The Jook

by Gary Phillips

  "Was successful," he hurled back at me. "You got someplace you were this morning?"

  It popped into my mind to say something smart, but unlike that time in Decatur, I didn't. 'Course I was high then and almost didn't feel the cop's baton as he'd rammed the butt end into my stomach. "I told you, man, we ain't havin' a chat. Either arrest me or jet."

  "You haven't had nothing but experience with the law, ain't that so, Zelmont?"

  He was just getting to me now and it's going on 10:30 in the evening. "Working out in the hills above my pad, man. That's what I been doing a lot of. That's what I did the day before too."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah."

  "Don't suppose you talked to any honeys or somebody while you were doing your road work?"

  "Not particularly, Fahrar. I wasn't there to get my swerve on. I got more important things in mind."

  He scratched a nail at the base of his close-cut hair. "That's weak, brah. You could be like Rumpelstiltskin, here there and everywhere. Can you do better?"

  "I ain't got to do better. How'd she die?"

  "Strangled with her own panties. Laid out on the hood of her sports car. Body wasn't discovered until late this afternoon."

  "And that's all you have to harangue Mr. Raines?"

  We both turned to the sound of the voice. It was Wilma Wells, and she was looking fine in a pants suit thing that had off-center gold buttons going up the jacket to wide lapels. She strolled over and smelled good doing it.

  "Ma'am." Fahrar finally took his hat off and kinda waved it at her. "This is police business."

  "I'm a lawyer, officer, my name is Wilma Wells." She handed him a card from the Vuitton clutch bag she carried.

  The cop worked hard not to show any change. 'Cept I knew inside he was weighing his options. "Yeah, and?"

  "And what was the approximate time of her death?"

  He didn't want to say but he knew he was boxed in. "Coroner guesstimates around 11

  "After his workout yesterday Mr. Raines came to see me concerning resolutions of his NFL contracts."

  "Where was this?"

  "My office in Manhattan Beach. I'd say from 11:30 until about 2. And given the distance, I'd say he couldn't have killed her and made it to my office even if the coroner can establish that it was closer to 11 than 12 when Ms. Orlean was strangled."

  Fahrar was about to speak but she held up a black-nailed hand. "He used my private entrance, some of my clients are high profile."

  Homeboy looked like a man chewing lemon rinds. "Okay, superstarfor now." He waded out of the joint, adjusting his hat as he went.

  "Thanks," I said to Wilma. "You sure took a chance."

  "Not really. I've had actors and supermodels in my office, and the front staff hasn't seen them. I do have a private entrance. And there's so much traffic in and out of the parking garage, the attendants aren't reliable witnesses." She whipped her pretty smile on me and walked on up the stairs.

  At the top, Nap greeted her and they walked off towards his office. Was the big switch-hitter banging her too? He'd told me this was boy month, but maybe he did that so I wouldn't mack her. But then why did she alibi me? Hell, I'd never been to her office.

  I got back to the pad around 3:30 and was stripping off my shirt when the phone rang. Immediately I assumed it was Terri hoping to catch me in.

  "Zelmont," a familiar female voice purred through the answering machine. "Please pick up, this is Wilma."

  I dove for the receiver.

  "Come on out to the office," she said. "That way if that cop asks you, you can describe it in detail."

  Normally, I don't come running 'cause some fine hammer tells me to. But this one was different. This one had my nose open, and maybe my freedom in her hands. And sure enough, three quarters of an hour later, she had my balls in her hands.

  We were in her gold bronze Chrysler Phaeton on the open-air roof of her office building. A few other lonely cars were there too. She'd unzipped my fly and sprinkled some crank on my johnson, then licked the powder and me. I was about to lose the top of my head. She moaned and I was getting ready to let loose when she stopped.

  "You tryin' to give me a heart attack, girl?"

  "Wanted to get your attention." She straightened up, smiling. "You honestly think Weems is going to let you play ball again?"

  This chick knew how to mess with a dude's head. "He's gotta give me a shot, Wilma." I sounded more needy than I wanted to.

