L.A. Blues III (4 page)

I was lying in emergency with an IV in my arm and some type of machine attached to me that hummed along, but I had no idea what it was for. Smells of human life, blood, feces, pain, suffering, and antiseptic assaulted my nostrils. I thought about a few years ago when I got shot in the line of duty on the LAPD, and how it felt waking up after surgery. At the time, I didn't know if I was in this world or the next. This time, though, I felt like I was going to be all right.

“You're going to be all right,” Reverend Edgar said, reassuringly patting my hand.

“Thank you so much for helping me.” My voice reminded me of how I used to sound when I was drunk before I went to rehab two years ago. My words stumbled out in a slurred iambic tetrameter.

“I've got to get back to work. I put your purse on the side of your bed. It was in the car, so you've got all your ID.”

“Okay,” I murmured. I checked and my gun was still in there. It was inside a pink case.

 

I must have dozed off. I woke up thinking of this minister/fireman who had just left my bedside.

“That was nice of him,” I mumbled drowsily. I couldn't get comfortable as I tossed and turned. I wondered if I was bleeding so I checked for my blood and didn't see any—only bruises on my arms and legs.

Blood made me think about the six men I had killed—ironically, all in my new line of duty as a private eye. Funny thing was I never killed anyone when I was on the LAPD. In each case, as a private eye, it was down to me or them, though. I cringed.
That still leaves their blood on my hands. What will I say on Judgment Day?
But what if I killed my baby?

Ironically, I canceled the two appointments I'd made at an abortion clinic. Now that I thought I was about to lose the baby, I couldn't stand the thought of a miscarriage. For the first time, this baby was more than an inconvenience. It was a life . . . a life inside of me. Maybe my baby was still alive . . . I reached down into my underwear and pulled out my hand to examine it. I wasn't bleeding. I thought I would've been bleeding if I'd lost the baby. I let out a sigh of relief, then dozed back off. I think they'd given me some type of sedative.

I woke up again as they were rolling me on a stretcher to a regular room where I wound up being alone. The next time I woke up it was the next morning. Through a fog, a police officer came and interviewed me and asked me did I see who hit me, and I told him no.

“I don't know what happened. Someone hit me out of nowhere.”

After that, I kept dozing in and out. There were two other beds but no patients.

I opened my eyes and a Dr. McCrutcheon was standing at my bedside. “Doctor, I'm pregnant,” I blurted out. “I hope my baby is okay.”

“Yes, your cervix is intact. Your baby is fine. We're going to keep you another night for observation though.”

“Are you sure about the baby?” I heard myself saying. I rubbed my stomach in a circular motion. For the first time I felt protective of my unborn child.
Oh, Lord, don't let anything be wrong with my baby.

“Yes.” The doctor paused, absently shaking his head, as if in disbelief. “You're both a living miracle. It looks like your baby will be fine, but I'd like you to stay on bed rest for the next week or two. We'll keep you one more night to be sure, then release you tomorrow morning. Make sure you see your doctor next week. ”

A tall, lithe Jamaican nurse, whose badge read Eurie Harris, RN, pushed in a heart monitor machine for the baby. She took out a magic wand and put it on my stomach, which was still flat. I heard this “slosh, slosh, sloshing” sound, which resembled the noise a washing machine makes. A strong rhythmic pony trot filled the room.

“That's your baby,” the nurse said in her lilting Jamaican accent. My baby's heartbeat sounded like the most beautiful symphony ever written.

“You're not bleeding either,” she continued. “Your cervix is closed. The baby seems fine.”

She pointed to a flashing point on the screen. “That's your baby's heart. Here's the head. The body.”

“Can you tell the sex of the baby?”

“Not yet. At twenty weeks. You're almost twelve weeks. Here, I can give you a picture though.”

I gazed down at the ultrasound picture in amazement. For a moment, I caught my breath. I'd never seen anything more beautiful—this tadpole-looking piece of protoplasm in this cloudy, dark photo. Then I just broke down, tears oozing down my face. My baby was alive—the baby I almost aborted.

Maybe this was a miracle. We both could have been killed. I could have lived but lost the baby, but neither situation happened. For the first time I felt a butterfly-feeling flutter in my stomach. In awe, I reached down and gently touched my stomach, which was still as flat as an ironing board. Feathers trembled in my stomach again. What was that? Then it hit me. My baby was moving!

