The brick-and-mortar public housing projects were anything but neutral territory, as far as a half dozen street gangs were concerned. Drug deals took place on the sidewalks in plain view, watched over by sweat shirt–hooded sentries posted on the ends of Kit Carson Street. Before Penley piloted the unmarked police sedan onto the street, the signals went out by cell phone from the watchers, warning the dealers and their runners of the approach.
The thugs’ body language was easy to read. Penley saw hands in pockets, undoubtedly clutching various weapons. The dealers planned to protect their turf from all rivals, other gangs, or narcotics officers. Tense and ready to run and gun.
Penley slowed the car and pulled to the curb. “Roll your window down,” he said to Paula.
“Is that George Watts?” she asked.
“Yeah. When did he get out of prison?”
“I dunno. He probably got kicked because of overcrowding,” Paula said.
“We should say welcome home.”
Penley leaned over toward Paula’s open window and yelled at a knot of men. “Hey, George! Got a second?”
One man, slightly older than the twenty-year-olds with him, squinted, and recognition spread across his face. He spoke in hushed tones to the men around him, and the group relaxed slightly. A few hands came out of pockets, but most important, the hands held no semiautomatic weapons. The older man separated himself from the group and walked toward the unmarked car.
“Detective Penley, what brings you ’round here? You get busted back to narcotics?” George chided. He held a gold-framed smile provided by an elaborate grill of gold and diamonds in the shape of a marijuana leaf over his front teeth.
“We’re here about a murder,” John said.
“Ain’t been nobody killed here in more than a week.”
“You hear about Daniel Cardozo?”
George nodded and said, “Yeah, damn shame too, if you ask me. He seemed to be getting his life together since he got out of prison.”
“Did you see him around here recently?” Paula asked.
“I ain’t talking to you, Newberry. You’re the reason I gotta wear this.” George put his foot on the passenger-side window frame and pulled up his pant leg to reveal a GPS ankle monitor. “Cause of you, I got no privacy and can’t go more than a quarter mile from here.”
“I didn’t make you sell pot over at Kennedy High,” Paula said.
“I wasn’t selling nothing.”
“Only because you got busted before you had a chance. That’s why you got twenty-four months instead of sixty,” Paula countered.
“Man, you had them take away my medical marijuana card. That ain’t right. I got a right to smoke to help my condition.”
“George, you had three pounds of weed, and there’s nothing wrong with you that jail time can’t cure,” Paula said.
“That’s harsh, Newberry,” George complained.
“Now about Cardozo—you seen him?” she pressed.
“Last couple of weeks, he was here a lot. His wife moved in with her mom, Theresa, and they took care of the kid—I think the girl is sick or something. Cardozo was straight up about layin’ down on the West Block Norteños and convinced the South Side Pirus that he weren’t gonna cause no drama.”
“How’d he convince them he was done with the gang?” John asked.
“How much?” John demanded.
George shrugged. “Don’t know, but I figure it had to be a bundle since the Piru shot-caller lifted a ‘hit-on-sight’ order on the dude.”
“Why did Cardozo have a hit on him?” John asked.
“From what I hear, it went back years to when Cardozo was a heavy with the boys. A drug rip-off. He took down a Piru runner and left with the product.”
“Is Rotten Ricky still the Piru shot-caller?” John questioned.
“Yep, dude takes a cut of all the action out here in exchange for protection and so forth.”
“Including yours?” Paula asked.
“Man, why you always gotta be like that? If I was into anything, then yeah, Rotten Ricky would get his.”
John pointed to a first-floor unit with a long, wide sidewalk in the center of the housing complex across the street. “Seven-twelve. That’s where Cardozo’s wife is staying, right?”
George nodded.
“Thanks. If I park my car here, am I gonna have all my tires and rims when I get back? You being an entrepreneur and all?” John said.
George smiled. “Depends on how long you’re gone. I’m doin’ my own number, so alls I can say is that I won’t bother your broke-ass ride.”
John took the keys from the ignition and opened his door. “Good enough for me.”
