I focused on the wedding, which was beautiful. Chica’s daughters all wore champagne, ankle-length voile dresses. Chica, whose hair was fluffed around her shoulders, looked like a movie star in Haviland’s expensive diaphanous wedding gown. Brooklyn made a beautiful flower girl. She had her hair pulled up in a ponytail sprinkled with baby’s breath. A little boy from Shirley’s church carried the ring on a silken pillow. Even Daddy Chill stayed mentally straight long enough to walk Chica down the aisle.
The church was decorated in pale gardenias at the end of each pew with white ribbons. Over three hundred people were present, so it was far from a small ceremony.
I guess Chica was getting her wish. She was now the Cinderella bride in her own fairy tale. After the nightmare of a life she’d had, who was I to begrudge her happiness?
Thanks to Haviland, there were little touches such as a modern dancer coming down the aisle, the reading of their vows, the lighting of the candles by the couple, the jumping over the broom, the releasing of the white doves after the service, and instead of throwing rice, throwing confetti at the new couple.
No one seemed to notice what a rainbow wedding this was. Chica, a Chicano, with four surviving biracial daughters, marrying a white dude. Even the people in attendance came from every race under the sun.
After the wedding, the reception was held at a Doubletree Hotel in Santa Monica near the ocean. Haviland and I went and sat outside in the pavilion. Haviland still smoked. Thank goodness I quit the tobacco habit when I stopped drinking.
I didn’t know if Haviland was high, but she opened up and admitted something to me. “I feel like my life has been one missing thing. Just that one act of my mother signing a piece of paper is why I’m so disjointed. I hate my adoptive parents and my birth parents. I can’t help it. I know my mother is dead, but I haven’t forgiven her. Not really . . .” Her voice dropped off for a moment.
“I should forgive her though. She gave me a chance at life. With my adoptive parents being in the industry, I was able to get into acting at five. I was the child star. Before eighteen, I was voted a triple threat. I was doing acting, singing, modeling. So where did I go wrong? Was it a case of too much too soon?”
“What’s the matter, Hav? The wedding was a success. You did a great job. Maybe you should try to become a wedding planner.”
Haviland continued to look downhearted. “I have a problem, Z.”
“Oh, no. You’re not back on the pills, are you?”
“No.”
“Then, what is it?”
“You know you’ve always gave it to me straight. You’ve been a real friend. I feel I can trust you.”
“What is it?”
“It’s money problems.”
“Who doesn’t have them? You’re in good company. The whole country is broke. Didn’t you get the home insurance money and your mother’s insurance?”
She nodded. “But I’m being blackmailed.”
“What?” For a moment I was shocked. “Why?”
“I staged that home invasion robbery so that I could get the insurance money to save my house from foreclosure.”
“What?” Now I knew why this thing had been bothering me all along. It didn’t add up. That’s when I knew this girl was scandalous.
“Now the guy that broke in is blackmailing us. I have to pay him money every month.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I didn’t know if weddings were like truth serums, for everyone seemed to be opening up, making confessions at the reception.
Later, at the reception, I even found Shirley opening up to me.
She told me how she met Haviland’s adoptive mother. “I first met Ilene at a function for abused and neglected children given in Beverly Hills at a fancy hotel. This is how we became friends. We were an unlikely pair, she was white, I was black, she was rich, I was middle-class or average, not poor, mind you. Although you never met her and Haviland, what we had in common was our two little black girls. I had you and she had Haviland, whom she had adopted as a baby. She would ask me questions about if she should let Haviland go to a black church, or sometimes she would ask me for hairdressers who could work with Haviland’s hair.
“Later I got Chica, and you know what a handful she was. I guess Ilene and I kind of lost touch over the years, that is, until Haviland started giving her problem with those drugs. She started back calling me.”
It could have been the Moet she drank, but Shirley even told me something she never divulged before. “Did I tell you Chill and I had a baby boy who died shortly after birth back when we first got married?” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Once again I felt my jaw dropping to the ground. How many more revelations would this wedding bring? I thought as I patted Shirley on the back.
“I could never get pregnant again. I wanted lots of babies. That’s why I’ve opened my home for years, even at the expense of my marriage. It seemed like the more children I took in, the farther Chill and I grew apart.”
I hadn’t thought about how we could have put a strain on her marriage.
“I’m sorry, Moochie.”
“No, don’t be. I don’t care. Like Maya Angelou says, ‘I wouldn’t trade ‘nothing for my journey.’ I love you guys. My life would have been empty without you. I’m the better for having known all you. You have all grown up to be good people.”
“I always had better luck with the girls—at least until Chica. It seems like the boys, I always got them too late. They would already be heading for juvy. I guess I felt like God was giving me a second chance when He gave me Trayvon. I guess that’s why he was always my favorite, and maybe that wasn’t right.”
I couldn’t say anything. There were times there was nothing to say. I just listened.
The rest of the night flew by and finally the reception was over. The whole family was staying at the hotel that night and going to Disneyland the next day, but I wanted to sort through my thoughts so I drove home alone.
