BLACK Is Back (29 page)

“Yes, Mom.”

By the time Black made it to his exit, it was getting progressively darker, the twilight having given way to night. He could see the overpowering glare of the parking lot lights from the freeway, the area lit up like noon and about a third full on a weeknight. Black prowled around the lot as he called Genesis again, and she answered quickly, her voice hushed.

“Looks like he’s on foot now. Over by the performance area. Some square?”

“Calico Square. Is he moving?”

“He was. Now it looks like he’s stationary.”

“Watching the show,” Black said as he exited his car and strode to the gates, then stopped. He remembered the metal detectors. The management would probably frown on him trying to slip a fully loaded Glock into the amusement park, even if he was stylishly dressed and relatively polite. He returned to his car and slid the gun into the glove compartment, suddenly at a loss as to how he was going to stop a man in peak physical condition who was twenty years younger. Okay, more like twenty-three years younger. Without the .40 caliber stopping power of his special friend, his bright idea didn’t seem so smart. Maybe he should have thought it through some more before racing to Knott’s to…what? Swat at B-Side with a Nerf bat? Choke him on cotton candy?

Once inside, he made his way toward Calico Square while he checked in with Genesis a final time.

“He’s moving again.”

“Where?” Black asked.

“Something called…damn, wait a second. Ah. Charleston Circle. Does that mean anything to you?”

“I think so. It’s kind of in the center?”

“Kind of. Oh, wait. He turned. Now he’s moving north, along the side of the water park area. You know where that is?”

“On the west side.”

“Exactly.”

Black picked up his pace, dodging the occasional group of giggling teens congregated in huddles, the girls shyly eyeing the boys as the objects of their interest blustered and laughed over-loudly. A crying toddler crossed his path, blocking him; the child shrieked as it tried to bully a beleaguered-looking father into one more ride before quitting time, and Black veered around the pair, making his way toward the roller coaster by the water park.

“You still with me?” he asked, eyes roving over the sparse crowd.

“Yup. He’s still moving north.”

A chain of open-topped cars shot down the railing to his left and plunged into a large pool of water, shooting spray twenty feet in the air as peals of delighted laughter and excited screams drifted heavenward and beyond. Black continued along the boardwalk and more laughter greeted him from the Boomerang Coaster on his right. Black, who hated all manner of roller coasters and thrill rides, not to mention heights, couldn’t imagine paying to hurtle around a track so he could almost lose his lunch, but to each his own. It was apparently a thriving business, judging by the ticket prices and the crowds he’d seen the last time he’d visited with Reggie, so like reality TV or tofu, it was one of those things that mystified him but seemed to be popular.

“I don’t see him. I’m by the roller coaster thing.”

“Where? Oh. Wait. He should be up ahead of you. Maybe fifty yards.”

“There are some kiosks set up blocking my view. Where exactly is he?”

“There’s something called an Xcellerator at the far north end. He’s just before that. South of it. Looks like…a tower. The Sky Tower. That ring any bells?” Genesis asked.

Black peered ahead at the darkened shape of the tower. “It looks closed. It’s dark. And there’s some scaffolding along the side.”

“He’s at the base of it.”

“Are you sure? How accurate is that tracer?”

“Supposed to be to a few yards.”

Black squinted, trying to make anything out. The ride, as far as he could tell, consisted of a huge tower, the equivalent of an eighteen-story-tall pillar, with a doughnut-shaped enclosed cabin that ascended it. But the ride wasn’t working, and the entry to it was as dark as the cabin itself, which was grounded. As he neared, he saw movement at one of the contraption’s huge sliding double doors, and then the cabin began to rise, still unlit, crawling up the column as he watched.

“He’s in the cabin. Damn. He’s got to have Reggie with him. What do you want to bet he’s got something planned to make his death look like an accident?” Black asked. Genesis didn’t answer, and he made a snap decision. “I’m going up after them. Gotta sign off.” He pocketed his phone and looked around. The scaffolding rose into the twilit sky, a series of one-story-tall platforms connected with steel rods, with a ladder leading from story to story. Eighteen of them. Black gulped and almost choked on the butterflies in his stomach. Just the idea of climbing the ladders to reach the cabin nauseated him. Then a vision of Reggie tumbling head over heels out of the double doors, dropping to the pavement below, hit him with the vividness of a first kiss, and he squared his shoulders and moved to the scaffold.

