Last Call (2 page)
“He’s toast,” said Isaac.
It was a side road of broken asphalt and rutted gravel.The rider hit a mud puddle and nearly fell, but he managed to right himself LAST CALL
5
and keep going. He had to stand on the pedals to maintain his speed.The all-out sprint was taking its toll.
“Get ready,” Tatum told his brother.
Dead ahead was a solid block wall.The paint-and-body shops on either side had closed hours earlier, their windows and doors protected by roll-down, metal security shutters. White boy had found himself a blind alley. He dropped his bicycle and ran, searching frantically for a way to scale the wall. It was like a sheer cliff.
He turned and faced the music—literally—as the noisy low-rider raced toward him. His back was to the wall, his chest heaving, as he braced himself for the worst.
The Chevy skidded to a stop.Tatum reached across his brother’s lap and pushed the door open.“Get him,Theo!”
Theo didn’t move.
Tatum slapped the knife handle into the palm of Theo’s hand.
“Go on, do it!”
“Take the bike,” shouted the rider, his voice quaking. “I paid over a thousand bucks for it. Really.You can have it.”
“Now!”Tatum said to his brother.
“Why don’t we just take the bike?” said Theo.
“We ain’t here for no bike.You gonna cut him or not?”
The rider was ash white with fear, pleading. “Come on, guys.
Please. Don’t do this. I have a two-year-old daughter.”
Tatum had lost all patience.“Cut him, damn it! Cut him good!”
Theo’s gaze shifted back to the rider, who was trying to adopt a goofy martial-arts, self-defense pose.Theo could have kicked his ass so easily. It wasn’t fear that was holding him back. In fact, there was strange satisfaction in walking up to a Bruce Lee wannabe and laying him out on the sidewalk—but only if there was a good reason to do it, like payback or protection. If Theo was going to turn some random Joe into a noisy amusement for a knife, it was important that he stand to gain something more than acceptance by a couple of punks who called themselves the Grove Lords.
6
James Grippando
Theo handed the knife to his brother.“You cut him.”
“Pussy!” shouted Tatum. He reached across for the handle and slammed the door shut.
Isaac shook his head with disapproval as he hit the gas.The tires spun and gravel flew.Theo looked back and saw white boy fall to his knees, relieved and exhausted.
Tatum shoved the knife back into the glove compartment.Theo thought he heard him say “pussy” again, but the boom box was way too loud. Isaac was singing along to Prince again, changing the words:
“This is what it sounds like / when Theo Knight cries.”
Twilight turned into night as they drove back into Coconut Grove.Theo retreated into thought. He was no pussy. He just wasn’t as stupid as his older brother. Even so, Tatum would pound him when they got home, no question about it. Or at least he would try. Theo grew bigger and stronger with each passing month, and everyone knew that before long the younger brother would have the upper hand.
“Something’s goin’ down over there,” said Isaac.
At the south end of Grand Avenue, right outside Homeboy’s Tavern, a crowd had gathered in the street. A line of cars in the right lane was blocking traffic. The Chevy stopped a block away at the red light. Isaac rolled down the window and shouted to another Grove Lord who was standing on the corner.
“Hey, Switch,” said Isaac. Switch (short for “switchblade”) sauntered up to the driver’s side of the Impala. Isaac said, “Hey, what’s happenin’, bro’?”
“You mean over there?” he said, indicating the crowd.
“I sure don’t mean in your shitty little life.”
Switch smiled, too dumb to know when he was being insulted.
“Some bitch got her throat slit.”
“Who?”
“I dunno.”
“She still there?”
LAST CALL
7
“Yeah. Blood everywhere. And she’s wearing this short skirt with nothin’ underneath.You can see it all, dude. Definitely worth a look.”
“Cops there yet?”
“Uh-uh. Just happened.”
“Let’s go see,” said Tatum.
Isaac raised the window. The traffic light changed, and the car started slowly down the street. Isaac looked at Theo and said,“Here’s the deal, bro’. I’m giving you one more chance to make it.”
“I ain’t cuttin’ no dead woman.”
“Forget the knife. All you gotta do is walk up to the body in front of all these people. Make sure everyone sees you. And then I want you to steal something off her.”
“That’s too easy,” said Tatum.
