Drive Me Crazy (43 page)

The price of love.

The price of hate.

Forty thousand.

She hated me more than she did her husband.

 

 

I had to get up, had to walk out of that room. I went outside, sat by the pool. I heard something and turned around. Saw Pasquale inside the house, in the kitchen, his lip busted and right eye swollen. He nodded at me. I waved and nodded, my way of telling the brother I appreciated his hospitality. He waved back, nodded the same way, with that gangsta expression all over his face. Could tell he was uneasy, embarrassed. Rufus passed by and went into the kitchen. Rufus and his friend were talking. My brother poured some fluids into a container, shook them up, and poured the mixture into two glasses. He drank one. Pasquale drank the other. They went on with their business. I did the same and went back to my own thoughts.

I thought about Wolf.

He was in Vegas with his kids. He had his alibi. My guess was that his daughter didn’t have a part in a play. He left because he knew things were going to be bad. Left and spent time with his two children, playing with them while waiting for a phone call. He knew there would be a phone call. Just didn’t know what kind of call it would be.

His last words to me had been “We all kill what we love.”

That was his warning to me. He knew how Lisa felt about me. Knew what she was going to do last night. Maybe he wanted to get those things off his chest because he knew.

I was sad for him. Sad for myself. Sad for the man Lisa had made me become.

I had put three people in the ground.

Panther came out, a robe wrapped around her heavenly frame, and sat next to me. She could pass for sweet sixteen. No makeup, none of the accoutrements from her night job. She looked so innocent. I wanted to ask her how she ended up on a stage dancing for money.

She said, “You okay?”

“The meds you have in your cabinet—”

“Helps me keep my emotional barometer... it needs to be calibrated at times.”

“How often you... ?”

“Every day. I take ‘em every day.”

“They help?”

“I’m not crazy, if that’s what you’re asking. A lot of women suffer from depression.”

“Why is that?”

“Because of men.”

I asked, “They help?”

“They help. I’m still here. They help.”

“And you take ‘em everyday?”

“Supposed to.”

“Got any extras?”

Her mouth opened, no words came for a minute.

She said, “I can get you some.”

“Thanks.”

“What else you need?”

My eyes went to those books that Rufus had left behind. One written by Freeman. One penned by Coker. Page ten in one was the same as page ten in the other.

I told Panther, “I need to go for a ride.”

“Take my car. Your window needs to get fixed.”

Her buttermilk-and-cornbread sashay took her across the flag-stone walkway, back inside the guesthouse. She came back and handed me her keys without asking another question.

She said, “Another news report was on. Said they found a man dead in Hollywood.”

“They say it was related to Lisa?”

“That was all they said. Then they went to sports.”

I looked at my hands again. Kept looking at them like they were smoking guns.

I said, “I killed three people last night.”

She sat down, her leg bouncing.

“I want you to know that. Want you to know who I am, what I’ve done. Want you to know about my ex-wife, my brother. Want you to know all that. But most of all, want you to know that you’re dealing with a murderer. I killed a man with my hands, shot two people.”

“I gave you the guns, Driver.”

She said that like she had pulled the trigger. I gave her silence.

“Were they gonna kill you, Driver?”

“Yeah. They were gonna ... yeah.”

Silence.

“All I care about is they didn’t. I don’t look good in black, not when my eyes are filled with tears. I don’t like looking down on dead people. Don’t know what I would’ve done.”

I nodded.

She asked, “What do we need to do now?”

Silence.

She said, “They stalked you. Threatened you. Beat you. Driver, they terrorized you.”

“Not the same.”

“I know it’s not like the Bush-shit they’re going through overseas, but you were in a war. Plain and simple. You did what people try to do in a war. You stayed alive.”

I stared at my hands again. Wrist was sprung, might’ve had a hairline fracture.

She said, “You’re not a murderer.”

Her hand rubbed over mine.

She asked, “Is it over?”

I shook my head.

Around ten unused bricks were by the patio. I went and picked up three.

We headed back inside the guesthouse.

 

 

Evening came.

The sun went down like it always did. Traffic was bad. Smog was thick. Kids rolled by bumping their sounds. Nothing had changed in the world.

The television was still on. Same news report had been playing off and on. Now Lisa’s name and picture were up on the screen. They flashed a picture of her in her police uniform. A picture of her with her father, back when he was terrorizing the city of Compton.

Then they posted a picture of Kenny Washington. His smooshed nose and square head took up the screen. They said he was Lisa’s cousin. A man with a criminal record as long as Sepulveda Boulevard. People were speculating that it was a hit on Kenny and Lisa happened to be with him. Wrong place, wrong time. News people speculated, not the police. The police had been on the scene, could tell how they were shot, had done a CSI down there.

I grabbed the backpack Panther had given me. I took the stun gun out, went to the bathroom, cleaned the prongs. Then I put it back in the backpack. Put the three bricks in the bag too. I picked up those books,
Manumit
and
Dawning,
put them inside a paper grocery bag.

Our eyes went back to the BREAKING NEWS.

They replayed old footage of them taking the bodies away.

Tried to hold it back, but a low moan came from my body.

Panther reached over, wiped a few tears from my face.

She pulled her hair back, put on some sweats. She had bought herself a few things yesterday. She walked me to the gate. The guesthouse had its own entrance.

I told her I’d be back before long. I wanted to check on my crib, see what I had to do to get it back right, run a few errands, go check on things that I didn’t want her mixed up in.

She said, “Ask your brother if we can stay here until we get our cribs hooked up.”

“If we get a Shop-Vac and some heavy-duty trash bags, I can have your place cleaned up by tomorrow afternoon. Can hit mine tomorrow evening.”