Suddenly I didn't care who the father was. This was my baby. He or she had a right to live. My mother, Venita, gave birth to my brother at age fourteen and to me at sixteen, and she survived. Besides, how old did I have to be to have a baby? Who's to say I'd ever get pregnant again? I was now thirty-five. I thought about what Chica told me about her abortion and how it left her sterile.

“Thank you, Lord,” I silently prayed, grateful I didn't get the abortion. I made a silent vow to my unborn child:
Well, it's me and you. I'll try to keep you safe and be a good mother. I don't know how, but I'll learn how.

I reached in my purse and found my iPhone. I called my foster mother, Shirley, and told her about my car accident.

“Are you all right?”

I could hear the concern in her voice. I was surprised though, since she was still caretaking my foster father, Daddy Chill, who had dementia. Shirley always seemed more overwhelmed than I ever remember her being when we were growing up. But recently, she put him in an adult daycare center where she got a little relief for six hours each day. She really sounded like she heard me for the first time in a long time.

I thought about how this was my second time I almost died, the first time being when I was shot on the LAPD. Somehow this near-death experience made life even more precious; especially now that I had my unborn child's life to consider. “Yes, I'm fine. The doctor said I'm a walking miracle, but there's something I want to tell you.”

“What is it?”

I paused.
Should I tell her?
Something egged me on. “I'm pregnant.” It was as if putting my condition into words made it real. Announced it to the universe. I was going to be a mother! Now that I'd said it, this pregnancy felt real.

“What?” Shirley shrieked. “I knew it. I knew something was different about you. Oh, my God. Are you and the baby all right?”

“Surprisingly, we're fine. I'm scared, though.”

“Don't worry. The Lord never gives you more than you can handle.”

“I don't know.”

“Well, at least you will have a piece of Romero. I know how much you loved him. Life is strange like that. God taketh away and He giveth.”

I hesitated. I couldn't tell Shirley I wasn't sure about the paternity. She was the second person, the other being Chica, who had said I'd have a piece of Romero; I sure hoped so.

“I guess it is.”

Next, I got a call from my brother Mayhem, the reason for my dilemma in the first place. I hadn't talked to him since the shootout that freed him from his abductors.

“Hey, Z. I need to see you.” He was always blunt and to the point.

My heart beat speeded up. For the first time, I got in touch with what I was feeling toward my brother, a born and bred criminal—pissed off, mad as all get-out, red-hot angry. I blamed him for this mess I was in. I would have never been in this dilemma in the first place if it weren't for his kidnapping. Why did he have to come to me and get me involved? Now I'd truly walked on the wild side. I didn't really know myself anymore.

Yet, even so, I was angrier at the two men who set up his kidnapping. I promised I was going to make someone pay for this.
This isn't over yet.

“I'm in USC.”

“What happened?”

“Minor car accident. It looks like I'll live though.”

“Cool. I'll be right over to see you.” He hung up without saying good-bye.

A dark sense of foreboding hit me. Mayhem and the word “trouble” were synonymous. What did he want now? You have to know something about Mayhem. He was a second-generation Crip, (including my mother, Venita, and his biological father, Big Dave, who was a life-long heroin addict). Mayhem was also a kingpin who, ironically, had never used any drugs—even marijuana.

We just reunited a couple of years ago and he'd been nothing but trouble. But what else could I do when he was kidnapped and needed my help to free him? He saved my life when he was a child himself and he saved my life again three months ago, when I was in a shootout, oddly, trying to free him from his kidnappers.

I'd found out my brother had a lot of money—it's just he earned it on the wrong side of the law.

To paraphrase Chris Rock's words from his stand up,
Never Scared
, if you were Black, and earned a lot of money, it had better be on the right side of the law.

What irked me was the fact only Wall Street and banks could sink a world-wide economy into the toilet, and no one go to jail for white collar crime. But do some “black collar crime,” and you better believe the judge was going to hand out more time to you, as a Black person, than to your white counterpart(ner) in crime.

Apparently Mayhem didn't think this law applied to him; heshook up the powers that be, and they set up his kidnapping by a Mexican cartel.

