Million Dollar Baby (25 page)

Mac could see Air Jordan was ready to snap, saw the others with their hands inside their jackets. Mac’s hand was near the Glock.

Air Jordan said, “What you doin this part of town, old man?, you don’t know no better?”

“People call me Mac, retired LAPD. But since I train fighters around here, I figure it’s my part of town, too.”

“I fucked a fighter in the ass in jail one time,” said Air Jordan.

“I been in the fight game most of my life, but nobody ever fucked me in the ass,” said Mac. “Say, you ever thought of being a fighter instead of a butt fucker?”

“Too smart for that.”

“I’m surprised, you looking so tough like you do, or whatever it is you do look like,” said Mac, still smiling, his eyes hard as spider’s.

Air Jordan sat back. At that point he knew what Mac wanted him to know, that the señora had told Mac about him; that Mac was the heat, since once a cop always a cop, and that meant he had friends who carried guns; that Mac wasn’t afraid of him; that Mac knew how to track him. Air Jordan wasn’t happy. This old man was costing him money, and worse, his partners might lose respect for him if he let the old honky give him chump change. Killing the old man, for now anyway, wasn’t the answer, because he’d have to kill the señora, too. And kill that uppity-ass Puddin, who could be serious trouble. Now wasn’t the time, anyway. His fingerprints were all the fuck over the place. But fire would solve that problem.

“You a funny old white man, you know that?”

“Hey, we both know how great it is being white, ain’t that right?” said Mac. “Whaddaya say, we got a deal? You help me out on this, I’ll buy you guys dinner. Hey! I’ll feed the four of you right now just to show my word’s good.” Mac called to the señora. When she got to the table, Mac said, “These boys are hungry. Spare no expense. Why don’t you bring them out a nice big platter a squid?”

“What squid?” said Air Jordan.

“It’s good for you, man, make you strong,” said Mac. “You know, baby squid, sort of purpley-colored with ten little legs, know I’m sayin?, something like a octopus. Some squid can grow to sixty or eighty feet, but they’re a lot harder to get in the pan.”

“Aw, man!” said Air Jordan, standing straight up. Now he knew Mac was crazy. “You talkin that shit!”

Mac said, “Naw! She’s got some live snake in the back, too. You like snake? Be careful, a couple of them got loose on the floor the other day. Hey, there’s one behind you!”

“Where?” said Air Jordan. He and the others looked fearfully around their feet, began stepping high, like chickens in a barnyard.

“Over there,” said Mac, pointing to the cactus, the eagle, and the snake on a small Mexican flag on the counter. “You boys like snake? Tastes like chicken, they say; you guys like fried chicken, right? Fry some snake right up for you. You like your snake in one long piece with the head and rattlers still on, or you like it in chunks, pull the scaly skin off like cracklins?”

All four were knocking over chairs on their way out the door.

“What’s wrong, you ain’t hungry after all?” Mac called after them. “Hey! We still got a deal about those white boys, don’t we? What’s your phone number? I’ll call you!”

Mac winked at Señora Cabrera. Mad as she was, she was laughing. But she hadn’t forgotten about her
pistola.
From now on she’d carry it under her apron until the day she died.

Two days later, on Wednesday, April 29, at eleven-thirty in the morning, Mac began working with his pros at Hymn Gym, at 108th and Broadway. Hymn was at the southern end of South Central, west of Watts and 70 percent black, the rest Latino. Mac was still hurting, but the cuts were healing quickly and there was no infection. He closely watched after his fighters but only had them spar or work the big bag. It would be a while before he caught serious punches with the focus gloves. He was due to pick up Puddin at four o’clock, then head back to Not Long, where Puddin would work with Malik.

Clogging the entranceway to Hymn Gym were boxers, trainers, and locals who stood watching TV for news of the cop verdict in the Rodney King beating. The station kept running the clip of the edited tape, which had some of the viewers yelling at the screen. Some were drinking from half-pint bottles in brown paper bags. No one gave Mac any trouble, and he wondered if word was out on what had happened with Ruby. On the previous Thursday, the jury had begun seven days of deliberations after seven weeks of trial.

