Southside (9781608090563) (11 page)

“How the hell are you, Michael? Jesus, you had us worried out of our minds.”

“I'm feeling all right, all things considered,” I said. “But, Danny, I'm still Jack around here, ain't I?”

“Of course, of course, Jack. Jesus Christ, Jack. I don't think you know it, but Jack and I, I mean Sharky and I, we heard the shots and we came running out, like damn fools. We were the first to get to you. You don't remember, but you looked up at us.”

“Nah, I don't remember much. But, I sure could use a Jack. A big one.”

“You got it, Jack. And this one's on me.”

The first sip of Tennessee sour mash made me wince as it often does. But, it quickly started to work its magic. By the time I finished the second drink, the mixture of blood and alcohol was getting right. I was feeling pretty good. I wasn't overly concerned about what Goldstein had said about the chief saying I'd look like shit. He was just
talkin'
shit.

The television stations started flooding the late afternoon screen with teasers. Channel 4 came in with “Big break in
Times
reporter shooting.” Channel 7 Eyewitness News announced, “Breaking
News. Is there an arrest? LAPD to hold news conference on the crime against crime reporter.” I laughed and told Danny, “I think breaking news is when something is happening, not to announce that something will be happening.”

As Danny set my third JD before me, the front door creaked again and Carly Engstrom, Nona Yates, and my cousin Greg filed in. They ordered two martinis and a tonic water for Nona. They sat in a booth. I joined them, saddling up between Nona and Carly, whose white skirt glided up her leg as she sat in the booth. As when she was my pod mate, I made a feeble attempt not to look down. I was true to my girl, Francesca, never cheated once, but I looked. A lot.

The local news went “live” to the PAB. By now, the Redwood was packed, twelve people at the bar, another twenty at booths and stand-up tables. Danny turned up the volume. My table grew silent. Other tables followed suit. Soon, the only sound in the old saloon was that of ice cracking.

Chief Miller came to the microphone surrounded by his brass, Kuwahara and Tatreau and Detectives LaBarbera and Hart who looked uncomfortable.

“As you know,” Miller began, “
Los Angeles Times
reporter Michael Lyons was shot nearly three weeks ago while walking along 2nd Street near Broadway. I'm glad to inform those of you who don't know, Lyons has been released from the hospital and is said to be doing very well.”

Miller continued. “As I'm sure many of you know, the
Times
has been relentless in their criticism of the Los Angeles Police Department, the finest police department in the world. They questioned our ability to solve crimes. They brought an element of fear to the downtown area.”

“What's his point?” said Greg.

I was beginning to squirm. I took a swig of the whiskey and wished I had another full glass. Too bad we weren't at the bar. I could just nod at Danny then look at my glass.

Miller went on. “During the course of our exhaustive investigation, our detectives have come up with a striking piece of this puzzle. It is a taped conversation between Michael Lyons and a known gang member. We cannot at this time reveal the name of the gang member, but the tape is definitely the voice of Michael Lyons. Three of our lab technicians have verified that.”

“What is this?” I mumbled.

“I have the tape here and will play it. But first, I want to say that to protect the other person on the tape, his voice has been altered. Also, a couple short snippets of the tape have been edited out to protect that same individual. I have to warn the public and the media the tape does contain vulgar language, so bleep away if you want. We will play the tape momentarily.”

Then Miller went off script. “I want to say up front that this tape appears to indicate that Michael Lyons paid for and ordered his own shooting. Play the tape.”

In the bar there was a gasp. My body released a cold sweat. I grimaced in agony like the moment when I was shot. Everyone in the bar shot me a look.

The tape played. Closed captions of the conversation took up the screen with a small insert of a photo of me.

Unidentified altered voice of King Funeral: So, what's the point? Getting shot is better than getting punked?

Lyons: Getting shot isn't better than getting punked out if you die in the shooting. But, if you just get wounded, you know, wounded, but not left crippled, that has its benefits.

Funeral: How? You mean you can brag about it? That what you mean?

