Lorenzo was a shadow over me, and I saw the crowbar raised high. I thrust out to try to scissor his legs with my own, and missed. He was still reeling, but he snarled.
“I’m gonna take my time with you, asshole,” Lorenzo said.
Thwump.The crowbar caught my ribs this time. I felt bones break.
The gag swallowed my cry. All the strength, all the adrenal desperation, all training, discipline, and hope drained away. I thrashed on the rocky ground like a beached fish, digging my shoulders into the dirt to try to move away from Lorenzo before he could beat me to death. My ribcage screamed, nearly paralyzing me with each stabbing breath. Someone kicked me in the groin, and it was almost a relief not to be struck in the ribs again. Almost.
My vision cleared, and I thought I was hallucinating again: Above me, I saw mammoth towers with rotating propellers, as if we were on a space station on alien terrain. The blades were spinning as if we could all take off in flight. Was I staring at the final fantasies of a cooling brain?
We were at the windmills.
Thwump.The crowbar took a bite out of my leg, just above the knee. I grunted into the gag. My mind spun with lines from my mother’s favorite poem:When will the wind be aweary of blowing Over the sky? / When will the cloudsbe aweary of fleeting? / When will the heart be aweary of beating? Alfred Lord Tennyson, of course.
I’m sorry, Dad.
Now I know what my last thoughts might have been.
Another kick to my abdomen. Everything melted away. Black.
Then, another shock of cold. More beer in my face.
Laughter and an idling car, a roaring dragon in my ear.
“Oh,shit,” I heard M.C. Glazer say. He hooted. “I don’tbelieve it.”
“Told you we’d put a smile on your face.” Lorenzo.
“Hey, man—we knew you wouldn’t want to miss a minute ofthis party.” That was DeFranco.
The pain was dizzying. I needed a doctor. But that was the least of my problems.
I blinked, trying to see past the stinging beer and the light. Grinning teeth. M.C. Glazer’s face slowly emerged above me, leaning over to get a good look. He smelled like rum. He was fascinated.
“Man, what happened here? Ya’ll look fuckedup !”
“So he knows some Jackie Chan,” DeFranco said, breathing heavily and wiping blood from his face. “Didn’t mean much, did it?”
“This looks like some hardcore S&M shit,” Glazer said. “You tied him like Zed inPulp Fiction, man. Ya’ll been taking turns? Just so you don’t get it twisted—the only bitches I fuck are bitches.”
Glaze howled with mirth, and after another moment of steadying themselves, Lorenzo and DeFranco laughed along. Two other men laughed from the silver Hummer I saw parked on the other side of me, although the laughter sounded nervous.
An audience for the execution.
“What I tell you? They’re cold-blooded,” Glaze bragged to the men in the Hummer. “They got badges, but they still step up. Just like Jenk.”
“He killed a cop,” Lorenzo said, planting his foot on my chest. “Got to be this way. Otherwise, you know what happens. Lawyers. Trial. Fuck that. He killed Jenk.”
“Always wanted to get my hands on a cop killer,” DeFranco said.
I thrashed, moaning against my gag.I DIDN’T KILL HIM. LET ME TELL YOU WHO DID IT. I was not going gently into that good night.
“How y’all know he killed Jenk?” one of the men in the Hummer called out. Was he just curious, or did I suddenly have an advocate?
Glaze looked at me again, and I tried to claw into his eyes for his attention.
“What’s he saying?” Glaze said.
“‘Hail Mary, full of grace,’” Lorenzo said. More laughter.
Call it instinct or hysteria, but I had an inspiration: I laughed, too. I tried to pull my lips into a smile. I laughed again, more loudly; a real laugh this time, an invitation to insanity. When Glazer looked at me, I mumbled against my gag. Then, I laughed again.
M.C. Glazer couldn’t resist. “You want to talk to me, fool?” he said.
I bucked.TAKE THIS THING OFF ME.
Maybe Glazer was curious. Maybe he just wanted to hear me beg.
“Man, take that shit out his mouth,” Glaze said. “Nobody’s gonna hear him way out here.” He kneeled above me. “You like it out here in the windmill forest? You see where cops with badges can take you? Cops are theshit, man. You gotta pull over if they tell you. They walk around strapped. They’re gods among men. They’re my army. Afrodite didn’t have no army. Afrodite wasn’t nothing. Afrodite didn’t have no Grammys. She never had nothin’ except a Black Music Award, punk. You’re about to die over some bullshit trick.” His rant sounded almost frantic; he was high on adrenaline. Or something.
