perhaps only with the careful ritual could the State expect the condemned prisoner to cooperate and walk to his own death with a step just as firm as le porte croix. Around him, the liturgy continued—sometimes standing, sometimes seated, and sometimes kneeling—but Philip’s thoughts traveled between Paris, San

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Quentin, a courtroom in Los Angeles, an empty house in Bel Air, and a game in Cincinnati. Bishop Pike sat, broadly smiling, while others conducted prayers and readings. Had Pike been quietly pressured out? Philip had not followed all the ecclesiastic maneuvering—it was not even a denomination he cared about—but the threat of a heresy trial had been national news. Finally, the gentleman in the dark purple cloak who had led the procession guided Pike across the platform, and to the grey, stone pulpit. He wore none of his earlier finery, but rather a white robe over his purple cassock, and heavy, dark- rimmed glasses. He glanced at his notes, and up again into the crowd across the altar from him, in the nave. Then he looked at those standing along the walls in the aisles and the transept. He shook his head and smiled sheepishly. “It was never like this on Christmas or Easter. I think I should have resigned once a month.” Philip chuckled, as did many others. “I’m concerned about these standees. It’s difficult enough to endure one of my sermons when you’re comfortably seated. There are empty seats over here in the choir and the chancel. I would like the organist to play a minute of soft music, while some of you standees come up and fill these seats. Don’t be afraid. You might be sitting in the visiting bishop’s seat, but it isn’t yet taken.” Pike reminded Philip of a London bobby, standing in a busy intersection and waving traffic this-way-or-that. “We’ve had a great victory this week. Mr. Chavez and the farm workers won their election in Delano, and we can be pleased with the part this diocese played in that struggle, even against threats from Mr. Bigs to cut off financial support.” Pike swept his arm to indicate the crowd. “Maybe we’ll make up today what we sent to Delano.” He struck the pulpit with an open hand, and blurted,

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“Too many churches stood silent. And the closer they were to the conflict, the more silent they stood. When we are silent on the side of entrenched greed, and righteousness wins anyway, it is embarrassing. One reason the Church of England is in its death throes is that it stood with the Establishment.” He appeared to be rearranging his notes. “And this week, just across the Bay, that same Establishment intends to take the life of one of our fellow human beings. Yet I don’t have to remind you that Jesus said, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’” Philip stiffened. “We apparently have an Establishment that believes it is without sin.” He held up three fingers to those still standing, and pointed toward the choir. “Perhaps it is like Judah reported in our lesson this morning. He said, ‘The man solemnly warned us, saying, You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you .’” Pike placed both hands on the railing. “If we are to see the face of God, we must have our brother with us.” Betty gave Philip’s hand a squeeze. He returned her squeeze. Then he let go of her hand and crossed his arms across his chest. With his chin down, he looked at the pew in front of him. Betty placed her hand on his thigh. Philip took her hand again and looked back at Pike. “Jesus says in our Gospel reading, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see the things that you see!’” Pike reached out with an open hand to his listeners, and asked, “What can a man believe?” He flicked his hand back and forth. “In the struggles to work out ideas which I have voiced here, I’ve taken a dim view of particular doctrines—I’ve said that some of them are ‘not so.’” Philip raised his eyebrows. Pike intended to go out with guns blazing.

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“I recognize that we are past the time of Copernicus and there is a different scene than when most of the doctrines were contrived, so I have been trying to prune, you might say.” With his hands, Pike made a string of clipping gestures. “If we cannot on historical grounds accept some things; if we cannot on metaphysical grounds see any basis for certain affirmations; if it does not seem that there ever was going to be, or ever is going to be, a Second Coming; if there was not a special incarnation—let alone a virgin birth; if there is not a committee God—a trinity—” Pike clasped one fist in the other hand, “—then what can a man believe?” Philip glanced carefully around him. He had no deep allegiance to any of the doctrines just denied, yet Philip was not the one in the pulpit. The faces Philip could see seemed intent on listening. The pew itself seemed poorly contoured to Philip’s spine, and he pushed away from it with his lower back. Betty glanced at his face and mouthed, “Are you okay?” Philip nodded. “We read in the Gospel, ‘Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see.’ One must look. You look at the data. You look at what is.” Pike worked his hands as if he were juggling. “There is only one realm—the secular—there is no supernatural. If something is true, it is natural. And if something is not natural, it is not true.” Philip’s mouth felt very dry. He glanced at his watch. In Cincinnati they could already be in the third. Why did it bother him so much to have Pike speaking this way? Philip began to watch Pike’s movements without listening to his words. Pike’s collar girthed his neck with a white ring. He waved his hands back and forth, and then lifted both arms over his head so that each hand met with an elbow—the sleeves of his cassock poised above his head—as if he were

232 winding up to throw a thunderbolt. “Why let yourself in for a problem? When you say that God is all-good, all-knowing, but he is also all-powerful, well then, why are things in such a mess? If we try to say he is ‘omni’—omni-present, omni- beneficient, omni-potent—what’s the data for that? The goodness that I do know in experience, the order I see, the beauty I see, I say, ‘Praise to God!’ Praise to that which is all around us, continuous with us—I don’t know, the Zen people say that—be open to it, and glad for it, but we cannot say more. Period. Period!” Pike let his arms down and looked back at his notes. Philip rubbed his eye. If the goal was ecumenicalism, Pike was certainly doing well, invoking Zen. What about Viramontes, drawing parallels between Hindu and Aztec beliefs? What gobbledygook that must be! How could God be both all powerful, and all loving at the same time? Philip pushed his back into the pew again, and stretched his shoulders. Somehow, Eusebio Viramontes existed with the foreknowledge, the permission, the benevolence of God. An omni-God would have felt Anna’s terror before Viramontes ever saw her. With his legs crossed at the ankles and his feet far forward under the pew in front of him, Philip locked his knees, and then relaxed again into his seat. Somehow—and in some way directly attributed to God—Anna had found a way to rise above her pain, and to forgive Viramontes. Did the good overcome the bad? Did it outweigh the bad? Did Anna’s act restore God’s . . . God’s what? Philip searched for a word. God’s reputation? Certainly it had to be more than just his reputation. His nature? Anna’s act could hardly influence the very nature of an omni-God. Philip puzzled over the question, but found no easy answer. In his mind, Philip reprised his “Carl Rogers” answer to Betty’s question. To what extent was he “reprocessing the gestalt of his own self structure?” For a

