those points."
"I'm sure he didn't, sir."
"You're not sure of much else."
I wondered how I could suggest that Birch get a phone company printout without also suggesting that I was holding out on him. I believed that there would be a time to come clean with Rick Birch. But I didn't be it was then.
He waited for me to add something, but I didn't. He gave the impression of being able to wait forever.
"How were Will's finances?"
"Good, sir. Will's salary wasn't bad and my mother is wealthy. He never liked spending money."
He waited again, but I said nothing.
"Blazak didn't say what the ransom demand was."
My turn to wait. I can wait forever, too.
"Okay, Joe. We'll get to the fine print tomorrow. Do me a favor write down what happened last night. Everything you can remember. It’ll help both of us."
"Okay."
He stood. "I'm sorry. I really am sorry for you."
"Thank you."
We set a time and Rick Birch took one more look around my kitchen, shook my hand. I showed him to the door.
After dinner Jack Blazak called. He wanted me to be at his home in Newport the next morning, early. He didn't ask me anything about daughter. He put on his wife, Lorna, to give me directions to "the Newport house."
She did. Then, "Don't hang up, Mr. Trona. I just have to ask you---how was she? Did she look okay? Was she upset or hurt or anything? I haven’t seen my child in three days."
"She looked fine, Mrs. Blazak. She looked fine when I saw her."
CHAPTER FOUR
S ix a.m . and the sun was just rising over the hills of south Newport Beach. My car idled beneath the towering marble archway that marked the entry to the Pelican Point development. A gate guard took my name, plates, badge and driver's license numbers. He stared at my face like he could handle it any time. The gate swung open and I drove in.
Ten days ago, Newport PD had shot a sixteen-year-old boy dead just outside this gate. Twelve shots, nine hits, dead-on-scene. The guy was armed with a machete and a sharpened screwdriver, screaming in Spanish. His name was Miguel Domingo. Jaime Medina's HACF was up in arms about the incident, demanding an investigation. He'd talked about it with Will that night, in fact. The shooting was the second violent death of an undocumented Guatemalan worker in a month. A week before the shooting, a young domestic worker, Luria Bias, was struck and killed by a car as she "wandered" onto a street close to her Fullerton apartment. It was ruled an accident. The woman in the Suburban that killed her got out and tried to help.
Driving into a place like Pelican Point, you saw the beauty and the wealth and had to admit the dizzying unfairness of things, the way some people lived in mansions by the beach and others got shot at the gates or run over by sport utility vehicles. Some guy trying to take his share, using a screwdriver and a machete. A lady trying to make it by cleaning people's houses.
New asphalt on the old hills. Mansions, palaces, estates—some finished, some not. Georgian, Tudor, Tuscan, Roman, Frank Lloyd Wright-ish, postmodern glass and concrete. Gray sky with a seagull in it hillsides and a battalion of yellow Cat D-9s ready to scrape new pads off the horizon. Never too early to take out a hilltop.
The next gate had its own little gatehouse beside it, but no guard. A security camera followed my face to a stop. The intercom was easy to reach. I pushed the ringer and waited. Two gates per household, SOP the Newport hills now.
"Yes."
"Joe Trona for the Blazaks."
"Come on in, Joe."
The Blazaks had gone Greco-Roman: a reflecting pool out front lined with olive trees, then an expanse of white marble steps leading to a columned portico and two immense, windowless front doors. The house was white marble, rectangular and flat-roofed. Bougainvillea and ocotillo spread upward along one side, casting shadows and bright purple bracts against the pale marble walls. Statuary, a nice little plot of grape vines with their arms out on wires and
"I'm sure he didn't, sir."
"You're not sure of much else."
I wondered how I could suggest that Birch get a phone company printout without also suggesting that I was holding out on him. I believed that there would be a time to come clean with Rick Birch. But I didn't be it was then.
He waited for me to add something, but I didn't. He gave the impression of being able to wait forever.
"How were Will's finances?"
"Good, sir. Will's salary wasn't bad and my mother is wealthy. He never liked spending money."
He waited again, but I said nothing.
"Blazak didn't say what the ransom demand was."
My turn to wait. I can wait forever, too.
"Okay, Joe. We'll get to the fine print tomorrow. Do me a favor write down what happened last night. Everything you can remember. It’ll help both of us."
"Okay."
He stood. "I'm sorry. I really am sorry for you."
"Thank you."
We set a time and Rick Birch took one more look around my kitchen, shook my hand. I showed him to the door.
After dinner Jack Blazak called. He wanted me to be at his home in Newport the next morning, early. He didn't ask me anything about daughter. He put on his wife, Lorna, to give me directions to "the Newport house."
She did. Then, "Don't hang up, Mr. Trona. I just have to ask you---how was she? Did she look okay? Was she upset or hurt or anything? I haven’t seen my child in three days."
"She looked fine, Mrs. Blazak. She looked fine when I saw her."
CHAPTER FOUR
S ix a.m . and the sun was just rising over the hills of south Newport Beach. My car idled beneath the towering marble archway that marked the entry to the Pelican Point development. A gate guard took my name, plates, badge and driver's license numbers. He stared at my face like he could handle it any time. The gate swung open and I drove in.
Ten days ago, Newport PD had shot a sixteen-year-old boy dead just outside this gate. Twelve shots, nine hits, dead-on-scene. The guy was armed with a machete and a sharpened screwdriver, screaming in Spanish. His name was Miguel Domingo. Jaime Medina's HACF was up in arms about the incident, demanding an investigation. He'd talked about it with Will that night, in fact. The shooting was the second violent death of an undocumented Guatemalan worker in a month. A week before the shooting, a young domestic worker, Luria Bias, was struck and killed by a car as she "wandered" onto a street close to her Fullerton apartment. It was ruled an accident. The woman in the Suburban that killed her got out and tried to help.
Driving into a place like Pelican Point, you saw the beauty and the wealth and had to admit the dizzying unfairness of things, the way some people lived in mansions by the beach and others got shot at the gates or run over by sport utility vehicles. Some guy trying to take his share, using a screwdriver and a machete. A lady trying to make it by cleaning people's houses.
New asphalt on the old hills. Mansions, palaces, estates—some finished, some not. Georgian, Tudor, Tuscan, Roman, Frank Lloyd Wright-ish, postmodern glass and concrete. Gray sky with a seagull in it hillsides and a battalion of yellow Cat D-9s ready to scrape new pads off the horizon. Never too early to take out a hilltop.
The next gate had its own little gatehouse beside it, but no guard. A security camera followed my face to a stop. The intercom was easy to reach. I pushed the ringer and waited. Two gates per household, SOP the Newport hills now.
"Yes."
"Joe Trona for the Blazaks."
"Come on in, Joe."
The Blazaks had gone Greco-Roman: a reflecting pool out front lined with olive trees, then an expanse of white marble steps leading to a columned portico and two immense, windowless front doors. The house was white marble, rectangular and flat-roofed. Bougainvillea and ocotillo spread upward along one side, casting shadows and bright purple bracts against the pale marble walls. Statuary, a nice little plot of grape vines with their arms out on wires and
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