I felt yanking behind my head, and suddenly the ball was out of my mouth. I spat, sucked air, thought I’d never tasted anything so delicious in my life. Lorenzo slapped my face with the leather harness, reminding me where I was. I might have cracked one of his front teeth. God, I hoped so. I fervently wished him a long, slow root canal.
I steadied myself: the next words out of my mouth might very well be the last.“YOU DIDN’T KILL AFRODITE,” I choked.
“Tell me some shit I don’t already know,” Glaze said. “Where Chela at?”
I saw Lorenzo and DeFranco exchange a look, but neither of them spoke. DeFranco shoved his hands in his pockets, impatient, but Lorenzo didn’t move.
I ignored Glaze this time, looking for Lorenzo’s eyes. It almost hurt to look at him, but my instincts told me to forget about Glaze: Lorenzo was the one to negotiate with. My mind ran away from me with thoughts so quicksilver I could barely grab them.
I have to get my Bronze Man. Take him where he belongs.
“Devon Biggs killed Afrodite,” I told Lorenzo. “Your man Jenk, too.”
I was no longer as certain as I’d been in the trunk, but Biggs was my best shot.
“Who the hell is Devon Biggs?” Lorenzo said. At least he was listening.
Glaze stood over me and spat down on my face. I hardly felt it land on the river of sweat on my cheek. “Tell me where that little bitch is, or my boys will shoot your balls off one at a time.”
The cops were covering for Chela. If I could drive a deeper wedge between the cops and Glaze, Imight have a chance. Jenk was the key.
“Biggs told me Glaze killed Afrodite,” I gasped to Lorenzo. “He told me to go to the club that night. Jenk knew something. I could tell as soon as I said Afrodite’s name. That’s why Jenk called me the day he died. That’s why my card was in his car. He warned me I was after the wrong guy. He told me to back off, or I’d get hurt.”
“The man was a prophet,” M.C. Glazer said.
“He was trying to help me,”I said.“He knew who killed her, and he died for it.”
Glaze kicked me in the face, catching me just beneath my jaw. “Where’s Chela?”
I’d rolled with it, but still bitten my tongue, enough to bleed. With my hands now in front, I might have blocked, maybe even gotten my hands on his ankle. But fighting wasn’t going to get me out of this—talking might. I had to go on; the pain was only going to get worse, not better. Again, I looked for Lorenzo, praying he would hear me. His eyes were riveted. His crowbar was on his shoulder again, not waving above me.
“Jenk and Afrodite had a high school thing,” I gasped. “He loved her. He boosted her up when she was just starting out. He told her to go out on her own.”
“That triflin’ ho dissed Jenk day and night,” Glazer said.
Go on,Lorenzo’s eyes said.
“But Jenk didn’t kill her,” I said. “It was Biggs. Afrodite was leaving Biggs behind, and he wouldn’t let her go…” The shadowy figure I’d hallucinated in the trunk seemed to appear again, this time with Biggs’s face. I tried to see through his eyes.
There’s a story that during the filming ofMarathon Man, Dustin Hoffman showed up on-set disheveled and unshaved. “Dear boy! What’s the matter?�
� Laurence Olivier said, distressed. Hoffman explained that he had been up all night, really working to get into the mental state of his tortured, tormented character. Olivier stared at him. “Haven’t you ever heard ofacting ?”
Well, what Hoffman was doing, the Konstantin Stanislavsky or Lee Strasberg school of “Method” acting, has influenced generations of actors, including Paul Newman and Marilyn Monroe. And me. I’d taken lessons at the Strasberg Institute, where they hammered at my ego, seeking to drive me deep enough to release the spiritual essence of acting. Seemed a little woo-woo to me, but there had been times I felt so close to a character that his trials and suffering became my own. I could feel myself being swallowed by the fiction.
In the desert north of Palm Springs, I slipped into that space again, allowing everything I knew about Devon Biggs to collapse together into a critical mass, and to my vast surprise, it exploded back out into clarity, light, and hope.
I’ll be damned.
“Stuff that gag back,” Glaze said. “He talks too damn much.”
