Zack had been in bed, waiting for me to come out of the bathroom and join him. He was so happy to have his baby back. I could tell that he was ready for a great night. I left the bathroom and entered the bedroom wearing the purple negligee that he liked best. He flung off the covers so that I could get a good look at his rock-hard, throbbing dick.
“Come get it, baby — come to Daddy,” he said.
With the gun behind my back, I moved seductively toward the bed. I shot him immediately.
Then I called the police. Told them that I’d just killed my lover. Pleaded guilty in court and was sentenced to fifteen years to life.
I’ve told my story. To some degree it’s been a cleansing process. I now feel straight with the street. Yet I may never be straight in the eyes of God.
Coyote hunt
by Ruben Castaneda
Mount Pleasant, N.W.
Cort DeLojero sauntered past the torched police cruisers, past wary cops in full riot gear gathered in groups of four and five.
He picked his way through hundreds of broken beer bottles strewn about the street.
A riot cop caught the forlorn look on Cort’s face and cracked, “You missed the party.”
Cort grimaced. He walked past a burned-out cruiser that had been driven by a deputy chief and muttered, “Goddamnit.”
Cort was the night cops reporter for the Washington Tribune He’d spent most of the night sitting in a company sedan in a parking lot at Bethesda Naval Hospital, working a deathwatch on President George H.W. Bush.
President Poppy was laid up with an irregular heartbeat. Night editor Chuck Ross caught the disappointment on Cort’s face when he dispatched him. Chuck had said, “Think what a big story it’ll be if the president croaks.”
Cort had given Chuck a thin smile. They both knew that if Poppy croaked, the big guns from National would elbow them out.
Cort had been working on his fourth magazine when Chuck paged him at 1:30 a.m. They could slam stories into the paper as late as 2:00. Cort pulled the brick-sized company cell phone from his tan canvas satchel and punched in Chuck’s number.
Chuck ordered Cort to ditch the deathwatch and get to Mount Pleasant. “There’s been a riot. A black cop shot a Latino man, and there’s rumors the man was handcuffed. They’ve torched about a half dozen cop cars on 16th Street, near Lamont. Didn’t you hear it on the scanner?”
Cort’s eyes flickered down to the silent black police scanner mounted under the car radio. He groaned. The riot was a guaranteed front-page story.
Chuck sighed. “I don’t blame you. I would’ve sent you, but we needed to keep someone at the hospital.”
Now, with his tan canvas satchel slung over his right shoulder, Cort walked slowly, absorbing the scene. The rain had quit, and the night was warm and humid.
To Cort’s left, two dozen spectators, mostly Latino adults, stood in front of the faux-marble pillars at the top of the concrete steps of Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
The damage was concentrated in a three-block strip of 16th Street, dominated on both sides by medium-and low-rise apartment buildings.
On one corner, a lean, thirtyish, sandy-haired Franciscan priest in a thick brown robe talked with a group of officers. Father Dave Lowell, a Sacred Heart priest.
A few months before, Cort had written a feature story on the church, focusing on Father Dave, who’d worked at a parish in Guatemala. Cort shadowed Father Dave as poor immigrants streamed into his office.
A teenage girl who’d been raped by a family friend was distraught that she’d sinned. Father Dave gently assured her she’d done nothing wrong, and convinced her to call the police. Another woman brought in her toddler son for a special blessing; the kid had an infected eye. Father Dave blessed the kid, then had a church worker drive the woman and her son to a health clinic.
Father Dave was the real deal. Cort had grown up in a church where the parish priest dished out hellfire and brim-stone, when he wasn’t boozing it up. Cort had lost touch with his faith a long time ago. But he believed in Father Dave.
A month after the piece ran, an old girlfriend was visiting from California when she got word that her father had died in a car wreck. She cried all night. At daybreak, Cort took her to see Father Dave. He spent an hour with her while Cort waited outside the office. She emerged feeling better. Cort was grateful.
Cort waved to Father Dave. The priest trotted over.
“Cortez, I thought I might see you tonight. How are you?”
“Fine, Father.” He looked around. “How’d this happen?”
“It’s been brewing for a while. There’s so much tension between Latinos and the police. The shooting was like a flame to a tinderbox.”
Cort nodded. “What about the shooting?”
Father Dave shrugged. “I’ve probably heard what you’ve heard. The police say the man pulled a knife. There’s rumors that he was handcuffed. There’s probably a lot of misinformation going around.”
Cort suppressed a chuckle. Driving over, he’d tuned in to an all-news station. A radio reporter had breathlessly noted that the violence erupted on the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, and speculated on a connection. Mount Pleasant was Salvadoran territory, with Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans mixed in.
Cort said, “Yeah, bad information. Thanks, Father. I’ve got to roam now.”
“Good to see you, Cortez. Drop by anytime. You’re always welcome at Mass.”
Cort stepped away, surveying the aftermath of the bedlam. His stomach churned as the dimensions of the missed opportunity sunk in.
“Goddamnit.”
Even with the city clocking nearly 500 murders a year, Cort had to hustle for a byline. For every ten murders, one would yield a story, usually a fifteen-inch quickie buried inside Metro.
A yuppie victim was guaranteed decent ink. But a black or Hispanic homey gunned down in the hood? Well, that’s what the Briefs column was for.
Cort reached the end of the riot zone, hooked a right, and ambled north on Mount Pleasant Street.
The street featured dollar stores, bars, greasy carryouts, liquor stores, old apartment buildings, and Heller’s Bakery, which arguably produced the finest cakes in the city.
The MacArthur Park section of Los Angeles was Little El Salvador, and Mount Pleasant was its East Coast counterpart. Inside Haydee’s, a Salvadoran restaurant, former Marxist guerillas drank beer with ex — Salvadoran Army soldiers as they argued over soccer games playing on a TV behind the bar. Nearby, Salvadoran day laborers stood outside 7-Eleven, or “El Seven,” as they called it, waiting for work. Salvadoran vendors with metal carts dotted the street, hawking fresh mangos.
To the west, a series of quiet, tree-lined residential streets with row houses sloped down toward Rock Creek Park and the National Zoo.
The street was unscathed, except for El Seven. A window had been shattered and a store worker swept glass off the sidewalk.
Cort pulled out the cell phone and punched in Chuck’s number. “Everything’s quiet now. I’m heading back.” He clicked off, muttering, “Goddamnit.”
He was three blocks from the office when a high-pitched screech rang out from the police scanner.
A woman dispatcher said, “Attention units paged. Third District officers at a stabbing at an apartment building, the corner of Park Road and Mount Pleasant Street. Homicide requested.
Cort pulled over to the curb. Mount Pleasant Street dead-ended at Park Road, three blocks north of 7-Eleven, one block over from 16th Street.
A murder on the edge of the riot zone? Huh.
Cort pulled out the cell phone and called Chuck.