Drive Me Crazy (26 page)

“Like I was going to go to the Ritz looking like this, all wet and my eye jacked.”

Squeaks came from above us and next door at the same time. An orchestra of sin.

Panther asked, “How did Married Woman know we were heading her way?”

I thought about that for a moment. I wondered, “You have a GPS on your car.”

“Yeah. OnStar came with it. Tells you everything. When the air bag goes off, has tracking, remote door unlock, can get driving directions, yada, yada, x, y, and z.”

“I know, was thinking out loud. You have a GPS.” Eyes burned from lack of sleep. I shrugged and gritted my teeth. “Maybe she figured out how to tap into your GPS or something.”

“How? I mean, can people do that?”

“Dunno. But she knew we were rolling her way. Almost like ... she had some sort of ... maybe she has it set on some sort of perimeter alarm, get close to her crib and it goes off.”

“If she can do all that, then she would know where we are right now.”

I took a gun and went back to the window. Saw nothing outside. Opened the door and stepped out into the cold. Saw nothing. Coldness was frosting the windows on Panther’s ride.

I went back in the room, sat on the bed, put the gun back with its brother and sister.

She said, “Wanna tell me what’s going on? I mean everything.”

“No.”

She pulled at her hair, shook her head, emotions dark and smoldering.

She took a deep breath, back to being serious. “Think you’re gonna be safe tonight?”

“Even evil has to sleep.”

“What if evil works third shift?”

“True. They could be union.”

I heard something, went to the window. Saw a working woman and her meal ticket.

Panther raked her hair from her eyes. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“I mean for what’s happening to you. You said your brother was sick ... now all of this.”

Her apartment gets trashed and she worried about me. I sort of smiled. “It’s cool.”

“You coulda at least called me back.”

“You’re starting to sound like a broken record.”

“I upped and said the L word. That’s a big no. Wish I could take it back.”

“I’m catching feelings for you too.”

“Negro, please.”

“Serious. You’re cool.”

“I tell you I love you and you tell me I’m cool. What the heck is that?”

“I said I was catching feelings, dammit.”

“
Cool.
Like I’m one of your boys or something.”

Panther looked at the ceiling. We listened to the sounds. After a while those noises, the sexual energy that was coming through those walls, that shit made me tingle, made her eyes get tight. We looked at each other. She licked her lips. I did the same. She moved across the room, pulled out the armless chair, sat down, touched her breasts, ran her fingertips around her nipples.

I said, “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Don’t put on a show for me. Just be you.”

She smiled.

“Driver, baby, you get inside me and I melt. Like I become liquid fire.”

She stood up and motioned for me to come to her. I went over and sat down. She kneeled in front of me, traced her fingers over the tattoos on my forearms, moved her breasts over my chest, rubbed her face against mine, my stubble rough against her skin. She did that a short while, her face moving back and forth, then she kissed me. Our first time kissing.

She shivered and whispered, “God.”

“What?”

“Been wanting to kiss you ... wanted to do that for a long time.”

We kissed again.

She shivered, whispered, “Slower. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

First time in a long time I had been nervous about kissing a woman. Scared that I might not do it right. Kissing her got easier. Think I was better at it than she was. We got into it; then she belched and laughed. It tasted like chicken sandwich, French fries, and apple pie. I laughed too, but held onto the kiss. She put one leg on each side of me, eased us shut, started moving up and down. Kissing changed into moans and nibbles and biting. Together we lost our breath.

She whispered, “You’re gonna make me come so good.”

Her leg trembled. She came. A soft orgasm that lasted a long time. She held on, gasped over and over. When I thought she was done she shuddered some more. It was the kinda deep-rooted orgasm a woman had that was followed by soft tears. The kind that unnerved a man.

When we were done we stayed like that, me inside her, kissed some more.

She rubbed my bald head, asked me to tell her what was going on.

I did.

“Mansion. Lamborghini.” Panther quieted. “Married Woman promised you a lot.”

I nodded.