George strolled back to his posse of young thugs, all of whom eyed the two cops with unveiled contempt. The group listened as George spoke and gestured toward John and Paula. From the street, the conversation was unheard, but the message was clear: George ordered the men to stand down and leave the two cops alone.
Paula joined her partner on the street, and the pair walked across the neglected asphalt to the sidewalk. “What did he mean by ‘doing his own number’?” Paula asked.
“When you’re in prison, no one else is gonna do your time. You have to do your own—your own number. It also means you aren’t taking on anyone else’s time by taking a beef for someone.”
“You think he meant it—that he isn’t involved in anything else around here?”
“By the reaction he got from his protégés over there, I’d say George has his hand in every ounce sold in the projects,” John said.
A wide cement path provided access to four units in the complex. The sparse crabgrass lawn ensured that anyone who approached the place was visible. A curtain pulled back in an upper window. There was no sneaking up on the residents in this neighborhood.
Painted numbers marked the unit on the left as 712. Penley rapped his knuckles on the door and took a step back from the threshold. A slight shadow crossed the peephole, a dead bolt scraped open, and the door pulled inward a few inches. Deep-set, red-rimmed eyes peered around the opening and greeted the detectives.
“Mrs. Cardozo?” John inquired.
“You’re the detective I spoke with? It’s true then? Daniel was . . . butchered?”
“I’m Detective Penley, this is Detective Newberry. May we come inside and speak with you?”
The woman pulled the door open, turned away from the door, and retreated inside the residence. John took the open door as an invitation and followed Mrs. Cardozo.
The newly widowed Mrs. Cardozo was in her early thirties, John guessed. Thinly built and wrapped in an oversized sweat shirt, she perched on the edge of a sofa. She turned her tear-filled eyes away from John. “Manny told me that Daniel was murdered. I always knew that could happen when he ran with the West Block boys, but not now.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cardozo,” John said.
“Please, call me Maria.”
“Do you have anyone here to help you? You need me to call someone?”
“My mother is in the bedroom with Cielo, my daughter.”
“Can you tell me what Daniel was up to over the last few weeks?” John asked.
“He wasn’t doing anything illegal, if that’s what you mean,” Maria said.
“No, that’s not what I mean. Manny Contreras made it sound like Daniel found some work. Do you know what that was?”
She shook her head. “No, he didn’t tell me what it was, and that worried me some. He said I needed to trust him. Danny worked at the Port of Sacramento unloading cargo ships and even got in with the union. He worked after hours to make extra money so we could pay for Cielo’s doctors.”
“Manny told me about Cielo—her being sick.” The words about a sick child felt thick on his tongue.
Maria nodded, and a new trail of tears started down her cheek. “Danny was doing everything he could to pay all the medical bills, and that’s why I was so surprised that he quit the job at the docks.”
“When did he quit?”
From the back room, an ancient voice called out, “Maria, time for Cici’s medication.”
“Sí, Mama.” Maria stood, picked up a plastic tub that held a dozen prescription bottles, and turned to the hallway.
Paula stood. “I can take that to your mother. Please, sit.”
Maria handed the tub to Paula and sat, clearly exhausted and emotionally spent. She wiped her eyes with her sweat shirt sleeve.
Paula retreated down the hall with the tub of prescriptions. Maria kept an eye on her until she disappeared into the bedroom.
John nudged her attention back when he repeated, “When did your husband quit the job?”
“About two months ago.”
“Did he say why?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. We had a big fight about it. I hope it didn’t have nothing to do with his brother Puppet. All he said was that I needed to trust him and that he would be able to take care of us again.”
“You have no idea what he did?”
“No. I asked him, and he got all quiet and uptight. That’s how I could tell he was into something that he shouldn’t be, you know? He promised me, after he got out the last time, that he would stay out of trouble and take care of us. I guess he lied—again.”
“Manny claims that Daniel wasn’t into anything with the Norteños. Moving you here across the river seems to back that up,” John said.
“I know what Manny said. But it doesn’t add up. My Danny cuts ties with the boys, he starts this new job and shows me a huge wad of cash for a couple days’ work. That kind of money—money like that wasn’t from a straight job. Danny swore to me that he wasn’t doing anything illegal. I told him it wouldn’t do our daughter any good if he went back to prison like his brother. He said there was nothing to worry about.”