“But, baby, dag. His shit is phat. I want to get a bikini and get in that heated pool. And that sauna. And the steam room. And the tub has jets. I mean, damn. You see that kitchen? He has Viking appliances.
Viking.
Man, if I could cook a Sunday dinner over here... dag. I feel bad because I don’t even like that whack sitcom he’s on, but this crib ... phat as all get out.”

I almost smiled. She sounded her age. That was good.

She motioned at the backpack, asked me, “Mind if I ask where you’re going?”

“To finish this. And I have to make what wrong I can right.”

I thought about it, gave her her keys back. Would chance it in my own car.

 

 

Sunset. I took a trip to Santa Monica. Parked in the mall like everybody else. Mixed with the crowd and headed down the hill to the pier. Walked by kids bundled up to get on the Ferris wheel and roller coaster. I made my way beyond all that to where the fishermen hung out, went to the railing. I dropped the backpack at my feet and looked out at the ocean.

When I didn’t think anybody was looking I kicked that backpack. I had turned around and started walking back toward Santa Monica Place before I heard it splash. The incoming tide swallowed most of its sound, added it to the rest of the ocean’s secrets.

The high-tech cellular phone I had, I broke that in half while I walked.

Down at my old job, a red dot faded from a computer screen.

Shutters was five minutes away.

I parked on the streets this time.

Freeman was leaving the hotel as I walked toward the roundabout. Leaving with his head down, shoulders hunched, lines in his forehead, mouth fixed in anger. He looked up at me, that frown and unibrow cutting deep. Then he had that look of recognition. I could tell he didn’t know where he knew me from. His desperate and depressed stroll took him around me.

No sedan. No Italian suit. Black man in Old Navy sweats. I was nobody special.

Saw the workers motion toward Freeman, all were talking in Spanish. If I understood the original language of
Wenot,
the original settlers in
Yang-ya,
I‘d’ve known that they were talking about how his room had been broken into and his million-dollar book had been stolen, about how by the time the police had arrived something had happened and Freeman sent them all away without filing a report, said he had made a mistake. Whatever news had been on about Freeman’s fiasco had been a blip, a blip that I had missed because I was too busy killing a man with my hands, too busy trying to stay alive.

When I thought I was about to die, I had prayed. That feeling was still with me.

Sade was at the bar, chocolate martini at her side. Her keen features, her makeup, her hair down, rolling over her shoulders. She looked real good. Beautiful woman. Nice brown pants over her long legs, sheer blouse. Could see the outline of her bra, the shape of her breasts.

I sat a barstool away from her. A copy of
The Voice: Britain’s
BEST
Black Paper
was in front of her, her eyes tuned into an article about cops beating a race rap in a brutal beating case. She didn’t notice me, not at first. Daniela wasn’t on duty. Sade had no one to talk to.

She saw me and smiled like it was her birthday. After a day like today, with Freeman’s million-dollar baby getting ripped off, I’d expected her to be swimming in her own tears.

She said, “Splendid. Was hoping I’d hear from you. I rang you once or twice.”

“Saw Freeman walking out. Where’s he going?”

“All the way back to Quitman, Mississippi, for all I care.”

“Your man is here and you called me.”

“Wanted to take you up on that offer, buy you a drink.”

“I need one. That’s one reason I came.”

She was finishing up her chocolate martini and ordering another.

She asked, “What are you having?”

I ordered the usual.

The televisions were on. Lisa’s face was all over the news. Showed her with her father, years ago. Showed her and Wolf’s wedding picture.

Sade said, “Tragic. She looked so young and beautiful. They said a lot of money was found on the beach. Something like forty thousand. The man she was with, heinous individual based on the news accounts. Her relative to boot. She mixed in something horrible, it seems.”

I turned away from the TV. “Can I ask you a question? About you and Freeman.”

“Let me guess. Hmmm. Why am I getting married to a self-absorbed, egomaniacal, greedy, publicity-seeking son-of-a-bitch?”

She chuckled.

I said, “You’re slurring.”

“I love vodka. It doesn’t take anything away from you. It’s not a tyrant. Never pompous.”

“Sounds like you’re celebrating while Freeman is mourning.”

“Join me.”

“Heard Freeman’s room was broken into while we were at Howard Hughes.”

“What of it?”

“Any idea who did it?”

“Marcus has so many enemies, there are so many people that would love to get their hands on that book to bring him down. It could fetch a pretty penny on the black market.”

“How many drinks have you had?”

She shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Maybe you should slow down.”

“Tonight I’m getting rat-faced. And that means I’m going to be vulnerable.”

Her eyes met mine for a moment, testing me.

I said, “My brother has hypermnesia.”

“What’s that exactly?”

“His superpower. He remembers almost everything.”

The books were at my side. I put
Dawning
on the counter.

She smiled.

I put
Manumit
on the counter, left them side by side.

She stopped smiling. A wave of soberness washed over her face.

She said, “Maybe we should go to my suite. We can talk in private. ”

“I’m not here to start any... flapdoodle.”

“Money? You want money for this discovery?”

“Not money.”

“Then what is your purpose?”

I pulled the books off the counter, put them in my lap.

Didn’t really know why I was here. Maybe it was because I had dishonored most of the Decalogue and I needed some redemption, no matter how small. Part of me wanted to undo something I’d done to make myself feel better. Death was a done deal, couldn’t undo that. This was all I had on my plate that could be fixed. Killing had left me in a state of alexithymia.

“What if I stole the briefcase?”

“Did you?”

“What if I had it taken from his room?”

“Then you’d be brilliant.”

“I know you have separate rooms. I just don’t know what this was all about. Maybe it’s not about money. If you married him you’d have his money, at least access.”

“God, no. I have my own money. Always have.”

She paused, then gave me a charm-school smile.

I asked, “What was in that briefcase?”

“If you stole it, as you claim, then you would know.”