The Jook

Chapter 15

When I got back to my pad in Lennox, I grubbed on three cheeseburgers and two orders of fries I'd bought at the Jack-in-the-Box on Imperial. I had some Scotch left in the cupboard, and would have zonked out on coke if I had any I couldn't believe it but I was glad Wilma had hinted she was too tired for sex. The only thing I wanted was food and sleep.

As the sun came up, I went to bed and tried not to think about Nap. Or the fact that Wilma was sitting on the cash. She was the only one of us who had a safe place to keep it hidden.

For the next few days everything seemed to be happening in a world I was only a visitor to. I was too paranoid to stay at my shitty apartment but too broke to go anywhere else. Wilma had leaked information to the contact she had in the Justice Department before we did the robbery. The day after the job there was a piece in the L.A. Times Sports section about the charges coming down on Ellison Stadanko. And there was a story in the Metro section about the investigation aimed at Rudy Chekka, reputed mob boss.

That night I was sitting in the Proud Bird on Aviation watching the TV that hung over one comer of the bar. On the news was coverage of Stadanko at a press conference. He was with his lawyers and was denying everything. His old lady wasn't next to him.

A hand came down on my shoulder. ''Shame, isn't it?"

"Assholes always get what's due them, Fahrar." I drank my drink, not bothering to look at the chump.

"How you been keeping, partner?" He sat down on the stool next to me.

"I've been just fine, pardner." Now there was a piece about an ice-skating bear on the news. A chick at the other end of the bar cracked up at this. "I know you don't expect me to buy you a drink."

"That might be construed as a bribe." He took off his hat and placed it on the bar.

"Ain't there someplace else your half-breed ass can get a drink at?"

"And miss your witticisms?" He leaned over the bar and ordered. "Give me a rum and coke with a lime in it, okay?"

The bartender, a big-tittied woman with a weave that needed repair, nodded and made his drink. Fahrar sat there, watching TV and getting under my skin as she made his drink. She put it on the bar for him and he paid her. Cheap civil servant motherfuckah tipped her a quarter.

"Two men are sitting over in the jail ward of County Hospital." He slurped his drink.

Finally we were getting to it.

"As you must know, these Serbian gentlemen were pretty fucked up. One of them in particular has got a smashed pelvic bone, busted spleen, nuts hanging all low." He shook his head from side to side. "The poor bastard may never walk right again."

I finished my Maker's Mark but didn't want to order another one. No sense getting too loose and end up slipping with this nosy fuck. "Ain't that something. Man, you oughta write that up and sell it to Cops and Donuts Monthly."

Fahrar's yellow eye zeroed in on me over the top of his glass as he drank. "Naturally these tough boys aren't saying diddly. And their employer, Ellison Stadanko, claims no knowledge of what these ruffians could have been up to carrying firearms on the garbage truck. He's as perplexed as the rest of us why it is that five men, three of whom were in biohazard suits, were on one garbage truck."

"The Times had a piece today saying Stadanko may get jammed up by a grand jury." What the fuck, I ordered another Maker's.

"Since when you start reading the newspaper?"

I was gonna say, "Since your mama started bringing it to my crib in her teeth." Instead I came back with, "I always been into self-improvement."

"Like nine million worth? 'Cause that was the take you strokes pulled down, Zelmont. Stadanko is boxed in and is going to be sweating under the federal lights soon. That's smart, so smart I know your ducking and dodging self couldn't have thought it all out on your lonesome. No, it would take someone who had a knowledge of how to drop the right clue in the right back channel in the legal labyrinth of D.C."

"Really?" The bartender had turned the TV to a channel featuring a marble shooting championship. Damn.

"Did you know that Wilma Wells clerked in the law firm that Brooks Weems has in D.C.?"

He got a reaction that time. The surprise was all over my face.

"Yeah," the snake fuck smiled. "Brooks is the older brother of the football commissioner. Isn't that quite the coincidence?"

"Life is full of them, my mother always said." Come on, Zelmont, don't let this chump rattle you. But damn if he hadn't blindsided me. I sipped my drink and tried to look like I still had game.

"You seen Napoleon around lately?" He thumped his hat with his finger.

"Naw, you ask his brother?"

"He said he hadn't seen him for a few days. He said that maybe he might be back East on some kind of business, but he wasn't sure."

"There you go." The bartender had switched the channel again. Now there was a cop program playing with somebody I recognized. It was the Asian dude I'd done the shows on the WB with. The sound wasn't on but it seemed like he was the star. Good for him. We were all getting over.

"There was a fair amount of blood on the roadway, Zelmont. And quite a few spent shell casings too. And flash grenades. But you knew that."