“I make the rules,” said Isaac.“This is Theo’s gig.You up for it?”
“Shit, yeah. No problem.”
Isaac steered the Chevy into Homeboy’s parking lot and killed the engine.“All right. Go for it, dude.”
Theo climbed down from the low-rider and started toward the crowd.About fifty black folks had gathered, most of the adults with drinks in their hands from Homeboy’s. The front door to the bar was wide open.The latest hit song from Kool and the Gang filled the warm night air. The nearest street lamp had been shot out by the Grove Lords weeks earlier, so the only source of light was the half-moon and the blinking Budweiser sign above the entrance to Homeboy’s. The main crowd formed a semicircle that blocked Theo’s view of the fallen victim. Several shirtless teenage boys were on their bellies, getting the X-rated up-skirt view that Switch had mentioned. Not a cop was in sight, but sirens could be heard in the distance.Theo needed to move quickly. He was about to break through the crowd when someone grabbed him by the arm, halt-ing him.
“Don’t go there,” the man said.
8
James Grippando
Theo nearly slugged him in the darkness, but at the last moment he recognized his great-uncle. “Uncle Cy, what are you doing here?”
“That don’t make no never mind. Just do as I tell ya. Don’t go there.”
Theo glanced back toward his brother in the Chevy.“I gotta go.”
“No, you don’t want to do that.” Uncle Cy tightened his grip.
Theo noticed that the old man’s hand was shaking.At six foot two he was taller than Theo, but he was a thin reed who lived on gin and cigarettes and God only knew what else. Theo could have shaken him off like a fly, but Uncle Cy with all his flaws was the closest thing he had to a father.
“You’re messing me up here,” said Theo.
“I ain’t gonna let you do this.”
Theo had no idea how the old man knew he was on a Grove Lord mission. He must have just figured that if Theo was out cruising with Tatum and Isaac, they had to be up to no good.“You need to let go.”
“No can do, boy.”
“Take you hands off me.”
“Not tonight I won’t.”
“Get out of the way.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“Don’t make me knock you on your ass.”
“You’re gonna have to. ’Cuz I ain’t lettin’ you through here, boy.”
Theo shoved him, and Uncle Cy went down like a bowling pin.Theo started through the crowd.
“Theo, stop!”
He kept going.
“Come back, boy!”
Theo ignored him.
“Theo, it’s your momma!”
LAST CALL
9
Theo froze.There was blood on the street, on her dress, in her hair—so much blood, the color of her long crimson nails dotted with cheap rhinestones. Flies buzzed with interest around the deep gash across her throat.The wound was just below the white leather choker around her neck, a few inches above the rose tattoo on her right breast.Theo didn’t want to see her face, but some inner curiosity made him take a good long look. He saw the open mouth, the painted lips, the vacant eyes staring into the night—two black pools behind a hooker’s false lashes and enough sparkling purple shadow to let the johns know exactly what she was.
And he saw a leopard-print shoulder bag on the ground, beside the lifeless body.
Sirens in the distance grew louder.Theo stood silent and stared, as if searching for the right emotions. He didn’t let his eyes go there, but he knew Switch was right: you could see right up her skirt.The view would have been only slightly less revealing had she been standing in her usual spot on the corner.
“Theo,” his uncle said, but Theo ignored him.
He stepped toward his mother, bent down on one knee, and checked to make sure that everyone was watching.
Then he grabbed the purse and ran back to the Chevy.
Jack Swyteck woke after midnight.The television was playing, but the sound was still on mute. Rene didn’t like sex in total darkness. Leno the night-light.
Jack stole a glimpse of the gorgeous woman in bed next to him. He was a lucky guy, he supposed, on many different levels. He was a respected criminal defense lawyer with his own practice. He had an unlikely best friend in Theo Knight, an ex-con and former client who would do anything for Jack. His beloved
abuela
was healthy, and it had been ages since he and his famous father had argued the way they used to.With Rene in town, there was plenty to be happy about—so long as he didn’t overanalyze things.
But he
always
overanalyzed things. Last month’s draw had fallen short of what some lawyers paid their personal trainers. His ex-wife was a fruitcake, and his post-divorce love life could have filled an entire volume of
Cupid’s Rules of Love and War
(Idiot’s Edition).
