CHAPTER 20
GARRETT’S BUSHWHACKERS THREW a cinder block into the front window of Jake Ellis’s leased Mustang, and as the Ford screamed, another henchman tossed a Molotov cocktail inside. Gun in his hand, standing off to the side like a hunter, knowing he could never beat Jake Ellis in a fight, Garrett waited for the African to appear. Jake Ellis did appear, came out fast, jeans and no shirt, had heard his car yelling for help, and the moment he was near the sidewalk, Garrett whistled, pointed, and, Pavlovian, three muscled hoodlums ran full speed, bum-rushed Jake Ellis. Those three palookas charged at a man who was stronger than Jack Dempsey and hit harder than Jack Johnson. They got the shit beat out of them. It was like watching Tyson in his prime beating up anyone who dared challenge him, only there was no ref to stop the fight. Jake Ellis was every bit the boxer I said he was. If I hadn’t been attacked from the back, I’d have been beating heads into the ground with him, but Jake Ellis handled it. Those three contenders were on the ground with broken faces within thirty seconds. His hands were like bricks and his blows were like being hit with a sledgehammer. While those bloodied men inhaled and regretted fucking with Jake Ellis, Jake Ellis broke into a run, charged toward Garrett, but Garrett began shooting, shooting, shooting. Jake Ellis dropped and rolled, then ran toward the back of his building. The hoodlums Jake Ellis hadn’t beaten down chased him. Jake Ellis didn’t know I was their hostage, and he didn’t know if they were strapped. The three he had bested limped and wobbled back to the ice cream truck, and under Garrett’s direction, one of the hoodlums threw more Molotov cocktails toward the place Jake Ellis had appeared. Darkness was interrupted by the beauty of fire. Then the other pissed-off thugs I’d knocked out joined in, angry at their defeat, and yelled, tried to set Leimert Park on fire the way a city of infuriated racists had burned down my ancestors’ home on Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street.
One of the thugs accidentally dropped his cocktail and it fell at his feet.
The bottle broke; gasoline splattered and, poof, set him on fire.
He screamed.
Fire made bad men scream.
It also made bad men run.
Garrett and his boys hopped into the ice cream truck, pulled away, left the bushwhacker frying like bacon and running down Stocker toward Leimert Boulevard. The flaming bushwhacker ran like comedian Richard Pryor had run when freebasing had gone bad.
That bushwhacker tried to outrun the flames, tried to outrun the agony.
I was trapped in my own fist-induced agony, groaning, swimming in grayness and mumbles, almost unconscious. Then everything turned warm. Peaceful. I surrendered and the pain slid away from my soul. I didn’t have to breathe. I didn’t know if I was dead or alive.
CHAPTER 21
I FELL INTO another world. In that other world, it was seconds after my falling-out with Jimi Lee. I watched her speed away. But as soon as she vanished, Jimi Lee made a U-turn a block after Degnan. She zoomed down the wrong side of the street, speeding like the fool who had done doughnuts. My ex-wife came to a hard, dramatic stop in front of my building, in the middle of Stocker. She sat in her idling car, in her luxury BMW, lips trembling, lakes draining from her eyes.
She said, “I’m sorry for everything. I love you. Always will. Leave with me.”
Feeling as I had when I was twenty-one, all I could say was, “Jimi Lee.”
Then she said part of what she had said to me in Amharic, only this time in English: “I’ve missed you. Every day I have missed you. I realized how much I loved you when it was too late.”
As she sat there waiting for me, I looked up and saw Rachel Redman in my window.
I looked back toward Jimi Lee, and she stood three feet from me, Margaux in her arms, our daughter no older than two years old. Jimi Lee was younger, twenty-one years old again. I looked back toward the window, and Rachel wasn’t there. Now she stood three feet on the other side of me. She wore her red dress, had suitcases at her side, tickets to London in her hand.
Rachel said, “She doesn’t love you. I love you, Ken Swift. Let’s start over.”
“Will you give the guitar back to the Russian?”
She paused. “I can’t. He remembered my birthday. You should have remembered.”
Bags in hand, she walked by me, tears in her eyes, walked until she vanished.
I left with Jimi Lee. And we did start over. Margaux was no longer in her arms. Not on our minds. Together we saw the Great Pyramids near Cairo. Fish River Canyon in Namibia. Mount Kilimanjaro. Went to Zambia and saw Victoria Falls. Valley of the Kings. Okavango Delta in Botswana. Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. We saw the wildebeest and zebra travel across the sprawling grasslands of Maasai Mara in Kenya to the Serengeti. Held hands and watched gorillas in the Virunga Mountains and traveled to meet the fifty tribes that live along the Omo River in Ethiopia. Then we were in Addis Ababa, in bed, done making love, resting.
