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Decker paused.
“You’re working?” Rina asked.
“Just tying up odds and ends. I’ll put it off.”
“Don’t bother. I bought my ticket this afternoon, so I’ll see you in two days. Want to take down all the flight information?”
“Yeah, let me get a pen.” He rummaged through a junk drawer and came up with a red pen and the back of an old electric bill. He placed the paper on the wall and said, “Go ahead.”
Rina stated all the pertinent data, then gave Jacob the telephone.
“Hi, Yonkel,” Decker said. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.”
“How’s school?”
“Fine.”
“How’s basketball?”
“Fine.”
“How many lay-ups did you do yesterday?”
“Four.”
“Terrific.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you taking good care of your eema for me?”
“Yes.”
“Being good to your grandparents?”
“Yes.”
“Great,” Decker said. “I miss you, kiddo.”
“Peter?”
“What, Jakie?”
“When can we come back to your ranch?”
Decker sighed, hesitated. The kid was a sweetie. Decker pictured him talking on the phone, big blue eyes wide with innocence. He said, “Honey, you’re welcome here anytime your eema says it’s okay.”
“I miss the horses.”
“They miss you, too.”
“Okay, ’bye. Here’s Shmuli.”
Rina’s elder son came on the line.
“I’m upset,” Sammy said.
“What’s wrong?” Decker asked.
“Why can’t we come to L.A. with Eema? It’s not fair!”
“Sammy, I’d love for you guys to come out here—”
“So why can’t we come with Eema on Wednesday?”
“Because there’re things that your eema and I have to discuss privately.”
“So we’ll wait in the other room while you guys talk.”
“It’s not that simple, honey.”
“Eema just doesn’t want us around.”
“No, honey, that’s not true.”
“It is true. You’re just defending her.”
Decker paused a moment. The boy had to be handled carefully.
“Sammy, honey, try to understand this. I haven’t seen your eema in six months. We’re kind of like strangers, and it’s going to take us a while to get to know each other again. Now, I want to know your eema real well before you and your brother and I get reacquainted. That way I can pay attention to you guys and not have to worry about your mother. Does that make sense to you?”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“Are you and Eema fighting?” Sammy asked.
“No, Sam, not at all.”
“I mean, you’re not breaking up, are you?”
“No.”
“Because if you are and you’re just trying to protect me …”
“We’re not breaking up.”
“Well okay … Peter, can you talk her into taking us?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea now.”
“Then when can we come out?”
“Before baseball season’s over.”
“Baseball season! That could take three more months.”
“One thing at a time, Sammy,” Decker said. “Let me talk to your eema first.”
“You sure you’re not hiding some bad news from me?”
“Sammy, I promise you, I’ll see you before the summer’s over,” Decker said.
“Okay,” Sammy answered sullenly. “Here’s Eema again.”
Decker felt tense. The kid always wore him out. Sammy was a typical firstborn—precocious, sharp as a tack. He’d been the light of his father’s eye, Rina had told him. His father’s death had hit him very hard, made him very suspicious of losing people he loved.
Rina came back on the line.
“They’re angry I’m not bringing them home with me,” she said. “Especially Shmuli.”
“I heard,” Decker said.
“They miss Los Angeles. They miss you. I miss you, too.”
“Then come home!”
The line went quiet.
“You still with me?” Decker asked.
“I’m still here,” she said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. How are your studies with Rav Schulman?”
“Fine.”
“What are you learning—oh darn! The doorbell’s ringing. It’s probably my sister-in-law. I’m not wearing a shaytel, and Esther’s going to yell at me for answering the door with my hair uncovered.”
“Tell her to shove it up—”
“Peter.”
“She doesn’t approve of me, I don’t have to approve of her.”
“Esther’s not the problem, although she has problems. Dear God, I never realized the extent of her problems. Unfortunately, now they’ve become my problems and—now, she’s banging at the door. Any moment one of my neighbors is going to stick a head out and ask what’s wrong. Tiny apartments they have here. I feel like a laboratory rat. Things are really a mess. I’ve got to go.”
“Wait. Don’t send me off like that.”
“Love you,” she said.
“Love you, too.”
Head pounding, Decker stretched, then filled the dog bowl with food. He opened the kitchen drawer and took out a vial of aspirin. He washed down two pills with a cold Dos Equis and looked at his watch. Six-fifteen—still plenty of daylight left to work out the horses. The temperature had dropped to a comfortable 82 degrees. An hour with the animals, another hour of study, a couple of hours of sleep, then a date with gumshoes from six over the mountains.
Hooray for Hollywood.
6
The Hollywood substation was a brick building—square and windowless—landscaped with three Monterey pines sprouting from a rectangular patch of dirt. Across the street were the requisite cheap motel—a place to spend the night when your man was in jail—and two bailbonds’ store-fronts whose doors never closed.
Decker climbed the front steps and entered the reception area. The room was walled with redbrick and yellow plaster, the front desk colored Day-Glo orange. The flooring was ancient yellow tile, the grout permanently blackened. In the center of the room, inlaid in the tile, was a red-and-black granite “Hollywood Boulevard” pavement star, the words LAPD HOLLYWOOD STATION #6 inlaid in brass. A hype was leaning against a coke machine, swaying on his feet to keep his balance. A fat man stood against the side wall, sipping coffee, checking his watch against the station’s clock. Two teenage black girls, wearing shorts and tank tops, sat on the attached bench at the back of the room, their fingers twirling the cornrows of their hair, lips slightly parted, eyes fixed upon the star as if it represented a myriad of fallen dreams.
Decker showed his gold badge to the desk sergeant and went inside the detectives’ reception room. The detective manning the phones had an amoebic ink stain on the pocket of his shirt. He was balding and needed a shave.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Decker from Foothill,” Decker said. “I’m looking for George Andrick.” He showed the detective his badge.
“I’m Rados,” he said. He regarded the chalkboard duty roster. “Andrick’s on Robbery. He’s in the field. Should be back soon.”
“Then I’ll grab myself some coffee and wait at his desk.”
Rados handed Decker an unused Styrofoam cup. “Help yourself to the swill in the back.”
“Thanks.”
Cup in hand, Decker entered the squad room. It was bigger than Foothill’s, carpeted, and had metal desks instead of tables. Each unit was indicated by burnt-wood signs hanging from the ceiling. Robbery was in the back, left side, sandwiched between the lockers and CAPS—crimes against persons. Andrick’s place of honor was in the middle-left of a capital I-shaped arrangement of desks. A supervising detective sat at the head of the I, reading a memo, his lips curled into a sneer. He looked to be in his late forties, his face scored with wrinkles, his shoulders packed with muscle. He noticed Decker’s badge and stood. They were about the same height.
“Medino,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Decker. I called earlier. I understand Andrick was the field investigator for a rape case couple of days ago. Perp was booked here, transferred downtown. His name was Abel Atwater.”
Medino said. “The gimp.”
“That’s him.”
“Scrawny thing.”
“I’d like to look over the file.”
“Andrick has it locked, and I don’t have the key.”
“I’ll wait.”
Medino shrugged. “Suit yourself. Coffeepot’s over to the right.”
“Thanks.”
Decker poured himself a cup—black mud. He sipped as he walked back to the desk. “You guys have gotten carpets and new desks.”
