chapter thirty-nine

The shock of hearing Lee mention my name in his vlog rooted me to that couch. Only the sound of another voice, emanating from my phone, shook me free. My mother was crying. I was just about to pick up the call when she said my father was in the hospital. Again. I left my finger hovering above the “accept call” icon.

“Please come, Eddie,” she said. “I know you have issues with your dad. But he’s your dad.”

Issues. I took slow, even breaths, but fatigue and everything else must have weakened my internal firewalls. My fifteen-year-old self shoved his way through and tapped me on the shoulder. He dragged me back fourteen years.

***

The thermometer had topped 112 degrees by noon that July 4^th, 2026. The fridge had been empty at breakfast—except for half a can of tuna and some moldy cheese.

I’d spent the day working next door. My neighbor, Mr. Santiago, was putting on a new roof. He threw me some cash in exchange for my help. Hot and sweaty, my stomach growling, I’d staggered home with a bag of groceries after a ten-hour day. My mom was lying down upstairs. I started to unload the carton of milk, some sandwich meat, and bread into the fridge.

I smelled him before I saw him. My father plopped down on a chair at the dining room table, readying his works for a hit.

His sweat stank of dirty socks and acetone even then. He’d been at the Green Ice all week.

I carefully set the nail gun and tool belt on the table along with some Fritos, then plopped down in the chair opposite him.

As I pulled off the heavy steel toed boots, one by one, I watched my old man calmly tie off his arm, make a fist, then casually tap a vein as he prepared to shoot the hot load of ice that would take him to Emerald City. I still had a black eye from our last “chat,” so I just sat there, munching Fritos, and watched.

Then I stood up real slow and walked over to his side of the table. The past few months had added five inches and twenty pounds to my frame. I towered over him.

The spike was millimeters from his skin now. He glanced up at me, a quizzical look in those brown-black eyes.

“Do you even think about your family?” I said.“Do you?” The next words spilled out before I could stop them. “You fucking junkie.”

His fist hit my face. I forgot how fast he could move—when he wasn’t yet high.

Everything slowed down then—like over-cranked film running in super-slo-mo.

My head snapped hard to the right, and I heard the dull thud of cracking cheekbone before I felt it. I crashed hard on the table. The cheap plywood cracked in two. My heart pounded. My dad had his Glock out before I knew it.

That’s when my mom ran in from upstairs. She threw herself between us, trying to shield me.

The blow meant for me landed on her. He slugged her so hard she crumpled to the floor. The sunglasses she wore to hide a fresh set of bruises flew off.

Something shifted in me then. I don’t remember standing up, but I must have. I slugged my father—hard. He reeled like a drunk staggering backwards. He stared at me with this stunned look on his face. I’d never hit him before. More stunned than pissed off at first, but his rage followed like a tsunami chasing an earthquake.

“You ever hit me again, you snot-nosed little punk, you better kill me,” he hissed, and slugged me again, the Glock in his hand this time.

I fell once more, knocking the saucer-shaped lamp we had hanging over the table. My father dropped his piece with the impact of the blow. I grabbed his hand and bit down hard. The taste of his blood filled my mouth. He grabbed the nail gun and nailed my foot to the floor. Kerchunk.

I screamed like a little girl. He came after me with fists and his steel-tipped boots after that.

About to land that steel in my liver, he kicked but hit only air. He found himself staring down the barrel of his own gun, in my hand this time.

I shot him. Blood and flesh spattered the wall with a sick wet sound. The old man crumpled into a sitting position on the floor opposite me, holding his bloody arm. The bullet tore a big chunk out of his shoulder. His face turned paper white under his sunburn, and he looked at me like I was a stranger. And for the first time I saw fear on his face.

I ripped the nail out of the floor, then out of my foot, leaving a bloody chunk of my flesh behind.

My mother screamed and screamed. The hanging lamp swung round and round, casting its circle of light like the spotlight from a police chopper thrown over a perp on the run. When I close my eyes, I can still see that lamp circling.

