Baked Read online

  He wondered what they would’ve done if the bullet had caused some permanent damage, if he’d been paralyzed or turned into a vegetable. Would they wheel him out onto the beach for some fresh air? Would his mother spoon gruel into his mouth for breakfast? Or would they put him in a home? Let the state take care of him? Stop by once a year on his birthday to sing a song and complain to the nurse about his infected bedsores? Maybe they’d just leave him in the wilderness; say, “You’re a survivor,” and beat a retreat back to their boho beach bubble as the wolves circled.

  Miro sighed. He loved his parents and he knew they loved him. Why did he feel neglected? And at his age, why did he care?

  After a bowl of some kind of multigrain glop that his mother fixed, Miro borrowed his father’s computer—his had been stolen when his apartment was trashed—and went online to check his e-mail. As he saw that he had almost two hundred messages—one hundred eighty seven of them spam —he realized that he hadn’t even thought about his e-mail since he’d been shot.

  He was happy to see several messages from Guus, checking in, wanting to know what was going on. Miro considered how he should respond. If he told him the truth, that the Elephant Crush was gone, what would happen? Would the Cannabis Cup committee give the award to another strain? Would Guus abandon him?

  “Is that your novel?”

  Miro looked up to see his mother standing behind him, wiping paint off her hands with a rag. Even though she was in her late fifties she still looked good. A testament to vegetarianism, daily yoga, and bimonthly applications of Miss Clairol. She was wearing her painting clothes, an oversized men’s dress shirt, paint-splattered blue jeans, and some well-worn huaraches she’d bought on a trip to Mexico twenty years before.

  The novel was the lie Miro used to keep his parents from bugging him. It’d been a great disappointment to them that he hadn’t followed in their footsteps and become some kind of artist. They’d subjected the young Miro to all kinds of art and enrichment classes. He’d taken piano, modern dance, ceramics, sculpting, painting, vocal coaching, and drawing classes. Although being thirteen and spending a couple hours a week staring at naked girls in the life drawing class had been a thrill, he hadn’t shown any artistic ability at all. When he decided to major in biology, his mother actually cried.

  The idea that he might be working on a novel, the fantasy that he might have inherited some of their artist genes, gave his parents a thread of hope that they clung to. It never once occurred to them that a child raised in a home filled with artists, whose lives ran on a tightrope of feast or famine, might want to find some kind of financial stability when he grew up. It wasn’t until he was in college that Miro realized his parents were vegetarian by choice and not because they couldn’t afford meat.

  “The novel got stolen.”

  “What?”

  “After I got shot, my apartment was robbed. They took everything.”

  His mother’s face fell, heartbroken.

  “Oh, honey.”

  Miro tried to cheer her up.

  “It wasn’t that good.”

  “I’m sure it was brilliant.”

  Miro turned and looked at his mother, his expression suddenly serious.

  “Mom? What would you do if someone stole your art? You know, if someone just came in here and took all your work?”

  His mother looked at him and put her hand up to her face, thoughtfully stroking her chin.

  “Well, I’d probably follow them to the ends of the Earth and get my art back. Then I’d pull their balls off with a pair of pliers.”

  She patted him on the shoulder.

  “But that’s just me.”

  …

  Cho looked at the report and rubbed his eyes. On the surface, it was annoying. Three shootings, two of them fatal, all from the same gun. A watercolorist in the LA River, a paramedic with a strap-on, and a guy named Miro Basinas, a seemingly random dude out for a stroll. The only thing that connected them was the bullet. Or, more accurately, the gun that fired the bullets. That was the fact. In twenty-four hours that fact would become a statistic. The LAPD brass were obsessed with statistics. The chief loved nothing better than to stand in front of the press, the mayor grinning like an electroshock therapy patient by his side, and deliver a PowerPoint presentation consisting of charts and graphs and percentage points all showing the steady decline of murder, mayhem, drugs, and gangs. A couple of murders meant the percentage points ticked up. It would screw up all the graphs and charts.

  Cho imagined the report going up a ladder, stopping at every rung long enough for the person above him to look at it and then drop their pants and take a big steaming shit. The turds would fall, slowly but surely, until they were raining down on his head. The higher the report went, the deeper the shit.

  Cho took a sip of hot herbal tea, something his wife got from the health-food store, something with zinc and echinacea and loads of Vitamin C that she was convinced would help his immune system keep him from coming down with pneumonia. He opened a packet of artificial sweetener and dumped it into the tea, stirring it with a ballpoint pen, and realized the one thing he knew for sure: he was going to need a big fucking umbrella.

  Of course, Cho was confident he could crack this. He’d solved more convoluted cases before, he just needed something to grab onto. He turned to his computer, opened a search engine, and typed in Miro’s name.

  What popped up on his screen made Cho laugh out loud. Quijano turned to him.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I love the Internet.”

  Cho hit PRINT and waited as a full-color photo from High Times magazine came out of the printer. The photo showed Miro holding a small trophy, above a headline that read ELEPHANT CRUSHES COMPETITION!

  Quijano stood next to Cho and they read the article together. Quijano nodded his head in approval.

  “Our boy’s not such a loser after all.”

