The Jook

Chapter 4

I pretty much sleepwalked through my gig the next few days at the Locker Room. It wasn't like I had to roust the clowns looking to grab some booty on the sly or talking too loud at one of the three bars of the club. Nap had plenty of buffed dudes, and a couple of beefed-up bodybuilding chicks, to take care of that. My thing was to float, do a little backslapping, laugh, and nod my head with the out-of-towners, pose for a picture now and then. And keep sharp.

On the third night I scoped out a couple of dudes that had to be with the Little Hand. They mumbled in that Slovakian language of theirs, and like Chekka they wore way too much Hugo Boss cologne. Like they were trying to hide the rotting smell their corrupt asses must naturally give off.

But these two laid in the cut, assessing things for Chekka, I figured. Me and Nap watched them on the monitors he had behind a sliding section of wall fronted by those crazy statues in his office. He had several mini-cameras hidden about the club. Nap was a smart cat, always thinking ahead.

"His name is Ondanian," Nap said, sipping on a glass of fizzy water. He tipped his head at the taller of the two on the monitor screen.

"That don't sound like one of them Russian names like the rest of them." I wanted a hard drink but didn't want Nap to think I was slipping. My tryout was next week anyway.

"He's Armenian," Nap said for my education. Like I knew where Armenia was compared to Bosnia. "I understand he and Chekka may be doing some business together."

''You mean he ain't on homeboy's payroll?''

"Freelancer," Nap answered. "Seems he made his money in black market arms dealing to places like North Korea and Iraq."

The two walked off and Nap killed the power to the wall of monitors. "Let's keep a watch on Ondanian, Zee. Could be he'll prove useful as a block on Chekka."

"Cool," was all I could say. To me he was just one more hungry mountain lion circling to try to get his piece of the bull. If I got a contract, I intended to buy in with Nap, and then we could open Locker Rooms in other cities. First, though, I had a few brothers who'd kill their mamas for bus fare I was gonna sic on Chekka, Ondanian, or any other chump with a hard-to-pronounce name who was trying to strongarm my man.

"Davida have any luck on that record thing?" We were walking back to the staircase.

"Man, I ain't talked to that silly ho since we went at it over her so-called singing career the other day." I started down the stairs. At the main entrance, which was done up like a tunnel into a stadium, a man in a hat like Sinatra used to wear on those album covers came in. He flashed something to Rory, the doorman. Me and Nap exchanged a look.

"I'll go see what's up." I was already in motion as I talked. I hit the bottom of the staircase and zigzagged my way through the clubbers to where the cop stood near the stage.

"Can I help you, doc?" He was a little over average height with a wiry build. The way he looked reminded me of Tiger Woods, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Maybe he was Samoan. His pearl gray suit was crisp but out of fashion by years. Somehow, without him even talking, I knew his threads matched his personality.

"Superstar." He leaned back against the pillar, his coat falling open to show the butt of his piece and the badge he'd reclipped on his belt. A goofy smile pulled his mouth apart to show the gap in his front teeth.

"Well," I managed.

"I caught a couple of your European games on Fox."

This boy was starting to get on my nerves. "We card 'em if they look under 25." I assumed he was vice the way he was dressed.

"How old was Davida? Oh yeah, 27."

"You her new squeeze?" I didn't know if I was relaxed or stressed.

He played with the top of his hat but didn't take it off. "You been in trouble before, haven't you, Zelmont?"

I knew that tone meant it was time to lawyer up. "Say what you came here to say, man."

"Fahrarthat's FA-RAR." The cop squared me up. Until then I hadn't noticed, but it seemed like one of his eyes was darker than the other, or maybe it was just the low lighting.

"So you come to sweat me?"

He put a hand on my arm and my first instinct was to pull away. He wasn't applying any pressure, his thumb in the crook of it, his fingers on my elbow. "Davida's dead, Zelmont." He sounded like one of those fake-ass undertakers in an old Western on TNT.

"That girl's healthy as two horses." I ought to have known, the way I'd been riding her.

He suddenly pulled himself closer, tugging on my arm. "She was murdered," he whispered into my ear. I could feel his mismatched eyes scanning me, hoping for some sign.

"I didn't do it, man. That's all I got to say, you understand?" Me and him stared at each other for a few ticks, then he leaned back again.

"Her neighbors say you were over there four days ago and they could hear you two going at it."

"Yeah?" Be cool, Zelmont. This is like the time you got busted in that motel in Decatur with the two broads and the coke. Don't say shit.

"You O.J. her, homeboy?" Fahrar fooled with his hat again, his off-colored eye shining at me.

"What's the matter, man?" I said, moving closer to him. Cops hate it when you invade their space. They call it challenging their authority or some shit. "You ride the pine in high school and can't stand to see a brother who's successful?"

"Was successful," he hurled back at me. "You got someplace you were this morning?"

It popped into my mind to say something smart, but unlike that time in Decatur, I didn't. 'Course I was high then and almost didn't feel the cop's baton as he'd rammed the butt end into my stomach. "I told you, man, we ain't havin' a chat. Either arrest me or jet."

