a Freddy Pico mystery by M.T. Karthik, 2014 – 17

“To this Gate I gave the name of “Chrysopylae,” or “Golden Gate”; for the same reasons that the harbor of Byzantium was called Chrysoceras, or Golden Horn.”

John C. Frémont, July 1, 1846

On a half empty flight returning to SFO from Costa Rica, in seats 17B and C, Freddy Pico held hands with a stranger. It was 1993. She was in her mid-30’s and trying to get back to Vegas. She approached him at Juan Santamaria International and quietly asked if she could sit beside him on the half-empty, wide-bodied jet, confessing hapless fear during takeoffs and landings.

Her name was Elizabeth and she waited till he was alone. Freddy stood off apart from the others in front of the one floor to ceiling window pane least encumbered by the florescent lighting overhead.

The harsh tube bulbs were made worse by the rectangular plastic covers meant to serve as flat sconces. The ultimate effect was everyone waiting to board, latinos y gringos, light- and dark-skinned alike, appeared undead.

Freddy was twisting his body around in front of the window, trying to position himself to avoid the harsh glare and actually see outside, to make out the fiery volcanic glow of the Poás in the distance, when Elizabeth shyly approached and whispered her request.

Now, twenty years later and 3,000 miles away, standing on Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Freddy suddenly remembered what she said during that takeoff, She death-gripped his hand while their 747 banked slowly out to sea, leaving the ribbon of coastal Nicaragua behind.

Freddy remembered her looking up and away awkwardly to avoid any open blinds and the thousands of feet between them and mother earth. Elizabeth’s dishwater brown hair was tied up in a small bun. Her pale hazel eyes jumped to the no-smoking and fasten-seat-belt signs and the dull gray of the plastic stowaway bins – anywhere but the windows. She murmured, “I live in the desert because I don’t like change. People who like change need the ocean.”

People always asked Freddy to do things like that: hold their hands during takeoff, or mind their stuff while they ran outside to feed the meter. He came off as nice and easy-going. Freddy had thick, medium-length, tousled black hair. His wide, alert eyes and round face led him to keep a neatly trimmed goatee to hide his chin. He wasn’t short or tall. His paunch appeared and disappeared with the casual ease of keeping up with the seasons, not the hustle of jogging.

The marine layer sat thick overhead. It made everything dark; the sea, the sky, the big stones out in the gate. This contrast gave the sand its own look. Freddy saw the boys running around on the sand and tried to implicate them in Elizabeth’s analysis. Marcus, the eldest, liked change. Ricky was in constant change. Really, all the kids were.

“Kids,” Freddy thought, “need the ocean.”

“C’mon! Let’s go,” Freddy yelled at the sinewy black shadows running against the grey wall of sky and surf down the beach. He raised his hand when he saw Ricky looking back at him and swirled his finger in a wide circle in the air, reeling them back in. Ricky waved, turned away and chased down the others. Today there were four of them.

Freddy Pico had a photographic memory and now he remembered, in exact terms – like a rhythmic tumble of words in his mind – something very precise his seat mate Elizabeth had said on that flight long ago.

Back home in her desert, she was an adjunct professor at a community college. She poured gin from a little green bottle of Tanqueray over the jumble of ice cubes in her plastic cup, then tilted a can of tonic, slowly filling it to the brim. She leaned forward over the tray and took a sip to prevent spillage, then lifted the cup, turned to Freddy and said:

“I hate first-person novels. First person narrative is inferior to third person because third requires you to project your mind into the soul of others, often multiple others.” She took a sip. “The craft of third person fiction demands you get inside your characters to express human decency with fidelity, or the mind of a man with heretical thoughts, or of a girl being abused.”

She was rolling now, her nerves had her chattering passionately about literature in order to avoid thinking about being 30,000 feet off solid ground. “Or to display society’s casual, innumerable slights that melt glaciers, drive species extinct, sustain the myth of women’s inferiority and maintain the veil the wealthy drape over the door frame of their shallow library of culture – a doorway which in any case a tsunami of humanity long ago smashed through to devour the vaunted, hallowed contents end-to-end, cover-to-cover – only to find it bankrupt of soul or ideas.”

“Yeah,” Freddy replied, “Anybody would kill for a decent novel.”

Two flying forms blew past Freddy tearing up the long beachhead. He didn’t get their names. Earlier, Marcus showed up at Freddy’s place with these two, brothers easing in behind him. “Oye, Mr. Pico, I told these guys they could come along.” Freddy realized Marcus liked being the gatekeeper – bringing kids from the neighborhood around to his place.

Freddy didn’t know their names, but he knew the boys’ mother and had seen the two around the neighborhood. As long as he knew the kids’ parents, Freddy never asked questions. He just gave as many as fit in his Gran Torino a ride to the beach and back, some fruit, a couple of bottled waters. It had started with one of Marcus’s classmates three years before and now was something Freddy did once a month for neighborhood kids and their parents.

