Drive Me Crazy (25 page)

“What?”

“Paid me, but I didn’t do it.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“That’s why she has those motherfuckers after me.”

I waited for her to ask me what kind of man I was. If she did, I didn’t have an answer. Saw a thousand images in my mind, the strongest being that memory of me, Reverend Daddy, and Rufus, all of us in that alley, Rufus’s shaky hand pulling the trigger on that gun.

Panther stuttered her words, “How she know we ... ?”

“Don’t know. She told me that if I came her way, I’d be dead before I hit Wilshire.”

Panther swallowed hard. Hate became fear. LAPD had a way of making that happen.

Her voice owned some tremble, she asked, “Those guns I gave you ... in your backpack?”

My jaw clenched, teeth gritted. All that and a hard breath was my answer. Somewhere along the line my ride had been tagged with a GPS. Looked like Panther’s had been tagged too. But Sid Levine had only seen one dot moving around in Manhattan Beach. Mine. Had to be mine because Lisa had tracked me all over the city. That was how Lisa knew I was up in the valley. Just don’t know when she would’ve tagged Panther.

I asked Panther, “You have a record?”

“Aggravated assault. Did a few days. Married man’s wife came down acting crazy and I had to break her off proper. She filed a restraining order on me after that.”

I let her words settle a moment before I said, “I’ll claim the burners.”

She ran her hands over her wet clothes, thinking. “Driver, you have a felony.”

I took a breath, told her, “You got ‘em for me.”

She inhaled, let it out slow. “My burner is in my backpack too.”

“Why do you have a gun?”

“Long story. Look at this shit. My damn eye feels like it’s the size of a grapefruit. I’m soaking wet.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Great. Catching a damn cold.”

My mind kept doing inventory. Three guns. Over three thousand resting in my pockets. Panther had a bag filled with stripper clothes, her pockets filled with smoky dollar bills.

Two more police cars came out of nowhere, sirens blaring. Expected to see half of LAPD show up for Rodney King, The Sequel. Waited for them to appear like roaches running toward sugar. Flashing lights lit up the night. One police car was in front of us. One behind us.

They killed their sirens but left their lights flashing.

We sat like that for twenty minutes. Panther shivered. Kept wiping her eyes and nose.

The men who were paid to protect and serve just sat there, harassed us with silence.

My cellular rang. Lisa’s number on caller-ID. I answered.

She said, “Think twice.”

The connection broke on her end.

The motorcycle officer loosened his gun holster, crept up to the window. He tapped the glass. Panther turned the key so she could get power to let the window down.

He looked at me, at her, then asked both of us, “Is there a problem?”

Panther shivered and shook her head, answered, her tone nervous, “No problem, officer.”

Her voice had never sounded so Southern. Never imagined her being afraid or anything.

The officer went back to his motorcycle.

The other officers drove away.

Over the P.A. system he told us to have a nice evening.

Panther started her ride, made a U-turn at the first legal spot she found.

The motorcycle officer U-turned too, followed us back to Pico Boulevard.

Then he zoomed by us, went to find new people to harass.

All I could hear was our hearts beating, not in sync.

We landed miles away on a rugged strip of Crenshaw Boulevard, a few blocks shy of El Camino College in the city named Torrance. A working woman’s alley. Motel row. Good place to hide out with people who didn’t want to be known, people who didn’t want to be found.

We hav cabl and clean sh ets

The motel’s ragged sign had chipped black letters; two in its name missing, the phone number the only thing complete. I took out my cellular, put a finger over my ear to block out the never-ending sound of the sirens in the distance, dialed the front desk, asked the accented lady that answered if they had any vacancies. They did. Asked if they took cash. They did.

I told her I had it, but Panther pushed me a fistful of smoky dollar bills.

I told her, “Look, I’ll straighten this out, hit you back for the damage she did.”

Her silence told me she didn’t want anything from me. Just wanted me out of her car.

I asked, “This good-bye?”

No response.

