by Guy Johnson
“Let me take one of your men and I’ll stop by my house in the Oakland Hills and then I’ll come back.”
“Don’t go home! There may be another team there waiting for you. I tell you what, you go to some restaurant or bar and think. I’ll take these boys down to the Seventh Street house. We’ll ask them a few questions and be ready for our boat ride by eleven. Here come my men now.” The van pulled up and two men got out.
Jackson sniffed the air. “You smell that?”
Carlos turned to him. “Smell what?”
“That cigar smoke! Smells like my grandfather’s cigars!”
Carlos took a couple of sniffs. “I don’t smell anything.”
“Maybe I’m just going crazy, but it smells pretty strong to me.”
Carlos patted Jackson on the arm and said, “Just stay alert!” He had a muffled conversation with his men, then waved Jackson into his car. Jackson picked up his briefcase, straightened his clothes, and got into his car. He adjusted his rearview mirror and saw that his lip was bleeding and the area around his right eye was turning a nice purple. He put on a pair of sunglasses and drove his car toward the exit. When he got to the exit booth, he planned to cover his mouth with a tissue and pretend that he had a serious cough. He still smelled a trace of cigar smoke even when he drove out of the parking lot.
Thursday, July 8, 1982
After Jackson’s car and the brown Cadillac had disappeared up the ramp, Deleon DuMont stepped out of hiding and walked over to his car. His shirt was dirty and his pants had oil on them. He had his leather jacket cupped under his arm to cover the scope and barrel of his 30-30 rifle. He opened the car’s door, put the rifle with its silencer on the floor of the backseat, and dropped his jacket over it. He walked over to where Jesse had lain after Jackson had dropped his weight on him. There was a trail of blood drops leading from there over to the site where the Cadillac had been parked. As he walked back to his car, he concluded the situation required a drastic change in strategy. He pulled a brown herringbone jacket out of the backseat and put it on. He was in no hurry. He didn’t want to leave the parking lot too soon. He figured that one of Jackson’s men would be assigned to get the license numbers of all the cars that left the lot within half an hour of the incident with Jesse.
Deleon had almost made a mistake that could’ve ended him up in a trunk. He wouldn’t make a second. He had followed Jackson and Jesse into the parking structure and when he discovered that Jackson had parked on the same floor as he had, he went to his car for his rifle. Deleon had had Jackson in his crosshairs more than once, but a hunch, a feeling, caused him to delay. Instead of pulling the trigger and listening to the soft plink of his silencer, he had watched to see what the two bumbling fools would accomplish and, in so doing, had saved his own life.
Deleon had been lying between two cars at the far end of the lot with his rifle set up on a rest made of his leather jacket. He had been watching Jesse getting his butt kicked when he heard whispering voices behind him. He’d picked up his rifle and rolled under a car just before two men walked behind where he had been laying. If he had not heard their whispered exchange, he would be dead. The stealth with which they moved made him know these weren’t casual parkers. He didn’t dare fire once the men passed because he had no desire to see how good the security team was. He would wait for another shot at another time. He satisfied himself with watching the events unfold from underneath a parked car.
As he witnessed Jackson brutally finish off Jesse he had wondered how good he was with a knife. It might be interesting to see how long he could last in a blade-to-blade battle. Deleon liked going up against larger men. It gave him pleasure to cut them down to size. His musings were interrupted when two additional men joined Jackson’s party. Deleon had been too far away to hear any of the words exchanged, but he had seen Jesse and Fletcher’s bodies get loaded into the trunks of the cars and it was clear that neither of those two were destined to live to a ripe old age. The man who first came to Jackson’s assistance looked like a Colombian drug enforcer and his associates all appeared to be professionals. This grandson obviously had control of King’s organization.
