Mafisto: Demon Artist

By George Putnam

At the center of an ambush by gang members, a child is born. When the shooting stops, he is an orphan, and a stray bullet has hideously disfigured him. Miraculously saved by ER doctors, the temperamental newborn is tossed from foster home to foster home until finally adopted by a loving and tolerant couple.
Soon hes drawn to the piano. His adoptive parents learn that he is another Mozart, yet emotional damage from neglect in his early years leads him to serious street violence. At the same time, he feels the pull of the concert hall. The tormented youth becomes a loner.
Years later, when seeing the girl of his dreams, a virtuoso voice student, he is afraid to show his face to her. This prompts him to compose hauntingly beautiful love songs that he sends to her anonymously, signed only Mafisto.
Torn by his desire for the brilliant young singer, the smitten teen vows to change his appearance. But if he can do this, he still must hide his criminal past from her.
All he knows is that without her, he will remain a loner, and the world will never experience his musical genius.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532043420

George Putnam

George Putnam is a screenwriter, author, and ghostwriter living in Los Angeles. His produced credits include television ("NYPD Blue" and "Deadwood") and film ("Unlawful Entry" and "To Kill For"). His first novel, "The Honey Bubble," is an Editor's Choice selection by its publisher. Putnam is also a musician and composer. For his Master's Thesis at U.C. Riverside, he wrote a symphony ("Symphony for Twenty Minutes"), and at the University of Redlands, he gave master classes in piano. Though Putnam's literary interest is crime fiction, his collaboration with Jewel Grutman on a work of historical fiction, "Redfish Oak," was inspired by her passion for the plight of Native Americans.

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Copyright © 2018 George Putnam.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover design by Carrie J. Richter

Other books by the author:

The Honey Bubble

Redfish Oak

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-4341-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4342-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018902125

iUniverse rev. date: 02/20/2018

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For Billy. It’s been a long time. It won’t be much longer.

1

T HE CALLER TO 911, annoyed that her sleep had been interrupted, shouted, Just put it out of its misery!

The call was relayed to the nearest squad car in the area. A strange sound, said the dispatcher. Could be a wounded animal. Could be a human being in dire straits.

At four in the morning, the streets were deserted, so the five-year LAPD veteran reacted to the call by speeding up without his siren or emergency lights.

What do you think? asked his partner, a three-year veteran.

"Could be an animal in dire straits," said the driver.

His partner laughed. Could be it wants out of this neighborhood.

They turned onto North Figueroa Street, a four-lane thoroughfare in northeast Los Angeles. The dispatcher had said the noise was coming from a minimall near Avenue Thirty-Nine, an area marked by graffiti and barred windows. At night, local gangs owned the streets.

A minute later, the driver reached the mall and turned into the empty parking lot at the main entrance on Figueroa. He stopped so that he and his partner could listen through their open windows for the reported sound, but all they heard was in the far distance: a burglar alarm and barking dogs.

One sound near them was a high buzzing streetlamp that cast the mall’s stores in a lifeless gray color. They included a meat market, café, grocery store, doughnut shop, and check-cashing service, all Hispanic.

I don’t hear anything, said the driver.

Maybe it’s gone, said his partner.

I still want to know what it was, said the driver.

Then came a loud, piercing wail. Ahhheeeeeyyyyyeeeeeee! It lasted five seconds, stopped, and returned for four seconds. Ahhheeeeeyyyyyeeeeeee!

Try over there, said the cop riding shotgun. He indicated an area at the far end of the mall reserved for trash bins.

The street lamp did not illuminate the indicated area, but three bins outlined against a bright light on the other side of the chain fence surrounding the parking lot showed the shadow of something on the asphalt.

What’s that? asked the cop.

Looks like a body, said the driver, now gunning the squad car in that direction.

Yeah, he said. No! It’s moving!

They got closer. The squad car’s headlights revealed that it was a naked girl on her back. Her stomach had a huge protrusion, like a beer keg. Her knees were raised and spread apart. She was pounding the asphalt with her fists in a bestial rage.

Ahhheeeeeyyyyyeeeeeee! she screamed.

Labor, said the cop. She’s in labor.

The driver stopped far enough away so as not to scare the girl with his headlights but close enough so that he and his partner could run to her quickly. With their flashlights, they saw that her neck was long and slender, her eyebrows full, and her eyelashes long.

