Casanegra

by Blair Underwood

  “What about Tuesday morning? Where were you then?” I said.

  At that, Tyra looked at me askance, but she didn’t remove her hand. Instead, she spread her palm and began rubbing a circle. “Why you asking?”

  “Someone thought they saw you somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “A grocery store on Sunset.”

  Understanding washed over Tyra, and she almost smiled. Her hand went still. “Oh, OK, I get it. I had some work Tuesday morning for a couple hours.”

  Probably heavy lifting,I thought. “What kind of work?”

  “Music work, no thanks to Serena. There’s a building on Sunset and Cherokee with a recording studio on the third floor. I went by for a couple hours to lay down some tracks, then I went home for lunch.”

  “Who paid for the studio time?”

  The glint came to Tyra’s eye again. “M.C. Glazer,” she said.

  April and I couldn’t help looking at each other, surprised. I hadn’t expected to hear Glazer’s name from the mouth of Serena’s sister. April sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor in front of Tyra, taking notes again. The photographer had just left.

  “He liked it that me and Serena sound so much alike. He said he would put me in his video, too. He said we were like twins,” Tyra went on. For the first time, we were getting somewhere.

  “Was he doing that to humiliate Afrodite?” April said.

  Tyra shrugged. “Hey, the pay was good. And like I said, he let me lay tracks.”

  “So you happened to be in a recording studio a couple of blocks from where your sister’s body was found,” I said. “On the same day.”

  Tyra looked at me blankly. “Fucked up, huh?”

  “Do you think Glazer had anything to do with her death?” April said.

  For the first time, Tyra seemed to realize she was in the presence of a reporter. She stood up abruptly, towering over April. “Don’t put words in my mouth, bitch. And you better take out anything about M.C. Glazer. Period.”

  “Hey, sweetheart, calm down,” I said, standing. I squeezed Tyra’s upper arms in a promising embrace and spoke intimately into her ear. “She’s cool, Tyra. She won’t print it if you don’t want her to. Besides, you can ask her to leave.”

  April’s eyes sliced into me, but she didn’t argue. I knew April wouldn’t be happy, but I didn’t want to get kicked out, too. I wasn’t finished with Tyra Johnston.

  Tyra pointed the front door out to April. “You gotthat right. So, go.”

  “You heard the lady,” I told April. “Sorry. Call you later.”

  You better,April’s eyes said. She sighed and gathered her things.

  “I need to find somebody who can pay some real money for a story. That is some bullshit,” Tyra said, watching as the door closed behind April. We were alone.

  “Try theNational Enquirer,” I said.

  She smiled at me, her irritation forgotten. “Ooh. You’re right. AndStar . Thanks, sexy. So who beat you up?”

  I decided to go fishing. “Jenk and his friends,” I said.

  I got a nibble. Tyra knew the name. “Works for Glaze?” When I nodded, she chuckled. “Well, if you’ve got beef with Jenk and them, you truly do have beef. You know all those guys are Five-O, right?”

  “Where do you know Jenk from?”

  “High school. He was in my class. He was tight with Shareef and Lil’ D. He used to fuck Serena. Everybody else did.”

  “Were they still friendly?”

  She shrugged. “After she got big, Serena wasn’t friendly with nobody from back in the day except Shareef and D.”

  “What about Shareef? Was Jenk friendly with him?”

  “I guess so. They played ball together at Dorsey High.”

  “Why would a friend of Shareef’s work for M.C. Glazer? They were rivals.”

  “Don’t take that hype serious. They were all just making money.”

  “Except that Shareef and Serena are both dead.”

  Tyra didn’t have an answer for that, nor did she seem all that curious. Her eyes drifted, as if I’d lost her interest. She got so close to me that her breasts were brushing my chest. Her skin seemed to burn through her clothes.

  “My turn to ask the questions,” Tyra said. She pressed harder, crushing her chest to mine. “You and Serena used to fuck, huh?”

  “For a while.”

  “She never told you she was a ho?”

  “I never asked.”