“You got towels?” the elder brother asked languidly.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He never tried telling them when it was too cold to swim. He was used to the fluff and bluster of their macho. It was their first trip to the ocean – who was he to tell them they couldn’t swim?

Ricky strolled up with his shoes in his hand, eyes sparkling after his third view of the sea and blurted, “Man, the sand’s actually cold!” Freddy turned and looked back for Marcus, whose shadowy form he made out slowly trudging toward them. The fog and swirling sand intermittently swathed him in mist.

Marcus looked up the windy beach and made sure Mr. Pico had turned back around before taking out the joint. He had been unable to light it on the beach without it being obvious. He spent a frustrating twenty minutes trying to get it lit before finally giving up.

It was the first time he had ever sneaked a joint on a beach trip and he’d brought matches, which he got free from the goldfish bowl at the hostess stand next to a dish of individually-wrapped, red-and-white peppermints in the foyer of Aldo’s, the Italian restaurant in his neighborhood.

He hadn’t thought about the wind at the beach and only now realized he should have bought a lighter. As a result, he never managed to get an actual hit. He brushed the charred, crumbly bits off the end of the pinner to the sand, pinched the joint, twisted it closed and slipped it back into his pocket. As he approached the cement ramp that eased up out of the sand to the car and the others, Marcus suddenly felt a twinge of guilt. If he had been successful, he realized, he’d have felt worse. As he approached the big Ford, Marcus was afraid Mr. Pico would smell it.

Unlocking the doors, Freddy called out ,”Hey guys, dust the sand off before getting in.” Ricky sat on a bench beside the old sedan, swatting the bottoms of his feet with his socks.

“So what’d you think?” Freddy asked the two new boys.

“It’s hecka cold, man!” the younger brother erupted, grinning. The elder boy shrugged. Freddy could see the kid was carrying something heavy all day. “So where am I taking you guys … to your mom’s?

Marcus walked up and interrupted before they could answer: “Just take us all back to your place. We’re gonna walk down to Game Stop on the way home.”

The younger boys careened into the backseat, falling on top of each other. They fell asleep before the long, low Ford even hit the panhandle. In the passenger seat, Marcus had his ear buds in, his hood up and his face turned to the window.

Freddy noticed a change in Marcus’ demeanor these days when they came to the city, a posture of urban defiance. Marcus wanted people in the city to see him low-slung and closed-off. But Freddy knew he was drinking everything in.

A guy in his mid-20’s with thick, black, designer glasses, wearing a grey scarf around his neck and a long, black overcoat that hung to the knees of his cuffed designer jeans was standing on the corner texting someone, ignorant that he had the light. He stood just at the edge of the curb, tantalizingly close to stepping off, and yet … not doing it.

An Indian cabbie trying to make a right at the corner, was left hanging. Was the guy going to walk?

The Gran Torino was in the middle lane, paused at the light for traffic, so Marcus’ passenger window was immediately beside the cab and he could hear the woman in the back seat barking in rage at the cabbie to get a move on – unaware he could go nowhere until the guy on the corner either moved or looked up from his I-phone.

The full-bearded Sikh, who filled out the driver’s seat like a massive blue tuber, puffed his cheeks and let out a sigh that emptied his breast and crumpled his shoulders. His turban sank. Marcus sighed sympathetically.

“What’s up?” Freddy asked.

“Nothing,” Marcus murmured, “Just fools in the city.”

The marine layer lay thick across San Francisco as the big sedan slowly edged forward through traffic toward the bridge. The skyline was waist deep in it. The Pyramid, Bank of America and the Rincons were all hidden from view above their 18th floors.

But as they came up on the 101, Freddy noticed the gray petered out halfway across the water. Skies were clear over the East Bay and it was sunny; windows with views of the ever-changing chrysopylae reflected the sunlight, peppering the Oakland hills with white dots and shimmering lights.

Freddy reflected on how little the boys knew about the hills, or the city. Their world was the flats of Oakland, and usually only a few block radius. That was what had inspired him to take these monthly trips to the beach; how it came to pass that Federico Ignacio Pico was the person who first introduced Marcus, Ricky and a half dozen other local kids to the Pacific Ocean.

He enjoyed watching them the first time, approaching the sea boldly, then as they got nearer the waves, more cautiously, until at last they put their toes in the water, yelped with frozen joy and leaped backward.

As his big Ford crept up the onramp to finally enter the bridge, Freddy noticed a man behind the wheel of a little grey sedan in the lane beside him, another East Indian, with a checkered, collared shirt and an intense look of stress on his face.

“They’re driven near-blind chasing the cost of living.” Freddy thought.

It’s the same anywhere there’s hills and flats, cities and burbs; where there are people overlooking the overlooked. The hills have treasured views, and the flats get overpopulation. But here there’s a treasure in the flats – a glittering gem of silver and grey, blue, brown and green: the San Francisco Bay. As the crazy bastard pathfinder noted, at sunset from the Oakland hills: it’s golden at times, too.

