Ripper
“Call to her? How?”
“With your mind. And while you’re there, you can call her mother and grandmother too, who must be wandering close by, floating among the sequoias. We don’t know what that girl’s called, but it would be easier to talk to her if she had a name. Let’s call her Sharbat, like the girl with green eyes on the famous National Geographic cover.”
“What can I say to her? She only exists in my head, Indi. I can’t forget her.”
“She can’t forget you either, Ryan; that’s why she comes to visit you. Imagine what that night must have been like for her, huddled in that little hole, shaking with fear before this huge alien and his rabid dog, both of them ready to kill her. Afterward she saw her mother and grandmother lying in a pool of their own blood. She’ll never be able to exorcise those horrible images without your help, Ryan.”
“But how can I help her?” he protested. “It happened years ago, on the other side of the world.”
“Everything in the universe is connected. Forget about distances, about time, and realize that everything takes place in an unending present, in this very forest, in your memory, in your heart. Speak with Sharbat, ask her forgiveness, explain to her that you’ll go and look for her and her little brother and that you’ll try and help them. Tell them that if you don’t find them, you’ll try and help other children like them.”
“I might not be able to keep a promise like that, Indi.”
“If you can’t, I’ll go for you,” she replied, and, taking his face in her hands, she kissed him on the mouth.
Monday, 20
To evade the police, the dogfights were held in various different locations. Elsa Domínguez had alerted the deputy chief there was a fight scheduled on Presidents’ Day, but she could not tell him where, so Bob Martín got one of his informants to find out, then called the San Rafael Police Department to let them know what was happening and to offer his support. The San Rafael force had enough trouble dealing with crimes committed by the gangs in the Canal district; they were not interested—though they knew the dogfighting events were hotbeds of gambling, drunken brawls, prostitution, and drug trafficking—until Bob pointed out that something like this might make the news. People cared more about animals than they did about kids. He could contact a photographer and a reporter at the local paper to go with them to the raid—an idea that came from Petra Horr, who knew the journalist and thought she might be interested to find out what went on a few blocks from her house.
Not all those who owned fighting dogs were hardened criminals. Many were black kids or unemployed Latino and Asian immigrants, trying to make a living with their champions. To register an animal, you had to pay three hundred dollars up front, but once the dog had won a few bouts, the owner could charge to enter him into fights, and make money on the betting too. The “sport,” as they called this illegal activity, was so gory that the reporter struggled not to vomit when Petra showed her a video of a dogfight and photographs of animals lying dead, their entrails ripped out.
Hugo Domínguez and another boy his age had a promising rottweiler-mastiff cross weighing ninety-five pounds they had raised on raw meat with no contact with other dogs and no affection from its owners. They forced the animal to run for hours until his legs gave way, goaded him to attack, maddened him by feeding him drugs and putting chili in his rectum. The more the creature suffered, the more savage he became. His owners would trawl the poorest neighborhoods of Oakland and Richmond for strays. They would find a bitch in heat, tie her to a tree, and wait for dogs to be attracted by the smell, then catch them in a net, throw them in the trunk of their car, and take them home for the rottweiler to practice on.
That Monday, George Washington—and by extension every other US president—was celebrated with discounts in the stores, flags, at fairgrounds in the parks, and a whole day of patriotic TV programs. Being a cloudy day, it got dark early, and by seven thirty, when Bob met the San Rafael officers to prepare for the raid, it was night. Petra Horr and her reporter friend followed the convoy of five cars—three from the San Rafael department, two from San Francisco—and they drove silently, their headlights off, toward the deserted industrial district.
Bob knew his informant had been right when he saw a row of vehicles parked by a construction warehouse that looked as if it had been derelict for years. He owed most of the successes in his career to his informants—his job would be impossible without them—so he protected them and treated them well. He dispatched two officers to take the license plates of the cars—they could identify them later. The others surrounded the warehouse, covering all possible exits, with Bob leading the unit. They had hoped to spring a surprise attack, but the organizers had posted a lookout.
