Southside (9781608090563)

by Krikorian, Michael

  Rather than try to forge a relationship with either the blacks or the Latinos, I considered turning to a combination of Jesus, Muhammad, Abraham, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, hell, even Reverend Ike, and whoever else was rumored to have any sway at all regarding these matters. Hell, I shouldn’t even mention the word “sway.” That’s the very derogatory term for the Swans, one of the oldest Blood gangs.

  I wished Blinky, the Samoan from my old neighborhood, would walk in. Instead, I got the next best thing.

  “Lyons, get your ass over here.” I looked up to see Detective Mo Batts towering over the stocky uniformed cop outside the cell. Batts had overheard the two cops talking about a white guy they had arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. Batts had overheard my name mentioned and stopped the paperwork.

  “Sal, you not gonna believe who we got—well, who we had in the holding tank here,” Batts said into phone at his desk, while his thumb and forefinger very gingerly glided up the double-edged SAS killing knife. I, without cuffs, was sitting across the desk. “Your boy Lyons himself. No bullshit. Concealed weapon. No, a knife. Nice one. And not the kind you’d use to cut a T-bone.”

  “For self-defense, Detective Batts,” I said.

  “Shuddup.” Batts talked for a while, then hung up. “For some unknown reason, I guess Detective LaBarbera thinks you’re on the up-and-up. Says he owes you one. So, we gonna cut you loose. I’ll keep your pretty blade, though. You do know taxicabs won’t come here. It’s not worth the gamble.

  “And Lyons, I know you’re crazy, but it’s on tonight ’round here. We’ve had seven drive-bys already this shift. Three dead. That’s why I’m still here. So, don’t be walking. You best make your phone call for a pickup. Sal may think you’re all right, but I’m not convinced. You get that one call, so make it good.”

  “Tell me this is a bad joke,” Francesca said. I was lucky she had picked up the phone.

  “I wish. Can you come get me?” I pleaded. Mo Batts had his gigantic fist in front of his mouth, trying unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter.

  “Oh, Michael. I can’t right now. We are too busy. I’m in the weeds.” I heard in the background some orders come into her. “I gotta go.”

  “Wait. Wait. Can’t you have one of workers, one of the cooks or bussers come get me? It’s only like fifteen minutes away.”

  “I don’t want my cooks knowing the man I live with is in jail for God knows what. Is this gonna be on the news? In the papers?”

  “No, no. It’s nothing. When can you get here? An hour? All right.”

  “Wait, Michael. Damnit. You know I’m gonna need some real good directions to get to your damn Southside.”

  Two hours later, I walked out with a pissed-off Francesca. “Where’s your car?” I asked.

  “My car? You think I’m going to drive a hundred and sixty thousand dollar Porsche down here at night? I wouldn’t even bring it in the day. Christmas morning I wouldn’t drive it here.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “I got Luis’s car. I don’t even know what it is.” Luis, the barback at Pizzeria Zola, had lent her his Ford Escort without questions.

  Driving up Broadway to Florence, just a few blocks north, Francesca said, “Hospitals, gunshot wounds, breaking news, jails. Where are you gonna pop up next? The UN? Okay, let’s hear it.”

  I told her quite a bit of my night. She said not a word but shook her head like a bobblehead Kirk Gibson speeding down Stadium Way. We pulled into the brightly lit Standard gas station. I got out and started filling Luis’s car with the good stuff. The ninety-one octane.

  “Big shot with the expensive gas. Probably doesn’t even have a car now. Where is it?”

  The Lexus wasn’t in sight. I went inside the mini-mart. There was Rasheed. “Where’s my car?”

  Three police cars, lights twirling, sirens blaring, barreled west on Florence. A minute later, another one sped by. Then another two. “Someone must’ve straight-out ran a red light,” I said. “Where’s my car?”

  “You the reporter that had hisself shot, right?”

  “No. Where’s my car?”

  “You sure got out quick. White boy’s rights, huh? And I know you’re that reporter. Why did you do that? Word ’round here is that was Funeral from the Hoovers on the tape. That was stupid.”