She’s just a kid, said the cop.

The girl had been wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her forearms.

She’s ready to burst, said the driver.

His partner, closer to the girl, showed a mix of disgust and compassion. Christ, he said.

The girl had rotten teeth, multiple bruises about her body, and hair matted like a tar mop. Her shriveled arms bore extensive needle marks. She smelled worse than the overflowing trash bins. Her only clothes—a tattered T-shirt and torn jeans—lay by her side. Her bare feet were calloused and black from grime.

Ahhheeeeeyyyyyeeeeeee! She banged her stomach with her fists.

Grab her arms! said the driver.

His partner knelt with a knee on either side of the girl’s head. As he tried to grasp the girl’s wrists, the other cop knelt at her feet and spread her legs farther.

What’s your name? he said. Without giving her a chance to answer, he yelled, "Push! I see the head! Push!"

The girl’s lips were swollen and desiccated. Her front teeth were missing. She had a deep unhealed tear in her cheek that looked like a rupture in a tire.

Goddamn you! she screamed at her stomach. She banged the back of her head against the asphalt.

Stop that! said the cop at her feet. "Your baby’s almost out. Push!"

The girl broke free from the other cop’s grasp and hammered her stomach with angry fists.

Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! she yelled.

Hold her arms, damn it! said the cop to his partner.

His partner vise-gripped the girl’s wrists and held them closely.

The girl screamed again, this time longer. It was so loud that the cops did not hear a speeding car enter the parking lot from a side-street entrance. By the time it got their attention, they saw that, by design or accident, it sped toward their squad car and broadsided it with a horrendous bang. The force moved the squad car fifteen feet.

Three hostile youths inside the ramming car, all in sunglasses and bandanas, drew guns and fired repeatedly at the two cops.

The cop holding the girl’s wrists reached for his service revolver. The other shouted into his shoulder mic for help.

The sounds of thudding pops and ricocheting bullets filled the night air like a shoot-out from a movie. The first cop was felled before he could fire back. The other was cut down at the same time.

As lights in nearby residences came on with the speed of falling dominoes, the ramming car sped away as quickly as it had arrived.

One cop lay dead. The other, drawing his last breath, dropped to his knees. He saw that the baby was on its back and lying on the asphalt. Its tiny limbs flailed like an overturned bug’s. To the cop’s horror, the newborn had been hit in the face by an errant bullet.

The girl hemorrhaged. Her anguished features froze. Her limbs relaxed, her head rested on the asphalt, her eyes closed, and her body became motionless.

The baby’s cries mixed discordantly with approaching sirens as it writhed in blood and amniotic fluid.

2

A PEDIATRIC SURGEON ON call ran into the ER. He was joined by a plastic surgeon, vascular surgeon, and neurosurgeon. They found a resident probing the baby’s face while a nurse inserted an IV in his arm and another forced a respirator cup over his peanut-sized nose.

It pulverized his cheek, said the resident.

Where’s the bullet lodged? asked the neurosurgeon.

I took it out, said the resident. It was intact, thank God. It had to be a ricochet. Otherwise, his head would be mush.

A radiologist studying an x-ray said, His auditory nerve may be lost.

The resident straightened up and looked at the other doctors. Let’s get busy, he said.

As the arriving doctors started scrubbing, the plastic surgeon said, This kid’s not going to get a lot of dates.

In the nursery viewing room days later, proud fathers and family members cooed at swaddled newborns through a glass partition and wiggled their fingers in the hope of making eye contact with the infants.

One baby had no visitors. His face was bandaged, with a shunt under the wrap-around gauze. A name tag at the foot of his bassinette read Baby John Doe. IVs protruded from veins in his forearms and ankles.

After nurses took the purring infants from the viewing room to their waiting mothers on another part of the floor, Baby John Doe was alone. He woke up and cried.

No one comforted him.

A social worker faced Marge and Frank Oster, a simple couple in their fifties, blindly compassionate, a wellspring of nurturing impulses, and ever hopeful. They sat in a small office of the Children’s Services Administration in front of the social worker, a young woman who tried not to sugarcoat difficulties the Osters would face.

Your experience as foster parents is essential to Johnny’s care, said the social worker. The first couple couldn’t cope with him.

Me and Frank raised seven foster children so far, said Marge, a homely woman with slumped shoulders and a naturally pouty disposition. The two we have now would just love a baby brother. Isn’t that right, Frank?