  Tyra’s hand traveled like a snail from my chest to my stomach, and the journey didn’t stop at my belt. She slid her hand across my zipper and gave me a meaningful squeeze through the denim.

  My head ached with Tyra’s revelations. I was a murder suspect, and my spirit was heavy with the possibilities that either Tyra or an LAPD officer might be involved in Serena’s death. But an attractive woman’s hand was playing with my crotch, and any man will tell you that in a tug of war between big and little heads, the little head wins too damned often. Besides, standing this close to Tyra, I couldn’t ignore what I saw of Serena in her face. Suddenly, my jeans pinched.

  “Damn,”Tyra said, impressed with the mound she felt growing beneath her fingers. Not letting go, guiding with great care, she led me back toward her sofa by my jeans. I let her pull me on top of her. Her hand still owned me.

  I kissed her like I meant it, and her tongue was sweet. I didn’t know how far I was willing to take this, but I knew I wanted to keep her in a friendly mood. For just a blink of an instant, the room melted, and I was with Serena. Her hand was cold when it burrowed inside my jeans. I quivered to my spine, remembering.

  “What’s Jenk’s real name?” I whispered.

  “Robert Jenkins,” she said, stroking me with soft, plying fingers. “Now, shut your mouth and show me.”

  “Show you what?”

  “Show me what you did with her.”

  I pulled back so I could see Tyra’s eyes. I would have been surprised at how soft they were if I hadn’t thought I heard it in her voice; suddenly, she didn’t sound like a woman desperate to show up her sister by playing with one of her toys. It was almost as though Tyra thought I could help her find her way back to Serena.

  I thought of the photograph she had posed with, two smiling sisters. The interrogation was over, I decided.

  “You have so much poison in your heart,” I said, thinking aloud.

  She scowled, surprised, yanking her hand out of my jeans. “Excuse me?”

  “Let it go. She’s gone.”

  Tyra was strong for her size, and her push sent me to my feet, off-balance. Her face was knotted with rage. “Motherfucker, don’t talk like you know me.”

  “Serena was afraid her past would drag her down. She couldn’t take the chance you would say the wrong thing to the wrong people.”

  “Get out!”Tyra screamed. Her voice probably traveled three flights down.

  “It doesn’t mean she didn’t love you.”

  I knew the slap was coming before it arrived, but I didn’t move to avoid it. She hit me hard enough to rattle my teeth. Damn. That lip would be bleeding again.

  I left Tyra Johnston’s apartment without another word and without most of the answers I had come looking for. But I couldn’t have stayed. As I climbed down the stairs, I heard the keening sound of Tyra’s sobs through her closed door. A terrible sound. But I was relieved, for Tyra’s sake.

  Maybe Tyra had something to do with killing Serena, and maybe she didn’t. I still didn’t know. But no matter what, the woman in apartment 3C needed to cry.

  EIGHT

  STUCK ON THE 10 FREEWAYbehind a truck spewing tarry smoke for twenty minutes, I finally called April. We were moving only inches at a time. In Los Angeles, sometimes the cars decide to camp out in their lanes without a reason, as if the memory of last night’s accident still haunted the freeway.

  “Well?” April answered without a hello.

  “You heard most of it. Whether or not she’s a suspect depends on her alibi. Maybe you shou
ld go to that club, Mackey’s. Ask around.”

  I didn’t really care about Tyra’s alibi, given that she had been so close to where the body was found. She might not have killed Serena, but it was more than likely she had been an accessory after the fact.

  “Want to meet me there?” April said. When I didn’t answer right away, she sounded disappointed. “What’s wrong? I thought we were a team.”

  April had been candid with me, so I chose candor, too. “I don’t want everything I find out about Serena to end up in theL.A. Times.”

  “You knew I was writing a story, Ten.”

  I hadn’t planned to beg outright, but that was how the words came out. “Please don’t print what Tyra said about Serena’s past. About the prostitution. Please.”

  April sighed. “Ten…Nobody tells me how to write my stories. I’m sorry.”