I lunged away, my knees scrambling in the gravel.“B-Biggs was her pimp, and she wanted to be free.” Suddenly, I remembered visiting Biggs’s office, seeing Afrodite’s music awards on display. Was the statue I’d seen bronze? It was possible. It might be a bronze figure of a man; it had looked like an Oscar. What had Biggs’s alibi been? He was working late at his office, making calls.
Serena had called Tyra after business hours to say she was going to get her Bronze Man.Was that why Tyra seemed to be toying with me? Did she know all along that Serena went back to the office to get that statue?
“Afrodite went to her office to get her Black Music Award. Biggs was there, but he lied and told me he didn’t see her that night. But Tyra knows he did. He hit Serena on the head. She died of blunt force trauma.” The scene played itself in my mind like a memory. Biggs on the phone, Serena surprising him in his office. A fight.
Lorenzo straddled me with the gag, but he was listening. His eyes were all I had.
“He killed her, and Tyra knew all along,” he said. “Ask her. Serena called Tyra right before she died. She told me.”
“What thefuck does that have to do with Jenk?” Lorenzo snapped the leather.
The story and scenes in my mind, so real before, faded. Facts scattered. In my nanosecond of silence, Lorenzo reached around my head with the gag.
I bobbed my head away.“Tyra was sleeping with Jenk!” I blurted.
“True that,” called one of the men in the Hummer. They sniggered.
Lorenzo wavered above me. “So?”
“Tyra told him what Biggs did. She knew as soon as her sister was dead.”
But she didn’t go to the police. And Jenk didn’t go after Biggs.But Biggs was wearing Kevlar. He knew he was in danger, and not from M.C. Glazer. He was afraid of Jenk. You saw it in his eyes when you mentioned Jenk’s name.
But why didn’t they go to the police? What did they gain by keeping quiet?
“It was a shakedown!”I said. “Tyra knew if Biggs died—or if they went to the cops—there’s no money. She could fight for her sister’s estate, but why fight? Jenk could help her intimidate Biggs into paying big money to keep quiet.”
DeFranco searched out Lorenzo’s gaze. DeFranco couldsee it.
I was talking so fast, spittle and blood flew out of my mouth. “Biggs didn’t want to pay. I say he brought a satchel of bills, and Jenk turned his back to count. Biggs shot him, and Jenk never saw it coming. Jenk didn’t think Biggs would have the balls—they’d known each other since they were kids.” I held Lorenzo’s eyes with my own. “Biggs shot your friend, man. Tyra knows, but she’s not talking because she still wants a payoff.It wasn’t me. I’ve never killed anybody, much less a cop. Mydad was a cop. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to get payback for Serena.Biggs killed both of them.”
At the end, I was so breathless that my voice was a hoarse whisper. I felt like I hadn’t tasted water in a year.
“Could be that guy shot Shareef, too, huh?” one of the men in the truck mused, and my heart danced. I’d sold him. Had I sold anyone else?
A gasp, and I went on. “When Afrodite started to blow up in movies, maybe Biggs got rid of Shareef so he could have her all to himse—”
“Put the gagback,” Glazer said, cutting me off.
Lorenzo yanked my head back, against my struggles.“I DIDN’T KILL JENK—”
And my mouth was gone again. I bit into the rubber ball, yelling to be heard. Otherwise, I could barely move. All strength had flown.
M.C. Glazer laughed. Doubled over, his hand pressed to his mouth. He pointed at me. “Aw, shit…You know what? I gotta hand it to him, man—he nailed that shit. I’m listening to him saying,‘Damn. He’s got that bitch Tyrafigured out.’”
My heart stopped in midflight. What was he saying?
Lorenzo wiped blood from his mouth, his eyes suddenly sharp and focused on Glaze. “What do you mean?” Lorenzo said, in the measured tone he reserved for me.
M.C. Glazer held his hands out, aYou got me pose. “This fool didn’t kill Jenk.”
“Saywhat?” DeFranco said, cocking his head and rubbing his ear.
“My diffen ill Ink!”I screamed around the ball. They couldn’t understand me, but they got the gist.
“Naw, man, he’s right,” Glaze said. “Tyra was pissed off and crying after Jenk got shot. She told me Biggs did it, the shakedown, all this shit. I decided to take care of Biggs myself, but Biggs and this fool here both got nine lives. Dead men walking. Tyra says now that I got his attention, I should lay off Biggs until she gets paid—which is why he’s breathing to this day. But not for long.”
