Drive Me Crazy (39 page)

The briefcase was sturdy and professional, designed especially for a laptop, lined with black protective foam. Had separate compartments for the power cord and other accessories.

Snuggled inside that foam was a computer. Silver. A Sony VAIO.

I had expected it to have a radioactive glow like the Holy Grail did in one of those
Indiana Jones
movies, or its contents lighting up the room like that briefcase did in the movie
Paycheck.
It didn’t glow. Doubt if it was the latest VAIO Sony had to offer.

Arizona powered it up. I didn’t think it would come on. It did. I expected to need a password. I didn’t. The screensaver was a picture of Freeman and Sade. Both had I-love-you smiles. Had to be a couple of years old. No ring was on her finger. She looked happy.

I noticed that the briefcase looked thicker than the compartment.

“Looks like Freeman’s briefcase has a false bottom.”

Arizona smiled, shut off the computer, and closed the briefcase. She didn’t check to see what was hidden underneath Freeman’s million-dollar book.

I nodded.

She did the same.

“One more thing.”

“Sure.”

I handed her a business card. Told her to turn it over. A name and an address were on the other side, written in black ink, my own handwriting, block style so it would be readable.

I told her, “If for any reason I’m not around, that’s who I want you to give my cut to.”

“If you’re not around?”

I nodded.

She said, “You trust me?”

“Don’t think I have a choice.”

“I know they busted your head. Things that bad?”

My head wound didn’t hurt anymore. I asked, “Can you do that?”

She read the card. “Rufus—”

“My brother. Anything happens to me, wanna make sure ... can you do that?”

I’d already left Rufus a message, told him to kick some cash down to Panther, left her number. Told him to remember and honor what we had said about not wasting money on funerals. And I told him to remember the rules of the streets; no police.

A big red clock was over my head, ticking down.

Momma. Reverend Daddy. Thought about both of them.

Hoped Rufus and Pasquale ... hoped they worked that shit out some kinda way. I didn’t have time to call. Should’ve gotten over my own issues and called my brother. Hated that I acted like Reverend Daddy with him all the damn time. But that was all I knew, all I understood.

Arizona smiled, this one not that of a grifter. Her walls came down and everything about her became softer. She looked like a lost little girl who was trying too hard to be a conniving woman. Her smile was real. Held sincerity and worry. In that moment I saw some innocence, corners of who she used to be before life tripped her up and she landed on this side of the fence.

Then it was gone. That tenderness lasted as long as a candle’s flame in a hurricane.

She said, “Sure.”

She reached over, patted my hand, touched my flesh like she wanted to feel its warmth.

Feel the warmth before it went cold. Touch this skin before it changed back to dirt.

Rufus wouldn’t be involved, would be out of harm’s way. Panther wouldn’t be involved. Nobody I cared about would be caught up in this game, not any more than they already were.

That was that.

I told her, “They’re out there looking for me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“It’ll never end. I have to do what I have to do.”

“Be careful.”

“Just live up to your end of the bargain.”

She said something in Spanish and the valet nodded, ran off, came back with my ride.

Arizona reached inside her purse and took out her blade. She made it dance open, then made it dance back into its shelter, then offered it to me.

I thought about it, but shook my head, a thankful smile on my weary face.

Think I understood how Lancaster felt in that movie. Tired. Just plain old tired.

She told me, “He’s dead. The man who taught me all I know, he’s dead.”

“I kinda figured that.”

“I know you’re a big and strong man, but be careful.”

She put her blade back in her purse, headed back inside the theater. She didn’t look back this time. Think it was too hard for her to. Death had been a part of her world, probably had been the trauma that made her who she was right now. She vanished into the theater. I heard a huge applause. The stage show was ending, curtain was coming down, the pretending was over.

I got in my car and started driving, out of habit my tired eyes went to the rearview.

Cold air came in through the broken rear window.

Felt strange not having my glasses on.

Felt stranger not having my cellular at my side.

That phone had been on my hip for months.