I grabbed my stuff, went inside and made up a name for a room, John Kerry. The Iranian lady behind the bulletproof Plexiglas hardly looked up, asked me how many hours I needed the spot, then took my forty dollars, counted the money, tossed it in a drawer, handed me a door key.

A thin-legged, heavy-chested white girl with matted black hair was leading a young Spanish man upstairs. He had a potbelly, sported a military haircut. She had an awkward shape, like two straws stuck in a grapefruit, two plums and an orange resting on top of that. Over the top of his dark shades, military man kept peeping to see who was watching him. He saw me and stutter-stepped, regrouped, then picked up his pace. She didn’t care who saw or heard her.

She was explaining to her customer, “No booty love. I don’t do that or half-and-half.”

“What if I pay extra?”

“How much extra?”

Everybody had a price. As she passed her eyes went up and down my frame.

I shook my head, not interested.

Sirens filled the air, a slew of police cars wailing down the boulevard. A ghetto bird was flying about eight blacks away, shining its lights down on the brown- and black-skinned people.

Fifty years back this area used to be Black Hollywood. A few miles over, Central Avenue had jazz clubs on every corner. Nat “King” Cole, Sarah Vaughn, and Josephine Baker walked these streets.
American Idol
couldn’t hold a blowtorch to the entertainers on this side of town. Reverend Daddy told me and Rufus that all of this fizzled out after the war. The recession. Riots. Their heaven deteriorated into our hell. Broken neon signs. Pimpville, USA. Now they could drop a nuclear bomb on this part of town and barely do ten bucks in damage.

Thought Panther was bailing on me, but she parked across from the room. I stood where I was, looking at her. She sat there a moment, still scowling at me, before she shook her head and got out. She hit her alarm and hurried up the walkway, head down my way, dodging broken bottles that used to hold liquid crack, bona fide syringes, and used condoms. She was shivering, black-and-white Adidas gym bag over her right shoulder, her purse over her left.

She followed me without talking, not a word as I used the passkey and opened the door.

The room looked ghetto-fresh. Stale air was loitering like unpleasant thoughts. I pulled back the golden covers, checked the sheets. The musty covers looked newer than anything else in this room. The toilet had a paper strip across the seat, traces of a harsh cleanser still floating in the water. A Bible that had another hotel’s engraving was on the scratched veneer dresser.

After I closed the shades and cranked on the rattling heat unit, I took the guns out of the backpack, left them in reach on the nightstand. Panther went out the door and came back with a bucket of ice, hit the bathroom and ran a bathtub of hot water. I went in behind her. She ignored me. I pulled her wet sweats off her. She was resistant and frowned at me with sharp eyes.

I looked at her eye. Swollen. No serious damage. She cringed and frowned. Bruises like that hurt a lot more than she let on. She was a champ. Hardly squirmed. Soft body with a high tolerance for pain. Made me wonder about her life, how many fights she’d been in.

I said, “Let’s run you to the emergency room at Daniel Freeman.”

She shook her head, moved my hand away, got in the tub, sank down as low as she could.

She closed her eyes and muted her ears to anything I did or said.

After I washed her down I wrapped one of the paper-thin towels around her and walked her to the bed. Thought about Sade for a moment, how she had demanded top-shelf sheets to lay her ass on. Must be nice. I undressed and took a warm shower. When I finished Panther was under the covers, on her stomach. Wasn’t sure if she was asleep. Then I heard her light snores.

I dialed my brother’s number. Had to make sure he was okay. No answer.

I paced the floor.

The sounds of a too-squeaky bed with a loose headboard wormed its way through the walls. Moans and bangs. They were above us creating an earthquake. Lasted all of two minutes. Sounded like they were in the final sprint of a long jog. Somebody laughed and walked across the room at a drunken pace. The toilet flushed. Laughter. Footsteps went back across the room. Bed creaked under their weight. Ten minutes later another earthquake.

I turned the television on. Looked for C-SPAN. Surfed up on a rerun from Pasquale’s television show. He was in syndication. Big bucks. Watched all the women act like they were swooning over him for two seconds before I shook my head and went back to surfing. Found C-SPAN. Saw they were doing book events, something they’d recorded up in Harlem last summer. Kept the volume down low. Was gonna wait to see what Freeman had to say.

