When Harry Brofsky came to see me about the violent death of Billy Lusk, fifteen to twenty residents were being murdered each week in Los Angeles, with gang activity accounting for roughly half the killings.
At the same time, reported hate crimes were on the rise, especially those targeting lesbians and gay men, which, for the first time, outnumbered even those directed at blacks and Jews.
As Harry explained it, the murder of Billy Lusk bridged both categories: A young gang member had selected a victim outside a gay bar in Silver Lake and gunned him down in cold blood.
“From what Templeton tells me, it’s pretty cut-and-dried,” Harry said, referring to Alex Templeton, his top crime reporter at the Los Angeles Sun. “A witness heard a gunshot a few minutes after midnight, then saw a Mexican kid kneeling over the body in the parking lot. Turned out it was some kind of gang initiation deal.”
The door and windows of the apartment were open wide, and the hot wind rattled the screens like a mad person trying to get in. I sat cross-legged on the lumpy bed, hugging my chest with my arms. The few feet that loomed between Harry and me felt as wide as the Santa Monica Mountains.
“Exactly which part of Mexico is the suspect from?”
My question drew only a peevish look.
“You mentioned that he’s a Mexican national,” I explained, scratching reflexively at an old sore point between Harry and me, although my heart wasn’t really in it.
“I didn’t say he was a Mexican national.”
“Yes, Harry, you clearly used the term Mexican.”
“Pardon my political incorrectness. A Mexican-American kid. Chicano, Hispanic, Latino. Take your pick, because I can’t keep the fucking nomenclature straight anymore. I leave that to the more enlightened souls on the copy desk.”
There had been a time when Harry wouldn’t have spoken so callously. During the 1980s, which had spanned the primary years of our working relationship, I’d raised his consciousness to a marginally sensitive level, where he’d begun to see people unlike himself as actual human beings. He’d obviously relapsed in the years since, and I suppose I should have cared, but I didn’t.
He took out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips without lighting it.
“The kid—pardon me, the eighteen-year-old young man—fled the scene. A witness got his license number as he drove away. The cops traced it to his parents’ house in Echo Park. Found him in his bedroom, listening to rap music.”
“I believe that’s a capital crime right there.”
Harry gave me another look, more smug this time than irritated.
“There was blood on his shoes,” he said. “Also on his clothes.”
“Maybe he cut himself shaving.”
“From what I hear, he doesn’t shave yet.” Harry raised his eyebrows, waiting for a rejoinder.
I didn’t have one. I was thinking what Central Jail must be like for an inmate with a boy’s face. With nearly seven thousand suspects and convicts packed into one building, Men’s Central Jail was the largest in the world, and more violent than any California prison. The kid was lucky, I thought, to have a gang affiliation for protection.
“For what it’s worth,” Harry went on, “the blood type from his clothes matches the blood type of the victim.”
“What about a weapon?”
Harry and I had fallen into a once-familiar pattern, perhaps to avoid matters not so easily discussed. It was a game we’d played many times, with well-defined roles. Harry was the brusque, curmudgeonly editor, skeptical as all good editors should be, but essentially a product of his conservative Midwest roots, a believer in well-established systems and institutions. I was the bleeding-heart reporter, raised in the East in a home where alcohol and violence provided the most vivid memories, who distrusted authority as a rule, convinced that life is fundamentally unjust in a world ruled by the privileged and the powerful.
The undercurrent of tension and competition between Harry and me had been a constant, keeping us from ever being truly close. In spite of it, or perhaps because of it, we’d hammered out a couple of dozen award-winning articles when we’d been at the Los Angeles Times, “damn fine articles,” as Harry used to call them, after he’d loosened up with a drink or two.
What was different now was that Harry was no longer employed as an editor at the mighty Los Angeles Times, but instead at the barely profitable and far less respectable Los Angeles Sun, struggling to put his career back together; and I was no longer a reporter and had no interest in much of anything beyond my private thoughts and extending as much time as possible between drinks.
I also had no idea why Harry was here, telling me about the murder of a man I’d never heard of outside a gay bar halfway across town. Perhaps he thought I could provide special sources or contacts for Alex Templeton’s story, but I didn’t want even that much involvement with Harry or the newspaper or anything else beyond these walls.
“Templeton says the cops have all the evidence they need,” Harry said. “The weapon’s a moot point.”
“A moot point.”
My voice was faintly mocking, as it had been a thousand times in conversations with Harry. The corners of his mouth curled into the slightest smile. He played his best card, saved for last. “The kid confessed,” he said.
“Ah.”
“He even bragged about it. Like I said, some kind of gang ritual. You know how those people are.” Harry was so offhand, so blatantly offensive that I should have sensed what was behind it. “Templeton’s putting the story together for tomorrow’s paper.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Banner head, front page. Gay Man Gunned Down by Rampaging Gang Bangers. A dead faggot, ripe for exploitation. Then forgotten by tomorrow.”
“My, aren’t we on a high horse,” Harry said.
“The Sun has a grand tradition for sleaze and sensationalism, Harry. You can’t deny that.”
“As a matter of fact, we plan to treat the story with the utmost respect. I’m even planning long-term follow-up, to see how it plays out.”
“A queer, murdered outside a gay bar in a working-class neighborhood that’s largely Latino? Since when has the Sun considered such things worthy of respectful coverage?”
“You haven’t read the Sun recently, have you, Ben?”
“It’s been awhile.”
“I’ve been making some changes,” Harry said. “Moving gradually away from the hothouse stuff. I figure this murder gives us a nice hook for some in-depth reporting. Maybe even a series.”
“Because of its socioeconomic implications?”
“If you want to use five-dollar words.”
I’d worked with too many editors, Harry especially, to swallow a load that easily.
“What’s the kicker, Harry?” I watched him fidget a little on the edge of the chair. “Why this particular story?”
He removed the unlit cigarette from his lips and rolled it thoughtfully between his fingers before finally looking up.
“Billy Lusk came from big bucks and breeding.”
I smiled, but sadly.
“Wealth, social status, and the right zip code. That makes all the difference.”
“It does make a difference, Ben. Poor people dying violently has never been big news. Whether you like it or not.”
“What I like or don’t like doesn’t matter much anymore, Harry.”
He ignored that and rattled off details like a salesman trying to close a deal he feels slipping away.
“The victim’s stepfather is Phil Devonshire, the retired golf pro. Serves on half a dozen corporate boards. Mother’s Margaret Devonshire. Comes from old Pasadena money, heavy into philanthropy. Country club people, up in Trousdale Estates.”
I suddenly felt edgy, impatient. It was nearly five. I was getting closer and closer to needing a drink. But more than that, I didn’t like having Harry here, didn’t like playing the old game with him. It served no purpose; Harry Brofsky was part of the past.
“Why are you telling me all this, Harry?”
He slid off the chair, went to the window, and stared out across treetops and rooftops at the Pacific Design Center: a bold glass monolith in two sections, one cobalt blue, the other money green, jutting dramatically into a sky scoured clean by the Santa Anas.
When he spoke again, all the combativeness was gone from his voice. It was the voice of a tired man, not tired from the day but from the years.
“I want you to put together a short feature,” Harry said.