As I drove home from the wedding reception, sheets of rain pummeled against my windshield. The skies turned purple black and I couldn’t see well, but I inched my way carefully along the glassy, oil-slicked streets. I didn’t feel like staying around family, and I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I was still hurting over Romero. I really hated he didn’t make it to the wedding. I wanted to be alone to nurse my wounds and review why I was hurting, since I was the one who broke it off.
Los Angeles was the worse place to drive in inclement weather since Los Angelenos are so spoiled with our fair weather. I knew the freeway would be littered with car accidents so I took the streets versus the freeway, and when I finally got in from the wedding reception, I kicked off my heels and slipped into my sweats. It had been a long day and night. I decided I’d take a shower in the morning. I stretched out on my futon, almost ready to konk out. My hands felt frostbitten, they were so cold. I rubbed them together absently, and I thought, As soon as I warm up, I’m going to sleep. But my mind wouldn’t let me sleep. It kept spinning around and around. I was still bugged out over what Chica did last night. How many times had she gone out like a vigilante before? In the other cases, did the victim or victims die? Why was she shooting Latinos if she was Chicano herself? Was it because a Latino came up and shot her son, her baby, who was black in appearance? Mothers did do crazy things. I shook my head. I didn’t know anything anymore.
I finally began to doze off. I jumped when my cell phone rang, interrupting my slight snooze. I glanced down at the caller ID and realized it was Romero. I planned on telling him off again, and spewing some more of the venom I’d been holding inside.
“What the hell do you want?” I snapped as soon as I spoke into the phone.
“Where are you? Still at the wedding I hope.”
“No, I’m at home.”
Romero’s usually calm voice went ballistic. “Get out of your place. You’re in danger.”
“What are you talking about? Stop playing, Romero.”
&nb
sp; “Flag is coming over there to kill you. There’s a hit out on your life. He and Anderson killed Okamoto and accidentally killed Trayvon. Anderson did the shooting on Trayvon, because he thought it was you since you’d been catching the bus. Now they’re coming to finish you off.”
My heart started doing jumping jacks. “What? Why? What do they want with me?”
“They know you have Okamoto’s CD. I’ve already turned my copy over to the FBI and Internal Affairs. Must be a mole in the department because it’s been leaked to them. They want to get rid of you as a witness. I’m headed there now, and I’ve called a squad car for back up. Get the hell outta there!”
My heart was beating so fast, I could hardly move. I guess what really froze me in my spot was the dead glare of the two men standing in my apartment, holding me at gunpoint.
“Okay, got you,” I said quietly, clicking my phone shut.
“Were you going somewhere?” a familiar voice inquired.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Flag was the voice’s owner. There stood Flag and Officer Anderson, the white sidekick from the 77th Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. So this was L and M.
They were both dressed in black and holding, respectively, .38 caliber guns and a 9 mm gun. They had silencers on their guns.
Their guns and my churning gut informed me this was not a social call, but I tried to play it off. “Hey, Flag. Anderson, I assume? What are you doing in my spot?’
“Z,” Anderson said bluntly, eyes narrowing with contempt. “We want that disc.”
“What disc are you talking about?” That’s when I started praying. Higher Power, God, help me. I’ve got too much to live for.
“The one that Okamoto gave you.”
“He didn’t give me anything.” I turned to Flag and decided to buy some time, even appeal to his human decency. “Flag, I never took you for a killer. After all we’ve been through together.”
“Yeah, you sure are—were a good lay. I’m going to miss you, but we ain’t been hooking up lately no way.”
“Aw cut the bullshit and the love talk, Flag,” Anderson spat out. He turned back to me, as if reasoning with a child. “Now, we can kill you before or after we get the disc—it’s up to you.”
I decided to stall for time. “So is this what it comes to—hey, Flag? After all we meant to each other. You know I love you.”
I could see Flag begin to vacillate between wanting to do the right thing, but being too far in to turn back. “I didn’t shoot your nephew, Z. I swear to God. That was an accident. It was a mistake. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“Well, who shot him then?”
“I did,” Anderson said boldly. “I thought it was you. This time I’ll make sure I don’t miss.”
“Are you L and M?”
“Yeah, that was our undercover names. So what?” Anderson snapped.
“Did you steal the Mexican Mafia’s drugs?”
“What’s it to you?”
“So you purposely wanted the blacks and the Latinos to be pitted against each other? Is that right, Anderson?”
“So what? The spics and the niggas can kill each other off for all I care.”
“Flag, you gon’ let him talk about you like that? Did you hear him use the ‘N’ word?” I decided to try to divide and conquer.
“Yeah, man. Watch your mouth. You know I don’t play that shit.” Flag sounded irritated, and I noticed his eyes were off me. I tried to inch over to my purse, which was about two feet away on a night stand.
“Man, don’t you see what she’s doing?” Anderson snapped. He turned back to me. “Now do you have that disc?”
I had to think fast. “Here it is, in my purse.” This time I was only a foot away from my purse.
Anderson bolted across the little room to grab my purse, but I reached my clutch purse in time and pulled out my pearl handled Glock and fired it, hitting him dead between the eyes. Before Flag could react, Ben, who was usually in hiding, broke out from under the futon and tripped Flag up.
