Drive Me Crazy (41 page)

My big hands went around her little neck. I choked her as hard as I could. No matter how hard I choked her, all she did was smile. Smiled and sang and came over and over.

 

 

Little by little, I came to. Half a sense at a time. My eyes felt like they were swollen, glued shut. They opened and I saw nothing, an endless blackness deeper than death.

Everything came back to life. Everything hurt from my head wound to my ankles.

I was in the fetal position. The small space I was in was cramped. Felt like I had been beaten and tossed in the Adjustment Center. There was a lot of bouncing, like I was riding a coffin down a bumpy road. Then my hearing came back. Loud music. Couldn’t move my hands. Or my feet. Something over my head. Could hardly breathe.

Other cars roared.

More bumps. Each one hurt to go over. She was taking me down Route 666.

Lisa said,
“He’s moving.
”

I was in the trunk of that Deuce. Large trunk. Bad suspension. The smell, the way the engine roared, and the way it rode told me that. They needed shocks and the brakes squealed like they were fifty thousand miles overdue for new pads. The stench of spilled oil and dust and battery acid thickened and poisoned the little musty air I could get.

“Maybe I should check on him.
”

The car stopped. Somebody pulled up next to us, music loud enough to send the vibrations through me. The music moved ahead of my prison, bumping hard and fading fast.

Chest rising and falling, air thin, I tried not to panic, but that claustrophobic feeling had me terrified. Had to think. In The Hole. I was back in The Hole, a place where seconds moved like hours. Every vehicle that passed, its noise was on the left. We didn’t pass anybody, not that I could tell. I was on my right side. My own sweat became a river that flooded my right ear. All I knew was that the car I was in kept to the slow lane, maybe doing the speed limit, maybe a little over, had bad shocks, needed a new muffler, and was trying not to draw any attention.

Sweat puddled in my eyes. I struggled, kicked. Wrists were tied in front of me. Something was wrapped tight around my knees, cut off my circulation. Lisa didn’t tie me up. I wasn’t hog-tied LAPD style. I kicked my feet. What covered my mouth muffled my yelling.

Cars and SUVs whistled by. No eighteen-wheelers. With all the stop and go, we weren’t on the freeway. Freeway was all stop or all go, lots of lane changing, more cars passing by.

The sound of city traffic faded.

Thought I heard an airplane taking off. All flights took off going west, then turned and found their bearings. We were heading west. That meant we were heading toward the ocean.

Then my weight shifted toward the front of the trunk. They were going downhill.

All I could smell taste feel was my own fear.

These would be the last voices I heard.

The car rode a moment, slowed down, squealed to an easy stop. My heartbeat sped up. Sweat rained. The stench from his cancer stick made it that much harder to breathe. The car was dilapidated. The backseat had to be ragged enough for smoke and sounds to come through.

My feet were as numb as my hands. Pain muted by whatever they had tied me with. I breathed with the pain, chest expanding like a woman in labor, short puffs through my nose.

“Unless you want me to get some gas. Brought some just in case.
”

“He’s beat down, but your boy ain’t no joke. All I have to do is tie him up with some duct tape, take him out, drop him in the ocean. Three minutes later gurgle gurgle and we’re heading toward Jerry’s Deli. Unless you want to make it last a while. We can play with him.
”

“Just
...
Just ... just get it over with. ”

I imagined.

Imagined Rufus sprinting across the beach, sand kicking up behind him, his colorful locks flying behind him like Superman’s cape, that gun I had given him extended, scowling like he was the Punisher from the comic books, barrel blazing, bullets flying, taking out the lion.

“You getting out
?
”

She paused. “
No
.”

Or Arizona appearing out of nowhere, naked like she was the night I searched her, her streamlined beauty, long hair, and golden skin catching the lion off guard long enough for her cunning smile to disarm him, then to use her switchblade to cut him every way but loose.

The lion said,
“Give me the stun gun
.
”

Imagined Freeman showing up and throwing books like missiles, those bobbleheads charging and attacking the lion and Lisa, taking them down, tying them up like Gulliver.

“I‘mma zap him a few times, soften him up
.
”

Panther. Imagined her running across the beach in boy shorts and thigh-high boots, her long hair flying behind her, tears in her eyes, wailing like a banshee, gun extended like she was on her way to be the lead in
Kill Bill.

None of that was gonna happen.

After a long hesitation, Lisa told the lion,
“I’ll get out too. I’ll see this through. ”

“You don’t have to
,
Lisa
.
”

“I have to
.
”

I got my leg to move. Struggled and got my swollen hands to my ankle. Panther’s gift was still there. They hadn’t seen the ankle strap. Too busy trying to rush me inside this Deuce to search me. My fingers found the .380. Heartbeat was drumming between my ears.

I was blind. A gun in my hand and living in Stevie Wonder’s world, a world devoid of a sense that I needed right now, a world not to be taken for granted.

The car door opened, heard them get out of the car, all of their words muffled. But they kept talking. I focused on that. Their words. Their sounds. That was all I could do.

Each breath that came out of me was hard and uncertain, my last breath over and over.

I did something that I hadn’t done in years. I prayed.

That’s what I had been doing all along.

Not imagining. Praying.

