Drive Me Crazy (14 page)

I went to Wolf’s desk, snatched up a pen to use today, then closed his door behind me.

 

 

Two more co-workers had shown up, both milling around before they grabbed a sedan. Margaret Richburg was one of them. She was middle-aged, a retired schoolteacher, the driving thing being her supplemental income. Portly woman with graying hair and a warm disposition. Like everybody else, she asked about my head wound. I gave vague answers and moved on.

Margaret said, “I see Wolf pulled me from picking up Thomas Marcus Freeman.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Oh, please. I drove that asshole last year.”

“That bad?”

“Made me want to run off the road.”

“What this cat Freeman do?”

“God, had me picking up women as soon as I dropped one off. Even wanted to go by a swinger’s place up in the valley. Some place he’d heard about in Sherman Oaks. Houghmandy or something like that.”

“You’re talking about Houghmagandy.”

“Figured you would know.”

“Don’t hate. Houghmagandy means fornication in ... forgot the language.”

“That’s the place, smart-ass.”

I laughed. “Swinging. I heard that. What, he a movie star or a rapper?”

“Neither. Writer.”

“Songwriter? Screenplays? Bad checks? What does he write?”

“Books. He’s supposed to be one hot ticket.”

“I can handle him. S‘pose to be a short day. Pick ’em up. Drop ‘em off.”

All of us chatted, then I peeped over Sid’s shoulder on my way out. His screen still showed six cars resting in the lot. When I made it to the garage, there were still only five.

An hour later I was at LAX, terminal five, waiting next to a column at the bottom of the escalators that led to baggage claim for Delta Airlines, Smarte Carte at my side. My head ached. My mind was stuck on what I’d gone through last night. Hoped I wasn’t bleeding. Hoped I didn’t have to break down and go to urgent care and get sewn up. Was hoping a lot.

It was a busy day, level orange alert.

A news van from KCOP pulled up curbside. Since I doubted if Bin Laden was flying in, somebody like Beyoncé or Halle Berry had to be rolling through. With my head hurting, I didn’t give a care if Jesus had come back and was being escorted by Elvis, Martin, and Malcolm.

A crowd came down the escalator. I put my sign up.

A woman on the crowded escalator caught my eye. She owned the complexion of chocolate caramel Ghirardelli and had well-defined facial features, all small and keen. Long legs, short torso, those legs hidden behind faded jeans. A long-sleeved blouse that showed some cleavage, comfortable and sexy in a conformist way. Long hair in a single braid. Coming down like an angel from heaven. Nobody noticed her. It was almost like she was invisible.

She glanced at me, caught my eyes for no longer than a heartbeat, shifted like she felt a wave of heat down below, then looked away from me.

On her marriage finger she wore a rock. Her ring sparkled like old money, ski trips in Canada, and vacations in the Hamptons. My eyes went down, took in her shoes. They were expensive, but they were boxy, the kind of kicks you wore when you wanted to be unnoticed.

She moved on by, stopped not too far away from me.

Any other day I might’ve made a subtle play for her. Might’ve handed her a business card, my cellular number circled in red. Not today. That wasn’t my disposition.

About two minutes went by. A dark-skinned brother appeared. Medium build. Five-seven, five-eight at the most. He sported a thin goatee and a unibrow that reminded me of old-school crooner Al B. Sure! Three dimes and a quarter made up his entourage: two black, two white, all had carry-on luggage. He was talking to them and signing their books like he was a literary rock star. I raised my sign, THOMAS FREEMAN printed in block letters.

The dark-skinned brother nodded, then went back to his fan club.

I tore my sign in half.

The client had on Levi‘s, Nikes, and a white T-shirt that read TRUTH IS STRONGER THAN LIES in red lettering, and
WWW.THOMASMARCUSFREEMAN.COM
right below that in black, red, and green letters. And he had a silver briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist. If he had been suited up, I would’ve thought he was CIA carrying top secret documents.

I met him at the bottom of the escalator, smiled and said, “Mr. Freeman?”

He raised a finger, waggled it in my face. “It’s
Freeeeeee-Man.”

