CHAPTER ONE
Hawk
Standing in the stirrups of my beloved Diablo, I gained a few precious inches to look down upon the rolling hillside of Carlos Acres.
Home.
I shook my head, cursing my nostalgia, and sat down on the horse, leaning forward to scratch his soft neck. They say you can’t go home again. It’s an expression generally meaning that time changes all that’s familiar while our memories are filed like so many images arranged in place but locked in time. For me, however, it wasn’t an expression — it was a reality.
From my vantage point, I’d never thought my adopted name to be more fitting. As a child, I’d longed to be a hawk; the hunter who surveyed his prey from gliding heights, ready to drop and kill with neither conscience nor warning. When it became necessary for me to choose a new name, Hawk came immediately to my lips. Sansabri was just as easy. It meant homeless in French — a fitting name for a man who had none.
Born Worthington LaViere, IV, I was the firstborn son of Worthington, III and Auggie LaViere — the very people whose estate upon which I now overlooked. Carlos Acres wasn’t my home, and for the time being, the LaVieres couldn’t be my parents. Not after what I’d done.
***
Many years ago, my sanity seemed to be in question. I can’t say that I blamed them for their diagnosis. In fact, I remembered only a small part of what went down, so I had little defense. My mind was like an old black and white silent film I saw once; flickering images that lacked depth and sound, leaving gaps that left you unsure of the ending.
A few salient facts left their impressions on me, like claws still digging under my skin. The first was that I wasn’t welcomed at home or in my family. Bernie did his best to shield me, but there were only so many excuses he could use before the bullshit bucket was empty. I knew he walked more than one line, as a man himself as well as an intermediary between my father and me. He was always tentative as if his responses to my questions could calm me or trigger a far different response.
Looking back, I thought he was afraid of me. Now that I was older, it’s more likely he was afraid of what life would deal him. He’d left so much behind in order to protect me. I remembered that much. Given his options and the world to which he’d belonged, he’d chosen to become my surrogate father.
The second fact was that Mexico was not where we belonged. It was a good idea for a few years until things calmed down and people forgot about me. Even though we moved around quite often, we were still targets. Bernie was too good looking, and I was too rich. How strange to be exiled to a land where your strongest qualities became your handicaps.
I didn’t retain that handicap for long, however. One night when Bernie was asleep, I sneaked out to investigate a group of young guys I’d watched from the window for weeks. They’d catch me watching and motion for me to come out and be with them. I was too naïve to realize their intentions had nothing to do with anything but the money they thought I had.
I caught up with them that night, and they dragged me into the shadows, stripped me and razor-slashed my face. Once they’d left, I managed to stagger to our door, naked and bleeding badly. I screamed Bernie’s name and beat my hands against the thick wood. He found me collapsed on the doorstep and carried me inside where he bathed and stitched my face as well as he could. He didn’t dare call attention to us by getting a local doctor, and I eventually passed out from the pain. Bernie stitched slowly and cautiously, applying disinfectant as he went. I finally awakened, my face wrapped in the torn strips of a white cotton sheet. When at last the bandages could stay off, he and I were forced to accept the disfiguring scars left behind. That was when I’d begun wearing sunglasses — always. I think it was my effort to hide my ugliness from an even uglier world.
Bernie’s “handicap” had caught up with him eventually as well. I knew he was lonely, and I understood that women weren’t the solution. He’d left me in our small but immaculately elegant apartment that night. He’d given me strict instructions about locking the door and shuttering the windows, no matter how curious I became.
Even though he never told me, I had a fairly good idea where he was headed. His kind frequented one part of town. The night passed slowly, and he didn’t come back. As the sun began to rise, I defied his orders and went looking for him.
After hours of searching, I finally spotted the neckerchief he wore. It matched his eyes and he rather favored it. It was hanging from a branch in a shriveled laurel tree and I clutched it in my hand as I headed for the federales.
His bandana wasn’t the only thing they eventually found. He had been beaten so badly I could barely identify him. I ordered cremation; there was no money for anything better. I dropped his ashes into the muddy trickle of a river; the only water available for a hundred miles. The man who had become my parent, my tutor and my only link to the man I was born to be was gone.
I was alone then and scared shitless. Bernie had been the connection to my family, not to mention my sole source of income. He had parceled it out as needed. I think he was afraid I’d buy drugs or do something equally stupid. So, now, as rich as I was, I was also flat broke and totally alone. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know how or even want to contact my father. If my parents had wanted me, they’d have brought me home long before. It seemed like they were more about rewarding Bernie for his selflessness than supporting me.
As it turned out, I happened across an American minister and his wife who had come to the country to start a mission. I knew I couldn’t use my own passport, but I managed to trade it for enough money to buy a phony American birth certificate, driver’s license and passport with my new name. The next time the minister went back to California, I was sitting in his back seat. They were good people, and I had a good story. It was enough to get me back into the country where I belonged.
California was a good place to begin a new life with a new identity. After all, three million Californians were illegal aliens, and that made a system in which it was easy to get lost. Looking back, those few years were probably the most formative of my life at that point. I had to learn how to survive. While I didn’t naturally fit the beach bum look, I took it on. Eventually, it was me.
I grew to just over six-foot-three with deep blue eyes. My hair had become a sun and bleach-enhanced head of curly blond. Working odd jobs at first, I tied in with a group of young people who crammed, all fifteen of them, into a retro-style trailer across the street from the ocean. While drugs were abundant, I’d seen enough of how they screwed with people’s lives in Mexico to steer wide.
I found a job with a beachside peda-cab company and eventually saved enough money to begin my own, and then to franchise. Bernie had tutored me to the equivalent of a high school diploma, enrolling me in every virtual school he could. With that advantage, I enrolled in the university and emerged with a pocket of degrees that were nothing more than alternate identities in a world where life was a series of passports to the opportunities you sought.
Not remembering a great deal about my parents, for whatever reason, I had to fill in some gaps with imagination. I remembered my father had a string of highly successful clinics, so I figured that’s where my head for business originated. I couldn’t remember him being at home very often, and when he was, he seemed caught up in some sort of “greater plan,” making him unavailable to me. I knew I should remember more from those years. After all, I wasn’t set aside until I was thirteen.
But I remembered one thing clearly.
I remembered the day I murdered my uncle.