The Jook

Chapter 10

"Don't need you, Zelmont." Danny sipped on a tall glass with a dolphin stirrer in it. Several of his boys marched around, looking for something to do as the afternoon came on.

"You don't own this place, Danny. You just the caretaker until your brother comes back."

"Then maybe you should talk to Nap." He tilted his head like he was hoping I'd start something. "But he left me in charge, and really, you ain't necessary to this operation."

"This ain't no army base, this is a nightclub."

"One you ain't needed at 'less you standing in line and payin' at the front door." He stood there, daring me to pop his full-of-himself ass. If I did, one of his clique was gonna bust a few caps in my dome, crying while he did it.

I split. Now I was back in the unemployment line until the job went down. Which meant my stupid grandstanding play of sending money to Terri was just that, stupid. Then wouldn't you fuckin' know I got the call when I rolled home.

"Zelmont, no more delays," said my attorney Barry Kleinhardt. A few hours later I was sitting near the links at the Wilshire Country Club.

"Ah hell, Barry, ain't I been on the fair and goddamn square? Didn't I make an offer to her parents to further the little ho's education?"

Kleinhardt rubbed at what was left of his disappearing hair. He threw his pen on the glass table and scooted his chair back on the patio, then put the bottom of his golf shoe against the table's metal edge. "She's in a wheelchair, Zelmont. It doesn't matter that you say she came on to you, or that she was sixteen at the time and she showed you fake ID stating she was twenty."

A wrinkled white man, his gut hanging over his belt buckle, walked past us. He had one of those old-fashioned thick mustaches and he looked at me like he expected me to get up and start serving drinks to him. I opened my mouth and gave him the ghetto glare. He picked up the pace and went into the clubhouse.

I hadn't checked her ID. But it was a good defense Kleinhardt had tried, as he'd found out she did have the bunk driver's license.

"You gave her wine and then showed her the magic torpedo, and baby, you should be thankful for the four and a half years I've been fighting this charge."

"Four years and half a million," I said too loud. A few of the golfers at other tables on the patio looked over their shoulders at us. I leaned in under the umbrella. "Let 'em wheel that connivin' bitch into court, Barry. Your investigator got testimony from them boys on the wrestling team she blew. Don't that show the chick's a freak?

"I'll grant you it shows a pattern, Zelmont. But we've only found guys who are willing to testify about the last year or so, after her eighteenth birthday Young men who are in her appropriate age range."

"And race."

Kleinhardt held up his hands and sat straight in his chair again. "If you'd signed with the Barons it'd be a different story. A couple hundred thousand more and her family would be satisfied."

"Family." Her father showed up once he smelled money coming out of my black ass. He hadn't been around for years before that. And her frizzed-hair mama, a couple of times it seemed if I'd given her a turn with my sweet thing she'd have got her daughter to back off.

Kleinhardt bit his bottom lip on one side. "Zelmont, we have photos of her made up, and she looks older. Her friends that brought her to your house that night have been deposed and said she wanted to meet you in the worst way. Her girlfriend Becky said the two of them talked about what it would be like with you."

"Isn't that good enough?"

"No," he said. Kleinhardt looked off at the green as if an answer might rise up from the ninth hole. "We drew Judge Kodama, and she don't play around when it comes to adults and minors, especially with guys like you. Even though her old man is black."

I drank my iced tea as if I was tasting it for the very first time, or the last.

"Even the best case means you'll still have to do five to seven. That's if I can get it reduced to consensual sex with an underage minor with extenuating circumstances, as opposed to sodomy and statutory rape."

I felt like finding that old fuck who'd been giving me the "what's the native doing here?" look and swatting him. "I don't know what to say."

"Peep this," Kleinhardt leaned closer. "Either way you'll have to register as a sex offender."

My head was swimming. "I'd rather do twenty years getting reamed by the Aryan Nation brothers every day. Zelmont Raines may have dropped down some, man, but I can't be goin' 'round and have people pointin' at me like I was some kind of child molester. You know I ain't that. What would my mother think?"

"Judges get elected just like D.A.s, Zelmont. And even if she was inclined to be lenient in her sentencing, which she won't be, this is one guideline she can't waver from." Barry reached for his Reuben sandwich, but only looked at it. "If there was any other way."

