Southside (9781608090563) (24 page)

“What?” both stunned detectives said.

“Said like too bad I wasn't there when he killed him. And shot him. Ran over him.”

“Holy fuck. Sal, we never released anything about the tire marks.”

“What did he look like?” Sal asked.

“Man, he kinda nervous guy. Black. About I don't know, maybe fifty, maybe less. Look kinda plain, you know what I'm saying?”

“I'm thinking I do. But what else? How tall? Any marks? Scars? Weight? You know the drill.”

“Well, he was sittin' down so don't know how tall he was, but he wasn't big, that's for sure. I could tell that. Thing I remember about him was that he was nervous, and I could tell he was lying.”

“What do you mean? Lying about what? That he was the one that killed Term?”

“I don't know about that, but he was lyin' before he said that. Lyin' about how he was a friend of Term and that he was just up this way and knew I was here and wanted to say, you know, condolences. Plus, he called him Bobby. None of his homies called him that.”

LaBarbera looked around the room and at the guards behind him. He was looking for a video camera in the visiting room. There was none visible. “Say, fellas, are there video cameras here to record the visitors or inmates?”

The detectives were in the same room with Evil and the six guards, not on the outside looking in as Eddie Sims had been. “None in here, sir,” said a guard with sergeant stripes. “There are some video cameras outside this wall that film the visitors that come in here.”

“Do you know how long they keep the tapes or film or whatever it is? Is it digital and logged to a computer?”

“I'll check, sir. But I kind of doubt it. We are very low tech here, sir.”

“I'm Detective LaBarbera. This is Detective Hart. LAPD. All this ‘sir' stuff, you're making me feel like I'm an asshole under arrest.”

Polite laughter from the guards.

“You think this guy was for real?” Evil asked.

“I don't know, but he fits a very vague description that both Michael Lyons, the reporter, and your mother gave about a man who came to her house.”

“That mothercuntin' fucker.”

“Okay, anything else you can remember about him?”

“Only that he's a dead man.”

“Cleamon, just help us find him. Had you seen or talked to Bobby lately?”

“I ain't seen him since my trial.”

“He never came to visit you up here?”

“No. Kinda bothered me at first, but it's a long drive. Plus, I guess he was trying to get out the 'hood and all. It's almost funny, man. I get sent to Pelican Bay, get life without, and it saves my life. He stays out and gets the real death sentence.”

“Yeah, life's a funny thing,” said LaBarbera.

“You have any idea at all who would want to kill Bobby?” asked Hart.

“What's with the Bobby shit? My moms called him that, but he was always Terminal or Term to me. I gave him that name. But, yeah, the boy had his enemies. Shit, even beefed with some Bloods, guys in Swans, Blood Stone Villains, Pueblos. But, Sal, you know that already. That ain't no news.”

“You want some news?” Sal asked.

“Talk.”

“Remember Leslie Harrington?”

“Of course I remember that fox.”

“She's dead.”

“Murdered dead?”

“Yeah, found her body yesterday morning.”

“Shot?”

“Stabbed.”

“Damn, that's too bad.”

“For some reason I wouldn't think you would be disappointed she was dead. She did send you up here.”

“Her and you and about twenty other motherfuckers sent me up here, but, you all just doin' your job. I don't hold it against you guys or her. That's all part the game. Still, she was kinda special to me, even up here.”

“How so?” asked Hart. “She visit? She write?”

“No. But lotta times I close my eyes and imagine it be Leslie suckin' my dick. Now, how I gonna imagine a dead girl sucking my dick? It ain't gonna be the same. I mean I can do imagination as good as anybody, you feel me, but even I don't want a dead girl suckin' on me.”

“You always did have your principles, Evil,” Hart said. “Anyway, with Terminal and Leslie both killed, and Michael Lyons shot—you knew about that, right?”

“Yeah, I heard about that nut Lyons. You know, I was pissed at his ass after that magazine story he did on me, 'member that? I told him so on the phone. My moms didn't like that story, about I killed so many people and admitted it, so I lighted him up. But, he came to me like a man. We straight. He even writes a letter every now and then, sometimes even throws in a twenty. He bool. I think the boy got a past his own self. They wouldn't let him visit me here 'cause he got some felony. I think he even got two felonies.”

