Cesar Chavez. The buildings take on an industrial tinge, they lose all pretense, and suddenly I’m in Boyle Heights, which used to be Jewish a long time ago but now is mostly Latino. I don’t know why, but I feel right at home here. Something real to feast your eyes on. Maybe that’s why. Proud, dark-skinned old men in starched white shirts and pearl buttons waiting patiently for the light to change. A pair of housewives gossiping. One in a long crinkled red skirt is pushing her secondhand baby carriage over the broken sidewalk. Everyone has time here. The sun is shining, and the Catholic church presides. No one, it seems, is in an infernal rush to get where they’re going. I dunno, maybe it has to do with the unemployment rate, but whatever it is, it’s not like the rest of LA.
I pull up in front of a taqueria near Mariachi Plaza. Omar Villasenor is sitting all alone at a spindly outdoor table. He has a paper bag in one hand, and every few seconds he pulls it to his face and takes a swallow from whatever’s inside. There’s also a half-eaten bowl of guacamole and a large orange plastic basket of chips in front of him. I didn’t plan it or anything, but this is right where I thought he’d be.
“It’s been a while, hombre,” I say. “Hace mucho que no lo veo.” I lay my bullet down on the table. Then I start to explain how it found its way into my hand. I tell him about the rabbi. About Howie Rothbart and the guys who run the doughnut shops. About Sophie Applebaum and the sermons she gave me. He listens for a long time. Doesn’t say a word. Talking isn’t Omar’s strong suit. He’s a big, sturdy fellow in his early thirties, and, from a certain angle, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Yul Brynner. He has a shaved head, not because he’s losing ground in that department, but because he got into a fight with a barber once and vowed he’d never give them another penny. Now he shaves himself clean once a week. There’s a tiny gold crucifix that pokes out from under his yellow T-shirt and a diamond stud in his ear. Leather boots from the old country. When he was a teenager, Omar used to wrestle professionally in Mexico, where, he told me, it’s not just for show like it is in El Norte. You come up here, they expect you to be a goddamn actor. Wear a costume. Goof around in the ring. Not where I come from, man.
When I finish talking he sighs, sets the bullet standing straight up on the table. “Somebody wants you dead,” he says. “Guess it doesn’t pay no more to be a detective.”
“Somebody wants me to stop asking questions, that’s for sure. I don’t think it’s a threat, though. Not really.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, if I wanted to threaten somebody, I wouldn’t just set a bullet on the hood of a car. I’d drive by and put a hole through the windshield, that’s what I’d do. That would send a message.”
He picks up the bullet again. “So what’s this?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe somebody thinks I’m onto something. I just wish to hell I knew what it was.”
He takes a chip and shovels it solemnly into the guacamole, offers me some. I wave him off. “Have you shown this to the cops?” he asks.
“No, not yet. I might, but what’s the point? What are they gonna do about it?”
“Nada,” he agrees. “Nothing, it’s just a bullet. They won’t do nothing until maybe it’s somewhere inside your chest. And even then, probably not much.”
I chuckle. Omar and I go way back. I saved him from a trip to prison once when the boys at the Hollenbeck Station needed a kid to do time for a rape they couldn’t solve. Or couldn’t be bothered to investigate. The public defender, Jerry Saltz, was a pal of mine. He asked me to look into it. Something’s not kosher about this, he said. His words exactly. And Omar was convenient. He was standing on the corner. In the wrong place at the wrong time. He hardly spoke English. He was young. He was poor. He was Mexican. That was in the bad old days when those kinds of things counted as evidence. Did it matter to them that it was a dark, moonless night and the woman wasn’t certain? That she said she’d clawed her assailant’s arm and Omar had no marks on him? That she was legally blind in one eye? That she couldn’t pick him out of a lineup? No, it did not. Yes, she was raped, but not by Omar. Anyway, he has never forgotten me. Even though I reassure him each time we meet, he’s a gentleman, a real mensch, and he insists he owes me a favor he can never repay.
“So what are we going to do about this, amigo?”
I pat him lovingly on the shoulder. “Look at me, Omar. You see I’m not quite the powerhouse I used to be. I think I need a little muscle on my side. Or at least someone who can think this thing through with me. Are you willing? I’d pay you.”
“I won’t take your stupid money.”
“Well, then, I’ll find someone else. Someone who will.” I should have known he was going to give me grief about this. I start to rise from the table.
“Okay, okay, okay, pay me.”
I sit back down.
“But not a lot. I won’t do it if you give me too much.”
Now we both chuckle. I reach over and grab a chip’s worth of guacamole.
Omar thinks I may have missed something, that we should rewind the story and start back at the beginning, so we get in my Honda and drive over to Canter’s. It’s mid-afternoon and it’s not so crowded. There’s a group of tourists standing around, three jiggly women in capri pants with flabby arms and running shoes, and three paunchy men behind them, silent and looking put-upon, the way husbands do, each with a camera hanging off his shoulder. The ladies are gawking at the array of pastries in the big glass case. Like they’re all from Indiana and they’ve never seen a Linzer torte before.
I slide past and ask Doris, the buxom old brunette who works the cash register, if Ruben is around, and before you can say Hanukkah-in-Santa-Monica, he’s sitting across from us.
As much as anybody else, Ruben Glazer runs the joint. I used to play poker with him twenty years ago, but then he started beating me too badly and I had to quit so Loretta and I could make the rent. Like Omar, he’s a big man. Unlike Omar, he’s not what you’d call a healthy man. He still has a little hitch in his step left over from a car wreck, not terrible, but you can’t help but notice. On top of that, his pale jowly face hasn’t seen the outdoors in years, and he’s eaten more than his fair share at Canter’s.
“Help me out here, Ruben. I’m trying to fill in the blanks about Rabbi Diamant. How he died and all.”
Ruben raises his eyebrows. “Somebody hire you, Amos?”
I nod. “The Board over at Shir Emet.”
“Why’d they do that? Does that mean they think it’s murder?”
The look on my face says I wish I knew. “They’re bean counters, I guess. They like everything a certain way. Maybe they’re just performing their due diligence. Maybe they’re worried about a lawsuit. All I know is they’ve asked me to check it out. I guess it doesn’t make sense to them, either.”
Ruben frowns, shakes his head. “It’s a shock to the heart, I’ll say that much. A man sits there eating his lunch, talking with his friends. You know what I mean?” He puts his fist to his chest. And then boom, he’s gone. Sure ruined my day, I’ll tell you.”
Omar shoots me a glance. It’s like we’re having the same