"There is, Barry." I grabbed at my head like it was coming unscrewed. I looked over at him. "You go to that beauty school dropout mama of hers and see if she won't hold out her hand when I offer the dough."

"What do you mean?" Out on the links, a dude made a nice chip shot.

"Watch," I said.

Four days later I was on Fox Shoppers World, one of that bad-ass billionaire Murdoch's newer channels, selling my Super Bowl ring. I could almost hear Grier sitting at home, calling his homies and laughing at me. Fuck him and the lawyers and the judges and especially that crippled tramp and her no armpit-shaving mama. They'd run an ad in the L.A. Times Sports section in the morning, so the viewers were primed when I got on air.

I put up with some bullshit from the slick dude who worked as one of the hosts of their Collector's Showcase about how big and shiny the ring was, and what a great piece of history it was since it was the first and last time the Falcons had won a Super Bowl, yakkaty and blah. I just sat there, grinning like Stepin Fetchit and mumbling one lame excuse after another as a bunch of assholes called in to belittle me or remark how low I'd fallen, how ashamed I should be, and so on.

Finally, though, the numbers started coming up, and the ring sold for $150,000 to, of course, a Japanese businessman.

What with the administrative fees Fox got and the percentage I'd worked out with Lowe for setting up the deal, I'd take home a little over a hundred grand. That was before settling my bill with Kleinhardt. Goddamn, I needed a fuckin' break, and in a hurry.

A day later it was settled.

"Seventy large it is," Kleinhardt said to me. He snapped his cell phone shut. "Mom and the daughter's lawyer are convinced of your sincerity, Zelmont. And they acknowledge there may have been some slight innocent, unconscious enticement on the young woman's part, being not wise in the ways of the world. But that's in the past. They all want to move forward with their lives."

''Especially since they figure they'd only be beatin' a dead horse to hold out for more.'' We were standing in the waiting room of a foreign car repair place on the Miracle Mile. Kleinhardt was having some work done on his sharp ride, an emerald green Beamer sedan.

I didn't have much to say so I stood there, hands in my pockets.

"What's on deck for you now, Zelmont?"

Kleinhardt said it like I had a future mapped out. More and more, there was only one direction I was heading. Sitting in the restaurant the other day at the airport, I was kinda in, kinda not. Like how I've been pretty much with every woman of mine. In the mix, but sorta standing outside of it too, watching stuff go down around me even though I was involved.

There I was, standing around like any other middle class square. Kleinhardt was on the phone again, happy with himself for keeping me out of jail. Shit, I was the one that came up with the idea. What'd I get? Money out of my pocket and then some. Not one goddamn cent of the ring money was mine to keep, and I had a hefty mortgage to meet. One of the mechanics was working underneath a Jag, back toward the muffler. He was probably in a better financial situation than me. That didn't make me sad, just determined.

"I'll see you, Barry."

He waved at me and continued gabbing on the phone. I was already played, as far as he was concerned my big paydays behind me. Wouldn't be no calls to get in nine holes like there used to be from him when I was raking in the green. I was swimmin' with the sharks. And if I wasn't careful, I might be their food real quick.

The garage opened out on an alley and I took that and turned at the corner where the car repair place was. I crossed Wilshire at an angle and went into the Conga Room. It was a big building near the corner of Detroit painted a slate blue. The club had once been a Jack LaLanne's gym and sauna. Some actors and others had invested some dough and turned it into a salsa joint. There was a big bongo drum hanging next to the roof.

At the bar I had a Maker's Mark, then another one. The bartender, a decent-looking chick in black pants and matching vest and white shirt, eyed me twice but didn't say anything. The TV was on and Weems was talking.

"As I've said, I'm not insensitive to how this might appear to our fans. They are the only reason we want to bring them the kind of football we know they want and deserve."

Trace and a couple of other flat-shouldered boys were flanking the Comish like what he had to say was important.

Weems tried to smile but knew it looked too fake. "It was no easy task informing the team owners that certain men wouldn't be allowed to play, but we must have standards. We must adhere to the new course we've taken if we're to restore the integrity of football. It must be made clean and good and strong like it was when we all first became fans."

