Drive Me Crazy (29 page)

“Will that get your ass to back off for a minute?”

“Penalties and interest accrue all day. Every second of every minute.”

It took all I had to not backhand her ass right then. She owed me for the damage she had done to me, the damage she had done to Panther. I wanted to slap her down into the pavement, but all I could do was shake my head, laugh a bit, push my heavy lips up into a sardonic smile.

I asked, “Until I get half, what can I do to make this better?”

A pause rested between us.

She said, almost in a whisper, “Oh. Now you want to fuck me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

I stayed strong. Felt like I was facing a nigga on the yard. She was just as bad, just as relentless. I told her, my tone hard, “Back off. I’ll get you your money.”

“That’s sounds very Christian. Now you have integrity, a man of your word.”

“Save the Flip Wilson routine. I’ll get your fucking money.”

“You ignored me. Rejected me. Insulted me. Assaulted me. Stole from me. Taunted me every day. You’ve earned this. How many times did I tell you that I loved you, Playa?”

People looked our way. Didn’t know how long they had been feeling our heat.

I took her by her arm, pulled her toward the elevator. People were getting off as we got on. I pushed the button for P6, the lowest level, six floors below surface level, one above hell.

The door closed, left us in a space the size of a coffin.

Lisa jerked away from me, moved to the far side of the elevator. “Don’t believe you grabbed me. You don’t put your hands on me, not like that.”

“You pulled a gun on me.”

“I didn’t touch you.”

“You busted my head with a fucking can.”

“And you kicked me out of your apartment, manhandled me, assaulted me, pushed me around like I was one of your two-bit whores, then ... nothing. Not going to say it.”

I held my tongue. Reasoning with her was like giving CPR to a corpse. I don’t think the prefrontal cortex of her brain had fully developed. But she had me in a corner. She had sucked me into her game. So maybe my own prefrontal cortex had some developing to do.

The elevator door opened. Stale air greeted us. Level six was the least used, hardly any cars came down this far. Nothing was down here but cold concrete, dust, and our echoes.

I took a few steps out, kept my eyes on Lisa and put some space between us, looked around, made sure this wasn’t a setup, saw nobody else.

I asked her, “Why the hell you call me? Why you wanna meet?”

I expected her to keep going off, talking crazy, maybe say something else about last night, about the police hemming me and Panther up on Crenshaw. Or about us riding out and looking for her bullyboys. But Lisa shrugged, her stance softened, voice turned tender, voice lost all of its nastiness.

She spoke in a soft voice. “Just wanted to see you.”

“See me? For what?”

She sucked on her bottom lip, shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“I miss you, Driver. I hate for us to be like this. I really do.”

I said, “What, now you want to fuck me?”

“This isn’t about sex, Driver. For me this is way deeper. Way, way deeper.”

“Why won’t you back off? You’re taking this too far.”

“You’re my
sancho
, and I’m your
jeva.
Just your
jeva.
I wanted us to be more.”

Silence eased down like a feather, settled between two fornica tors. Something within her reached inside me. Something that was undeniable.

She said, “Been ... been almost six months since we’ve been together.”

“I know. Almost six months since my momma died.”

Silence revisited us.

I asked, “Why did you pick me, Lisa?”

“I didn’t pick you. We met. We had the right energy. I’m old school. We would’ve been bonded through our crime. I would’ve been Bonnie to your Clyde. Loyal to you.”

“You make it sound like you asked me to wash your car. You asked me to kill for you.”

“For us. It was for us.”

“Be real, Lisa. The mariticide ...”

“No big words, please. Not now. I’m not a friggin’ crossword puzzle.”

“Killing your husband, that was for your benefit.”

“Would’ve reciprocated, killed someone for you, at no charge.”

“I’m supposed to believe that.”

“Have I ever deceived you? I loved you. Fucked you any way you wanted to get fucked. I sucked your dick the way you liked it sucked. I fucking fucked you the way I’ll never fuck my fucking husband. I loved you. I dressed you up. Made sure you were well dressed, well fed.”

