Casanegra

by Blair Underwood

  Biggs’s face froze, like a photograph. He held the pose for a minute, then he shrank into his chair. If he had looked stunned when I mentioned Tyra’s accusations, now he looked shell-shocked.

  “I take it you know him,” I said.

  Biggs swallowed hard. His voice was a hush. “He’s a lying cop. Dirty as they come. Gangbanger. Where’d you see him?”

  I decided to dole out a few details. “Club Magique. He’s a bodyguard for M.C. Glazer. I got the feeling he knew something about Serena.”

  Up until that moment, I’d never seen it happen: The color drained out of Biggs’s face, wheat toast turning white. Suddenly, his upper lip was beading with sweat. “He’s working for Glaze?”

  “Him and a whole bunch of other Lap Dogs.”

  “What?”

  A wan smile. “LAP Dogs. Private joke.”

  Biggs didn’t say anything else. His face set so hard it looked chiseled.

  “What about Serena and Shareef?” I said. “Did they know Jenk?”

  Biggs nodded. He blinked rapidly, rubbing his forehead. Droplets clung above his lip, a mustache of sweat.

  “Jenk was tight with Shareef for a while, but that all changed,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because Jenk was hardcore and Shareef wasn’t,” Biggs said. “In high school, Shareef never had to join a gang because bangers left the ballplayers alone. But Jenk was Blood to the bone. After Shareef started making it in music, Jenk wanted him to live the gangster life, started calling him soft. But Shareef wasn’t a fool. He didn’t want to go down like Tupac, with all that gangster hype. See, if all the money wasn’t in gangsta rap, Shareef would’ve been more like Will and LL Cool J, right? Party tracks. But Shareef tried to have it both ways. He talked gangsta on his CDs, but he could never get to M.C. Glazer’s level—he didn’t live the life.”

  “Was Serena sleeping with Jenk?”

  “In high school? Maybe. Now? Hell, no,” Biggs said, not hesitating.

  “Why?”

  “Reenie didn’t like gangbangers. She and Shareef were all about business.”

  “Would Jenk have a reason to kill her?”

  “Jenk wouldn’t need a reason. Not if he got paid enough.” Biggs still spoke softly, as if the room might be bugged, but suddenly words tumbled quickly from his lips. “But maybe it was personal. Jenk had a security company he tried to push on Shareef and Serena, and he’d sweat them to release his sorry-ass CD. He made them nervous when he was around, and he didn’t like being brushed off. I thought about him after Shareef died, but I didn’t have proof. Just a feeling. You saw Jenk with Glaze?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, that’s tough luck for you, Hardwick,” Biggs said.

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? Because he’s a cop. That’s why they’d rather nailyou.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. Dad had confided that he knew an investigator on the Shareef murder who complained that he was thwarted by his bosses at every turn, whether it was because of racial politics or because of fear of department-wide embarrassment. He said gangs had infiltrated LAPD, and the whitewash went to the top. Biggie’s murder investigation had gone nowhere because of the same damned problem, he said.

  Dad, whose deepest contempt was reserved for bad cops, was sickened by the whole mess.Misguided loyalties will kill our community, Dad said.I can’t stand to see thugs with money invoke the name of Martin Luther King and walk. Dr. King didn’t die so killers could roam free.

  Biggs sighed, making up his mind to tell me something.

  “If Glazer is thick with dirty cops, they ain’t just bodyguards,” Biggs said. “You need cops for their badges. For their access. Get it? Glazer deals guns. That’s not just an act for him. Drugs, too. Maybe Glazer and Jenk thought Shareef and Serena knew too much. Had too much dirt on him, like Tyra does on Reenie.”

  “Then they probably think you know too much, too.”

  Without blinking, Biggs pulled open his coat and unbuttoned his white dress shirt. Underneath, I saw a blue Kevlar bulletproof jacket. Suddenly, I understood the sweat above his lip; I’d worn Kevlar at the police academy, and it’s hot.

  “I already thought of that,” Biggs said. “Did you?”

  Devon Biggs gazed at me like a man who was already seeing a ghost.

  NINE

  “POZDRAVIT IS AFTER ALL,” Mother said.