  “Ah, man. I didn’t do that. But, you know, if you want to believe that, there ain’t nothing I can do about it. I did trust you with my keys. Now that was stupid.”

  Francesca marched into the mini-mart, her patience usually long as the wind, was gone with it now. “How long are you going to be here?”

  “Not long.”

  “What exactly does ‘not long’ mean. A minute? A day? Should we set up camp? Maybe make a tent. I mean pitch a damn tent. Build a goddamn campfire. Roast some marshmallows. Raise some fucking chickens. I just want a rough idea. A month? A year? What? I need to tell my son I moved into a gas station in Watts.”

  “Vermont Knolls,” both Rasheed and I said. Rasheed was enjoying this immensely.

  Rasheed laughed heartily. “You two. I could listen to you two all night. Serious. What’s your comeback line, reporter, man. I wanna hear it.”

  “Knolls?” said Francesca, looking left, then right.

  I stared at Rasheed who was busting up. Finally, he tossed me my keys. “It’s in my driveway, three houses down on Flower. Thanks for the show. I get bored later, I’m gonna watch it on reruns,” he said, nodding up to the security camera mounted high on a facing wall.

  Rasheed, still grinning, walked from behind his enclosed area, over to the chiller. He pulled out a forty ounce of Olde English “800” and handed it to me. “You might need this tonight. Looks like you got yourself a special occasion.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Just after ten a.m., before it got too crowded, I went to The Grove, the promenade attached to the old Farmer’s Market at 3rd and Fairfax. At Barnes & Noble I stocked up on books and magazines that would help my born-again freelance career: 2014 Writer’s Market, Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer, and 100 Best Magazine Markets.

  I walked back to the Farmer’s Market—the one where there are no farmers—went to Short Order and had an Ida’s Old School Burger and a Charlie Brown, a milkshake with 114-proof Old Grand Dad bourbon. With a red pen in hand, I began searching and marking the Writer’s Market for magazines to query.

  I flashed back twenty-one years, when I was a ninteen-year-old aspiring writer with no clips, scanning the same book in search of a forum to showcase my first story, which would become that magical clipping that would unlock doors of editors throughout the country. How I longed for that first byline. It would finally come in Cycle News, a report on a motocross race in Santa Maria. It felt so good. Countless times did I proudly gaze at my name—“By Michael Lyons.” It did not fling open a new world for me, but still, it was the start.

  I was doing the same thing again, but now I had scads of clips. Excellent ones. Prize-winning clips. So many grand clips I felt it was beneath me, the best street reporter in the city, to even have to talk about them or include them in a goddamn query letter. Still, it was kind of exciting. Like starting over. Like being young again.

  On my way out, I walked over to Littlejohn’s to get a pound of English toffee for Francesca. She loved that stuff, one of her few indulgences, one of my many. Then to Bob’s Donuts to get glazed crumb and chocolate for Francesca’s son, Oliver, and his buddies.

  The sweets reception was disappointingly lackluster from Oliver and Francesca, both busy, he on his Mac, she on her Samsung. I headed to my cottage on Landa Street.

  Not ten minutes after I got home, my front door was rattled with one powerful knock. I knew that knock.

  “My two favorite detectives. Come on in,” I said, hoping LaBarbera and Hart were not here regarding my attempted visit last night to King Funeral. They were, but not for the reason I thought.

  I tried to be nonchalant. “What brings you here? You find the guy who shot
me?”

  “No. We have a few questions,” Hart said, looking around my neat one-bedroom pad.

  “Okay. You guys want some coffee? Water?”

  “We’re good,” Hart said.

  “How about some Olde English?”

  Hart ignored that and asked pointedly, “Where were you last night between midnight and midnight twenty?”

  “Why?”

  “Just answer, Lyons.”

  “What happened?”

  “Where were you?”

  “I’m a suspect in something?”

  “Answer the fuckin’ question, Lyons,” said an annoyed Hart. LaBarbera just studied me.

  “You know where I was. And Sal, thanks, man, for last night. I know it was stupid. Thank you.”

  “You’ve helped me. Now we’re even. Just answer Johnny’s questions.”

