The Jook

Chapter 5

All morning I'd been ducking the call. She'd left a message last night when I'd got back, but I knew I wasn't going to return it too soon. Before I was up she'd called again around 7 and again after 8 as I rolled over. My head was pounding and my muscles ached. The hip, though, felt good. I got my workout clothes on, including a rubber top to bring on the sweat. I drove over to the Canyon, and after warming up with some calf extensions I hit the hill. By the time I got to the top, my hangover was damn near burned off, and the hip only throbbed a little.

As I stood getting my breath, in my head I could hear the first message Davida's mother had left on my machine. Her English had never been too good, and it was worse now 'cause she was all broken up.

"Zelmont," she'd said, and I could tell she'd been crying. "Zelmont, tell me what has happened to my favorecida. Zelmont," she pleaded, "diga me."

Her favorite, Davida had told me. Alicia, her mother, had four kids, three husbands. Two were boys and had been in trouble from day one, growing up in the Pico Aliso projects in East Los. Mario was a glue-sniffing punk who'd been kicked out after she caught him bungholing his boyfriend in a maintenance shed when he was in high school. The other one, Rey, was a stone knucklehead who ran with some gang, a bunch of punks under the protection of La Familia, the Mexican Mafia. Right now he was doing a dime in Corcoran for some bullshit or another. Her sister Isabel, who knew how to fill out a dress, had been the only one to turn out normal.

Davida may have been nothing more than a glorified pom-pom girl, but by her mother's standards she'd done something with her life. Moms wasn't too crazy about her going around with a brother, especially one with my record, but she figured I was better than some of the others her daughter had been with. Alicia had to settle for not much her whole life. But Davida had put it in her mom's head she'd get her out of the projects once she got that Top 40 hit. Hell, she believed it too.

There was a mist hanging on the hills, and I couldn't see my house. Like the fog was a wall, a warning that if I didn't get some real money soon, the house would always be lost to me. I jogged down the hill, my upper body sweating inside the rubber top. For some reason, I still felt a chill.

Back home, the red number on the answering machine told me that Alicia had called two more times. I peeled off the top, wiping myself down with a towel. I got some orange juice, sat down, and grabbed the phone. I figured best to get this over with.

''Hola,'' she said.

"It's me, T." 'T' was what I had taken to calling her.

"Zelmont," she cried, then ran off a string of words in Spanish.

"T, you gotta relax, okay? Davida would want you to keep it together." In the background I could hear other voices, no doubt her neighbors.

"What happened?"

"I don't know, T. The first I knew of it is this cop who came to see me last night."

"Yes, the chino negro," she said. "Oh, I don't mean"

"No problem. What'd he say to you?"

"That he wanted to know about her friends, people she knew in the record business. He asked me about you and her." She lost it and started to cry. "Zelmont, what will happen now?"

"The cops will look for her killer, T. They'll probably find him." I didn't really think so, but I needed to tell her something so she'd let me alone.

She didn't say anything, and it was making me nervous. I knew what she wanted to ask me but couldn't. "Is there anything you tell the police, Zelmont? Anything that will help them find who did this bad thing to our Davida."

"I'm helping them anyway I can, Alicia, you know that."

"Yes, yes, of course. Mario will be here this afternoon. Will you come by?"

"I may not make it this afternoon, T. I've got some legal things I need to take care of, you know, football stuff. Important. But you say hi to Mario for me, and I'll be by soon, okay?"

"All right, I understand." She then told me she'd call back with the funeral time and I hung up. I guess I shouldn't have been lying like that to a woman who just lost her daughter, but going over there, sitting around crying and carrying on, lighting candles to the Virgin of Guadalupe… Jesus.

I showered, thinking about what Wilma had said. She was smart and she did have the inside dope on Stadanko and Chekka. But was she so greedy she wasn't thinking straight? Did she really believe it would be that easy to steal money from wheels like them? Or maybe it was the crank talking and she always went on like that when she was high.

No sense waiting until this evening, I thought, and drove over to talk to Nap. She had talked to him at the club the other night about something. If he was in on this thing it would mean something different. Nap wasn't nobody's joke, and he did have reason to want to move on Stadanko and the Little Hand. About fifteen minutes later, I pulled to the curb of his Mount Olympus pad on Cyclops Road. There were tall cypress trees in a half circle in front of the house, and he'd repainted the joint recently in a orange-brown with dark green trim. The house was built in what Nap had told me was called Greco-Roman with touches of Assyrian.