To add insult to injury, twice a week Abuela called Spanish talk radio to find her thirty-nine-year-old grandson “a nice Cuban girl.”
Sometimes Jack felt as if he had used up his lifetime allotment of luck getting Theo off death row for a murder he didn’t commit—whose death warrant had been signed by the law-and-order governor of Florida, Jack’s father.
And then there was Rene.
She lay on her side, sound asleep, the soft cotton sheet hugging the curve of her hip. Her flight from West Africa had landed that afternoon. She’d finally succumbed to jet lag, though not before taking Jack for a ride that seemed to have been propelled by rocket 14
James Grippando
fuel.They had planned to hit South Beach for dinner.They never made it out of Jack’s bedroom.Typical for her first night in town.
Unfortunately, she would be gone in two days, three at the most.
Some emergency would undoubtedly come up and force her to cut the trip short.That would also be “typical.”
The first time Jack had laid eyes on Rene, she was covered in dust, caught in the midst of the Senoufo country’s equivalent of a sandstorm. It was hard not to be impressed by a Harvard Med School grad who had given up the financial rewards of private practice to be a one-doc operation in a clinic near the cocoa region of Côte d’Ivoire. Many of her patients were young children escaping forced servitude on the plantations, mere innocents who had been snatched by kidnappers, lured away by liars, or sold into slavery by their own families for as little as fifteen dollars. Rene saw all that and more—malnutrition, AIDS, infant mortality, even genital mutilation among some migrant tribes. Perhaps it was a stretch, but Jack felt an immediate connection to Rene, having passed up offers himself from prestigious firms right out of law school to defend death-row inmates. For whatever reason, they hit it off.
Really
hit it off.
Passion, however, was a tricky thing. On the emotional EKG, Jack and Rene resembled a couple of flat-liners with occasional bursts of tachycardia. She flew into Miami to see him every three months or so. Sometimes she didn’t even tell Jack she was coming.
Smart, funny, sexy, and spontaneous, she could have been everything Jack thought he wanted in a woman—except that she was hardly ever around. On one of these visits she was going to put away the passport and announce that she was moving to Miami.At least that was what Jack told himself.A little optimism kept him in the game.
“Rene?” he whispered. She didn’t move. He nudged her.
“What?” she muttered.
“Where’s the remote?”
LAST CALL
15
Only one eye opened, which was a good thing. A two-eyed glare of that caliber would have killed him, for sure. She swung her arm around and jabbed the remote control into Jack’s elbow.
Jack punched the button, but nothing happened. “Damn it.
How are you supposed to get this thing turned on?”
“Talk dirty to it,” she said into her pillow.
“Thanks.”
“Go to hell.”
I love you, too
, he started to say, but thought better of a joke like that. On her last visit, he’d used the three operative words in a serious way. Her response was not what he’d hoped for. It left him resolved never to say “I love you” again—unless followed by the word “too.”
Waves of colored light flickered across the bedroom as Jack channel-surfed. He skipped through the reruns and infomercials, pausing only for a moment at yet another forensic drama that looked like
CSI: Mars
, or some such remote geographic rip-off of the original hit series.At the bottom of the hour, a local news head-line caught his eye. He raised the volume.This time, it worked.
“No sound,” said Rene.
“It’s still on mute.”
“Liar. I can hear it.”
“That’s because you’re dreaming. In real life, I’m perfect. Only in dreams am I a total pain in the ass.”
She was too tired to argue, or maybe it was his sense of humor that sent her back to sleep. Jack turned his attention to the television newscast. At such a low volume he could pick up only a few words here and there, but the image on screen was familiar. Jack had visited plenty of clients at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.A young and attractive reporter with ambition in her eyes and an Action News microphone in her hand was doing a live broadcast from outside the jail’s main entrance. Helicopters circled in the night sky behind her, powerful white searchlights sweeping the landscape.Those definitely weren’t media choppers.
16
James Grippando
The words “Breaking News” and “Prison Escape” flashed in white letters against a bright red banner on the bottom of the screen.
Jack glanced at Rene—still sleeping—and decided to risk a little added volume. With the press of a button, he immediately heard the excitement in the reporter’s voice, catching her in mid-sentence.
