To Funk and Die in LA

by Nelson George

  "Don't be surprised. I see you, D. You moving to another phase in your life. A good woman would really help you get there. That Michelle is smart and knows how to use two coins to make three. But is she really ready to put up with what comes with a black husband and a baby or two in this fucked-up country? Shit, I am seriously black, and sometimes I can barely get through the day."

  "I don't know why we're having this conversation," D said. "We've just gone out a couple of times."

  "Oh," Aunt Sheryl teased, "you're getting defensive."

  D could tell he was blushing. It was weird. In the middle of everything going on he was catching feelings for Michelle. This conversation made him deeply uncomfortable. "Walli," he said to escape his aunt, "show me the rest of the house."

  First they checked out Walli's room, which was much bigger than what he had back in LA. Through the window was a vista of electrical towers behind a block of similar two-story buildings. On the wall was a framed photo of Walli with his grandfather and D, right next to posters of Blac Chyna and Zendaya. Aunt Sheryl's master bedroom had its own walk-in closet and a private bathroom, plus a brand-new bed with a canopy covered in leopard print. Her new carpet was thick and the view overlooked the street and her neighbor's homes.

  Finally D was shown the guest room, which he could use whenever he wanted. He stood in the doorway and regarded the bed with its dark wood posts and sturdy frame. It was his grandparents' bed. "She couldn't toss this out, huh?"

  "The appraiser from the vintage shop really wanted it," Walli said. "But I guess not."

  D sat on the bed, which was covered in kente cloth sheets his grandmother had sewn together back in the Afrocentric nineties. It squeaked, which made D remember being told it was the bed his father had been conceived on, a detail that used to gross him out but now felt like an essential connection to his family's past. Without this bed, neither he nor any of his brothers would have existed.

  Walli had gone back to his room to grab his computer to show D some genealogical material he'd found online about the Hunter clan. But when Walli returned D was stretched out on the bed, snoring and dreaming.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  HOT IN SHERMAN OAKS

  It was one of those pink-, sand-, or slate-colored apartment complexes rife in the Valley with a faux-Spanish water fountain in front, balconies for every apartment on each of its four floors, and a gated entrance to underground parking. Out back was a courtyard with a family-size pool, a smaller wading pool, Jacuzzi, barbecue pit, and worn deck chairs.

  The furniture in the apartment was imitation Crate and Barrel, including a sofa, TV, dining table, bed, kitchen gear, and washer/dryer. The AC went from mild to freezing if you tapped the thermostat. The two windows looked out onto Woodman, a busy street that had exits on and off the 101. Welcome to Sherman Oaks, D thought. It was a short walk to the studio down Ventura Boulevard, so he wouldn't be totally dependent on a car. There were some minimalls in the direction of Ventura where he could grab provisions, along with cleaners, a Peruvian restaurant, and some other small businesses. Along Ventura itself were plenty of spots to eat, some yoga studios, and, down by the 405, the Galleria Mall with an ArcLight Cinema and 24 Hour Fitness.

  D had never spent much time in the Valley and sure hoped his stay would be short-lived. Night was staying in the same complex, where he could keep an eye on him. And Amos Pilgrim was footing the bill, so D was only paying for utilities, cable, and Internet. Though the apartment defined bland, this journey west had morphed from sad family gathering to legitimate business trip. Living in this faceless joint would definitely focus D on the task at hand.

  Now that he was here, Night and Al wanted to play him everything they'd cut in the studio, a marathon listening session D couldn't wait to start. Anything that kept him out of his apartment was fine.

  * * *

  On overbearingly hot summer days, Ventura Boulevard's pavement scalded walkers. Which is why D was hopping between patches of shade, from the side of a building to a bus stop to the long shadow of a palm tree.

  D knew he must have looked silly to the passing Cali motorists rolling through Sherman Oaks. But he was determined not to give up walking just because he was in LA. He felt his back tighten up when he spent too much time in a car seat, plus the stubborn New Yorker in him refused to concede the ability to walk places, something most LA locals had given up long ago (if they'd ever had the walking itch at all).