The door to our hotel room opened and in came a white waitress pushing a serving tray.
“Daddy, you and Mommy want something to eat, or y’all making another baby?”
The white woman was our daughter. It was Margaux. It was my only child. My one true love. I opened my mouth to speak, but without warning I was flying, then cold, wet, drowning.
CHAPTER 22
FREEZING WATER WAS in all directions. It felt like I had been body-dumped and come to in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I was cold, drowning, couldn’t tell up from down, swam the wrong way, panicked, then reversed my course, fought to get to the surface while my lungs burned like the bushwhacker hit with the Molotov cocktail. I was weighed down by my clothes, by my shoes, by my hoodie, restricted by pain. I got enough air, but I choked, coughed, vomited up the dinner I’d had with Rachel. Was hard to throw up and swim at the same time. I made it to the edge of the pool and held on for dear life. The moment I grabbed the edge, someone stomped on my hand. I let go, yelled in pain, then swam away, went to the other side of the pool. My audience followed me, forced me to go back to the middle of the pool. I bobbed a few times, then stayed afloat.
“A nigger that can swim like a fish. That disappoints me.”
Water made my eyes sting, and I couldn’t see for a moment. I had to get the coughing under control, still was in pain, still felt like death was closing in. Was spitting out water that had too much chlorine in the mix. I spat out that poison and other additives, including bodily products. I doubt if Garrett left the pool to go potty. I didn’t see him, but I knew his fucking voice. I recognized the backyard, the mansion. There was an American flag hanging on a pole between palm trees. I was back in Pasadena. I’d been thrown unconscious into Garrett’s pool. The deep end. He had done that either to shock me awake or to watch me drown. A league of bushwhackers stood next to a man in tan slacks and a Banana Republic hoodie, Garrett, the man with the golden gun.
The one Jake Ellis and I had missed when we had searched his crib.
But San Bernardino had told us where each gun would be. I didn’t think San Bernardino came up short. My guess was Garrett had kept a loaded gun in his car as his driving companion.
He’d come home and we’d never searched his car.
I gagged again, threw up some more, struggled to stay above water. I kicked my shoes off, then struggled, managed to get my hoodie off. I looked like an idiot trying not to drown.
There was laughter. When massa told jokes, good slaves knew to slap their legs and laugh. When massa stopped laughing, good slaves did the same, at the same moment.
Garrett said, “I want the African. I’m not done. I want the African.”
I said, “And after tonight, I’m sure the African will want you. Same goes for your wife.”
“He ran away. He talked a lot of shit, then ran away.”
“The gun probably had something to do with that. Not many run toward bullets.”
“My wife won’t want him. Well, he won’t want he
r. Not after tonight.”
Garrett whistled like he was calling a pack of dogs. And that rattled me. I hated dogs. And right now, a league of pit bulls could eat me alive. Seconds later the patio door opened. Two more hoodlums and a woman came from inside. She was in front. I didn’t recognize her at first. Had no idea who the tall bald woman was. Her face was misshapen. She could barely open her left eye. She had a monstrous limp. She was naked. Stood with a hand covering her vagina, the other covering her breasts. He made her limp around the pool in front of a herd of strange men. It was Mrs. Garrett. She had demeaned him and he had taken it out on her after Jake Ellis and I had split the scene. She stopped near him. Her face was fucked. Her body was covered in bruises. Garrett grabbed her forearm, then shoved her hard, threw her screaming into the deep end of the pool. Mr. told Mrs. she’d stay in the pool until he said she could get out, same as he had been forced to sit at a table and watch her flirt and take sides with an African.
She panicked, fought with the water, slapped it with her hands, went under, managed to break the surface, was losing the plot. “I can’t swim! Jesus, you know I can’t swim.”
“Learn, woman. Learn or drown,” Garrett shouted. “And you booked a goddamn suite at the W? You used the credit card I gave you to have a date with the African? Don’t you know I have access to every call and charge you make? Do you think I’m a fuckin’ dotard?”
“The water . . . all the chlorine . . . stings my cuts. It’s burning my head.”
“Call the African to come help you. Call him. I want to see him as bad as you do.”
“I’m drowning . . . please . . . please.”
“Drowning ain’t drowned. And you seemed to not mind drowning when you told the African he made you wet enough to drown.” Garrett spat at her and exploded, “I bet our prenup looks pretty good now. I bet the life you had this morning, I bet you want that life back. I took you out of Compton. You were nothing. Just a waitress. I gave you a good life. You weren’t loyal.”
His wife didn’t hear him screaming because she went under, fought to get her wounded head above water, once, twice, then stayed under. She was fighting the water, unable to break the surface again, falling like a rock, drowning. I hurried, swam to her, dove under while Garrett told me to keep away, and despite the names he called me, I took a chance, pulled her up. She clung to me, sharp nails in my flesh like a terrified cat, and I had to fight to get her to calm down.