233 man nearing fifty, how much maneuvering room could be left for redefining oneself? Philip ran one hand across the top of his head, taking measure of his bald spot. Rogers would say “the good life” required opening oneself to experience— Betty taught this at seminars—and not warding off a troubling stimulus. Did Tom Garcia trouble him? Did Anna? Again, Philip ran his hand across his bald spot. Yes, Anna troubled him—Tom less so—troubled yet beckoned at the same time. Rogers would say “the good life” came from being willing—confident even—in stepping outside the codes and norms, trusting only in one’s personal sense of right and wrong. How could he do that? Philip was a judge! Judges enforce codes and norms! Philip pushed up his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. Then he focused his eyes back on Pike. “—We reach a point and a man dies!” Pike flung his hands outward in a gesture that took in everyone. Then he pulled his hands back to himself. “There’s data to suggest something there, too, data that I am more than the empirical sum of spatio-temporal limitations you see here. That I am now capable of extrasensory perception. There is no question about that. I transcend the spatio-temporal when there is ESP occurring between me and someone else. I can’t answer the data on that.” Pike frowned. “I don’t want to get into psychedelic drugs—it’s a complex subject and there are dangers and opportunities there—but certainly the insights that are coming out of this also suggest the transcendence of the spatio-temporal. LSD is kind of an ‘instant Zen.’” Turning his head as little as he could, Philip looked around again at his neighbors. He saw no alarm in the faces that he could glimpse. LSD and Zen? Is that where Rogers’s openness to new experience led? Philip looked up to the intricate order of the ceiling. Its ridges and grooves ran like a finger print, though not in swirls, but with a crystalline pattern, tapered to a series of points. Surely its

234 intricate order represented a characteristic of God. Somehow Pike missed that— intricate order was not the outgrowth of LSD. Philip dropped his eyes from the ceiling to the speaker in the pulpit. “The data does not compel each of these answers but it is a modest inference grounded in genuine reality in our secular world which is the only world there is. God, the Ground of Things, is not ‘super-this.’ He is the Ground of it. The ongoingness of a person past death is not a supernatural gift of resurrection to a few of the elect; it is the way persons are! It’s natural for us to go on, and we do.” Philip took the hand that held Betty’s, and stretched out his own fingers to try and see the prints. Betty looked at him questioningly. He shook his head and retightened his hand around hers. “In the Gospels, we see one who exercised this act of faith toward a personal Ground of Things, for which the best image found was the word ‘Father.’” Philip’s head shook slightly, but involuntarily. Father? Had he heard Pike correctly? How could a ground-of-things God be personal? The image of a father in own his mind held only a man in a dull gray suit coat and black tie, leaning from the window of a train. A whistle blew, and wheels began to turn. The ground below was stones and trestles. Betty looked at Philip’s eyes and held the glance for an extra beat. Then she pulled his fingers to her lips and gave them a kiss. He nodded, managed a weak smile, and replied in kind.

Chapter 29

SAN QUENTIN, SUNDAY, 2:10 P.M.

Countdown: Four days, nineteen hours, fifty minutes Felicia opened her eyes. The smooth brocade cushions felt better against her bare calves than the stiff Naugahyde against her back, but just lying down with her feet up had drained some of the fluid from her feet. She glanced at her watch, wondering how long she had napped. “Did I really sleep two-and-a-half hours?” She looked around the room to see whether anyone had been there to hear the question. Anna answered. “Yes. Do you feel better?” “I feel like the whole day’s gone.” “The light is still red.” Felicia sat up. The back of her blouse was soaked with sweat. “Is anybody demonstrating in front of the gates?” “I think so. I’ve seen a few people go by.” Anna was reading her Bible. “I was waiting for you to wake up. Mrs. Noland has been napping, too, for about forty-five minutes.” “I dragged her all over San Rafael, looking for shoes.” “I don’t think she minded.” Mrs. Noland came out of the bedroom. “Are either of you girls hungry?” Felicia stood up. “Not hungry, but thirsty.” Mrs. Noland led her into the kitchen, and pulled milk from the refrigerator. Anna joined them. Felicia looked at her watch again. “Alby’s been gone nine hours.”

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The older woman looked at Felicia’s feet. “Your legs look better, but I still don’t know how you’re going to walk on them.” “It’s just something I have to do, Nanna.” Felicia interpreted Nanna’s little reply as a snort. Anna took her glass of milk and walked across to the window. Felicia followed. The angle of the sun accentuated the silver tone in the eucalyptus leaves. They could see the prison gates, but their view of the area in front of it was blocked by the post office building. Anna pointed at six individuals on the far side of the street. “I can only see that one group, but I think there must be another one. Those guys want the execution. I saw some other people go by, but I don’t know if they were demonstrating or going through the gate.” Felicia emptied her glass, but continued to look at the group of six. One man wore a dark blue, loose-fitting shirt, open to his belt, and flowing silk pants. On a woman they would have been called harem pants, but she did not have a name for them on a man. He wore a shaved head, and no shoes. He carried the mock-up of a grotesque sword, three or four feet long, with a wide, curved blade. It took both of his hands to hold it over his head, which he did as if taunting someone hidden behind the post office. “It’s not hard to guess which side he’s on.” She looked out over the water. “How many people you think on our side?” “I don’t know.” Felicia took Anna’s empty glass and carried it back to the kitchen. She was rinsing the glasses in the sink when Anna hurried in. “I just saw Judge Tseng at the bottom of the steps.” She grasped Felicia’s hand. “Was he coming up?”

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“I don’t know. He stopped right in front of the house, and looked up, but I jumped back so he wouldn’t see me.” Felicia started to move from the kitchen, but Anna tugged like an anchor. Felicia turned back and pointed to a bathroom beside the back door. Anna nodded, but now used two hands to pull Felicia in that direction. “I want to take a look.” “But if he sees you, he’ll know I’m here.” “He didn’t get as good a look at me as he did of you. I don’t think he’d recognize me.” “Let Mrs. Noland go see.” “I have a better idea. Let’s just wait. If he knocks, Nanna can answer.” “Tell her to say I’m not here.” Felicia nodded, and pointed again at the bathroom. Then she stood for a moment watching the front window from the kitchen doorway. Mrs. Noland stood in the middle of the room, looking first at Felicia’s face, and then at the door. “What is it?” Felicia held one finger against her lips and took careful steps across the room until she was just close enough to the window to see, but hopefully not be observed. The stairs were empty. She went closer. “I don’t see him now.” “How did he find me?” Anna had come only half the distance from the kitchen. Felicia continued to watch the street in front of them. “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’s just here to demonstrate.” “Who is it?” Mrs. Noland joined Felicia at the window. “He’s a judge in L.A., now, but he was the D.A. who prosecuted my brother. We went to see him, but he tried to send Anna back to her parents.”

