by Robert Greer
“Then I don't know who he was going to get to help him. But he did say Johnny. I'm certain of that.”
“Yeah, I know.” There was a sadness in Damion's eyes that hadn't been there when the conversation had started. As he looked from Aretha to CJ, the sadness seemed to mount. “Would the two of you mind running over to the Satire Lounge with me? I called the manager first thing this morning to ask what time Jo Jo would be in. He told me Jo Jo would be there by ten for sure because it was his day to put up bar stock.”
“Okay,” said Aretha. “But I'm not sure I understand what's going on here.”
“You will, Mrs. B; you will.” Damion glanced at CJ as if to ask, Am I doing okay? When CJ flashed him a supportive wink, Damion said, “When we get there, everybody just follow my lead.”
Jo Jo Lawson's face lit up when he saw Aretha Bird walk into the Satire Lounge. Realizing that CJ and Damion were right behind her, he raced toward them. “Mrs. B, Damion, Mr. Floyd. Happy to see ya!”
CJ, who'd helped Jo Jo out of a few scrapes with the law when the young man had lived on the streets for a couple of years right after high school, shook Jo Jo's hand as Damion high-fived the marginally retarded bartender and gave him a hug. Aretha followed Damion's hug with a motherly kiss on the cheek.
“So how's it going, Jo Jo?” Damion swallowed hard and thought, Can I do this?
“Good. Real good, except of course for losin’ my best friend.” He eyed Aretha and Damion sympathetically.
“We're all hurting that way,” said Damion. “You know they got the murderer.”
“Yeah. I heard. Been readin’ all about it in the paper.”
Watching CJ ease his way behind Jo Jo, Damion asked, “So, Jo Jo, got a question for you.”
“Shoot, Blood. I'm listenin’.”
“Remember when we were in high school and a bunch of the other kids used to pick on you?”
Jo Jo eyed the floor. “Yeah. A bunch of ’em,” he said softly.
“Shandell was the one who put a stop to all that, as I remember,” said Damion.
“You helped too, Blood. You helped too.”
Damion smiled appreciatively. “So would you say that because of that you owed Shandell?”
“Of course. He was like a brother.”
“And you owed Mrs. B too,” Damion said, eyeing a suddenly glassy-eyed Aretha.
“I owed her, sure,” Jo Jo said, looking puzzled.
Hesitant to utter what he knew had to come next, Damion worked his tongue slowly around the inside of his cheek. “I know about Johnny, Jo Jo. Shandell told me all about Johnny a long time ago. It wasn't until last night when I was moping around listening to some old tunes that were popular when we were in high school and thinking about Shandell that I even remembered.”
“What did Shandell say about Johnny?”
“Everything, Jo Jo. Everything. Most of it on a road trip when the basketball team went down to play Pueblo East our senior year. We were bumping down I-25 in one of those big yellow buses when he told me the two of you had recently come up with a name for all the vicious and hurtful things people used to keep other people in line. Things like fear and intimidation and abuse. It was a name Shan-dell said you also reserved for crooked cops and guns and prison and hateful words and hurtful stares. He said it was the name you gave to the razor strap your father used to beat you and your brother Marty with and keep you and your mother in line. He said the name the two of you came up with was a simple, easy one to remember—Johnny.”
“Yeah, that's the word we used,” said Jo Jo, eyes glued to the floor. “It was somethin’ nobody knew about but us. Just me and my friend Shandell. I didn't even think you knew, Damion.”
“I wish I didn't.”
Wide-eyed and looking childlike, Jo Jo began rocking from side to side. “That razor strap of my daddy's. He almost killed Marty with it one night.” Jo Jo's voice became a whisper. “And the whole time he was beatin’ Marty he kept sayin’ he was gonna turn him into a retard like me. I swore after that I wouldn't never let anybody do that to somebody I cared about again. I threw that strap away that night, and he never found it again.”
Jo Jo looked up at the pained expression on Damion's face. “That's pretty much when I decided I needed a Johnny of my own. Shan-dell and I used to joke about goin’ to get Johnny when somebody slighted us or called us a name like stupid retard or dumbass jock. It was our special secret. Only thing is, Shandell never really needed no Johnny like me.”
“You're wrong there, Jo Jo. In a lot of ways Shandell needed protection more than anyone.” Damion looked Jo Jo squarely in the eye. “And you were forced to use Johnny the other night after Leon and Mrs. B argued in here, right?”
Jo Jo nodded slowly.
“Had to. Just like Daddy, Leon might've ended up killin’ Mrs. B.”
“So what did you do with the rifle?” CJ asked, stepping up and draping an arm over Jo Jo's shoulder.
Jo Jo eyed the floor and shuffled his feet. “Johnny's over behind the bar where I always keep him. You can go take a look, Mr. Floyd. I ain't gonna run. Wouldn't do nothin’ but make matters worse.”
Damion let out a sigh as he watched CJ head for the bar. “I think you need to talk to my mom before we go any further with this, Jo Jo.” He glanced at Aretha, who nodded in agreement.
“You think I'm really gonna need her help? I was only protectin’ Mrs. B.”
“Yes, I do,” said Damion.
“But why?”
“Because she can give you the kind of protection you're going to need, Jo Jo. A lot like Johnny, only with words.”