  “You know where I was. At the Seventy-Seventh.”

  “Records show you got out of the holding cell at 10:07.”

  “Yeah, about, I guess. But, then I was with Mo Batts for like two hours. That’s always a real pleasure.”

  “Yeah, Mo said you got your ride right about midnight. So where did you go when you left Seventy-Seventh?”

  “What happened?”

  “Answer, damnit.”

  “My girlfriend picked me up. Francesca. One of the barbacks at her restaurant lent her his car. She didn’t want to take her car down there.”

  “Why? What kinda car does she have?” asked Hart.

  “Porsche. Turbo Cabriolet. Silver.”

  “Damn. What the fuck does she see in you?” asked Hart.

  “Fuck you, Johnny.”

  “What I wanna know,” LaBarbera said, “is how do a famous chef and a crime reporter get together?”

  “I’ll tell you the story one of these days. Now why are you guys here? What happened? Tell me.”

  “After you left with her in the bartender’s car—”

  “Barback.”

  “Whatever.”

  “We left, went to the Standard station where my car was and then we went home.”

  “Lyons, a good D.A. would pick that story apart,” Hart said. “A good deputy district attorney. Like that fine-ass Sandra Core.”

  I was shaking my head. Exasperated, I went to my kitchen, opened the refrigerator, pulled out the forty-ounce Olde English bottle, cracked it open, and took a swig. I held it out for the detectives.

  “Damn, you are ghetto,” said Hart. “You actually drink that piss?”

  “Only on special occasions. Now, you ever gonna tell me what happened last night?”

  “Shortly after you left the Seventy-Seventh, Funeral got shotgunned.”

  I was truly stunned. “Holy smokes.”

  “Holy smokes? I didn’t know anybody still said that,” said LaBarbera. “Olde English, holy smokes. You really are old school.”

  “He’s dead, right?”

  “Like that nail right there in your door,” said Hart. “Funeral ain’t muscular anymore. Lost a whole lotta weight. He’s not getting an open casket, either. Shotgun will do that to a human. One of the uniforms told me they found parts of his face across the street.”

  “Damn.”

  “Look, Lyons,” Hart said, “He gets shot around midnight. You get released around midnight. Your lady takes you to get your car, but you have two cars. So you have to drive back separately.”

  “She followed me home. She doesn’t know her way around the Southside.”

  “You were literally one minute from Funeral’s place,” said Hart. “Plenty of time. You tell to her hold on one minute, kill Funeral, come back, and drive home.”

  “This is ridiculous. You’re kidding, right? Come on, Sal, Johnny. You don’t believe this.”

  “Mike,” Sal said. “You know damn well, it would be derelict in our duty if we didn’t consider you. If only to check you off the list. You know that. Let’s face it. You’re there. You hate Funeral. You have access and motive.”

  “This is bullshit, and I think you two know it. You cut me loose last night, and now you’re questioning me on a murder?”

  “Gets worse,” said Sal. “Three guys at the apartment said a man fitting your description came by around ten looking for Funeral. One of them said you told him to tell Funeral you would be back.”

  “Of course they gonna say that. They’re criminals. That’s the name of their gang. Criminals. Hoover Criminals. They killed their own guy and are going to blame me,” I said.

  “Look,” said Hart, “He made you lose your job. That made you crazy. Right now, you are the only one with motive who was seen at his apartment.”

  “Are you nuts? Funeral had a hundred enemies. Funeral has enemies going back twenty years. Enemies up and down that very block. Plus, you know better than me the Hoovers have as many in-house killings as the Sixties or Grape Street. Come to find out, they are their own worstest enemy.”

  “’Worstest? You might wanna go back to college and take a grammar class,” said LaBarbera. “You’ve been on the street too long.”

  “Yeah,” Hart added, “Did you get fired for that tape or for your sentence structure?”

  “Nothing’s worse than getting accused of murder by two wannabe English professors. Look, I admit I was pissed after I lost my job because of that tape. But, maybe it was one of those blessings in disguise. The Times editors didn’t give a shit about my beat, your beat. And yeah, I was disgraced, still am, but, mark my words, I’ll be back stronger than ever. Sal, you’ve known me for a long time. Did you ever believe I set up my own shooting?”