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The older woman took a moment before answering. “Well a judge can’t demonstrate. He has to stay impartial, so whatever case might come to him later, he isn’t already biased.” “Then he is trying to find me.” Anna turned and retreated again to the kitchen. Mrs. Noland shook her head. “Judges don’t go around arresting people. I don’t think he has the authority to send you home. And you’re almost eighteen. I can’t believe he came all this way looking for you. There has to be some other explanation.” “Well, is it okay if I stay back here?” “You may sit anywhere you want. I just don’t think it’s necessary. There’s nothing for you to worry about.” Anna took a seat at the table, just out of view of the door. Felicia followed, and took a second seat. “You still want to walk to Sacramento? He’ll know where you are once we start.” Half of her hoped Anna would back out, scuttling the whole idea. Anna rubbed her chin back-and-forth against her wrist. “What do you think I should do?” The response that came to Felicia originated in her other half. “Once we’re walking—once we start—then reporters will be covering us. If the judge tries to send you home, the governor will hear about it, and he’ll know you want to save Eusebio. That’s what we want to accomplish anyway, so I think it’s worth the risk.” Anna took a long time before answering, but then nodded. “Yeah, that’s what we’ll do.”

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Felicia reached for a box of crackers, opened it, and shook a pile onto the table between them. “Do you get along okay with your mom?” Anna took a cracker and broke it between her teeth. “The main thing is she never lets me out of her sight. She treats me like I’m still five years old.” Felicia stacked five crackers in her hand, and put a sixth into her mouth. “My mother doesn’t even have her sight any more, or barely, light and dark, and a little bit on one side. She’s pretty angry at me for getting pregnant, but she can’t see me.” “My mom is probably pretty angry at me, too. I left her a note. She dropped me off at school, and went to her job. I went home and got my stuff, and put the note on her pillow.” “What about your father?” Anna shrugged. “He lives in Idaho. I saw him this summer. It was okay. What about yours?” “I never really knew him. When I was two, he got shot by a jealous husband.” She stood up. “He was nice looking. I’ve got a picture. I’ll show you.” Felicia started toward the pile of belongings beside the sofa, but recognized Alby’s two-stairs-at-a-time gait, and his knock on the door. Nanna let him in, and a tall young man followed him in. He came to Felicia for a quick peck, but wasted no other time on greetings. “Hi, everybody. This is Eric, a friend of mine from my dorm days. He lives in Larkspur, which is the first town the other side of the prison. Wait ‘til you hear what I’ve got.” He led Felicia into the kitchen, took the remaining crackers from the table, ate two, and laid out his map. “Here’s the problem. The shortest route by car is back across the Richmond Bridge, but it won’t allow pedestrians.

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This route,” he ran his finger up the Redwood Highway to Sears Point Road and along the edge of the Bay to Vallejo, “is 30 miles, but the last fifteen is one lane each way, traffic going 55, with no shoulder. Both sides of the road are marsh. There’s no room for a follow car, no place to stop, and no place for reporters to set up. We can’t even consider it. So that means, the next road eastbound is another thirteen miles north, at Petaluma. You’ve already walked twenty-five miles from San Quentin, due north, but you’re not even one mile closer to Sacramento.” Felicia studied the map, frowning. Alby waited. She put one knee up on the chair and leaned forward enough to trace one finger over the routes he had just explained. “If it takes us two days to get to Petaluma, then Sonoma, and Napa, by Friday, we’d barely make it to Vallejo.” “Yes, but listen to this: Eric was varsity crew. He still has all kinds of buddies who row. He thinks we can do it by water.” “Rowing?” Felicia straightened up and pushed back the chair. Eric moved between them and put his finger midway between San Rafael and Vallejo. “I open-water scull every-so-often when the water is calm, and this is the best time of year for it. The water is smooth, and tomorrow afternoon we have the tide coming in, just when we want it. I think I can borrow a boat, and I’ve got 30 guys I can call. We only need to put together six of them.” “What’s a scull?” “It’s a flat bottomed boat with places for a team of eight rowers. The races are usually on a river or a lake, but with the weather clear and the tide coming in, I think we can make Vallejo in under two-and-a-half hours.” Alby ran his finger around the northern route again. “That beats five days of walking. Plus, think of the visual: You and Anna walk out of the prison. The TV cameras pick you up and follow you three hundred yards walking, under the

241 freeway, to the old piers, where the scull is waiting for you. First you’re walking, then you’re paddling, but no motor vehicles. It’s still in the spirit of a march.” “I don’t know how to row a boat.” Eric shook his head. “You won’t have to.” He stood about six-foot-three, with broad, muscular shoulders. “The boat holds eight rowers and a coxswain, but we don’t really need a coxswain if we’re not racing. We’ll get into a rhythm. I’ll show you everything you need to do to steer. If we have seven guys who do know how to row, one of you sits in the coxswain seat. The other one just needs to make sure your oars don’t bump the ones that are really doing the work. You can just hold them out of the water.” Felicia kept her eyes on the map. Alby tapped on the map. “Plus, it splashes the front page and the evening news. From Vallejo, then it’s a straight sixty miles to Sacramento, with better roads. People will see it on the news and join you. It will snowball.” “What’s the weather forecast?” “Perfect conditions, all afternoon tomorrow.” Felicia sat back in the chair and studied the map. Alby reached for the box of crackers. “What d’ya think, Anna?” She sat wide-eyed. “I’ve never been in a row boat, before.” Alby grinned. “Oh, it’s great fun. I used to do it every summer at camp.” Felicia ran a finger over the route through Petaluma, then brought her hand back to San Rafael and traced a straight line across to Vallejo. A jingle came to her mind, “One if by land, two if by sea.” Was that Paul Revere? Hadn’t he begun his famous ride by rowing across some water? She tried to remember her history.

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She stretched her hand, placing the tip of her little finger on San Rafael, and her thumb not quite to Vallejo. Riding a couple of hours had to beat walking for four days. And it must have worked for Paul Revere.

Chapter 30

SAN QUENTIN, SUNDAY, 2:26 P.M.

