L.A. Blues III (5 page)

“He was a stand-up dude. You know I think your man saved my life. He found out I was your brother and he told his fam to hold off until you got back with the money.”

“What?”

“No shit. Your man did that for me.”

“Well, how can you go out the country anyhow? Aren't you on parole? Don't you have a parole officer?”

“I can handle that. I got an insurance policy where I can come and go in and out the country when I get ready. But on the real, I've got something I want you to put in a safe place for me.”

I looked down at another flash drive.

“This is my passport out the country and back without violating my parole. This is for you, too, if you need any money. The password is on the flash drive with the account number. It's out of the Cayman Islands. If I get detained, I trust you to get money to my lawyer. Here's his name and number.” He handed me a business card to an Attorney Donald Solomon, which I later put into my phone.

I read the subtext here.
Uh-oh.
A frisson went through my bone marrow. I had this strange feeling. Déjà vu. My gut went to churning. I went through this with Okamoto, my former, now deceased police partner, on the night he was murdered. He'd given me a key to his safe deposit, which had information in it which almost cost me my life.

But something else was on my mind, eating at me.

“Did you turn state's evidence? Are you a snitch?” Now that I'd shaped the words, they felt scary, like Mayhem might kill me for saying it, but it was necessary.

Now it was his turn to get quiet, like, “Are you crazy?” His face contorted in anger. “Hell naw,” he said. “Just say I got a list. I know dirt on people all the way to the top. I have information on a secret society that runs this country. These white men will make the Ku Klux Klan seem like choir boys. I know about judges who've been paid bribes to fix cases. I'm a good guy when I see some of the things these politicians have done.

“I want you to be able to get into my safe deposit box downtown at Bank of America. Here's the key for you, too, if anything happens to me. I want you to get this information to the FBI. My lawyer will know who the good guys are.” Mayhem looked away.

Unlike what happened with Okamoto, this time the stakes were higher. He was talking about a secret society.

My mind was diverted to something else that was bothering me. “Why do you want to go to Brazil to take crack? I heard they were cleaning up the drugs in Rio for the 2016 Olympics.”

“I don't want to go there to do business this time. This is personal.”

“You mean for Appolonia? You don't even know her.”

“How did you feel about dude?”

“Romero?”

“Yeah.”

“I loved him. I would've taken a bullet for him. I feel awful that he died because he got involved for me.”

“Well, he gave his life for you. That's how strong his love was, and I only knew of him. . . . Now that was some love. This is what I've got to do. I can't just throw wifey under the bus.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm the reason Appolonia went back to Rio in the first place. I think she's being held against her will.”

“Maybe you need to leave that alone. Plus, it's dangerous to go to Rio right now.”

“You never told me what happened in Brazil.”

I shook my head. Some things were too painful to remember, let alone talk about. I didn't want to tell him that she was back with Diablo, who was now his archenemy and his rival.

Finally, I spoke up. “Bro, let's just say your sister's life will never be the same behind that trip.”

Mayhem stared at me and I could tell he knew that it had been a trip to hell and back. “I'm sorry, sis.” He reached out and hugged me.

“Sometimes I could choke your neck just for getting me involved.”

Mayhem chuckled. I could hear my brother's baritone voice vibrate in his large chest through his laughter. I noticed he had a nice laugh. He was not a person who laughed often. He always looked “hard.”

“Now, I know you my sister. You did it because I was your brother.”

“Speaking of family, you know I heard from our baby sister, Righteousness—at least she's claiming to be her. She says she has her birth certificate. She was adopted and is living in Michigan.”

“Does she know where our baby brother, Diggity, is?”

“I don't know. We were supposed to talk when I got home, and now I'm in the hospital. I'm really too shook up to call her right now. I'll call her when I get home. But as for Diggity, I think they were separated when she was adopted.”

“Say what? Well, if anyone can find him, it will be you. I have faith in you, sis. You the bomb when it comes to finding people.”

“Whatever.” I flagged my hand in a dismissive way. “Anyhow, I was on my way home to talk to her when there was something going on crazy in South L.A. Money was floating down in the street. I didn't know if I was hallucinating at the time, but now I see what was happening on the news.”

“Yeah, I heard about it on the way here too. So that was where you were in the car accident? Girl, you know you always be in some heat. ”

I once considered my brother a killer and now I was a killer too. Even if my killings were in self-defense, how could I judge? I'd still taken six lives. I didn't even want to think about it.

I'd been angry with God and, in turn, with Mayhem since Romero's death. I blamed God for letting it happen, and Mayhem for getting me involved. But now I knew I had to take some responsibility for what happened. I had a choice. I could've not gotten involved.

Well, one thing for sure. I wouldn't get involved in Mayhem's mess this time around.

The next morning, I caught a cab home from the hospital, thinking about this new turn of events. I thought about how capricious life could be. One minute you're okay and, the next, you're hit by a car. Life could change on a dime. I could have died, I could have lost the baby, but I didn't die and I didn't miscarry. Miraculously, we were both alive and safe. Wasn't that a sign from God that this baby was meant to be? For the moment, I felt like everything would work out fine.

