x x x
After that, they walked up to the Oakwood Recreation Center. All the years she’d lived in Los Angeles, and Michelle had rarely been to this neighborhood. It had been the ’hood, after all, one of the few places on the Westside where the ’92 riots had flared, where rival gangs murdered each other. That’s how she’d always thought of the place, anyway. The truth had probably always been more complicated (if she’d learned anything the past few years, it was that).
And Oakwood had been changing for a while. Expensive houses were being built. Tom had looked into projects here, though he’d never managed to put anything together, as far as she knew.
Oakwood didn’t feel dangerous now. Tree-shaded streets with low bungalows and Craftsman cottages, a few dense stucco housing project apartment buildings, new concrete condos here and there, and designer bunkers that looked as though they’d been dropped onto a lot that was too small to contain them. People pedaling slowly by on beach cruisers, kids on scooters and skateboards, a Mexican vendor selling ice cream from a pushcart.
“Yeah, it was pretty heavy for a while,” Troy said. “Things have calmed down a lot. I don’t know if it’s because most kids now don’t want anything to do with the crack cocaine, seeing what it did to their elders, or if enough bangers got priced out of the neighborhood, or what. I think maybe people just got tired of it all.”
“Or cell phones,” Caitlin said, with a sideways smile.
He laughed. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“How’re you doing today?” a man called out from his porch.
“Oh, just fine,” Troy said. “You?”
“Can’t complain. It’s a beautiful day.”
“You know, it really is,” Caitlin said.
At the rec center, Latino kids played soccer. On the other half of the field, there was a kickball game going on, two teams of mostly white hipsters. A few middle-aged black men and women sat at the picnic tables around the fringes.
“There’s all kinds of great programs here for the kids,” Troy said. “Not just sports. Music, art, cooking, tutoring for school. What we really need are more things like that. Support for kids who have problems at home. A better education. And jobs at the other end. Not a pipeline to prison for smoking weed.”
Caitlin stared at the soccer field, watching the children play. Michelle thought they looked to be about seven or eight years old. They played with a combination of intensity, laughter and tears.
Had her little boy, Alex, played soccer?
He probably had, Michelle thought. Most kids his age did these days.
They stood outside Shutters by Troy’s Pathfinder, where valets parked a succession of BMWs, Porsches and Benzes.
“I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me today,” he said.
Troy had driven them back to their hotel. “Come on, it’ll take forever for a cab to come. And it’s really no problem. I need to get back to the office, anyway.”
“Well, thank you for the discussion and tour.” Caitlin shook herself, like a cat who’d gotten sprinkled with water. “And I mean that.”
“I don’t imagine I talked you into anything though.”
Caitlin stood just at the edge of his open car door. “It’s a little soon for that.”
Troy paused by the door frame. “Can we keep talking?”
“I can’t see any reason why not.”
“Good.”
They smiled at each other. He got into the car, swung his legs inside like his back was hurting, reached to close the door.
“Lead,” Caitlin said.
“Lead?”
She seemed almost embarrassed. “I read somewhere that there’s a strong correlation between lead in the environment and violent crime. And the decline of lead tracks with the decline of crime.”
“Really? I’d love to read that.”
“I’ll see if I can dig up the link.”
Watching the two, Michelle could still sense tension between them, but a different kind than there had been before.
She’d bet money what she was seeing now was attraction.
The back of her neck prickled.
She was pretty sure that this could not be good.
Chapter Sixteen
Well, so what?
Michelle leaned back in her business class seat and sipped her wine. Caitlin dozed in the seat next to her. It was about 8:30 p.m. Los Angeles time.
So what if Caitlin liked Troy? So what if the feeling was mutual? Caitlin was flying back to Houston. He was in Los Angeles.
Of course, with Caitlin’s money, she could fly back to LA any time she wanted. And with this election going on, she’d have plenty of reasons to be in LA.
Just because they were attracted to each other didn’t mean they’d get together, Michelle told herself.
What if they did?
You’re not thinking this through, she told herself. It wasn’t the attraction that was the problem. The problem was Caitlin coming out of her shell. Opening herself up to new ideas. Maybe wanting to quit Safer America.
Or worse. What if Caitlin decided to steer Safer America in a different direction?
Follow the money. She was assuming a lot of things, but if it all came down to money, the people funding Safer America expected results from their contributions.
Who exactly was funding Safer America?
Was there any way she could find out?
Don’t go there, she told herself. She needed to focus, on doing her job and not pissing off Gary. On getting Danny out of jail.
But if her “job” was taking care of Caitlin… what did she owe Caitlin? Anything?
And Gary would almost certainly fuck her over in the end.
It wouldn’t hurt to know more about what she was up against. There were things she could find out without taking stupid risks-more about the backgrounds of the board members, for one. She could do that on her iPad. That shouldn’t be dangerous.
Assuming Gary hadn’t somehow hacked it.
Michelle had arranged for a car service to pick them up at the airport. Caitlin was mostly silent on the ride. Tired, Michelle supposed, and feeling the effects of the wine she’d had on the plane. As they approached River Oaks, Caitlin stirred. A smile crossed her face, as though she’d recalled a pleasant memory.
“You know, that was a really great trip,” she said.
“It was,” Michelle said, mustering whatever fake enthusiasm she had left.
Caitlin suddenly turned to her.
“I know I make a lot of jokes, but you really have been a great help to me. And, okay, I’ll admit it, a good influence.” She reached out and briefly rested her hand on top of Michelle’s. “Thank you.”
You need to tell her, Michelle thought. You have to.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
Her apartment felt like a stale sauna, smelling faintly of old moldy carpet. She switched on the air conditioner. Dumped her suitcase by the bed. Checked to see if her cash was still in the other suitcase in the closet. She was a little surprised and vaguely pleased to see that it was.
She took a quick shower, changed into a pair of jersey shorts and Danny’s old Air Force T-shirt. Powered up her Emily phone.
One message.
“This is a collect call from an inmate in…” A pause. “Harris County Jail… If you are willing to accept, press one.”
Click. A hangup.
Danny.
He called again the next day, while she was dropping off Caitlin’s clothes at the dry cleaner. She’d risked keeping her Emily phone on, in case he called back.
She waited for the prompt from the recorded voice, pressed the button to accept the call.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the clerk at the cleaner’s. “I, I have to take this.” Scooping up the clothes she’d laid on the counter, she slung the laundry bag over her shoulder and left the air-conditioning to stand outside on the sidewalk, in the steaming heat of a Houston late morning.
“Hey,” he said. “Hope this is an okay time.”