"I did, huh?"

Fahrar had more of his booze. "Some of that blood matches Napoleon Graham's blood type."

He must have gotten Nap's medical record from the league. But so what? He didn't have a body. "I'm sure a lot of people match his blood type."

"How about his DNA?"

"You can cut it out, cop. I read in the paper the samples swabbed from the roadway were hard to break down. There's oil, gas, and what have you mixed in, plus the blood got absorbed into the asphalt. They quoted a biologist from UCLA who said all that debris or whatever messes up an exact match."

"Sounds like you studied that part of the article back and forth."

"Don't it?"

Fahrar got off the stool, holding the drink in one hand, his hat in the other. "When you see Napoleon, let him know I'd like to talk with him."

"Oh sure."

He looked at the glass in his hand like he'd lost the taste. He put the drink down, not finishing it. "Every step you take." He snugged his hat on his head and drifted out of the joint.

I pushed both my hands against the edge of the bar, gripping it hard. I suddenly felt like I was gonna slip away into a hole and this was all I could do not to disappear. I got up and moved through the noise of the Proud Bird to the pay phone near the bathrooms.

I dialed Wilma's number at work, her inside line. Her machine answered and I hung up. I dialed her at home, then on her cell phone and got no answer. Maybe Fahrar had told me about Wilma working for Weems' brother to see if we'd fink out each other. Maybe it was a lie and he was waiting outside to tail me like he'd shown he could do and catch me confronting Wilma.

I put the phone back and tried to catch my breath, get my bearings. We hadn't really talked about what we were going to do to explain Nap's absence. None of us had a solution anyway I walked back to the bar and had my whisky without tasting it. Wilma had said we should just go about our business as usual for the next few weeks. For Danny that meant running the Locker Room, for her the lawyer thing. And me? Hell, I was only the cat who saved the day, and here I was drinking away what little folding money I had at the moment. She said we'd square up our shares soon as her trap closed in on Stadanko. Well, shit was sprung on the motherfuckah now and we hadn't heard nothin'. Correct that, I hadn't heard nothin'.

By the time I had my fourth Maker's I was imagining that Wilma and Danny had skipped out on me with all the haul. I gave a crooked smile at my reflection, the sucker looking back at me in the bar's mirror.

"Say, baby, ain't you Zelmont Raines?" She was older than me by at least ten years. But she had nice legs sticking out of the skirt that was too short for her plump butt. Plus I liked the blonde dye job she'd given her hair, not to mention her overlapping front teeth.

"I'm he. What you having, dark and lovely?"

About an hour later we were grinding on the outside stairway leading up to my apartment. She had one leg wrapped around my hip and I had her dress hiked up, my hand rubbing between her legs.

I breathed some words, drunk and hot and wanting to get my money and get the hell out of town. Fuck Wilma and her scheming self.

''Let's get inside," she whispered in my ear, licking and nibbling on it with her tongue and teeth.

I mumbled something and was untangling myself from her when I got that feeling. The one that told me a cat was about to jack me from behind while I had my eye on the ball. I stopped getting my nut on and tuned my radar outwards.

"What's wrong, baby? Your wife coming home?"

"Shhh." I put a hand on her lips. She bit my fingers, still thinking I was fooling around. Somebody was coming up the stairs, and they were on a creep. We had stopped in the middle of the second flight of stairs.

Below me the stairs turned the corner and went down to the first floor and the sidewalk. The stud had to be at that corner. Good thing the cheap sonofabitch landlord hadn't bothered to replace the lights that were supposed to be in the stairwell.

"What, baby?" she said again.

I heard the step and threw the chick down where I figured he was standing.

"What the fuck you doing?" she screamed. As she went down, I went right behind her. She collided with the chump, who'd started back-pedaling too late. The two went over.

"Motherfuckah, I'm going to cut you," she said.

I jumped over her and onto the dude she was halfway on. We slid down part of the first set of stairs. He was big, muscular. This boy was no mugger. Somebody I knew had sent him to do me in.

"Niggah, you don't know how to treat a lady, do you?" Homegirl was still going on.

Me and the dude were tussling, trying to get to our feet. He beat me to it and caught me good in the side with the tip of his shoe. I fell, bringing up my arm. A heavy piece of metal crashed down on it and I yelled out.

"Oh, Zelmont, you in trouble, ain't you?" She'd finally got the picture.

I rammed forward, but this chunky clunk knew what to do. He brought a knee up, catching me under the chin. I sagged down and got clubbed in the shoulder blades as I ducked my head out of the way. Otherwise he'd have taken it off at the root with his metal club.

