In the Night of the Heat (23 page)

“He knows…it's…too…early,” Dad complained. “No…tox screen.”

T.D. Jackson's blood toxicology report wouldn't be ready for at least a week, or more. Even a celebrity death has to deal with backlogs, and until the medical examiner finished his work, the police would have no idea what was in T.D.'s bloodstream when he died. Still, I saw pride in my father's face as he watched Nelson. I had to admit that he looked and sounded good on TV. Full of shit or not, Nelson was representing the department well.

“You should call him,” I heard myself say despite myself. “Get together for lunch.”

Dad gave me a full-out glare.

“I'm sure he'd love to hear from you.”

But Dad shook his head. He hated visits from his cop friends, which were scarce anyway. No one had come by in a year. The fear that he was dying had scared Dad's friends away in droves—except for Dolinski, who called once in a while, and his friends from church. Dad was partially to blame. He hated to leave the house, and the only companion he needed was the TV. Dad had always considered other people a distraction from his thoughts.

“Dad, I'm not saying you should sweat him about Jackson,” I said. I kept my voice low for Chela's sake, until I remembered she'd gone outside to get the paper. “I know you want to keep him clear. Just call him and get together to shoot the shit. You know, like people who knew each other fifteen years.”

Dad shook his head again. “Not…now.”

After a frustrated sigh, he found a napkin and scribbled on it with a pen: NOT WHILE YOU'RE WORKING HIS CASE. TOO RISKY. IF YOU GET SLOPPY, NELSON'S SMART ENOUGH TO MAKE TROUBLE FOR YOU. I'M LYING LOW.

Reading his note, I chuckled. He was lying low, all right—so low he had practically buried himself. I almost said it aloud.

“Where's that…paper?” Dad said, glancing toward the foyer.

I should have realized sooner that Chela had been outside for five minutes, or longer. The paper was usually under my car in the driveway—I swear the guy aimed for the most inconvenient spot—but it didn't take five minutes to walk a dozen paces from the door.

What now?
I thought. I might have had a psychic moment. I just knew. When I got up to check on Chela, I was moving fast. In the foyer, I heard Chela laughing as she approached the door from the other side. “Oh my God, he's gonna freak—” she was saying.

Who's she talking to?
I wondered, just as my door came flying open.

The sun was shining outside, but in the foyer there were only shadows. The light from the doorway was blocked.

Tiny Chela stood in front of me with a ridiculously misplaced grin. Behind her—towering over her—were three behemoths who looked twice their size in the small space of my foyer.

Carlyle Simms was standing in my house, his eyes laser-locked on mine, with death in his glare. Brandon Jakes and Lee Quarry, T.D.'s other two buddies from the Tau fund-raiser, flanked Carlyle, their meaty arms folded. They were all wearing sweatshirts and track pants. I smelled perspiration and beer in their skin. I hoped my living room wasn't about to become a war zone.

“Ten, look who it is!” Chela announced, excited. “Carlyle Simms! I recognized him from TV. How come you never told me you were
friends with T.D. Jackson? He lived in your
dorm
?” Her eyes shone at me with new regard.

I heard a loud bump from the dining room; probably Dad's chair knocking against the table. Dad couldn't walk, but his hearing was fine. I didn't mistake what I saw next: Lee fished his hand toward the back of his waistband, startled by the sound.

The Heat was packing heat.

I've never had an emotional whiplash like it—eating pancakes with my family one minute, nerves frying with controlled adrenaline the next. Carlyle Simms had ambushed me right where I lived. My Glock was upstairs in my night table, a million miles away. If Carlyle Simms and his crew had anything to do with the death of T.D. Jackson, our lives were nothing to them. I went cold. For a moment, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.
Tachypsychia
, it's called. If you've never experienced it, it's hard to explain how it feels.

My heart thumped my ribs, but I grinned as if I was as happy to see them as Chela expected me to be. I showed them my empty hands while reaching toward Carlyle for a friendly handshake. “Hey, man. What a surprise.”

Carl squeezed my hand hard enough to paralyze tendons. “Heard you were looking for me,” Carlyle said. “So, here I am.”

Another loud bump came from the dining room.