“Did he tell you who he worked for?” John questioned.
Maria shook her head and looked out the window at George and his thugs as they sold a small package wrapped in tinfoil to a young man on a ten-speed bicycle. “I hope Cielo is able to grow up and live in a better place. I worry about what is ahead for her. The treatments and the medications she has to take. Then, if she’s lucky, she has to survive out there. It’s not fair.”
A pang of familiar parental fear iced across John’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cardozo. Can you tell me what Cielo’s going through?”
“Hell, that’s what she’s going through.” Her tone was sharp. Maria collected herself, and the exhaustion seeped through her once more. “The doctors have a fancy name for it, but Cielo has cancer. She isn’t old enough to understand what could happen. It tears me up inside when I see her at the clinic, hooked up to those machines—she’s so little.”
A telephone rang out somewhere deeper in the small apartment. Its harsh chime echoed off the walls in high-pitched tones, so loud and sudden that Maria jumped.
“I’m sorry, my mother is hearing impaired, and she has one of those special phones. I hate that thing. I’d better go check on her,” she said as she left the couch.
Paula returned from the rear of the apartment and leaned in toward John. “Get anything from her on what our victim was into?”
“Not much.” John stood and rolled his stiffened neck, tightened by the pain he felt in Maria’s voice when she talked about her daughter’s failing health. “Cardozo quit a good job at the port and started some new gig. He brought home some cash—more than Maria thought he should have from a legit job.”
From the rear of the residence, Maria’s voice grew frantic. “Mama—Mama, we have to go now! Get Cielo up! We have to take her to the hospital! It’s time!”
“What’s wrong?” Paula asked.
Tears fell from Maria’s cheeks. “We have to get Cielo to the hospital. It’s finally time for her surgery. Mama! Ay Dios mío, she can’t hear me. Mama!” She ran to the rear of the apartment.
“Surgery?” John’s chest tightened with the thought of a child on an operating table.
“Man, I thought the little girl looked bad, but wow,” Paula said.
“Cancer. Nothing like a being a parent with a sick kid. All your emotions are balanced on a razor’s edge. That is one helpless feeling, believe me,” John added.
Maria burst from the back of the apartment and stuffed medication bottles and a few clothing items into a plastic grocery bag. She ran to the kitchen and picked up the phone. She entered the number for a taxi service taped to the wall above the phone.
“Hello, I have an emergency. Please send a taxi to—” Maria said, trembling.
John placed his finger on the receiver and disconnected the call. “Which hospital?”
Confusion settled on Maria’s face. “Central Valley Hospital. I can’t pay for an ambulance, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She started punching in the taxi company’s phone number once more.
“We’ll drive you,” John offered.
“You will?” Maria said.
“Get your daughter and let’s go. Central Valley isn’t that far.”
Maria regarded the cop with a narrowed eye. She retreated to the rear of the apartment.
“What are you doing? It’s against policy to transport medical cases,” Paula said.
“It shouldn’t be. You know that whole ‘protect and serve’ thing? This is the serve part. You’ve seen what she’s up against—no money, no husband, and a sick kid. She needs our help.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Paula said.
Maria told her mother to call the rest of the family while she carried Cielo and struggled to pick up the bag of clothes and medication. John pushed forward and took the sickly girl in his arms. She was limp and rail thin. Her small face was puffy, but her features were delicate and frail. The girl looked up at the stranger who held her with an expression of mild interest. At this point in her treatment, the child had experienced dozens of nurses, doctors, and technicians touching and moving her, so one more unfamiliar face didn’t concern her.
John knew that listless gaze, and it tore at his chest. The pain of a helpless, fragile, and vulnerable child was soul crushing. He broke off eye contact, not for the child’s benefit, but for his own.
John carried the child to their car while George and his thugs watched. Maria dropped the bag of medications and clothing in the back seat, spilling a half dozen prescription bottles with familiar-looking labels bearing long drug names that seemed like pharmaceutical alphabet soup. John scooped them up and tossed them into the bag.
As they drove away, he couldn’t help but think that was a lot of medication for one little girl.