Countdown: Four days, nineteen hours, thirty-four minutes Philip pulled off the freeway, started down the narrow road toward the prison, and—not realizing there was a visitor parking lot hidden at a lower level— parked along the street in a two-hour zone. He locked the door, turned toward the prison, took just a few steps into the sun, and immediately went back to the car for his Dodgers cap. Then he walked the last hundred yards toward the gathering of demonstrators who stood in front of the prison’s entrance. As he came, he realized that two distinct groups were demonstrating. He spotted Tom in the center of a group of eight or nine, standing in front of a white building on the right. Four of them carried homemade signs. Across the street from them, and a few feet farther from the prison, another tight clutch of six stood, slightly more spread out than Tom’s group. Both sides watched him as he approached. Lines painted on the pavement marked the edges of state property. One line divided it from the county road that ended there, while a second divided it from the federal jurisdiction of what Philip now realized was a small post office. Beyond the two groups and behind the barred entrance to the prison itself, a uniformed officer stood, at ease but watchful. Philip stopped some twenty paces from the post office, half-hoping that Tom would step away from his group and come meet him in the street. He quickly realized, however, that waiting where he’d stopped only increased the others’ interest in him. He glanced up the hill at a house that sat at the top of a switch-back staircase, and then at the group on the south side, standing in front of

244 a nondescript bungalow that must—on its other side—have stood on the cliff above the beach. A well-muscled man with a sham scimitar pointed it at Philip, in what seemed part salute and part threat. Then, smiling like a baton-twirler leading a parade, he played as if slashing the sword first left and then right, though with its size and weight, he could not do so gracefully. His shaved head, bare feet, and an open blue shirt gave him a resemblance to Yul Brynner in The King and I . He wore an exaggerated silver belt buckle and silk pants that ballooned out from the waist and ankles. He used two hands to swish it left and right once more, but getting no reaction, he turned to his friends and attempted to balance it, upright, on his open palm. The sword looked to be cut from thin plywood, the blade painted silver, and the handle gold. With a second point on the inside of the curve, it looked like a giant can opener from a burlesque routine. Philip stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the post office and extended his right hand toward Tom, who had to let one end of a sign drop to free up one hand to return Philip’s greeting. Philip pointed beyond the corner of the post office and Tom followed him. The area was paved, but awkwardly L-shaped. Tom’s cardboard sign read, “Don’t kill on my behalf.” He had a white gauze bandage taped to his forehead, mostly hidden under a Dodgers cap of his own. Yul Brynner cackled, “Another loser liberal bleeding heart!” Philip looked back across at his heckler, and read the sandwich sign that stood behind him: Give those perverts Their just deserts. Misbehavin’?

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Then Burma Shave ‘em. Philip winced, and looked quickly at the man’s companions. They seemed respectable and serious. One sign read, “Tardy Justice is Hardly Justice.” Another said only, “Genesis 9:6.” A tall man had a Giants windbreaker. All six watched Philip. He turned back to Tom. “I don’t think they like Dodgers fans.” “They’re just surly because the Giants clobbered Saint Louis and still couldn’t pick up a game.” Philip looked closely at the bandage sticking from under Tom’s hat. “So how’s your head?” “Mainly tender to the touch.” “Were you able to sleep okay?” “Until I forgot and rolled over on that side. I learned pretty quick.” Philip turned to look at the prison. The fortress-like walls sat back another 200 yards from the gate. Tom followed his gaze. “You ever been here before?” “No,” he shook his head slowly, “but it looks like something I saw once in Algeria.” “Did you come by just to check on me?” Philip turned back to look at the bandage. “Yes. I worried about you all night. Did you talk to your wife?” “Yeah. I’m okay, but I told her we’ll need a new car.” He smiled. “Fortunately, I’m insured. It would be bad advertising not to be.” Philip attempted his best teasing smile. “You don’t think a near miss like that is a warning of some kind from God?”

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Tom shook his head slowly. “God doesn’t waste things like that, but the main message may have been for the other guy.” “How so?” “It was over for us when the car stopped rolling and we were still alive. For him, he spent the night watching us rolling over and over in his rear view mirror, and God still has him there, watching us roll.” Tom lightly rubbed his bandage. “I’d rather be us.” Yul Brynner started a cheer, “Give me a ‘C’.” Philip had been facing in Yul’s direction, but Tom had to turn to take a look. Yul’s companions played along with a “C,” in unison, even if tepid. “Give me a ‘Y’.” “Y.” Tom gave a dismissive shake of the head and turned back to Philip. “The other fellows ought to run him off before he does them any more damage.” “Give me an ‘A’.” One voice supplied a weak echo. “Give me an ‘N’.” Philip wondered if he had been the last to realize where the cheer was headed. No echo at all could be heard, but the lone voice continued through “I,” “D,” and “E.” “What does it spell? ‘Cyan-ara . . . Sayonara ,’ baby!” Philip dropped his head forward and looked at his feet. What had Teddy Roosevelt said—“Every movement has its lunatic fringe”? Philip looked back up. “I just want you to know that not all of us who support capital punishment are this crass about it.”

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“Oh, I know that, Your Honor.” Tom lowered his chin and stroked it with one hand while he looked at the ground. “I think all of us have a certain amount of crassness in us to start with. The death penalty is just one of many things that can bring it out in some people.” While Tom spoke, Philip caught a movement over the top of Tom’s head, on the staircase beyond the post office. Two lanky young men took the stairs a couple at a time, and entered the house that sat part way up the hill. Philip nodded to acknowledge Tom’s comment. “Have you heard anything from the Governor?” Philip shook his head. “Not much. He’s going to have some kind of meeting tomorrow on Nob Hill, for all the interested parties. I’m invited, but it would mean it’d be tight trying to get back to L.A. for the game. I’m still not sure why I count as an interested party.” “Would I count as an interested party?” Philip paused to consider. Then he shrugged. “I could at least ask.” “I would appreciate that.” “I’ll see what I can do. You haven’t seen any sign of Anna, have you?” Tom shook his head. Down the street, a car parked behind Philip’s rental and the door opened. The driver set his feet on the ground. Philip was struck first by the orange flip- flops and heavy legs in pedal pushers. As the man stood up and squinted before putting on dark glasses, Philip identified Dempsey’s high collar and black bouffant. Philip stepped behind the corner of the post office and beckoned with his hand for Tom to follow. Then he looked up the hillside behind them. It was residential, with hedges separating the houses. “Tom,” he started, speaking low,

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“I’m suddenly in a very tight place. There’s a reporter just drove up who knows me, and I’d rather he didn’t see me here.” Philip led all the way around to the backside of the building and Tom followed. “What can I do to help you?” Philip considered his options. “Well, for starters, keep him on the front side of the building. There’s no reason for him to come back here. Then, after he leaves, come let me know.” Tom nodded and returned to the front. Philip leaned against the building and studied the hillside. Directly ahead of him, a yard sloped gradually up to a house. Then the hill steepened rapidly to a thick hedge at the back of the lot. There was no gate to keep him from the side yard, but he might trespass that far and still get trapped in the yard. He might even get high enough that Yul Brynner would be able to see him over the top of the post office, and he’d set up a howl. To step into the yard with the staircase would put him in Yul’s straight line of vision. Veering to the left would take him through a few feet of yard, and behind a garage—more trespassing—and by now, that might be in Dempsey’s full view. It might also put him in a yard with no back exit. Philip studied the house at the top of the stairs. An older woman stood at the window, watching him. Philip tried to imagine what might have happened if he had just waited, nonchalantly chatting with Tom while Dempsey strolled up. “Hey, yeah, how are you? Good to see you again. This is my friend, Tom. Yeah, I just stopped by for a visit.” Dempsey still would have seen it as strange. It didn’t matter. Philip was back here now. He looked up at the window. The woman was gone. Dempsey had no reason to come behind the post office, but Philip needed to consider that possibility. If Philip could know for sure that the columnist was

