His face aflame and the vein in his neck throbbing. If she had the pruning shears then, she would have snipped that vein like the stem of a rose.
When he was finished, she asked him to let her go. Didn't beg. Just asked, saying she would never cause trouble. But he just pulled up his jeans, cinched his belt, and left her room.
Now she carried the flowers by their thorny stems to the kitchen, avoiding the gaze of the guard. The building was old, maybe a hundred years. To Marisol, it looked like something from England she had seen on television.
Four stories with turrets and towers, painted the same color as the pink blushing roses. To her, the house resembled a steamship, chimneys like smokestacks and wide porches like covered decks. But it was a burdel, a den of debauchery. And for her, a prison.
Jacqueline would be in the kitchen preparing the evening meal for el jefe 's guests. A black woman from Georgia, Jacqueline had befriended Marisol, giving her ice for her bruises and advice on dealing with her situation.
'Just don't rile Mr. Simeon. You don't wanna get yourself buried in the cellar like some of the girls.'
The warning shook her. Marisol had heard about the cellar from the putas parlanchinas. Stories of pregnant women who refused abortions. Forced to drink poison, they miscarried. Sometimes, they died. The cellar was said to contain the bones of these women and their unborn babies.
Jacqueline said the cellar scared her. Cobwebs and dirt floors and the spirits of the dead. Yesterday, she asked Marisol to haul up a case of liquor. Marisol tiptoed down the creaking wooden staircase. Even with its shadows and musty corners, the cellar was not as frightening as the cook had said. No ghosts hiding in the dark.
Marisol took her time. Examined the shelves of canned foods, bottles of liquor and wine. Found a door with a rusted iron frame, and vertical bars. Through the bars, nothing but darkness, and air as cool as in a mine shaft. An antique padlock fastened the door to its frame.
Marisol did not ask Jacqueline about the door or where it led. She didn't have to. Two days earlier, Marisol had been carrying a tray of clean glasses to the room called the 'library,' but really it was a bar. The bartender, a man in his fifties, was talking to a customer, saying that his grandfather had worked for Mr. Rutledge's grandfather.
'In those days, half the Legislature drove down here on weekends. Told their wives they had meetings at the Valley Improvement Society. That's the empty building next door. They'd play billiards and drink whiskey and take bribes to divvy up land and water for the big growers. Then the old tomcats would sneak through a tunnel right into our basement and up the stairs. All of 'em sniffing after pussy!'
The customer laughed, and the bartender joined in. Barely noticing Marisol stacking glasses on the shelves.
Now she planned her escape. The rusted iron door in the basement must lead to the tunnel. The tunnel led to the building next door. The road was just beyond. That would be her route. She prayed that the tunnel would not collapse and bury her with the other corpses, cold and forgotten belowground.
She knew there was a chance the guard would catch her. But she vowed to fight until one of them was dead. With that thought, she tucked the pruning shears into her apron, her fingers caressing the cool steel blade.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
Chief Javier Cardenas felt powerless. An L.A.P.D. detective was roaming his office like a jungle cat.
Just how much does Detective Eugene Rigney know?
Cardenas had never faced anything like this. He could scarcely remember a time he hadn't been taking orders from Uncle Sim. They had an unspoken arrangement. If Cardenas did what he was told, Simeon would boost his career, make his life more comfortable, and protect him.
Neither man had ever used the word 'bribe.' Not even 'gift' or 'present.' Sometimes, Simeon would say, 'I'm sending over a little something for the fridge.' Slabs of freshly butchered ribs would arrive on ice, a stack of cold cash bagged separately. Other times, a Rutledge truck would deliver cartons of vegetables, Ben Franklin's quizzical face peering out from beneath the lettuce leaves.
Whenever Cardenas had a problem, Simeon was there to help. Except today. Hell, Uncle Sim's to blame for the spot I'm in.
Cardenas put on his friendly smile and leaned back in his ergonomically correct chair. His desk was an asymmetrical glass slab mounted on blocks of blue glass that resembled chunks of glacial ice. Outside, the thermometer on the Rutledge State Bank read 110. Inside the police station, the smooth, silent flow of the A/C kept the temperature a brisk 72.
So why am I sweating?
Maybe because at this moment, a swinging dick from L.A. was inspecting the office as if it were a crime scene.
'Never saw a cop shop like this.' Detective Rigney stared at a lionfish darting in and out of a coral house in the chief's aquarium. 'Must have cost a fortune.'
'Private donations.' He chose not to say that the donations all came from Simeon Rutledge. From the high- tech communications gear to the cushy leather chairs and sofas, it was all Uncle Sim's doing.
'Looks like a sports bar,' Rigney said, checking out the five LCD monitors on the chief's back wall. It was the only wall not made of glass. The aquarium, six feet wide and twenty feet long, formed the wall with the bullpen. Glass block walls on either side separated the chief's quarters from adjacent offices.
The glass blocks multiplied the images on the other side. Cardenas often wondered if Uncle Sim was sending him a message there. Things are not always what they seem. Or, Someone's always watching. Or maybe, People in glass houses shouldn't peer too deeply into other people's lives.
Not that the place reflected Uncle Sim's taste. He did his business at his grandfather's rolltop desk with its hundred nooks and crannies, a piece of furniture as bulky as a battleship. For the Rutledge Municipal Building, Simeon hired a San Francisco designer, a noodle-necked young man who blew into town in black leather pants and a red silk scarf. By the time he left, Cardenas had an office where he couldn't scratch his nuts without being observed by meter maids crossing the bullpen to grab a demitasse from the gleaming titanium espresso machine.
That, too, hadn't escaped Rigney's notice. 'You running a police station or a Starbucks here?' Sarcasm steaming like milk in a latte.
'We find that a pleasant atmosphere helps morale.'
Cardenas nearly biting his tongue, thinking he sounded like one of those dweebs in Human Resources.
Rigney scanned the office as if he wanted to take prints off the artwork, starting with the granite sculpture of a horse pulling a plow.
Just what was the detective thinking? Cardenas wondered. The chief knew Rigney was a cop in deep trouble. A blown sting operation. A judge's suicide. Jimmy Payne's escape.
Rigney studied the chief through weary cop eyes. 'So I'm still trying to figure out why you called L.A.P.D., asking about Payne.'
'I had a report about this lawyer causing a scene over at the Rutledge corporate office. I ran his name, found the outstanding warrants. I called.'
'But you ended up talking to Homicide, not Warrants.'
'The call was misdirected. Maybe that's why the detective seemed so confused.'
'Lou Parell may be fat and lazy, but he's not stupid. He says you never mentioned Payne was up here.'
'Your detective is mistaken. Why else would I have called?'
'You tell me, Chief. Driving up here today, I kept asking myself: Why's this small-town cop mixed up with an asshole like Royal Payne?'
'All I know, Mr. Payne became agitated when he couldn't locate a woman he thought was working at Rutledge Farms.'
'Where'd he pop up next?'
'He didn't. Hasn't been seen since he left the Rutledge office a couple days ago.'