  I’d heard worry in Mother’s voice when she called me after I left Casanegra’s offices. She was finally looking her age; she must be at least seventy-five. She was vain enough to wear a bright red wig, but in her pantsuit and reading glasses, she could be anyone’s grandmother. I wasn’t used to hearing Mother sound like an old woman.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing, maybe,” Mother said. “Maybe something. I don’t know.”

  With Old World elegance, she motioned for me to sit. Mother always stands over her visitors during meetings, a subtle power maneuver. I took my seat on her Louis XVI sofa, in front of a coffee table covered in doilies. Mother worked from her home in Brentwood, where her neighbors on both sides drove Mercedes SUVs and had yards cluttered with children’s toys. No one suspected there was a madam in their midst. Mother did most of her work on the phone, but she used to invite me to her house often. I always left with a lucrative job, a head full of vodka, and an earful of stories.

  The living room was silently guarded by two white mastodons—Mother’s standard-sized poodles, Dunja and Dragona. They sat on either side of the room with attentive eyes, their pink tongues lolling from their mouths in a way that made them look like they were smiling. Their downy fur was lavishly fluffed and groomed with bows, their nails hot pink, but those dogs were well-trained and vicious. Attack poodles: Mother’s private joke. I didn’t mess with those dogs.

  I thought Mother and I were alone, until a blond-haired woman with a fashion model’s height and build emerged from the back of the house wearing an unseasonably long leather coat. I readied a polite smile and nod—until I saw her face. I had to stand up to keep from falling out of my seat.

  Mother was the only one of us still smiling. “Ah! A reunion.”

  Let’s call her Jeanine. She averted her eyes, but she was too close to disappear and pretend she hadn’t seen me. Her bottom lip curled beneath her teeth like a repentant child about to cry. I had no idea Jeanine was still working for Mother. I don’t know which of us was more mortified.

  I’m not the only actor who’s discovered the financial rewards of sex-for-pay.

  Jeanine was once the bombshell lead in a popular television series, where she had a reputation as a diva. She was cast opposite an unknown actor who later became an A-list star, but Jeanine’s career stalled after the show ended. She hadn’t invested her money in anything except travel and spas, and she’d been going broke.

  One night, she saw me working for a client who was a friend of hers, and Jeanine asked me question after question. Here was an actress who’d been a pinup on my locker when I was in high school, and she was askingme for advice! I had a fat bank account and more frequent flyer miles than I could use, so I told her Mother was the answer. She worried about publicity, but I assured her that Mother’s clients were discreet. I brought Jeanine to Mother’s house for the introduction, andCestitam ! We all toasted while Jeanine laughed so hard she got red in the face, sayingI can’t believe I’m doing this.

  Her first job paid forty thousand dollars for a single night’s “entertainment” with a Japanese businessman addicted to American television. It wasn’t her last.

  I’d brought Jeanine to the wolf’s door.

  Eight years later, I wiped my expression clean, matching Mother’s smile. Jeanine hadn’t changed much physically, thanks to the work of a skilled plastic surgeon, but her eyes devastated me. The blue had lost its luster, replaced by a vacant glassiness. I didn’t have to ask to know she hadn’t done any acting lately. Her eyes broadcast that loud and clear.

  “Hey, girl, you�
��re a vision,” I said, trying to sound happy to see her. I squeezed her shoulders and kissed each of her cheeks. Her skin reeked of cigarettes and coffee.

  “I’d like to say the same.” Jeanine stole a glance at me and pulled her coat tightly around herself, as if trying to hide. Her lip gave way to an unmistakable sneer as her eyes glimmered, mocking. “Moonlighting, Ten?”

  I shrugged. “You could say that.”

  “Then I won’t delay you. Mother doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  I took Jeanine’s hand before she could brush past me. She sighed impatiently, but held on. She still wouldn’t look me directly in the eye. “You all right?” I asked.

  “I’m going to Bahrain tomorrow,” she said with a luminous smile. “A sheik.”

  That didn’t answer my question, but it was the best I would get. “Then good for you,” I said. “You deserve nothing less, beautiful.”

  A little girlish spark in her eyes, and she was gone. Jeanine couldn’t get out of Mother’s house fast enough; the door practically slammed behind her.