249 on the west side of the building, and not the front, Philip could leave by the east side, and make it back to the car—if Yul didn’t raise an alarm. Yul could even start asking about Philip while he hid from view. Then what? Philip looked side to side. It was a very small building. He looked up the hillside. The woman was back in the window. What had Bishop Pike said? “We reach a point and a man dies!” Well— Philip looked both directions, but avoided looking up the hill—he wasn’t going to die from this, but it could still get very embarrassing. The moment certainly held more than just the “empirical sum of spatio-temporal limitations” that Pike had spoken about. If ever Philip had been in a situation to benefit from extrasensory perception, this seemed to be it. He tried to imagine what he might find on either side of the building. Philip leaned his head back against the post office and closed his eyes. Was God Pike’s “Ground of All Things,” or a personal Father, looking down on him now from a window on high? And what did God want from him? From Anna, God wanted forgiveness toward Viramontes. Okay, Philip could forgive Viramontes. He mouthed the words, “Father, I forgive Eusebio Viramontes.” Too cheap. Viramontes had never done anything to Philip. Too cheap all the way around. This would be a foxhole conversion. Philip opened his eyes. The woman was watching him from her window. He closed his eyes again. His lips moved almost imperceptibly. “God, what do you want from me?” “Hey, Tom said to tell you,” a voice close beside Philip startled him. He turned to look. “Tom’s taking the reporter down into the parking lot for a walk. Now’s the time for you to get out of here.”

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It took a moment for the news to register in Philip’s mind. Then he let go a blast of breath and put his hand on the man’s arm. “Oh, thank you. Tell Tom I owe him big time.” The man nodded. Philip glanced around the east corner of the building. From across the road, Yul Brynner looked him in the eye. Philip smiled at him, then dropped his gaze to the scimitar as he took the first several steps toward the rental car. He did not look up at the window.

Chapter 31

SAN QUENTIN, SUNDAY, 2:59 P.M.

Countdown: Four days, nineteen hours, one minute “I think he’s leaving.” Felicia joined Mrs. Noland at the window. “But he was watching the house, all that time.” “Looked like it.” Felicia turned and walked to the kitchen. The door to the bathroom sat ajar, with Anna looking through the narrow opening. “He left.” “But he knows where I am.” She let the door swing open, but did not get up from where she was seated. She had her Bible open in her lap. “You gonna be okay?” Anna shrugged. “I’ve been trying to pray, but I haven’t heard anything. I feel like God’s not listening to me. I heard him so plainly to come out here, but now I don’t hear anything.” “So do you just keep moving forward on what you heard before?” “I guess.” She thought a moment. “Seems like that’s what the psalmists did.”

Chapter 32

SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, 7:00 P.M.

Countdown: Four days, fifteen hours The auditorium for the meet-and-greet had tables along both side walls, giving each candidate a location to stand and chat with voters. The center of the room had rows of folding chairs. Thirty minutes into the evening, the candidates would come on stage. Those running for state-wide offices would each make a three minute presentation and have three minutes to answer questions. Candidates for local offices would have two minutes, but no questions. Afterwards, each would return to their tables until the doors closed. Philip found himself favoring his elbow while he and Kenneth arranged materials on the yellow tablecloth and Betty shook hands with early arrivals. He could find no comfortable position for it, but the pain wasn’t strong enough to sideline him back at the hotel. To their left, a re-election candidate for San Francisco County Supervisor had three members of his campaign staff behind the table, and another two with him in front. To the right, a challenger for the state assembly worked his table alone. Philip took one of Betty’s campaign buttons and pushed its point through the edge of the adhesive name tag, so it wouldn’t damage his suit. Then he turned to face the room, straightened his tie, and put his hands in his pockets. On the far side, Callahan’s table had only four staffers. Turnout seemed light, but perhaps it would pick up. He did not see Dempsey Wu. Philip chuckled to himself, trying to imagine who he could even tell about his escapade at San Quentin. Not Kenneth, certainly. Perhaps, if he and Tom were alone, they could replay it together. He

253 could only tell Betty if he waited for a few years to pass, and then picked a moment when they were lying on a beach in somewhere like Hawaii. He glanced at Betty, chatting with a couple who looked to be in their early thirties. An older man stood to the side, waiting. Philip greeted him, shook hands, and asked if he had any questions. “I’m just curious to know where she stands on the issues.” Philip smiled, “What issues are you most interested in? Do you have kids or grandkids?” “Both, but my real interest is in hiring.” He tucked his left hand into his right armpit, and then used the wrist to support his other arm as he waved it back- and-forth in front of himself. “I’m in personnel for the gas company. We’ve got quotas coming down the pipe line, and I don’t think we have enough Black kids with the skills to fill them.” Philip pierced his lips, gave a slight nod, and put his hands back in his pockets. “What do you see as the solution?” “I’m not sure. The problem may be native intelligence, or it may be a failure in the schools, but we’ve got to find an answer, and real quick.” Philip shrugged. “For the gas company, what skills do you consider most important?” “Well, we’re a big enough company, we can use all kinds: math skills, English skills, people skills. Sometimes what they lack is simple common sense.” The man rocked side to side as he waved his free hand to accentuate his comments. Philip looked past the man, but asked, “Do you see any difference between the older applicants and the ones fresh out of high school?”

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The man shot out both hands, chest high, fingers extended outward, and raised his voice. “They’re not finishing high school! Not the Blacks, not the Mexicans, not even the Poor Whites. We get kids like that coming in all the time. What can we do? We can give them a shovel. We can teach them how to lay pipe—if they can take instruction. But they can’t multiply or divide. They can’t spell. They can’t type. Now the government’s trying to tell us we have to not just hire these people, we even have to get them into management! How’re we going to do that?” Philip turned to the table to grab a brochure. “Well, those are just the kinds of problems my wife would like to solve if she’s elected.” Philip pointed at Betty, who was still talking to the couple. Kenneth had engaged a young man with long hair. “That’s your wife?” “Yes she is.” “I guess I never would have put you two together.” He looked at her sign. “You’re Chinese? I thought maybe it was Czech or something.” He stuck out his hand for an exaggerated parting shake. “Well, I wish you luck.” Then he turned and left, leaving Philip cradling his elbow in the opposite hand. The couple said goodbye to Betty and moved on. She turned to Philip, rising on her toes to whisper in his ear, “What did that man want?” “Mostly to vent. You might have had his vote if you hadn’t gone and married a Chinaman.” “Oh, one of those.” She took Philip’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m glad you took that one, instead of me. I might have poked him in the nose.”