I could barely register the words. Holy shit. I wasright ?
“And you knew who killed Jenk. She told you,” Lorenzo said, standing up straight. His spine unfolded one vertebra at a time, snakelike. “But you kept this shit to yourself.”
Glaze pointed at me, his face tight with rage. “This motherfucker broke in my house,tied me up, and stole my girl.”
“Yeah. Your fourteen-year-old girl.” Lorenzo’s voice was low, mild.
Glazer started almost as if Lorenzo had slapped him. “Shit,” he said, changing tactics. “He stole myphone ! You don’t get to live after fucking with M.C. Glazer.”
DeFranco’s face, already puffy from my efforts to escape, swelled with anger. “Oh, I get it. You’re pissed off at this guy, so you take us along for the ride. We’ll find him faster if we think he killed Jenk.”
The windmills whirred on as usual, but the wind was changing direction. Gusts of tension stirred around me, in everything and everyone, including the two guys sitting quietly in the Hummer. This was a secluded place. Guilty or innocent, bad things happened where people couldn’t see.
Glaze shrugged, sounding apologetic. Like me, he knew he needed to talk to Lorenzo. “Nothing personal, man. Y’all can still take Biggs down. Fuck Tyra and her money. You think I was gonna let Jenk go down without payback? Shit, I tried to take him myself. That’s what you don’t understand about me: I think outside the box. But now that you gotthis fool…”
Glaze swung his leg around, and this time his sneaker landed at the hinge of my jaw. I couldn’t roll my head back fast enough: If he’d been wearing boots, he’d have taken my head off. The world tried to melt into blackness, but I blinked to hang on. “…I’m gonna get Chela back. And he’s gonna learn why you don’t fuck with M.C. Glazer.”
Lorenzo took two steps away from me. I watched him, praying fervently, and God answered me right away: He dropped his crowbar.
“No.” It was a simple word, but it seemed to part the skies, a nonnegotiable declaration strong enough to power the windmills whirring above us.
“No,what ?” Glaze said.
“I’m here for Jenk.Punto. I’m not a hitman.”
“Yeah, it’s not like that, Glaze,” DeFranco said, sounding sheepish.
Glaze blinked. “Jenk would have done it.”
“Internal Affairs is already on our asses,” DeFranco said. “It’s one thing if we got the fuck-face who killed Jenk, but…”
Glaze didn’t know what to say. He glanced toward his Hummer, seeking counsel from his boys. Not a word. No sound except the mills harnessing the wind. Five men alone in the desert, voting on whether I would live or die.
“So, wait,” Glaze said to Lorenzo. “You think you’re just gonna walk away and he won’t say shit about you dragging his ass out here?”
Lorenzo squatted above me. His eyes crushed me beneath their weight. “I think he’d be smart, that’s what I think. His word against ours. He broke into your house, held you at gunpoint. That’s assault and unlawful detention. That’s a lot of time.”
I nodded, blinking to let him know I heard him.I can’t even SPELL trouble, man.
“I can’t believe you’ve gone pussy like that on me,” Glaze said.
My prayers of thanks were cut short when Glaze reached around and pulled out his own gun. Another Smith & Wesson. The nickel flashed Morse code in the sun.
Glaze aimed at me, turning the gun sideways the way actors do in ghetto Godfather epics.He doesn’t know anything about guns. Maybe he’s never shot anyone. Even as my life spiraled down the drain, my mind wouldn’t give up hope.
Glaze cocked his head so he could stare down the barrel, fixing his gaze at the center of my head while he bit his lip. He could taste it now. I felt his heartbeat’s acceleration as he sat at the edge of the Thing that had fascinated a certain type of man since the beginning of time:How does it feel to kill someone?
Lorenzo and DeFranco stared at Glazer. Neither of them moved or spoke.
“Kiss my foot, fool,” Glazer barked at me.
My eyes were locked with his. He could kill me. Beat me. He could take my life, but only I could give him my dignity. I tried to find Lorenzo’s eyes again, but he wouldn’t look at me.
A shot boomed, and for an instant I thought I was dead. The bullet kicked up a dust cloud three feet to my left. The smell of sulfur clogged my nostrils.
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