We paused. Her emotions were like both fire and ice. They ran through me, froze the parts of me that her flames couldn’t turn to embers, did that all the way down to my marrow.

I asked, “What do you want now?”

“Don’t know. One minute I want to love you, the next I want you to ... to not exist.”

Another moment passed. A moment that was as heavy and graceful as an elephant.

“I’ll get your money. Call your boys off, Lisa.”

“I’m tired of being fucked over and lied to. Wolf lied to me. What kind of man would get a vasectomy and not tell his wife? Shit like that fucks with a woman’s head. I’m forty. I wanted kids.” Her voice crackled, flames rose behind her eyes. “Makes a woman mad enough to kill her husband. Or get him killed.”

I shifted, took a hard breath, rubbed my eyes.

She asked, “Am I boring you?”

“Look, I’m ... I’m tired. Tired as hell.”

“Now you know how I’ve felt the last six months. You think I’ve slept at night?”

“You’re stalking me. Breaking in my place.”

“That’s how I feel every day you walk into Wolf’s business. In my business. Disrespected. Like you’re stalking me. Like I’m being bur glarized. Not a good feeling, huh?”

I opened and closed my hands. “Call your boys off.”

“You played me for a fool. Every man I’ve ever met, same thing. I’m tired of motherfuckers taking me for granted and walking over me. Both of those perpetrators I shot and killed, they did the same thing. They looked at me, took me for granted. I showed them.”

“Lisa. Call. Your. Boys. Off.”

In a soft voice she asked, “Why did you put your dick in me? Why did you make me feel like this then just throw me away? Be honest. I won’t hold it against you. I just want to know.”

Silence and love turned inside out, heated the air, made it hard to breathe.

She wanted a cut-and-dried answer when that kind of answer was out of season. An old sermon came to my mind, saw Reverend Daddy in the pulpit. His voice came out of my body, sudden and strong, said, “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”

“From a non-believer. How sacrilegious.”

My answer didn’t matter. Nothing I said was going to make a difference, nothing I said would give her sanity. I was the poster child for every man who had done her any injustice.

“Lisa, I need your help on this. I’ll admit I was wrong from the start. Wrong for having an affair, wrong to think I could kill a man. Wrong to take your damn money. Wrong to spend it, no matter what happened to my family. Now back off and I’ll get you all of your money.”

“You’re not in charge.
” She changed just like that, gave me that police officer’s tone, the eyes of a spoiled mayor’s kid. “I’m in charge, dammit. I back off when I’m ready to back off.”

She turned to walk away. I grabbed her, spun her around. Her hand lashed out, slapped my face three, maybe four times. Like I did fools in days gone by, I wanted to let my fist cannon my frustration into her face. But anger took over and my big hands attacked her little throat before I realized what I was doing. Too far gone to turn back now. Had crossed that line. Couldn’t let her go. I choked her. Just like in my daydreams and nightmares. I squeezed harder. Her eyes widened. Never seen anybody look that surprised. Wished we were closer to a concrete column, wanted to bang some sense into her head until blood ran like a river.

She tried to hit me again, her short and toned arms swung at me, fingers clawed at me, then her face filled with panic. Lisa struggled for her purse, wrestled with me and tried to get her hands inside her handbag. I knew what she was reaching for, saw the handle of that Glock as I shook her up, shook her hard enough to loosen her brain, choked her until she couldn’t breathe.

Her face turned shades of red. The disbelief in her eyes turned to fear, that fear broken down into small pieces of panic, panic that told her that
sancho-jeva
shit was a done deal, that I was going to kill her before she had a chance to kill me. Her strength faded, arms fell away, gave up trying to get her hand in her bag, gagged, scratched at my hands, weak scratching.

She was on the express train, heading to the other side of West Hell.

I glowered in Lisa’s eyes. She was slipping into the shadow of the valley of death. No goodness or mercy following her. I could taketh away. Could be free inside a minute.

She stopped fighting, stared me in my eyes, her eyes glazed over with death.