Two women came down the steps and walked to their vehicles. Deleon gave them a perfunctory nod and waited for them to pass before opening up the driver’s-side rear door of his car. Their cars were driving up the ramp as he tried to slide into the backseat. He wanted to fix his rifle firmly in its clip beneath the back upholstery of the front seats. The problem was he couldn’t open the door wide enough because a black BMW was straddling the line separating the two parking spaces. Deleon pushed the back door of his vehicle open until it scraped hard against the side of the black car. He didn’t care about the car he was using, he would steal a new car by morning. The clip he had devised for this car wasn’t holding the rifle firmly and he had to really push it in to seat it. He had nearly gotten the rifle seated when he was interrupted.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing to my car? Did you hear me? I’m the city manager, goddamn it! I’m talking to you! Get out of that car and give me your license!”
Deleon saw the man’s pale, bespectacled reflection in the door window out of the corner of his eye. There were no other voices. The man appeared to be alone. Deleon had to be cautious. The stock of the rifle was clearly visible on the floor, but Deleon blocked the man’s view of the weapon with his body. Deleon was pondering what to do when the man had the audacity to put his hands upon him and grab him by his shoulder. The man’s act made things easier for Deleon. He resisted momentarily, freeing the rifle completely, then he spun around using the man’s strength to add speed to his effort. The rifle butt shot out from under Deleon’s left arm and hit the man across the bridge of the man’s nose. There was a muffled yelp of pain as the man staggered backward holding both hands to his face. Deleon followed him, using the rifle butt like a club. He delivered several more hard blows to the man’s head, but the man was able to block the first few blows with his hands and arms. Deleon kept hitting the man until he drove the butt through the man’s guard. He hit the man until he stumbled and fell behind his car. When he did not move, Deleon smiled then returned to seating the rifle. Once he got it firmly in the clip, he started his vehicle and drove out of the parking lot.
Deleon smiled again as he drove along toward Fourteenth Street toward Lake Merritt with his car window down. It was a beautiful balmy night. The stars were twinkling overhead. Once he was successful with his current assignment, the other grandson could be taken care of at his leisure. His grandfather had promised him he could take over all of King’s businesses after he had completed his tasks, but Deleon had politely declined. He wasn’t interested in that life. He cared nothing about having a great deal of money. He already had sufficient to buy a nice home and live modestly while he studied and painted. The path he intended to travel required the use of pastels, oils, and acrylics on a blank surface. He sometimes dreamed of spending his mornings stretching canvas for new paintings in an island villa that overlooked an unending azure expanse of the ocean. All he had to do was stay focused on his current tasks. Deleon knew that he would have another chance at Jackson, perhaps even this evening. He and San Vicente had both been in the lobby and had overheard Jackson ask the security guard for the nearest pharmacy. The guard had directed him over to Eighteenth and Lakeshore. Deleon figured that if Jackson went to the pharmacy at all, it would be after some defensive maneuver designed to lose any tailing traffic. San Vicente was the one appointed to follow Jackson in his car. Deleon smiled even more broadly. He might even beat San Vicente and Jackson to the pharmacy. He could be perfectly situated when Jackson arrived, then plink! That would be it.
Thursday, July 8, 1982
Jackson pulled into the parking lot of a large drugstore located a couple of blocks from Lake Merritt. After he parked and turned the engine off, he sat in his car with the window rolled down. There was a light breeze blowing off the lake. The hour was early; families with young children could st
ill be seen in the store’s parking lot. Sounds of horns and traffic, human voices, dogs barking, a distant siren: all noises of a normal evening, but this was not a normal evening.
He adjusted his sunglasses, got out of his car, and walked into the store. He needed liniment for his arms, some salve to put on his lip, and ingredients for a poultice for the area around his eye. Yet as he entered the store he felt surprisingly comforted to be around people, regular people who went from home to work and back without worrying about being kidnapped and killed. People who felt free to be preoccupied, or to have their children by their side. Jackson envied their sense of safety and security. He picked up a basket and went immediately to the aisle that contained first-aid supplies.