The first story wasn’t bad. The dark actually helped, because he couldn’t see that far below him. He paused and looked up. The cabin had stopped at about the ten-story mark, still unlit. Gritting his teeth, Black climbed the second story, and then the third, feeling dizzy and increasingly disoriented as he moved higher. Resolved to finish the job, he closed his eyes and pulled himself up to the fourth and fifth stories, then hesitated as a breeze caught the scaffolding, causing it to sway slightly. His stomach did a full somersault at the sensation of movement, and then he heard voices coming from the cabin’s open access-way.

Black cursed to himself. He fixed his gaze on the tower in front of him and soldiered higher until he was on the ninth level, the cabin only ten feet above. Another gust of wind rattled the scaffolding and he puckered, a feeling tickling his gut much like going over a dip at high speed. But now he could make out the tone and the words. B-Side was talking.

“What you wanna go an’ do this for, man? We can work it out.”

“Ain’t nothing to work out. You had your chance. And you spit on me. I could have helped you like I did Blunt, but you were too good for me. Mr. Bigshot had to have himself the crooked white manager. Punk. And you can’t even write your own songs.” Reggie’s voice was scathing, the words loaded with derision.

“That’s not –”

“Don’t lie to me, nigga. I know those songs better than you do. Who do you think wrote ’em?”

“What?” B-Side exclaimed.

“Yeah, that’s right. I did. Blunt couldn’t write to save his sorry ass. He was all attitude. But his raps were lukewarm. I helped him out, gave him some of my stuff. That’s why he and I were tight. He couldn’t have me on the songwriting credits, but we worked it out. He paid me a big salary, car, expenses, you name it. Had me as like a junior manager. But when he got offed and you had the chance to bring me on, did you? Hell no. You were too busy working with your butt-buddy Sam, who stole the tunes I’d written for Blunt’s second album. Look at your face. I wish I could take a picture. You don’t know anything. You a peacock. Just a punk.”

“Reggie, listen. That’s cool. I didn’t know you wrote those. I thought Sam did. That’s what he told me. It’s why I gave him part of my deal. He brought the hits. I had no idea those were Blunt’s…I mean, they were yours. I would have never used them, or I would have cut you in. Fair’s fair.”

“Lying little bastard. Good riddance to him. Figures the cockroach would take credit for them.”

“Reggie…did you kill him?”

“Hell yes I killed him. I warned him a bunch of times that someone knew he’d stolen the songs. Anonymously. He didn’t care. So then I wired the mike. I figured you two were in bed, and no way was I going to let you get rich off my back after cutting me out. Too bad you didn’t fry.”

“You crazy. You been doing too much rock, man.”

“That’s right. Crazy Uncle Reggie hepped up on hubba rock, dancing for the tourists every night while punkass steals his raps and lives the life. Well, that all change now, huh, boy. Who living it now?”

“You don’t have to do this. There’s still plenty of money. We can share it.”

“You think I’m stupid? I know you going to the police the minute you walk. No way. You come to the end of the line, Willie. That’s right. Willie. Little pants pisser think he all that. No time for Reggie. Reggie can sing for coins. Reggie that crack-head trash talker. Don’t want him around. I know what you say behind my back.”

Black eased up the rungs of the ladder, moving quietly, transfixed by the exchange.

“So what you going to do, Reggie? Shoot me? That your bright move? Like the five-oh won’t figure out who got a gun into the park – maybe my dope fiend crazy uncle who works here and brings in equipment every day, knows all the security guards?”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that. They got to find me to bust me, and I’ll be in Mexico by the time they put that together. I been saving my money, punkass. I figure I can last a long time down there, plus I can still sing for my dinner. No, if I got to shoot you, I’ll do it. But I’m thinking you going to jump out of that door. That’s how this goes down. Painless. You just drop, and then the next thing you know, lights out.”

“No way I’m jumping, you crazy bastard. You going to have to shoot me,” B-Side said.

“That’s fine with me, nigga. You asked for it.”

Black gauged the distance from the end of the scaffolding to the door. Maybe six feet, but an odd angle, off to the side. It sounded like he only had a few seconds if he was going to save B-Side, and he cringed as he weighed his choices.

