“No wonder you were so late getting home tonight.” He glanced at the news program. “Alicia has a volleyball game Wednesday night. We should leave by six.”
Grace got the message. If she couldn’t make it back in time, they’d take Samuel with them, and she’d miss another evening with her son.
Roman’s days became easier with Grace Moore on the job. She arrived promptly at nine, made his coffee, and went to work in the office. He’d already informed her to hold his calls. He told her which to ignore, which to answer. People called frequently, wanting murals. He debated taking on any more, finding them time-intensive and less lucrative than his work on canvas.
He felt pressed, but undirected. Did he want his work hidden away in a private home, or displayed for all to see? Murals gave Roman Velasco legitimacy, even though he was being commissioned to fulfill someone else’s vision rather than his own. He still occasionally spoke his own mind through the Bird’s simplistic graffiti, but with growing risk. It had become a game, more dangerous as time went by.
Rubbing his forehead, Roman tried to fix his mind on the mural. He had a deadline, and it was fast approaching. Don’t think. Just do the work and get the check. Concentrate on that.
Hiring Hector Espinoza had taken the pressure off doing all the work himself. The man was set to begin Roman’s mural for the lobby wall of a new hotel near the San Diego Zoo. Management had hired Roman to create an African savanna scene complete with migrating animals. Roman had almost finished drawing the design on transfer paper, which Hector would use to start the painting. Once Hector finished the transfers, Roman would drive down and do the fine detail work to bring life to the mural.
Roman dropped the pencil and flexed his cramping fingers. When had he last taken a break? He’d been working since sunup. Pushing the stool back, he stood and stretched while walking to the windows. He looked out at the canyon. Movement caught his eye, and he spotted a jackrabbit making its cautious way across the path down to the cottage the previous owners had built for an aging parent who didn’t live long enough to move in.
He’d been inside the cottage only once, when the Realtor took him on a final walk-through before he signed all the papers. It had the same square footage as the Malibu beach cottage he’d sold for an astonishing amount of money, most of which he’d sunk into this fortress.
Bobby Ray Dean couldn’t get any further away from the Tenderloin than this. He didn’t know who he was anymore. Somehow, Bobby Ray Dean had gotten lost between the Bird and Roman Velasco.
Grace had put the office in order by the end of the second week. She liked to stay busy. She was an active but quiet presence in the house, and he liked that. But this morning, she said she wanted to explain the new filing system. He had a feeling he knew where she was going with that. He’d said he didn’t have time.
A light tap at the studio door made him turn.
“Do you have time to talk now, Mr. Velasco?”
“Depends on what you want to talk about.” He faced her. “Don’t even think about quitting.”
“I told you I’d give you two weeks. You don’t really need a full-time personal assistant.”
“I like the way things are working.”
“I have a lot of downtime.”
“There are other things you could do for me.” He saw the wary look back in her eyes. She still didn’t trust him, but then, how well did they know one another? Everything had been strictly business since day one. Just the way they both wanted it. “Cooking, laundry, a little housecleaning.”
“You eat frozen meals. A cleaning service comes every Wednesday to pick up your laundry. And I’m sure you could easily find someone to change your sheets and make your bed.”
He sensed the innuendo. “I don’t usually invite women up here.” It was easier to leave a woman’s home than ask one to leave his.
“I’m not interested in your private life, Mr. Velasco.”
And yet she knew more about him than anyone else. Not that his paperwork told the whole story. “Can we cut the mister? Call me Roman.” He’d liked the formality at first. Now it annoyed him. “How about making a grocery run for me? I can’t spare the time right now. I’ll reimburse you for gas.”
“I’ll need a list.”
He gave a soft laugh. “You live by lists, don’t you?”
Her shoulders relaxed, and she smiled back. “You did say you wanted someone detail-oriented.”
“You probably know better than I do what I need.” He gave her two hundred dollars and told her the closest supermarket was in Malibu.
The phone rang several times while she was gone. He didn’t bother picking up. He ignored the front door chimes, too, until he realized it might be Grace. Opening the door, he took the two bags of groceries. “Any more?” She said she could manage and headed back to her car.
Sitting at the kitchen counter, Roman watched her empty the reusable bags. She stacked pizzas and frozen dinners in the freezer and put packaged salad mixes in the fridge. She’d bought orange juice, eggs, cottage cheese, and two jars of peaches, though he’d forgotten he needed them. She seemed to know what he liked.
Glancing at the clock, she quickly folded the bags. “I have to leave. I’m going to hit traffic.”
“Some calls came while you were gone. I let them go to voice mail, but—” She looked stressed, and it was almost five thirty. “They can wait until tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go.”
She did. As the front door closed behind her, Roman felt the silence fill the house.
BOBBY RAY, AGE 15
Girls developed quick crushes on the new boy with dark hair and eyes, the skin tone that announced his mixed-race parentage. Boys noticed their girlfriends watching Bobby Ray Dean, but learned quickly that he never backed down from a fight—or lost one. He followed his own set of rules: don’t start a fight, but hit hard if one comes to you; knock your enemy down until he stays down; watch your back.
He was drawn to gang kids. They broke rules and had their own law. No one bothered them, and they always had money in their pockets. They looked and acted like family members. When Reaper, one of the older boys, offered him fifty bucks to deliver a package to a club on Broadway, Bobby Ray didn’t think twice about saying yes. He knew this was a test, a way in, a chance to belong somewhere.
Bobby Ray realized before he’d gone a block the whole job had been a setup. Someone had called the cops. Rather than dump the package, Bobby Ray did what he’d always done. He’d been running through the streets of San Francisco from his first nights in foster care. He knew every street, alley, and park. He knew how to get from one rooftop to another, go down a fire escape and scale a cyclone fence, swing over the top and drop to the other side. He delivered the package.
At school the next day, he found Reaper and demanded his fifty bucks. Respect crept into Reaper’s eyes. He paid up and invited Bobby Ray to a party, where he met the brotherhood. Wolf was sixteen, a Denzel Washington look-alike with two girls hanging on his arms. Lardo weighed over two hundred pounds and had a nervous laugh. White Boy gave a nod of greeting without looking away from a computer game. Bouncer rocked on the balls of his feet and looked ready for a fight.