As he stood looking over the possible alternatives, Elizabeth, wearing a form-fitting teal and lavender Lycra workout suit, stepped in front of him and demanded, “What happened to your face? Oh, look at your lip.” She moved closer to him. “You’re really banged up!”
“The other person looks worse,” Jackson answered tersely. Elizabeth was not the person he wanted to see this evening. He didn’t want to involve her in his problems. He said by way of explanation, “I’ve got to find some stuff and get out of here.”
“Let me help,” she offered.
“Honey,” how he had wanted to call her that, but this was neither the time nor place, “I’m telling you that you don’t want to be involved.”
She responded, “If I didn’t want to help, I wouldn’t have volunteered. I’ve been worried about you and it’s driving me crazy!”
The closeness of her, the smell of her hair, the brownness of her eyes weakened Jackson’s resolve. He knew he should just walk away from her, but he couldn’t. He wanted to steal any moments that he could to be with her. He asked, “Why did you leave without saying good-bye? Why haven’t you returned my calls?”
Elizabeth looked him straight in the eye and said evenly, “You know the answer to that.” When Jackson had no reply, she touched his cheek where Jesse’s fist had landed and Jackson winced. “Let me see your lip,” she said, standing on her toes in front of him. She pulled his lip down gently to see the extent of the damage. “Hmmm, it’s cut, but I don’t think it needs stitches. Why don’t you just wait here and I’ll get the things that I need to fix you up.”
Jackson asked, “How do you know what I need?”
“You forget that I was a beat officer who worked patrol for four years! I’ve had my share of scrapes and bruises.”
Jackson watched admiringly while Elizabeth took his basket and walked down the aisle picking various items from the shelves. He could not help appreciating her beauty.
It was clear to Jackson that she didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. He was risking her life simply because he didn’t have the willpower to walk away. When Elizabeth had gotten everything she needed and was ready to go, Jackson grabbed her arm. His words issued in a coarse whisper: “Elizabeth, these clowns tried to kidnap me tonight. I had to fight them off. I’m not yet finished with them. They were going to kill me. I can’t get you involved in this. This is serious.”
Elizabeth gave him a long look then said, “I’ve had a line drawn in my mind, a line that I said to myself that I wouldn’t cross. I thought that we could share a few moments, then when the line was crossed, I’d let you go. I didn’t know then that I was going to fall in love with you. There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t been worried.”
There were no other words that Jackson would rather have heard. He wanted to hold her in his arms, but now his desire to protect her was stronger. “I love you too, but I can’t endanger you. We’ve got to go our separate ways.”
She laughed humorlessly and resisted his efforts to take the basket. “I risked my life as a police officer so many times trying to make an arrest. Sometimes I knew that the suspect would be out on the streets before I finished the crime report, but I went forward nonetheless. I did my job. If I was ready to do that for work, what do you think I’m ready to do for love? I want to know what’s going on. You can come to my apartment this one time and tell me the situation while I fix you up.”
“What difference will this discussion make?”
“I’ll at least know what’s going on.”
“I don’t want to endanger you. Let me call you later.”
“I can’t concentrate on my work. I can’t sleep! I want to know now!” She moved closer so that her face was inches from his. “So because of that, nothing is as important to me as finding out what’s happening with you.”
This was the last thing that Jackson wanted at the moment, but the smell of the woman was filling his nose. He couldn’t afford to let himself get distracted. He stepped backward. “We can’t talk about this now!”
Elizabeth stepped forward. “There is no other time to talk about it!”
Jackson was momentarily flustered. He fumbled for words, “Alex …”
“St. Clair.” Elizabeth grabbed the lapels of his jacket and gave them a yank. She looked directly into his eyes and whispered, “I need this! Do this for me. Come to my apartment now!”