Whatever the hell that meant. It did have these large columns and looked like it should be in one of those old school Steve Reeves Hercules movies.

Like I figured, his maroon Lincoln Town Car with its gold wire rims was in the driveway. Unless he had to be somewhere, the big man wasn't an early riser. I knocked but there was no answer. I figured he was probably in there pipin' his boyfriend Pablo, the color consultant. On the lawn was the morning paper. Maybe Davida got some fame at last and her murder was mentioned in the Metro section.

"Nap," I yelled, looking up toward the second-floor bedroom. Nothing. I listened closely but didn't hear any moaning or groaning or little Pablo squealing with joy.

"Nap," I called out again. Still no answer. In the back of the house was a pool and a guesthouse which used to be the maid's rooms in the old days. I wasn't so broken down I couldn't manage to get over the iron gate, I said to myself, thinking about how Wilma had mocked me. Yeah, she was a hard-ass bitch, but there was something about her. I landed on the other side expecting Bruno, Nap's bull mastiff, to come running. The dog knew me so I wasn't sweatin' him taking a nip. Only the dog wasn't around.

I tried the back door and it was locked. I knocked loudly but got no answer. The curtain was closed behind the sliding glass door and I knocked there too in case the lover boys had fallen asleep in the rumpus room. Then I turned and walked over to the guesthouse. The door was open. Inside, chairs and a table had been tossed around, and the pictures were hanging lopsided on the walls.

Danny Deuce was in his Nike sweats, no shirt, no shoes. He was laying with his head against the wall and bent to one side. Over his legs was a dude in a suit, a gun in his hand and a gash in the side of his skull. His blood had splattered on the back of his coat and the cream carpet.

The metal rod in Danny's hand had the cat's blood on it, I guessed. I pulled the man off. His eyes had that vacant look, telling me that the renter was gone. Danny was breathing and I didn't see any holes in him, though there was one in the wall near him.

"Ugh," he said after I got him stretched out on the couch and slapped him awake.

"That one of Chekka's boys you wasted?"

"Motherfuckahs come bustin' in this mornin' while I was sitting on the stool, man." Danny sat up, rubbing the back of his head.

"The other day upset 'em, huh?"

He finally focused on me, blinking. "Yeah, Nap said you and him had to set these fools straight at the club. They rolled up and I could hear them arguing in the front." He pointed towards his brother's house. I guess they didn't know I was stayin' here and I jumped them." He looked around. "My piece is here somewhere."

"Where's Nap?"

"He ain't here?"

Danny had keys to the main house and we looked all over it. No Nap.

"Aw, snap," Danny said as we stood in the kitchen. He hit the table with his fist. I noticed the phone had been ripped out of the wall next to him. "When we was tusslin' I think one of them said something about takin' Nap to the dump." He looked at me, worry for his brother on his face. "You got any idea where they're talking about?"

I didn't, but I knew who would. I found a working phone in the upstairs bedroom and dialed the number.

"Okay, yeah, I am grateful, is that what you wanted to hear?" This woman was gonna kill me yet.

I apologize for giving you a hard time before, Zelmont," Wilma said sweetly on the other end of the line. "You sure you don't want me to call the police?"

"Naw, that'll just bring more attention than we need right now. Me and Danny should be able to do this." The youngster was all up on me, breathing his stale breath in my face.

"Call me when you get back, baby."

"What she say, man?" Danny blurted, grabbing my arm. I tried to ignore him. I figured she was playing me, but it seemed to be worth the ride, at least for now. "I will." I hung up. "Wilma says Stadanko's Shindar Enterprises uses the landfill out at the Sunshine Canyon dump in the Valley. She thinks they have a facility there too."

Danny had found his gun, one of those sleek plastic numbers with about a hundred bullets in the clip. Legally, civilians could only buy a 16-round magazine in California, but Danny's pieces were always off-market, untraceable, and street lethal. He was holding it tenderly, like it was his girl's tit. "You know where this place is?"

"Yeah." I didn't tell him that I knew where a lot of the garbage dumps were around Los Angeles, or why I knew. My father had been a garbage man for the city. The father who never was around much, never came to my games or got on the phone to tell me he liked what I'd done.

When I was a teenager I'd go to the city depot where the garbage trucks were, trying to catch a glimpse of him. But the trucks were always out real early in the morning, and by the time I'd get there after school and practice, he'd be gone. A few times I cut class and rode the buses for hours to the various dumps, hoping to see him when they came to drop off their loads. It took me a while to realize each truck didn't always go to the dumps, that some of them unloaded into larger trash-hauling trucks that drove out to the sites.

