Forbidden Fruit

She crumpled against him, sobbing, shaking so badly he thought she was having convulsions. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand.” She curled her fingers into his T-shirt. “He’ll send them…he said he would.”

After a while she quieted, then totally spent, went limp in Santos’s arms. He led her to a corner, to a mattress shoved against the wall. She sank onto it, curling into a ball of despair.

Santos sat next to her, his knees drawn to his chest. “You want to talk about it?”

Although she remained silent for a long time, something about her breathing, about the way she caught her breath every so often, as if preparing to speak, made him think she wanted to. Finally, she did.

“I thought…they were coming for me,” she said dully, her voice drained of everything but despair. “I thought he had sent them.”

“The cops? You thought the cops were coming for you?”

She nodded and curled herself into a tighter ball.

“But why?” Santos murmured, almost to himself. “You thought he sent them. Who?”

“My stepfather. He’s a cop.” Her teeth began to chatter, and she hugged herself tighter. “He told me if I ever…tried to get away from him, he would find me. He said he would find me and…”

She let the last trail off and Santos could only imagine what the man had promised he would do to her. Judging by her fear, it had been bad.

Even worse than what he had probably already been doing to her. The bastard.

Santos laced his fingers together. “I live with my mom. She’s pretty cool, but my dad was a real prick. He used to beat me. He’s dead now.” Tina didn’t say she was sorry; because she knew he wasn’t. Kids who had lived through hell understood each other without having to be told. “I guess your stepdad’s a real prick, too.”

“I hate him,” she said fiercely, her voice choked with tears. “He…hurts me. He…touches me.”

Santos’s gut tightened. “So, you ran away.”

“It was either that or kill myself.” She pulled herself into a sitting position and looked at Santos. He saw by the expression in her eyes that she meant it, that she had considered death an avenue of escape. “I didn’t have the guts.”

“Did you tell anyone about him?”

“My mother.” Tina tipped up her chin. “She didn’t believe me. She called me a liar and a…a slut.”

Santos swore. He wasn’t surprised by her story; he had heard it before. “How about a teacher, a neighbor, or someone?”

“He’s a cop, remember? A real top cop, too.” She bit down hard on her bottom lip. “Who would believe me? My own mother didn’t.”

Santos squeezed her fingers. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too.” She looked away. “I’m sorry I didn’t have the guts to take those pills. I had them in my hand, but I couldn’t do it.”

“Don’t say that. I’m glad you didn’t.” She met his eyes, and he forced a smile. “It’s going to be okay, Tina.”

“Yeah, right. It’s going to be okay. I have no money, no place to go.” She started to cry again and brought her hands to her face. “I’m so scared. I don’t know what to do.” She lifted her tear-streaked face to his. “What am I going to do?”

Santos didn’t know, so he comforted the only way he knew how. He put his arms around her and held her for a long time, until she had cried all she could, until the room grew quiet as, one by one, others of the group left for the places they called home. Still, he held her, though he was aware of time passing. His mother would be home soon. When she found him gone, he would be dead meat.

Santos made a sound of regret and drew away from her. “Tina, I have to go. I—”

“Don’t leave me!” She clutched at him. “I’m so scared, stay a little longer. Please, Santos.” She buried her face against his chest. “Don’t go yet.”

Santos sighed. He couldn’t leave her. She had no one, no place to go. His mother would have to understand. And she would—after she killed him.

They talked. Santos told her about his life, about his mother and father, about school and living in the Quarter. She told him about her real father, about how much she had loved him and how he had died.

Santos heard the pain in her voice when she spoke of her father, he heard the longing. For the first time, he thought of what it must be like to lose someone you love, how much it must hurt. He had been so relieved that his father was gone, he had never considered what it would have been like if it had been his mother taken from him.

It would have been hell. He doubted he could have gone on.

They talked longer, sharing their dreams, their hopes for the future. Finally, as exhaustion tugged at them both, he drew completely away from her. He searched her expression. “I have to go, Tina. My mother’s going to kill me.”

