say I keep to myself, always. Got it?”
He closed his eyes. Winced. “How much I got to pay you?”
“Nothing. You pay me nothing.”
“I got a record. I don’t need no trouble. I smoked me a blunt before I got jumped. They gonna get me for that?”
“Daryl, my job is to keep trouble away for my clients.”
He thought about it a second. “Plus I wasn’t even s’posed to be there.”
“At the house?”
“My mama owns it. Rents it. She won’t rent it to me. She don’t like me. She lives with her boyfriend in Monrovia. I got a key and take stuff.”
“You rob your mother’s house?”
“So?”
“Who lives there?”
“Nobody. I seen they ain’t nobody there, like from a week ago. Skipped out. Cleaned out. So I go to clean out what’s left, you know?”
“And smoke a little weed?”
“That’s it. I go in, find some stuff in the kitchen. I fire up, take a nap. Life’s good.”
“Only you left the door open, right?”
“Back door, yeah. I didn’t think nobody was gonna come in. There’s this kinda road in back, against a fence. Nobody usually uses it.”
“So you’re taking a nap, then what?”
“Then bam, back of the head. I get pulled to the floor, facedown. Bam again. That’s it.”
“That’s the last thing you remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Nothing else?”
Daryl closed his eyes again. “Smell,” he said.
“Smell?”
He was concentrating. “Kinda sweet.”
Sweet. That tipped over a jar in my brain. “Think you could ID the smell if you smelled it again?”
“Like what, you know who it was?”
“Just a theory. You think you could ID it?”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe. Hey…”
“Yeah?”
“I look as bad as I feel?”
“You look rough hewn,” I said.
“What’s that mean?”
“Like you can take it and dish it out.”
The bare hint of smile pushed on his face. “That ain’t bad.”
“Think you can dress yourself, tough guy?”
146
I EXPLAINED TO the desk that I was now the young man’s lawyer, and that we were leaving. We had to do a little song and dance, then Daryl signed a waiver and out we walked into the fading sunshine.
We got to my car and I angled for the freeway. “What’s your favorite food?” I said.
“My favorite, or what I can eat?”
“Your favorite.”
“I had me this steak once, I don’t even know what it was, but it was like all melt in your mouth. But I don’t think I can chew nothin’.”
“Can you suck through a straw?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
There’s a place on Alvarado that makes old-fashioned chocolate milk shakes. Family business since 1948. Started by one Frank Lonegger a few years after he came back from the war. One shop. None of that franchise surrender. The grandson runs it now.
Daryl actually seemed excited when the shake with the whipped cream and cherry was put in front of him.
“When’s the last time you had one of these?” I said.
“I ain’t never had one of these.”
“No way.”
He shook his head. “Not like this.”
“Dig in,” I said.
He did.
I called my doctor friend, George Mazzetti, a guy I used to use a lot back in my Gunther, McDonough days.
“How’s the celebrity lawyer?” he asked.
“Don’t believe everything you read,” I said. “I’d like to ask you a favor and count on your professional discretion. A guy I’d like you to look at, who for certain reasons doesn’t want to be in the hospital. Would you mind, and then send me the bill?”
“For you? Of course. You almost doubled my practice with that one accident case your firm handled. The school bus on Western.”
“I remember it well. Thanks. Can I bring him over?”
“Bring him.”
I drove Daryl to the office, which was in a two-story professional building on Los Feliz. I shot a little breeze with George. Then I said, “Give him a good look over and call me when you’re finished.”
“Where you going?” George said.
“Yeah,” Daryl said. “Where?”
“A little tourist shopping,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
147
I DROVE DOWN Hollywood Boulevard. As I crossed Western I became aware of the song playing on the radio. It was right in the middle of Eric Marienthal’s rendition of the Beatles’ tune “I Will.”
Nobody blows a smoother sax than L.A. boy Marienthal, if you like smooth, and right now I did. I remembered Sister Mary listening to the Beatles’ version at the shooting range.
I liked Marienthal’s treatment, but was glad the words weren’t there. The forever words. The words that would have cut me.
So I just drove and listened to the music. And realized I was wishing that Sister Mary was in the car with me and we had no trial happening. That we