One of the reporters asked him about playing fast and loose with the rights of free trade and so forth, but I was into my second whisky and couldn't care less what the fool had to say. Apparently, though, he'd bounced me and five other sorry bastards out without so much as a blink or a nod. Cold, cold motherfuckah.

I weaved outside after my third drink. Kleinhardt shot past in his BMW heading west and didn't even see me. Or at least he made like he didn't. I got in my ride and went home. Nothing else to do but chill with my buzz on.

Back at the pad there was a message waiting for me from Isabel. I called her, but she was out. I needed something to do, I was wound up tight and had to release it somehow. The phone rang and I grabbed the thing.

"Yes," I said, trying to sound relaxed.

"We're on for tomorrow, stud."

It was Nap. "What?"

"One-thirty on the t-i-t, and you'd better take a nap before you get over there."

"Negro, what you goin' on about?" I sure wished Isabel had called me back.

"Service with a smile, homebrew."

Then it sunk in "Oh damn."

The next day I headed out to Stadanko's pad, following the directions Nap had given me. As I neared the place, I started to get more hyped. I was thinking it had to be a trap that Chekka had set to get back at us. After all, Ysanya was one of them, from Kosovo or some such place where fools were still lighting each other up over who killed who in what century. But Nap said everything was on the positive tip, plus this was an important part of the plan. I was sure this sneaking around was really just part of the freak game him and missus were into playing. Me being in the middle didn't make me feel too easy.

I got lost a couple of times but found my way onto the right street in Palos Verdes Estates. The joint was huge like I'd expected, and there was a gate attached to a high brick wall around it. I pulled up to a call box on a post beside the entrance. I sat there looking at the box, not knowing what to do. Sweat was making the top of my lip wet.

"Come on in, Zee," Nap said over the intercom.

One side of the gate opened quietly. I drove in and followed the drive to the front door. The housemansion, I guess you'd really call it was three floors and had balconies and vines crawling all over it. It wasn't a modern look. No, Stadanko's pad reminded me of the kind of cribs I'd seen in old flicks from the '40s where the crazy widow hangs out and the stranger rolls up to throw her life off balance.

But I was the one off balance right now. Nap's car was there and I parked near him. I didn't see any other ride, but that didn't ease my nerves. There were big dragon heads on both sides of the double wooden doors. Before I reached the heads, one side opened and I froze like a high schooler caught in a double team.

"Sir." A heavy woman wearing jeans and a work shirt was standing at the door with her hand on the knob.

I considered spinning around and bolting, but she'd already seen me, so that would have done no good. I went on in.

The woman didn't say anything else as she shut the door behind me. She just smiled and pointed up the stairs. Then she walked off through a doorway to my right. I hit the stairs and went up past some photos hanging along the wall. One was Stadanko and Chekka in younger days. The two punks had their arms around each other, standing in front of a bar with foreign letters in the window.

I could hear voices and followed them down a bend in the hall to a set of doors with fancy glass knobs. I went in and found myself standing in a room with colored light coming in from above. There was a skylight made of stained glass cut in the ceiling. The walls were painted a girly shade of pink, the bottom half of them made of dark wood. Normally, I wouldn't pay attention like some faggot decorator to stuff like that, but I'd learned from past incidents involving me and my johnson that it was best to know as many details as possible.

There were paintings on the wall, modern jive that for some reason I kinda liked. Off to one side was a desk with a computer. The curtains were open to those French windows houses like this always have. A long telescope was pointed out the windows to the ocean.

Ysanya and Nap were sitting on a love seat in another part of the room. Nap was naked, the old lady in a fancy get-up like in a Penthouse layout, not sleazy like a Hustler chick. Though she did have his rod in her hand, strokin' that bad rascal nice and slow. In the other hand she was tokin' on a joint.

"Hello, Zelmont. Would you like a drink? There's a bar in the next room. And there's more dope too." She said it like we were standing around at a dinner party.

I got a drink at a bar made to look like the Titanic. The thing split apart, the racks of booze inside. On a side shelf were the joints, but I decided against the kronik. I wanted my mind on right. I had a Scotch and went back into the other room. Ysanya and Nap were feelin' on each other fiercely. I drank and looked at the paintings. I'd been in threesomes, but it had been me and two chicks, not me, a woman, and another man. Standards, you got to have standards, man.