Before my discharge from the hospital, I had spent the morning on the phone, contacting the rental agency to pick up the car from the police station's impound. (The insurance would cover everything.) For a moment, my mind was off whoever was threatening to turn me in for disposing of Tank's head.

Now, I was beginning to feel a surge of excitement over the baby. I had to say the words out loud because sometimes I couldn't believe it. I was actually going to have a baby. I was going to be a mother! And I was alive! I was really happy to be alive! Even the fronds on the palm trees stood at attention, as if they were bending down to welcome me home as I rode up the hill to the tri-level located in Baldwin Hills, one of the best-kept Black neighborhoods in L.A. Overcast, slate grey sky, yet I was in a good mood. Yes, life was good.

I didn't stop in “the big house” to see my foster mother, Shirley, foster father, Daddy Chill, or my nieces, Chica's daughters, Soledad, Malibu, Charisma, or Brooklyn. I just clambered upstairs, to my bachelor garage apartment, spread a clean sheet on my futon, climbed on it, pulled up my warm afghan cover, and passed out.

I don't know how much time passed, but I woke up to the sound of rain, sleet, and hail beating a double-dutch rhythm on the roof. The sound of a loud thunderclap made me jump. I could see lightning flashing through my skylight window.

I lay there in a languid mood, remembering the first time I slept in Romero's arms on this futon. We didn't have sex on that first date—instead, we talked all night; then he just held me while I dozed off. Since his death three months ago, I'd spent more time in my garage apartment than I'd spent there in the past year. I'd generally stayed over at Romero's house in Silver Lake when he was alive. I guessed I'd have to think about moving, now that I'd have a baby to care for. Plus, this apartment had a lot of bad memories.

I'd been so upset while I was in mourning, I had forgotten about the two crooked undercover cops, Flag and Anderson, who I'd killed in this very same apartment. True, it was self-defense, but now I felt a little uncomfortable being in the same space I murdered two men in. Maybe it was the pregnancy that made me see everything in an ultra-sensitive light. One thing was for sure, I would need a larger place when I had the baby, but I'd have to worry about that later.

Like a schizoid person, I went from feeling happy before I lay down to feeling melancholic when I woke up. Being the movie buff I am, I thought a movie would perk me up and decided to play a DVD from my collection:
The Howlin' Wolf Story—The Secret History of Rock & Roll,
a documentary on the life of this iconic guitarist, blues singer, and harmonica player, Howlin' Wolf, aka Chester Arthur Burnett.
Now what did I do that for?
When the blues song “Smoke Stack Lightning” played, I felt as if I was on one of those old-fashioned trains, and I experienced the haunting longing in the music in each turn of the wheel. I missed Romero so, I could feel him in each blues note. I cut the DVD off.

Next, I watched some of my old video tapes of Alex Haley's
Roots
—where Kizzy, Kunta Kinte's daughter, cried about how everyone she had loved, including her mother and father and her first love, had been taken from her. She was sold away from her parents and her first love was sold away when their aborted plot to escape was discovered.

That was all it took. The dams really broke and I boohooed over the loss of Romero. I cried over my mother, Venita—whom I still hadn't forgiven and who had abandoned me when she went to jail when I was nine years old. I wept over the loss of my late Belizean father, Buddy, who was murdered. Also I sobbed for the loss of my three siblings when we were all shipped to different foster homes. My only biological sister had been lost to me for all these years, and I hoped this Rachel was really our baby sister, Ry-chee, the nickname we used to call Righteousness. I only had Mayhem left. Life was so unfair.

“Show me a sign you're still here,” I said out loud to the room, talking to Romero as I wiped my eyes. My murdered father still came to me in my dreams. I'd been speaking to Romeo a lot since his death, but I couldn't feel his presence.

Suddenly, I felt a furry ball flash by my feet; I looked down to see Ben, my pet ferret, nestled at my feet and I felt a sense of comfort. I took solace in the fact I still had my pet and had kept him alive for a couple of years, which was part of my treatment plan from my alcohol rehab program. Absently, I fluffed his mousy grey fur.

Something prompted me to pick up my phone to see if there were any messages from my sister, Rachel. There were none from her. Bummer.

I really hadn't listened to my voice messages on my iPhone since I came from Brazil. Following Romero's death, I'd been so depressed I had only answered a few direct calls. If they wanted to talk to or see me at all, Chica and Haviland would just come and drag me out the house. That's how they were able to get me to the set to help shoot shows, even if I moved around like a zombie. That's how we were able to shoot the pilot and the first set of shows for our reality show.

Besides being depressed, I had been so busy shooting our reality show, for the first time since I had bought the new phone with the same number I had before I went to Brazil, I checked my message center. I had only called out to clients, or answered a few calls from Chica and Haviland.

The first frantic call on my voice mail came from Chica on the previous day. “Where are you, Z?” I clicked delete. I'd talk to Chica later.

I clicked my next message. A familiar voice came on the line. My heart almost stopped. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! It was a message from Romero. My first thought was,
maybe they made a mistake.
Maybe he wasn't dead. Then I saw the image of him dying in my arms. So I listened again to the message. I saved the message, then went back through the center. This voice mail was dated back to three months ago while I was still in Brazil. It almost scared me because it was like hearing his voice from the grave. His voice reminded me how thin the line was between life and death. One minute you were here, and the next minute, you're on the other side of life.