The one thing I got from my dad was a talent for womanizing. But it ain't like he taught me that at his knee. I only heard about him and his other women from my fucked-up Uncle Nate when he was sipping on some Canadian Club, eating up my mother's grub.

The two of us went downstairs. We had to do something with the body of the chump Danny had killed. After all, he was dressed and ready for burial.

"Man, we gotta jet," Danny screamed, "we gotta save Nap."

"Be cool, Danny, we don't want to raise no ruckus right now. We just lucky y'all's play period didn't get the cops swoopin' down here. They ain't gonna kill Nap right off. They want him alive, they want to teach him a lesson."

"Why you say that?"

"Chekka needs the club."

"He can get some refugee Polack motherfuckah to run the joint."

"No, that would be too obvious. Come on, we got to move the body." I wasn't sure I was telling the truth, but I wanted to make sure Danny was on point and not trippin'. Last thing I needed now was to be hauling around this dead white boy in my car with home-boy looking to bust a cap on the next mother from Herzegovina he thought might have snatched his big brah.

There was no choice but to stick the corpse in the back of my Explorer. Good thing the rear side and hatch windows were tinted. I backed down the driveway as Danny unlocked the gate. Inside the guesthouse we sandwiched the dude in some blue plastic tarp I found in the toolshed. Then I wrapped a couple of oily rags and some duct tape from the shed around his head. Good thing it was a weekday so most people were off to work. We carried the dude into my ride, me hoping to hell this sucker didn't leak on my carpet.

I pulled out. Danny locked up the house and gate. Everything looked normal enough on the outside. I got to the 101 freeway, taking it north over the hill. Danny was on pins in the seat next to me, his gun under the front seat. I made him put it there; otherwise he was gonna keep it in his waistband. I swear, these young punks don't know anything but the shit they see on cable and CD covers. He was going to blow his nuts off before we got to North Hollywood.

I took Hollywood Way and kept going north. Every once in a while, I'd look back to see if our passenger was bleeding. Wouldn't you know it, just as I was heading past the Burbank Airport a cop car pulled in behind me.

"Damn," Danny said, reaching down to mess with the piece.

"Keep your goddamn hands in your goddamn lap. Don't do anything to make them pull us over. Especially no eye rollin'."

"Ain't got to do anything 'cept DWB."

"We got a dead man in here, remember?"

I kept below the speed limit and the cops pulled alongside us at a stoplight. The one riding shotgun pointed for me to roll down my window. Danny was mumbling but I didn't want to listen to his jive.

"Zelmont Raines, right?" He was older than the one at the wheel.

"Yeah," I said grinning like I was one of the goofy Wayans brothers. "How's it going?"

"You were playing overseas, weren't you?"

"That's right," praying for the light to change. "Had to come back and try my luck with the Barons, you know how it is." Danny said something under his breath again, and I wanted to kick him in the nuts to be quiet. The cop was nodding as if that covered anything else he might want to ask. The light finally turned green and I waited for the blues to take off. But of course this dude had to have something to tell his pals back at the station.

Finally he said, "Would you mind signing an autograph? My boy is playing ball in high school."

He asked it the way cops always do, with that tone that said, "Look, asswipe, I can make it hard for you if you don't volunteer and do this." Just like a coach.

"Sure." What the fuck could I do?

Danny looked like he was going to have a fit, but I chilled him with a stone stare. I pulled to the curb, the cruiser slipping in behind me. Cars and trucks went by us like everything was normal. I got out, smiling for the cameras.

"I really appreciate this." He had his notepad opened to a blank page. For a second, I freaked, thinking maybe this was a trap 'cause I hadn't paid my child support. As if having a dead body less than ten feet from a member of the LAPD wasn't enough to get shitless about. "Make it to Jeremy, okay?"

"Hey, I'm just glad somebody remembers me." Like I knew he would, he couldn't help but give my ride the once-over while I struggled to spell his kid's name. "Two `E's, right?"

"Yes."

It seemed like he looked at the tinted windows a little too long. What if like in one of those horror films the dude we thought was dead suddenly came to life? We were standing near the front windows, and he naturally settled on Danny, a young brother whose profile he's probably seen in one bulletin or another.

"There you go." I was going to offer an explanation on where we were going but decided that would sound wrong.

He tapped the pad against his open palm, like he was trying to decide something. I might be able to hit him, take his piece, then what? Have the law chase my sorry ass down the highway like Rodney King? Only they'd shoot me rather than waste time beating me.

