Shame the Devil

ELEVEN

Roman Otis drove south on Sepulveda, past gas stations, pager shops, drive-throughs, and big box retailers. The people weren’t beautiful here, not like the blondes and moussed boys of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, and trash littered the gutters and the small squares of worn grass fronting the boxy apartment units and Spanish ramblers along the boulevard. Otis passed beneath the freeway and drove into the lot of a garden apartment complex situated beside a dry drainage ditch with old tires and discarded toys lying in its bed.

“Be right back,” said Otis, smiling, checking his gold tooth out in the rearview.

Gus Lavonicus watched Otis step along the walkway toward the apartments, not too fast, and not like he didn’t have somewhere to go, either. He wore reverse pleated slacks, a lightweight sport jacket, a nice black polo shirt underneath, soft Italian loafers, those shades of his that adjusted their tint to the light, that ID bracelet with the funny inscription, and a previously owned Rolex watch. Otis had style.

Lavonicus looked down at his plain blue pants and the black size-eighteen work boots he ordered special from the Real Man Big and Tall catalog. It wasn’t like a guy his size had many choices.

Maybe Cissy would look at him with a fresh set of eyes if he dressed sharp like her brother Roman. Probably not. It seemed lately that nothing about him could make Cissy happy. She was having a change of life. Her periods seemed longer, and when she was having them she was meaner than any woman he’d ever known. He had asked her to look into some of that period medicine he’d seen at the drugstore, and at the suggestion she threw a fit. She screamed at him like his mother used to scream at him back in the mountains of Eastern Europe. Ah, his mother was a real screamer, too – he’d sworn he’d never marry a woman like that.

When Lavonicus played for the Spirits of St. Louis, Cissy would wait for him outside the locker room with all the other basketball whores. But Cissy was different – she had love in her eyes for him then. He guessed he was never happier, playing ball and getting paid for it and falling in love with Cissy back in 1975.

Those were a nice bunch of guys on that team, crazy but nice. They knew how to get him pumped up for the game. The coach would tell him that a player on the opposite team had laughed at him, called him Retard Man or something like that. A hard feeling would develop in his stomach, and he’d tell the coach he was ready to go into the game. He’d find the player who’d laughed at him and submarine that player as he went up for a rebound, step on his knee, maybe, when he was down on the court. Sometimes he’d just go ahead and drive a hard elbow into the player’s Adam’s apple if he could get away with it, or knock the player into the scorer’s table when he was trying to save a ball from going out of bounds. After those things happened he would often be sat down, and upon his return to the bench his teammates would slap him five, laugh about it, pat him on the back. By then he’d feel a whole lot better. He’d look for Cissy in the stands – the Spirits were only drawing three thousand fans a game then, so it wasn’t hard to spot her – and she’d give him a broad wink. Those were really good times.

He smiled and felt his eyes grow heavy. When he opened his eyes it was to the sound of the car door opening and closing, and Otis was beside him in the driver’s seat.

“Got ’em,” he said, tossing a small gym bag over his shoulder.

“Where to now?”

“Back across town to Silver Lake,” he said. “Lonnie Newton’s crib.”

Lonnie Newton was a small-change coke dealer who had experienced a run of good luck in the past six months. Roman Otis had staked the original thousand that had put Newton in business, but as yet Newton had not repaid the debt.

Newton lived in a two-bedroom rental house set on a hill in Silver Lake, at the top of Cumberland Avenue. Otis drove the Lincoln over the crest of Cumberland, took it down where the road snaked along and narrowed for the next fifty yards, parked behind an old import with Jersey plates. A dark-haired woman got out of the import and gave Otis the fish-eye as she walked to her house.

“Whatever, baby,” said Otis, taking a. 45 from the gym bag, checking the load, and slipping the gun inside his jacket. He waited for the woman to enter her house. He waited for “Ladies Night” to end on the radio. He said to Lavonicus, “Come on.”

They walked back up Cumberland.

“Here it is,” said Otis, nodding at a narrow set of concrete steps that pitched radically up the hill and ended at a small house.

“I can only do this one time,” said Lavonicus. “My knees, bro.”

“Only gonna do it once,” said Otis. “I promise you that.”

They went up the steps, passing hibiscus and pine and a huge avocado tree whose top rose twenty feet above the roofline of the house. As they stepped onto a wooden deck they could hear the thump of bass coming from behind the side door.

