L.A. Blues

by Maxine Thompson

I guess murder was worse than a natural death. You wanted someone to pay for taking your loved one’s life away. Since Trayvon’s murder, I felt like I was walking around in a fog, but I had to push forward. I was more determined than ever to find out who killed my nephew.

  Around three that afternoon, Romero and I met at the Starbucks in Ladera Heights, which was considered another Black Beverly Hills section of L.A., but we were in the same parking lot as Magic Johnson’s TGIF, Block Buster, a few markets, Ross’s, and a drug store. The lot was filled with female and male bikers, a few B list actors, and writers. I assumed they were writers because they had their lap tops, and they were typing away as if the “Great American Novel,” was just a key strike away. An eclectic mix of Los Angelinos I guess you’d call it.

  Romero was already sitting on the patio when I arrived. He held out my seat, which I noted. Mmmm. A gentleman. He still possessed this cool exterior, like he’d been around the block. He was wearing his shades, and I sensed there was a lot beneath the surface. I noticed a few people staring at us, but interracial dating started here in California, (heck, we could go back to Sammy Davis, Jr. and May Britt), so they didn’t even need to go there. Romero ordered Pumpkin Spice Frappucino and I ordered a Green Tea. I was trying not to get too hooked on coffee since I went on the wagon, because, truthfully, caffeine made me high.

  Finally, I broached the subject. “Can I trust you, Romero?”

  “What do you think?”

  I thought back to how he gave me the ride home when he was a complete stranger and how he could have taken advantage of me. “I guess so.”

  I explained how I was trying to look for Trayvon’s killer. I almost started to tell him what F-Loc told me about Pookie, but I held my tongue. Right now I was not sure who I could trust.

  Who could I talk to? Where could I start? I had to find out who killed my nephew.

  “You heard anything about Trayvon’s murder?”

  “No, but I’m checking it out. “

  “Do you think this is a brown on black murder thing? Seems like that’s happening more and more.”

  Romero glanced away from me, his jaws twitching. He seemed conflicted. I could understand how he felt torn, because I often felt torn as a cop when the perpetrators were black and I had to kick ass. He was Latino and he didn’t seem to want to say it was his people who were the drive by shooters. Just like most of my community was peopled by law abiding citizens, most of the Latino community were hard-working citizens or immigrants. It was just the bad apples who gave everybody a bad name.

  Romero kept his gaze on the table and didn’t seem to want to look me in the eye. “You know this is a police matter and I’m not at liberty to discuss some of the facts. You should leave this alone and let the police handle it.”

  “Oh, cut the crap, Romero. I’m a licensed private investigator now.” I flashed my credentials for him. “Besides that, this isn’t some animal who was murdered. Trayvon is a human being. He’s my people.” I could hear my voice cracking with emotion. I spoke as if Trayvon were still alive. I didn’t want to use the past tense with him yet . . . that made his death so permanent.

  “I’m sorry, but I thought Chica was just your foster sister.”

  Pissed, I rolled my eyes at Romero. “Look, love doesn’t have any stipulations on it or any rules. It just is. I love Chica. We grew up like sisters, so I loved her son. Now are you going to help me or not?”

  Before I knew it, I was crying hysterically. I hadn’t cried since the hospital so I didn’t even know where this was coming from. I felt Romero put his arms around me. He rubbed me on the back, and then he kissed me. It was a tentative kiss, as if he was afraid to let loose, but I recognized this was more than a friendly kiss.

  Not realizing how upset I was, I began to tongue Romero back like his tongue was manna in the desert and I was one of the Israelites. His tongue tasted so good, kind of minty, and kind of like the Frappucino. For a moment, I forgot my grief. Then, I remembered where we were.

  I pulled away from Romero’s embrace and saw some of the Starbucks staff and patrons staring at us.

  “Com’on let’s go,” Romero took me by the elbow and led me to the parking lot. When we reached my car, he said, “We’ve got to see each other, Z. I know this is messed up. I’ve thought about you all these years, and sometimes I thought I’d imagined you. I know this isn’t the time or place, but can we go to dinner sometime? That is—whenever you feel up to it.”