Tina whitened with fear, but nodded bravely. “I know. You have to go.”

“I’ll tell her about you,” he said, catching Tina’s hands. “I’ll ask her if you can bunk in with us for a while. I promise I will.”

A cry escaped her lips, and he cupped her face with his hands. “Wait here. I’ll be back tomorrow.” He tightened his fingers. “I promise. I’ll come back for you tomorrow.”

He bent and kissed her. She made a sound of surprise. It mirrored his own. He pulled away, gazed into her blue eyes, then kissed her again, this time deeply, eagerly. His chest grew tight, his breath short. Arousal kicked him in the gut.

She slipped her arms around his neck; she pressed against him. “Stay with me. Please. Don’t leave me.”

Santos thought for a moment of doing just that. He was already late, already in the biggest trouble of his life.

“I couldn’t bear to lose you,” he’d heard his mother say just that night. She would think she had. She might have already called the cops, might have gone out to look for him herself.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I want to, but I can’t.”

He pressed his mouth to hers, then freed himself from her arms and stood. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said. “I promise, Tina. I’ll be back.”

Chapter 6

Santos passed a shop that had a neon clock hung in the front window. Chartreuse light spilled through the glass, staining the sidewalk and his skin an eerie yellow-green. The clock registered just after 4:00 A.M.

He was a dead man.

Unlike earlier that night, Santos didn’t bother with stealth. He took the fastest, most direct route home, alternating between a jog and a flat-out run. Even the streets that were normally well-populated were deserted.

As he ran, he thought of his mother’s fury and of how he was going to convince her to let Tina bunk in with them, especially in light of his behavior. And he thought of Tina’s mouth against his, of her fear and the way she had begged him to stay with her. He flexed his fingers, frustrated, torn between what he had done and what he could have done.

He should have brought her home with him. He could have insisted his mother let Tina stay. If that hadn’t worked, he could have pleaded with his mother. If Lucia Santos was anything, she was a soft touch. One look into Tina’s desperate, frightened eyes, and his mother would have caved.

His steps faltered and he thought of going back, then decided against it. It was nearly dawn already; Tina would be safe at the school. He would smooth things over with his mother, then go back for her in the morning.

He darted down an alley off of Dauphine Street. The cutthrough dumped him out onto Ursuline, two blocks from his home. Up ahead, police lights shattered the darkness. Three squad cars and an ambulance, their lights flashing, were stationed in front of a building down the block. One near his.

His steps faltered; he narrowed his eyes. Not just near his apartment building, Santos realized. His building; his home.

He started to run.

The police had cordoned off the area. Despite the ungodly hour, a small crowd had gathered. He saw an old lady from the first floor. “What’s going on?” he asked, out of breath, his heart thundering.

“Don’t know.” She looked at him suspiciously. “Somebody’s dead. Murdered, I think.”

“Who?” He sucked in a deep breath, willing his heart to slow, frightened by the panic tugging at him.

She shrugged and lit a cigarette, squinting against the smoke. “Don’t now. Maybe nobody.”

Santos turned away from the woman. He searched the assembled crowd for his mother, the panic inside him growing. She wasn’t here.

That didn’t mean anything, he told himself, struggling to stay calm, struggling against the black fear that threatened to overwhelm him. Other of his neighbors were missing, probably asleep in their apartments. She could have brought a “friend” home with her; she could be out searching for him.

“Merry lost her kid. Social Services found out she left him alone nights.”

This could be about him. His mother could have called the cops and reported him missing.

Then why the ambulance?

Santos shook his head, feeling light-headed suddenly, feeling like he might puke. He had to see her; he had to make sure she was all right. Even as he told himself she was, he pushed through the crowd, ducked under the police line and started for the building’s front entrance.

“Hey, kid.”

Santos turned. One of the police officers strode toward him. Santos could tell by the cop’s expression—and by the way his right hand hovered over his revolver—that he meant business. “Somebody’s dead,” the old woman had said. “Murdered, I think.”