I saw my brother pulling that trigger, heard that click. Rufus did it begrudgingly, but he did it. I let Lisa go all of a sudden, moved my hands like her neck was on fire and I’d been burned, let her go and stumbled away, grunting over and over, hands tingling, eyes wide.

She collapsed against a column, then doubled over, choking and spitting. She wheezed awhile before she could stand up straight. One of her shoes had come off during her struggle to stay alive. She went and picked up her shoe, had a coughing fit, dropped the shoe, picked it up.

I was ready for her to come at me hard. Shoe in one hand, the other hand on her neck, her chest rising and falling, she limped around in a circle like a wounded dog, sweat covering her face. Her hair came undone, fell, framed her anger. She moved hair from her eyes and scowled at me. She moved in circles, favoring the leg with the shoe, that shoe making one leg three inches longer than the other, eyes glazed, disoriented, found her purse, pulled out her Glock.

She bounced death against her leg. She caught her breath, looked around, thinking, maybe remembering that people had just seen us in a heated conversation in the lower lobby, considered her alibi, maybe even imagining how a gun’s report would echo like thunder in this hollow chamber, how the sounds might carry up level after level, maybe resound all the way to the lobby, shook her head as if she’d come to some conclusion, then stuffed her Glock back in her bag and limped away, each step backward, pushed the button on the elevator.

We stared at each other until the elevator door opened. She limped on, coughing, gagging, back bent, rubbing at the fingerprints and bruises I’d left staining her neck.

She stared at me, mouth open, that disbelief still in her eyes, like I had been the crazy one in this institution of infidelity. I expected her to get real nasty, to curse and shout out threat after threat, maybe even take a shot at me before she vanished. She looked hurt. Vulnerable.

She spoke simply, her tone political, said, “You just activated the acceleration clause.”

The elevator door closed.

My reflection faced me in the steel door, the image of madness.

My hard breathing echoed.

Sweat grew on my face, ran down my neck, stained my crisp white collar.

The wound behind my ear double-timed, throbbed to life, the beat of an African drum.

I snarled, straightened my cuff links and silk tie, did the same with my Italian suit.

Wiped down my shoes. Frowned at the new scuff marks on the heels.

Adjusted my cuff links.

Then I wiped my mouth, faced my reflection again.

I took a step. Stopped. Looked up and around.

Cameras.

Had to be security cameras down here. More than likely security wasn’t watching them, too busy eating a ham sandwich and reading the sports section of the
L.A. Times,
but they had tape rolling. Big Brother was always watching, if only with one electronic eye.

I got on the elevator.

Headed through the hotel, expecting security to bum rush me.

Nothing happened.

Left the hotel, took hard steps toward work, fifty-degree air was cooling my dank face.

Walked through the glass doors into the bright yellow lobby of Wolf Classic Limousine.

Lisa was up front, talking to Sid Levine, Margaret Richburg, and a few other people.

Laughing like she was the centerfold for Better Homes and
Gardens.

But that laugh she had was weak and fragile. Her eyes told me she was rattled.

She had put a colorful scarf over her neck, my handprints hidden.

I walked through her scent, the stench of lies and treachery.

Wolf came into the office as I was getting the keys to the sedan.

We stood, faced each other. A wordless exchange that lasted a good five seconds.

“Good morning, Driver.”

“Wolf. Morning.”

“You look a little tired.”

“I’m cool. Just need some coffee and some Visine.”

“I have some Visine on my desk. Help yourself.”

“Yeah. Cool. Thanks.”

We shook hands like nothing bad had happened between us yesterday. Hypocrites in dark suits. We held our grips. Two warriors. Two men. Two classes. Two worlds. I looked him in his eyes and he did the same with me. He loved Lisa beyond reason. He was looking for that betrayal, wanting to see how deep that river ran. Wondering if his queen had taken a few trips back to the Motherland. The truth was there, unhidden. Getting deeper by the second. Self-preservation in full effect. In that silence it was like we were two prisoners on Lisa’s yard.