A few minutes had passed, long enough for the feeling from our orgasms to fade. I told Panther about meeting Lisa, taking the fifteen large, then not going through with the job.

I asked, “Think I’m stupid?”

“No dumber than I am. People like that, they read us. Catch us when our guards are down, emotionally vulnerable. When we’re broke for money or hungry for love.”

My eyes went to hers. She looked away, embarrassed.

I asked, “What did Married Man—”

The stairs rattled. She stopped icing her eye, picked up a burner and went to the window, peeped out. I stood up, burner at my side. She looked back at me and told me it was nothing.

I repeated my last question, asked about her affair with Married Man.

“Driver, I don’t want to get into that. I’ll just say in the end I felt like a damn fool because I’d spent over fourteen thousand. Driver. Don’t look at me like that, Driver.”

“Fourteen thousand? Damn, Panther. Fourteen large?”

“I know, I know. He sweet-talked me out of my life’s savings. Stupid. Trying to come back from that loss right now. That was my little nest egg. Gone because ... all gone.”

I dug in my suit pocket. Took out that passkey to Shutters Hotel. The million-dollar asshole and his blue-eyed woman. They were lounging in a beachside spot that cost seven C-notes a night. I was on Hoodrat Lane, a spot cockroaches refused to patronize. Dug in my bag and pulled out Freeman’s book, the one Sade had given me as a present to my brother. It was worth its weight in gold.

Panther went back to the bed and sat down. “Question.”

I responded, “Yeah?”

“If she—”

“Lisa. Married Woman’s name is Lisa.”

“If Lisa has these thugs after you, saying they’ll kill you, if she has that kinda pull with the LAPD, then why didn’t she just get one of her hired boys to kill her husband? Why you?”

“We didn’t have a public connection. It would’ve been untraceable.”

“Still, if her ass was so in love with you—”

“Don’t hate.”

“Whatever. Why not just let her boys do the dirt and let you walk in and sit at the throne? Why get you caught up in the mix like that?”

“Nobody knew about us but us.”

“Whatever. Look, Driver. I watch Court TV. I know these things. The first suspect would’ve been Married Woman. The spouse is always the first suspect. That’s why Scott Peterson’s trifling ass is gonna fry like a piece of Jimmy Dean sausage.”

“California uses lethal injection.”

“Glad you’re up on those things.”

“Even if she was the suspect, like I said, I was untraceable. Like strangers on a train.”

“You watch too many Hitchcock movies. You were not strangers on a damn train. You just told me you met her at Yum Yum. Everybody on Crenshaw Boulevard probably saw that.”

“That was one time. A long time ago. Nobody would remember that.”

“You’d be surprised. To make it worse you went inside the man’s house. Drove the man’s car. Somebody saw you somewhere and that somebody would’ve made the connection.”

I quieted and paced the floor. Stairs rattled. Peeped out the window. Alexithymia popped in my head. I was as restless as a shark, moving around like I had ADHD.

She said, “You better ask yourself why she picked you.”

The mirror stared back at me, showed me that John Henry, railroad-worker build I’d inherited from my maternal granddaddy. My forearms strong, both filled with warrior tats. Six-two. Dark as an open road. A king that could only pass for a suspect in this country.

My blackness was part of the reason they pulled us over down South.

“Bottom line, it was legit.” I said that as I sat down on the squeaky bed. Said that to convince myself I wasn’t stupid, as naive as Wolf. “She gave me fifteen large. Cash.”

“Cash money.”

“Cash money.”

“Handed you fifteen thousand just like that.”

“Yeah.”

“Damn. Married Woman must be balling out of control.”

“She was. She is.”

“How much you got left?”

“None. It was gone inside two weeks.”

“You got some kinda habit I need to know about?”

I shook my head. “Used most of it to bury Momma, the rest to help Rufus out.”

“Driver ...”

“What?”

“I came to your mother’s funeral. Was worried about you.”

I paused and looked at her. “How did you know where it was?”