Mac passed through the group watching TV to refill a water bottle. It was one o’clock, and the TV reporter at the courthouse announced that the verdicts had been reached. They would be read in open court at three o’clock that afternoon. Mac finished with his last fighter at 2:35. By the time he got his gear together and washed up, it was 2:50. He waited with everyone else for the verdict, but when it hadn’t come in by 3:05, he left the gym. He drove north on Broadway for the Century Boulevard on-ramp to the northbound Harbor Freeway. Unless there was a traffic jam, he’d be early to pick up Puddin, so he took his time. His was the only car moving on the street.

Because of the imminent verdicts, and the potential violence they represented, Mac had thought about canceling the workouts. But his fighters depended on him, Puddin in particular, now that he had to be in shape to leave for training camp. One of his pros, a Liberian flyweight, was to fight the main event at the Forum in Inglewood. Mac’s Mexican featherweight, also a pro, was due for a fight in Vegas a week or so following that. Time was critical. Since it might be another week before the verdicts came in, Mac decided to go ahead and work rather than lose two, maybe three critical days out of fear.

Like most, Mac believed that guilty verdicts were sure to come down against the four accused cops. Like many, he also believed there would be trouble in the black community regardless of a conviction, which was one of the reasons he thought about canceling the workouts. The one o’clock announcement that the verdicts would be read at three concerned him, but he believed that he’d be finished at Not Long before any real violence could erupt. He also believed, mistakenly as it would turn out, that there would be a massive show of force by the police to quell any violence, which was what happened when he’d worked the Watts riots of 1965. Many blacks believed the same, and feared it, which is why some black politicians lobbied against a police presence in South Central. Other blacks wanted the police there because they knew that gangsters and mob rule would fill the void if they weren’t.

As he headed for the freeway on-ramp, which was still several blocks away, his car clock showed 3:18. What Mac didn’t know was that four not-guilty verdicts had been read at 3:15, and that the astonishing verdicts were based primarily on Mac’s understanding of the tape—that King’s attack on the police had resulted in his own private Hiroshima. Mac was nearing Century Boulevard and was about to turn on his radio when the first of two calls came in on his cellular phone.

The first was from Cannonball. “They not guilty.”

“Holy shit.”

“Where you at?” said Cannonball.

“On Broadway near Century.”

“Damn!” said Cannonball. “You git you white ass gone all the fuck outta where you at. Go where it white and stay where it white. Brothuhs talkin shit so cold I’ma close down and git up on the roof wit Lena.”

“My kid comes in, you take care of him, right?”

“Don’t worry, that boy too smart a come here, you worry ’bout you,” said Cannonball. “Sorry this shit come down, Mac.”

“I’m with you,” said Mac. “I’ll be in touch soon’s this mess is over, okay? And listen, thanks for thinking of me.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I got to ask you,” said Mac.

“Yeah.”

“You think we’ll ever get along?”

“Truth to tell, I don’t see it,” said Cannonball.

“Me neither.”

“Mac?”

“ Yeah.”

“I ain’t just talkin about colored and white,” said Cannonball.

“I know what you’re saying, my friend, I do.”

Mac turned back, heavy in the chest. He took Grand Avenue heading south and picked up the freeway at Imperial. Along the way, black teenagers on a school bus began screaming at him.

Willa called next. “We just heard the news. You stay away, Mist Mac, you hyuh? Puddin ’n’ me be fine. This over, then we go head on back and do like we always do.”

The riots officially began at 4:17 P.M. on April 29, 1992. Not with Damian Football Williams and Reginald Denny at Florence and Normandie, but with five young black males who stole several bottles of “8-Ball,” Olde English 800 malt liquor, from a liquor store at Florence and Dalton. When the Asian owner tried to stop them, one of the blacks smashed him in the head with one of the bottles.

“This for Rodney King!” he said.

The attack on Reginald Denny at 6:46 P.M. was what first shocked the world. But several others, male and female, were also beaten at Florence and Normandie—Latinos, Asians, and Caucasians. One Latino was beaten and had a car driven across his legs.

The perpetrators, though committing their crimes on live TV provided by hovering news helicopters, would subsequently receive minor sentences, including the dancing and prancing Football Williams.