My brother wasn't born a Kennedy. Born in Crip territory, South Los Angeles, he was slotted with two spots waiting for him—the penitentiary or the grave. He'd somehow managed to avoid the latter. The Kennedys made their money with bootlegging money, then the parents bought prestige and power, and decided what laws made the powerless the new criminal.

Similarly, my brother made his money from the streets and, from what I'd learned, more recently had made some lucrative investments on Wall Street, pornography Web sites, massage parlors, rap groups, and other legitimate businesses. The American way, wasn't it? Take the land from the Native Americans, bring the Africans over to work it, then become the greatest country in the world at one time. The ends justify the means.

But when a Black man got his money on the wrong side of the law, it was a different story.

Those two fake FBI and DEA agents were going to pay. I didn't know if they were responsible for the bullet that took out Romero; there were so many bullets flying at that fatal shootout. Now, they were, or someone else was, trying to blackmail me over the head I disposed of. But with the pregnancy, I had a new mission.

Right now, my main goal was to have this baby, no matter what came. I decided I could live off my payments from the reality show, and my savings, so I wouldn't have to take too many cases right now.

I definitely didn't want to take on any more dangerous cases—that was, for the time being. All I wanted was a quiet, peaceful pregnancy.

I must have dozed off because I looked up and there stood my brother, David, aka Mayhem, aka Big Homie, Crip Kingpin, major entrepreneur, dubbed by the DEA agent as “The Steve Jobs of the streets.” Mayhem had an imposing posture that reminded me of Suge Knight when he was in his heyday. He kept both of his huge hands folded in front of him, his head thrown back in a regal manner, as if he ruled the world. In a sense, he did rule his world. When Big Homie spoke, people listened. When he said, “Jump,” they said, “How high?” He'd been a natural leader all of his life.

His new bodyguard, another big, buff brother, stood on guard in the hallway just outside the door. Mayhem nodded to his guard, then turned his attention to the news.

A flat-screen TV on the wall was blasting, “Bank robbers took police on a four-hour chase from Lancaster through Pasadena to Los Angeles. They wound up in South Los Angeles and began throwing the stolen money out of the car. Onlookers began to pick up money and were obstructing the pursuit. Another car accident in an SUV caused further delay in arresting the suspects. Three were arrested, but one suspect got away.”

“Sis, ain't this a bitch? These niggas like Robin Hood. Steal from the rich and give to the hood. Now that's what I'm talking about!” Mayhem struck his right fist in his left palm in approval of the bank robbers' daring attempt at getting away. “The system screws us, and I guess they just wanted to screw the system.”

Flabbergasted, I put my hand to my heart while I kept my eyes glued to the TV. “Oh, my God! That must have been what was happening when I was driving up . . . Hey. There's my car.” I pointed at the screen. I saw a replay of how the garbage truck hit the robbers' car. It turned my stomach when I saw a picture of my hit-and-run crushed rental SUV being towed by a truck and how pitiful it looked on the TV set.
Dang! How did I even get out of there alive?

Mayhem got up and walked stealthily around the room. He took a dark handkerchief out of his pocket and covered the surveillance camera they had on the wall. He lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone. “Sis, I know we haven't talked but I want to thank you.”

“Hey, you're my brother. What else was I going to do?”

“Why did you only take twenty thousand dollars out of the account? You know you could have taken more.”

“That's my traveling and finder's fee.”

“Girl, you could be set for life. I didn't care what you took. I've got other accounts. As long as I have life, I could make some mo' money. How can I ever repay you?”

“All money ain't good money.” I caught myself. I didn't want to sound judgmental, but I'd always made my money on what I considered the right side of the law.

Mayhem disregarded my stance. “You still have access to that money if you need it. Here's the new account number on this flash drive so . . .” He handed me a flash drive. “Baby girl, I owe you. You know you the best. Not only did you get that money back from Rio, you saved my life. Girl, you the bomb. How can I thank you?”

Inside, I was thinking,
You've got to be kidding. You don't have any idea what I went through. You can thank me by not asking me to do nothing else for you.

Mayhem hesitated. “I'm sorry for what happened to your man.”

I bit my bottom lip and fought back my tears. There was nothing I could say. I changed the subject. “Do you have any idea about the DEA and this so-called FBI agent who came to me?” I asked. This had been on my mind for some time.