“You told me it was going to be at Angelus Funeral Home. Kinda called up there and asked a few questions. Didn’t know your momma’s name, but I figured it out.” She moved her hand over her mane, chuckled. “Ended up going to two funerals before I found the right one.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Well, you were looking pretty bad. Felt for you. I came late. Stayed in the back. Left before everybody got up to view the body. I don’t like looking down at dead people.”

“So you were there.”

“Yeah. Saw you and your brother. He sang a real nice song.”

“Yeah. He did. ‘Amazing Grace’ was her favorite church song.”

“Your brother ... albino?”

I nodded.

She shifted and softened. “You said that he was sick. What’s wrong?”

“Let’s just say he’s sick. Leave it at that. His meds cost a grip.”

Panther nodded, then shook her head, shaking off some memory. “One of my girls died a few years ago. Nobody even knew she was sick, not like that. She worked at the club, danced with us. Just stopped coming to work. She lied to everybody, said it was her thyroid. She’d answer my call but never had time to hang out or hook up, always had excuses, always busy. Next thing I knew, got a call she was gone. She didn’t even look sick. I mean, she had lost some weight, but she never looked that kinda sick, no sores, not like a walking cadaver or anything. It was so sad. We had to call the guys we knew that she had slept with, tell them that she had—”

“Panther.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. If you don’t want to talk about—”

“I don’t.”

She nodded again, this one meant she understood. “That money you took ... the fifteen thousand ... have you tried to pay any of it back to Married Woman?”

Again, I quieted. Alexithymia and ADHD held my hands, led me around the room.

It didn’t make sense in my mind, but I was searching for some justification, and all that came to mind were words, weak words, couldn’t think of a ten-dollar phrase to elevate what I’d done to a literary level. I cleared my throat and shrugged, told her, “Guess I thought that after what happened, my momma dying, hoped she’d let it go, cut a nigga some slack.”

“Sweetie, nobody lets fifteen thousand go.”

“I know. But it ain’t like it was her money. It was Wolf’s money.”

“Moot point, Driver. It wasn’t your money either.”

“I know it wasn’t my money, dammit. She dumped cash money right in front of me. I was broke as hell, couldn’t get a fucking job, barely had two nickels in my motherfucking pockets. What the fuck would you have done? Shit. Now get off my damn back.”

She stared at me, at my sudden burst of anger, her eyes wide, mouth open. Exhaustion had robbed me of sanity and patience. Hands were fists. I felt irrational, like I did when Lisa had made me lose it out on La Cienega, when she had hit me with that 7-Up can, when she had told me that a nice suit couldn’t hide the real me. Maybe that illegal money, maybe this legit job I’d taken, maybe all of that was about me trying to get away from the real me. I knew I wanted what Wolf had, wanted a life like his. Where I lived there wasn’t a ladder that went up that high.

Panther said, “I’m on your team. Remember what my place looked like?”

Head hurt like a stroke was coming on. Had to sit down where I stood.

Panther’s voice followed me, soft and sincere. “Would you rather a woman lie to you and tell you everything is all right, or would you want the truth, no matter how bitter the taste? Let me know what kind of woman you need so I can know what kind of woman I need to be.”

My eyes remained tight. Darkness running over my mind. Ran hands over my forehead.

She asked, “How much time she give you?”

“Three days.”

“A spiritual number.”

“What you talking about?”

“Three. Something biblical about the number three. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus rose up in three days. Three is a spiritual number.”

“It’s not.”

“Is.”

“Three Stooges.
Three’s Company. Three the Hard Way.”

“Whatever.”

Stairs rattled again.

Panther turned the TV off, made the room dark, wrapped a blanket around her naked frame, rushed and peeped out the window again. Nothing. She turned the TV back on.

I sat on my thoughts, the ones that told me I was a failure on both sides of the law. A hired killer who didn’t do the job.

She came over and kissed me awhile. Tried to get lost in her tongue.

She said, “First thing we do is get your brother. Then you let that job go.”