Epilogue
The rotund, bespectacled anatomy professor standing at the podium in front of the 128 newly enrolled students in the University of Colorado medical school freshman class was a seasoned veteran of the academic wars. In his more than thirty-four years at CU, Donald Ven-ton had taught anatomy to thousands of students, and in the vernacular of academic graybeards like himself, when it came to students, he had seen and heard it all. He'd taught students who were dyslexic, anorexic, and bipolar. He'd infused the spirit of medicine into men and women who weren't quite sure they wanted to be doctors, literally becoming the wind in their sails. He'd watched students excel and flounder and just plain goof off. He'd seen students get married, have kids, get divorced, and even get kicked out of school. Over the years, he'd been there for students who'd had miscarriages or abortions. He'd dealt with the deaths of family members, an amputation, and more than one student who'd turned out to be a cheater. So as he planted his feet and adjusted his ample belly behind the lectern to begin his instruction in anatomy for the first semester of his thirty-fifth year, he had no reason to expect that the new term would offer him any new spins.
Damion was seated in a row near the back of the lecture hall, fumbling with a pen and trying his best to stay focused. The two days leading up to his first actual medical school class following a day and a half of orientation had been hectic. He'd learned just that morning from Mario Satoni that Pinkie Niedemeyer had used a very special form of encouragement to convince Leotis Hawkins that it would be best that he never bother Damion again, and that perhaps in the interest of his own well-being, Leotis should consider leaving town. When Damion had asked Mario what form Pinkie's encouragement had taken, Mario had smiled and said pointedly, “Pinkie promised to kill the bastard if he ever fucked with you again.”
The day prior to beginning orientation, Damion had had a visit from a clearly euphoric Sergeant Townsend, who'd informed him that the NCAA, the FBI, and perhaps even Congress would be looking closely into allegations that Garrett Asalon had been involved in a point-shaving scam to fix the outcome of NCAA tournament games, and that an incensed Coach Haroldson and former teammates of Damion's, including the now suspended Jackie Woodson and the recently fired athletic trainer, Rodney Sands, were expected to testify against Asalon.
The case against Wordell Epps hadn't proceeded much further than it had in the days prior to
the start of school except that a third murder charge against Epps had been dropped when information about Jo Jo Lawson's involvement in the Leon Bird murder had come to light.
Alicia Phillips had been placed on indefinite administrative leave at CSU, leave that was certain to culminate in her termination once a full investigation of the scale of her inappropriate clinical research was under way. Her lawyer was fighting to keep her salaried, but the fact that she'd been slapped with an accessory-to-murder charge was bound sooner or later to not only squeeze off her salary pipeline but send her to prison.
Fortunately, the same thing couldn't be said for Jo Jo Lawson. Julie Madrid had mounted an aggressive defense on Jo Jo's behalf, one that was playing out in the local papers and had made its way more than once to the editorial pages of Denver's two dailies. Julie's defense was designed to lead to an outcome that would likely find Jo Jo guilty of killing Leon Bird but on the grounds of mental impairment. She meant to argue that in his limited, almost juvenile vision of the situation, he'd had no choice but to protect Aretha Bird's life against an imminent threat from Leon.
Julie had warned Damion that there was only a fifty-fifty chance that her strategy would work, but she had stacks of case law to support her position, and she and the grateful Aretha intended to stick by Jo Jo to the end.
Clearing his throat and thumping his lapel mike with an index finger in order to get the class's attention, Professor Venton said, “I suspect you've heard about my tradition of asking students what their summer was like, and if you haven't, you have now. I've learned over the years that it helps us to get to know one another better.”
A few students near the back of the room snickered.
Unfazed, Venton said, “So, in keeping with that tradition, I'm going to ask three or four of you, just as if you were all sitting rosy-cheeked and fired up to learn in the first grade, to let the whole class in on what you did on your summer vacation. Believe it or not, sometimes we get some pretty wild stories.” Venton glanced down at the three pages of color photos of students with their names typed below them and spread the photos out on the lectern. Looking up and then straight ahead, he said, “Ms. Samuels. Why don't we start with you?”
As Venton and the class listened to Amanda Samuels's description of working in a fish-canning factory in Alaska for the months of June and July, Damion thought about what he'd say if called upon. Deciding that he really didn't have a good response, he slouched down in his seat, trying to remain inconspicuous.
Two more students responded to Professor Venton's question. One, a burly, thick-necked Cleveland native, had worked in a tire factory in Akron, and the other, a prissy-sounding woman from Santa Fe, who Damion could only imagine was going to be four years of trouble, announced that she'd worked in a restaurant in Vail and had hated it.
He was caught off guard when Dr. Venton asked, “And Mr. Madrid, why don't we close out with you before moving into today's topic: the anatomy of the integumentary system?” Eyeing the sea of eager faces, he added, “For the uninformed, and for those of you primed to enjoy the cushy life of a dermatologist, the lecture will be about the skin.”
The class erupted in laughter.
“So tell us what you did this summer, Mr. Madrid, and we'll move on.”
Almost involuntarily, and in a chilling voice that immediately turned the room silent, Damion said, “I tracked down the murderer of my best friend.”
Copyright © 2008 by Robert Greer. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without written permission of the publisher. For information contact Frog Books c/o North Atlantic Books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greer, Robert O.
Blackbird, farewell / Robert Greer.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-55643-849-3
1. Floyd, C. J. (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. African American bail bond agents—Fiction. 3. Bounty hunters—Fiction. 4. Doping in sports—Fiction. 5. Professional sports—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.R3997B63 2008
813’.54—dc22
2008016360
CIP
v3.0_r1