“Come on, then, crackhead. Show what a big man you is. Cap my ass. You don’t have the guts. You nuthin’,” B-Side taunted, the fear out of his voice, replaced by cold fury.

Black backed up and took off at a sprint, then hurled himself through space at the open entrance. For a fraction of a second he hung, suspended in mid-air, nothing between him and oblivion awaiting him ten stories below, and then he hit the floor of the car and rolled.

Both B-Side and Reggie were shocked by the unexpected crash of Black’s body in the car, but Reggie recovered first and fired at B-Side, who was already in motion. The sound of the .38 caliber revolver in the confined space was like standing next to a cannon, and Black’s ears instantly howled with the high-pitched ring of tinnitus. Reggie prepared to fire again, training the gun on B-Side, who was rolling on the floor, and Black reacted instantly, lunging to his feet and throwing himself against Reggie, who kicked at him but couldn’t get the pistol pointed at him fast enough. Black swung a fist that connected with Reggie’s skull and felt him go slack just before a starburst of pain flashed through Black’s head from where Reggie had clocked him with the gun butt. Black punched him again, blinded by the pistol blow but fighting for his life, and then Reggie lost his footing and fell backward, clutching Black as he went down.

And then Reggie was plummeting, the asphalt a hundred feet below exerting its greedy pull, and so was Black, twisting in desperate futility to try to latch onto anything to arrest his fall, his worst living nightmare coming true in slow motion as Reggie’s surprised expression dropped into the darkness.

Pain shot through Black’s legs as his descent stopped, head pointed straight down, arms hanging below him. For a moment nothing made sense, and then B-Side’s voice reached him from just above, where he’d locked onto Black’s ankles.

“Yo, Black. Help me out here. I’m going to pull your legs into the car and hold them, and you do a sit-up and I’ll grab you.”

The words didn’t register, and then he understood what had happened. B-Side had saved him as he’d gone over the edge, and he’d locked onto him with a vise-like grip born of countless hours in the gym.

“I don’t know if I can,” Black said, the world spinning giddily beneath him.

“You can. Just bend your knees when I get your legs inside. I’ll pull you in so that the floor edge is under your knees, and then use your arms to swing yourself up. I got you, but you need to do the rest, man.”

Black didn’t have much choice.

“Do it,” B-side instructed.

He felt pain slice up the backs of both legs as B-Side slid them up and over the edge, his feet and lower legs now in the car, and then the rapper called out to him.

“Now.”

Black crunched upward, his flabby abs protesting at the strain, and then B-Side shifted his weight onto Black’s legs and clutched his wrists. With a sudden pull B-Side was falling backward onto the car floor, Black on top of him.

They both lay there for a second, face to face, noses an inch apart, and B-Side smiled in the dark.

“You gonna kiss me or something?”

Chapter 40

Bobby sat across from Black, radiating the annoyingly good health of the prosperous. Black looked like puppy turds, his face bruised from hitting the Sky Tower floor the prior night, his stomach on fire from unfamiliar muscles he’d likely torn, a dusting of stubble on his puffy cheeks, the swelling still evident from the brutalizing he’d taken.

“He just disappeared?” Black asked, giving it his all to sound surprised.

“Just vanished. My daughter’s devastated, obviously, but she’ll get over it.”

“What a fortuitous piece of luck, huh?”

That was pushing it. Bobby looked at him oddly. “Yes. I suppose it was. How did your investigation turn out?”

“He was a complete scumbag.”

“As I suspected.”

“You have a good nose for that.”

“It should be. Cost me five grand. I’m still paying the surgeon.”

They both laughed, and Black winced from the pain in his abs.

Bobby smiled a practiced toothy grin, his teeth almost glowing from regular bleaching of the cosmetically enhanced implants.

“You look like somebody stuck you in a burlap sack and beat it with a pipe,” he observed conversationally.

“Yeah. I don’t feel so hot, either. And it was two pipes. But I’ll live.”

“What happened?”

“I got into a fight with Nina.”

“Ow. That’ll teach you.” Bobby’s eyes moved to the bright glint of Black’s new watch. “Wow. Nice timepiece there. Pimping.”

“What does that even mean?”