Lisa had given me Italian suits.

And she had given me that cellular phone.

It was a high-tech phone with a GPS inside. The same kinda phone some parents gave their children so they could keep geographical tabs on them. Twelve thousand miles over my head a satellite had been tracking me, making me a blip on her screen. She might’ve been able to pull that information up on her cellular phone. Lisa had been able to follow me for months.

Brilliant. Her flapdoodle had been nothing short of being brilliant.

Still felt like I was being followed.

Like death was behind me.

That was good.

Willoughby and Highland.

Still on the edges of Hollywood, not too far from the Sunset Strip.

Before I rolled to meet with Arizona I had dumped the cellular outside Club 360.

That was as far as I wanted them to track me.

The hunted had flipped the script and become the hunter.

They would pick the time, but I would pick the place this shit jumped off.

Sid Levine had said the range on the GPS was about a hundred yards. I parked a few blocks away, closer to Hollywood Boulevard, took my time walking over from there.

I was outside a supposedly twenty-one-and-over club, a rave joint that stayed open after hours, a club that played techno, had access to the customer’s drug of choice, and charged megabucks to get on the other side of the velvet rope. Looked like it might’ve been free up until a certain time, maybe had a discount on admission for the early birds—the long line told me that.

Music bumped out of the open doors, loud enough to shake a few leaves off the trees and draw the people in. Women were bareback, showing off their legs and erogenous zones, tugging their Lycra skirts back down below their panty lines, most of them shivering with their arms folded over their erect nipples. A cool breeze brought the hint of some strong and potent marijuana. Kids. Their parents were probably at home holding their third double martinis, wondering how their kids got so fucked up.

The lion appeared, think he had been down in this area prowling for a while. This time he wasn’t rolling in that Expedition, didn’t have forty large in rims spinning underneath his chassis. That damn near caught me off guard. He was in a 1964 Deuce-and-a-Quarter—an Electra 225, that 425 motor humming. Bland colored, no bling anywhere. A dull ride that didn’t stand out like the bling-on-wheels cruising the boulevard. Something that would’ve thrown me. They’d gotten me used to seeing the pimpin’ Expedition and switched up.

Even if I hadn’t seen his profile when he passed by, I‘d’ve recognized the shape of his O.J.-sized head when a car’s headlights hit him from the back. Didn’t have to see his tiny teeth or that smooshed nose. His shadow was ugly to the bone. I wondered how his momma felt, how her eyes bugged when the doctor pulled that out of her and laid it across her breasts. Bet she passed out. Bet his daddy screamed for them to put it back in the oven until it was done.

He was a few feet from where I had dumped the phone. Lisa’s locator was on point, better than Sid Levine had said it was. I shook my head at how easy it was for her to track me.

Her bullyboy slowed down and double-parked that gas-guzzling boat in the shadows.

I shook my left leg, corrected that wardrobe malfunction again.

The lion pulled out and cruised the block twice before he found a spot facing the club. He was on his cellular. He kept missing me because I was tucked across the street, almost a block down between two gum trees. He whipped into a space and turned off his lights. But the fool kept his foot on his brakes, so his taillights were lit up like it was the season for giving.

Then once again he pulled away from the curb.

I didn’t move. Stayed rooted on sidewalk that smelled like old urine and fresh fertilizer.

The jackal was out there somewhere. That made me jittery because I didn’t know if he was trailing the lion, maybe rolling in another car, or if he was in the Hummer with Lisa.

I stayed sandwiched between the trees.

I wouldn’t have heard him over the noise from the club. He would’ve been on top of me before I had any idea that he was keeping low, moving military style, creeping up behind me.

But his cellular rang, the tune “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” gave him away.

When I jumped around, the jackal was standing a few feet from me, dressed in his throwback gear, Minneapolis Lakers. Face hard to the bone. Slanted eyes. Pock-faced, thin man etched in penitentiary muscles. Markings up his neck to his throat. He’d been doing the same thing, keeping to the shadows, stalking for me.