There were warning shouts in Spanish, and suddenly the men stampeded toward the exits, easily outnumbering the police, followed by a few screaming women, who kicked and clawed at the officers. A few seconds later, the lights of the patrol cars bathed the scene. There was an explosion of orders, insults, police batons, and even a few warning shots fired into the air. They succeeded in arresting a dozen men and five women; the rest got away.
The building was a sort of hangar, with piles of bricks and twisted metal lying around in the corners. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and sweat, with barking, blood, and excrement. A homemade “ring,” about three yards wide, was surrounded with a barrier of wooden planks about four feet high, to separate the audience from the enraged animals. An ordinary rug laid on the floor of the ring to stop the dogs’ feet from slipping was as blood-spattered as the wooden barrier. Several dogs that had not yet fought that night were caged or chained up, and in a corner of the warehouse, two badly injured animals lay dying. Bob phoned the Humane Society, who had a car with two veterinarians waiting nearby.
Hugo, as though he knew his luck had run out, made no attempt to escape. He’d sensed something was up when his mother and sisters begged him to stay home that night. I’ve got a bad feeling about it, his mother had said. But from her tone and the way she avoided his eyes, he knew it was more than a bad feeling—it was a betrayal. How much did the women in his family know? Enough to bring him down, he was sure of that. They knew about the rottweiler, and they’d found the bag with his syringes and other gear. Assuming it was drug paraphernalia, they’d been so shocked that he had to explain that it was first aid equipment. Those who owned fighting dogs couldn’t take an injured animal to a vet, who would recognize the bite marks, so they had to learn to bandage or stitch wounds, inject medications, and give antibiotics. Having invested time and money in their dogs, they did everything they could to save them. A dog that couldn’t be saved was thrown into the canal or tossed onto the highway, so it would look as though it had been run over. Nobody investigated the death of a dog, even if it looked like it had been mauled to death. What his mother and sisters did not know was that in turning him over to the police, they were condemning him—and themselves—to death, if the Sureños or the crazy Koreans who ran the dogfight circuit ever found him. And the circuit bosses found out about everything.
The deputy chief found Hugo Domínguez crouching in a corner behind a sack of gravel, waiting. He had decided that the best way to divert suspicion from himself and his family was to let himself be arrested. Prison was safer than the street: he could blend in with the other Latinos in San Quentin. He wouldn’t be the first Sureño to be banged up there. A deportation order would be waiting for him after he did his time. And what could he do in a hostile, unfamiliar country like Guatemala? Join another gang, of course: what else?
“Which one’s your dog, Hugo?” Bob asked, dazzling the boy with the beam of his flashlight.
The kid pointed to one of the chained dogs, a stocky, battle-scarred animal with a snout that looked as if it had been burned.
“The black one?”
“Yeah.”
“Two weeks ago, on Tuesday, February seventh, this dog won a big fight. You and the Sureños each pocketed two thousand dollars, after the
Koreans took their cut.”
“Don’t know nothing about that.”
“I don’t need you to confess. Dogfighting is a disgusting practice, Hugo, but in your case it also gives you an alibi that gets you out of the frame for something much more serious: the murder of Rachel Rosen. Turn around and hold out your hands.” Bob had the handcuffs ready.
“Tell my mom I’m never going to forgive her,” the kid said, crying tears of rage.
“Your mother had nothing to do with this, you little thug. When she finds out, it’s going to break the poor woman’s heart.”
Friday, 24
Celeste Roko’s house was one of Haight-Ashbury’s “Painted Ladies,” the 48,000 Victorian and Edwardian houses that sprouted up in San Francisco between 1849 and 1915, some brought from England and assembled like jigsaw puzzles. Hers was a relic: more than a hundred years old, it had been built shortly after the 1906 earthquake and had seen various stages of glory and decline. During both world wars it had suffered the indignity of being painted battleship gray with navy-surplus paint. But in 1970 it had been renovated, the foundations reinforced with concrete, and painted in four colors: Prussian blue background, sky blue and turquoise decorative reliefs, and white window and door frames. The house—which was dark and cramped inside, a veritable labyrinth of tiny rooms and steep staircases—had recently been valued at $2 million, as it was part of the city’s heritage and a tourist attraction. Celeste had bought it for much less than that, on the strength of a few well-placed Wall–Street investments based on astrological predictions.