Man, I hoped Nap wasn't expecting me to do no Marv Albert shit. Like one of us bunghole the other while she watched. If that was the plan, motherfuckah better get a new playbook, and I mean like yesterday.

There was a table done up like an altar, with crystals, a couple of the demon statues like in Nap's office, and other mystical crap on it. There were also some candles burning in twisty kind of holders. Next to that was a stereo unit. I turned it on. Anything to help cut the tension rising in me. I was so paranoid, I didn't know if I could get it up when the time was right. Yeah, and when would that be?

A CD was on and it took me a couple of moments before I recognized Dean Martin's voice. Dino was singing "Let Me Go Lover" as the two of them got up and trotted off through a doorway behind the love seat. Nap looked back at me, making a sign for me to follow. I finished the Scotch and went in, getting the knots out of my shoulders by working them up and down, back and forth.

There was a fancy bed high off the floor made of carved wood that I swore I'd seen on an episode of Melrose Place once. Nap and the lady of the house were going at it like teenagers. I stripped down and suddenly got another fear. Pablo wasn't going to show up all of sudden grinning like a possum in a grain factory, was he?

I looked around but didn't see no other clothes so I figured everything was all right. But I wouldn't put it past these two to have a faggot orgy planned and not let my naive ass know about it until it was too late.

The drink and Dino had helped my mood, and pretty soon me and Nap were turning Ysanya every which way but loose. I was between her legs doing some scuba diving, and she was rubbing my head and murmuring.

From down below I heard Nap ask the question point blank: "Say, baby, where exactly do your old man and his cousin conduct their business?"

I stopped, damn near choking.

"He doesn't think I know, but I've done my own checking, honey." Ysanya squeezed her thighs against the sides of my head. "You're not stopping now, are you, Zelmont?"

"No, ma'am." I went back to work.

"Why you want to know that, sweetie?" I could hear them kissing, and she moaned even louder.

"We gonna take down your old man."

I just about fainted. I brought my head up in a hurry. "Negro, have you not heard of subtlety?"

Ysanya stared first at him, then me, and I knew she was going to start hollering or some shit and Trace and his partners would show up from nowhere and blow us away. Instead she took a drag on the joint she'd been holding and started laughing like Nap had told her the funniest joke of the week.

Then she turned to kiss the muscle-bound boy, her big butt wiggling with pleasure. "Can we do it, baby? Can we take that bastard for all he's got and more? Then you and I can go away and leave this place of ruination."

"Only with your help, honey." Nap put an arm around her and pulled her on top of him. They clearly didn't need me at the moment so I got up and went into the can. Afterward I came out and found Nap laid back on the love seat, still smoking maryjane.

Ysanya was bending down before the altar, gesturing with her hands and swaying side to side. Her eyes sparkled like I'd seen rookie linemen's after getting their first pro sack. She scared the shit out of me.

"This is destiny," she mumbled. "My beautiful black knight will deliver me from hell into a brighter future."

I looked at her black knight. He was lit up like a fuckin' Christmas tree. What had I got myself into?

Nap tipped the splif at me. I shook my head no. Then he said to Ysanya, "So have you ever had to call your husband out at the place where they meet?"

"A time or two, but Ellison changes the phone number each month for security reasons. He thinks he's a sly pig." Ysanya rubbed a few crystals over her bare top. "But he doesn't fully trust his cousin either. So while he's circumspect about telling me where they meet, he also wants to leave some clue in case he doesn't make it back from one of their pow-wows." She got up and went to sit next to her boyfriend.

Nap played with her dyed blonde hair. She didn't dye down below. "When do they meet next?"

"It has to be soon because I came in the other day to his office, the day we saw you, Zelmont. Anyway, I walked in and he and Rudy were yelling in Serbo-Croat to each other. Mine has fallen off, but I caught enough of it to know they were pissed at you two for what happened at the garbage dump."

"Mad enough to whack us?" Nap asked.

She frowned. "I don't know, others have done worse to them and they've all wound up being in business together."

"But they weren't black," I added. I needed another drink and went to get one.

"Well yes," Ysanya said as I walked past her. "But they're also worried about Weems."

That stopped me. "Yeah?"

She put a hand on my thigh, kneading the muscle. "He and Weems hate each other. But what can Weems do? The owners took a vote and let my husband and his backers into the league. There's no hard evidence against him, but that's why the commissioner moved out to L.A. His pet project is to screw Ellison."