The Pacific pours through this ever-changing chrysopylae under Our Lady of Perpetual Suicides. It breathes up the delta and down the South Bay, brackish. There’s continuity. If you stick your toe in Lake Merritt or Corte Madera Creek; San Pablo Bay or the Carquinez Straits, you always feel connected to the Pacific.

Freddy glanced at the boys in the rear view mirror, then tapped Marcus and spoke up to get through his music. “They don’t need to go to Game Stop – they’re all crashed out. I’m taking ’em home.”

Marcus didn’t turn to face him, “Yeah, all right.” The bay rolled by.

“What’s the tide doing?”

Marcus sat up, pulled out his earbuds and leaned to look out: “hustling’ out.”

“How’s the chop?” Freddy could see the water, but he feigned being focused on driving so needing the kids to answer. Marcus had learned a lot in three years.

“Hella caps … gotta be 20 … well, 15 minimum.”

Changing lanes across the wide, gray asphalt of the maze to the 580, and easing into Oakland, the white of the bridge, the cranes and the road stripes shone brightly – it was warm.

“Yo, man, just let me out on Telegraph,” Marcus added.

Freddy nodded and eased the GT through the criss-crossing traffic of the thousands homeward bound.

*****

Barbara Carter, the mother of the two new boys on the beach trip, rented one side of a duplex in the middle of a typical East Oakland block. At one end there was an empty warehouse building. The other end crossed a busy avenue and had a pizza delivery spot, a corner store, a gas station and an eight story, brick condominium building rising above them all.

The kids mostly played in the street in front of the abandoned warehouse at the other end of the block, because this corner didn’t want them. The pizza spot had no tables. It was merely a stand for delivery drivers and for serving $5 gourmet slices to the condo residents. The units in the condo were 750-square foot studios. The tenants were generally unmarried singles who either didn’t have much patience for kids, or feared them. The corner store owner was fascist against them hanging around his shop. And the gas station … well, it was a gas station.

So the playground for the kids was the empty end of the block with its warehouse wrapped entirely in barbed-wire fencing. Realtors signs were tied to the woven metal by twist-ties every thirty feet, but none of the signs were legible. Each had been tagged “Paloma” in sweet, lyrical, Belton Molotow Premium Azure Blue.

Barbara’s duplex was roughly equidistant from each corner. The residences on either side were all single family homes. She had a housemate, Michelle, who was obliged to pass through a small common space, a foyer, to leave. Michelle had closed the front door to the foyer and after locking it, spun to face the street just as Freddy pulled up. Her pony tail whipped around and hit the screen door as it closed.

Seeing it was the boys, she turned back and unlocked the front door before striding across the yard toward them. Michelle walked purposefully in front of Freddy’s car to his window and leaned in. Shaking her head, she said: “You don’t want to go in there.”

She saw the two sleeping brothers in the backseat. “Aw, look at that! That is so sweet what you do for these kids.”

Freddy smiled, “What’s up? Whose Volvo?” He nodded to the black station wagon parked in the driveway they shared. The back of the wagon was full of file boxes and paperwork, a chaotic mess.

“PTA Committee,” Michelle whispered, “They’re saying Eric stole something from campus.”

“Which one’s Eric?” Freddy asked, as he emerged to let the kids out. Michelle helped rustle them to the sidewalk. “This,” she patted his head as she gently nudged him to the curb, “is

Michael, he’s eleven. And that,” she said, nodding at the elder brother, “is Eric, he’s thirteen. What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Eric murmured, half asleep, half-defiant. Freddy wondered if the kids’ sullen attitude all day had something to do with whatever was going on inside. Freddy had already dropped Ricky off and siince Marcus had gotten out at Telegraph this was his last stop. Freddy decided to go in.

“Did you have fun at the beach?” Michelle asked the boys as they got out.

Michael turned and smiled weakly, giving a thumbs-up, then continued after the slinking figure of his brother toward the front door. Michelle paused and gently patted Freddy on the back, “Good to see you Freddy, I’m telling you: Stay out of it.”

Freddy smiled warmly.

She crossed the street to her Honda and Freddy watched her start up and pull out. Then he turned to the duplex. The door to the foyer was open, so Freddy walked up, looked through the screen door on the boys’ side and, seeing Barbara within, waved before swinging it open.

“Oh, good. Come in,” he heard her say, “Have you got a few minutes, Freddy?”

Barbara Carter, Michael and Eric’s mother, was a formidable woman. Seeing her around the neighborhood, Freddy felt she had a nobility about her. She stood nearly six feet in heels and was thus slightly taller than he was. She was a robust woman, not at all fat, but with broad, statuesque features. She had deeply dark skin. She stood in the entrance to the kitchen but didn’t move nearer the door as Freddy came in.