My suit coat was already off, left it in the car.

My sleeves were rolled up, my warrior tattoos on display.

I was back on the yard.

His hands were empty. No shank in sight.

No words were needed. We knew how this went.

The motherfucker charged at me, raised his leg when he jumped up in the air, caught me off guard, planted a karate kick in my gut, made me lose my wind and stumble back toward traffic. A car zooming by at forty miles an hour almost clipped me. I got my balance, shoved the pain aside, and went after him full throttle.

The motherfucker was bouncing around in steel-toed boots like they were ballet slippers.

I gruffed, raised my hands, faked like I was about to rush his ass. He came at me with another kick, caught me in my ribs. He was so fast I didn’t see that steel toe coming up, just saw it going back before I felt the pain. I stumbled, damn knee went south, and I fell against a car.

My jaw tightened. He came toward me while I struggled to get balanced.

He threw another kick, his foot coming at me hard and strong.

I caught his leg this time. It hurt like hell because his round kick hit my rib cage like a hammer. I’d left my arms up, sacrificed my ribs and gave him that as a target. He was quick but I brought my forearm down hard and caught his foot between my rib cage and arm, struggled with him and fought my own pain, held his leg like it was in a vise grip. Trapped. His eyes widened. He tried to flip the other leg around and heel kick me, but I dragged him backward, stole his balance while I recovered mine, then drew my leg back to Ohio and treated him to a strong kick in the groin. My hard shoes bull‘s-eyed the fleshy part between his legs.

I had to let his leg go and deal with my own pain.

He didn’t go down, just stumbled back. I went after him the desperate way Sugar Ray went after Tommy Hearns in their first battle, like I was a warrior behind on all the scorecards, went after him hard, threw blow after blow, missed most but managed to land a hard hook to his temple. That should’ve taken him out, but it just staggered him. Then I landed an uppercut. Those two blows used to take much larger men off their feet, make them fly. I had been hit harder and didn’t hurt, not like this, not in a way that had me scared. I was pissed off at myself for being this out of shape. Driving people around for the last six months had left me soft.

I threw another uppercut, then a left hook that sprung my wrist.

Both of my hands were hurting. Hitting a man hurts the fists like hell.

He came at me again, his own pain slowing him down to a speed I could damn near handle. He threw a couple of wild punches, hay-makers that missed the target, then another kick. Slower. The kick was much slower. Slow enough for me to catch that leg again.

He cursed me and my mother.

Then I did it again, kicked him in his love sacs, let the square toe of my shoe lift and separate his family jewels, did that two more times, bull‘s-eyed the same spot. He wheezed with each blow, exhaled hard, eyes tried to pop out, then he crumpled and fell where he stood. He pulled his knees together, moaned some kind of a prayer. Blood and spit rivered from his mouth.

He held his nuts and struggled while I stood over him, wheezing my-damn-self.

I told him, “Don’t get up. Get up, you’re really gonna get hurt.”

“Fuck you.”

“Let it go, man. Let. This. Shit. Go.”

“Fuck you.”

Then he got on his elbow and reached under his shirt. The fight had been fair so far, but a street fight was all about winning. I didn’t have time to conjure up a weapon. I jumped on top of him, rolled around, socked him in his head, threw elbows and demonic blows, tried to beat him to whatever he was struggling to grapple from his waistline. Blood stained his face and he wouldn’t give in. I felt the handle he was struggling to get a decent grip on. I held it down, jammed my fingers in his eyes, then did a Mike Tyson move and bit the tip of his nose as hard as I could. Tried to make my teeth meet. He screamed like an old woman. I bit him again. He kicked and his scream came out ragged and deranged. He had to choose between his nose and his gun. He followed the pain and let go of the burner. A snub-nosed .38. The screams didn’t end. I’d never heard a man shriek so loud, his song out of key with that horrible techno music.

A few people looked our way, saw nothing but parked cars and shadows, then went back to trying to get to the other side of that velvet rope. No sign of the Deuce-and-a-Quarter.