Lee angled himself as if to walk past us, farther into the house. His hand was still hidden behind him. Dad was spooking him. Not good.

“That's my dad,” I said to Lee, silently begging for calm. “He's in a wheelchair. It's cool. Hey, Dad? It's Carlyle Simms and the guys. T.D.'s friends.”

I was a good enough actor to keep the murder out of my voice, but not by much.

Chela shot me a questioning gaze before sick realization flattened
her face. Despite my persistent smile, she knew me well enough to recognize that she'd blown it somehow, even if she had no idea of the magnitude. Chela and I both knew she had made similar mistakes in judgment in the past—and the last one had nearly gotten me killed.

I heard Dad's chair rolling closer, then he appeared at the other end of the foyer. Dad's head was listing to the side, as if he were frailer than he was, but his eyes could match any man's vigor. Five years ago, my father's eyes would have given Carlyle reason to walk right back out the way he came in.

Carlyle grinned at my father. “Hey, Pops,” he said. “We won't be long. We just came to sit and visit with our old friend a while.”

Lee brushed against me as he walked past, not waiting for an invitation. The unfriendly bump would have knocked me off-balance if I hadn't relaxed and exhaled. He smirked, never realizing my center of balance was still intact. He smoothed his sweatshirt back to conceal his weapon, but I saw the gleam of nickel plating.
Fuck.
I hate it when I'm right.

I wrapped my arm around Chela's shoulder, pulling her closer. I cursed her bare legs. If anyone laid a finger on her, Carlyle was going to die. I could feel the animal in the back of my head promising that. The horrifying thing is that it didn't completely care what happened later.

“Nice place, man,” Brandon said, admiring the Sidney Poitier one-sheets framed on the foyer wall. He lingered in front of
A Raisin in the Sun
. “Gotta love Sidney, right? They call me
Mister
Tibbs.'” Wrong movie, but I didn't correct him.

Carlyle stood over Dad, who sat directly in his path to the living room. “What's wrong, old-school?” Carlyle said. “You don't speak to guests?”

Dad's eyes spat fire, and I wanted to crush Carlyle's trachea. In
stead, I said, “He had a stroke, and he's not having a good day. Can we go outside?”

The grin Carlyle gave me over his shoulder easily could have been Chantelle Jackson's last sight. “Naw, man, I think we better stay right here. I apologize for my bad manners. It ain't right to show up and surprise a man at his home, huh?”

“Coffee smells good,” Lee said. “What you think, C?”

“I think I'd love a cup of coffee,” Carlyle said.

Gently, I patted Chela's back. “Get them some coffee,” I said.

She looked up at me with questions, but I gave her a nudge and was relieved when she didn't object. Chela needed a compass and a map in the kitchen, but at least she'd be out of the way. I was dismayed when Brandon ambled behind Chela, watching her. They weren't about to leave her unattended. Brandon was half-leering as he leaned across the counter to watch Chela, and I could barely keep my eyes off them. When Chela reached up to look for coffee mugs in the cabinet, her T-shirt rose high across her back thighs. My anxious fingers twitched.

“Hey,”
Carlyle said, his face two inches from mine. He lowered his voice for my hearing, and I smelled his funky beer breath. If they were drunk at nine thirty in the morning, we were in bigger trouble than I thought. “Why you riding my ass so hard?”

“Let's take a walk,” I said, one last effort to get them out of my house.

“I like it here,” Carlyle said. “Since we're so tight.”

“Melanie's been worried about you,” I said. “I was just trying to track you down, that's all, man. There's a funeral tomorrow.”

“Could be a whole lot of funerals tomorrow,” Carlyle said privately, to my bad ear. But trust me, I heard every word.

Lee grabbed the handles of my father's wheelchair and pushed him toward the sofa. Dad hates being pushed without permission,
but he didn't move except to slump even farther into his seat, a pained look on his face. I hoped it was just an act; otherwise, my father might be having a heart attack.

“Dad?” I said.

Dad nodded to say he was fine, but he didn't look fine. Far from it.

I couldn't tell if any of the others had weapons. Men that size don't need guns to be lethal. But even without risk of weapons, I couldn't take all three of them. There was only one good move, and it had to be perfect.