“Yeah, you.” The cop pointed. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Inside.” Santos swallowed, his mouth so dry it felt as if he had been eating dirt. “I live here.”

“That so?” The cop looked him over.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his damp palms on his thighs. “My mom’s waiting. I’m late, and she’s…she’s probably pretty worried.”

Another officer came up to stand beside the first. He looked too young to be wearing a badge, let alone carry a gun. He had a face that had never lost all its baby fat; his blue eyes were kind.

“You got a name?” the first one asked.

Santos moved his gaze from one to the other. “Victor Santos.”

The cops exchanged glances. “Santos?”

He nodded, his stomach turning.

“Where’ve you been tonight, Victor?”

“Hanging out with friends. I…I snuck out while my mom was at work. I promised I wouldn’t, but—” Santos took another deep breath, feeling as if his world was crashing in on him. “Have a heart. I mean, she’s probably worried sick.”

“You got ID, Victor?”

He shook his head. “No…but my mother can—”

“How old are you, Victor?”

“Fifteen.” He swallowed hard, thinking again of his mother’s warning about Social Services. He started to shake. “Look, don’t blame her. She’s very careful, a really good mother. It’s my fault.” He looked pleadingly at the officer with the kind eyes. “I snuck out. She’s going to kick my butt when I get in there. Please don’t call Social Services.”

The cops looked at each other again. “Calm down, Victor,” the baby-faced officer said, looking uncomfortable. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“What do you mean?” Santos looked from one to the other again, panic rising like a tidal wave inside him. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?” He grabbed the officer’s sleeve. “Why are you guys here?”

The young officer pried Santos’s fingers loose, then put an arm around his shoulders. He steered him toward one of the squad cars, speaking in a calm voice, one meant to soothe. “Have a seat over here, Victor, and I’ll call someone to come speak with you.”

“But my mother—”

“Don’t worry about that right now.” They reached the car and the cop opened the rear door. “You need to sit here for a few minutes and I’ll call a friend of mine—”

“No!” Santos broke away from the man and started to walk away. “I’m going home. I’m going to see my mother.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” The officer clamped a hand over Santos’s shoulder, his voice now devoid of sympathy and discomfort. Suddenly, he seemed plenty old enough for both the badge and the gun. “You stay here until I tell you otherwise. You got that, Victor?”

Santos stared at the officer in horror. His mother. Where was his mother?

The crowd made a noise then, a collective gasp, a murmur of appreciation that their wait was finally over, that finally their curiosity would be appeased. The sound spilled over Santos’s nerve endings like acid.

He swung toward the building’s entrance, toward the cops and paramedics emerging from the entrance. He stared at the stretcher, at the body obscured by a white sheet.

Somebody was dead.

Murdered.

Santos tore away from the police officer’s grasp and ran toward the building, toward the stretcher and the lifeless form it carried.

Santos made it past the barricade before the officer caught him and held him back. Santos fought him; freed himself. He reached the stretcher; he ripped away the sheet.

The cops grabbed him from behind and dragged him back. But not before he saw the blood, not before he saw the victim’s face, frozen into a twisted mask of death.

His mother’s face. His mother’s blood.

A cry of pain sawed through the night, shattering it. His cry, Santos realized, clutching his middle. His mother. Dead. Murdered.

His stomach heaved. He doubled over and puked on the baby-faced officer’s shiny black shoes.

Chapter 7

Santos sat in the N.O.P.D. Homicide Division’s waiting

area, staring at the scarred linoleum floor beneath his feet.

Shock and grief warred inside him, creating a kind of ach ing numbness, a pain so great he could no longer feel.

His mother was dead. Brutally murdered seven days ago. Stabbed sixteen times—in her chest and throat, her abdomen and back, in places too vile to be printed in the newspaper.

He bit down on the sound of grief that rushed to his lips, bit down so hard his teeth and jaw ached. The linoleum swam before his eyes. He fought off the tears, although in the last week he had learned that fighting the visible signs of his grief neither conquered nor lessened the pain.