“He does. You have any ideas about him? Who shot Michael Lyons?”

“Nah. Like I said, I had a green light on him, but I cancelled it about, what, shit, I don't even know. Maybe five years ago. This time wasn't from me.”

“See, the only connection between the three shootings that we can come up with is you. Lyons wrote about you. Made you famous. Leslie prosecuted you. Put you in here for life.”

“Pending appeals, Detective,” said Evil.

“Pending appeals.”

“But, Sal, man, maybe they ain't even connected. Lyons, I know that crazy fool had a lot of enemies. Plus he be goin' out at night to the Nickersons, to Jordan Downs like he askin' to get shot. And my brother sure did have some enemies. He was fuckin' half the girls in town. And maybe Leslie, maybe it was just random or maybe an old boyfriend. What you people call a crime of passion. Was her pussy jacked-up? Mutilated and shit.”

“Autopsy today,” said Hart.

“Well, you get a jacked-up pussy or butter hole, then you'll know. Like Term sounds from what the homies tell me, he was all jacked-up. Oh yeah, that guy that came here? He even said something about they gonna have a closed casket. That's personal.”

“But, still the three all had ties to you,” said LaBarbera. “And now this guy that loosely fits the description that Lyons gave comes here. I don't believe in coincidences,” said Sal. He left his card. “Call me collect any time. Cleamon, if I owned a gang, I'd draft you number one. But, Evil, I need you to get word to your boys to somehow cooperate with this.

“Cooperate? That's one of the ugliest words in the world.”

“Somebody musta seen something,” Sal said with deliberate drama. “Your mother and father could be next.”

“Send that kite, Big,” Hart urged.

Just then, the guard came back in. “Sir, I mean, Detective, sorry, but the videotapes get replaced. We're so outdated here we don't have computers that we can download onto. There are cameras in the parking lot, too, and in the lobby, but they get replaced also. But, I do have something for you that may help,” he said, handing LaBarbera a printout.

“What's this?”

“It's a list of all the people that have come to visit Cleamon Desmond in the last twelve months.”

Sal looked at the short list of names. He came to the last name on the list. “Check it out, Johnny. Same damn day Terminal was found, Big Evil got a visit from one Barry Sanders.”

“Damn. It was him.”

LaBarbera and Hart got up to leave.

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Evil. “Shit, I almost forgot. Johnny, remember way back when that old guard had me fight King Funeral? And he videotaped it? 'Member? You were there. I kicked his ass.”

“Twice. Yeah, of course. Lyons brought that up to me few days ago. What about it?”

“This guy that came to see me, he said Term showed him that tape.”

“This is too strange,” said Hart.

On the picturesque drive from Pelican Bay to the Eureka, California, airport, studded with mighty redwoods and glimpses of the sea, they talked about the man Evil had described. “That's the third person that gave the same very general description of the guy,” said Hart. “And I do not believe in coincidence.”

“That's my line.”

“What about that guy Ralph went to see? The Payton guy. Payton Sims's father. What did he look like?”

“I don't know. He just said he was a broken-down drunk. Drinking from a bottle. But, call Ralph. With a name like that, this guy is lookin' suspect. Plus using Barry Sanders's name now, the guy's got a thing for great running backs. Tell Ralph to get over to Funeral's place and look for that film of that Evil Funeral fight. What was it? What kind of film?”

“A VHS tape,” said Hart as he got out his cell.

As LaBarbera drove fifteen to twenty mph above every posted speed limit, which varied on this windy road from fifteen to fifty-five, Hart called Waxman. It rang once and then the signal was lost near
the overcast, north coast town of Trinidad. He tried again with the same result.

“Damn,” said Hart as they drove past a sign welcoming motorists to Trinidad, population 314 people. “Shit, they got three hundred fourteen people here. Doesn't anyone have use for a cell phone?”

“Maybe they're the lucky ones.”