A key went into the lock. The lock clicked. The trunk creaked open. It felt like the world had opened up too. Cool air flooded this tomb. Salty air filled up my damp pores.

Couldn’t play possum and wait because they might zap me again. Hands aching, I squeezed the trigger. First I aimed at their voices, then I shot at their screams.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Felt like I had missed. I raged, tried to get up, tried to hear where they were.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Lisa screamed again, wailed like a Gaelic female spirit. My death had arrived.

Then a hundred lightning bolts went through my body.

Reverend Daddy used to take me and Rufus to the movies. Momma was into movies like
Claudine.
Reverend Daddy was crazy about
Dirty Harry.

In movies, gunshots echoed like cannons. In reality, most just sounded like pops. A quick noise that, in a land of car alarms and back-firing trucks, made people crank up the volume on their televisions so they could hear what color scheme they were talking about on HGTV.

I tumbled out of the trunk of the Deuce. Suffered awhile. Expected more lightning to race through my body and deep fry my soul. I was frantic, yanked the prongs out of my flesh. Struggled and did the same with the dark covering over my head, pulled it hard. Hands were swollen, hurt so bad I could barely get loose. I held on to the bumper, made it to my feet. Leg cramped and that stab of pain hit me hard, sent me backward, threw me into the sand.

They were watching me cling to life. I knew they were.

This was their entertainment for the night.

Pain grew.

Had to sit there spitting sand out of my mouth, with sand all over my face, sand caked on my sweaty skin. Wait for them to have their fun.

They didn’t say anything. But I knew they were there, circling me.

Darkness became lighter, but only by a few degrees. I tried to shake the sting out of my eyes, but too much sweating had left me almost blind.

I mumbled, “Yessir.”

The moonlight showed me that the .380 was next to me, sinking in the sand.

I grabbed that smoking gun, juggled it until I got my swollen finger back on the trigger, and growled out my warning, pointed the gun wherever I heard noise.

Ocean.

Seagulls cried.

Heard a noise.

I jumped, pulled the trigger.

The .380 was empty.

A car or two hummed in the distance.

No homes were in this area, none that I could see. So I wasn’t in Venice or Santa Monica. No homes etched in the side of the hills, so I wasn’t up by Malibu. They’d taken me down to an industrial strip, a remote spot where no one would be around in the thick of the night. Where no one could hear me scream. My mind told me I had to be somewhere between Marina Del Rey and Long Beach. Then my mind told me I was wrong. Could’ve been down in Orange County, somewhere on that strip of PCH that went into Dana Point.

I blinked over and over until I managed a little vision. The world was like a television with bad reception. It gave me a blurry vision of the lion, dressed in jeans and a black jacket, his hands in gloves, that big, square head under a black skullcap.

He was on the ground, on his side, sand dusting his body. He stared at me with one eye. His right eye. A bullet hole was where his left eye used to be. The stun gun was next to that cave in his head, a cavern created by a hollow point. The prongs were extended. He was the one who had shot me. Maybe we shot each other at the same time.

Looked like his fingers were moving, like he was typing a farewell e-mail to his children.

Then he stopped typing. Guess he had hit the send button.

My legs had been tied with Lisa’s Egyptian shawl, the knot was pretty good. I got free, stumbled away from him. Bile rose in my throat. My reaction to all the abuse my body had taken rose up and came out of me in a harsh lurch. Freezing water rushed up to my shoes. We were on the edges of America. The bitter water spread, chilled my entire body. I gave that bile to the Pacific. Cold sweat came out of every pore. Another ocean wave came in, hit me, and I went down to my knees. Another wave rushed up my back, and splashed up on my face.

I crawled away from the water, then got back to my feet.

The night air covered me, felt like a strong breeze was coming in from the Himalayas.

She was out there. Lisa had a Glock and she was out there.

Anxiety never ceased.

I limped toward the car. Expected to hear the engine roar to life, and watch the car pull away.

It didn’t.

Lisa’s purse was in the sand, resting on the other side of the lion.

I kept limping, kept looking, kept listening, kept waiting.

Her Glock was there too.

Wanted to pick it up, tried to bend, but it hurt too much.

I kept limping.

Down the way, I saw a white flag flying in the sand.

I kept limping that way.

Followed small footsteps that had left their impression in the sand.

The space between the footsteps became less and less.

Less and less.

Inside some of those last impressions was blood.

That white flag was Lisa’s beautiful dress. She had run, looked like she was headed away, trying to outrun her own pain, looked like she didn’t know where she was going. Just running. A hole was in her abdomen. Death had caught her before she could get away.

Those prongs had fishhooked me and broken my skin, had stolen traces of my DNA.

My DNA could be drying up in the back of that Deuce.

My DNA and prints were already in the criminal justice system. Couldn’t leave any traces of me behind. Wanted to call for help. Hand went down to my side. No cellular. I looked out and saw darkness. The exit was up an asphalt driveway. The main road was at least a hundred yards away. Wouldn‘t’ve been able to walk far, not up that incline in my condition. That hill would become a mountain. A hundred yards would be like a marathon. There was only one way for me to get out of there. I hobbled back, took the keys to the Deuce off the lion’s body. I took the stun gun. The scarf they had tied me with. Got in the car, kicked up some sand.