“So that was you that night? I swear ’fore God and on everything I know and love, I’m innocent. I didn’t shoot that police officer.”
“Well, the reports say you did.”
“Did you ever find out about the ballistic reports? Somebody planted a gun in my house.”
“Do you remember what happened that night?”
“All I know is you said you were going to run a criminal check, and when your partner came back, bullets start flying from behind him.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m almost sure the bullets came from behind, because there were bullet holes in our house.”
Flabbergasted, I didn’t know what to say.
“Look,” Lawrence went on, “ I only owned a .22. I knew I was on parole and already had two strikes. I was clean. I wasn’t dealing no more. You saw my kids were there in the house. I swear they planted those drugs on me. Please go check the ballistics report. Someone else did the shooting. I know it was them.”
“Them who?”
“The police. There were two other police on the scene.”
I didn’t remember any back up showing up. “What did they look like?”
“They both were dark haired. They were wearing uniforms. Looked like Mexicans, but one could have been a white boy with dark hair. I’m not sure.”
I thought back and tried to remember. All I could remember was shooting back with my Beretta, but I was not sure if the bullets hit the house.
I decided I would see if I could get an old friend in the crime lab who might help me.
When I left the jail, twilight had fallen outside. It was around six-thirty. My mind was spinning with questions. Could the crime site have been tampered with? Were there other shooters there that night? Then I recalled something. A voice shouting. What was it the voice said? “One Time!” Who called out “One Time?” I’d always assumed it was Lawrence a.k.a. Uncle Pookie.
When I arrived home, I contacted my old friend, Alice Thomas, from the Crime Lab to find out about what was written up in the Crime Scene lab report.
“You know I’ll only do it for you.”
“Also, I have one more favor to ask of you, Alice.”
“What?”
“I never got my things out of evidence lock-up after my shooting, and I don’t know if any one ever claimed my private property lock-up.”
Alice hesitated. “I could get in trouble, Z.”
“They probably don’t need the uniform and belt I was wearing when I got shot. Come on, Alice,” I wheedled. “Be a sport.”
“All right. I’ll see what I can do. How will I get them to you?”
“What time do you get off?”
“Eight.”
“I’ll meet you at Burger King down the street at eight-fifteen.”
While I waited for Alice to get off work, I went back to the address where “Unca Pookie” lived. It took me a while to find the house since I only knew it from memory, and that was in the middle of the night when I went there before. I no longer had the police report, and hopefully, when Alice delivered her package, I’d have some addresses to look at.
Anyhow, the back house looked different in the dim evening light. I hadn’t even driven by this spot since I was shot, and it made my stomach flip flop in discomfort—as if my body remembered that it was in mortal danger at this house.
No one appeared to be at home, so I went up to the back house and circled around it. The house still had the same lopsided step. I did notice several bullet holes on each side of the door. I measured the holes with a measuring stick I had in my car. The holes looked like they came from 350 Magnums. How could a bullet hit the house from the outside if Pookie was the shooter? I shot at the house, but I was using a Beretta.
Just as I was leaving, the lady I recalled being named Mimi pulled up in her beat-up Volvo. She had what looked like a six-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl in tow. Now I remembered. These were the kids that were sleeping on the couch that fateful night. “Hey, what are you doing at my house?”
“Hello, Miss Mimi?”
“Yes.”
“I’m the police officer who came to place the children that night when Lady Bug was murdered.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember you. I’m sorry what happened to you. Are you all right now?”
“I’m fine. Do you remember what happened that night?”
“Okay. You guys said y’all were going to check out Pookie. He was afraid because he knew he had a record, and some outstanding warrants, but he didn’t try to shoot nobody for that. He was planning on explaining and seeing if y’all could put the kids in my name ’cause I don’t have a record.”
“And then what happened?”
“Pookie went to the door, and he hollered out, ‘What happened to the other two polices?”
“All I know is I started hearing something like machine guns going off and we grabbed our babies and hit the floor. Pookie ran and covered us all up with his body.”
“Did you see the two police Pookie saw?”
“No, I didn’t. But he swears, they were the ones shooting.”
“How do you know if he’s telling the truth?”
“Things happened so fast, but there’s no way Pookie could have done the shooting. We were thinking we were going to get Lady Bug’s kids, then the next thing we knew, bullets were flying. We had to get down on the floor to save our own lives. Pookie was laying on top of us to save our lives.”
“Did he tell his lawyer?”
“Well, he’s had all these court-appointed lawyers and they seem to keep losing his paperwork. I swear on my children’s lives, Pookie is innocent.”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, Miss. If he is innocent, I’ll do all I can to help him.”
After I met Alice and got the plastic bag containing my personal affects, the crime lab report, and the police report, I went home and examined the contents. I prayed that the key to Okamoto’s safety box was still in my duty belt.
There was nothing remarkable from my bag of clothes. It bothered me seeing the dried blood stains on my police shirt, my bullet proof vest, and undershirt. At the bottom of the bag, I found my duty belt, and was relieved to find the key was still where I’d put it. I had a new problem. I couldn’t remember which bank Okamoto told me the safety deposit box was at. I had to think hard.