  “Not right now. Let me get through what I’m going through and we’ll see.”

  After I drove off from the parking lot, I headed west down Centinela, planning to stop at the Fox Hills Mall just to lighten my mood. Without warning, a dark car with tinted windows almost ran into me from behind. I pulled up in time to keep the car from hitting me. At first I thought it was a near accident. But when I pulled off, the car pulled off behind me. Was this a carjacking? I sped up to get away from the car, and the car sped up. I changed lanes, the car changed lanes.

  “What do you want from me?” I screamed out loud.

  I made a sharp right turn as I reached Valley Ridge Street and hid between the many apartment complexes in Culver City. I sat ducked down in my seat on a side street for about twenty minutes. My heart was galloping, my pulse was racing, and I couldn’t calm down. I waited. I watched the dark car circling around several times, then pass the street where I was hiding. The car wasn’t close enough to get the license plate. I waited about another half hour.

  Finally I drove back onto Valley Ridge. I kept staring into my rear view mirror, as I ducked and dodged, driving down Centinela. I headed west, away from Baldwin Hills. I passed Fox Hill Mall and kept going until I was sure no one was following me. I took deep breaths, trying to calm down my heart palpitations. My blouse was clinging to my back, I was so drenched in sweat. I wiped my hands on my pants.

  I didn’t feel safe even as I drove home, clearly shaken. Once I made it inside my apartment, I noticed my hands were still trembling. Who was that following me? What did they want? Did they mean to do me bodily harm?

  19

  Haviland was planning to move out this weekend back with her actor boyfriend, Trevor, a soap opera B-list actor. They would be moving back to Hollywood Hills, into the house they almost lost to foreclosure. They recently received insurance money for their home invasion robbery. After Haviland and Trevor received the insurance money, they’d caught up their house note and everyone seemed happy.

  I didn’t know why but something inside of me was suspicious about the story Haviland told regarding the home invasion. My gut just didn’t believe that story, but who was it for me to question it. Her insurance had investigated her story, and paid her. So much for my gut churning.

  Happily, Haviland had kept her word and was moving out within the month. She was as happy to leave as I was to see her go. She couldn’t stand Ben, my pet ferret. “I don’t care what you say, Z, that’s a rat,” she said.

  Haviland had also self-appointed herself as the wedding planner for Chica’s wedding. Although she and Chica had not exactly hit it off, Chica went along with it because Haviland donated one of her Vera Wang designer wedding gowns that she had worn at one of her three weddings. Truly Hollywood, Haviland had been married three times by the age of thirty. She liked to say, “I like to change my men as much as I like to change my drawers–frequently.” She also confided in me that she’d had a boob job, a nose job, and liposuction. Instead of going for thirty-three, she put down she was twenty-four on her acting jobs, which in certain lights she could pass for that age.

  “Oh, no, this won’t be a ghettofabulous wedding,” Haviland declared, reminding me of Whitley from the old show, “Different World.” “I’m going to make this wedding look classy and champagne on the beer budget girlfriend has. Tsk, Tsk.”

  Her words infuriated me. Although she always said she hated her adoptive mother, she always liked to brag about what “her parents” owned. It was through their connections with stu
dio heads that Haviland got her part in We Are One World.

  I couldn’t take her attitude another minute. “Wait a minute, Haviland. I beg to differ with you. Believe it or not, Chica and I were runner ups in a teen beauty pageant. Shirley always made sure we had the best, so don’t think just because you grew up in Beverly Hills, you’re the only one with good taste.”

  “Well, excuse me. I’m not trying to be offensive.”

  “But, you are. In fact, you’re very condescending when you talk to Chica. Stop it. Now if you plan to help, do it from your heart, but don’t be talking shit because that’s my sister.”

  “Okay, okay.” Haviland held her hands up in surrender.

  “And another thing that gets on my nerves about you. One minute you act like you had it so hard, then the next minute you’re bragging how you were given the best. Now which was it?”