Around him a sort of controlled chaos reigned. Officers came and went, a variety of perps in tow; family members of both victims and criminals milled about the waiting area; and lawyers, like sharks smelling blood, seemed to be everywhere at once. The noise level stayed at a dull, busy roar, punctuated by the occasional wail of anger or grief. Above it all, the desk sergeant’s booming voice drilled directions, be it to civilians or fellow officers. Any moment, Santos expected to hear him shout, “Okay kid, Detective Patterson will see you now.”

Santos had been through this before. He and Patterson were becoming big friends. Right. Santos flexed his fingers, the urge to hit someone or something—preferably Patterson’s arrogant mug—barreling through him.

From both the Times Picayune and the State’s Item, he had learned the details of the murder. They had described where and how Lucia Santos had been stabbed. They had detailed the events of the last night of her life—she had gone to work at Club 69, where she danced nights; she had picked up a john, who had come home with her; she had been killed after intercourse. They had found a half-eaten apple beside the bed.

They had called her a prostitute. They had speculated that she had been killed by the john.

After Santos had read the story, he’d thrown up. Then he had gotten angry. Something about the tiny articles—less than three paragraphs each—had had an “Oh, well,” quality to them. “Just another dead hooker. Who gives a shit?”

He had called the papers, called the reporters who had written that. His mother was not a prostitute, he had told the man. She was an exotic dancer. She’d been his mother. He had loved her.

“Sorry for your loss, kid,” they had both said. “But I write ’em as I see ’em.”

The police hadn’t been any better. He had called. At first they had been kind, if condescending. They had patiently explained how the system worked. They had nothing new; they were doing their best. They had even questioned him; they had checked out his alibi. Then they had blown him off, same as they would a pesky insect.

Don’t call us, they had all but said. We’ll call you.

Santos would be damned if he would let them do that to him; he sure as hell wouldn’t allow them to do that to his mother. Just because they thought she was nothing but another dead hooker.

He had called them every day—at least once. He had stopped by the station. Now, after a week of taking his calls and visits, they were less kind, less patient. No leads, no lucky breaks. On to a new victim.

Her body was barely in the ground, and they had closed the case. They hadn’t told him that, but Santos knew it to be true. Some things didn’t have to be spoken to be real.

Who cared about a nobody hooker?

Who gave a shit?

Santos dropped his head into his hands, his mother’s image filling his head. He pictured her the way she had looked that last time he’d seen her. With his mind’s eye could see her looking over her shoulder at him, smiling, waving goodbye.

He hadn’t kissed her goodbye. He hadn’t told her he loved her. He had thought himself too grown-up for that.

His eyes burned, and he pressed his lips tightly together. He kept his tears at bay, but the image in his head changed, shifted, becoming the nightmare images he awoke from every night, awoke from bathed in sweat, tears on his cheeks. Slasher-flick images of his mother and her attacker; his mother calling out for her son, begging Santos to come help her. And then he saw his mother as she had been when he’d ripped away the white sheet.

She had cried out for him; he hadn’t been there for her. He had laughed at her fears. He had done what he wanted to, without concern for her feelings. Without concern for her safety.

And now she was dead.

Guilt clawed at him. He brought the heels of his hands to his eyes. She had been with that john because of him—because he needed school clothes and expensive doctor visits. She was dead because he hadn’t been there to save her.

Had her last thoughts been of him? he wondered for what seemed like the millionth time. Had she been angry with him? Disappointed? Tears lodged in his throat, choking him. Why had he disobeyed her? Why had he stayed so late with Tina?

He hadn’t remembered Tina until two days later and only then because the police had made him recount every detail of the night his mother had been murdered. They hadn’t found her, but several of the other kids had verified his alibi.

Too caught up in his own pain, he had wondered only fleetingly what had happened to the girl, wondered if she had gone home and what she had thought when he hadn’t returned for her. Those wonderings always dissolved into his own guilt and shame. His own pain.

If he had been home, his mother would be alive.

He knew it, deep down in his gut. It was his fault his mother was dead.

“You okay, Victor?”