Now, which bank did Okamoto say his safe deposit box was at? I wondered. So much had happened since then, I truly couldn’t remember. “Lord,” I prayed, “Please help me to remember.”
I went through all the paper work since I couldn’t remember the bank’s name. I shook my head as I read the reports. First of all, the police report had been tampered with. The times had changed; the type of caliber bullets had been changed. I could see that Lawrence Collins had been royally pencil fucked. None of the facts made sense.
When I got to the bottom of the report, I gasped. The reports were signed by Raymond Norris a.k.a. Flag and Julius Anderson. What the hell were they doing there? I wondered. Were they there because of Collins’ drug trafficking history? I planned to go interview them, but first I needed to see what was in the safety deposit box. I went online and googled banks in downtown L.A. The name, National Bank, leaped out at me off the screen. I thought that was it, but I wasn’t sure.
The next morning I went to the National Bank as soon as they opened. Bingo! This was the bank and I had no problem getting into Okamoto’s safe deposit box.
Inside his safe deposit box I found nothing but a CD.
When I made it back home, I fired up my laptop so I could read the disc. Hidden in plain view was a file of Okamoto’s called, The Little Black Book. I clicked open the file and all I could say was, “Oh, my God.”
The contents from Okamoto’s safety box sent pins running down my hairline into my brain. It was as though he was speaking to me from the grave.
“There’s important information I want you to get if anything happens to me.”
So this
was what the key to the safe deposit held. Now I was friggin’ scared. I stumbled to the bathroom and threw up, I was so sickened by what I’d read. When I rinsed my face and looked in the mirror, I saw a familiar face looking back at me. It was not my own face. I could now see the resemblance to my mother. I had the same face shape. The same determined chin jutting out.
I picked up the phone, then hesitated, but I went ahead and put in the call. I convinced myself I need to start somewhere. I called my mother. Yes, that was right. I needed my mother. For all she’d put me through, I still needed her.
“Hey.”
“Who is it?”
“Mama, it’s Z.”
23
Since Venita’s release, I hadn’t visited or called her. I’d refused her calls, and with my trying to stay sober, the first few months, I knew she would have pushed me right over the brink of sobriety and back into the abyss of alcoholism.
Regardless, now I felt a pull to be with my mother. A few good memories were beginning to surface for me. How Venita kept me well dressed by ghetto standards and always clean. My hair was always in the most intricate braided styles. How she always cooked my favorite meals. I guess I’d blocked out those good memories. I still wanted to be angry at her. At the same time, I needed her to give me any information she could as to Mayhem’s whereabouts and a current address.
F-Loc had told me to get in touch with Mayhem. He’d hinted that my brother would know more about what was going on. So he might be a lead to information on Trayvon’s murder.
Over the years, I’d learned how convicts in the prison system knew just as much, if not more, about what was going on in the outside world, as if they were not locked up. They had eyes and ears everywhere on the street. I also wanted to find out if Venita knew anything about my younger brother’s and sister’s whereabouts.
I stood in the courtyard of a four-family flat on Hoover, waiting for her to come out after I called her. My mother had been out of prison a minute now, but she was still staying in another half-way house. I guess that was better than being homeless.
Although I didn’t intend to speak to her, I had to swallow my pride. And there was something inside of me I hated to admit. I still loved her. After all, she was my mother. And for whatever she did or didn’t do, she was the one who could give me the strength to face what I had to do. I needed her strength right now.
“Hi, Zipporah?” My mother’s face lit up at the sight of me. She reached over and grabbed me in a bear hug. This time I hugged her back.
When we released each other, we stood there, appraising each other, not as mother and daughter, but as two women. I must admit she looked better. She was only sixteen years older than me and now I could see what a young mother she was. She’d gotten a decent pair of dentures. She wore a decent-enough looking, shoulder-length weave. Although she was not the woman I remembered, she’d cleaned up nicely. I could tell she was clean and sober, too. I remembered my mother being quite the drinker when she was young.
My mother touched my face. “You’re beautiful,” she said. “Z, you’re looking good.”
“You too.”
Because Venita had a roommate, she couldn’t take me to her room, so we sat on a cement bench in a flower garden filled with amaryllises and crocuses in the courtyard. The sky was cerulean blue and it was a cool day for summer. I’d like to see her room, just to see how she was living, but I knew it was against the rules. I knew, though, unless she’d changed, her room would be orderly.
One thing I recalled was that Venita was a neat freak and very clean. Thinking back, all her men said they loved how she kept such an immaculate house in spite of having so many babies.
I really felt like a traitor. I hadn’t gone to see her since her release and I just hated I didn’t have the Christian ability to forgive. Although it was not all her fault, I never forgot I was the reason our family was broken up. I wondered if she blamed me for what happened. Did I need to make amends with her? But I decided I wasn’t ready.
“Can I say something to you, Z?”
“What is it?”
“I’m glad you stopped drinking.”
“How did you know?”