Eric was also standing, and staring at his shoes at the front of the room between them. There was no sign of his little brother. A man and woman were seated on the couch opposite Eric. Freddy did not recognize them. Both rose when he entered.

Barbara quickly added: “How was the beach? Were they good?”

Freddy glanced about again. Michael had dragged himself off someplace.

“They were great. We had fun.”

Eric stood in front of a big, flat, wall-mounted monitor. When it was on, he was sure it dominated the small, neat living room. Off and silent, the monitor created an immense black backdrop for Eric, who looked even more isolated as he faced the interrogation that was taking place.

Barbara walked into the room to Eric’s side: “Well, I’d love to hear all about your first trip to the beach, son, but unfortunately, we’ve got to address a problem with school.” She took her place behind him, supportively, and put his arms on his shoulders before turning to the others.

“This is Mr. Pico. He took the kids to the beach today,” and, turning to Freddy: “This is Lynn Chen and Paul Wallace, from Eric’s school.”

There was a low, round table in front of the couch, and the two stepped out and around to greet Freddy. The Asian woman wore a simple black dress, with white shoes and a simple medium length string of pearls. She put her hand out confidently, “Nice to meet you, I’m Lynn. Are you the boy’s guardian?”

“The boy,” Freddy thought, as he shook her hand before replying, “Oh, no-” but Barbara interrupted:

“No. He’s a neighbor.” She stopped full, “and a friend.” There was tension for a half second before Barbara turned to Freddy and added, “But I may need you in a professional capacity.” Then to the others, “Mr. Pico is a trained police officer.”

Immediately the tone of the room changed. Freddy let go of Lynn’s hand, shaking his head, “No,” he demurred, as he turned to face a tall man with thinning brown hair and glasses. Middle-aged, in brown slacks and a beige blazer over a rumpled but clean, white-collared shirt, he looked a little lost.

Freddy continued, “I’m a graduate of the police academy, but I’ve never served as an officer.”

“Ah.” the tall, clumsy man said, noncommittally. “I’m Paul. Paul Wallace.”

Freddy explained: “They needed bilingual candidates and I signed up, but I was in the graduating class the first fiscal year after the budget cuts. There were limited positions, so I deferred.”

As they shook hands, Paul nodded vigorously, approving, “I see, I see, well …” He was the type that trailed off. Freddy wondered if it was because Wastarki was often in rooms filled with opinionated parents. Freddy imagined he’d grown accustomed to being deferential at the PTA.

There was dead air as they continued shaking hands and staring at each other. Seeing Wastarki wasn‘t about to say anything else, he replied: “Please, call me Freddy.”

Barbara took Freddy’s arm, “What I meant was we may need your services as an investigator.”

The tone in the room, unreeled carefully and precisely by Eric’s mother, had shifted with Freddy’s arrival. She now asked, “Would anyone like coffee?” and to the general lifting of mood and the nods all around, “Great, just give me a second. Eric, honey, why don’t you come help me?”

There was an empty armchair to the right of the couch and Freddy took a seat as Paul and Lynn returned to theirs.

“Terrible business, this … ” Paul muttered, trailing off.

Lynn stared at Paul, waiting for him to continue, but she was obviously used to him, because she waited only a brief, perfunctory moment – it was like she was staring at him counting to some number in her head; a limit – before she shook her shoulder length brunette hair and turned to Freddy to take charge of the situation.

“I think the boy’s involved with whoever has taken a valuable art piece from the grounds. They melt them down and make good money – it’s happened before.”

“They,” Freddy thought.

“Now, Lynn,” Paul was used to this role, already back-tracking, “Slow down. Until there’s some clear-cut evidence, we shouldn’t make allegations …“

“Until,” Freddy thought

Not knowing what else to say and eager to turn to someone else, Paul looked to Freddy, “Honestly I didn’t want to come …“

Lynn stopped short and looked at him, wounded, as he continued, “The police came when we reported it of course, but they have no leads or …,” his voice disappeared again into thin air. Then he started fresh, “The District will be conducting our own investigation,” and then paused again, before muttering, “but perhaps you could be … of some … “

He was like an engine that just won’t turn over. Freddy saw it was pointless to wait for him to finish: “Well, I’m happy to do whatever I can for Barbara and Eric. But I’d be working on their behalf. We’re neighbors.” He paused and looked pointedly at Lynn, “And friends.”

Lynn was exasperated by the sudden appearance of someone even less allied to her views than Paul, but realized in an instant she had to be careful of what she said in front of Freddy, “Well, it’s just we need to act fast because whoever’s got it is going to melt it down

and turn it into cash as fast as they can. They’ve got to get rid of the evidence. And I think that boy,” she said, pointing at the kitchen, “knows where our Cooper’s Hawk is at this very moment.”