  Mother seemed to enjoy my discomfort. Still smiling, she offered me a tray of finger-length Serbian cookies. I shook my head. Although I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten, I wasn’t feeling social right then.

  “No one would guess she is in her fifties,” Mother said. “So dedicated! I owe you more for her than I have paid.”

  My empty stomach turned. “No thanks. I can’t afford that money.”

  Six months after I brought Jeanine in, Mother gave me a check for twenty thousand dollars: A “finder’s fee,” she called it. I ran out and put a down payment on my convertible. Mother offered to partner with me if I brought her other famous faces.Clients pay top dollar to spend the night with someone they see on TV, she said.

  I considered it at first, I’ll admit—but the change in Jeanine changed my mind. In those first months after I introduced Jeanine to Mother, I watched Jeanine smother the part of her that believed she could be respected again.

  Mother sipped from a mug, lips tightening as her smile faded. Just that quickly, Jeanine left her mind. “There is a problem, maybe, with one of my girls from Club Magique.” Mother was so quiet, I almost hadn’t heard her. Suddenly she was an old woman again.

  I was glad to talk about anything but Jeanine. “Honey was doing fine the last time I saw her,” I said.

  “Not Honey. This girl is named Chela. You may know her as…M.C. Glazer’s favorite new toy. A young one.”

  I studied Mother’s jade-colored eyes, still bright despite the wrinkles around them, and I was almost sure I saw some shame. Or, maybe I justhoped I did. I’d worked with Mother for five years, and I’d never known her to send out underage prostitutes. Call me naive. I wanted to drop-kick that old lady across the room.

  “Up pretty late on a school night, wasn’t she?” I said.

  Mother made a hissing sound, waving her hand at me. If there had been shame in her eyes before, there was only annoyance now.“Tsk. I don’t tolerate lectures. You know this about me. My business is my own.”

  “Fine. Then what am I doing here?”

  Mother sat beside me to rub my knee. I’m no stranger to Mother’s touch. She once made a polite advance, soon after we first met, but I refused just as politely. The look on her face: wistful, but resigned. She never tried again.

  “It is very good to see you, my dearest boy. I have missed the sight of you.” Mother sighed and went on, her voice low and pained. “You say you will no longer work for me. You are too shy now. Or you have a girlfriend, perhaps?”

  I shrugged. She knew my reasons: One of them had just walked out of the door. Five years ago, I was flipping through channels and came across one of Jeanine’s reruns, when she had top billing. A soul-sick feeling told me I had to quit working for Mother. I was afraid of ending up like Jeanine—but more afraid I would be tempted to bring Mother another prize for her stable. Unlike Devon Biggs, the pimp game wasn’t for me.

  Neither was the rest. I won’t lie and say I didn’t miss the money—Mother could have put thirty thousand dollars in my hands by the end of the week—but I never missed the work. I was so busy trying to get parts and pay my bills that I could have gone six months without sex and hardly noticed, if I hadn’t run into Serena.

  “I accept this, Tennyson, although it makes me sad,” Mother went on. “So much money lost, for both of us. You called me in a time of need, a time of trouble, and now I call you. Bring Chela to me.”

  I groaned inwardly. I was in a fight for my freedom, and Mother wanted to send me on a rescue mission. Worse, she wanted to send me back into the path of M.C. Glazer. I might end up in the hospital this time. Or worse.

  “M.C. Glazer’s bodyguards don’t like me,” I said.

  “Yes…so I see,” Mother said, regarding my bruised face with the same sour expression she might have reserved for a marred Picasso. Gently, she touched my swollen lower lip. “Which is why I worry for Chela. This is not a nice man.”

  “Did you figure that out before or after you handed Chela over to him?”

  Mother’s eyes gleamed with hurt. “You know I am careful. But he pays well—too well, maybe. I did not listen to my instincts.”

  I decided not to share my suspicions about M.C. Glazer and Serena, even though Mother deserved to be scared shitless. “What makes you think Chela’s in trouble?”