  Even today, stupid as it was, D braved the blazing sun and ninety-

  degree midday heat in charcoal shorts and T-shirt, walking past a Guitar Center and a big new Ralphs to the recording studio on Ventura, where inside, Night sat in front of the board. He was tweaking a few of the hundreds of small knobs before him.

  Sometimes he nodded his head to the beat. Sometimes he sang softly to himself, especially on tracks where he hadn't yet laid down lead vocals. Nothing Night played was actually finished. Some were just keys and a drum machine. A couple felt like they were played by a full band, though Night had overdubbed most of the instruments himself. There was one song that had the feel of a LinnDrum-driven Prince track. Another had a DJ Premier feel, like three old vinyl LPs had been grinded up in a blender. Night had even dipped his toe into trap music, with its spacey sonics and a mush-mouthed MC who rhymed lit and shit twice in four bars. D's ears perked up when Night played a cover of Dr. Funk's bodacious funk jam "Venus Rising," which he had slowed down to a midtempo simmer.

  By the time the epic listening session was done, Night had played twenty-four tracks, the product of three years of writing and eight months of recording in this San Fernando Valley studio. He swung his chair around and gazed at D, who reclined on the leather sofa while staring at the ceiling.

  "That's a lot, right?" Night asked.

  "Yup," D said, thinking hard about what to say to his old friend. "It's a lot."

  Al, who'd been coming in and out, entered with takeout Chinese food and a six-pack of Mexican beer. He surveyed this awkward moment and laughed. "Come on, guys. Stop being politicians and get on with it. I'm too old to sit around with you two bullshitting."

  "Okay," Night said, "it's a little scattered, huh?"

  D sat up now and looked his friend in the eye, determined to be as honest as possible. "Night, there's lots of good shit here, but yeah, it's all over the place. If I didn't know you, I'd say you have no musical direction, don't know who you are musically, or even who your audience is." Then he paused and added, "But I know you do."

  Truth was, Night did and didn't. He'd been heavily influenced by the late-nineties neosoul movement, and like a lot of artists of that generation, his output had been maddeningly sporadic with splashes of brilliance. His last album had been released only three years ago but it had done well for the Internet age, selling nearly half a million copies of actual vinyl and CDs, plus a couple hundred thousand downloads.

  But the supporting tour had been spotty. He sold out multiple nights in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and DC, but outside of Atlanta, sales down south had been so poor he basically played two nights below the Mason-Dixon line—in Atlanta and Miami. Booking "soft ticket" dates (i.e., outdoor festivals and state fairs) where people weren't paying to see individual acts helped cover expenses, plus he did some lucrative shows in Japan and the United Kingdom.

  The fact that he was now a niche artist struggling to build true national appeal messed with Night's head and sent him flailing around, flirting with this hot sound and that new producer like so many vintage acts do when they become desperate to stay current.

  But Night didn't say all that. He just muttered, "Just trying new shit, you know. Experimenting. Not all of it works yet."

  "Well, how much of your past do you want to walk away from?" D asked. "You are known for a sound. It's not the most current sound, true. But there's several hundred thousand people in the world—maybe a million or two worldwide—who like it. You gotta move forward. Nobody's life stands still. But right now I'm hearing y
ou zigzag between the past and a bunch of things that sound like now."

  "Go on," Night said.

  "You need to pick one or two of these songs and decide which one puts your flag in the ground. You gotta pick that sound, that song, and build around it like it's a number one draft choice and you own the franchise."

  Night burst out laughing and Al chuckled too. "I told you," he said to Al. "I told you this nigga is growing up into the new Yoda."

  "Huh?" D replied, not sure if he was being complimented or caricatured.

  "D," Al chimed in, "you used to be a silent-bodyguard type. But I guess all those nights hanging with Dwayne Robinson rubbed off."

  A little embarrassed, D said, "I'm just speaking from my heart."

  "I feel you, D," Night said. "And I think you're right. But I'm not sure which are the right choices."

  "Give me an iPod with all the tracks and let me live with it a few days."

  "What did you think of the Dr. Funk cover?"

  "Pretty amazing. Really well arranged."

  "Thanks. After I saw that footage at the wake I had to touch some of his music."