Santos looked up into the kind eyes of the baby-faced officer from the other night. Jacobs, his badge said. The man had been more than decent to him, he had gone beyond his duty as an officer to try to comfort him. Santos’s vision blurred; he tried to speak but couldn’t.

The cop put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m really sorry, Victor. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Santos fisted his fingers, fighting for control. “Find her killer.”

The man’s face registered regret. “I’m sorry. We’re trying.”

“Right. Tell me another one.”

Officer Jacobs ignored his sarcasm. “I know how tough this must be for you.”

“Do you?” Santos asked, helpless anger rising in him. “Was your mother brutally murdered? Was her murder all but ignored? Treated like nothing but a…a two-bit, pagesix news item?” Santos’s voice thickened with grief. “And did you know in your heart that you could have prevented her death, if only…if only you had been home. If only you hadn’t been—”

“Whoa, Victor. Hold it.” Jacobs sat beside him. “What do you mean, you could have prevented it?”

“What do you think I mean?” Santos clenched his hands harder, his eyes and throat burning with unshed tears. “If I’d been home…maybe the guy wouldn’t have done it. Maybe my being there would have scared him away. Or, I could have fought him. I could have helped her, I know I—”

“You could have gotten killed, too. You probably would have.” The cop looked him straight in the eyes. “Listen to me, Victor. This man, whoever he is, is a vicious killer. The kind not likely to be scared off by a boy. This was not a random act of violence. He came home with your mother, planning to kill her. He’s smart. We know that because he didn’t leave any evidence. Because he made sure he wasn’t seen. Our guess is, he’s done this before. If you had been there, he would have adjusted his plan to include killing you. Those are the facts, Victor. Ugly as they are.”

“But, I could have—”

“No. You couldn’t. If you had been in that apartment, you’d be dead. Period.”

“At least I would have been there, at least I could have tried to help her. At least she would have known that I…that I—” His voice broke, and embarrassed, he looked away.

“She knew you loved her, Victor. And she wouldn’t have wanted you dead.” He patted Santos’s clenched hands. “Let’s go talk to Detective Patterson. Maybe there’s something new.”

“I doubt it. All I’ve gotten from him is the runaround.”

Today was no different. More runaround. More bullshit. Santos stared at the detective, fury rampaging through him. He longed to lunge at the man. It would feel good, even though the burly officer would probably have him on his knees and cuffed before he landed the first blow.

But if he did manage to get in just one blow, it would be worth it, Santos thought, itching to try. It would be worth any amount of pain or punishment, if he could erase the man’s arrogant, disinterested expression for just one moment.

“Look,” Patterson was saying, “I know she was important to you, but I have other, more pressing cases. If we find anything, we’ll act on it.”

Santos jumped to his feet, sending his chair crashing to the floor. “You son of a bitch, you’re not even trying. The only way you’re going to get something, is if the killer waltzes in here and confesses.”

The detective folded his arms across his chest and cocked an eyebrow. “It happens.”

Jacobs put his hand on Santos’s arm, as if sensing how close to violence he was, then shot his fellow officer a narrow-eyed glance. “Victor, we are trying. I promise you. But there’s nothing for us to go on. I told you, this guy was smart.”

“So you’re just going to let him go free? He’s out there. Don’t you care, doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Yeah, it does. I hate it. And so does Patterson. But all we can do is follow the leads we have and wait.”

Santos shook his head. “Wait? What do you—”

“He’ll do it again,” Patterson interrupted dismissively, returning to the seat behind his desk. “He’ll do it again, and maybe he’ll make a mistake. And then we’ll get him.”

Santos stared at the detective, disgust and hatred roiling inside him. “Why bust your asses on this, the guy’s only killing hookers. Right?” He fisted his fingers. “You think she was nothing. You think she was just a nobody hooker, so her murder doesn’t matter. Well, it does matter.” Santos took a step toward Patterson’s desk. “She was my mother, you bastard. I care. I give a shit.”

“Victor—” Jacobs caught his arm “—come on. I’ll buy you a Coke.”