  Cho looked up at Quijano.

  “Let’s pick up some tacos and swing by his house. Then I want to talk to the EMT partner.”

  Quijano shook his head.

  “Tacos aren’t good for your cold.”

  …

  Miro e-mailed Guus and told him everything that had happened and asked for his help. Guus replied almost instantly—Miro figured he probably stayed up all night—and said he would put feelers out and see if he could get any information. Guus was confident that the Elephant Crush would surface eventually. It had to. It was worth too much money. And once the weed was on the market, all they had to do was follow the money. Guus was confident the other coffeeshop owners would help; no one wanted to see a Cup winner killed. That wasn’t what the Cup was about, man.

  It cheered Miro up to think that even though they were separated by thousands of miles and nine time zones, he and Guus were still partners.

  Miro e-mailed his friend Amin, a grower who lived in the hills above Ojai. Miro liked Amin, he was incredibly discreet and his methods, while slightly less reliable than a climate-controlled grow house, produced top-quality marijuana.

  Amin would hike deep into the national parks, in the mountains surrounding Santa Barbara, and find small protected clearings for planting. He kept track of the locations with a handheld GPS device. He would spend days hiking and camping, searching for the perfect spot, ideally a south-facing slope—for the best sun exposure—near a stream or creek for easy irrigation, well off the beaten path, preferably inaccessible to all but the most experienced mountaineers. It was in these remote locations, the cannabis sproutlings planted in a seemingly random fashion so they blended with the natural flora—rows of manicured plants were easy to spot from the air—that Amin chose to raise his crops. Fertilized and watered regularly, his plants grew wild and abundant.

  Amin knew everyone in the business and might be able to provide Miro with some info. He also had access to something Miro thought he might need.

  It felt good to be doing something. Perhaps there was some karmic justice to be found in t
he universe after all. While Miro would be the first to admit that his life wasn’t necessarily the most productive—he could’ve been working for a nonprofit, or volunteering, or making art like his parents—it wasn’t like he was a bad guy. He wasn’t profiting from the pain of others; he didn’t exploit illegal immigrants or rip off the elderly. He didn’t deserve to get shot. Although he had to admit it had given him second thoughts about his career choice. How many other jobs come with drive-by shootings? How many corporate salarymen have their homes ransacked? Do marketing managers worry about police interrogations?

  He considered the possibility of doing something else. Maybe give up all this botanical stuff and join the ranks of corporate America, sign on with Microsoft or Google, one of those fun companies with high-tech campuses, executive gyms, and meditation rooms. But Miro liked plants. They were his thing.

  Although he couldn’t explain it to his parents—he didn’t think they’d approve of his profession—Miro liked to think of what he did as a creative endeavor. He created new strains of cannabis. He was good at it, he liked cannabis, and he was providing an important service.

  People weren’t going to stop getting high. It’s always 4:20 somewhere.

  …

  Cho looked at Miro’s empty house. A couple of painters—chubby Guatemalan women—were inside painting the walls. It didn’t strike Cho as particularly suspicious. You take a bullet, you might move, you might not be able to work. Shit happens, as they say. But that didn’t mean he was going to quit looking for Miro.

  Quijano climbed out of the car and waved to him.

  “You want to go talk to his parents? They’re up in Summerland.”

  Cho thought about spending a few hours on the 101 and shook his head.

  “Let’s talk to the EMT partner first.”

  30

  “HOW ARE YOU feeling?”

  “I don’t know. I’m stunned, I guess.”

  “Shock is a normal response to tragedy.”

  Ted wasn’t so sure about that. Shock is usually a normal response to trauma, broken bones, or blood loss. Shock didn’t really describe what he’d been feeling since the fire captain had told him that Fran had been murdered in her apartment. Mostly he felt confusion. And rage. He was feeling a lot of rage. But he didn’t know who to turn his rage on; there were no suspects, no culprits, no real explanation for any of it.

  “Is it?”

  The city-appointed psychiatrist looked at Ted and nodded solemnly.

  “It’s how the mind reacts.”

  Ted shifted on the couch. He wondered why, in the office of a psychiatrist who worked for the Police and Fire Department, there would be an overstuffed couch covered in the same chintz daffodil fabric that his grandma had on her couch. Was it supposed to be comforting? Ted picked up one of the needlepoint throw pillows scattered around the sofa. The word “Relax” was stitched on one side. He saw another pillow that said, “One Day At A Time.” The shrink leaned forward and handed Ted a box of tissues.

  “Tissue?”

  “No, thanks.”

  The shrink nodded, acting as if that was significant.

  “It’s okay to cry. This is a safe place.”

  “I don’t feel like crying right now.”

  That was true. Ted cried at movies, he cried at his best friend’s wedding, he cried on those rare occasions when the underdog won a gold medal at the Olympic games. He wasn’t one to hold back tears for any kind of macho reason. He just didn’t feel like crying right now. Fran’s murder was bizarre. He couldn’t get a handle on it. What the fuck had she been up to?

  “Were you close?”

  “She was my partner.”

  Ted watched as the shrink adjusted his glasses and scratched his beard thoughtfully.

  “Partner. That’s a significant word, don’t you agree?”