“A little birdie told me, but I’m glad. It’s time to break the cycle of all that drinking. It sure doesn’t help matters.”
I knew my mother had always kept up with me through Shirley, so I knew who the ‘Little Birdie’ was. “I heard that. How’bout you? Did you ever quit?”
“Years ago. I have over twenty years sobriety, and I haven’t touched a drop since I’ve been out.”
“Anyway, what are you doin’ with yourself?” I asked.
Venita smiled, looking proud of herself. “I’ve got a little job at this flower shop. I’m still on parole, but I’m happy. You know I never had a job before.”
I thought back. She never worked because her men took care of her, and she got a County check for us kids. “How ’bout you?”
“What about me?”
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
“Not on the police anymore?”
I started to tell her I was fired, but I couldn’t even admit it in my own head.
“No. I like investigations. I like my freedom. I want to find Diggity and Ry-Chee.”
Venita didn’t say anything, but she smiled at the possiblity of me finding her two youngest children. I guess Venita was beginning to feel comfortable with me. “When you gon’ give me some grandbabies? You’re not getting any younger.”
“Oh, so I can have babies who can end up in foster care like we did?”
Venita’s mouth turned down in the corner and she looked hurt, which is what I wanted. I wanted her to hurt like I used to hurt, and like I still hurt. “Okay, Z, I’m sorry,” she said, holding her hands out in an imploring manner. “I messed up. But you turned out pretty good.”
“No thanks to you.”
Venita nodded. “True. What can I say? I’d like to start building a relationship with you with the time we have left.”
“It’s too late, but whatever . . .”
Venita looked crushed again, but I could see some of the old, proud Venita. She threw her shoulders back and her head high, as if she said to herself, “Too bad. Suck it up.”
“Do you know where Mayhem is?” I asked.
“No. Y’heard from him?” Venita ventured, on to the next page already.
I slipped into the vernacular. “Mayhem still banging with his old self. Still slanging, but I hear he the Man. In and out of prison. He’s getting out the last I heard.”
“You have his number?”
“No. I came to see if you knew where he was. Why?”
“I’m just surprised you don’t keep up with him. He is your brother. You used to idolize him when you were a little girl. Your first words were, ‘Who, my big brother, Dave?’ whenever I would fuss about how bad he was. He’s the one who taught you how to handle a gun when you were only seven or eight.”
I tried to remember that time of innocence, that time when I idolized my mother and my older brother. Crazy as it was, I remembered how happy we were as a family. Until I lived with Shirley, I thought it was normal for moms to have live-in uncles, for people to hang out at the house drinking forties and smoking weed all day and night
“I used to say that about Mayhem?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes, ma’am, you sure did.” My mother reminded me of how she would say, “Yes, ma’am,” the way someone would say, “I kid you not.”
“Well, you’re a PI. I’m sure you can locate him—if you want to.” Venita sounded hopeful, to know we might reunite.
“I haven’t had a chance to look for Rychee and Diggity—but I will.”
I thought about it. It seemed like the more effort I put in to trying to find Trayvon’s murderer, the more strange stuff kept popping up.
“I don’t worry. You’ll find them. You were always the strong one, even when you were a littl
e girl. But be careful out there. You know the streets have ears.”
With that, Venita reached in her purse and handed me a picture. It was an old black and white with cracks running through it. It looked like a strangely familiar man at the beach, holding a strangely familiar baby.
“Look, I have something for you. This is a picture of you and your father, Butty, when you were a baby.”
24
I slipped the picture in my wallet, and decided I’d study the image and think about it later. After I left Venita’s, I felt myself getting disturbed. More and more, I felt uneasy.
When I was a drinker, I would take a drink when I started feeling uncomfortable like this, but this time, I fought the urge. To combat the urge, I found an AA meeting in West Los Angeles that met early, so once again, I was able to overcome my desire for a drink.
As if I didn’t have enough to be afraid and to be worried about, now I wondered would I be able to stay sober? What trigger might start me back to drinking? Would I be strong enough to resist the urge? I really worried about that. I had resisted taking Antabuse, which would make me sick if I took a drink. I guess it was the equivalent of methadone for a heroin addict. I was hoping to not have to take the drug, but I didn’t know if I’d be strong enough to not drink without the help of that little pill.
After the meeting, I was still feeling unsettled. The meeting helped, but I was somewhat depressed. Even so, I pushed forward. I tried to find my brother, Mayhem, in this state of distress. I know they say there was “eu-stress” which was good stress, but this was bad stress. I was really caught up.
I was upset over the CD, which had now landed in my care, and could cause me a world of trouble. I pushed that fact into the back of my mind. I needed to move ahead. Maybe Mayhem would have some leads on Trayvon’s murder.
I called Chino Prison and found out that Mayhem definitely was released about six weeks earlier. I didn’t want to call his Parole officer because it might raise suspicion. It was a long shot, but I needed to try to find him. From the time he joined the Crips when he was about eight, Mayhem had always been one to know what was going on in the streets.
L.A. Blues Page 15