  I felt personally betrayed, and surprised myself in the process, as if April’s kindness toward me made her something more than a stranger. “Then this is where we part,” I said. “If I find out anything I think you can use, I’ll let you know. I hope you’ll do the same.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for a proper good-bye, so I hung up before she could protest.

  The next number I dialed was for Casanegra Productions. Devon Biggs. But the assistant who answered told me that Mr. Biggs would be in meetings all day.

  “Tell him Tennyson Hardwick wants to talk about his Nubian Princess,” I said.

  She called back not even ten minutes later. Surprise, surprise.

  Mr. Biggs had an opening right away.

  “Skank-assbitch,” Devon Biggs said behind his desk at Casanegra, his eyes wide and unblinking. He looked more stunned than angry.

  “Thought you would want to know. There’s a chance it’ll be in theTimes.”

  “Tyra’s always talking shit. And for what?” He sounded grieved. “Whenever she called Reenie and said she needed money, Reenie was there. Reenie set her sister up in a nice place out in Santa Monica for a while—a house with a pool—and Tyra fucked that up. Drunk and loud, just like their damn mama. I can’t count how much money Reenie pissed away trying to help Tyra get her shit together. And now she saysthis ? It’s sad, man. That was one sick fucking family.”

  “So it isn’t true? About you, Shareef, and Serena?”

  Biggs looked up at me, his eyes clear. “Hey, man, I never said it wasn’t true.”

  I blinked. Tyra’s story had sounded plausible at the time, but I had started to hope for a different past for Serena. A different childhood.

  “Fuck you, Hardwick,” Biggs said, reading my expression.“You’re judging?”

  Clear implication in that tone: He knew of my financial arrangement with Serena. My face went hot. “I’m not judging. I’m just…”

  “Serena did the best she could with what she had. The girl was wild, and we kept her from getting jumped. We got her through it, and it took her where she wanted to go.‘The white man ain’t left me nothin’ but the underworld, and that is where I dance…’” he said, leaning across his desk, and I recognized Larry Fishburne’s line to Gregory Hines in Coppolla’sThe Cotton Club. “Where doyou dance?”

  “Was she still dancing?”

  Biggs raised his eyebrows. “Maybe you haven’t been paying attention, man, but Serena Johnston was worth thirty million dollars. She’d been off the streets for twelve years. The way I hear it, she got off paying dudes to fuckher. Although if you ask me, a dude like that is more a pussy than a man.” He gave me a contemptuous smile.

  I wouldn’t let Biggs get under my skin. There was big money at stake, and he and Serena might have been romantically involved. Devon Biggs deserved a closer look.

  “What about you two? Tyra said you had history.”

  “You picked the right word—history.We played some games when we were kids, but we were family.” Biggs went on. “And I’ll be straight, Hardwick: I loved Reenie, but she had mileage. That might turn some guys on, but not me. I guess you could say I knew where she’d been.”

  “What about the business side? Was everything still cool there? Like you said, it had been a long time since Serena needed a pimp.”

  Biggs’s face turned hard. He didn’t like that word. His hand tightened around the coffee mug on his desk. I made a mental note to be ready to duck.

  “If you’re really trying to find out who killed Serena, then we’re on the same side, so I’m gonna let your ignorance slide,” Biggs said. “But let me break it down: I came up with the business plan for Casanegra and took it toher. She didn’t know shit about the money side, but she knew a good thing when she saw it. If she hadn’t trusted me, she wouldn’t have made me her CFO and personal attorney. Shareef got Serena started, but I made her rich. So you tell me: Were things cool?”

  “Things change,” I said, shrugging. “Maybe she outgrew you. Or, maybe you didn’t like a ho telling you how to run your business.”

  Biggs leaped to his feet, leaning so far over his desk that he could have been standing directly in front of me. “You call her a ho one more time,” Biggs said, his eyes so glassy they shimmered, “and I will throw you out of that window.”

  I got the idea that he might just try it, although he wouldn’t get far. But I couldn’t take offense. Frankly, I was glad to see a protective streak in Devon Biggs that had been so absent in Tyra. From the look on his face I might have been talking abouthis sister.