  Haviland got quiet. She didn’t answer. I guess Haviland knew better than to play with me.

  Sometimes I laughed over the extreme differences in my two friends. One was an old friend and one was a new friend. The truth be known, I didn’t trust Haviland as far as I could see her.

  I guess what we all had in common was that we have had different substance abuse problems and that we wore invisible wounds from all of our birth mothers.

  As I came out the shower, my cell phone buzzed. I thought it might be Haviland. When I answered my cell phone, and I heard Romero’s soft Hispanic accent, I was surprised.

  My heart skipped around my chest as I talked to him, and even I wondered what that was all about. I didn’t even know this guy, but he seemed like he was always showing up in my life when I needed him. I wonder if I was catching feelings for him. Then I thought about my bad history with men. “Nah.”

  “Hey, Z. I got your message.”

  “Thanks for calling me back.”

  “You know I didn’t mean to sound insensitive that day we were having coffee. Can I make it up to you and take you to dinner?”

  I paused for a moment, but I relented. “When?”

  “This weekend on Saturday. I’ve finally got a weekend off.”

  It was Tuesday, so that gave me time to go shopping. I’d lost all my clothes when I was evicted, and I was slowly tic-tac-toeing and building back up my wardrobe.

  I drove down to the Crenshaw Mall and browsed around the women boutiques and dress shops, but I kept getting this uneasy feeling. I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking about the car that followed me. Was that a random car jacking?

  I didn’t know. As I shopped I felt like someone was watching me, then I shook off that feeling. Maybe I was just getting paranoid.

  I finally found an all purpose black dress which could be dressed up or down and picked out a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.

  Driving home, I turned my radio up and start humming to Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable.” For the first time since Trayvon’s death, I felt uplifted. There was something about Romero that I liked. This was a guy who I was feeling and I was sober. It had a whole different feel to it than the men I liked when I was drinking. Maybe my judgment would be better this time.

  This was the first time since Trayvon’s death that I’d felt a brief moment of joy. But just as suddenly as it came, it left. The dark cloud returned.

  I thought about Trayvon. Who were the two men everyone said went up and shot him when he got off the bus? Would I be able to keep my promise to Shirley and to Chica and find the murderer? And what about my safety? Who was driving that car that tried to run me down? Was it because I was poking around in Trayvon’s death? And what did F-Loc mean by something strange went down the night of Okamoto’s killing?

  I felt my palms getting sweaty. I used to be a lot tougher when I was on the force, or at least I thought I was. Maybe I was hiding my fear behind the badge and behind my drinks. Because now without the badge and without bolstering of alcohol, I knew what I truly felt. I was plain scared.

  20

  The next day, I received a call from Chica who wanted to get together for lunch. “I’ll drive down to L.A. How about the Cheesecake Factory in Marina Del Rey?” Chica suggested. “It’ll be my treat.”

  While I was on the force, most of my friends, rather associates, were police officers—mainly men. It was as if I now had to readjust my inner barometer to being around women. It was a whole different world from the “in-your-face, shoot-from-the hip” world of men. For example, if you made an empty gesture of saying, “Let’s get together,” another officer understood it was just total B.S. But I couldn’t say that to my two new women friends; they took it seriously. They held me to the task.

  I thought about it. Chica and I had talked more in the past few months than we had since I moved out and left her in Jordan Downs when we were eighteen.

  Since we became adults, we’d never really gotten together and did the “sistah girl,” chitchat thing, and maybe that would help us since we both were in a twelve-step program. I went to my meetings every day, and although I had a sponsor, it would be nice to have someone who was going through the same thing at the same time.

  Maybe this would help me with this spooked feeling I kept getting.

  When I arrived, Chica wanted to talk about her wedding too since it was back on. “We’ve finally reset the date.”

  “When is it?”

  “June twenty-first.”

  “Great.”

  “I want you to be my bridesmaid. It’s going to be a small ceremony.”

  “Thanks! You know I got you, girl.”