He looked narrow-eyed at the rear of the truck, then back at his partner, who held his fingers up from the steering wheel as if to say, well?

"Thanks for the autograph." He stuck out his hand.

I shook it and grinned like a thief making off with the farmer's prize rooster. When I climbed back into the ride I could feel Danny's hostility That boy was wound too goddamn tight, and it was gonna be a problem sooner rather than later. As I remembered, there was a side street before you got onto the rise to Verdugo Mountain Park. I took it, and there was no mistaking where we were.

"Aw, motherfuck," Danny swore. "This is some rank shit, man.

"It's a county dump, what'd you expect?" A few big haulers were going up a hill off to the right. A couple of Stadanko's blue and silver Shindar trucks were among them.

"He must have some kind of plant or something around here," I said out loud.

"Yeah?" Danny said, bringing his T-shirt up over his nose.

"Yeah, Stadanko, hauls solid waste, toxic shit, and lard from restaurants here. He would have to have a place where they pump that crap out and it's converted'rendered,' I think they call it."

"You a garbage-studyin' motherfuckah, ain't you?" He pointed. "On the other side of the hill is where they dump the garbage?"

"Yeah, biggest pit of nothing you'll ever see." I saw a side road to my left and took it. The path led down to an area where there were a couple of regular garbage trucks and some cars parked near several low buildings. Nearby, I could hear traffic racing by on the Golden State Freeway.

"Did you see the car they were driving?"

"Naw, I was kinda busy bustin' 'em up."

I couldn't tell if he was being smart or what. Then I saw something I recognized. We had cut down another pathway and had come to a part of the yard not seen from the front. The silver Prowler with the cobalt rims was parked parallel to a building with a door, windows, and no name on it. Behind that building were some tall round towers with pipes feeding into them.

"This is it." No sooner had I said it than he was scrambling out the door. I grabbed his arm. "Slow down, we gotta scope the scene out first."

"Get up off me, man." He snatched his arm back, his piece in his other hand. "We got to go save Nap."

"We will, Danny, only we got to think, huh? You want to go charging in there not knowing what to expect? Maybe somebody gets hot and pops your brother before we're through the door."

He didn't say squat, his gun half on his lap, that prison yard blank on his mug.

I backed up and parked the Explorer away from the building. Then we got out and crept over. I couldn't hear anything so we went around to the rear. There were metal parts from machines and pieces of wood scattered back there next to a concrete wall that was about seven feet tall. A window up high in the building was open. We stopped to listen for a few seconds and heard some groans.

Me and Danny looked at each other, the kid getting sick. We knew what the sound was. The back door, which was near a corner, was locked, and I had to keep him from shooting the lock off. The sound of men laughing, enjoying their work, could be heard through the open window.

I looked through the pieces of metal and found a bar I could use to pry the door open. We got it in position and tugged. The door came loose and we went inside fast. Now we were in an office. There was a door on the other side, which flew open as me and Danny reached it. Standing there was a dude with an automatic, and I hit him dead in the face with the iron bar before he had a chance to fire.

He said something in Russian or whatever the hell it is they speak in Serbia. I hit him again, grabbing the piece from his hand as he went down, blood gushing from his forehead. Danny was already past me.

"Cut him loose, bitch," Danny hollered at one of the thugs, putting his gun in the boy's face. The guy had the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up, the skin on the knuckles of his right fist torn and bloody. There was another one looking at us, his jaw all down around his ankles. He'd been sitting eating some chow in cream sauce, one end of a plastic milk crate filling in for a table. His dinner show was Nap's beating. A glass of wine had been knocked over next to the plate. I recognized him from the red wound on one side of his forehead. He was the punk I'd hit with the ashtray the other day.

They had bound up Nap pretty creatively. A chain was looped over a steel beam running down the center of the pointed roof. The end of that was wound around Nap's wrists, his arms up over his head. A big lock kept the links together. He was standing spread eagle, his ankles bound with chains. The end of each one of these was connected to some piece of machinery and pulled tight as hell. His shirt was off, his pants and underwear pulled down. A small lead pipe was on the ground near his feet. It was dark on one end. He had a handkerchief tied around his mouth and duct tape wrapped over that. His face was pulped up with welts and bruises. Pure hate was in his eyes.

''Sick motherfuckahs.'' Danny hit the one he had the gun on in the face. As the dude wilted, he jumped on him and began pistol whipping the fool. I had to get him focused before we had more bodies to get rid of than Dr. Kevorkian.

