The line was dead. I tried to reconstruct the conversation onto my notepad just as I had heard it. What I said. What Rafaela said. It was a dumb conversation; hardly worth it. Something in her voice made me take it down. Like the reporter I am. There was something there to decipher. It wasn’t because throughout the hassle of the day, hers was the only call I really hoped to get, craving her voice—that touch from the south. I knew the thing in her voice wasn’t her affection for me. But in the end she said maybe we should tell Bobby. We tell Bobby what? Well, I could fantasize, but as Emi would say, it was all crap. No. Something in my guts told me Rafaela was in trouble.
At the same time I wanted this excuse to rush down south, I had to admit my resentment at the timing. Big stories were breaking all around town. My homeless series was practically spread all over the front page, not to mention the freeway canyon. And my homeless conductor was conducting. The news never stopped; it just kept coming twenty-four hours a day. It seemed that for every hour I worked on it, there was another half-hour hidden away that I had to catch up to. Time and a half. If I could punch a clock, I could make some real money. In this case, I was under time compression. The news stretched; time compressed. Meanwhile, I followed Buzzworm like a beagle, sniffing into every campfire, car, hovel or the remains of, every stewing pot in every soup line, every ring of shopping carts, every newspaper bedding.
“Les Miz à la L.A.,” Emi called it. “Like they spilled out the Shubert. If only they could pack ’em back in.”
“These are real people,” I reminded her pompously.
“Real people paid sixty a pop to see unreal people.” She pointed at the TV. “If you don’t mind the commercials, you get to see real people here for free.”
“It’s obscene.”
“Which? Paying or not paying?”
“Both.”
“You’re such a purist. You think people should only get the news by reading it.”
“You think news is entertainment.”
“It isn’t?” Emi smiled her smile. “Gabe, you want it to be like B-complex stress vitamins or eating veggies.”
“The stuff of informed responsible decision making. Citizenship.” It was disgusting. I sounded like MacNeil/Lehrer.
“That’s not news, Gabe.”
She was right. News was the spice of life. The thing that broke up the day. News was change. Gossip. I loved news. I worked for news. I lived news. News was my life. Who was I kidding?
“Hey.” Emi remembered something. “When I said Les Miz, I wasn’t being facetious you know. Seriously.”
“I know.”
“About the singing?”
“Yeah, I was down there. They’re all singing, humming. I mean it’s sporadic, but yeah. Homeless singing, harmonizing. Something.”
But later in the day, Buzzworm was more emphatic: “There’s a goddamn choir down here!” he reported.
“What would you say?” I asked. “Gospel? Revival?”
“If you wanna call Beethoven’s Ninth revival. More like the Mormon Tabernacle I’d say. Weird. I heard even the goddamn Triforium is playing it.”
“What do you make of it?”
“What do I make of it? People living in abandoned luxury cars, creating a community out of a traffic jam. There’s already names to the lanes, like streets! South Fast Lane and North Fast Lane. Limousine Way—that’s the off-ramp at Fifth. There’s dealing down here! There’s a truck could be a Seven Eleven. Got everything—beers, Cokes, even nuke you a burrito. Only thing missing’s the lottery tickets. FIRST A.M.E. feeding people on the right shoulder southbound at Olympic. Hey, get this. Somebody found an espresso maker; I got a latté for fifty cents! Get us a Versateller down here, and we’re cookin’! And this singing. People busting out singing. Just busting out. Some guy over here on top of a Maserati singing like he was Pavarotti. Meanwhile, the fire on the two ends of the freeway is creeping in. Saying that the blast tapped a natural pocket of gas below the freeway. Can you confirm this?”
“I’ll look into it.”
“Goddamn Eternal Flame. Ain’t never gonna blow out. You talk about hot! Smoke covering everything like a big black tent. Is this hell?”
“Are you asking that rhetorically?”
“Balboa you fool! Hell yes!”
“Hey, what about this orange crush?” I interjected. “What’s the scoop on the ground?”
“Word is oranges were supposed to be just a form of transport. Squeeze those babies and reconstitute. Sells with a slight orange zest.”
“How much you figure came through?” I queried.
“Truckload at most. But who’d a thought it could be that toxic? Principle’s imaginative, but acidity enhanced the poison. Sorta like fugu, that poison blowfish sashimi.” I was always amazed by Buzzworm’s savvy. He continued, “Bit of poison gives you a rush, see. Time goes by, and it gets stronger. Packs a bigger punch exponentially, shall we say.”
“Guess they didn’t figure.”
“Not at all.”
“Looks like transportation got crossed,” I added.
“Looks like. Maybe even some DOUBLE-crossing.”
“Who’s involved? Who’s the originator?”
“That’s just it. Looks like it’s C. Juárez and company.”
“Damn. One hundred and one ways to move shit.”
“They’re moving on that meeting. It’s México City or nowhere. Tomorrow soon enough for you?”
“Timing couldn’t be worse,” I groaned.
“Like I said, it’s your call. But what about my man Manzanar?”
“He approved my copy, not that he liked it much.”
“Is that so?”
“Said I wrote it with my head, not my ears.” I was feeling hurt, but Buzzworm wasn’t going to commiserate.
“I know what he means.”
“Whaddya mean you know what he means?”
“You can’t hear his music, can you?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Way I see it is this. Manzanar used to be a doctor. Now, he’s a kind of witch doctor. He sees and hears things nobody else can. What he’s doing up there is a kind of interpretation. You can’t write about what you can’t see nor hear.” Buzzworm waxed philosophical.
“I gotta go up there and conduct?”
“Maybe.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look at it this way. Homeless are like the dead. You the medium. We gonna talk through you, Day of the Dead like.”
I thought about this. “I don’t do magic, Buzz.” Like Emi said, I was strictly noir.
“Don’t feel bad. Neither do I. Besides, don’t need magic for no Pulitzer.”
“Where’re you calling from?”
“Car phone in a gold Mercedes. You just line up and take your turn.” Buzzworm paused. “Now I wanna know if you got your info. So where is the LAPD? Where’s the National Guard? What’s the fix on this? This ain’t a riot yet, but in this town we all know people value their cars above their spouses. Can’t last forever.”
“Seems like they’re concentrating on the fire first. When the fires go out, you’ll all look like Custer’s Last Stand.”
“Don’t think there’s not some thinking down here ’bout this. At the very least, they’re gonna jumpstart these vehicles and make a move.”
“Phone’s cellular, Buzz. Better keep it to yourself. Could be a reason for letting you use it.”
“You coming down?”
“Gimme an hour.”
“Limousine Way?”
“Limousine Way.”
I grabbed my stuff, stashed my notes in a folder. While I was talking to Buzzworm, I had been circling a word in Rafaela’s conversation. It popped out of the notes on the page: Package. She was sending me a package. What package? One hundred and one ways to move shit. I made my decision; I would make that meeting in México City, get a reading on C. Juárez and the orange connection and take a detour to my place to check up on Rafaela. Even though Buzzworm had counseled me on the nature of hardcore news, I knew what he knew: the homeless weren’t going away. On the other hand, the very tail of a conspiracy was whipping about just out of my reach; either I grabbed it now or never.