"Wonderful." I went and got another Scotch.

"I know it's somewhere in Ridgecrest," I heard her tell Nap.

"How do you know that?"

"I'm not stupid, Nap, I find out things."

"Oh I know, darling, I know."

We talked about what would happen once she got the new number. Then we showered, me by myself, them two together. After that, me and Nap were let out by the woman who'd let me in. She just smiled, and I figured she must know plenty of secrets. Maybe she and Ysanya had a thing going on, for all I knew.

We drove over to the Locker Room in our separate cars and went up to his office. Danny had set up headquarters in another room, so Nap's area was untouched.

"You really gonna hat up with her when this is over? It's gonna be hard enough laying your large self low, let alone dragging around a chick more than ten years older than you who's used to popping over to Rodeo Drive or Newport Beach."

Nap was leaning on his desk, his forearms and triceps bunching and releasing. "I know, man. But once we play this hand I just can't leave her to take the heat. That wouldn't be right."

"If her old man gets a hint of what's up, you think for a hot minute miss freaky-deaky won't go screaming to her crystals and give you and me up? Get our asses shipped off to Bosnia where hunting down niggas is something to do in between killing each other."

"She's better than that, man."

"Are you in love with her? Cause love can make a motherfuckah slip, and slipping is not an option."

"Understood," he said, his eyes beaming straight into mine.

"A'right." I made to go but then stopped. I didn't want to ask, but I had to. "I realize Danny and his posse have the club covered, Nap. And I know you got to be cool with him, but I was wondering…" I couldn't make myself finish it.

Nap didn't say anything. He walked to the stone head, did his sequence touching, and got some scratch from behind the curtain. "Three is going to have to do, Zelmont. I've got to watch my expenses myself."

My hand was out. Under my breath I said, "'Preciate this, Nap. You know I'd do the same for you."

"We boys, right?" He slapped the hundreds in my palm.

"Yeah, man. Just folding money, you know?" I couldn't raise my head and went out into the parking lot. It must have started to rain or something even though the sun was out because my cheek was wet. The devil is beating his wife, Moms used to say when it showered with the sun shining. I got in the Explorer and drove over to the High Hat bar on Crenshaw.

"Naw, he ain't been here," the beefy girl in the tight red dress and green eye shadow growled at me. She went to wipe down the bar on the other end.

"Sonny Sticks in always around here," I said, following her.

"He ain't here now." She stopped moving her rag. "Ain't you supposed to be somebody?"

"The dude who's looking for the dude who owes me money, that's who I am." Like Zorro, I wrote my initial on a coaster. "Tell him I was here and that next time he better be too." I flipped the coaster toward her.

"Oh sure." She looked at it, then went over to speak to a older dude in a ratty turtleneck and plaid knit coat sitting on a corner stool. I drove around for a while, half looking for a couple of other Gs who owed me some dough. As the sun went down, I wound up in Watts, dropping by Kelrue Cumming's grandmother's house on 107th near Santa Ana. When he didn't want to be found, that's where he'd go. He'd have heard of me getting the ax again and would know I'd want another ring or two to tide me over.

"No, no, Mr. Zelmont," his granny said through a crack in the doorway of her shack, "Kelrue hasn't been around much, you see?"

"Can I leave him a note?" Did I sound innocent enough?

"I'm not so old I can't remember, Mr. Zelmont." Granny's voice cracked. Kelrue was probably crouching down in a back room.

Putting some weight on the door, I said, "This won't take but a minute."

"Please, we don't want no trouble. But I got me what they call a panic button inside the door here, Mr. Zelmont. The city council done gave' em out to us senior citizens in a safe streets program, yes sir."

Fuck. I could get the door open and knock her down before she could reach that button. If there was one. I pushed my weight against the door some more. "It'll be over before you know it, grandma. Kelrue has a contract he has to honor."

"Good Jesus."

I was almost inside when a pair of high beams suddenly flashed on, catching me in the glare. The car had driven up quick across the lawn. A door opened and slammed. I didn't need to be John Shaft to know who it was.

"Prone out on the lawn, Zelmont." Fahrar stood to one side of the car, the lights barely outlining his form. I was sure he had his gun pointed at me.