Not long after, my mom called 911 and reported the accident.

That’s how it was recorded—an accident. My father never pressed charges, and he never hit me again. The tiger had rolled over.

***

“You all right?”

I flinched and looked up to see Jo kicking off her heels as she took a seat next to me. “What?”

Jo’s eyes had that worried look as she drew up her feet under her. I hadn’t even heard her come in.

“Your mother called me from the hospital when she couldn’t reach you. Your father’s in ICU.Eddie, you never told me your father was so ill. She mentioned compassionate leave. I didn’t even know he was out on parole. How long have you known?”

Paroled: that one word richocheted round my head and sent other thoughts spiraling with it. Maybe Lee hadn’t been referring to Harvey Pink on that vlog at all. Maybe the reason Lee knew my name before I’d ever shown up at his place was that it wasn’t my name alone. Piedmont Sr. had it first. And he’d dragged our name through the muck when he’d gone on the Zeta payroll. Now they’d gone and paroled that asshole.

“You want me to go with you to the hospital?” Jo put her hand on my arm in a reassuring manner.

I cocked my head and just looked at her.

“You are going?” she said. “Eddie, you have to—for your mother. For yourself. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

“Don’t worry. I’m going.” Jo started to stand when I did. “No need for you to drive over there too,” I said. “Might be a false alarm.”

“You sure?” She settled back down on the couch when I nodded. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

I leaned down and kissed her. “Get some sleep. I’ll call you if there’s any news.”

I checked the laser clip Glock 17 and re-holstered the weapon.

“Home security, alert level orange,” I said into the smart-home receiver on the wall nearest the door to the driveway. The sensors clicked on, one by one, little pin lights on the console beaming like a myriad of amber-colored insect eyes. Then I stepped back into the night.

A couple minutes later, I turned onto the Santa Monica freeway.

My skin felt cold and numb. A part of me still couldn’t believe what I’d heard on Lee’s vlog. It had sounded insane. But now the insanity made sense.

I headed south towards San Diego and the KP Med-Center, gas pedal pressed to the floor.

For some people, San Diego means Sea World and Comi-con. For me, it’s the home you don’t want to go back to. Two hours later, my gut had already tightened into a hard little ball as I pulled into the lot at the downtown KP Medcenter.

I hate hospitals. The last time I’d been in this one, the doctors had stitched up my foot and the skin near my mom’s eye. That memory wasn’t helping. Taking a deep breath of the night air, I headed in.

The brightly patterned curtain that served as a door to my father’s room was pulled to the side. My mom had fallen asleep in the chair by his bed, her head nodding with each breath like a wilting flower in the breeze. From ten feet away, I could see the old scars on her face and hands peeking through thick makeup. At least there’d be no fresh bruises anymore.

The stink of sweaty socks and dirty diapers assaulted my nostrils as I crossed the threshold. No nurse could wash away that characteristic stench of a long time Green Ice addict. The stink crept into my mouth and made me want to retch. He looked shrunken, with tough yellowing skin. His eyes were closed and his breathing shallow and raspy. An oxygen tube snaked into his nose. Computer monitors reduced his vitals to numbers and sharp jagged lines, and an intravenous line ran into his veins. That I.V. should feel like auld lang syne to my father.

Dr. Tabandeh, my father’s oncologist, spotted me first. Standing at the foot of his bed, she gestured for me to follow her out to the hall. Dark shadows pooled under her eyes—almost matching her hair.

“Detective Piedmont?”

I nodded.

“I’m glad you’re here.” With hands still bearing fading henna designs, the kind you see on Indian brides, she pushed a few errant strands of black hair behind her ears. “Unfortunately, your father has been diagnosed with stage four leukemia.” She paused. When I didn’t say anything, she rattled on some more about the disease and its complications, given my father’s addictions and generally poor health.