"Don't worry, honey."

There was a swish of air and then it was the other cat's turn to holler.

"Skank," the dude said, holding his leg. We were at the bottom of the stairs, a little light coming in from the moon and street-lamps. My opponent was dressed in a nylon workout suit I had seen before. But I didn't have to guess since he wasn't wearing a mask. It was Coach Cannon.

The blonde was holding a hook knife, which she'd used to slash him across the leg. Her top was torn. She must have ripped it tearing the knife loose from her bra. Well, a girl had to be careful, I guess. She was dancing around like a welterweight, jerking the knife in the air like she had the shakes. She didn't know what to do next.

Cannon did. He backhanded her with the pry bar he was holding. She flew back against a wall and went to the ground like wet laundry. But that had given me enough time to get moving, and I drop-kicked the coach in the chest just like I'd seen wrestlers do.

Cannon staggered back against the wall of the stairwell. I got up and slugged him.

"Goddammit," he wheezed.

I hit him two more times on the back of his neck with my hands held together like a club. The bear of a man sunk to his knees, still holding onto the hunk of metal. So I brought my elbow down straight on his dome. That disoriented him enough for me to make a grab for the pry bar.

"No." He was on one knee, holding onto the bar with both hands. I was pulling on it with both my hands. We were like Malone and Jordan struggling for the ball. But I had an advantage 'cause I was at a better angle, and I snatched the bar away. Quickly I chugged him under the chin with the end of the bar, stunning him.

I leapt on him, pressing the bar against his throat. "Who the fuck sent you, Cannon?"

"I had to do it, Zelmont."

"Give me an answer 'fore I cave your skull in." I pulled him up, the bar resting against the side of his face.

"Chekka, Chekka sent me after you." He started sobbing like a little girl. I can't stand a man crying. Man got to own up.

"Stop it." I slapped him with the bar, but not too hard. "Why, what's he got on you?"

"My oldest boy, you know about his gambling habits. Chekka got him in debt by advancing way too much to him. Must be more than five hundred grand." He started crying again.

"You the head coach of the Barons, man. I know you can come up with some of that green."

Cannon shook his head, his beard wet with sweat and tears. "He's got more on the boy, real bad stuff." He shook his head again. "I didn't want to do it, Zelmont. But Chekka said he'd have my son crippled if I didn't."

"Chekka told you to kill me?"

"No, you know I couldn't do that. He wanted me to scare you. He wants the money back. If his cousin was going down he needed it to get away. Seems with Ellison pissing in his soup about the Justice Department, most of the boys are out looking for other work or trying to break off part of the enterprise for themselves."

The hook knife chick groaned.

"So why did he send you to mess me up? Don't tell me he couldn't get one of his Serbian slobs to throw in for old times' sake."

"To delay you, my friend," Rudy Chekka said, his voice coming from behind me.

I got off Cannon and turned around. Chekka had on a slick black leather jacket, black shirt, and glossy tan tie. To top it off he had a black pistol in his hand.

"I use coach, I don't owe him money I use any of my countrymen, I got to pay out. That's if I could still trust them." He made a circle in the air with the gun. "I have learned in this country it is better to have a short memory when it comes to who your friends are."

"How'd you know it was us?"

"Unlike the cops, I don't need proof. Garvak, the one you kicked in the truck, described the size of one of the men, and it matched Napoleon Graham. And of course how the other gunman was so concerned for this wounded man's condition." He smiled, stepping closer. "And that championship run up the hill could only have been you, Zelmont. Now let's get that money, yeah?"

"Sure."

One of my neighbors was coming home. I recognized the putt-putt of the beat-to-hell car that always dropped her off at this time. She was Guatemalan or something, and she worked swing at some bindery. The car door closed and her footsteps were coming down the walkway.

"Oh," she said when she came into the crowded stairwell.

"Hi," I said, moving to the side.

Chekka looked at Cannon, who was picking up homegirl off the ground.

"Hey, baby, I told you to be cool on that Hennessy" He was bent over, trying to lift her cold-cocked ass up.

The little Latina started hurrying up the stairs, smiling nervously at us as she went. I was gonna toss her like I did with hook knife woman, but Chekka was wise. He patted the gun in the deep pocket of his leather coat. I let the chick go on up.

"Let's go." Chekka twitched his head toward the street.

Cannon let my girl drop with a thud. That was cold.

"Who's driving?" I asked.

"The coach. You and me will ride together in back."

"Great."

So off we went to fuckin' Oz. Now maybe Dorothy and Toto and the Tin Man might have had an idea of where to go, but I sure as shit didn't. I didn't know if Wilma was in town or had skipped off, making me the biggest dupe of all time. I was more upset about that than the fact Chekka had a rod on me and was gonna gat me as soon as he figured out I had no clue as to where the dough might be.