“What the hell was that?” Flag was muttering. “You’ve got rats? I hate rats! Shit!”
In that moment that it took him to get his bearings, I turned on him. Although Flag fired his gun first from floor-level, he missed both Ben and me. In that split second, I fired back, hitting him in the chest, and taking him out.
“That’s for Trayvon and Okamoto,” I said, feeling a sanguine satisfaction. I placed my smoking gun back in my purse. Now I could see why Chica seemed so at peace at her wedding. Payback was a bitch.
My apartment had become a virtual bloodbath, but thank God, it was not my blood this time. I hugged Ben, and rubbed his fur. “Thank you.”
Ben gave me that squinty-eyed look that made me feel like we communicated. I picked him up and left my apartment. I put him in my car, and I climbed in the driver’s seat.
The wail of police sirens screaming in the background passed me as I drove west, away from my garage, and as I called Romero, I knew help was on the way.
Epilogue
Six months later . . .
“G-Ma, have you seen my hair brush?” Malibu asked Shirley. “I told Soledad to leave my stuff alone.”
“I didn’t take your brush,” Soledad retorted. “You make me sick.” She stuck out her tongue.
“Okay, girls, stop fussing.” Shirley frisked her hands like “hurry, hurry.” “We’ve got to get to the rally.”
We were preparing to go to a rally where we would meet with a group of over one hundred mothers who’d lost family members to street violence. This was a nonprofit group who was organizing and providing resources for Mothers of Murdered Children.
We were getting dressed and everyone was excited. The other day we’d dropped Trayvon’s clothes at the Goodwill—something we needed to do for closure, according to the children’s family therapist.
Everyone was here, except Chica and Riley and Haviland and Trevor. They were running late and would meet us at the rally.
Chica had decided to leave the children with Shirley and just do weekend visits every week to keep from further disrupting the girls’ lives. They both decided to share custody—almost like a divorce case—with a legal guardianship court order that did not terminate Chica’s parental rights.
As for me, I was feeling content because I had Romero at my side. He leaned over and gave me a big kiss. “You all right?”
I kissed him back. “Right as rain.”
I was proud to say, I just received my ribbon for my first year anniversary of sobriety at my AA meeting yesterday. Romero came to the meeting and stood up and clapped for me.
I was so happy that I was staying sober, that I was beginning to like myself. Some days it was still a struggle, particularly after a hard case. I’d finally accepted that drinking would always be a problem for me. I would never wake up one day and say, “I’m cured. I’m not an alcoholic anymore.”
When I was on the force, it was like a knee-jerk reaction for me to take a drink at the end of a bad shift. In order to stay sober now, I followed Joyce’s advice. I tried not to get too tired, too stressed, too hungry. I would have to continue to deal with this demon the rest of my life, one day at a time.
So much had happened since I took down Flag and Anderson. Lawrence Mitchell was released from jail before his case had a chance to go to trial, and the charges were dropped. The suspect from Guatemala whom they’d arrested in Trayvon’s murder case was also released, but he was deported as he was undocumented.
I guess I never completely knew Okamoto, but he was a man who would not be bribed. As wasted as he would get on his off days, Okamoto was a man of integrity.
Okamoto’s CD, which I gave Romero, apparently took down a lot of folks in high places. Okamoto had been a computer buff, and a hacker, accidentally got into an FBI security frame, passed the security clearance, downloaded the files, then started asking questions. When Anderson and Flag found out he had incriminating information on them and their involvement with
the drugs they stole from the Mexican Cartel, it came down to either him or them.
I guess I just got caught up in the mix. I think that’s what Okamoto wanted to tell me the night he died. Anyhow, that’s why Flag and Anderson followed us and shot us after we transported the children to “Unca Pookie’s”—Lawrence Collins. They figured since he had a record, it would be easy to pin the shootings on him.
Later, when Flag came to my house during my binge, he was sent to assassinate me, but he really didn’t want to. Instead, he tore up my house, looking for the CD. After he couldn’t find the CD, he felt like I didn’t know anything and didn’t pose a threat to them—particularly as drunk as I was. I can’t imagine the tension that probably developed between him and Anderson over him not killing me. Anyhow, I know the only thing that saved me during my drunken periods was grace.
I guess the other factor that backed the two men off of me momentarily was that Internal Affairs seemed to be laying low. They probably thought the heat was off them for the drug corruption investigation.
After I moved in with Shirley, I purposely lost contact with Flag and changed my cell phone. During the time I didn’t have a car, they couldn’t trace me on the computer, but Anderson, for some reason, was still determined to get rid of me—just in case. Somehow, he found out I was catching the bus. He went after me and shot Trayvon by mistake. For a while, they laid low during the media frenzy over Trayvon’s murder, but when they found out I was digging into the case, Anderson started following me.
Just like F-Loc said, “This thing went up to the top.”
Judges, some of the top brass at the force, and a dozen politicians had to step down rather than do time as a result of the information on the CD. A few big shots wound up serving time anyhow. This thing was neither a white or black or brown thing. It was a green thing. Green with a capital G for greed. Venality. Like the song goes, “What will you do for money?”
L.A. Blues Page 20