Dropped off the face of the earth.
Jack always hopes that he's in Mexico somewhere, in some village by the sea, drinking cold beer to some sweet canciones. He knows it's far more likely that Teddy's crew took him out.
And it's my fault, Jack thinks.
I didn't do the job.
I didn't do it well.
And I got that good gentleman killed.
As Teddy Kuhl walks, as Kazzy Azmekian gets two million bucks from California Fire and Life, as Jack pleads out to perjury in exchange for unsupervised probation and his uncontested dismissal from the department.
All through this Jack doesn't say shit. Doesn't rat out Brian Bentley, doesn't say a word in his own defense, doesn't offer any explanations. Just takes the ass kicking and goes.
Worst thing is, he can't get a job.
28
Any job.
He's a lying felon. A corrupt, brutal cop. And with that kind of reference he can't get a gig asking, Would you like fries with that, sir? And his dad's retired, so that's out, and then a few months later his dad dies while on a sport boat fishing off Catalina, and Jack disappears inside himself into his trailer across the PCH from Capo Beach and drinks beer for breakfast and surfs but after a couple of months he stops surfing.
Letty wants to stick it out with him. Letty is there, man, she ain't going anywhere. She is one hundred percent solid gold, she walks the talk. She'll even walk down the aisle with him, have kids, do a life. She tells him that and he looks at her like she's some freaked-out skell and says, 'Married? What are you, drunk?'
She starts to answer, No, asshole, you are, but she swallows her temper and says, 'I thought you wanted to get married.'
He laughs. 'I don't even have a job!'
She says, 'I have a job.'
'What, you'll support us?'
'Sure,' Letty says. 'Until you find something.'
'There's nothing to find.'
'It's not like you're busting your ass looking.'
Unless they got jobs at the bottom of Budweiser cans.
'What do you want from me?' Jack asks.
'I want us to get married,' Letty says. 'I want us to have a life. I want kids.'
Jack says, 'I won't bring kids into this shitty world.'
'Jack, you got beat,' Letty says. 'You lost a case-'
'I lost everything.'
'Not everything.'
'I got a man killed!'
'Not everything, Jack!' Letty yells.
'Yeah,' Jack says. 'What are you doing here, anyway?'
'What am I doing here?'
'Go away, Letty.'
'I don't want to.'
'I want you to.'
'No, you don't,' Letty says. 'Don't throw me away, Jack. I'm too good to throw away.'
'You're too good to hold on to, Letty.'
'Don't give me that self-pitying shit. If I didn't want to be here, I'd-'
'What are you, fucking deaf? I'm telling you to get out! Leave! Go! Split! Pintale!'
'I'm gone.'
First word in Spanish he ever says to her and it's Go away.
'I'm gone,' she repeats.
'Good.'
'Yeah, good.'
She slams the door shut behind her.
Two months later Jack's unemployment has about run out when Billy Hayes trots his cowboy boots up Jack's steps and into the trailer where Jack's slumped on the sofa, drinking a beer and watching the Dodgers on TV Jack recognizes him as the insurance guy he jammed up, so Jack asks, 'What, are you here to give me shit?'
Billy says, 'No, I'm here to give you a goddamn job.'
Jack stares at him for a long time, then says, 'Mr. Hayes, I did everything they said I did.'
'You have some construction background,' Goddamn Billy says. 'And you already been to fire school, so you save me some money right there. I figure you can make a pretty decent adjuster. Basically, it's putting people's houses back together. You want the job or not?'
'I want the job.'
'Seven o'clock tomorrow morning,' Goddamn Billy says. 'And leave the beer at home-'
'I will.'
'— unless you bring one for me.'
So Jack goes to work for Cal Fire and Life.
Twelve years later he's sitting in Nicky Vale's mommy's driveway getting a phone call from the past.
29
There's no smoke in Pamela Vale's lungs.
Is what the woman whispers over the phone.
I shouldn't be telling you this but I thought someone should know, the autopsy showed no smoke in her lungs.
30
Dr. Winston Ng is thrilled to see Jack.
'Go away' is what Ng says when Jack appears in his office. Ng has just taken a minute to sit down and have a cup of old rancid coffee and he doesn't want to be hassled. And Jack Wade is a hassle.
'You had a fire fatality in here this morning,' Jack says. 'Mrs. Pamela Vale?'
'No kidding?'
Jack says, 'She didn't have any smoke in her lungs.'
'Who have you been talking to?'
I don't know, Jack thinks. But he asks, 'Did you test for carbon monoxide?'
Ng nods. 'I tested her blood for a level of carboxyhemoglobin.'
Carbon monoxide loves red blood cells. CO enters the body, seeks out those red blood cells and goes there. In the body of a person who dies from CO asphyxiation, you'd expect to find, for instance, two hundred times more CO than oxygen in the red blood cells. You'd find a high level of carbon monoxide in the blood.
'What was the saturation level?' Jack asks.
'Under 9 percent,' Ng answers.