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She turned away to catch a man who had started to pass by without stopping. Philip stepped back to the table to pick up a stack of brochures. Then he went out a few feet beyond Betty to distribute them in the flow of traffic. Across the room, Bob Callahan arrived, drawing considerable attention. Much later, after the doors had closed, Philip might get an opportunity to say “hi.” Philip exhausted his stack of fliers and returned to the table to get more. Kenneth lifted the hanging portion of the tablecloth to access an open box. Then he put four bundles on the table, and handed a fifth to Philip. “Where’d you disappear to this afternoon? Was there a ball game? You were there on the Wharf with us one minute, and the next, I looked around and you were gone?” “Oh, I went to see a friend.” He rubbed his eye with a finger. “I don’t get up here very often.” “Yes. Betty said she thought it might have been something Bishop Pike said that upset you.” Philip considered Betty’s observation, lightly rapping the stack of fliers against his open hand. “Pike’s a strange one. I’m not sure what I make of him.” He turned away from the table and looked for a likely target. Across the room, Bob Callahan waved. Phil waved back, but Callahan had already zeroed in on a voter. Out of the corner of his eye, Philip thought he might have seen Anna, but when he turned to look at the girl directly, this one was shorter, and her face thinner. Her skirt and blouse were tie-died, and beads dangled on strings from a head-band. He held eye contact and reached out with a flier. She had been set to walk past him, but adjusted her direction. She took the flier, studied it for a moment, and looked at Betty. “Is this for her?” “Yes.”

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“How old is she?” The question caught Philip by surprise. He wanted to laugh, but controlled himself to make it a friendly smile. “Don’t you know, you never ask a lady her age?” “Yeah, over thirty, no doubt. There’s a reason we don’t trust you.” She left him and walked on. Philip turned to see if Betty was between conversations. The elderly man she had been talking to was in the act of pinning one of her buttons to his shirt. Then he shook her hand. “Best of success to you.” “Thank you.” She watched him leave and then turned to Philip. He shrugged. “I think I just lost you another vote.” “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I appreciate you being here.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “You take the hostile ones, and I’ll take all the friendlies. I like that. It’s a good division of labor.” “Maybe I should wear a sign.” He spread his hands to frame empty space, “Spoiling for a fight? See me. Free estimates.” Betty lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. Then she let it go. “Why don’t you go around and say hello to Bob. Give him my greetings.” Philip looked across the room and nodded. Betty turned away to collar another voter. Philip tipped his head, just slightly, to the County Supervisor as he passed the candidate’s table. Then he strolled past other tables and candidates. Most were local to the Bay Area, and didn’t interest him. At the Governor’s table, he looked, but did not recognize any of the people manning it. He had intended to keep moving, but a man out front read his name tag as he went by. “Philip Tseng!”

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Philip stopped and faced the man, extending his hand and looking at the man’s own name tag. “I’m Lucas Haag, the Governor’s Clemency Secretary. I’ve been trying to reach you all weekend.” “Oh, yes, my wife mentioned something about that.” “Tomorrow at two, at my house, on Telegraph Hill.” He pulled out his wallet, took a business card, and wrote an address across the bottom. Then he handed it to Philip. Philip studied it closely. Then he looked at Haag. “Is it okay if I bring a friend?” “Who is that?” “His name is Tom Garcia. We’ve sort of been carpooling this week. He’s an advocate against the Death Penalty.” Haag frowned. “Which side are you on?” “Oh,” he paused, “I support the Death Penalty, but he and I have become friends. Today, he specifically asked if he could come to tomorrow’s meeting.” “Well,” Haag closed one eye and contorted his nose and lips to the opposite side, “I guess it would be okay.” He relaxed his face. “The Governor likes to cast a wide net for these hearings. It’s pretty informal. We’ll sit around my living room and have about thirty minutes for him to hear what people want to say. It’s speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-peace.” Philip put the business card in his breast pocket. “It might mean I have to miss the Dodgers and Giants.” “They aren’t here, are they?” “No, they’re in L.A.”

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Haag looked up at the ceiling lights. “So it’s a two o’clock meeting. You book a four o’clock flight. It’s a seven o’clock game. You still might make it.” “Maybe,” Philip smiled, “and the Cubs might come back and take it all.” Philip patted Haag on the shoulder as he went to move on. “Optimism like that is for spring training.” Philip continued on, and his eyes had met Callahan’s, but the lights flickered and—at the microphone—a woman asked for the candidates to come up front, and for everyone else to find a seat. Callahan directed a shrug and a smile toward Philip, and Philip mouthed a big, “Later.” Then Philip retraced his steps back to Betty’s table. He stood behind it, rather than finding a seat. Of the candidates for statewide office, the only attendees were Betty, Callahan, a candidate to replace Callahan, and two candidates for state treasurer. Another dozen candidates seemed local. Philip leaned against the wall and calculated: It would be thirty or forty minutes before Betty or Callahan spoke. Philip scanned the audience. He spotted the gas company personnel man and searched unsuccessfully for the young woman who had wanted to know Betty’s age. He did not see Dempsey Wu. Whether it was thinking of Wu, or it was something left over from the accident, Philip felt the blood drain suddenly from his head, and realized he’d better sit down. He took several quick steps to the nearest empty seat, and sat, aware of his own shallow breathing and the sweating under his suit. He had felt some of the same thing standing behind the post office at San Quentin. Things could quickly have spun out of control had Dempsey seen Philip standing amidst the demonstrators. Philip wrapped his arms around his chest, and quickly readjusted his sore elbow. He had no way of imagining how it might have

259 affected Betty’s candidacy. That would have depended on the slant Wu gave it. Kenneth kept pushing increased name recognition, but it had to be more complicated than that. For himself, at minimum, there would have been the embarrassment— maybe a letter of reprimand from William, as presiding judge—but it would probably have ended short of any kind of formal censure. It might have been forgotten for a while, but someone could have brought it up again in three years, when Philip came up for re-election. Philip studied the candidates who were sitting on the stage. As a judge, at least he wouldn’t have to face a cattle call like this one. If no one challenged him, he wouldn’t even need to run a campaign. The best defense against a challenger would be a long list of endorsements. Philip hung his hands back at his sides and looked around the darkened audience. He could get plenty of endorsements. Haag might be right: with a two o’clock meeting, a four o’clock flight, and a seven o’clock game, everything would have to work without a hitch, but he might make it, if not the national anthem, at least by the home half of the first inning. Philip closed his eyes and tried to calculate who the Dodgers would have pitching. If the rotation ran normally, it would probably be Don Sutton against Gaylord Perry. Tuesday would be Osteen’s turn, and Wednesday Koufax. Koufax. Philip lifted his left hand and set it in his lap, then raised the shoulder and rolled it forward, imagining a windup and a straight, over-the-top pitch—not the sidearm of most lefties. Koufax was an amazing pitcher, with perhaps the purest left arm ever fashioned by God. Still on the mound in his own imagination, Philip returned to a stance checking for signals from his catcher, and thought back to the previous October. With all of that God-given talent, Koufax had turned down the opening game of the World Series, only because it had fallen