“Hmm, well,” Freddy said. “I can tell you I spent the day with Eric and his little brother, Michael, and they were great on our outing.” Freddy heard Lynn sneak a barely audible sniff into his retelling: “Pretty excited. You see, neither of them had seen the ocean before today.”

When he told regular, middle-class parents this it always shut them up. The idea that a child could be eleven or twelve or even thirteen years old and live here, less than a dozen miles from the Pacific and never have seen the ocean sent their minds around the bend – on a multi-stop ride that took forever to get around to why, and even longer to grasp a little something of how hard it is to be a parent just barely getting by in the Bay Area.

“I began giving kids from this neighborhood monthly rides to the beach a few years ago-”

“Oh wait-” Lynn said, “I’ve heard of that.”

“of that,” Freddy thought, before continuing, “Different kids every month, and if there’s room, some kids come back for repeat trips.”

Lynn smiled and sat back a bit. Paul nodded vigorously, incapable of an appropriate response. Freddy let them off the hook:

“So I take it the sculpture in question is one of the bronzes in that series the school commissioned last year? The Cooper’s Hawk is just one, right, of several native flora and fauna the artist reproduced in bronze for that project?”

“That’s right,” Lynn responded, “I was on the selection committee. It’s an important work. We can’t have elements of it just walking away-” The need for increased security for the remaining statues hadn’t struck her yet and she interrupted herself, trailing off, “The other statues …”

Barbara returned with a coffee pot and a tray with cups, which she set on the low table. There was creamer in a small, cylindrical metal pitcher with a hinged lid and spout – the kind you find in diners – and brown sugar in a crystal bowl with a spoon, rather than lumps. Knowing Freddy took his black, she poured him a cup and handed it to him, then poured coffee into the remaining three cups on the tray and took one for herself. She gently added a dash of creamer to hers. Paul and Lynn quickly and mindlessly did the same, as Freddy continued:

“Those statues are installed along the creek, I believe. And the Cooper’s Hawk has a

vulnerability in its design. At the point where the legs meet the branch, the work’s quite thin. It has delicate talons.”

They were all impressed into silence at Freddy’s crisp and direct investigative approach. The quiet unassuming fellow who strolled in like the driver or sitter was gone. In his place, a shrewd and observant local emerged. He took their silence for agreement and pressed on.

“So that’s the weak point. But it’s installed at some height, I believe.”

“Yes, that’s right,” answered Paul, “It’s meant to be seen from the ground at rest on a branch, perhaps like it’s hunting for mice. It was probably fifteen feet up there.”

“So how did the thief manage to get up there unseen?” Freddy continued.

“That said, it would’ve been relatively easy to break the sculpture off the branch at the thin point near the talons,” he paused, “Once you were up there – you wouldn’t need a torch.” Freddy looked directly at Lynn, “A child could do it.”

Lynn sat back smugly and listened to see where this was going.

“When was it taken? Who first noticed it missing?”

Paul replied, “It was discovered missing by a student and his father who bike the creek to school together. They noticed it on Saturday, on their way to the farmers market. The father called me to report it. So …“

Lynn interrupted more quickly this time, “So it was taken sometime Friday night.”

“Or early Saturday morning,” Freddy concluded.

Since his mother had taken her coffee cup to the other armchair opposite Freddy, Eric looked even more isolated, standing, awkwardly, staring at his shoes.

Freddy turned to him, “Eric, do you know anything about this?”

“No.”

Freddy still couldn’t get a read. But he turned to the others, “Well, what makes you feel Eric had something to do with it?”

Lynn sat up straight and looked them each in the eye before starting, “There are a group of kids who hang out together every afternoon. They hang around the campus and they … they …” she sighed, constrained by language, “they get into a lot of who knows what?”

“I’ve been told for seven years now as my kids have grown up in this neighborhood that we don’t use the word, ‘gang,’ because it’s inappropriate and stigmatizing, and in fact, ” she quickly turned to Barbara before continuing, “I agree with that, I do. But we need to admit we have at least one group of kids that hang around only with each other and roam about doing mischief.”

To her credit, Barbara didn’t explode in reaction. “Do you have some specific evidence against my son? Or are you just singling him out for hanging around campus after school with his friends?”

“We’re not singling him out,” Paul countered, “We’ve sent other parent/teacher pairs to each of the other parents, too. So we’re not … ”

Lynn again jumped in, “On Friday afternoon, Eric and his friends were seen not just hanging around campus, but specifically standing under and hurling rocks at the Cooper’s. There were a whole lot of kids who saw them. Every one of those kids suggested they probably knocked it off the branch with a rock and took it. We’re obliged to follow through when there’s eyewitnesses.”

“Eyewitnesses?” Barbara retorted, “To what? A bunch of kids throwing stones at a bronze bird?”

Freddy spoke up, “Eric, were you and your friends throwing rocks at the Cooper‘s Hawk statue?”

Eric shifted weight and looked at Freddy, “Yeah, we were trying to hit it.”