Fifteen minutes later, outside of Arcata, Hart tried and got through, but just to Waxman's voice mail. Hart impatiently waited for the long-winded automated woman's voice to finish. Hart growled into the phone.

“I hate that part. ‘When you are finished you can hang up.' No kidding, idiot.”

The killing of Leslie Harrington was a giant SIWA. By itself, Leslie's death was huge news, the lead on all local television stations and on all the network news programs. It just about had it all. An attractive, white, deputy district attorney in a safe, wealthy, secluded neighborhood with her throat savagely slashed, nearly decapitated. Other than the involvement of a celebrity, a news director couldn't ask for anything more.

As for the part of me being a journalist, I craved the story. I wanted to break the story of a serial killer loose in Los Angeles. It could be my salvation, erase the doubters who still thought I had myself shot, deliver me from evil, thanks, in a sordid way, to Evil.

No one at the
Times
had discovered the common thread of the attacks on Harrington, Terminal, and myself. It would have been on their website by now and it wasn't.

It was Wednesday afternoon. The
L.A. Weekly
came out on Thursday, and they usually liked stories filed and edited by Monday. They might go with a hot story filed late on Tuesday. In extremely rare cases, blistering news could be filed Wednesday. I e-mailed and called Doris De Soto, the news editor at the
Weekly
. De Soto lived to beat the
Times
.

“Doris, Michael Lyons. I gotta great scoop for you, beat the
Times
, but we have to have to get it in this week's paper.”

“Lyons, it's Wednesday. What's the story?”

“There's a serial killer in Los Angeles. A great story.”

“Details and don't make it long-winded. Speak.”

“You heard about Leslie Harrington in Santa Monica this morning? The deputy district attorney.”

“Stupid question. Go.”

“Okay. She was killed by a guy who also killed Bobby Desmond. You know him?” I asked, instantly regretting it. No way she knew Terminal.

“No. Just tell the damn story.”

“Bobby Desmond, street name Terminal from Eighty-Nine Family Bloods.”

“Not another gang story.”

“No. Lemme finish. Terminal was Big Evil's brother. Leslie Harrington was the D.A. who put Evil away for life. I was shot and I was the one who made him famous outside of the Southside. There is some guy going around killing or shooting people associated with Big Evil. Me included. This is a great story. We need to get it in this week before the
Times
figures it out. We can burn the
Times
with this,” I said, playing to her weakness.

“What have you got? Just your hunch? It could just be a coincidence. What do the police say? On the record.”

“Doris, I need you to give me a go ahead and I'll get all that. I don't know if can get the police to go on the record that there is a serial killer, but off the record I know some detectives who may be leaning in that direction.”

“‘May be leaning'? I need more than ‘may be leaning.'”

“They are leaning. Way leaning. Leaning Tower of Pisa leaning.”

“Listen. We can't just say there's a serial killer out there and panic the whole city. Santa Monica's in panic mode already. This guy, saying he is the guy, killed two people and shot you. Does that even qualify as a serial killer? He's no Gacy or Dahmer.”

“Think about how many lives would've been saved if they'd
started reporting on Gacy and Dahmer after they killed their first two victims. This guy is a sick fuck, and he's getting sicker. First, he shoots me. Then, he gets Terminal. Shoots him, beats him with a crowbar or something, and runs over him. Then, with Harrington, he almost cuts her head off. He's escalating. It's classic serial killer. It's the reason he's living. And he'll do it again.”

“What are you, Doctor Phil? Clarice from
Silence in the Lambs
?”

“
Of
the Lambs.”

“What the shit ever. Look, we need some facts here. That's how journalism works. Here's the deal. I'll give you three hours. You got till 7. Not 7:01. We'll need something from the LAPD. We can throw in the brief stuff we already did. The thread being Big Evil, but the key is the LAPD. You need the chief. Can you get to him? Or Kuwahara?”

“Cool, I'm on it,” I said.

“You don't get what I need, you don't get paid a nickel.”

“I don't like nickels.” I hung up. Actually, I did like those Indian head nickels.

I felt that glorious rush of deadline. I dialed the chief's cell. He picked up.

“Chief, it's Michael Lyons.” Silence. “Chief?”