  "It felt good. I'm sure the good doctor will be flattered."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  EVERYONE HAS A STORY IN LA

  "It's been handled."

  Red Dawg was on the wrong side of the glass in the visitors room of an LA County correctional facility, smiling as wide as the Pacific coast. It wasn't until yesterday that D got a heads-up from Aunt Sheryl about Red Dawg's location. Ten days earlier he'd been picked up on an outstanding warrant following a fight outside a Koreatown bar. Aunt Sheryl told D that Red Dawg didn't want him to know until he was ready. And now he was.

  D stared into the face of a stupidly happy incarcerated man and asked, "What's handled?"

  "The situation regarding Big Danny. It's been taken care of."

  "That's it?"

  "And you were right," Red Dawg said. "I was wrong. It wasn't who I thought it was or why. Walli knows the whole story. This ain't the place to go into details but I wanted to say to you face-to-face that Big Danny can rest easy and that I did the right thing by him."

  "The right thing?"

  "Yeah. By Big Danny. By your family. Even by you, D."

  "Does Aunt Sheryl know?"

  "Only Walli knows the whole story. Talk to him. By the way, the next time you walk into your grandfather's store, look up. The sky's the limit, cuz." Then Red Dawg tapped the glass with his knuckles, gave a thumbs-up, and walked away.

  * * *

  A few hours later D sat across from Walli in Lancaster, sipping on bottled water, listening to his cousin relate a secondhand story.

  "It was a robbery. A straight-up robbery. The guy knew Granddaddy loaned people money. He figured he'd have cash on him so the guy was clocking him. He must have seen the Korean grocer slip Granddaddy some money. He was going to move on him in the minimall but there were so many people around that he lost his nerve. So he got in his car and followed Granddaddy. He was some kind of addict. He got more frustrated as he followed him. At Wilshire Boulevard he just snapped. After he shot Granddaddy he even forgot to get the money."

  D just looked at Walli blankly. "Is there more?"

  "This is what Red Dawg found out in County. The guy who shot Granddad was inside. He was bragging to people and Red Dawg heard and had the man handled."

  "Red Dawg believes this is what and how it happened?"

  "Yeah, I guess."

  D sighed. "You got the keys to the grocery store?"

  "I can get them from Ma."

  "Do that."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Everything. Get those keys for me."

  D sat, shaking his head as Walli exited the room. Dumb motherfucker got a man shanked because of his typically ass-backward reasoning. Some junkie stickup kid wouldn't have worried about those chai latte drinkers at the café. He certainly wouldn't have driven halfway across LA to rob his mark. Red Dawg heard a story, put two and seven together, and got someone hurt. Proud of it too.

  But maybe the keys would actually lead to something useful. D snatched them from Walli's hand and headed toward the door.

  "Ma wants to know if you're staying for dinner."

  No reply. D was out the door and gone.

  * * *

  At the store, in the drop ceiling, right over the detergent, D found an old ledger book with a blue cloth cover and the heft of a well-worn Bible. On the second page there was a list of names:

  Robinson

  Wills

  Valenzuela

  Park

  Koufax

  Piazza

  Drysdale

  Garvey

  Flipping through the book, D saw that each of the names had its own section. Robinson had the largest section—ten pages. In the left-hand margin was an address on Vermont. In columns below the names were various marks (1B, 2B, 3B, HR, E1, E2). There was only one page each for Koufax and Drysdale. But Valenzuela was eight pages and Park was five.

  D put the ledger down and smiled, his grandfather's mind revealing itself with visions of Saturdays spent in the left field bleachers at Chavez Ravine. These were the names of Dodger greats: Jackie Robinson, Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Fernando Valenzuela, Chan Ho Park, and Mike Piazza. Big Danny covered a bunch of ethnic groups with the names of players he both celebrated and castigated—presumably these were groups he had loaned money to.

  Piazza = Italians

  Koufax = Jews

  Drysdale = Caucasians

  Valenzuela = Mexicans

  Robinson = blacks

  Park = Koreans

  That was the easy part. Figuring out the meanings behind 1B, 2B, E1, etc., was harder. He suspected the base hits were loans and the errors were late payments or defaults. But within these sections, under Robinson and Park and the other Dodgers, there were no names, just addresses.