I couldn’t even pretend surprise.

“The only option is a bone marrow transplant from a compatible donor,” she added. The expectant look on her face told me she was waiting for me to volunteer. When I didn’t, the doctor tried again. “I apologize for my bluntness, but the transplant has to be done as soon as possible. Can we test you for compatibility right away?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

The doctor’s eyelids fluttered—three rapid blinks—as her startled brows shot up. Followed by an awkward silence. When I didn’t apologize, the startled look gave way to a frown.

“I expect you need to think it over,” she said. “But don’t take too long, detective. Your father’s a fighter, but he doesn’t have a lot of time.”

In every cloud a silver lining. “Thank you, Doctor.” My father didn’t need a lot of time. Just enough to answer a few questions. I watched Tabandeh’s retreating figure stride down the hall to yet another patient circling the drain. Then I headed back inside the old man’s room.

Without waking my mother, I pulled up a chair from the other empty bed in the room and sat down by her side.

A dying plant stood on the nightstand, and the corner of a contraband pack of Marlboros peeked out from under his pillow. The skin on his spindly arms, pitted with scars and needle tracks, looked like a railroad map. One side of his hospital gown had fallen down, revealing another scar on the shoulder, a deep one. That was the one I’d given him—back when his arms weren’t spindly.

I must have closed my eyes for a minute. When I opened them, Mom had slipped out, but he was awake, staring back at me. The whites of my father’s coffee-colored eyes were jaundice-yellow—like his bladder had burst and piss had flooded his body. I shifted my gaze to the dead plant.

“You always did have a black thumb,” I said, fingering the dried-up leaves.

“Takes one to know one. Heard you got suspended. Shot up a banger.”

“Good to know you keep up with current events, even if you got the facts wrong.” I grabbed the cigarettes tucked halfway under his pillow and dumped them in the trash. “So lame. If you want to kill yourself, couldn’t you manage it with less wear and tear on Mom?”

“Don’t, Eddie.” My mom entered the room with two cups of Medcenter java and handed me one. The aroma of burnt coffee mingled with the smells of the room.

“Why’d you come?” he asked. “I know you don’t give a shit I’m dying.”

“Ed!” my mother pleaded, eyes bright with tears.

It was always the same. Five seconds with my dad reduced us both to circling sharks tearing big bloody chunks out of each other while my mother wept.

I activated my glove phone, pulling up a picture of the now dead scientist, and shoved it in front of my father’s face.

“Recognize him?” I watched my father’s face closely.

“You in K-town now?” He narrowed his eyes and leaned in close, his stench nearly gagging me as he examined the picture hovering in the air.

“Just answer the question,” I said. “How do you know Lee?”

“Who says I do?” He sank back into his pillows and leisurely started to scrape thin black slivers of dirt out from under his nails.

“He did.” I scattered the pixels momentarily into a brightly colored soup as I jabbed at the picture with my right forefinger. “Not long before he died.” The pixels realigned and the face of the dead scientist coalesced once more. “I need to know your exact connection.”

My father’s eyebrow rose a millimeter. He smiled. “I need a bone marrow transfusion.” My father crossed his arms and lifted his chin defiantly as he leaned back into his pillow. “Didn’t the doctor spell it out for you? Without it I’ll be dead in a month.”   

“I’ll donate,” my mom said, her voice quavering. “We don’t need to bother Eddie.”

“The doctor said a blood relative,” he replied. “I don’t have any siblings.”

“So, if I agree to test,” I said, “you’ll give me a straight answer to all my questions?”

“That’s the deal.”

I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw the whole Medcenter bed with him on it, but I didn’t have time to tease out answers. “Deal. How do you know Lee?”

“Not so fast,” he replied. “Blood test first.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“Goddamn it, my life’s on the line here!” His face turned red, then white. He wheezed and started to cough. My father sucked deep drags on his oxygen line until his color returned.

Neither of us had time for bullshit.