  "No he doesn't, Zelmont. He can't legally stop you from trying out, but he can exert a lot of pressure on Stadanko, and on Coach Cannon, not to sign you. Weems is a smart prick. He's got some cold shit on a lot of people. What do you think his Truth Squad is for?"

  "To make the league look like Boy Scouts," I answered, squirming uncomfortably. I snorted some more blow to take the edge off. "What the fuck you want from me, Wilma?"

  "To make you mine." She finished what she'd started.

  Afterward, I must have dozed off 'cause I came to with her staring into my face.

  "Sorry," I mumbled.

  She got on top of me. I was laying back, the front seat having been let down. Her pants were off, her blouse open, and I was hard again. The beauty of crank. She had on blue lacy panties and was about to slip them off.

  "Leave 'em on," I told her. She got a condom on me and I maneuvered around the material to enter her. It felt like a million pinwheel stars were exploding behind my eyes.

  As we did it she talked business. "You want to make some money, don't you, Zelmont?"

  "It wouldn't hurt," I grunted.

  "That's right." She rocked on me as I held onto her sides tight. She bent forward and I tickled her nipples with the end of my tongue.

  "You want to get over, don't you, Zelmont?" She breathed hot air all over me.

  I could barely put words together, I was so wrapped up in the pleasure. "Uh, yeah," I said in a husky voice.

  She did a move that I felt deep in my backbone. This chick was too much. "Wha', what are you sayin', Wilma?" I managed to stammer.

  I lifted my butt and she hit her head on the headliner of the Phaeton. She grabbed my shoulders, digging her strong fingers into the muscle as she grinded on top of me.

  "You're chasing old glories, Zelmont," she said between gritting her teeth. "You have to be real, baby." She moaned loud as she worked her good thang on my rod.

  I pulled her close, biting her ear and slobbering on her neck. "I'm a player, baby." I put a hand in the middle of her back and went to it like I knew I could. She matched me stroke for stroke.

  "You're an ex-employee," she said softly, "but I can show you how to be set."

  We kept banging, my crank-powered endurance making it seem like I could go all night. "I've been workin' out every goddamn day." We kissed, our tongues locking and separating with force.

  "Even if you could get a slot, Weems will block any attempt you make ever to play ball again." She reared back as we both began to sweat. She came forward again, burying my head between her breasts. She must have taken hold of the latch, because the seat flipped up as she pulled me into a sitting position, then we reared back again.

  The windows were clouded over and we kept at it. I wondered if some square was spying on us outside, and it made me more excited. Soon I came and shuddered to a halt. She stayed on me, which I hate. But I figured this was the first time, I could be gracious. I was exhausted, like after that game against the Dolphins in 105 degree heat and matching humidity

  "Who else do you know that has money, real money, that if it goes missing he can't report it to the police?" She squirmed and reached her hand down between us.

  "Woman, you got to stop talkin' crazy" I didn't know what this broad was up to, but it made something tickle in the back of my head.

  "Shit," she snorted, getting off me. "You're scared."

  I shook a finger at her. "I think you been playin' around Stadanko so long, you think you can be like him. He's straight mobbed up, you understand. We fuck with
him, his buddies with the funny names will chop off our fingers and make us watch as they feed them to their pit bulls."

  She wasn't listening to me. She was busy with her finger inside her panties. I watched as she wiggled and moaned and got herself off. Then she put her finger on my lips. "Be brave."

  "Be cool, Wilma." I knocked her hand away, getting heated from anger, not from sex. "Just 'cause you alibied me don't mean you can clown me."

  "You're clownin' yourself, Zelmont. You won't admit you're not going to get back into pro ball. And no club will let you coach for them either. It's in front of your eyes, but you refuse to see." She sat up, looking at me directly "I'm talking about millions, Zelmont. Untraceable millions in cash."

  I started putting on my clothes. "We gonna knock over Stadanko's safe in his office, Wilma? Or maybe he keeps the ducats at his pad out there in the Palisades. Then what? Keep running for the rest of our lives?"

  "You're used to running," she cracked in a nasty tone.

  "You got a mouth on you." I got my pants zipped up.