Lyons: In a way. I know it's sick, but that's just the way it is. Even in the Army or Marines in Iraq. Like the guy that gets shot, you know, shot not too badly, but shot, and then he returns to the unit. That guy? That guy gets respect. Instant respect. The other marines are envious of him. Damn, Smith got shot. He's a man. He took the ultimate test and made it back. You see what I'm saying? Walked
right up to death's door, knocked, and came out all right. People envy that. That's just the facts.

More of the tape played.

Funeral: Look, if you want, as a favor, I can have one of my boys shoot you.

They both laugh
.

Lyons: For how much? Yeah, set it up. Little wounding. Not a graze. Something kind of serious. Like a shot in the side. So it can like, “Where did Mike get shot? Oh, the torso, man. Ah, man. He gonna make it? I don't know, man. Took two in the torso.”

Funeral: Come back to work, big hero.

Chief Miller came back to the microphones. “That's all we can release for now. But that's an incredible tape. Just a reminder. On the tape Lyons is heard to say ‘two in the torso.' Michael Lyons was shot two times in the torso. I'll take a few questions.”

The scene exploded with reporters yelling questions. Even Howitzer Hal Hansen was drowned out.

At the Redwood, my table was silent. They all were looking at me. Even among this group, though no one said so, doubt was prying. Then Nona asked, “You were joking with that guy, right?”

“Of course, he was,” said Carly, rubbing my suddenly tight neck and shoulders. “Right?”

I finished off my drink. “I gotta go. This sucks.”

Nona kissed my cheek. Greg touched my arm. “I think maybe you should go back to the office and explain this. They're gonna want to talk to you. It's a big story. This is not good. Not good at all.”

“Yeah, Michael, you know Duke and Ted and Harriet are going to want to have a quote from you and want to talk to you,” said Carly.

“I can't go back there now. Plus, I had some drinks.”

“He's right, Greg,” said Nona. “They're going to sniff booze on him and that's the last thing he needs.” The others agreed.

“Well, go home. Can you drive okay?” asked Greg.

“Want me to drive you home?” asked Carly.

“No. No. I'm okay, I need to go,” I managed. “This is surreal. I
just got shot. I don't have a clue by whom. He might come back and try to do it again for all I know, and now I got this bullshit to deal with. I gotta find that shooter if the cops can't.”

“Not tonight, please,” Greg said. “Just go straight home or to Francesca's, and I'll call you. I'll tell them I'll get a quote from you for the story tomorrow. You have to say something.”

I stood up and said, “Good-bye.” I never said good-bye. I hated that word.

Eddie Sims had four, maybe five, more people to shoot. This time he was gonna kill, not wound. Not let them live, as Lyons had. He'd take another shot at Lyons. This time kill him. But next on the to-do list was Terminal.

After his trip to Vegas, after he had shot Lyons, after he felt the heat of the investigation was lessening as it always did after the initial swarm, Sims had returned to his routine in Los Angeles, in the Kitchen, working on cars, drinking, and sleeping. He was a loner now, a man who said a polite hello to his next door neighbors, but that was it.

He hadn't always been that way. He had been a friendly, hardworking man who raised his one son with love and affection. That ended on August 12, 2004 when Cleamon “Big Evil” Desmond ordered Darnell “Poison Rat” Jackson to “serve” two men at a carwash at Central Avenue and 89th Street. The two men, both not gang members, were Marcus Washington and Payton Sims, his son.

Prosecutors contended that Evil gave Poison Rat an Uzi and ordered Rat to kill the two so he could earn his stripes for Eighty-Nine Family Bloods. The two were arrested. While in custody, Evil was a trustee at the Men's Central Jail and had extraordinary access inside the jail. In return, he ran the huge Bloods module at the jail and kept things relatively quiet for the sheriffs. He had a job, too, as a food server. He once told Lyons in an interview that “No one complains about the service. That would be stupid.”

Eventually, the case against Evil fell apart after he successfully
ordered the killing of two witnesses from behind bars. After that, the other witnesses got amnesia. Or moved out of state.

It took a joint task force involving the FBI, LAPD, L.A. County Sheriffs, U.S. Marshals and DEA, to eventually bring Evil down seven years later. One witness was so scared to testify that his face was covered, and he dressed in so much clothing that an FBI agent said, “the guy looked like the Michelin Man.”