  “When she is working, Chela is to call me each morning. Eleven o’clock. This is an important rule, and each morning she calls as directed. But not today. Also, she does not answer her cell phone.” I doubted that Mother’s regular girls had a designated time to call. I was glad Mother had at least bothered to give Chela special rules.

  “How old is she?”

  Mother’s face snapped away, as if the question bored her. “Older than I was when I was eating garbage in Kosovo.”

  “Tell me how old she is, or we’ve finished talking. The truth.”

  “Fifteen. She came to me a year ago, but I waited, Tennyson. Until now.”

  I noticed a pink duffel bag hanging by the door that looked like it belonged to a high school student, and I realized the kid actuallylived here: Mother had taken Chela in and turned her out. I thought of Serena in a backyard shed, and suddenly I was pissed. But why should I be? Her job had always been the same. Mother found broken birds. I had been one of Mother’s broken birds, too; no different from Jeanine. Maybe I still was.

  “Like Chela, you are too old for fairy tales,” Mother said. “She has no one, and she earns top money. You would envy her bank account. Where else will she go? Life leaves few choices for a girl alone in the world.”

  My mind was tired. I didn’t want to hear any more. “Where is she?”

  “Glazer has an oceanfront house in Laguna Beach. Chela has said he takes her there, away from everyone. Privacy, you see.”

  My heartbeat shot up a notch. If finding Chela meant I could see M.C. Glazer without his bodyguards, Mother’s call was a blessing. A few years ago, M.C. Glazer had gotten in trouble again when a video on the internet turned up showing an underage girl in his bed. The video wasn’t sexual, only someone taping a party at Glazer’s house—but it showed too much of Glaze’s life. He’d avoided criminal charges, as usual, but now he apparently was a bit more careful, keeping the girl isolated.

  “As you see, of course, I cannot go to the police,” Mother went on. “Bring Chela back to me safely, and I will pay five thousand dollars. I realize this is only a small portion of what you could earn otherwise…”

  “If that five thousand is for bringing Chela back to you, I won’t take money.” I stood up, and the height advantage went back to me. “Tell me where the beach house is, and I’ll go get Chela, Mother. I’ll make sure she’s safe. But when I find her, don’t expect me to bring her back here.”

  Mother’s expression suddenly reminded me that she had shot a man in the face during the war. It would be a terrible mistake to think her just a small-boned old woman drinking
tea. Mother is a chameleon. Just as quickly, her lips curled up into a small smile, revealing pale teeth that could have been made of glass. She sipped from her mug.

  “Chela will go where Chela will go,” Mother said, untroubled.

  She was right, and I knew it. It was hard to walk away from The Life. If she was still alive to make the choice, Chela would want to go straight home to Mother.

  M.C. Glazer’s beach house practically sat on a private beach, penned in by a vast cliff to the north and bluffs hiding it from view. I drove past the sandy road to the house twice before I realized I’d missed it, since it wasn’t visible at a distance.

  The house was so secluded that it seemed like an optical illusion; invisible at most angles, then suddenly right in front of you. Improbably, the two-story house looked like a dollhouse, made almost entirely of glass. It wasn’t huge, probably not even as large as mine, but its location was breathtaking. The house was virtually hidden from sight inside a cove, so close to the beach that a determined storm could sweep it out to sea. I could hear the ocean crashing from the other side of the bluff, where the waves must be a surfer’s paradise. They don’t call Laguna Beach the “California Riviera” for nothing.

  Even standing where I was, at least fifty yards from the blue-black water, I saw three fins carving a wake in the ocean not far from shore. Probably a school of dolphins, I realized. M.C. Glazer could go swimming with dolphins any time he chose. His front yard was a dazzling ocean and a beach stretching from here to eternity. I don’t often envy people, but jealousy cut into me. How could such a beautiful place belong to such a sick soul? I couldn’t guess how much it would cost to rent the house for a week, much less to own it, but I learned long ago that almost nothing is impossible for people with enough money. Private beaches. Private planes. It’s all a backdrop to them, something to take for granted. M.C. Glazer was living on a level few men in human history even dreamed about, a true king. If I remembered my history right, trying to topple a king was a dangerous undertaking.

  I stood beyond the sun-faded vertical picket fence cutting the property off from the private road and watched the house, looking for movement from any of the windows.