  "I got eyes too, Zelmont. Stadanko hired my firm because he knew Brad, our senior partner. He brought in Brad a few years back when he was in trouble over campaign financing. After we negotiated the Barons deal Stadanko was going to cut us loose, but I convinced him having a woman of color as the team's lawyer would be good for his image and deflect criticism."

  I had to get out of there. "History was always boring to me, Wilma."

  "Stop thinking small, Zelmont." She talked to me like I was a child. "We can do it so the U.S. Attorney General comes down on that goof Stadanko while we make off with his goods. And Chekka and his Little Hand punks will run and hide if the feds show up."

  I couldn't get what she was talking about. How in the hell were we going to rip off Stadanko? "He keeps all his millions laying around, huh?"

  She got impatient again and popped my bare chest with the back of her hand. "Of course not. But it won't be hard to figure out where he hides it. He's a peasant at heart. Stadanko may have a hands-off excuse the pun relationship with his cousin, but as you'd say, he must know where the Benjamins are kept." Her top lip curled up like a wolf's and I got a tingling in my spine.

  "We got to be cool," I said.

  "No, you be cool. Go home and soak your hip in liniment so you can get up tomorrow and do your road work, old man."

  I gave her a little shove to let her know I was nobody's chump. Then I shook a finger at her. "Ease up, Wilma."

  "Oooh, so tough. That how it got out of hand with Davida? She challenge your bad-boy 'tude one time too often? That why you had to choke her and it got out of hand." She laughed, but not happy-like.

  "Whatever it is you're sellin', you're crazy if"

  "Get the fuck out of my car," she said, cutting me off.

  "When I'm ready, bitch."

  "Get out, or your little mixed-race pal will hear how you threatened me with rape and murder. It won't take much for him to believe that about you."

  I felt like knocking her ass around for giving me that looking down stare. Sitting there only in her panties, she still seemed like she was queen of the city. But I kept my hands to myself, 'cause she was a lawyer and about as tame as a shark on a leash. I got my shit and booked for my ride several floors down.

  Back at the pad I had some V.S.O.P. and tried to put what she said out of my head. I was going to make a comeback. I was going to sacrifice, work hard, and get a slot on the Barons. I'd been playing football one way or the other since I was nine and my uncle slapped me for crying after I got tackled for the first time in Pop Warner. Uncle Nate was an asshole, but he taught me one thing: if you want something, ain't nobody going to get it for you unless you get it yourself. And once you got it, make goddamn sure you hold onto it.

  Chapter 5

  All morning I'd been ducking the call. She'd left a message last night when I'd got back, but I knew I wasn't going to return it too soon. Before I was up she'd called again around 7 and again after 8 as I rolled over. My head was pounding and my muscles ached. The hip, though, felt good. I got my workout clothes on, including a rubber top to bring on the sweat. I drove over to the Canyon, and after warming up with some calf extensions I hit the hill. By the time I got to the top, my hangover was damn near burned off, and the hip only throbbed a little.

  As I stood getting my breath, in my head I could hear the first message Davida's mother had left on my machine. Her English had never been too good, and it was worse now 'cause she was all broken up.

  "Zelmont," she'd said, and I could tell she'd been crying. "Zelmont, tell me what has happened to my favorecida. Zelmont," she pleaded, "diga me."

  Her favorite, Davida had told me. Alicia, her mother, had four kids, three husbands. Two were boys and had been in trouble from day one, growing up in the Pico Aliso projects in East Los. Mario was a glue-sniffing punk who'd been kicked out after she caught him bungholing his boyfriend in a maintenance shed when he was in high school. The other one, Rey, was a stone knucklehead who ran with some gang, a bunch of punks under the protection of La Familia, the Mexican Mafia. Right now he was doing a dime in Corcoran for some bullshit or another. Her sister Isabel, who knew how to fill out a dress, had been the only one to turn out normal.

  Davida may have been nothing more than a glorified pom-pom girl, but by her mother's standards she'd done something with her life. Moms wasn't too crazy about her going around with a brother, especially one with my record, but she figured I was better than some of the others her daughter had been with. Alicia had to settle for not much her whole life. But Davida had put it in her mom's head she'd get her out of the projects once she got that Top 40 hit. Hell, she believed it too.