  “’I already told you that. Jesus, how many times you want me to say it?”

  “I guess I just need to hear it again.”

  “Keep asking me, I’m gonna start having doubts. Look, we even told the chief that we didn’t buy that shit for a minute.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. We don’t bullshit.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot. So Funeral is dead, huh? Well, he was a killer and a rapist anyway. ‘Member, when he raped that kid at Corcoran?”

  Many years ago, while he was in Corcoran, the guards mistakenly—or so they later claimed—put a hundred-thirty-pound eighteen-year-old white meth hound from Merced in a cell with King Funeral. Funeral sodomized him for three days before the guards transferred the shell-shocked kid to his proper cell where he bashed his head against a wall and hung himself with a bedsheet.

  “I could give a fuck Funeral is dead.”

  Hart checked out my pad. He sauntered into the bedroom like he was a potential buyer, walked into my bite-size kitchen.

  “I’m serious, Lyons,” said LaBarbera. “If there’s anything you need to tell me, do it now.”

  I took a long, slow breath. “Look, Sal, Johnny, come on. I didn’t shoot that pig, but, I’m not gonna lie, I kinda wanted to. And yeah, I was there last night, but I never saw him. I was there way before midnight. Before I got arrested.”

  “Arrested for having a knife,” said Hart. “So, you are admitting to two homicide detectives that you were where a man was killed, on the night he was killed, you had a motive to kill him, and you had a knife. And Batts said some commando knife, I may add.”

  “You just said Funeral was shot and, anyway, Mo kept the knife.”

  “For your information, Lyons,” said Hart seriously, “Funeral got shot between midnight and twelve fifteen according to the neighbors. And you can’t prove to us that you didn’t sneak away from chef girl and kill this guy.”

  “This is absurd. To think I walked up with all his boys around and shotgunned Funeral while my woman was patiently waiting at a gas station at Flower and Florence. Clearly, you don’t know my girlfriend.”

  “I repeat, I don’t think you can prove that you didn’t,” said Hart, still in the kitchen. The detective opened the refrigerator, took out the Olde English, twisted the cap off, took a sniff, and made an unpleasant face.

  As he did, a slow smile came to my face. “Wait, wait
. I can prove I wasn’t there at Funeral’s place during that time. Let’s take a ride.”

  Two hours later, I was dropped back home, cleared of the killing of King Funeral, thanks to Rasheed and his security camera at the Standard gas station.

  “One more question, Mike,” LaBarbera said. “Why’d you go by last night to see Funeral, anyway?”

  “Sal, I’m really not sure. I … I don’t know. Part of me wanted to hurt him, part of me was, uh, was scared of him, tell the truth. I still wanted to humiliate him, but, I realized he wasn’t worth it. He just wasn’t. In the end, I guess I just wanted to let him know I was still standing.”

  “Well,” said LaBarbera, “he’s not.”

  “I gotta say, in a way, I was flattered you guys thought, or even considered I killed Funeral. But guys, I’m a writer, not a fighter.”

  “Please, Lyons,” Hart said. “We pulled your sheet. Barroom brawls. Shooting near Compton, in Dominguez. The Rustic Inn mean anything to you?”

  “Man, I was like a teenager. Coming to the aid of a friend. Self-defense.”

  “Take your pick, huh?” said Hart. “Shit, when you got busted at the Rustic, you were, what, twenty-seven? That’s an old-ass teenager.”

  “Every time in my life I got into trouble, it was for coming to help out a friend or cousin who was in a serious jam.”

  “What I wanna know is how’d you ever get hired at the Times with a record? Especially, as a crime reporter.”

  “Johnny, don’t you think the science reporter should have some experience in science? Or the medical reporter know something about medicine? So why shouldn’t the crime reporter have a little experience in crime?”

  Sal laughed. “You got a point there. Just try and stay outta trouble.”

  “Sonny Barger told me that once. Hey, you ever gonna find the guy that shot me? Or is he dead?”