Asshole pronounced his last name like it was two words. Said
Freeeeeee-Man
like the Emancipation Proclamation was written for him and the rest of us were still in shackles.

My lips went up into a bullshit smile, the kind that hid thoughts.

He asked, “They send a stretch limo?”

“Sedan.”

“What? You gotta be joking.”

The news crew came inside. The reporter was a thin high-yellow sister, the kind L.A. employed. She wasn’t attractive. Thin plus high-yellow wasn’t an equation for beauty. She had a book in her hand, Freeman’s solemn picture on the back. I got out of the way, let them talk, overheard them telling Freeman that they were almost ready to tape. Freeman pulled out a small mirror, checked his teeth, wiped that unibrow, got ready to snag his fifteen minutes of fame.

Again, I moved out of the way, checking my watch. I had to get out of here. Had to try and come up with that earnest money. Or maybe I should just have hurried upstairs with the little cash I had and bought a one-way ticket to the farthest destination I could afford.

But a man never ran from his problems. Reverend Daddy taught us that. He used to make me and Rufus hit the heavy bag for hours. He made us do all kinds of manual labor, which was why I was decent with fixing cars and a pretty good handyman. He did that to give us a strong backbone, but I think he was harder than most because of Rufus. He figured being a slave master would make men out of both of us. Momma never stopped him from his heavy-handed disciplinary ways. She looked at her baby boy and hoped for the same thing.

I took another hard breath when the reporter addressed Freeman. “They are boycotting you at the independents here in Los Angeles, and there was an incident in St. Louis—”

“They should boycott Jayson Blair, the man who set
real
writers back a hundred years.”

My cellular rang. I pulled it out. The caller-ID read OUT OF AREA.

I didn’t answer.

People bumped into me. Digital cameras came out of nowhere. The paparazzi started flashing. Crowds were addicted to celebrity, even if they didn’t know who the celebrity was.

My cellular rang again. Same OUT OF AREA caller.

I answered by saying my name. “Driver.”

A soft voice. “What happened to your head?”

I paused, held in my urge to bark and curse. “Who is this?

“Why are you agnostic?”

I paused. “Arizona?”

“You look good in your suit. Like female Viagra.”

I looked around. People were coming from all directions. No Arizona. Airport noise—chatter, blowing horns, rumbling planes, car engines—came through the phone on her end.

“Well, Mr. Freeman.”

“It’s Freeeeeee-man.”

“Let’s focus on your career. Boycotts in Detroit, pretty much the same all over the country because, now that you’re on the fast track, you no longer go to the black bookstores.”

I turned around, searched the escalator, curbside, then looked through the crowd again.

Arizona said, “Don’t break your neck. You won’t see me until I need to be seen.”

“You’re here at LAX? What, you leaving town?”

Arizona answered with, “Frank Sinatra keeps looking at you.”

“Frank?”

“That’s good. That’s a tell.”

“Who keeps looking at me?”

“I’ll be in touch.”

She hung up.

“Get your facts straight. I do African-American stores across the country, the ones who have it together. And yes, I’ve had senseless boycotts in St. Louis ... death threats in Detroit ...”

“How do you respond to that?”

People started to crowd me in. Luggage ran over my shoes. People stared at me like I was in their space. Wasn’t in that kind of mood right now, not for strangers to keep stepping on my toes. Was about ready to start throwing elbows and beating motherfuckers down.

I tried to move away from the media circus. Couldn’t. Crowd was too unmoving. The more people stopped, the louder Freeman talked. The louder he talked, the more people stopped.

“When I go to
black
bookstores,
black
people don’t show up. They are in the white-owned establishments sipping on caffe Ameri- canos and caramel macchiatos with an extra shot of espresso. They sold out. How do I have the power to make African-Americans shop in African-American stores? Tell me how to redirect my people and we’ll both know.”

I made it to the edge of the crowd. Looked around. Wall-to-wall, no sign of Arizona.