260 on Yom Kippur. Philip gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. Yom Kippur—Day of Atonement: Wouldn’t it count if a man atoned a day early? Would Pike have played? If Pike had been a baseball player, would he have had enough—enough what? respect for God? fear of God?—to not play on a Holy day? Philip closed his eyes. Could a Ground-of-All-Things require a Day of Atonement, or does only a personal God require atonement? Philip lifted both of his shoulders, picturing Pike with his hands over his head, almost in some strange windup. Then he dropped his shoulders, placed both hands in his lap, and looked up into the auditorium lights, focused as they were on the stage. They shone brightest around the lectern. Someplace, someone had to be operating those lights. Philip quickly searched the room with his eyes, but couldn’t locate a control booth. It had to be hidden away, perhaps behind stage, like God, master of the situation but invisible. Philip took his hands from his pockets and folded them across his chest. His sore elbow complained, and he dropped the hand to his lap.

Chapter 33

SAN QUENTIN, MONDAY, 1:30 P.M.

Countdown: Three days, nineteen hours, thirty minutes Felicia sat on the sofa and tied her tennis shoes. Alby stood out on the porch, ready to give them a signal as soon as the members of the teatro finished their acto. Anna was already standing at the window, letting Mrs. Noland rub sunscreen on the back of her neck. Felicia stood up. “You ready?” Anna turned and nodded but said nothing. “You both be careful. And you be sure they’ve got life jackets, before you even get in the boat.” Felicia joined them at the window, setting her shoulder bag on the window sill. “Eric said they did.” Earlier, they had watched the eight-oared scull cross the water below them, west to east, and pass from their view. It reminded Felicia of the zapateros she remembered chasing in irrigation ditches and the Rio Hondo River—long, narrow insects that rode the water’s surface tension with outrigger legs, two on each side when alone, or four when locked in their mating position. As often as rocks might be thrown at them, the little moscas came back to ride the surface. They were unsinkable. That was a good omen. Later, Eric had come to check in. As coxswain, Felicia’s task would be to hold the thin cable that kept the rudder pointing the scull always at Vallejo. Anna would sit in the middle, facing Felicia, like all the other rowers, her back to Vallejo. If Anna could manage to just break the surface with her oar, and keep

262 pace with the men, she could row, but if her oar got too deep, the water resistance could rip it from her hand. The better alternative would be for her to simply hold her oar above the water. Below them, Tony and Frank worked a small-but-friendly audience in the small space beside the post office, while the unfriendly members of their audience stayed across the street in the same spot they’d had the day before. Yesterday’s barefoot swordsman was dressed today in a black executioner’s hood. In place of the curved sword, he carried a giant double-bladed ax, fastened to a broom stick. Tony sat on the ground with his legs stretched out in front of him. He wore a loose shirt of wide, black and white stripes and a black cap with no bill. In his hands, he held up a set of “prison bars”—borrowed from a clothes rack, painted black, and turned sideways to be vertical. Frank wore a Stetson hat and carried a long whip, which he cracked on the ground after several of Tony’s lines. Tony alternated between cowering from the whip and laughing as he jabbered some retort at Frank. Across the street, the Executioner hollered objections to Tony’s lines. A collection of reporters held out microphones or cameras. How could Felicia get copies of their footage? A dozen demonstrators held signs as they watched the acto. Felicia looked toward the prison’s North Block. The light on the smoke stack was still red. The baby jerked sharply in her womb. Felicia looked down and rubbed her hand over her belly. The idea of sitting two-and-a-half hours in the boat scared her, but in her mind’s eye, she retraced the route by road through Petaluma. It really would add four days to the walk. When she looked up, Frank in his Stetson had crossed the road and was trying to put his arm around the Executioner, like they were great buddies, offering him the whip while Tony—still seated on the ground—hollered ad lib.

263

The Executioner kept moving away as Frank continued to crowd him. Finally Frank ran back across the street to take the set of bars. He held them high and advanced back on the Executioner. The crowd parted to let him through. Tony glanced up at the porch and gestured to Alby. Alby turned and motioned for Felicia and Anna. Felicia picked up her bag. “Let’s go.” Mrs. Noland opened the door and held it for the other two to pass through. Then she followed them down the stairs. On the post office side of the street, Imelda flipped the switch on a hand- held public address system. In one hand she carried the battery-operated amplifier unit, with its bell-shaped speaker. With her other hand she lifted the microphone to her mouth. “Ladies and gentlemen, Señors y Señoras, we now interrupt our regular programming for a special announcement.” Imelda pointed at the staircase, and waited as attention turned from Frank to Felicia and Anna. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce to you, Felicia Viramontes, the sister of Eusebio Viramontes, who will also introduce our other special guest.” From across the street the Executioner hollered, “Geeze! Spare no schmaltz while we’re at it. We have a sob story coming now!” Felicia reached the bottom stair and Imelda met her half way. Felicia took the microphone. “Thank you all for coming here today. My brother and I appreciate it very much.” “Where is he? Where is he?” The Executioner held his ax at the ready. She tried to ignore him. “We believe that justice will only be achieved in America when the people rise up and demand it.” “Oh, I do. I do. Give him a dose, and it’s ‘Adios.’ That’s justice, baby.”

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A big man with a hand painted sign turned toward the Executioner. “Shut- up already. Let her speak.” “Yeah, yeah.” Felicia continued, “I am here today because my family doesn’t have the money to hire expensive lawyers. Poor people and people of color have only each other.” A news cameraman moved closer on her left side. She lifted her chin and panned the audience with her eyes. Would she even be where she could see his report this evening? “I want to thank everyone who has come here today to show their support for my brother. We will stand together in solidarity against this genocide. I invite the people of California and the whole world to join with me in a march to Sacramento. If you cannot walk with us, then please write letters and make telephone calls. We’re going to demand that the Governor listen to us— listen to our complaints.” Felicia paused. She had been rehearsing the same speech in her mind for almost three days, but somehow she had started wrong, and did not know how to return to what she had prepared. Neither was she sure whether to let Anna explain herself, or to do it for her. Felicia started. “I have someone here who will be walking with me, and she is very important to this.” She held the microphone away from her mouth while she coughed. Then she spoke, “I will let her introduce herself.” She stuck the mike out for Anna to speak. “Hello, my name is Anna Sorenson.” She paused and Felicia looked through the crowd for Judge Tseng. He was not there. “Eusebio Viramontes was arrested and put into prison for what he did to me, when I was just a little girl. He has been in prison a very long time.” “Oh, I don’t even believe this!” The Executioner held up his knee and used it to snap the broomstick pole of his ax into two pieces. “We need some violins.