They would, yes, said Frank to the social worker. Frank deferred all decision-making to Marge.

The social worker said, Johnny will be a challenge. The first couple really didn’t know what to expect.

Marge suddenly cried. She found a tissue in her purse to wipe her eyes. God loves the injured ones, she said. Isn’t that right, Frank? Isn’t that what the Bible teaches us?

Frank giggled at the social worker with a helpless shrug. I never read it, he said. He looked at Marge. But that sounds right, dear.

Our only natural child was stillborn a long time ago, said Marge. When God closes one door, He opens another. He’s opened many doors for Frank and myself since then.

Frank said meekly, I know you’re not allowed to say anything about the first people that adopted him, the ones that brought him back here, but can you tell us anything?

Just that he recovered from injuries he sustained at birth, said the social worker. Like every foster child, he needs a happy and supportive home.

Frank nodded with exaggerated enthusiasm. Oh, we’ll give him that, he said. We don’t do much else ’cept spend time with the two we’ve got now, ’cept me working. I repair appliances. Oops, I forgot. You’ve got that there in our file.

Marge squeezed Frank’s hand and cried tears of joy. Frank nodded wide-eyed to the social worker that Marge’s tears were proof that the agency’s decision to grant them custody of Johnny was a good one.

3

T HE OSTER CHILDREN, five and seven, stared into the bassinet as if looking at a two-headed puppy. They were in a small bedroom at their modest home. It had been decorated like a nursery. Hand-me-down toys and dolls were everywhere. A colorful paper mobile hung from a light fixture on the ceiling, directly above the bassinet.

The girl, seven years old, had Down syndrome. The boy, Greggie, five years old, was slow-witted.

Johnny, now seven months, lay on his back in the bassinet and looked up at the two children.

Greggie tried to see how far he could poke his index finger into the collapsed lower quadrant of Johnny’s face. When he pushed too hard, Johnny cried. Instead of withdrawing his finger, Greggie pushed harder.

What are you doing in there? yelled Marge from a hallway.

Greggie withdrew his hand from the bassinet and pretended to look at Johnny like a curious, innocent new brother.

Entering the room, Marge said, I said no staring! You’re going to give him an inferiority complex. These things start in the home, y’know.

Greggie put his hand behind his back and moved away from the bassinet. The girl stayed; she could not take her eyes off Johnny’s face. His left cheek had a craterlike indentation with a button scar in the middle. Lost tissue, muscle, and bone had forced his left eye to droop and his mouth to tilt up, all amid permanent web-like ridges.

Marge made a skedaddle gesture, and the children ran from the room. She picked Johnny up and sat in a rocking chair so that she could feed him a bottle. As he took the nipple and suckled, she rocked gently and hummed a melody.

The melody diverted Johnny’s attention from his feeding. It caused his mouth to open, and he stopped suckling. His eyes went from looking at the bottle to looking at Marge’s mouth as if to study the humming.

Come on, Johnny, she said. Drink your milk.

She nudged the nipple back into his mouth. Johnny’s suckling resumed. She rocked in the chair again and hummed the same melody.

Again, Johnny stopped suckling.

"Will you drink?" she said.

Johnny resumed drinking. Again, Marge hummed. Again, Johnny looked at Marge’s face as if captivated by her. Milk spilled from his open mouth and down his chin into her lap.

What’s the matter, Jonathan Francis Oster? she said. I have housework to do. Come on, drink.

She forced the nipple back into his mouth. She was too irritated now to rock the chair or to hum but saw that finally Johnny took the milk without interruption.

That’s better, she said. You’ve got to drink your milk for strong bones and teeth. That’s what my mother told me. That’s what every good mother should tell her babies.

A month later, in the family’s den, Johnny sat in a playpen with his eyes glued to a table radio playing classical music atop a credenza. He was in his pajamas.

Greggie, seeking attention, tugged on the radio’s power cord until it crashed down on the floor.

The music stopped. Johnny threw a fit. Greggie stepped back as if knowing all hell was about to break loose.

Marge stormed into the room and assessed what had happened.

Greggie, she said harshly. "You know he needs music to go to sleep on!"

She picked up the radio but could not get it to work. You broke it! she said. "Now what am I supposed to do?"