“See?” Lynn spat triumphantly.

Freddy put his hands out, face down, and pumped them up and down, saying gently, “Hang on, now.” He turned back to Eric, “You didn’t knock it off the branch?”

Eric sniffed, “No way,” he shook his head, “It’s bronze, I mean we were just throwing little tiny rocks …”

Barbara turned to Lynn sternly: “So you interviewed a bunch of little kids who wouldn’t know a bronze like that can’t be knocked off a branch by a pebble and that’s why you’re here?”

“Do you know how bronze statues like that are made, Eric?” Freddy asked.

“Um, no.”

“Well, the metal is heated until it liquefies and then poured into a form, a mold. The mold is made out of a material that’s sustainable.”

Eric said nothing.

Freddy turned to Lynn, “Which means the artist can reproduce the work, right? I mean, they still have the forms for each of the pieces.”

Lynn Chen was not pleased with the direction this was going. “That’s not the point-”

Freddy stepped back to address the room: “You know, I watched the installation of those bronzes last year and as they were going in I had concerns something like this might happen. Times are tough and as Ms. Chen correctly points out, that metal’s valuable.”

He turned to Lynn again, “I’m not sure on what criterion you and the selection committee made your decision on this project … delicate bronzes in public space? But I guess,” and he paused, “I guess it’s a good thing you can secure another work to replace the missing bird.”

Chen stared at him coolly. “That’s true.”

“And maybe the artist can strengthen the point of contact,” Freddy continued, “or make the work more secure somehow,” Then he shook his head, “But that said, I just don‘t think Eric here would have any idea what to do with a bronze to make money off it. Can’t speak for his friends …”

He turned to Paul: “Can I get a list of the other parents whose kids are involved?”

Paul shifted uncomfortably, “Oh. Well, see. You understand, Mr. Pico- I mean, you’re not even a parent. It’s just not something …”

This time it was Barbara who seized the empty space of Paul’s indeterminacy. “I’m going to get on the phone tonight and find out what’s going on.” She turned to Eric and said, “Honey, I know you must be tired and sandy. Why don’t you go up and take a shower and get ready for dinner?”

The gratefulness in Eric’s eyes belied no trace of guilt. He turned and ran. “Make sure Michael gets cleaned up too!” Barbara added loudly at the shrinking form of her eldest son.

Lynn sat back on the couch as if to fix herself there and crossed her arms. “We need to question him about what he was doing with those kids on Friday afternoon. Did he go back to the campus later that night? Where was he Friday night, Mrs. Carter?”

Freddy interrupted, “I’ll talk to Eric. I’ll ask him about it before he sits down to dinner.”

“Right.” Lynn was skeptical, “and you’ll tell us if he and his friends did it?”

Freddy replied, “It doesn’t serve my reputation or my business to cover up crimes. If there’s more to discover, Barbara and I will let you know.”

Barbara stood to imply the meeting was over. Paul Wallace stood immediately thereafter, Freddy next and finally, begrudgingly, Lynn Chen.

Freddy shook their hands again saying, “I’d be careful about interrogating kids like this. You’ll find they’re more forthcoming to their parents than their school. You ought to let the parents of the other kids talk to them first.”

Lynn softened, “If it wasn’t Eric, I’m sorry. I’m just mad. We have to hold the kids responsible for their campus.”

Barbara spoke more gently as she walked them out, “I don’t want to believe he’s involved in this, but if he is somehow, I assure you, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Barbara shook hands with Paul and Lynn once again on the porch, a considerably more amicable air between them.

*****

The lights of the logo for Walgreen’s at the corner of Telegraph and 51st had the ‘W’ of the scripted neon blown out for years. So it said “Al Green’s” for so long that’s how people liked it. The Ethiopian manager was down so he let it be. Tricked out strip mall lighting and rolling graffiti are often misread as blight rather than culture.

Marcus strolled in under the watchful gaze of the security guard by the door. The older African recognized him as one of the neighborhood kids, knew he didn’t steal and gave him a head nod and a big smile. He wanted kids like Marcus to like him.

Marcus went straight to the counter and asked for a black Bic. He tested it with a flick, like he’d been taught to do by the kid who gave him the joint. He paid for the lighter and took it outside where he peeled off the white adhesive warning label and tossed it in the trash can on the corner. He fingered the joint in his pocket and looked down the block.

He walked to Bushrod park and found a stand of trees set off away from the playground. He stood under an oak, alertly looking around for cops or nosy adults as he lit the joint. This was only the third time in his life that Marcus had ever smoked weed, and it was the

first time he was doing it alone. He coughed and struggled to hit the joint. A thin, twisting line of whitish smoke drifted upward from the tip. After just a few tokes, his mind went blank. He stubbed the joint out against the trunk of an oak, twisted the end closed again and dropped it back into his pocket. In the waning glow of twilight he wandered out of the park toward home.