Otis knocked on the door. He waited and knocked again. The door opened, and a tall, lean young man stood in its frame. The young man frowned first, then smiled.

“Lonnie Newton,” said Otis.

“Roman. Heard you were lookin’ for me.”

“Guess that pager of yours don’t work so good.”

“Aw, I left that old pager in a club, man, with some freak I was doin’ at the time. Got a new pager now. Got a new freak, too.” Newton looked Lavonicus up and down and said, “This your partner I been hearing about?”

“Gus.”

“Aha, ha, ha,” laughed Newton, stamping one foot on the floor. “Ssh, ssh, ssh…”

“You gonna ask us in, Lonnie?” said Otis.

“Better not. I got company.”

“We won’t be but a minute.”

“Look here, man, I ain’t got what you’re lookin’ for. Not here.” “Go ahead and ask us in.”

Lonnie Newton shrugged and stepped aside. Otis went in, and Lavonicus followed, ducking his head to avoid the top of the door frame.

A small shapely woman in a short black skirt sat on the living-room couch, bobbing her head to the music coming from the stereo. The track featured a vocalist rapping languidly over an easy, scratchy wah-wah guitar with some popping bass behind it. The woman was hitting a blunt and did not look up as the men entered the room.

The living room fronted an open kitchen. A bedroom was set off to the right, and a stairway before it led down to a second bedroom. A bay window ran the length of the living room and offered a panoramic view of the city and mountains beyond.

“Turn that music down, will you, Lonnie?” asked Otis.

“What’samatter, man, ain’t you down with it? Or would you rather be listenin’ to the Commodores and shit?”

“Turn it down. Can’t hear myself think.”

“Thought you was Cali,” said Newton, counterclockwising the volume. He looked at the woman, smiled, then looked at Lavonicus. “How about you, Frankenstein? You into the West Coast sound?”

Lavonicus’s ears pinkened and his mouth dropped open as Newton laughed. Otis shook his head. The Newton boy was making a mistake. It was because the woman was in the room. Newton wouldn’t show fear in front of his woman; that was understandable. But he was pushing it too far the other way. Some men were stupid like that. Newton was one of those men.

Violence didn’t bother Otis, but it was usually messy and often costly, and he preferred to avoid it when he could. He thought he’d give the Newton boy a chance.

“Excuse me, young lady,” said Otis to the girl. “Give us a few minutes alone, will you?”

“Go on, girl,” said Newton.

She snatched the blunt up out of an ashtray and headed toward the stairs.

“Not there,” said Newton. “Get in the bedroom.”

She went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

“Nice-lookin’ lady,” said Otis, knowing then that the money was in the bedroom.

“Compton freak,” said Newton.

Otis went to the bay window and scanned the view. “Beautiful up here, man.”

“Yeah, the neighborhood’s red hot. Madonna just bought a house out this way. Maybe I’ll stop by and give her one of those personal housewarming presents you hear about.”

“Think she’d like that, huh?”

“Pretty as I am?”

Still acting cocky, thought Otis. And the woman wasn’t even in the room.

“You know, Lonnie, to live in a place like this you must be doin’ all right.”

“It’s a rental. But, yeah, I’m doin’ fine.” Newton picked a rolled number out of his bag of dope. He lit the fatty and drew on it deeply. “You want some of this?”

“Maybe later.”

“Your loss. ’Cause this here is some chronic motherfuckin’ shit.”

Otis turned from the window to face Newton. “Let’s talk business, Lonnie.”

“You mean that thousand dollars again? Told you I didn’t have it here.”

“Where you got it, man, a bank? You got no bank account, Lonnie, so don’t be frontin’ behind that shit.”

“Look here, man,” said Newton, gesturing with the joint in his hand. “Word is you’re out of the loan business, Roman. Most of your clients done, what’s that word, reneged on their contracts. It’s like any business, you know what I’m sayin’? You make the rules, you got to enforce them. Otherwise, people just won’t take you serious.”

“Now you’re gonna tell me how to run my business.”

“I’m a man. Maybe I’m the only man you been dealing with lately. And, man to man, I’m here to tell you that your business is through. My debt is erased, hear? Not that I plan to forget what you did for me. We’ll work out something away from the money side.”

“That a fact.”