  She smiled. We both ordered shrimp scampi and Greek salad. We were sitting on the pier, looking out at the Pacific Ocean lapping gently at the cement posts, and both feeling a sense of calm. This is the first time since Trayvon’s murder that she didn’t mention him.

  “Z . . .” Chica’s tone turned serious. “I want to thank you for being there for me with Trayvon.” Her eyes misted up, and I was afraid we were going to go back to that desolate place we were when we first got the shocking news of Trayvon’s murder. No, we were all getting a little better, one day at a time. I didn’t want to fall back into the darkness.

  I flagged my hand in dismissal. I took my thumb and pushed it under my chin, in a “Keep your chin up, girl,” sign.

  I watched as Chica swallowed back her tears. Then, bottom lip trembling, she tried to brighten up and changed the subject. “I just want to know how your investigation into Trayvon’s murder is coming along? I appreciate your efforts.”

  “I don’t have any news yet, Chica.”

  For a moment, her mouth turned down in the corners.

  “Don’t worry. I believe whoever did this is going to be brought to justice—even if it’s street justice.”

  Tears sprung in her eyes again. “I’m just getting frustrated and I’m mad. You sure you can’t move this along faster?”

  “I’m doing all I can, Chica. Don’t worry.”

  The waiter came and brought both of our orders, interrupting our moment.

  We both began to eat in silence.

  “Did I ever tell you how I always admired you, Z?” Chica broke the silence.

  I was taken aback. “No, but whatever! Look, girl. I’m just proud of how you’ve cleaned up.” Then teasing, I added, “You clean up real good.”

  “Thanks! You’re doing good, too.”

  I crossed my arms and tilted my head to the side. “Well, aren’t we the motley crew? Two recovering addicts. I guess the pot can’t call the kettle black.” I paused then spoke from my heart. “You know I’m sorry for how I treated you when you were using. I really can’t talk about nobody as bad as I got before I finally got help.”

  “No, you did the right thing to cut me off. I was treacherous. When I needed a smoke, I would steal from my own grandmother if she’d been alive. I did some scandalous things, I don’t care to remember. I was a bottom feeder. At least you never did drugs.”

  I shook my head as I faced my own moment of truth. “I just can’t believe I didn’t think wh
at I was using was a drug, but alcohol is a drug too, it’s just legal. I really had things twisted.”

  “Well, if you say so, but Z, you always had something I didn’t have.”

  “What?” I almost scoffed at the idea. For crying out loud, we were both foster kids.

  “Confidence. I guess that thing about being a ghetto Mafia princess was true in your case.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember when that gang of girls jumped on me in junior high and you jumped in, kicking ass and taking names?”

  “No, you were fighting pretty tough by yourself but it was four of them against the one of you. You know I wasn’t going to let them beat up my sister. Anyway, they were just jealous of your hair.”

  “Well, it’s more than just that. I’ve never held a job and you’ve had a career—”

  “One which I fucked up, don’t forget to add that.”

  “Even so, you went after your dream.”

  “Well, you were pretty smart in school. I remember you were the best writer in our English class and you know you could quote you some Shakespeare mess.”

  “Yeah, but I never did anything with my dreams. It’s more than just that, Z. You carry yourself like you have a right to be in this world. You act like you can take or leave a man. You know, you’re not all desperate acting.”

  “Wait a minute, sis. I want a man as much as the next sistah, but it seems like I always get it messed up. I really have a problem with giving up my freedom. When I married Rafael, we both were L.A.P.D. and we both had too much ego, so it couldn’t work. Now, it’s for the best I don’t have a man. I’m just doing me.

  “Besides, you know the thing about how we’re not supposed to get involved with anyone for the first two years of recovery. I think it’s for the best for me.” Then I thought of Romero. “Now there is this cutie detective, Romero, who I’ve kind of—I dunno.”

  Chica didn’t say anything. She had her mind on her own problems. She started wringing her hands. “Sometimes I question if I’m marrying Riley for the right reasons.”