Indiana climbed the fifteen steps and rang the bell, an interminable peal of Viennese bells, and her daughter’s godmother quickly came to the door. Celeste had been chosen as Amanda’s godmother because of her friendship with Encarnación Martín, which stretched back many years, and because she was still a practicing Catholic, even though the Vatican condemned divination. Celeste’s Croatian grandparents had met and married on the ship that brought them to Ellis Island in late the 1800s. The couple settled in Chicago, rightly called Croatia’s second capital because of the large number of emigrants from that country who lived there. The family started out working on construction sites and in clothes factories, and soon spread to other states. Each branch of the family prospered—especially the one that went to California and made its fortune in grocery stores. Celeste’s father had been the first in the family to go to college. She followed him, getting a degree in psychology and working in that field for a short time before she discovered that astrology was a faster and more effective way of helping clients. The combination of her astrological and psychological knowledge made her so successful that clients, prepared to wait months for a consultation, soon besieged her. It was then that she had the idea of the TV show that had now been on air for fifteen years. Later, with the help of a young team, she started to advertise her services on the Internet. She would appear onscreen in an impeccably tailored dark-blue skirt, a silk blouse, a necklace of pearls the size of turtle’s eggs, her blond hair tied in an elegant bun at her neck, and wearing cat’s-eye glasses that had not been seen since the 1950s. In public she dressed like a faintly old-fashioned Jungian analyst, but at home she wore kimonos she bought in Berkeley. The robes, with their T shape and baggy sleeves, did little to flatter her Croatian body, but she wore them with a certain flair.
Indiana followed Celeste up a flight of stairs to a hexagonal room and sat waiting for the tea that her hostess had insisted on bringing. She found the atmosphere of the creaking old house, with its porcelain lamps and yellow parchment screens, oppressive; the heating was too high, and it smelled of damp rugs and wilting flowers. She had a faint sense that the ghosts of previous inhabitants might appear through the walls, or eavesdrop on conversations.
A few minutes later Celeste came back from the kitchen, kimono sleeves fluttering like flags in the wind, bearing a tray laden with two china cups and a black iron teapot. She lifted the lid of the teapot so Indiana could take in the aroma of her French Marco Polo tea—a blend of fruit and flowers, one of the luxuries that compensated for her life as a single woman. She served the brew, then settled in one of the armchairs, crossing her legs like a fakir.
Indiana blew on the hot tea and confessed her worries. Their conversations were based on years of friendship and astral readings, and Indiana did not need to go into much detail; Celeste was already aware of what had happened with Alan Keller. Indiana had called on the phone the day after she got the magazine that was to end four happy, loving years. Worried about Indiana ending up single in her mid-thirties, Celeste had downplayed the incident at the time, thinking that her own life would be happier with Blake Jackson in it; it was a shame that the man seemed determined to remain a widower. Youth passes quickly, she said, and there is nothing as tedious as growing old alone. But for Indiana, infidelity was more than enough of a reason to break up with her partner.
At Indiana’s request, Celeste had now drawn up Ryan’s astral chart, though she had never met the man.
“This Miller’s the masculine type, right?”
“Right.”
“And yet eight of his planets are in the feminine quadrants.”
“You’re not saying he’s gay!” Indiana exclaimed.
Celeste explained that astrology could not predict a person’s sexual preference, only his destiny and character—and Ryan’s character showed strong feminine traits. He was caring, loving, and protective—you could almost say maternal—all of which made an ideal grounding for a doctor or a teacher; but he was cursed with a “hero complex,” and there were serious anomalies in his astral chart. This was why he had gone against the dictates not only of the stars but of his own nature, and was forever torn between emotions and actions. Celeste spoke at length about his overbearing father and depressive mother; his need to prove his manliness and his courage; his ability to surround himself with fiercely loyal friends; his tendency toward addiction and impulsive behavior. She even pointed out on the chart a decisive moment in his life around 2006. She did not mention that he had been a soldier, nor that he had lost a leg and almost died.