I continued. “Something felt off-kilter about the whole thing. I've been in such a daze, I'm even wondering if they were real. Their names were Agent Richard Braggs and Agent Jerry Stamper. They're the ones who came to me. One had a glass eye.”

“I know those fools. Yes, they are real. Greedy bastards. They knew through my record that I was papered down. Those two dirty feds have been paid, but don't worry. I got something for they ass.”

Blood pounded in my head. I didn't say anything at first. Finally I spoke. “They claimed you owed them five million dollars. I don't know what I went on that wild goose chase for if you already had the money.”

“I had to get my woman back, too. It wasn't just about the money.”

“But why would they get involved in a drug deal?”

“Look, people are broke so they will do desperate things. I think they homes was in foreclosure.”

I thought of Haviland and her blackmailer who had her over the barrel over faking a home invasion to keep from losing her Hollywood Hills mini-mansion in the height of the recession in 2009. “Do you know if these men are still with the FBI and the DEA?”

“Yes, they still with the DEA and the FBI, with they crooked ass. They shake down more drug dealers than the dealers. I guess when their money got low, they went after me and the money they knew I had from the files on me. They think they untouchable. Plan to retire drinkin' mai tais on some island. Got kids in Ivy League colleges.”

“Well, they didn't get the money from me.”

“Don't worry. I paid those mothertruckers. They're trying to drain all my money, but that's all right. When I find them, they'll be taken care of.”

My heart clutched. “How did you get kidnapped? I've been so out of it, I haven't had a chance to see what was going on. What do they have on you? Why did they set up the kidnapping?”

“Money. Simple as that. I got something on them and they couldn't shake me down anymore. They figured if they had me abducted they could get a lump sum of money. If it wasn't for you, I would have been killed.”

“Another question: did they give you money to go to Brazil?”

“No, they didn't. They found out about the deal and was trying to intercept it and get the money. The cartels wound up keeping Appolonia. That's what I'm here about.”

I was hoping to divert him from that subject. “So how did you become a billionaire?”

Mayhem became quiet, as if he was weighing what I'd asked him. He rubbed his clean chin with his right thumb and forefinger. It took what seemed like forever for him to answer. “Good investments on Wall Street.”

“Do you think you'll ever get out the game?”

He gave me a strange look. “You know what my philosophy of life is?”

“Shoot.”

“I didn't choose my destiny. My destiny chose me. I live in one of the richest cities of America and I just want my part of the California dream. Fuck being broke. Before I get trampled on and never have any power or money, I'll die first. I used to be called an inland terrorist when I was banging, but now I'm trying to go legit. I'm a businessman. It's the American way. You either get, or you get got. We never got money when we were marching for freedom, and now we have no power.”

“How about President Obama?”

“Psssssh.” He let out a long hiss. “That was just a fluke. The average Negro ain't living his life.”

“I'd—”

“You'd do what if you were in my shoes, born where we were born, and you were a Black man?”

I pondered his question. I lay back on my bed, speechless. I really didn't know what I'd do. “I don't know,” I admitted.

“I was trying to . . . I'm just trying to go legit, but that last bid kind of cut into my bank account. Plus, this system won't let a nigga catch a break.”

“Not from what I saw in your account . . .”

Mayhem ignored my remark. “Well, anyhow, when I sent Appolonia to Rio that was going to be the last run in that line of business, because there's too much shit going on in Mexico right now.” Mayhem pulled up the chair that sat in the corner of the room. “But that's not what I'm here about. I have some questions for you now.”

“Shoot.”

“What do you know about Tank?” Mayhem leaned close to me.

An image of Tank, beheaded with glazed eyes, flashed like a hologram in my brain, but I shook my head to clear this horrific image. He took that as a “Nothing.”

“Well, can you try to find out what happened to Tank?”

“I'll look into it.” I felt funny lying to my brother, but I didn't know the whole story. How could I tell him his friend, Tank, his lieutenant, was dead? That he'd been beheaded? “When was the last time he was seen?”

“It was just before you left for Brazil.”

For a moment, I remained silent, which was my way of lying. The old me would have been afraid of Mayhem, but after what I saw in Brazil, after what I went through, I was no longer afraid of too much of anything. “I don't know anything.”