Freeman jumped dramatic, looked deep into the camera. “I’m the new black aesthetic. My next book,
Truth Be Told,
the one I keep locked on my wrist at all times, when it drops this summer, black prose, as we know it, will change forever. I’m about to revolutionize literature.”

“Speaking of
Truth Be Told,
the rumor is you received a million-dollar advance on a book no one has ever seen. That’s rare, especially for an African-American.”

“Especially when African-American income is up and book buying is down.”

“Exactly. Do you think that puts pressure—”

“No one sees my work until I’m ready for it to be seen.”

“We’re almost done. I have to admit that the first book I read from you,
Pool Tables and Politics,
bordered on tedious philosophizing and navel-gazing.”

Freeman grunted like he’d been mule-kicked in his gut.

She went on, “I refused to read anything from you, until
Dawning of Ignorance.
I loved it. Your writing has matured.
Dawning of Ignorance
is so much better than your previous, not dismissive, and based on the reviews on Web sites like
Amazon.com
you’ve redeemed your—”

Freeman made a pharaoh-esque gesture and just like that he was done, walked away from the camera, went to his fans, whipped out a silver pen and started signing autographs.

The camera was still on Freeman, the reporter left hanging like strange fruit.

Somebody tapped my shoulder. I jumped. Damn nerves were shot. I turned around and expected to see Arizona, but I looked right into the face of the woman I’d seen on the escalator. She’d taken her shades off. Her eyes caught me off guard. Not the kind of eyes I expected to see on a woman with a complexion close to mine. They were deep blue, beautiful and disturbing all at once.

She had a book in her hand. Freeman’s tight-lipped expression ate up the back cover.

I asked, “You trying to get your book signed?”

She shook her head. “I’m with Thomas Marcus.”

“You’re his manager ... publicist?”

Her voice was professional, but still small, timid. “His fiancée.”

A rock weighed down her left hand, but I never assumed. More than once I’d picked up a client, then had to wait for his mistress. Same for the women. Wasn’t my job to question. All I knew was whether they squatted in South Central or the South of France, they were all players.

She pushed her lips up into a jet-lagged smile. “Come with me.”

She diverted her eyes, never made eye contact, her expression uneasy. She turned around, made her way toward baggage claim. My knee ached from where I’d gone down on it last night. She hurried away from the media like a woman running away from the source of a disease. I had to struggle to keep up with her fragrance, the scents of expensive perfume and top-shelf vodka.

She handed me a sheet of paper. Their itinerary. Nobody had told me about an itinerary.

I said, “I thought he was going straight to his hotel?”

“He wants to sign stock at these bookshops.”

“Well, in traffic this could take all day.”

“We have time.”

But I didn’t.

She pointed out a large, hard-case Samsonite and two smaller suitcases. The Samsonite felt like it had a dead fat man inside and the smaller suitcases had to be loaded with bricks. Freeman and his woman had packed like they were going on a yearlong safari in the Serengeti.

I grunted and loaded the Smarte Carte, lower back aching from tossing and turning on Panther’s futon. Freeman’s woman led me through the crowd, me feeling a little self-conscious and still struggling with this pain behind my ear, her walk like straight-ahead jazz.

She asked, “Our car ... ?”

“In the structure across the street. I’ll bring the car curbside.”

“Brilliant. That would be lovely.”

Without looking my way, she shot me an indifferent hand gesture. It was the kind of dismissive hand movement that reminded me there were two kinds of people in this world: those who rode in the backseat, and those who opened the doors so people could ride in the backseat.

My cellular rang again while I was caught at the crosswalk. Pasquale’s name popped up. That meant it was my crown of thorns. Hadn’t talked to Rufus two days in a row in a long time.

Rufus coughed. “You’re at the airport with Thomas Marcus Freeman.”

He sounded lethargic, like he was down, having a bad morning health-wise. I didn’t ask for any bad news. Either way he had my full attention. I asked, “How you know that?”

“He was just on the news. You were in the background. Straighten your tie.”

“Damn.”

“How’s your head?”

“Hurting.”

“I was reading
Dawning of Ignorance
last night.”

“Yeah. Knew that book sounded familiar. It’s not a ... a ...”