"This ain't none of your concern, cop."

"You gone simple? Do what I tell you and step away from the citizen."

Grandma made a face at me. "Serves you right for being so evil."

I could have popped her but that would give Fahrar an excuse to shoot me. ''Don't you and your fat grandson get too cozy, old lady I'm coming back.''

That took some of the vinegar out of her. Fahrar was close, his nine pointed at my head. "Do as I told you." He grabbed me, pulling on my arm. Then he pushed the muzzle of the automatic against my cheek, digging it in hard. "Let's go."

He manhandled me down onto the grass, kicking at the back of my legs with his feet. I got down on my knees and he thumped me in the middle of my back with the butt of his gun. "Prone, motherfuckah."

I turned my head and saw those crazy eyes of his were full of anger. I went face down, and he patted me all over. Then he made me put my hands behind my back and he cuffed them.

"Get up."

I did. Granny and a couple of her neighbors were watching the show. Then Fahrar marched me to his car and told me to sit in the passenger side. He got in on the driver's side. There was a prisoner bar on the dash and he clinked the short chain on it to the cuffs. He reversed the car and we took off.

"You ain't got nothing, Fahrar. I didn't touch the old lady and she didn't squawk." He wasn't heading down 108th where the station was. But come to think of it, Fahrar didn't work the Watts precinct anyway. "How'd you find me?"

His fucked-up hat was pressed tight against his head. "When I heard you got cut, I knew you'd be desperate for money. I'd developed a list of the losers who owe you dough." He grinned at me, his yellow eye giving me a shiver.

"You done lost your mind, boy."

"I got your boy, Zelmont."

He pulled his Toronado under where the 105 and 110 freeways cross, near Figueroa and 111th. Overhead the cars and trucks went by Down where we were there was nothing but dark shadows and the smell of gas and trash. Fahrar got out, leaving me chained to the bar. He came around the back of the car and opened the passenger door. Fahrar stuck the gun against my nose.

"You bad now?"

"You better"

"Shut up," he yelled, slapping me with the gun.

"Fuck you, punk. Let me loose and let's see how hard you are."

His answer was to poke the side of my face with his nine again. "I could run you in on assault for harassing the old lady."

"I didn't assault anybody, clown. You the one doing the assaulting."

He backed up, the gun still out toward me. "You're going to own up for once, Zelmont."

I screamed, "You gonna shoot me, Fahrar? You didn't even know Davida."

"It's not about her, asshole." He reached in and hit me with the gat again. I could feel blood on the side of my nose.

The end of that gun was the only thing in my world. I didn't hear the cars going by above us or my own breathing. It was just the gun and nothing else. He undid the chain and pulled me out, throwing me to my knees in the dirt.

"Your time's coming." He walked a wide circle around me, keeping out of reach. Then he got back in his car and took off, leaving me handcuffed and dirty.

"Let me loose, you high yella bitch," I hollered into the cloud of dust his wheels kicked up in my face. His tail lights disappeared into the darkness. I got to my feet, one of my knees skinned. Like an idiot I strained against the handcuffs, knowing they weren't going to break apart.

It was getting cold, and with only a shirt and no jacket I needed to get moving just to stay warm. I walked around under the freeway looking for something to get myself loose. Off to one side there was a lumpy shape. I walked over there. It was a homeless man sleeping on a ragged bunch of towels, his shopping cart near him. It was hard, but I did my best to dig through his junk in the cart. I wasn't in no mood to be delicate, and the noise woke him up.

"Say, man, you better get away." He sat up, stink coming off him like a backed-up toilet.

"Sit down," I kicked him in the chest, not too hard, but hard enough so he got the message.

"I'll cut you."

"You best sit the fuck down." I kept moving his junk around, trying to watch him too in case he wasn't bullshitting about having a blade. But all he had in the cart was broken plastic toys, pieces of faucets, used pens, hunks of Styrofoam, and other crap. There was nothing of use to me, or anybody else for that matter.

I left the cat and his sad life and went out on the sidewalk. I was shivering and probably looked like a nut to anybody passing by. I had to walk with my arms down in front of me to try and hide the cuffs. A Mexican woman with a basket of laundry on her head was coming at me from the other direction. She must have seen the cuffs 'cause she cut across the street in a hurry, almost getting run over by a pick-up truck.