"Danny, come on, we got to get Nap out of here and to a doctor." I was grabbing for him with one hand and trying to keep my gun on ashtray head with the other. The dude he was wailing on with his automatic was swearing up a blue storm in that language of theirs. "Goddammit, Danny, you got to control yourself."

"They wasn't beatin' the shit out of your brother." Now he started kicking the dude.

I was gonna point out that Nap wasn't a stranger to this particular form of rear-end action but skipped it. "He's down, Danny, he ain't moving anymore, understand?"

Danny stopped, breathing hard from exertion.

The other chump, the one that had been grubbin', smiled and I walked over to him. "Keep it up and I'll let Danny start in on your war criminal ass."

"This is just business, Zelmont."

"We ain't on a first-name basis, son. Turn him loose."

He hesitated like he was gonna make a move, but the fact I was still hefting the gun made him reconsider. "We weren't going to kill him."

"Uh-huh, just a little re-negotiating of the terms of the contract."

He unlocked Nap, then we made him get the big man's pants on. The Little Hand gangster and Danny walked him to the wall, where they let him slide down and lie with his back against it.

Danny was nodding his head. "Okay." Fast as all hell, he spun and backhanded the cat with the butt of his gun in the middle of his face. He went down and out like Buster Douglas does in every fight.

"Sure glad you made it." Nap managed a smile. Damn.

"Can you walk?" I asked him. "We gotta get you looked at." Though I didn't want to, I glanced at the pipe. It made me shiver.

"Give me a couple of minutes, will you?" He put his head back and closed his eyes, gathering strength.

"Come on, Danny, we got to take care of this other thing."

"What?"

No wonder gangbangers were always doing drive-bys; on the wrong mark, or getting their simple selves busted 'cause they forgot to take the surveillance tape out of the camera. All that kronik must mess with their memory retention. "Follow me. We'll be right back, Nap."

At my direction we crept back around the building. There were some dudes in overalls walking nearby, and we had to wait for them to move on before I went back to my ride. I drove it closer to the building and parked. Moving as quick as we could, we got the body out and brought it inside. I hoped to Jesus no one saw us.

I turned to Danny after we plopped the body down in the room where they'd tortured Nap a few minutes ago. "Wipe down your piece and leave it."

"Fuck you," Danny yelled.

"Don't be simple, fool. Is the piece registered to you?"

He cocked his head. "You know better than that, dog."

"So like I said, drop your piece here. If it can't be traced to you then there's nothing to sweat. But you keep walking around with it, the cops got a match for the holes in this boy you done."

"It was self-defense," he whined.

"We ain't got all day for this shit, Danny."

"Do like Zelmont told you, Danny," Nap said. "He's right."

Danny finally wiped off the gun and set it down, his bottom lip sticking out the whole time like the spoiled knucklehead he was. We got Nap into the Explorer and I drove back around the building. Except this time I got smart and had swathed some mud on the plates in case anyone was paying attention. Not that I thought Rudy Chekka would be complaining to the law.

I guess I was too hyped, 'cause I got turned around and went down a one-way side road. I turned back and was trying to figure out how to get out of the dump when a Shindar garbage truck rumbled past us on the road I'd been on.

"I wish we had time," Danny began, " 'cause I'd like to blast some of those Little Hand bastards."

"Let's just concentrate on getting your brother out of here," I said. "We ain't got time to follow all their trucks around."

"Follow that one," Nap said in a hoarse voice.

I turned to look at Nap. His eyes were fluttering and he was breathing heavily. "Why, Nap?"

"Just follow it," he repeated in a whisper. "They talked a lot while they were having fun with me." Then his eyes closed shut.

I followed behind the Shindar truck and started to get the tingle as we went down a narrow road. The instincts that had made me among the top five receivers in the NFL, that feeling that used to tell me where the defender was without me looking, kicked in like a mother.

"Why you fallin' back?" Danny said, pissed. "We got to get this done so we can get Nap out of here."

"We will, little brother, we will."

"Don't call me that," he said in a tone that told me he wasn't bullshitting. I let the truck get farther ahead, then I went down the path. It was dirt, so I kicked up a lot of it just like the truck had. I was betting the driver hadn't noticed my ride. We went along, then I stopped and backed up. There was another tiny road leading downhill. I followed it.

"Goddamn, this'll not only do Nap in, but us too."