Tank had been Mayhem's lieutenant, his main man and his muscle. I hated to have to tell him the truth. Tank had been dead for the past three months. I decided this wasn't the time to divulge this information. I needed to find out who was trying to blackmail me first.

“The last time I saw him was when you sent me to get information on how and where to pick up your kids and get them out of L.A. Why?” Now that was a partial truth. That was the last time I saw him alive.

“It seems like you might have been one of the last persons to see him. He's been MIA since about that time.”

My heart plunged. I thought when I put in the 911 call from the phone booth about Tank's head, someone would have come and gotten that part of his remains. Obviously not. What happened to his head then? Moreover, what happened to his corpse? Then, who was it who was texting me? Well, who could be trying to blackmail me?

What a mess! I went against what I thought was right in order to help my brother. I mean I got involved with crooked feds/gangbangers/ drug dealers/cartels/strippers/porn stars, in the quest to free my brother. Yes, I helped get him away from his kidnappers, but at what cost? I lost my man, I lost my integrity, I'd added more sins on my list, and now I was trying to cover up my lie.

Who saw me dump Tank's head, which was inside the basket? Was it Agent Braggs? Was it Agent Stamper? Now I had lied to my brother, saying I didn't know where Tank was. Was this how you crossed the line? With one lie, then another?

I changed the subject. “Have you heard from Venita?” I wasn't sure which city my mother had fled to with her three grandsons, Mayhem's “little thuglets.”

“Yes, she's safe with the boys. I've already told her to come on back. They will be safe now. But they gon' have to stay with Venita for now. After I go get their mama, the boys can come back home.” He let out a deep sigh.

“Z, I'm going to need you to go back to Brazil. Look, we gon' have to go put some work in.”

So that had been his agenda all along.

“What?” He might as well have punched me in my solar plexus. “Run that by me again.” I pursed my lips like “Really?”

“I'm going to Brazil to get Appolonia. I'd like you to go with me since you know the territory.”

“Hold up! What did you say?” I paused for dramatic effect and emphasis.

“Aw come on, sis. I've got to get Appolonia back. I'd like to get my kids back and they're going to need their mom to take care of them while I work.”

I held my hands up in surrender. My eyes dive-bombed into his, and the person who most people were afraid to look into the eye saw a fool equally as crazy on the other end. “I know you've lost your freakin' mind.”

At first, David, who was used to giving orders, looked shocked to see me not comply, and a furrow of anger crossed his brow, but then he settled into a look of amusement.

“Well, now I know you my sister for sure. You know you got fire in you, girl.”

I hesitated, and picked my words carefully.

“Listen, Mayhem. You my brother, and I've put in work for you, but, baby, the price was too high. Besides, David, there's a lot you don't know about Appolonia.” How could I tell him that she had been in a witness protection program for the past fifteen years and that her real name was Samaria? That she had a teenager daughter by a drug lord who had gotten out of prison and set up the drug deal in order to get her back?

“Look, I know she has a past, but who doesn't?”

I don't know where my boldness came from but now I do know this: I'd invested a part of my life in Mayhem's life, which had changed my whole destiny because of his mess, and I had a right to be bold and speak my mind. I started to divulge what I knew, but something held me back. I couldn't tell him that Appolonia was a willing prisoner. Diablo was her oldest child's father, the child she gave birth to at fourteen, just before she turned state's evidence on Diablo and went into protective custody.

After a long silence, Mayhem started to try to break me down. His head rubbernecked as he mean mugged me. “Why won't you help me?”

“Why should I? Besides, what so special about her? You can have any of these women out here. How about that one at your club?” I snapped my finger. “What was her name? Cinnamon or some type of spice?”

“Who? Chutney? I don't care about her. Look. I can't help who I love.”

“Let's get one thing straight. I'm not going to go back to Rio. But I'll tell you what I learned: it's dangerous. In fact, it's suicide.”

“So you won't go with me?”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“I'm pregnant. I . . .” There. I'd said it for a second time to a family member.

Mayhem's face shifted from the hard lines to a softness I seldom saw in him as he interrupted me. “Are you happy? Is it for dude who got killed?”

I hesitated. How could I tell him I wasn't sure? “Yes.” My voice came out barely above a whisper.