They stood eye to eye. The proximity of her filled him with a desire to take her in his arms. More than anything he wanted to walk away from his problems and just be with her, make love to her every night, make her laugh, be part of her smile; the list went on and on. “All right,” he conceded, looking back into her eyes. They walked to the cashier and stood briefly in line. Their items were tabulated and Jackson paid.
“I’ll see you at my apartment,” Elizabeth said as she headed toward her car.
Jackson made one last effort. He grabbed her arm and swung her around. “We’re back in the real world now. I don’t want to involve—”
Elizabeth turned to face him, impatience on her face. “Didn’t we already cover this? It’s a done deal! Now, let’s go!”
Jackson saw the determination in the set of her lips and the spirit in her flashing eyes, and realized that she would not be satisfied unless he went with her. He simply nodded to her. He watched as she walked to her car. This was going to be a painful conversation and he knew it.
Elizabeth had a spacious apartment with hardwood floors on the top floor of the five-story building which overlooked the lake. Her place was decorated principally with African art in terms of both carved figures and paintings. Her furniture was modern, but comfortable. She had fresh flowers in vases throughout the apartment. The ambience was very pleasing.
She came out of the hallway leading from her bedroom; she had put on an apron over her running suit and had an armful of articles including towels. She beckoned Jackson to come and sit at a small breakfast table.
He walked toward her. “What’s all this?”
She took his suit jacket off and pushed him down in the chair before she answered, “This is basic first aid, buster. Now, be quiet and let the master continue her work.” She pressed an ice pack to Jackson’s bruised and swollen cheek and then grabbed his hand and placed it on the ice pack, saying, “You hold it.”
Despite himself Jackson felt at ease. He wanted to be pampered and cared for by her. Only Elizabeth had the power to make him feel that way.
“Hold the ice pack higher!”
Jackson bantered, “You’re bossy as hell. I can’t imagine what you’ll be like once you think you know me. Alex the Hun?”
She chuckled in response and said, “More like Zulu Woman! Get used to it, St. Clair! I’ll be this way as long as you know me.” She picked up a pair of gleaming, long-bladed scissors, then moved up and stood between his legs. She informed him, “These are the sharpest pair of scissors I have. Relax, I’ve done this a lot. I used to be a cop.”
“Is this how you interrogated suspects who invoked Miranda?”
“When someone on my squad got injured on an assignment and it didn’t require a doctor, I generally patched them up. Now, you’ve got a bit of skin hanging off your lip. I was just going to cut it off.”
She pulled
down his lip before he could react and snipped the skin with one clip of the scissors. “There, now let me put some antibiotic on it.” She reached over to the table and took some gauze and poured some alcohol on it and then dabbed his lip. Jackson gave no outward indication of the pain, but the alcohol created a sharp, stinging sensation. Elizabeth patted his face and said, “Don’t say anything for a couple of minutes. I want that salve to sink in.” She checked his ice pack, then picked up her first-aid articles and left the room.
Jackson stood up and walked around. He saw some photos on the wall of the corridor leading to the bathroom and went to inspect them. There were several pictures of a stout, dark-skinned man in a police uniform. One picture consisted of the man and his family: a woman, three daughters, and a son. The oldest daughter bore a strong resemblance to Elizabeth.
“That’s my dad,” Elizabeth said over his shoulder. “One of the first black captains on the Detroit Police Department.”
“Your dad wanted you in law enforcement? Is that why you became a police officer?” Jackson asked.
“Not hardly; my father was one of the original sexist pigs. He thought a woman’s place was in the home.”
“Why did you become a police officer?”
“My father was killed in the line of duty. I wanted to get his killers.”
“Were you close with your father?”
“No, but we loved each other. When he discovered that he was destined to have only one son, he was extremely disappointed. I tried to make up for it by being a tomboy, but that didn’t coincide with his sexist philosophy. My father and I were like fire and water: One could not exist in the presence of the other without being either extinguished or evaporated. We weren’t even talking when he was killed, but I knew he did his best for me.”