"You haven't had nothing but experience with the law, ain't that so, Zelmont?"

He was just getting to me now and it's going on 10:30 in the evening. "Working out in the hills above my pad, man. That's what I been doing a lot of. That's what I did the day before too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Don't suppose you talked to any honeys or somebody while you were doing your road work?"

"Not particularly, Fahrar. I wasn't there to get my swerve on. I got more important things in mind."

He scratched a nail at the base of his close-cut hair. "That's weak, brah. You could be like Rumpelstiltskin, here there and everywhere. Can you do better?"

"I ain't got to do better. How'd she die?"

"Strangled with her own panties. Laid out on the hood of her sports car. Body wasn't discovered until late this afternoon."

"And that's all you have to harangue Mr. Raines?"

We both turned to the sound of the voice. It was Wilma Wells, and she was looking fine in a pants suit thing that had off-center gold buttons going up the jacket to wide lapels. She strolled over and smelled good doing it.

"Ma'am." Fahrar finally took his hat off and kinda waved it at her. "This is police business."

"I'm a lawyer, officer, my name is Wilma Wells." She handed him a card from the Vuitton clutch bag she carried.

The cop worked hard not to show any change. 'Cept I knew inside he was weighing his options. "Yeah, and?"

"And what was the approximate time of her death?"

He didn't want to say but he knew he was boxed in. "Coroner guesstimates around 11

"After his workout yesterday Mr. Raines came to see me concerning resolutions of his NFL contracts."

"Where was this?"

"My office in Manhattan Beach. I'd say from 11:30 until about 2. And given the distance, I'd say he couldn't have killed her and made it to my office even if the coroner can establish that it was closer to 11 than 12 when Ms. Orlean was strangled."

Fahrar was about to speak but she held up a black-nailed hand. "He used my private entrance, some of my clients are high profile."

Homeboy looked like a man chewing lemon rinds. "Okay, superstarfor now." He waded out of the joint, adjusting his hat as he went.

"Thanks," I said to Wilma. "You sure took a chance."

"Not really. I've had actors and supermodels in my office, and the front staff hasn't seen them. I do have a private entrance. And there's so much traffic in and out of the parking garage, the attendants aren't reliable witnesses." She whipped her pretty smile on me and walked on up the stairs.

At the top, Nap greeted her and they walked off towards his office. Was the big switch-hitter banging her too? He'd told me this was boy month, but maybe he did that so I wouldn't mack her. But then why did she alibi me? Hell, I'd never been to her office.

I got back to the pad around 3:30 and was stripping off my shirt when the phone rang. Immediately I assumed it was Terri hoping to catch me in.

"Zelmont," a familiar female voice purred through the answering machine. "Please pick up, this is Wilma."

I dove for the receiver.

"Come on out to the office," she said. "That way if that cop asks you, you can describe it in detail."

Normally, I don't come running 'cause some fine hammer tells me to. But this one was different. This one had my nose open, and maybe my freedom in her hands. And sure enough, three quarters of an hour later, she had my balls in her hands.

We were in her gold bronze Chrysler Phaeton on the open-air roof of her office building. A few other lonely cars were there too. She'd unzipped my fly and sprinkled some crank on my johnson, then licked the powder and me. I was about to lose the top of my head. She moaned and I was getting ready to let loose when she stopped.

"You tryin' to give me a heart attack, girl?"

"Wanted to get your attention." She straightened up, smiling. "You honestly think Weems is going to let you play ball again?"

This chick knew how to mess with a dude's head. "He's gotta give me a shot, Wilma." I sounded more needy than I wanted to.

"No he doesn't, Zelmont. He can't legally stop you from trying out, but he can exert a lot of pressure on Stadanko, and on Coach Cannon, not to sign you. Weems is a smart prick. He's got some cold shit on a lot of people. What do you think his Truth Squad is for?"

"To make the league look like Boy Scouts," I answered, squirming uncomfortably. I snorted some more blow to take the edge off. "What the fuck you want from me, Wilma?"

"To make you mine." She finished what she'd started.

Afterward, I must have dozed off 'cause I came to with her staring into my face.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

She got on top of me. I was laying back, the front seat having been let down. Her pants were off, her blouse open, and I was hard again. The beauty of crank. She had on blue lacy panties and was about to slip them off.

"Leave 'em on," I told her. She got a condom on me and I maneuvered around the material to enter her. It felt like a million pinwheel stars were exploding behind my eyes.

As we did it she talked business. "You want to make some money, don't you, Zelmont?"

"It wouldn't hurt," I grunted.

"That's right." She rocked on me as I held onto her sides tight. She bent forward and I tickled her nipples with the end of my tongue.

"You want to get over, don't you, Zelmont?" She breathed hot air all over me.

I could barely put words together, I was so wrapped up in the pleasure. "Uh, yeah," I said in a husky voice.

She did a move that I felt deep in my backbone. This chick was too much. "Wha', what are you sayin', Wilma?" I managed to stammer.