“Z, this is Romero. I want you to know I love you. I found out about your brother's kidnapping. He's safe—for now . . . .”

A long pause ensued. His voice sounded tired. “I hope you're okay. Oh, baby, why didn't you tell me? Anyhow . . . what I want you to do is contact my lawyer, Attorney Jay Stein, in Pasadena. His phone number is 1-818-693-8888. Call him just in case anything happens to me. Love you,
mamacita.
Hope to see you soon.”

My heart clutched, then began to fibrillate. Tears gushing down my face, I listened to the message over and over. I knew it was sick to do this, but I savored every word. If only I could touch him and see him again.

Finally, I called the attorney, Stein, and scheduled an appointment for the next week.

“I can't come in this week, but I'll come next week.” I almost added, “I'm on bed rest.” But I caught myself.

That evening I called Rachel as I lay on bed rest. She answered on the first ring. “Hello, may I speak to Rachel?”

“Is this my big sister, Z?” she asked in a timid voice.

“Yes, baby sis,” I said, using the nickname I used to use for her when I was young.

She spoke in a rush. “I almost thought you weren't going to call me anymore. That you might have thought this was a prank.”

“Oh, no, baby. I'm so sorry I didn't call you. I've been in a car accident since we spoke. I just got out the hospital today.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I'm fine. You know I've been looking for you for the past three years. I've dreamed about this day for years.”

“Me too.”

“What are your adoptive parents like?”

“They're good. Both are retired school teachers. They put me through college and grad school.”

“But, tell me about you.”

“Well, I'm engaged, I'm twenty-six, and I'm a kindergarten teacher. I wanted to know something about my family before I get married and have children.”

Babies . . . Some women actually want children? Well, now I'm going to be a mother, ready or not. Here I come.
“Are you happy?”

“I'm happier now that I can get to know my roots. You don't know how long I've wanted to find you.”

“Same here. Do you know where Diggity is?” Diggity, my baby brother, whose real name was Daniel, was a year older than Rachel. They were living in separate foster homes the last time I saw them.

“I don't know. He was adopted by another family around the same time I was when we were nine and ten and I lost touch with him. I've always wanted to meet my mom. How is she?”

“She's all right. She's out of town right now, but she should be back soon. Just say our family is a little dysfunctional.”

“I do realize that. After all, I was born in a prison. I have two birth certificates: the one from my real mother, and the amended one when my adoptive parents adopted me. . . . But you seem to be doing well, in spite of everything.”

“I don't know about all that now.”

“Oh, you're being modest.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I Googled you.”

“This Internet is a mess. What did you find out?”

“I see that you're a private eye and you have a reality TV show called
Women in Business.
”

I didn't answer. These two titles were my masks. If she only knew the real Z: the one who was about to abort her baby up until this car accident made me realize I wanted my child; the one who killed four men in Brazil, trying to save my brother.

I can't remember everything we talked about but we talked almost two hours. No matter how long we talked, you could never catch up a lifetime in that time.

 

As soon as I hung up, I called my birth mother, Venita, on her latest phone card throwaway cell phone and told her the good news—that I'd found Ry-chee.

“For real? Are you serious?” She started screaming like a wild woman; then she burst out into loud sobs, almost piercing my eardrums.

“I heard you'll be back in town soon,” I said after Venita calmed down.

“I'm supposed to come back in a couple of weeks, after I wrap up my business here. I've got a job I'm going to give notice to. The boys are in school through the mosque, but they'll be out for summer vacation.”

“What?”

“Yes, these boys just needed some discipline. We've been studying with the Nation of Islam since we came to Chicago. At first we stayed in Iowa until Mayhem was freed. Thank you so much, Z.”

“Well, he
is
my brother . . .”

“Anyhow, I've been taking the boys to the mosque so they are learning about their history and how to be good Black men.”

“My, my. Aren't you full of surprises?”

“Well, life is about change. For the first time, I'm feeling whole.” Venita paused. “I haven't felt right since I gave birth to Righteousness in prison. I promised myself that one day I would see her again. That's when I hit rock bottom and made a vow to God that I would change. But, what about Diggity?”

Venita was referring to my youngest brother, Daniel, whom we'd nicknamed Diggity because, when he was in his diaper, he used to break down and work it when he danced until Venita would say, “Hot diggity dog. Look at that baby go!” When the song “No Diggity” came out in 1996, I always thought of my baby brother.

“We've still got to find him,” I said. “They were adopted by different families.”

Venita started crying again. This was disconcerting for me—this new emotional mother. I thought back to how she cried when she saw her grandsons for the first time last year. Ironically, I never saw her shed a tear when we were growing up; and she had plenty to weep about while she was gangbanging and fighting with her men.

I guessed I felt sorry for her. “Okay. Well, I'll make sure Ry-chee comes to visit you when you come home.”

“Praise Allah!” she shouted between tears.

What? When did she get so religious?
I wondered.