Sade and Freeman. Lounging in a seven-hundred-dollar-a-night suite.

Arizona and the pickpocket. They stayed on my mind, hope to the hopeless.

Three thousand in my pocket. Twelve large away from easing this headache.

Looked at Panther. Her place had been trashed. My sins had followed me. If she had been home when the bullyboys came through, never know how this shit would’ve gone down.

I dialed Rufus’s number one more time. Had to check on him. Would’ve gone by there but I’d become a black cat and didn’t need to cross anybody else’s path, not if I didn’t have to.

Got the answering machine again.

I got in the bed next to Panther. Didn’t touch her. Wanted to stay up but was so tired I had to close my eyes. Put a pillow over my head to smother out the pleasure squeaking down on me. The heater hummed its asthmatic lullaby. Eyelids weighed fifty pounds each. Fought the sandman as long as I could. Sleep found me in two groans and three deep breaths.

A chill covered me, sent me to a cold and unfriendly place where blacks, whites, Asians, and Latinos all wore prison blues and stayed segregated. Remembered this motherfucker coming at me. Testing me. Move. Strike. Move. Move again. My fist pile-driving into his jaw, leaving it broken. Then ending up in the Adjustment Center, lip busted, ear bleeding, fists swollen. Staying in the hole so long I thought I was going crazy.

Heard something and jerked awake. Panther was sitting on the bed, yoga style, watching me. When I pushed up on my elbows, I saw she had her gun resting between her legs.

A broken voice came to me, said, “I’m always attracted to the last kinda guy I need to be attracted to. Caught feelings. That’s a big no-no. See where this got me? This is screwed up.”

Panther was finally talking, soft and Southern. Her words thick and emotional.

“Dammit, Driver. Been worried about you all day. Called you over and over.”

Said the first thing that came to my mind. “Didn’t know you carried a gun.”

“Of course I have a gun. I’ve
always
had a gun. My daddy made sure we had guns.”

She moved her gun to the nightstand, added it to my collection, rocked, shook her head over and over, touched her wounded eye, pulled a pillow into her lap, stared at the wall.

I asked, “You ... what you need me to do?”

“Oh, trust me. You’ve done more than enough. Now I’m naked and homeless.”

“Okay, that was a stupid question.”

Laughter from upstairs. Footsteps across the room. Toilet flushed.

Panther snapped, “What, you don’t know how to return a phone call?”

“Stop nagging.”

“I called you all day. Don’t you know how to call people back?”

“Stop hitting me with that pillow, Panther.”

“I’m so damn mad at you.”

“Stop beating ... chill out with the pillow.”

“You’re arrogant. Inconsiderate. Mean. Selfish.”

“Stop. I’m tired, dammit.”

“I was scared for you, missed you a lot today.”

“Stop hitting me. Been through enough shit.”

I jumped up. She threw the pillow at me. I slapped it down. She threw the other pillow.

I said, “That’s your last time hitting me with a pillow.”

“Whatever.”

I got back on the bed, the hard mattress squeaking under my weight. She leaned up against me. I stroked her hair, touched her face. She moved my hand away from her eye and relaxed her head on my chest. We lay there, deep in thought, comforting each other. She started kissing my fingers. I took her hand, did the same, kissed her fingers and her hand, moved my fingers over her full lips, over the curves in her baby smooth skin, over her petite breasts, down over her small waist to her backside, touched and appreciated the fullness of that Southern gal.

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “Heifer did the same to your place, huh?”

“Yeah. Destroyed damn near everything I own. Bricked my car.”

“Well, me and that psycho heifer, we have some personal issues now.”

I sat on her words, her attitude, her anger.

Another earthquake started over my head. Somebody was up there long stroking, taking his balls to the wall over and over, killing it like crazy. Imagined somebody as fine as Halle Berry was up there.

Panther went to the bathroom, blew her nose, washed her hands, came back, got under the covers, took a few hard breaths. “Perverts upstairs are doing the damn thing big time.”

“You picked this spot.”