265

We can’t have this without violins.” He placed the blade end between his shoulder and chin while he used the other half as a bow. “La, la, la, la, la.” Several people glowered at him. “That’s okay.” Anna spoke directly to the Executioner. “I understand.” She picked up speed. “For a long time I was very angry at him, too. I wanted to see him killed. But now God has taught me how to forgive him. Now I love him with the love of Jesus.” “Oh, give me a break!” “So that’s why I’m joining in this march. I want to ask the Governor to spare the life of Eusebio Viramontes.” A reporter called out, “Have you spoken with Eusebio Viramontes?” “Not yet,” Anna shook her head and pointed at the red light. “The prison is on lockdown.” “If the lockdown continues, will you ask the warden for special permission?” Anna turned to Felicia, “Is that possible?” Felicia looked at Mrs. Noland, standing off to the side. “Can we do that?” Nanna shrugged and smiled. “You can always ask. The worst can happen is he says, ‘No.’” Another reporter broke in, “The execution is scheduled for Friday at 10:00 o’clock. How many days do you expect it to take for you to march to Sacramento?” Anna handed the mike to Felicia, who answered, “We’re going to walk as far as we can, every day. We don’t know exactly how long it will take us.” Then she hesitated. It seemed like there was something else they ought to do, but she

266 couldn’t think what it might be. She handed the mike to Imelda, and turned back to Anna, “Okay. Let’s go.” They locked arms, Felicia in the center, with Anna on her left, and Imelda—still carrying the PA system—on her right. Imelda lifted the microphone and yelled, “Clemency for Eusebio! Clemency for Eusebio!” Others joined the chant. Felicia was only aware of cameramen running ahead of her as she walked down the middle of the road, and a general movement behind her. The chant continued, though above it, a lone voice hollered, “Gimmickry for Useless Boy! Gimmickry for Useless Boy!” A car pulled to the side to let them pass. A reporter ran backwards in front of Felicia, holding out his microphone, “How did you two get to know each other?” With her elbow locked with Imelda, Felicia had only minimal movement of her hand, but she pointed across at Anna. “She came to visit me, at my apartment.” “How long have you known each other?” Felicia thought back. “Since Friday.” “When is your baby due?” “End of October.” Still walking backward, he turned the microphone to Anna. “How would the world be a better place if the Governor granted Eusebio Viramontes clemency?” Anna spoke loudly to be heard over the continuing chant. “Forgiveness is always better than hatred. I think God gave us an imperfect world so that we

267 could have the experience of helping to make it better. Helping to make it better is how we learn about ourselves.” “What is your biggest worry as you start this walk?” Anna and Felicia looked at each other, but Imelda answered, “Blisters and sunburn.” The reporter couldn’t keep up, and moved to the side while the marchers passed. They were out of the village and passing under the freeway. Alby ran ahead, standing in the crosswalk at the end of the off ramp and holding up his hand to ask a car to wait while the group crossed in front of it. Then he pointed over a stretch of weeds to an old, wooden pier. The footing looked a little uneven and Felicia hesitated, but Anna dropped elbows and led her by the hand. At the far end of the pier, the scull waited, three crew members already in their seat and four more hurrying to get into place. In some patches, the soft sand made walking difficult, not only for Felicia and Anna, but for the reporters as they scurried to get a better angle for their cameras. They reached the pier and Imelda stood to the side. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Señors y Señoras, the first leg of this march is by row boat. We invite everyone to join us in Vallejo, in about two and a half hours. Felicia and Anna will come on shore at Sandy Beach Road. Then we will march through Vallejo on Sonoma Blvd. Please tell all of your friends and come join us as we march to the Governor.” Felicia looked across the Bay toward Vallejo, barely visible in the haze. Eric, the only remaining member of the crew still standing on the pier, handed her an orange life-jacket and pointed to the arm holes. Then he handed a jacket to Anna. His blond hair fell beyond his shoulders. Anna had her straps fastened

268 before Felicia could decide how it was supposed to fit together, and Eric returned to help her get it arranged. He had to loosen two straps before it would fit around her. From the pier to the boat required climbing down a ladder, perhaps six or seven feet. The crew members held the boat steady while Anna maneuvered into the seat in the middle of the scull. Then they moved the boat forward to position the ladder beside the very back end. To reach the first rung, Felicia had to get down on her knees. She suddenly felt very awkward and pregnant, but cameramen had followed them to the end of the pier. She had no choice. Someone steadied her from below, and guided her toward the seat. She caught the sides of the boat with her hands, and tried sliding back into the seat—a small shelf with a curved back and tight sides. Eric followed her down the ladder. “Is that a little snug?” “Yes.” “Can you fit at all?” Felicia shifted one hip forward of the other, relieving some of the pressure. “Yes, I can do it.” Eric turned to look at Anna, who was even broader. Then he turned back to Felicia. “Coxswains are usually pretty small.” She wanted to be away from the dock. “I’m okay.” From the top of the pier, a reporter called, “Have you ever been in a boat like this before?” Felicia looked up. “No,” and heard the identical answer from Anna. Eric sat down in the first seat in front of her and fastened the straps that would hold his feet to the board in front of him. Then he pointed to the metal cable running in a circle around Felicia’s seat. “That’s where you hold the rudder. Grab it on each side.”

269

She took each side between a thumb and first finger. Eric pushed hard against the pier, and the scull swung clear so that on that side had unimpaired movement. He turned back to Felicia. “It doesn’t take much—just a slight nudge.” He put his two hands together to form a rectangle. “That rudder’s only about the size of two credit cards, but just a little tug will point this baby where you want to go. To get us started, though, you’ll need to give it a pretty good pull on the left.” She pulled and the oarsmen dipped and pulled. Anna kept her oar elevated until she understood the pattern, and then tried to imitate the stroke. “Longer, but not so deep,” called out the oarsman behind her. Felicia held tight on the left until the front of the boat came around and pointed at their destination. Then she tugged lightly back and forth to get a feel for the rudder. If she slid her hips slightly forward, she could rest her elbows on the sides of the boat, but it stressed the muscles of her back. She tried to sit up straight, but the sides—formed in fiberglass—needed another inch in width. She leaned to one side, her right hand holding the cable with her elbow resting on the boat, and her left hand in her lap. On the PA system from the pier, Imelda hollered, “We’ll see you in Vallejo.”

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