Danny was right for once. The stench from the garbage pit was strong enough to wipe out a whole team of All-Pros. I figured the road must wind around it on one side. I stopped the car.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Back the fuck up."

"Stay put," I ordered.

"Man." He shook in his seat. Nap was whimpering.

I got out and walked down the path, walls of dirt rising up to my right and left. Suddenly I came to a driveway. It led upward and was bordered on one side by a concrete wall about my height. I walked up and stopped at the corner of the wall, peeking around. At the top of the driveway was a building with a satellite dish on the roof. The truck was parked in front of the building. My eyes were watering and my stomach was starting to roll from the overpowering odor.

The two who'd been in the truck had gotten out. They were wearing rubber suits and gas masks like I'd seen on The X-Files. What they were doing made me forget for a few minutes the sick feeling coming over me. They had the big doors on the rear of the garbage truck open. Both of them crawled into the garbage, then came out holding onto some packages. Pieces of rotten fruit and who knew what was falling off of them. One went back into the garbage while the other one walked around the truck and out of sight.

I kept watching the garbage diver. He put some of his packages on the ground. This cat was unloading bundles of money wrapped with brown paper and wire. I could see a couple of bills sticking out. The other one returned with a flat cart from somewhere and they stacked the packages on the thing.

I wanted to stay and watch as they carried the shit inside the building. One of them worked an electronic combination lock, and the door to the joint swung open on hydraulic hinges. My eyes were better than anybody's, despite all the years of abusing my body But even my 20/15s couldn't see the numbers he'd punched in from the distance I was at. Plus the smell and fumes had gotten the best of me, so I hurried back to my ride.

"What the fuck you been doin'?" Danny was pacing beside the Explorer. He didn't know what to do with his hands since he didn't have his piece.

"You'll find out." I could barely turn my SUV around, but finally managed to do it. Mainly I hoped them clowns down the way didn't hear us, 'cause I'm sure they were packing serious heat and we'd get blazed on. I found the main road out. There were a couple of guards standing around, and they looked at us as we got closer. I waved like I belonged there and kept going. For once Danny was on point and didn't try that prison yard stare on the gun toters.

We got back on the regular street and I took the 170 Freeway back south to the Magnolia exit, then drove down side streets until we were in North Hollywood.

"Wake him up," I told Danny.

"Why?" Anything to argue with me.

" 'Cause I can't remember the street the clinic is on. And before you ask, it's a place entertainers and sports stars like your brother go when they need to, you know, recharge." I didn't say anything about how I'd been there more than once, but had always been on my back in a controlled substance haze.

"Come on," I said with frost in my voice.

He glared at me in the rear view mirror, but without his gun, he knew that if he tried to bitch-slap me, Nap's brother or not, I'd knock his lightweight self out. "Nap," he shook his brother's shoulder gently. "Nap," he shook him again.

A couple of middle-aged Valley chicks with butts tight from working out on treadmills strolled by on the sidewalk. One of them had a hairy rat dog on a leash. He looked happy.

"Yeah," the big man mumbled.

"What's the name of the street Burroughs' Seven Souls Clinic is on?"

"Banyon. There's a Shell station at the corner of that and Riverside."

"Right." I got us there in five minutes, and we helped Nap inside. The ol' cut-up Burroughs was creeping around. He was a tall reed of a white man who always walked with a stoop. Burroughs had a hook nose, and what was left of his hair was greased on one side of his large head. He had a voice that never changed expression, and the whites of his eyes were always red like he'd just finished smoking a blunt. Which was often true.

"Ah, Mr. Raines and Mr. Graham." He touched Nap's bruises. "Another encounter with the Mistress Dandelion?"

"Yeah, doc, things got a little out of hand and we figured it best to get him over to see you." Me and Danny got Nap into a wheelchair. I went over close to Burroughs. He smelled like toothpaste. "There's a little problem in the end zone, if you catch my meaning," I whispered.

The old degenerate smiled with teeth belonging to a young girl. "Oh yes, I know the kind of care brother Graham requires. I'll see to it. Sign him in, will you?"

I started to walk off to the front desk when he called to me. "How's your recovery coming, Mr. Raines?"

"Clean and sober." I'm sure it gave him a chuckle to know I was lying. I got Nap settled in, and me and Danny headed back over the hill to L.A. His mind was on his brother. Mine should have been on my tryout the next week. Instead it was on what them two had been unloading in that hidden-away building. That's how I should have left it, just me knowing I'd seen where Stadanko brought his dough before he parceled it out for laundering. Yeah, I should have kept it to myself forever.