Johnny was roaring in a fit of anger. Marge lifted him up and patted him on his back, but he would not be mollified. Veins in his forehead and neck bulged like engorged garden hoses.

A sleepy-eyed Frank entered to see what had happened.

Oh, Frank, cried Marge. They never told us about his temper. The other kids weren’t like this at all. What are we going to do?

Frank tried to comfort Johnny by patting his tiny hand. Frustrated now at everything, Marge coldly pushed her husband’s hand away. They never told us, Frank!

Johnny, on his back in the crib in his nursery, showed a wondrous curiosity at a CD player playing a Haydn symphony on a table. When it ended, he kicked and thrashed.

Within seconds, another symphony came on; he reentered his comfort zone like an addict folding into a fix.

Next to the table lay a tearful and sleep-deprived Marge on a makeshift cot. A pillow and a blanket covered her. She held two more CDs at the ready.

From another room, Frank shouted, When are you coming to bed?

She removed the pillow from over her head. I can’t! she answered. He’s still awake! Her features sagged with self-pity. I can’t bear this cross anymore, Frank.

The waiting room at the pediatrician’s office was crowded when Marge entered with Johnny. The sick children waiting to be seen gawked at his disfigurement, as did their mothers, albeit discreetly.

To distract her two-year-daughter, who had a runny nose, a mother gave her a toy horn from her purse, a miniature bugle made of plastic. The girl blew on it. The noise grated on everyone.

Johnny grunted to Marge that he wanted the horn. Too impatient to get her approval, he walked on unsteady legs to the girl.

The girl’s mother, bridling at Johnny’s face, addressed Marge in a tone meant to conceal her uneasy curiosity about his scar.

He’s young to be walking, she said.

He started at eight months, said Marge.

This raised envious eyebrows among the adults in the room. Johnny snatched the horn from the girl and started to blow on it.

Johnny, no, said Marge. She’s got a cold. You’ll catch her cold.

The two-year-old protested immediately. Marge addressed the mother with, He kinda likes music.

The two-year-old snatched back her horn. Johnny, surprised by this, retook it and clobbered her with it.

The girl screamed in holy terror, even as both mothers separated the children from each other.

Other mothers, some overtly, others unobtrusively, guarded their children from Johnny.

He doesn’t have anyone his own age to share his toys with, said Marge. He doesn’t know how to share.

Johnny screamed while pointing at the horn, now held tightly by its owner. The noise prompted a nurse from the doctor’s office to enter the waiting room. She was aghast at the ferocity of Johnny’s howling and the bulging veins in his neck.

Frightfully embarrassed, Marge lifted him into her arms and fled for the hallway outside the doctor’s office suite. She no sooner closed the door behind her than one mother said, Something’s wrong with that boy.

With grave disappointment and regret on their faces, Marge and Frank sat across from the social worker at the Children’s Services Administration. Marge recited a litany of complaints, none of which surprised the social worker.

I have never seen a child that doesn’t like to be held and loved, said Marge.

He’s like a dog that got kicked around a lot, said Frank.

I tried everything, cried Marge. I tried everything I knew. But he just wants to be alone … and even then he cries.

He never even smiled, said Frank. Not even once, right, Marge?

Marge suddenly tapped into anger she’d been holding in. Nobody can calm him down, I tell you! I tried everything humanly possible! It’s no use, I tell you.

Frank put his arms around his wife. It’s not her fault, honeybunch, he said. She’s just doing her job.

Marge dropped her head onto Frank’s chest. The social worker indicated to Frank that she was not offended by Marge’s comments.

Johnny, sitting on the floor in a diaper and listening to music via headphones, was in his own world.

4

T WO PROFESSIONAL MOVERS rolled an old console piano from their delivery truck to a small house rented by Leona and Esteban Rodriquez, early fifties, uneducated and childless. Custody of Johnny had been granted to them after a provisional adoption by a single woman in her thirties who had been warned about his temper.

The adoptive mother, living on a trust, had hired a trained nanny, but the nanny quit after four days. The mother ended up leaving Johnny alone in his bedroom with his door closed while she went to her own bedroom and put plugs in her ears.

Let him cry himself to sleep, she thought.

It did not work. Johnny became even more restless during the day. He was so disruptive that one by one her friends stopped visiting her. Finally exhausted and defeated, she returned Johnny to the child services agency.

Months passed before the agency found another couple. Leona had impressed the agency with