I lifted my butt and she hit her head on the headliner of the Phaeton. She grabbed my shoulders, digging her strong fingers into the muscle as she grinded on top of me.

"You're chasing old glories, Zelmont," she said between gritting her teeth. "You have to be real, baby." She moaned loud as she worked her good thang on my rod.

I pulled her close, biting her ear and slobbering on her neck. "I'm a player, baby." I put a hand in the middle of her back and went to it like I knew I could. She matched me stroke for stroke.

"You're an ex-employee," she said softly, "but I can show you how to be set."

We kept banging, my crank-powered endurance making it seem like I could go all night. "I've been workin' out every goddamn day." We kissed, our tongues locking and separating with force.

"Even if you could get a slot, Weems will block any attempt you make ever to play ball again." She reared back as we both began to sweat. She came forward again, burying my head between her breasts. She must have taken hold of the latch, because the seat flipped up as she pulled me into a sitting position, then we reared back again.

The windows were clouded over and we kept at it. I wondered if some square was spying on us outside, and it made me more excited. Soon I came and shuddered to a halt. She stayed on me, which I hate. But I figured this was the first time, I could be gracious. I was exhausted, like after that game against the Dolphins in 105 degree heat and matching humidity

"Who else do you know that has money, real money, that if it goes missing he can't report it to the police?" She squirmed and reached her hand down between us.

"Woman, you got to stop talkin' crazy" I didn't know what this broad was up to, but it made something tickle in the back of my head.

"Shit," she snorted, getting off me. "You're scared."

I shook a finger at her. "I think you been playin' around Stadanko so long, you think you can be like him. He's straight mobbed up, you understand. We fuck with him, his buddies with the funny names will chop off our fingers and make us watch as they feed them to their pit bulls."

She wasn't listening to me. She was busy with her finger inside her panties. I watched as she wiggled and moaned and got herself off. Then she put her finger on my lips. "Be brave."

"Be cool, Wilma." I knocked her hand away, getting heated from anger, not from sex. "Just 'cause you alibied me don't mean you can clown me."

"You're clownin' yourself, Zelmont. You won't admit you're not going to get back into pro ball. And no club will let you coach for them either. It's in front of your eyes, but you refuse to see." She sat up, looking at me directly "I'm talking about millions, Zelmont. Untraceable millions in cash."

I started putting on my clothes. "We gonna knock over Stadanko's safe in his office, Wilma? Or maybe he keeps the ducats at his pad out there in the Palisades. Then what? Keep running for the rest of our lives?"

"You're used to running," she cracked in a nasty tone.

"You got a mouth on you." I got my pants zipped up.

"I got eyes too, Zelmont. Stadanko hired my firm because he knew Brad, our senior partner. He brought in Brad a few years back when he was in trouble over campaign financing. After we negotiated the Barons deal Stadanko was going to cut us loose, but I convinced him having a woman of color as the team's lawyer would be good for his image and deflect criticism."

I had to get out of there. "History was always boring to me, Wilma."

"Stop thinking small, Zelmont." She talked to me like I was a child. "We can do it so the U.S. Attorney General comes down on that goof Stadanko while we make off with his goods. And Chekka and his Little Hand punks will run and hide if the feds show up."

I couldn't get what she was talking about. How in the hell were we going to rip off Stadanko? "He keeps all his millions laying around, huh?"

She got impatient again and popped my bare chest with the back of her hand. "Of course not. But it won't be hard to figure out where he hides it. He's a peasant at heart. Stadanko may have a hands-off excuse the pun relationship with his cousin, but as you'd say, he must know where the Benjamins are kept." Her top lip curled up like a wolf's and I got a tingling in my spine.

"We got to be cool," I said.

"No, you be cool. Go home and soak your hip in liniment so you can get up tomorrow and do your road work, old man."

I gave her a little shove to let her know I was nobody's chump. Then I shook a finger at her. "Ease up, Wilma."

"Oooh, so tough. That how it got out of hand with Davida? She challenge your bad-boy 'tude one time too often? That why you had to choke her and it got out of hand." She laughed, but not happy-like.

"Whatever it is you're sellin', you're crazy if"

"Get the fuck out of my car," she said, cutting me off.

"When I'm ready, bitch."

"Get out, or your little mixed-race pal will hear how you threatened me with rape and murder. It won't take much for him to believe that about you."

I felt like knocking her ass around for giving me that looking down stare. Sitting there only in her panties, she still seemed like she was queen of the city. But I kept my hands to myself, 'cause she was a lawyer and about as tame as a shark on a leash. I got my shit and booked for my ride several floors down.

Back at the pad I had some V.S.O.P. and tried to put what she said out of my head. I was going to make a comeback. I was going to sacrifice, work hard, and get a slot on the Barons. I'd been playing football one way or the other since I was nine and my uncle slapped me for crying after I got tackled for the first time in Pop Warner. Uncle Nate was an asshole, but he taught me one thing: if you want something, ain't nobody going to get it for you unless you get it yourself. And once you got it, make goddamn sure you hold onto it.