  There was a mist hanging on the hills, and I couldn't see my house. Like the fog was a wall, a warning that if I didn't get some real money soon, the house would always be lost to me. I jogged down the hill, my upper body sweating inside the rubber top. For some reason, I still felt a chill.

  Back home, the red number on the answering machine told me that Alicia had called two more times. I peeled off the top, wiping myself down with a towel. I got some orange juice, sat down, and grabbed the phone. I figured best to get this over with.

  ''Hola,'' she said.

  "It's me, T." 'T' was what I had taken to calling her.

  "Zelmont," she cried, then ran off a string of words in Spanish.

  "T, you gotta relax, okay? Davida would want you to keep it together." In the background I could hear other voices, no doubt her neighbors.

  "What happened?"

  "I don't know, T. The first I knew of it is this cop who came to see me last night."

  "Yes, the chino negro," she said. "Oh, I don't mean"

  "No problem. What'd he say to you?"

  "That he wanted to know about her friends, people she knew in the record business. He asked me about you and her." She lost it and started to cry. "Zelmont, what will happen now?"

  "The cops will look for her killer, T. They'll probably find him." I didn't really think so, but I needed to tell her something so she'd let me alone.

  She didn't say anything, and it was making me nervous. I knew what she wanted to ask me but couldn't. "Is there anything you tell the police, Zelmont? Anything that will help them find who did this bad thing to our Davida."

  "I'm helping them anyway I can, Alicia, you know that."

  "Yes, yes, of course. Mario will be here this afternoon. Will you come by?"

  "I may not make it this afternoon, T. I've got some legal things I need to take care of, you know, football stuff. Important. But you say hi to Mario for me, and I'll be by soon, okay?"

  "All right, I understand." She then told me she'd call back with the funeral time and I hung up. I guess I shouldn't have been lying like that to a woman who just lost her daughter, but going over there, sitting around crying and carrying on, lighting candles to the Virgin of Guadalupe… Jesus.

  I showered, thinking about what Wilma had said. She was sma
rt and she did have the inside dope on Stadanko and Chekka. But was she so greedy she wasn't thinking straight? Did she really believe it would be that easy to steal money from wheels like them? Or maybe it was the crank talking and she always went on like that when she was high.

  No sense waiting until this evening, I thought, and drove over to talk to Nap. She had talked to him at the club the other night about something. If he was in on this thing it would mean something different. Nap wasn't nobody's joke, and he did have reason to want to move on Stadanko and the Little Hand. About fifteen minutes later, I pulled to the curb of his Mount Olympus pad on Cyclops Road. There were tall cypress trees in a half circle in front of the house, and he'd repainted the joint recently in a orange-brown with dark green trim. The house was built in what Nap had told me was called Greco-Roman with touches of Assyrian.

  Whatever the hell that meant. It did have these large columns and looked like it should be in one of those old school Steve Reeves Hercules movies.

  Like I figured, his maroon Lincoln Town Car with its gold wire rims was in the driveway. Unless he had to be somewhere, the big man wasn't an early riser. I knocked but there was no answer. I figured he was probably in there pipin' his boyfriend Pablo, the color consultant. On the lawn was the morning paper. Maybe Davida got some fame at last and her murder was mentioned in the Metro section.

  "Nap," I yelled, looking up toward the second-floor bedroom. Nothing. I listened closely but didn't hear any moaning or groaning or little Pablo squealing with joy.

  "Nap," I called out again. Still no answer. In the back of the house was a pool and a guesthouse which used to be the maid's rooms in the old days. I wasn't so broken down I couldn't manage to get over the iron gate, I said to myself, thinking about how Wilma had mocked me. Yeah, she was a hard-ass bitch, but there was something about her. I landed on the other side expecting Bruno, Nap's bull mastiff, to come running. The dog knew me so I wasn't sweatin' him taking a nip. Only the dog wasn't around.

  I tried the back door and it was locked. I knocked loudly but got no answer. The curtain was closed behind the sliding glass door and I knocked there too in case the lover boys had fallen asleep in the rumpus room. Then I turned and walked over to the guesthouse. The door was open. Inside, chairs and a table had been tossed around, and the pictures were hanging lopsided on the walls.