  I held up my hands, surrendering. “My bad, man.”

  Biggs’s face softened slightly. “Serena liked you. I don’t know why, but she did. The day she died, she called me and asked me to hook you up. So I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. But don’t you ever walk in here again disrespecting Serena’s name, or I’ll remember some things about you and Reenie I forgot to mention to the cops.”

  I nodded. “Understood,” I said. I didn’t like to be vulnerable, but he had me.

  Biggs sat again, straightening his sport coat. “If Tyra was working for M.C. Glazer, you need to be asking what’s up withthat.”

  I had told Biggs about Tyra’s recording session for Glazer, although I’d been purposely vague about the location, and I hadn’t mentioned how close she was to the body. If Biggs was trying to put up smokescreens, I wasn’t going to give him any smoke. But Biggs had said exactly what was on my mind.

  “Do you think Tyra would go as far as helping someone kill her sister?” I said.

  “Tyra was killing Reenie softly every single day,” Biggs said. “I wouldn’t put anything past her. Tyra pulled aknife on Reenie a few years back.”

  “Was that when Serena got the restraining order?”

  Biggs looked surprised I’d heard about it. “She said that, too?”

  “She said they slapped each other a few times.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Biggs said. “They were eating dinner in the back room of El Compadre. Tyra goes nuts, punches Reenie in the face, and tries to slice her with a steak knife. That’s Tyra’s idea of gratitude. Tyra Johnston and M.C. Glazer are an unholy union.Count on it.”

  Biggs’s phone rang for the first time since I’d been in his office, and he answered without excusing himself. “What now?” he said, spinning his black leather executive’s chair away from me, erecting an invisible wall. “Fuck you, man. You know what your problem is? You have no respect. Afrodite ain’t even buried yet. Maybe I need to send the police over there to ask whereyou were the night she died.”

  The man on the other end spoke so loudly that I could hear his voice, insectlike through the phone’s speaker. “Gimme a break, Dev. That’s bullshit and you know it.”

  “What’s bullshit is you calling over here riding me this week.This week. You call me again, and I’ll walk straight into hell before you see a dollar. Believe it.”

  He slammed down his phone so hard he almost knocked it off his desk. In that instant, I felt sorry for Devon Biggs. Death rarely brings out the best in people.

  “Bookie?” I said after he hung up, a half
hearted joke.

  “Worse—a producer,” he said. “Stan Greene. Greedy motherfucker. He was trying to sue Serena, and now that she’s dead, he thinks he’s getting paid. The cops need to check him out, too. He and his lawyer are both straight-up Vegas mob. Greene used to talk shit when he directed videos for Shareef, bragging about doing this or that to people who tried to rip him off. I know you think I sound paranoid, but just remember what I said:The Hollywood Rules. How do you make enemies?”

  “By being successful. I remember.”

  I had never heard of Stan Greene, but I wrote the name down, just in case. Biggs’s claims would be easy enough to research. I knew the list of suspects would get longer, and it was a wearying idea. With DNA test results on the way, I was running out of time to chase after every lead.

  Biggs looked at his watch. “OK, so now, thanks to you, I have to waste time and money calling theL.A. Times to let them know that if I see a story in the paper saying Serena was a prostitute, they will get sued until they can’t walk straight.”

  “I’m doing what I can on my end. I asked the reporter not to print it.”

  Biggs looked at me, incredulous. “And you couldn’t handle that bitch?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was referring to Tyra or April Forrest, but it was the first time I had heard Devon Biggs sound like a pimp. When I was in the seventh grade, my father heard me say the wordbitch, and he knocked me out of my chair. I wasn’t happy with April either, but that word is not in my vocabulary.

  I didn’t answer Biggs. I only got up to leave, until my sore lip reminded me of a piece that was still unsorted in my mind. One name kept coming up everywhere I went. “Hey, man…one last thing…”

  Impatient, Biggs rested his telephone receiver on his shoulder. “What now?”

  “I got jumped by some guys last night. Tyra said one of them might have known Serena back in high school. His name is Robert Jenkins. Goes by the name Jenk.”