  Under the Robinson heading he began randomly checking addresses on Google. Some were stores. Most were homes or apartments in Ladera Heights or Baldwin Hills or some other well-established black neighborhood. Some addresses appeared several times—multiple loans perhaps—but with no dates next to them, so it was hard to know when these loans were made or the length of the repayment term.

  D scanned the few addresses under Koufax (all were around Fairfax north of Beverly) and Valenzuela (scattered around Crenshaw, South LA, and Koreatown). To his surprise, not all the addresses under Park were in Koreatown. In fact, most of them were in beautiful Hancock Park, an area of palatial homes, treelined streets, and a golf course.

  Hancock Park began just two blocks west of Koreatown but, in terms of architecture and mood, it was on another planet from bustling, hustling Koreatown. The neighborhood was overwhelmingly white, solidly Jewish, and moneyed, with a population on the plus side of the baby boom. That Big Danny was loaning money to anyone with a Hancock Park address shocked his grandson.

  D Googled one address and found a traditional brick New England home with a large lawn and a Mercedes sedan in the driveway. In the ledger there was an HR designation next to four entries, and then lots of E1, E2, E3, suggesting this customer borrowed big and then paid back slowly, compounding interest. Why would Big Danny keep lending this loser money? Did he send Red Dawg after him?

  * * *

  The next morning D was sitting in a car down the block from the Hancock Park address. Wisely, he had ditched his grandfather's gaudy ride for a rented white Prius, which he hoped would make the presence of a big black man on this street just a bit less conspicuous. It was seven thirty. D was hoping he'd catch whoever lived there on their way to work.

  He knew he couldn't post up there long as, Prius or no Prius, his big black face would eventually get noticed and he didn't want to explain his presence to the LAPD. At eight fifteen a car finally pulled out of the garage and headed in his direction. D slid sideways and ducked down even as he craned his neck. Lawrence from the convenience store rolled past him in a gray
Lexus. So that's why Big Danny stopped there so frequently.

  He pulled out his phone and prepared to call Detective Gonzales with this serious tip, one that could break open the case. Then D stopped what he was doing and put his cell down on the car seat. A well-dressed, middle-aged Korean woman walked out the front door to inspect her hedges. She seemed to be surveying the work of a gardener. It was Sun Hee Pak. Or was it Park?

  CHAPTER FORTY

  MICHELLE AND D TALK ABOUT HER FAMILY

  "So," D said into his phone, "I have to ask you something."

  Standing outside a decrepit home on Wilshire Boulevard, Michelle was taken aback by his tone. "You sound so serious, D. What's the matter?"

  "Sorry, but I'm worried I'm gonna offend you."

  "Now I'm really concerned. So what's this serious question?"

  "Does your mother have a gambling problem?"

  There were two men hovering near Michelle—the owner of the dilapidated property and the broker standing in the doorway—so she walked down the block. "Who told you something crazy like that?"

  "I just found my grandfather's ledger book and I think he lent your mother money."

  "And why would my mother borrow money from him?"

  D gave her a short rundown of Big Danny's illicit activities and how they related to her family's home. She listened carefully; D could hear her breathing hard.

  "You have it wrong, D," she said. "It couldn't have been my mother. She would squeeze a dime until it bled silver."

  "What about your father?"

  "My father . . . yes."

  Gambling might be a way of life for some in Korea, but Jung-ho didn't really catch that particular disease until he got to America and fell in with a self-consciously cool group of Korean businessmen. Jung-ho wanted to fit in because this group had the ear of Mayor Tom Bradley and the city's establishment. These guys held a weekly poker game in the back of a restaurant in Chapman Plaza in Koreatown and eventually he got himself dealt in. Young Joon Jung, owner of various bars and restaurants in K-Town, befriended Jung-ho (meaning he beat him at poker) and secured him a role in the local chamber of commerce. The contacts he made were gold and they gave him additional ambition. (He moved into Hancock Park because the mayor's official residence was there.)