“Let's sit down,” I said. I turned off the TV, which was too loud. If there was a scream or a gunshot, I wanted one of my neighbors to hear it. Mrs. Katz across the street complained about Chela's loud music on a regular basis. Maybe she could finally make herself useful.

Carlyle sat in the easy chair near the fireplace, where he could see the living room, breakfast table, and kitchen. I sat at the center of the sofa, where I could keep all three of them within my peripheral vision.

“Why'd you come to my house talking shit about T.D.?” Carlyle said.

“Man, I was just looking for you, like I said. I wasn't talking—”

Carlyle's eyes narrowed. “You calling my lady a liar?”

All three men watched me, waiting. Lee was tapping the end of my father's wooden rolling pin across the kitchen counter.

I fought to keep the anger from boiling over into crazy. Crazy wouldn't help anyone. “Look,” I said, my voice a lullaby. “I meant no disrespect. I just said…”

“‘T.D. was high-maintenance,'” Carlyle finished.
Shit.
Had Alma given him a transcript? “That's how you're gonna trash-talk our brother the same week he died?”

“I meant no disrespect,” I repeated, appalled to hear the same
words from my mouth a second time. Dammit, my rational mind was shutting down, shorting out. I looked at him, and instead of a man, I was seeing a silhouette painted on a pane of glass, with vulnerable areas painted on like splotches of red paint. Most of the room was dimming, but certain things loomed brightly: the fireplace poker. A butter knife on the table. A glass figurine the size and heft of a baseball.

The air felt thick, and red, and hot.

Brandon's voice rumbled beside me. “Guess you didn't mean any disrespect when you told T.D. to go fuck himself either, huh?”

That fund-raiser was back to haunt me. When you've had your ass kicked once or twice, you learn to smell violence simmering in the air. These guys had come with a purpose; the only question left was how many of us were going to get hurt.

“Who wants cream and sugar?” Chela called cheerfully from the kitchen.

I held my breath. The façade of politeness was the only thing stopping the blood flow. By then, Chela knew it, too, and I was glad that kid was street-savvy. I couldn't stand the position I had put her in, but I needed her to use every weapon she had.

Brandon and Lee waited for Carlyle, who was chewing his lip, in deep thought.

“Lots of cream,” Carlyle said. “Lots of sugar.”

“I like an itty-bitty cup myself—with a little cream, sexy thing,” Lee told Chela. His steady gaze studied her pale brown legs up and down.

“Really?” Chela said with a smile. “I like mine really big and really
black.
”

Brandon gave a start, as if he would fall off of his stool. Then he laughed. Lee chuckled, too. But Carlyle wasn't laughing, only waiting for my reaction. If they baited me, and I attacked first, they could call whatever happened next self-defense.

I deliberately softened my face, relaxed my shoulders, and smiled. Even in their agitated state, I watched their postures become slightly less aggressive. There is a phenomenon in animal relationships that goes deeper than conscious thought: Members of a herd have a tendency to match each other's actions and moods, and humans are herd beasts.

“I didn't say anything like that to T.D.,” I answered Carlyle. “And it's not what I meant. I had a television gig, that's all. Shit, I can't think of anything I'd rather do than hang with T.D. Jackson. The pussy alone would have been worth it, man.”

My father flinched when I said that P-word in front of Chela, but it had the desired effect: Brandon laughed again. “Got that right, bruh.”

Even Carlyle's cheeks pooched a little. Just a little. Maybe enough.

Chela brought Carlyle's coffee first, walking with a self-confident sway across the room. I braced for Carlyle to throw the hot liquid in my face. Instead, he sipped.

“Is it okay?” Chela hovered, the perfect hostess. She ventured a quick gaze at me, and I gave her a grateful smile.
Good girl.
Chela probably would have put Drano in their coffee if Lee hadn't been watching her.

Carlyle nodded, his eyes never blinking away from mine. “You believe that horseshit on TV?” he said. “T.D. Jackson's a bitch who's gonna shoot himself?”

“Shit, hell no,” I said. “LAPD can go fuck themselves.” Another nod from the boyz. I was making up a little ground.

Careful. Careful. Maybe everybody lives through this.

While I spoke, Chela hurried away, bringing Brandon's coffee next.