My hand was out. Under my breath I said, "'Preciate this, Nap. You know I'd do the same for you."
"We boys, right?" He slapped the hundreds in my palm.
"Yeah, man. Just folding money, you know?" I couldn't raise my head and went out into the parking lot. It must have started to rain or something even though the sun was out because my cheek was wet. The devil is beating his wife, Moms used to say when it showered with the sun shining. I got in the Explorer and drove over to the High Hat bar on Crenshaw.
"Naw, he ain't been here," the beefy girl in the tight red dress and green eye shadow growled at me. She went to wipe down the bar on the other end.
"Sonny Sticks in always around here," I said, following her.
"He ain't here now." She stopped moving her rag. "Ain't you supposed to be somebody?"
"The dude who's looking for the dude who owes me money, that's who I am." Like Zorro, I wrote my initial on a coaster. "Tell him I was here and that next time he better be too." I flipped the coaster toward her.
"Oh sure." She looked at it, then went over to speak to a older dude in a ratty turtleneck and plaid knit coat sitting on a corner stool. I drove around for a while, half looking for a couple of other Gs who owed me some dough. As the sun went down, I wound up in Watts, dropping by Kelrue Cumming's grandmother's house on 107th near Santa Ana. When he didn't want to be found, that's where he'd go. He'd have heard of me getting the ax again and would know I'd want another ring or two to tide me over.
"No, no, Mr. Zelmont," his granny said through a crack in the doorway of her shack, "Kelrue hasn't been around much, you see?"
"Can I leave him a note?" Did I sound innocent enough?
"I'm not so old I can't remember, Mr. Zelmont." Granny's voice cracked. Kelrue was probably crouching down in a back room.
Putting some weight on the door, I said, "This won't take but a minute."
"Please, we don't want no trouble. But I got me what they call a panic button inside the door here, Mr. Zelmont. The city council done gave' em out to us senior citizens in a safe streets program, yes sir."
Fuck. I could get the door open and knock her down before she could reach that button. If there was one. I pushed my weight against the door some more. "It'll be over before you know it, grandma. Kelrue has a contract he has to honor."
"Good Jesus."
I was almost inside when a pair of high beams suddenly flashed on, catching me in the glare. The car had driven up quick across the lawn. A door opened and slammed. I didn't need to be John Shaft to know who it was.
"Prone out on the lawn, Zelmont." Fahrar stood to one side of the car, the lights barely outlining his form. I was sure he had his gun pointed at me.
"This ain't none of your concern, cop."
"You gone simple? Do what I tell you and step away from the citizen."
Grandma made a face at me. "Serves you right for being so evil."
I could have popped her but that would give Fahrar an excuse to shoot me. ''Don't you and your fat grandson get too cozy, old lady I'm coming back.''
That took some of the vinegar out of her. Fahrar was close, his nine pointed at my head. "Do as I told you." He grabbed me, pulling on my arm. Then he pushed the muzzle of the automatic against my cheek, digging it in hard. "Let's go."
He manhandled me down onto the grass, kicking at the back of my legs with his feet. I got down on my knees and he thumped me in the middle of my back with the butt of his gun. "Prone, motherfuckah."
I turned my head and saw those crazy eyes of his were full of anger. I went face down, and he patted me all over. Then he made me put my hands behind my back and he cuffed them.
"Get up."
I did. Granny and a couple of her neighbors were watching the show. Then Fahrar marched me to his car and told me to sit in the passenger side. He got in on the driver's side. There was a prisoner bar on the dash and he clinked the short chain on it to the cuffs. He reversed the car and we took off.
"You ain't got nothing, Fahrar. I didn't touch the old lady and she didn't squawk." He wasn't heading down 108th where the station was. But come to think of it, Fahrar didn't work the Watts precinct anyway. "How'd you find me?"
His fucked-up hat was pressed tight against his head. "When I heard you got cut, I knew you'd be desperate for money. I'd developed a list of the losers who owe you dough." He grinned at me, his yellow eye giving me a shiver.
"You done lost your mind, boy."
"I got your boy, Zelmont."
He pulled his Toronado under where the 105 and 110 freeways cross, near Figueroa and 111th. Overhead the cars and trucks went by Down where we were there was nothing but dark shadows and the smell of gas and trash. Fahrar got out, leaving me chained to the bar. He came around the back of the car and opened the passenger door. Fahrar stuck the gun against my nose.
"You bad now?"
"You better"
"Shut up," he yelled, slapping me with the gun.
"Fuck you, punk. Let me loose and let's see how hard you are."
His answer was to poke the side of my face with his nine again. "I could run you in on assault for harassing the old lady."
"I didn't assault anybody, clown. You the one doing the assaulting."
He backed up, the gun still out toward me. "You're going to own up for once, Zelmont."
I screamed, "You gonna shoot me, Fahrar? You didn't even know Davida."
"It's not about her, asshole." He reached in and hit me with the gat again. I could feel blood on the side of my nose.
The end of that gun was the only thing in my world. I didn't hear the cars going by above us or my own breathing. It was just the gun and nothing else. He undid the chain and pulled me out, throwing me to my knees in the dirt.
"Your time's coming." He walked a wide circle around me, keeping out of reach. Then he got back in his car and took off, leaving me handcuffed and dirty.
"Let me loose, you high yella bitch," I hollered into the cloud of dust his wheels kicked up in my face. His tail lights disappeared into the darkness. I got to my feet, one of my knees skinned. Like an idiot I strained against the handcuffs, knowing they weren't going to break apart.
It was getting cold, and with only a shirt and no jacket I needed to get moving just to stay warm. I walked around under the freeway looking for something to get myself loose. Off to one side there was a lumpy shape. I walked over there. It was a homeless man sleeping on a ragged bunch of towels, his shopping cart near him. It was hard, but I did my best to dig through his junk in the cart. I wasn't in no mood to be delicate, and the noise woke him up.
"Say, man, you better get away." He sat up, stink coming off him like a backed-up toilet.
"Sit down," I kicked him in the chest, not too hard, but hard enough so he got the message.
"I'll cut you."
"You best sit the fuck down." I kept moving his junk around, trying to watch him too in case he wasn't bullshitting about having a blade. But all he had in the cart was broken plastic toys, pieces of faucets, used pens, hunks of Styrofoam, and other crap. There was nothing of use to me, or anybody else for that matter.
I left the cat and his sad life and went out on the sidewalk. I was shivering and probably looked like a nut to anybody passing by. I had to walk with my arms down in front of me to try and hide the cuffs. A Mexican woman with a basket of laundry on her head was coming at me from the other direction. She must have seen the cuffs 'cause she cut across the street in a hurry, almost getting run over by a pick-up truck.
At Imperial and Flower there was a filling station with a working phone on the east end of the lot. I managed to turn my pocket inside out, spilling out a few coins. A lowered Chevy Caprice rolled by, the eight-ballers inside scoping me out. They must have figured me for a mark, a drunk mark. I was down on my knees picking up the coins. The car came onto the lot, a Mack 10 number thumpin' on the car's speakers.