"Where we going, Zelmont?" Cannon played with the rear view mirror, looking at my face in it. "You give up the money and everything's cool, right?" He started his ride, a Navigator with a dented bumper. He clicked the automatic floor shift into drive and we took off.

"Of course." Maybe coach wanted to really believe Chekka so it would make his guilty conscience feel better. But both of us knew Chekka wasn't planning on letting me so much as scratch my balls for one second after I showed him to the swag. As if I could.

"We gotta jet down to Alhambra."

"Why?" Chekka jabbed me in the gut with the barrel of the gun.

"That's where we hid it, at this clinic that Doc Burroughs owns a piece of."

"Who is this?" Chekka growled.

"He's a needle freak players go to when they're starting to lose their edge. It makes sense, Rudy."

"Very well," he said, sounding like he bought the lie.

We rode along, the night passing by with me trippin' off the notion that it might be my last look. But I figured I still had one chance left, and I made my move as we hit the on ramp to the 105 going east. I kicked out with my heel at the floor shift, hoping to send the car into reverse.

"Watch it," Chekka screamed.

As I kicked, I had fallen against Chekka, hoping to wrap up his gun hand. The kick was good, and the Navigator slammed into reverse. Someone driving behind us had to swerve wickedly as the Navigator smashed into the concrete wall lining the on ramp. I kept kicking Cannon as he tried to get the car going forward.

Meanwhile me and Chekka were mixing it up. I had ahold of his arm and was shoving myself against him for all I was worth. The gun went off and ripped a hole through the roof. Cannon had the SUV in the right gear again and got going.

''Nigger," Chekka hollered. He hit me on the side of my face with his free hand.

But I did what he wasn't expecting. I lurched forward, holding onto him as the car took off up the ramp again. We were moving onto the freeway and our bodies slipped into the opening between the two front seats. Cannon put a hand on the gear selector to keep it in place, but that meant he had to steer with one hand while me and Chekka went at it.

"Get him off me." Cannon batted at me with his arm while he concentrated on keeping the car straight.

The gun went off again. The bullet penetrated the front windshield, a spider web spreading out from the center where it had punched through the glass.

Me and Chekka were all over the back seat, throwing blows and yelling at each other. Traffic kept whizzing by us. Maybe the people in those cars didn't see what was going on inside, or maybe they did and figured with all the road rage in L.A. it was best not to get involved. I threw another kick, catching Cannon upside his temple. At the same time, Chekka got me good in the stomach and I went slack for a moment or two. He was bringing the gun around on me. Thinking he was gonna pop one of my knees, I twisted my body and threw all my weight against him, grabbing his arms with whatever strength and energy I had.

"Get him settled down," the coach yelled. He was looking back at us and swerved the SUV into another lane. A big-wheel truck blasted its horn at us.

Like it was when I was on the field, the action seemed to slow down. I was in the zone and I could see the opportunity present itself as Chekka brought the gun up. I could hear my heart thumping in my ears and the blood rushing like lightening through my torso. As his finger twitched on the trigger I rammed his forearm with the heel of my hand. Chekka's gun now pointed at the back of the driver's seat and the barrel jerked when the bullet left it. The shot went through the seat at an angle.

"Fuck, you idiot, you shot me." Cannon gritted his teeth but managed to keep both hands on the steering wheel. I did my best to grind my foot into the wound in his stomach, and also tie up Chekka's gun hand.

"Zelmont, for Christ's sake," Cannon shouted, beating at my foot and ankle with his hand. Chekka got on me and I rammed against the back of the passenger seat. Our weight made the seat back snap forward, and I shot up against the dash. Cannon was trying to control the car as he drove on the freeway, but I could tell out of the corner of my eye the wound was bothering him.

"Black nigger," Chekka screamed. He pumped off another shot, blowing out the car's radio.

"Watch out," Cannon hollered. The blood was leaking from his side and had stained his shirt and pants.

I grabbed Chekka and rolled us into Cannon.

"Goddammit." The steering wheel came loose from the coach's hands as we plowed into him. The SUV swerved toward the concrete divider as cars hit their breaks and tires screeched. Somebody rear-ended us as the Navigator bounced off the divider. The SUV shot back into the number two lane as some chick in a red Mustang came barreling along. She made to zoom around us but clipped the coach's vehicle on the ride side, dead across the door.

By this time more cars were honking and screeching to a halt. The chick in the Mustang was pointing at us to pull over, like three dudes duking it out in a Lincoln Navigator was something ordinary.