*****

After Paul and Lynn left, Freddy spent a few minutes talking with Eric, who again denied breaking off the bronze statue with his friends or having any knowledge of who did. Barbara invited Freddy to stay for dinner, but he declined.

Freddy pulled into his driveway and noticed his housemate wasn’t home. Raj had a separate entrance and the porch light over his door was on. His bicycle, usually locked up on the side of the house, was gone. Freddy went in and turned on the radio. The evening news had just begun.

Earlier, before they left for the beach, he had left a fillet of wild caught salmon to thaw in the refrigerator. He pulled it out and a shallow dish, which he sprinkled with salt. He squeezed half a lemon into the dish and lay the fish in it, flipping the salmon so both sides absorbed the marinade. He let it sit covered as he filled and set the rice cooker.

Freddy pulled a head of broccoli out of the refrigerator, cut and washed some florets and stems and tossed them into the inner vessel of a range top steamer. He found two carrots in the crisper and diced and added them to the broccoli.

Then Freddy pulled down a pan, set it on the range and drizzled it with olive oil. He turned on the burner and when the pan was sufficiently hot, set the fish inside, pouring the excess marinade from the plate on top. In a few minutes the aroma of the salmon filled his flat. He quickly turned on the fan in the hood and turned to peel and dice a chunk of fresh ginger which he tossed in with the fish.

Freddy pulled a bottle of white wine from his makeshift stores: a cool, dry little cupboard under the stairs that led up to Raj’s flat. It was a 2011 gewürztraminer from Navarro he’d bought the previous month, when he passed through Anderson Valley on the way home from a fishing trip to the North Coast. He uncorked the wine, poured himself a glass, then flipped the cork, reinserted it into the bottle and put it in the door of the fridge.

Sipping the crisp, dry wine, Freddy turned the fish and peeled back the skin, stir frying it separately in the edge of the pan. He diced a serrano pepper and tossed it in with the bits of skin at the edge of the pan. In the end he’d add the spicy, crispy, fried skin to the cooked rice. Freddy poured a shallow amount of water into the outer vessel of the steamer, put it on another burner and waited for it to boil. Then he gently set the inner vessel into the steamer

and closed it, minding to shut the aeration slits on the lid.

Freddy’s cell rang and, seeing it was Raj, he answered: “Hey man, I‘m making fish and rice if you’re hungry.”

“I’m good,” Raj replied, “Meet me for a drink after.” Freddy agreed and stabbed at the face of his phone with his pinkie to hang up.

The rice was finished. He removed the lid from the cooker and flipped the salmon skin up into the rice with the spatula. He broke up the fillet in the pan to reveal the bones, then plated the rice, vegetables and half the fish.

He turned off the burners, put a lid on the remaining salmon, refilled his wine glass and took his plate to the bar in the living room to eat and listen to Minds Over Matter, the radio quiz show. He called in to answer but his guess was wrong.

It was Margaret, queen consort of Malcolm III who was “first to cross the firth at Forth.”

*****

Because it was Sunday night, there was plenty of parking and Freddy eased the Gran Torino into a space directly in front of the bar. On a stool out front, Tim was carding a group of youngsters, one at a time, swinging the beam of his Streamline Stinger from their faces to his hand to illuminate the IDs and then back to their squinting eyes. Freddy made discreet eye contact, hit him with a quick fist-bump and ducked in.

The bar was warm and dark, lit by the continuously changing illumination of the handful of tv screens and video games and the juke box and the seamless use of house lighting which was also discreet; low key. You could sit with a friend at a table in here and disappear.

“Yo! Freddy!“ Raj beckoned him to the end of the bar where he was in a discussion with a couple of the regulars and Davey, who gave Freddy a nod as he tossed a bevnap which revolved a quarter turn in the air before landing, then spun on the bartop to a halt in front of him.

“Whatcha drinkin’?

Freddy ordered a beer and pulled up a stool. Raj was in mid-tale:

“So this guy figures why pay for toilet paper, right?“

Davey pulled a cold glass out of the fridge, held it up to the light to make sure it was clean and walked over to the taps, “I’m listening.”

Raj continued: “So one day he’s looking at the stack of mail on his kitchen table and it’s littered with all the junk mailers he gets in the mail; the mass marketing stuff – brightly colored ads from Lowe’s or Safeway that just comes as a wad. They aren’t even addressed … like to ‘resident’ or “our neighbor at’. They’re just jammed in the mailbox, you know?”

Freddy nodded. Davey returned with his beer, “Yeah and if you live in a complex or a duplex they have to jam a set of ads into everybody’s mailbox … and nobody keeps ‘em so they all end up in the trash or just thrown on the ground by the mailboxes – what a waste.”

“Right, right,“ Raj replied, “those. So this guy decides he’s going to use the mailers as toilet paper. I mean they’re going to waste and he’s broke as shit and he’s always running out of toilet paper.”

“Oh shit,” Davey said.