“You’re in love with him,” Celeste concluded. Indiana laughed.
“Is that what the planets say?”
“It’s what I say.”
“I don’t know about ‘in love,’ but I find him very attractive. He’s a great friend—but it’s better not to think about love, it gets way too complicated. And the truth is, Celeste, I’m complicated too.”
“If you’re clinging to him just to forget about Alan Keller, you’re going to break the poor man’s heart in two.”
“He’s had a lot of bad stuff happen to him—he’s a ball of regrets, blame, aggression . . . and bad memories and nightmares. Ryan isn’t at home in his own body.”
“What’s he like in bed?”
“Good, but he could be much better, and compared to Alan he comes up short.”
“Short, huh?” asked Madame Roko.
“Hey, don’t be crude! What I mean is, Alan knows me, he knows how to treat me—he’s romantic, imaginative, and refined.”
“A person can learn all that. This Miller, he got a sense of humor?”
“Kind of.”
“What a shame, Indiana. That can’t be learned.”
They drank a few more cups of tea, and agreed that a comparison of Indiana’s and Ryan’s star charts would probably clear a few things up. Before seeing her out, Celeste gave Indiana the address of the karma-cleansing monk.
Saturday, 25
Once a year, Amanda would venture into the kitchen with a nobler mission than making her usual cup of hot chocolate in the microwave: she would set about making a traditional dulce de leche cake for her grandmother Encarnación’s birthday. The recipe—a veritable time bomb of cholesterol—was her only culinary achievement, although much of the hard work—the kneading and baking of the thin layers of puff pastry—fell to Elsa Domínguez. All Amanda had to do was boil four cups of condensed milk on t
he stove to make the dulce de leche, stick the cake layers together, and poke little candles into the finished product.
Encarnación Martín, who still wore bright red lipstick and dyed her hair jet black, had been turning fifty-five every year for the past decade. This meant she had given birth to her first child at the age of nine, but nobody was cruel enough to keep a precise count. The age of Encarnación’s mother was something else that no one could calculate: as sturdy as an oak tree, with her hair in a tight bun and eagle eyes that could see into the future, Amanda’s great-grandmother was impervious to the passage of time. Encarnación always celebrated her birthday the last weekend of February, with a party at the Loco Latino, a salsa and samba dance hall that would close to the public to make room for the Martín family’s guests. The party always climaxed with the arrival of a group of ancient mariachis, who long ago had played with Encarnación’s late husband, José Manuel Martín. Encarnación would dance until there was not a single man left standing, while the great-grandmother surveyed the scene from a sort of raised throne, making sure that nobody, however drunk, behaved indecently. And the family certainly owed her their respect: it was thanks to the tortilla factory she had founded in 1972 that they had prospered, and that generations of immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America had survived.
The almost indestructible, bulletproof caramel cake weighed four kilos (not counting the tray) and was large enough to feed ninety people, cut into paper-thin strips. Frozen, it would last several months. Even though she didn’t eat sweet things, Encarnación would gush with gratitude because the cake was a gift from her favorite grandchild—the apple of her eye, her little angel, the jewel of her twilight years, as she called Amanda in her more inspired moments. While she forgot her grandsons’ names, she had collected Amanda’s baby teeth, or locks of her hair. Nothing made the matriarch happier than to see her seven grandchildren all together with her sons and daughters and their partners. She also invited Blake Jackson, for whom she had a soft spot. He was the only man who might have taken José Manuel Martín’s place in her widow’s heart, but sadly he was an in-law. Was that incest, or simply sin? She couldn’t say. She had forbidden Bob to bring any of those bimbos he dated, because in the eyes of God he was still married to Indiana, and he would remain so until he got an annulment from the Vatican.