But, because of the weak main witnesses against Evil—one Freddie Gelson who saved his own ass by testifying—and the tendency for juries in California to shy away from the death penalty, the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Leslie Harrington, decided to play it safe and not go for the death penalty. Even the judge in the case, the verbose Harold Reese, let it be known in open court that he thought that was the right call. Evil was convicted and sentenced to LWOP, life without the possibility of parole.

This had infuriated Eddie Sims. Big Evil would be in prison all his life, but he would be the big shot in a world where he was comfortable. Gambling with the lesser Poison Rat, the actual triggerman, prosecutors went for the needle and got it. Rat was now on San Quentin's death row.

But the cataclysmic event that would send Eddie Sims on his revenge quest was a television program on the cable show CNBC called
Lockdown—Pelican Bay
that aired five weeks before Michael Lyons was shot.

CNBC was running a miniseries called
Lockdown
, and each episode featured a notorious American prison. They had done San Quentin, Folsom, and Corcoran already. They had done Angola in Louisiana, Joliet in Illinois, Huntsville in Texas, the supermax federal prisons at Florence, Colorado, and Marion, Illinois. This one was on Pelican Bay, the most severe prison in California. Sims had been flipping channels on his remote when he stumbled across the program. Knowing that was where Big Evil had been sent, he decided to watch the show.

He poured himself a glass of cognac on ice and sat down to watch. What he saw in the next five minutes changed his life and gave birth to the Revenge. At first, he could not believe what he was seeing and thought he was just imagining what he was seeing on his television. And then slowly, the sickening reality crept into his pores.

There, in the prison known for breaking inmates by keeping them in their cells twenty-three and a half to twenty-four hours a day, was Big Evil playing basketball on the yard. He was playing with four other inmates in a game against the guards. Evil made a rebound and then muscled in for a hard two-handed dunk, smiling his big-ass smile. Evil, the man who killed his son and at least twenty-four other sons, was having fun in prison on the California-Oregon border. Sims was dumbfounded.

“As one can clearly see, not every inmate at Pelican Bay is locked down all day in his tiny, gloomy cell,” said the narrator. “Certain inmates, known as ‘super trustees' are allowed to go outside their cells for hours at a time.”

The camera zoomed in on Big Evil playing defense. “This man was the leader of a small, but extremely deadly, street gang in Green Meadows, Los Angeles. The LAPD had called him the deadliest gang member in the city before he was convicted of a double murder. The
Los Angeles Times
made him the cover story years ago in a Sunday magazine profile that sealed his infamy. Yet, his very power has earned him a greater degree of mobility inside Pelican Bay.”

They cut to a guard being interviewed. “There are some inmates, like Desmond here, who get certain privileges because they are super trustees, and we rely on him and a few others to keep the peace inside the prison, particularly when inmates gather at food service periods. While inmates in the security housing unit do not mingle, there are more than a thousand inmates here at Pelican Bay who do get out of their cells for meals, and Desmond and others make sure these gatherings are not violent. In return, he gets more time out of
his cell than most inmates serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.”

They cut one more time to the smiling Desmond before they cut away to a commercial. Sims was nearly in medical shock.

He walked, dazed, around his front room. Evil, the man who killed his cherished son, was enjoying himself playing basketball and would be alive for decades. Sims's blood boiled. The Revenge was born. He would have revenge if it was the last thing he ever did. He knew he couldn't get to Evil directly, so his family and the people responsible for his not getting the death penalty and allowing him to live his life out were the next best thing.

So now, it was six weeks since he had hatched his revenge mission and it was one down—or partly down—several more to go. Next up was Terminal, aka Bobby Desmond, Big Evil's younger brother. After that, he'd make sure Evil's mother would join her son in hell. He felt no remorse about this. He wanted revenge for his son.

Terminal himself had beat three murder raps already and was known to be almost as deadly as his big brother. Well, maybe not almost, but still a cold-blooded killer. Bobby stayed with his girlfriend in 79 Swans, another Blood 'hood less than a mile away, but he was often at his parents' home on 89th Street just on the other side of Central from Sims. The Desmond and Sims homes were less than 150 yards apart.