“Look, man, you want my advice, you ought to just go ahead and concentrate on that singin’ career of yours. I hear from a couple boys I know down on Sunset that you’re not half bad. Your song selection’s about twenty years too late, but there’s money in that old-school bullshit now, you can believe it.”

Keep talking, young man. Just keep talking.

Newton gave Otis the once-over with pink, sleepy eyes.

Newton smiled and said, “I like you, Roman. Tell you what. I got an OZ of cola in the back room. How about I lay a gram on you and your personal tree here, you two can do a little clubbin’ tonight, have a good time.”

“I don’t want it.”

“How about this, then?” Newton placed the joint in the ashtray, picked up a watch off the table, and lobbed it to Otis. “Nice Hamilton I bought off the street. It’s yours if you want it.”

“I look like I need a Hamilton? I’m wearin’ a Rolex.”

“Take it as a backup. Go ahead.”

Otis studied the face of the watch and tossed the watch across the room.

“Silly-ass boy,” said Otis sadly. “That ain’t even a Hamilton. It’s a gotdamn Hormilton, man.”

“The money, Lonnie,” said Lavonicus.

“The money, Lonnie,” said Newton, mimicking the big man’s monotonous drawl. Newton clapped his hands together and laughed. “Aha, ha, ha…” He stamped one foot on the floor and went, “Ssh, ssh, ssh…”

Otis reached into his jacket, found the grip of the. 45.

“The money,” said Lavonicus.

“Damn, Gus,” said Newton, “why you so serious? Someone forget to put the bolts in your neck this morning?”

Newton was laughing as he went and stood before a framed mirror nailed to a wooden beam that ran from the floor to the ceiling. He looked in the mirror with admiration, patted his nearly shaved head, smoothed it where the barber had cut a faint part on the side.

“I look good, too,” said Newton. “Bitches be formin’ a line outside my door, know what I’m sayin’?”

Lavonicus grabbed Newton by the back of the neck and slammed his face into the mirror. The frame flew apart and the glass seemed to disintegrate. Lavonicus released his grip and Newton fell back in a heap on the floor.

Otis pulled his hand from his jacket and looked at the wooden beam where the mirror had hung. The beam was splintered and dented at the point of impact.

“I kill him?” asked Gus.

“I don’t think so. Go in the bedroom and find the money.”

Lavonicus went into the bedroom. The woman sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor, her fingers wound tightly together.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” said Lavonicus. She reminded him of a young Cissy.

He tossed the bedroom and found a rubber-banded roll of hundreds under a stack of sweaters on the closet shelf. Lavonicus took the money out to the living room, held it up for Otis to see.

Otis ran a glass of water in the kitchen, kneeled over Lonnie Newton, and poured the water over Newton’s face. His face was slick with blood, and beneath the blood was hamburger. For a moment, as the water washed the blood away, Otis and Lavonicus could make out a riot of small cuts and one deep gash running from Newton’s eye to the corner of his mouth. The cheek was filleted there, hanging away from the face.

Newton’s eyes opened. He moved his head, and pink saliva slid down from his mouth to the floor.

Otis took Newton’s chin and straightened his face so that he could see Lavonicus standing over him.

“Take a look, Lonnie. Just wanted you to remember it. That’s a face you’re gonna be seein’ in your sleep.”

“He’p me,” said Newton sloppily. “Pleee.”

“Gonna have to get your girl to help you, man. That is, if she still plans on hangin’ around.” Otis stood up. “By the way. You approve of how we, uh, enforce our rules?”

Otis rolled the Baggie of herb into a tight tube, sealed it with his tongue, and placed the tube in his jacket. Might be wantin’ some herb on that cross-country ride. He turned up the volume on the stereo before he and Lavonicus left the house.

They took the steps down to the street.

“Say, Gus – when you get mad, you ever do my sister the way you did Lonnie back there?”

“I’d never touch Cissy, bro. I swear to God.”

“’Cause you sure do got a temper on you, Gus.”

“I pushed him too hard. I didn’t judge his weight too good. He was way lighter than me, I guess.”

“They’re all lighter than you, man.”

Otis and Lavonicus went to the car. Otis drove slowly down Cumberland.

Lavonicus said, “We got two thousand.”

“Ought to be plenty enough to get us to D.C.”

“What are we gonna do there, Roman?”

Otis adjusted his shades. “Frank’ll get us into some kind of drama. You can believe that.”