“Only he doesn’t know that the ink in those things is so cheap, it’s carcinogenic if an excessive amount gets into your system over time,“ Raj continued, looking at the two of them incredulously, “and so the guy gets cancer! … Because he didn’t know how to wash his own ass with water, like billions of people do everyday.”

“That’s just bad luck, man,” Davey said shaking his head.

“Bad luck?” Raj replied, “Dude, seriously, what I am trying to say is that the west has become so fucked up that people won’t even touch their own assholes to clean them with water. This guy felt obliged, compelled to use paper.”

“Uh. Yea-ah.” Davey responded, “I’m not washing my ass with my hands.”

“So what do you do when you run out of toilet paper?”

“I don’t.”

Freddy turned to Raj: “Wait. You don’t use toilet paper?”

Raj demurred, looked down at his shoes and sighed before replying. “Not every time no-”

“Ohhhhhh!” Davey yelled, breaking up laughing, “Last time I shake your hand!”

Freddy smiled.

“I wash my hands!“ Raj barked out defensively. “Look,” he continued, “My point is, because I’m Indian, if I need to wash my ass with water, I can. I know how. I’m not

incapable of reaching back into our history as a species, drawing from the data pool before the existence of toilet paper and remembering how to wash my own ass!”

Davey shrugged.

“We’ve been doing it since before Rome, before Greece. You keep a little cup or container on the tank in the bathroom. You fill it with water before you sit down to shit. When you’re done, you use the cup to pour water slowly down the crack with your right hand and wipe with your left. That’s why so many cultures put such emphasis on the right hand as the clean one.”

“Way too much information,” Davey remarked as he walked away down the bar to another customer.

“The point is,” Raj continued, to Freddy, “people in the west have grown to fear their own bodies. They’ve been like … trying to get less in touch with themselves. It’s like this whole Purell craze-” He looked up over Freddy’s shoulder and stopped short.

Freddy took a long slow swig from his beer as he swiveled around in his chair to see what had made Raj stop. A very large man stood in the doorway. Easily six foot four and over 250 pounds, probably closer to 280. He had a close-cut, tight afro and though clean-shaven, with a round, open face. He walked toward their end of the bar and as he drew nearer Freddy noticed that despite his size and demeanor, the man’s eyes were gentle. It was obviously his first time in the place.

Freddy gave him a nod since had been assessing him with such directness.

“What’s up, what’s up?” the man said congenially as he took a seat at the bar a few stools down.

“Not much, man,” Raj replied, “just another day in the Bay.”

Davey approached the new customer with the flip of a bevnap, “Watcha having?”

“Let me get a Jack and Coke, man, I just got out after a long stretch and I am happy to be free!”

They all laughed.

“Well all right, then,” Davey replied, “Welcome back!” He turned to pull the bottle and Raj raised his glass.

The man turned, clearly relieved there was no concern about having revealed he’d been in prison. His whole frame physically released the tension; he immediately seemed more at ease.

Davey returned with his cocktail, “That’ll be six dollars.”

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wad of bills.

“No wallet,” Freddy thought.

He handed Davey a twenty and as he turned to make change, the man lifted his drink to Freddy and Raj, “Salut!”

They all toasted his liberation.

*****

Barbara could see the boys were exhausted. After nodding slowly over the course of dinner, little Michael finally just fell asleep in front of his plate. His chin rose and fell on his chest as he snored lightly. Beside him, Eric was just staring into his remaining food, stirring what was left of the vegetables.

During dinner Barbara had exchanged texts with most of the other parents who were being questioned concerning the missing Cooper’s Hawk. Sunday evening was precious relaxation time for all the families. They collectively agreed – through a quick series of texts – to put the kids to bed and discuss the matter by e-mail or when convenient within a day or two.

“You guys must have had fun,” Barbara said quietly. “Go ahead and take your brother to bed, Eric. I‘ll come and tuck you in after I clean up.”

Eric woke Michael up with a nudge and the boys headed off to the room they shared. Barbara cleared the table, brushed the leftovers into the recycling and rinsed the plates and loaded them into the dishwasher. She wiped down the table and counter tops and put her smaller kettle on for tea. Checking the time, she calculated so she could program the television. She started a Netflix show she’d saved, then paused it. Then she scheduled a new episode of her favorite show on HBO to interrupt whenever it was due to begin later that evening.

She went to tuck the boys in, but found them both passed out on their beds with the desk lamp on. Percy Jackson’s Battle of the Labyrinth lay splayed open across Michael’s chest. Barbara picked up the novel gently, grabbed a Yoenis Cespedes baseball card from the bedside table and used it as a bookmark. She set the book on the table and gave Michael a kiss. Then she drew the blankets across her two sons, turned off the lamp and left them to their dreams.

END CHAPTER ONE OF THE EVER CHANGING CHRYSOPYLAE

a Freddy Pico mystery by M.T. Karthik