Judas Horse

“Poppy. Don’t. That kind of talk exploits women,” I announced crisply.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It didn’t matter; I liked the sound of my brave new voice. I had endured. I was almost an FBI agent. I could make pronouncements now.

“You sure you don’t want something from the soda machine?” “What’s the hurry? Take a load off.”

I plunked down on the bed. The frame wobbled like Jell-O, dipping me up and down as Poppy unpacked the old suitcase that had belonged to my mother, Gwen. It matched a makeup case she used to own, “a train case,” they called it, with unfolding trays that would rise up and present their treasures as you opened the lid. She died of liver cancer when I was fourteen. My father was an immigrant from El Salvador, a man I barely knew. I remember my mom as a passive and defeated person, but she must have had moxie to fall in love with a brown-skinned man in the 1960s. It would be years before I understood the circumstances under which my father, Miguel Sanchez, disappeared.

At a moment like this, you crave completion — parents, aunts and uncles and cousins, noisy and embarrassing, to shower you with affirmation and envy. Steve had a ton of family coming down from West Virginia; it was unsettling to be in that ice-cold motel room with Poppy, alone.

“So,” I asked him, “any words of wisdom as I go out into the big bad world?” He considered. “My father always told me, ‘Wear a rubber.’” “Nice.”

“What’s the matter?” he teased. “Does that exploit women, too?” Just outside the window was a poisonous-looking tree with ugly hanging clusters of lavender blossoms and long green pods — something that belonged in a swamp, something out of a southern horror story, whose evil perfume had the power to put you in a stupor.

Maybe that was it.

“That advice sure comes in handy with my new little artist friend from Venice,” he mused, not wanting to let it go.

“You have an artist friend?”

“Very friendly,” Poppy insisted. “But she dropped me because she wanted a younger guy. Can you believe that?” Poppy laid a hand towel on the sink and carefully set out the double-edged razor that screwed open, a shoehorn, and the black leather brush that strapped into the palm of his hand, with which he curry-combed his immaculate white crewcut.

I watched sulkily.

A few weeks before, at midnight, the supervisors had rounded up the new agents and led us to a room lit only by candles. We stood in a silent circle, sweating it out. They pulled that stuff all the time: We know, and you don’t. A supervisor wearing black stepped to the center of the circle and ceremoniously drew a dagger from his belt. A second supervisor was handing out sealed envelopes. There was an ominous pause. Now what? Kill your partner? As the dagger passed from hand to hand, we were allowed to open our envelopes — and cheers and shouts filled the room. It had been the Bureau’s memorable way of letting us know our first field assignments.

“I’ve been assigned to Los Angeles,” I told Poppy finally.

He did not acknowledge the joy of having me close to home. “Do whatever it takes to get on the bank robbery squad,” he advised. “Hottest spot in town.” “I know.” I took a very deep breath. “The only problem is, my boyfriend has been assigned to Miami, so we don’t know what to do.” “You have a boyfriend?”

I broke into a great big smile. “Yes, his name is Steve.”

“Do I have to meet this cracker?”

I had not yet understood that the more I wanted love from Poppy, the more he would withhold it.

“Steve is not a cracker. He’s very intelligent.”

“What about common sense?”

“He has that, too.”

As a lieutenant with the Long Beach police department, Poppy had liaisoned with the Bureau on hundreds of bank heists. Now he was hanging his full-dress lieutenant’s uniform on the rod that passed for a closet.

“Is that what you’re going to wear to the graduation?”

I couldn’t help it. I was touched.

“Damn right. Show those FBI bastards where you come from,” he said.

When we arrived on campus, he was curious about everything.

“Why do they have a bust of Jefferson? When did you say these buildings were built?” He took pictures of the brick corridors. He took a shot of the grass where our groundhog lived. He stood a long time by the wall commemorating FBI service martyrs. He read every one of their plaques.

“Those are the real heroes,” he whispered reverentially, too awed to encroach upon their dignity with a photo flash.

The Academy had shed its austerity to become a college campus on visiting day, where awkwardness and pride prevailed. We who wore the uniform (same old tactical pants and polo shirts) beamed at one another in fraternal spirit. Traffic in the hallways puddled and slowed. You could no longer charge around the corners, there were too many soft-bellied moms and dads wearing bad clothes. Civilians. I felt a sloppy love for all of them — these were my people now, whose freedom I would soon swear to give my life to protect.

Out of the dark, frigid motel room, out now in the mix, I was able to recover the sense of myself that had been growing steadily those past fourteen weeks, and here it was: I had been inducted into the elite. The brothers and sisters with whom I had shared the crucible were at that moment closer than blood. We had secret ceremonies and hidden powers those innocent visitors crowding the steamy glass atrium for coffee and cookies knew nothing about. All of them — including Poppy — were outside the cult. I was glad of it. I forgave them for it. And I was filled with happiness.

“Here he is!” I exclaimed as Steve Crawford, ramrod straight and youthfully muscled beneath the tight polo shirt, emerged from the crowd. I introduced him as “my boyfriend,” which sounded soft and girlish and out of sync in that military environment.

Steve and I smiled at each other encouragingly. I had tried to prep him, but my convoluted descriptions of Poppy’s hot-and-cold behavior only made him totally uptight, afraid to step on a land mine. As a result, Steve drew up tall and presented as a locked-jaw FBI newbie — exactly the kind of condescending fed who rolled over Poppy on the job.

I noticed I had stopped breathing when they shook hands.

“My folks don’t get here until tomorrow. Let me treat you to dinner, Lieutenant Grey,” Steve offered.

“My treat. You two are the star graduates,” my grandfather added resentfully, eyeing us back and forth.

It was early evening when we pulled into Fredericksburg, the sun a fireball behind the hickory trees. We crossed a bridge where flame-tinged water dragged over shallows of black stones.

I had been to town only once, for somebody’s birthday, even though it was just twenty minutes from the Academy. We had so much studying, we rarely left. The Board Room, a cafeteria by day, became a full-on bar at night, in order to minimize the need for outside contact.

The tidy Colonial churches and side-gabled homes in the historic district of Fredericksburg were enchanting — until you got out of the car and staggered through the lifeless heat. All the quaint little stores were closed. Poppy, Steve, and I moved at half speed, but not fast enough to avoid a plaque at the site of a famous five-and- dime store, where, back in the sixties, a young African-American woman had been the first to sit at a white’s-only lunch counter.

My stomach was hurting even before Poppy went into a tirade about “good-for-nothing blacks.” I prayed none of the midwestern tourists, materializing slowly out of the spongy air, could hear his words.

But Steve did.

“If you don’t mind, sir, I don’t appreciate that kind of talk. I have a cousin married to an African-American doctor, and he’s a terrific guy.” “I used to be like you,” my grandfather replied, “until I was a patrol officer in the worst neighborhood in Los Angeles.” “We don’t want to hear it, Poppy,” I said.

I was only in my twenties, not far removed from a childhood that had been dominated by his self-important