The Remake by Stephen Humphrey Bogart Page B

apart.
    R.J. had been a kid adrift in Hollywood with two high-powered stars for mother and father, and nobody around to be parents. Portillo, a rising, young Mexican-American cop on the LAPD, had taken the boy under his wing. R.J. was grateful, but also knew that part of the reason Portillo had looked after him was because of his lifelong, unconfessed adoration of R.J.’s mother, screen legend Belle Fontaine.
    “Well, then,” R.J. said. “ Lo siento mucho, tio. Take a chair, please. Here, please try mine, the other one is not soft enough. You want some coffee?”
    “Did you make it?” the older man asked suspiciously.
    “No, it’s Wanda’s.”
    “Then I would appreciate a cup of coffee, R.J.”
    R.J. got the coffee, and a cup for himself, and took it back to his inner office. He sat in the client chair and looked fondly at Portillo.
    “I thought you were in L.A., Uncle Hank. What brings you to town?”
    Portillo sipped the coffee. “Ah. Good. Keep that woman Wanda, she understands coffee. As usual, R.J., you bring me to town.”
    R.J. shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
    Portillo pointed a hard, blunt finger at R.J. as if it were some kind of weapon. “I’m afraid you’re in trouble again, hijo. And this time I don’t know if I can bail you out.”

CHAPTER 14
    R.J. stared at Portillo again, for a good long time. “Okay, Uncle Hank,” he finally said. “I know you wouldn’t fly three thousand miles away from a decent plate of huevos rancheros for a practical joke. So I have to believe I’m in trouble in Los Angeles. Who did I kill? Another lawyer?”
    Portillo shook his head. “This is not a joke, R.J.”
    “Then what is it? I’m living like a goddamned Boy Scout, Uncle Hank. I haven’t even chewed a cigar in almost a week.”
    Portillo simply looked at him for a long moment. Then he shook his head as if disgusted at what he saw. “You look terrible,” he said at last. “Have you given up sleeping?”
    “I had a rough night,” R.J. admitted. “What’s that got to do with it?”
    “When did you eat last?”
    “Jesus Christ, Uncle Hank. You fly across the country, sneak in here and tell me I’m practically in prison, and now you come on like mamacita ? What the hell gives?”
    The older man sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I worry, R.J. I see the way you crap away your life and I think it is maybe partly my fault.”
    R.J. laughed. “Why? Because you never taught me to play the violin? Come on, Uncle Hank. Spit it out. What the hell kind of trouble am I in?”
    Portillo sighed again and shook his head. “I am here unofficially. The LAPD brass knows that I know you. They did not actually ask me to come. However, they did approve some extra sick leave for me. They know I am here.”
    “That’s comforting,” R.J. said. “Get to the point, okay?”
    “The point, hijo, is that you have said some stupid things for the news cameras and now these things are coming home to roost.”
    “Uncle Hank, what the hell are you talking about?”
    Portillo reached into a pocket of his houndstooth jacket and pulled out an envelope. From his breast pocket he took reading glasses, small half-lenses, and stuck them on his nose. He drew out a slip of paper and read. “I hope the goddamned animals responsible for this die a nasty death as soon as possible.” Then he looked up at R.J. over the rims of his half-glasses. “Did you say those words, R.J.?”
    “Fucking A,” R.J. said. “Doesn’t the LAPD have anything better to do? They run out of crime out there, Uncle Hank?”
    “Did you?” Portillo insisted.
    “Sure, I said it,” R.J. snorted. “I meant it, too. And I still hope it. Especially that brass-plated bitch, Janine Wright. And if you’re even half the man I think you are, you hope so, too.”
    Portillo watched R.J., then shook his head sadly. “All right, R.J.,” he said. “All right.” He put the glasses back in their case and the paper back in his