  Ted sighed.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  The shrink held his hands out, palms up.

  “What do you feel like saying?”

  “Can I go?”

  The shrink stared at Ted intently, like he was some kind of bug in a jar. He jotted something down in his notebook.

  “I’m going to recommend that they give you a couple of weeks off. You need time to process this.”

  Ted nodded. It was just as well; he didn’t feel like working anyway. When he stood to leave the shrink removed his glasses and gave him an earnest, concerned look.

  “Did you know about her, how can I put this ...” He made an odd gesture. “Her sexual habits?”

  Ted shook his head.

  “She never mentioned it to me.”

  …

  LAPD Detectives Cho and Quijones were waiting for him when he walked out of the shrink’s office. They flashed their badges, acting all official. Not that they needed to identify themselves; Ted recognized them. Cho nodded, then took out a ratty looking tissue and blew his nose.

  “I’m not going to shake hands. Head cold.”

  The big detective waved the tissue in the air as evidence.

  “I appreciate that.” Ted was being sincere. He hated catching colds. In fact, it was one of the few things that really bothered him; whenever someone came to work in the firehouse acting all heroic that they’d made it to work even though they were really sick, it made Ted want to take a fire extinguisher and pound their fucking face in. That’s how much he didn’t like catching colds. Why couldn’t people realize that if they just stayed home until they were better the cold would stop. But then if people were considerate and took responsibility for their germs we wouldn’t have epidemics, plagues, and herpes.

  Quijones took out his notepad.

  “We need to talk to you about your partner.”

  …

  Marianna watched her breakfast spin down the toilet. Nausea matinal meet the Coriolis effect. Her doctor had told her it was normal; literally translating the English “morning sickness” to give a name to the hormonal, sea-tossed, lurch and gurgle that had made her empty the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl every morning for the past few weeks. The doctor had assured her that this would taper off and eventually stop. But so far it hadn’t. So far it had been one vomit-colored morning after another.

  The weather had turned; the sky was clear and a crisp wind whipped her hair as she strolled down the street. There was a freshness to the air, it smelled clean and full of oxygen. She inhaled deeply, hoping the fresh air might help make her baby smarter or stronger. Marianna laughed at herself. Once she’d discovered she was pregnant she’d become some kind of health fanatic. She’d stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine, avoided smoke-filled bars and coffeeshops; she ate only organically-grown produce and hormone-free meats. Now she was trying to inhale pollution-free air.

  She entered the restaurant, a smart bistro in the center of town, and scanned the room. She saw Guus, wearing his usual black leather jacket, sitting alone at a table, a German language newspaper spread out in front of him.

  He looked up as she sat down.

  “Pregnancy suits you. You look well.”

  Marianna smiled.

  “I look hungry.”

  Guus handed her a menu and said, “I think we should go to Los Angeles this weekend.”

  Marianna gasped as she felt the baby give her insides a sharp whack.

  …

  Miro had borrowed his parent’s car and, using his mother’s iPhone for a GPS, had driven to the middle of fucking nowhere. At least it looked like the middle of fucking nowhere.

  He’d turned off the main road and driven seventeen miles down a deformed two-lane—the pavement veined and warped by tree roots and years of neglect—to where a trailhead emerged from the woods. He hadn’t passed another car or seen another person since he’d left Ojai.

  Miro climbed out of the car and went to the edge of the woods to pee. He was standing there, watching his urine arc out into some bushes, when he heard a voice.

  “You better hope that’s not poison ivy.”


  Miro looked up to see Amin standing in-between the trees, dressed in camouflage with a bright red bandanna around his neck and his long scraggly hair tied up in a samurai top-knot. Amin was cradling some kind of military-looking rifle in his arms, like a Sandinista on safari. Miro zipped himself up.

  “Subcommandante Marcos, I presume?”

  Amin grinned.

  “Yeah, baby. This season it’s Zapatista-chic. Gonna design a whole line of revolutionary pret-à-porter in organic hemp.”

  Miro laughed.

  Amin looked him in the eye. “I heard you caught a hot one.”

  “Any idea who did it?”

  Amin shifted the rifle in his arms.

  “No. But I got my peeps sniffin’ around.”

  “You got my message?”

  Amin nodded.

  “Listen, Miro, are you sure you want to go there? Because trust me, once you do, you don’t come back.”

  Miro shrugged.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Amin leaned his rifle against a tree.

  “You always have a choice. Don’t think you don’t. You could walk away from this shit right now. Start fresh. Grow a new strain. Shit, man, you might grow something even better.”

  Miro thought about this. Amin was right. You always have a choice.

  “It’s a deterrent. I don’t want them to shoot me again.”

  Amin nodded and pulled a black handgun from behind his back.

  “SIG Saur P229, forty cal. Go big or go home. That’s what I say.”

  Miro hesitated for a second, then took the gun.

  “Thanks.”

  Miro tried to stick the gun in his pocket, but it didn’t fit.

  “Jam it into your pants in back.”

  Miro looked at the gun, then turned to Amin.

  “What if I shoot my ass off?”

  Amin scowled.

  “Have you ever fired a gun before?”

  Miro shook his head.