I got hold of the steering wheel and whipped the front end into the Mustang. The cars came together in a 'V' and slid along the freeway. A Lexus rammed into the Mustang's bumper and the Navigator went up on the divider going too fast. The damn truck skated along on two wheels and then tipped onto its side. This was getting to be a habit. Our momentum kept us going until we slammed into the rear of a pick-up truck.

The front windshield exploded as I got a grip on Chekka's jaw. I propelled the top of his head into the door handle and didn't wait to see if he was disoriented or not. I latched onto the coach and started to wiggle past him to get out of the driver's side window, which was now pointing up towards the night sky.

"Zelmont, you've got to help me." His seat belt was still clicked in place. He had his head back on the seat, holding himself with his arms crossed. It was as if he were afraid his spirit might leave him forever.

"You was about to bust my head open a few ticks ago there, coach."

"That was only to scare you, Zee." Cannon was sounding too friendly. Bastard was scared. "You know I'd never really hurt you." He started breathing hard, coughing blood and spit. "I've never been shot."

"Neither have I, coach, and I intend to keep it that way." I started to climb past him again. I could hear people outside. Soon the law would be here.

"Zelmont," he said, pawing at me with his beefy hands.

"I'm here, coach." I leaned in close like I was gonna help him get loose. Instead I hit him a couple times, knocking his conniving self unconscious. I had to kick out what was left of the driver's side window 'cause it was up and was an electric number. Then I pulled myself loose. A crowd was around, including the irate broad with the Mustang we'd fucked up.

"You are in big trouble, mister." She shook a finger under my nose as I heard sirens getting close. A lot of eyes were on me in the dark. Several cars were stopped and traffic was backing up in the lanes on our side of the divider. That was good 'cause it meant the cops would have to go around the other way to get to this spot.

"These men kidnapped me." I leaned against the Navigator, looking all dazed and shook up and shit. That got some whispers going in the crowd. "Can somebody get me to an ambulance?" I started massaging my stomach. "Something doesn't feel right."

The Mustang chick, who was tall and had a sweet-looking pair of jugs on her, stared at me, not knowing what to do.

"Why don't you sit down until the police and ambulance arrive?" a woman in a flower print vest said, trying to be kind.

I could see the blue and reds blinking behind the sea of cars that had backed up.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." I stumbled over to the divider and leaned on it but remained standing.

Mustang Sally and a couple of young studs, no doubt hoping that being a Good Samaritan might earn a phone number from her or more, stood close to me, making sure I wasn't going to book. Then Cannon saved my ass. He came to and started bellowing.

"See, I told you they were up to no good." I pointed at the truck like a little kid telling on his sister.

"Help me," Cannon begged, his voice getting real weak.

The two studs had to prove their manhood. They looked at each other and marched over to the coach's SUV with some of the others who were standing around.

I pushed Mustang Sally to the ground and went over the divider into oncoming traffic. There was braking and cursing as I dashed across the lanes, hoping like hell I'd make it. An MTA bus almost flattened me. The driver, a woman with long braids that went flying everywhere as she rode the air brakes, stopped about four inches from my popped-out eyes. We looked at each other with our mouths wide open, my face all bright in her headlights.

But her sudden stop made other cars slow since they didn't know what was going on. I took off again toward the bushes and trees on the side of the freeway, my fear of getting caught bigger than my fear of getting run over. My hip was acting up some, but I got across just as a Highway Patrol car pulled up.

I went down the hill through the bushes and such on the side of the freeway and came to a cyclone fence at the bottom. I went up and over and was now on a dead-end street of small houses. Every last one of them seemed to have a dog that didn't mind barking. There was too much drama going on, and I had to get away and figure out my next move. I knew I was getting played, but not exactly how. I wound up near Hawthorne Boulevard and caught a bus heading north. The cops would be all over my pad and fan out from there, so I knew if I went south toward the crib I would get nabbed for sure. I got off at 165th Street and called Isabel.

"I need a ride, baby, can you do that for me?"

"I bet it has something to do with this business on the 11 o'clock news."

"That's right." What was the point in trying to scam her?

She didn't say anything for a few seconds. "All right, Zelmont, I'll come get you. I'll come for you wherever you are."

"You're something, Isabel."

" 'Bout time you realized that."

I waited outside an all-night supermarket for her, sweating in the warm night. I watched cars and trucks and buses go by on the street. Somewhere out there was my money, and Wilma was lording over it. Maybe she'd already split with the whole take. Fine. I'd keep after her until I couldn't search no more and then I'd still keep looking. I was gonna get what was due me.