The riots ended on the evening of May 4, 1992, but only after the National Guard was finally mobilized. Over five days, fifty-four people would die. Twenty-six were black. Fourteen were Latinos. Nine were Caucasian. Two were Asian. Three who died in fires were so disfigured that their race could not be determined. Emergency rooms treated 2,328 injured people. Eight hundred sixty-two structures were burned. Ruby Thigpen was torched when a Molotov cocktail she was throwing slipped from her hand, broke on the sidewalk at her feet, and lit her up. Property losses were in excess of $900 million. More Latinos than blacks were involved in the looting, but there were white looters as well. Señora Cabrera’s Acapulco was vandalized by blacks and Latinos. Someone defecated on the rug, and feces was smeared across the photographs of the señora’s grandfather and Puddin.

“Air Jordan,” said Puddin.

“You think?” asked Señora Cabrera.

“Devil shit where he want.”

The señora’s phone bill for just April 29—31 would be nearly a thousand dollars, an endless list of calls having gone from the Acapulco to places like Mexico City, Lima, New Orleans, New York, Guadalajara, Boston, Houston, Caracas, Panama City, and Chicago.

The señora was ready to throw in the towel. After eighteen years serving the very people who had destroyed her business, she was ready to torch the place herself. But Mac and Puddin showed up on the fifth of May,
Cinco de Mayo,
to help her and cheer her. Willa gave Puddin permission to take off from school. He would run in the morning, then Mac would meet him at the Acapulco and work cleaning up until the afternoon. Then Puddin and Mac would head for Not Long, where Mac would work with his pros as well as Puddin. He was so tired sometimes that he could barely hold his head up. So Cannonball would fill in for him, and suddenly Cannonball was like a pup, his movements young and springy as he made moves and called shots.

“Man, I be shiny like the bulldog on a new Mack truck.”

Puddin sparred with Malik sometimes, sometimes with someone else, sometimes he just worked the mitts and bags. But he loved working with the old-timer, was like a sponge as he added Cannonball’s tricks and slicks to Mac’s. The days of spring were getting longer, so Mac, Puddin, and Cannonball would return to work at the señora’s until dark, often longer. Afterward, Mac would treat them to Italian, Chinese, or Dutch Indonesian food. Cannonball was crazy for
sate sapi,
skewered pork with spicy peanut sauce, and side vegetables cooked with coconut milk.

“Man, this the way to greeze.”

In four days the Acapulco was clean again, the broken windows replaced, and the señora was almost ready to reopen. Much of L.A.’s infrastructure had been destroyed in the riots, including mom-and-pop markets and cafés. Hungry people continually stuck their heads in to ask when they could get fish again.

“When I put in my iron bars,” Señora Cabrera would answer, sometimes to the same people she knew had vandalized her.

Her doors and windows were standard, and the supplier had her sizes in stock. Once the iron bars were delivered, Mac and Puddin began to bolt them in. That took another two days.

“Now I’m the one in jail for obey the law,” said Señora Cabrera, shaking her head.

The Acapulco filled up the first hour it reopened. Señora Cabrera’s daughters took off from the hospital to help her the first two days. Except for the usual afternoon lull, the place stayed busy from eleven-thirty in the morning to nine at night. Puddin would return to help her close, then walk on home again.

Air Jordan loved the riots. He set seven fires and looted stores in South Central, Koreatown, and Hollywood. Using a stolen little stainless steel Walther .380, he shot a fireman in the face. But no matter how much fun he had destroying people and things, what still nagged at him was that old white man clowning him in that Spic café. So the real fun now would be the git-back on the old man, because no racist white man muhfuh born of a woman would dis him and skate.

Air Jordan spent much of his time plotting revenge. He had already staked out the Acapulco and knew Mac’s car and when Mac and Puddin would be there. Getting even was important, but getting away with it was more important. Standing over some sucker and laughing down on him as his life flickered, he liked that. Then to get so close the chump can see your eyes, and knowing that the chump will take your face with him to the satin, Air Jordan liked that, too. But how to hurt the old white man to his heart was the game now—how to hurt him so bad he wanted to be dead but had to go on living with what you did to him, that was the kind of git-back that made your dick get hard, the kind that was better than getting your nut.

Blind the old fuck? Cripple him? Maybe just set him on fire and watch him dance? Air Jordan enjoyed watching Mac and Puddin sweating their asses off putting the taco joint back in business. He knew they knew who smeared the shit on the fighters’ photos. As far as Air Jordan was concerned, he knew all he needed to know about Mac and Puddin.