At Imperial and Flower there was a filling station with a working phone on the east end of the lot. I managed to turn my pocket inside out, spilling out a few coins. A lowered Chevy Caprice rolled by, the eight-ballers inside scoping me out. They must have figured me for a mark, a drunk mark. I was down on my knees picking up the coins. The car came onto the lot, a Mack 10 number thumpin' on the car's speakers.

I got the phone off the hook and managed to get a quarter in the slot. But I dropped the dime. I bent down to pick it up, knowing that the hawks in the car were sizing me up. I couldn't see their faces, but I could read their minds. If things had gone different, if I hadn't had that scholarship and been picked ninth round in the draft, maybe I'd be in the car, looking to push up on a fool.

I got the dime in the slot and punched her inside line. The thing rang on the other end, me holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder and two hands clinked together. I watched the car.

"Hello," Wilma said.

"I need you to pick me up at the corner of Imperial and Flower, it's a Exxon Station."

"Zelmont, what's"

"Now, okay?"

"All right."

I let the phone dangle and walked to the lights shining down on the gas pumps. If them boys in the ride flexed, then so be it. I'd get these cuffs around the neck of one of those studs and take him with me to wherever the hell it was we went after this bullshit.

I stood under the lights waiting for Wilma. A couple of people who pulled in for gas seemed surprised when I didn't ask to fill their cars up like I was any other motherfuckah beggin' for spare change.

After a while, the punks in the Caprice got bored and drove off. When Wilma got there, I was moving back and forth, trying not to freeze.

"What happened?" she said, getting out of her Phaeton.

"I'll tell you when I'm warm." I managed to open the door and got inside.

Wilma pointed at the cuffs. "One of your chicks get too rough for you?"

I put the stare on her. "Can you get these off me?"

"Sure, baby," she giggled. She called Nap on her cell phone and drove me to where he was staying in the Valley in Van Nuys. It was a funky-looking apartment building near the Anheuser-Busch plant.

Nap worked on cutting the cuffs with a heavy-duty hacksaw he borrowed from the manager. After he got them off, I told them what happened.

"So we have to be careful," Nap said, looking at the cuffs. "With this cop having a big stick up his ass about you, he's going to make it his mission to fuck with your life until he can bust you for Davida's murder."

Nobody said anything for a few ticks, but I knew the gears were turning in Wilma's head. "Does Fahrar know Weems?"

"That's being overly paranoid, Zelmont." Wilma walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. "You have any beer?"

"Rolling Rock," Nap said.

"Really?" I said, walking around. "Then why don't you check, Wilma? Weems has a hard-on for law and order, ain't that right, Nap?"

"That's true. It's a known fact some of the members of his Internal Truth Squad are ex-cops."

"I know that," she said.

"Then check," I said. "We have to know what we got lining up against us."

She didn't like being ordered around. But she also didn't like being caught from behind. I waited while she sipped her beer.

"Fine."

I laughed. "Big spoiled baby."

"Shut up." She sat on the couch.

"Got anything stronger than that pale-ass brew?"

"In the cupboard." Nap pointed with the hand holding the cuffs.

I got down a bottle of gin. "Ysanya know you're here?"

"Why you want to know?"

"We got enough to worry about without that dizzy bitch spilling the goods, that's why."

Nap came towards me. "I said she's cool, Zee. You worry about your end of things."

"I am, that's why I want to know." The bottle was on the counter, my hand on the neck.

His shoulders hitched.

"She's unreliable, man," I said.

"You should know about being unreliable." He was breathing in my face. Now I'd find out how long I'd last before Nap beat me into the ground.

Wilma got between us. "All right, let's not fall apart until we're millionaires, okay? You two are supposed to be tight. Don't let a woman come between you."

She put her arm around my waist. "Grab the bottle and let's go. Everything's going to be all ours." She pulled me to her. "Then we can get out of here and start over, make it good."

"You and me?" It sounded natural when I said the words.

"Yeah, you and me."

We tongued, and later at her pad we got down. Not like was the usual for me, being the macker and bangin' the coochie, or getting off on rough sex like with Davida. We were tender with each other, held on to each other and touched the other one's body with our fingertips. That was something, really something.