So, no sooner had the needle left my skin, and the Medcenter robot rolled off to the lab carrying tubes brimming with my blood, then I repeated my questions about Lee, as I rolled my sleeve down and put my jacket back on.

“Maybe I saw the old guy making a buy when I was in vice some ten years back.” My father mentioned a spot near the wharf, a favorite haunt of drug dealers and prostitutes on the prowl.

This time I didn’t even need to see the hesitation, the twitch at the corner of his eye. “Lee never lived in San Diego,” I said, “and he doesn’t have an arrest record. Period.”

“Didn’t arrest him, did I?”

“Why not?”

“Better things to do than fill out paperwork on some fresh off the boat user,” he said.

“Yeah.” Like scoring ice and hookers for himself. My father had taken cash from the Zetas until they started paying him in other ways. That’s what finally got him kicked off the force. “What about Fuentes?” I watched his face intently to see if this other name from Lee’s vlog triggered any telltale micro-expression.

“Be specific, Eddie. This is San Diego. You can’t turn around without hitting a Fuentes or a Sanchez.”

Proximity to death hadn’t killed off his racism either.

“Did you kill this Fuentes?” I said. “Or look the other way when somebody else did? Like one of your Zeta compadres?”

“Sure,” he answered, scratching the dry skin on his left forearm where the I.V. was attached. “I killed him if that’s what you want to hear. What you gonna do about it now? Arrest me?” The glimmer in his eyes matching the crooked grin that split his face.

The anger drained away, and all I felt was this sick empty feeling. Putting on my hat, I stood up.

“Where you going?” he said. “If you’re a match they’ll be back any minute to schedule the donation. You do it, I’ll swear to anything you want.”

I paused at the door. “The deal was I’d give blood, and you’d give me some straight answers. Not obvious bullshit.”

“I said I’d answer your questions. I didn’t say you’d like the answers.”

“You do you,” I said. “But when you code blue? Don’t call me.” I turned to go.

“I’m sorry,” my father said. His voice even sounded like he meant it.“We always end up fighting, you and me. Oil and water. Why is that? You’re my son.”

An apology from a man who never apologized for anything. My feet stuck to the floor.

My mother grabbed me and held me back. “Eddie, don’t be that way. Your father’s sick.”

Excuses—the old refrain. I could actually feel my heart harden along with my spine. “Listen to me, Mom.” I leaned in and held her face in both my hands. “He’s sick, but not the way you mean. He has a gun in his mouth, and he likes the taste of the metal. Run. Come live with Jo and me.”

My father’s laugh was a hacking smoker’s croak. “You can’t run from who you are, Eddie. We’re blood. That’s all there is. You think that girl you’re with now is going to stay with you? Haven’t I taught you anything? People with money marry people with money. Sooner or later, she’s gonna flush you down the toilet.”

I clenched my hands into tight fists so he wouldn’t see them shake from the anger flooding through me.

“I hope I am a match,” I said. “Because this is me walking away.”

I rested my hand on my mother’s shoulder. “Think about my offer, Mom.” I left her sitting there by my father’s bedside as the old man turned the air blue with profanity. As I walked back the way I’d come, my father’s ranting turned to a desperate whine. “I’m sorry, Eddie. I’ve always been proud of you. I have.”

Funny how words I’d always longed to hear could hurt worse than a nail through flesh. When I didn’t turn around, my father’s verbal abuse resumed.

But his voice grew fainter and fainter until I’d turned the corner and the distance finally buried the now muffled abuse.

Tick-tock, tick-tock—another hour gone, but I had learned something. I shivered despite the warm breeze that hit me when I exited the hospital. The old liar in the hospital bed had no idea who Lee was. Or Fuentes. So the Piedmont referenced in Lee’s vlog, the Piedmont still in the crosshairs of a killer at large, couldn’t have been the burnt out addict who sired me. As I headed to my car, I could almost feel the target settling on my back.