Every part of my body hurt, but I said, “Just relax. I got you. Just keep your head up.”
She gurgled, spat, coughed, trembled. “I’m afraid of this much water. I don’t do the deep end of pools. I don’t even come out here to do more than put my toes in the water.”
“I need you to pay attention.” I spat out water. “I can hold you, but I need help.”
“I’m going to make you sink.”
“I need you to stop moving. Don’t grab me. Let me float you.”
She panted, got a mouthful of air. “How long can you do this?”
“Not sure.”
“My right arm. It’s hurt bad.”
“What happened over here?”
“He threw me down the stairs. I had packed to leave and that mule kicked me down the goddamn stairs. He kicked me like a dog. And while I was on the floor, he cut off all of my hair.”
“You’re going into shock. I need you to relax.”
“I can’t fucking relax. I’m in pain. Excruciating pain.”
“I know. I can see you’re fucked up.”
“You’re fucked up too.”
“I could use a gallon of Jack and a crate of Vicodin.”
“Hurting bad. Jesus, Jesus. We’re gonna die.”
Her head was back, mouth barely above water, eyes wide and on the sky, choppy breathing. I moved us toward the shallow end. Garrett fired two shots into the water as a warning.
Garrett said, “She’s a liar. I sat at my dinner table and let her talk to see what she would say. And she bonded with the African, told lie after lie. Let me tell you who she is. Let me tell you the truth. She’s just another gold digger. A week before the wedding she was here on the phone, dancing, twirling, telling her Compton friends that this house was going to be her house. She went on and on about the house. Went on and on about how she had come up. That was unsettling. It was eye-opening. She told her friends that all of this would be hers.”
His wife gagged on water. “It was just girls talking. We talk like that. It’s fantasy talk.”
Garrett asked me, “That sound like love to you?”
She coughed, shivered. “You’ve been upset about that and holding it in?”
“So, yeah, I had to stop thinking with my dick and protect my assets. I talked to my attorney, expressed my concerns, and was about to call off the wedding. But I didn’t want to overreact. My attorney didn’t want me to underreact, and I trusted her. She was the voice of reason, so I told her to do what she had to do. My wife is deceitful. Most wives are. They cheat more than they are willing to admit. They cheat more than men, I’d be willing to bet. This one only tells half the story. She made it sound like I kept her destitute since we married. The bitch lied her heart out. First month we were married, she burned through sixty grand. That doesn’t include two new cars and all the upgrades to the house to make her feel at home. Second month she spent one hundred and forty. I had to put an end to that before she burned through all of my money.”
“It was cash you had lying around the house. Money from your laundering business.”
“When you’re given everything, you appreciate nothing.”
“You had plenty of money. You could’ve wiped your ass with hundred-dollar bills.”
“It was cash I earned. Cash I risked going to jail for. When you’re not working, and spending someone else’s money, it’s like free money. It’s easy to spend someone else’s money. It’s real easy to spend another man’s money. So, yeah, she was put on a tight budget. She had this house, five cars to choose from, a thousand pairs of shoes, and she’s still not happy.”
“You gave me chlamydia.”
“So what? Not like I gave you AIDS. Pop antibiotics and keep it moving.”
“Cheating bastard.”
“You broke my heart. Today you broke my heart. And I don’t like the way that feels. But you’re not worth it. You and your white-trash family, people I have supported since I married you, are not worth it. What was I thinking? Your gene pool? Why would I want to propagate that?”
“Please, don’t do this. I’m sorry; I’m sorry. Please, don’t do this.”
“Today made it easy for both of us to stop pretending. A lot of people live on the edge of happiness, and it doesn’t take much to push them and make them fall over the edge.”
“Baby, please. I’m your wife. I’m your wife. Don’t do this to your wife.”
“I don’t want to turn this moment with the lady in the lake into a long good-bye, and I won’t spend too much time saying farewell my lovely, but I do want to watch you drown and slip into that big sleep. I could shoot you, but I want to keep the simple art of murder as simple as I can.”
Again, she begged, asked me to swim her to the side of the pool. I started to move and Garrett aimed his gun at me. I kept us where we were. Garrett looked at his sentinels.
“If my wife gets out of the pool, since she’s hotter on niggers than America is on that so-called nigger history month in February, all of you gentlemen can have a go. I’m sure she can take three of you at the same time. So have your fun. This one’s on me. You have my permission. Then throw the slut back in the pool. If the nigger gets out, kill him. She likes niggers so much, let her drown hanging on to one. Let’s let her have the romance she thinks she deserves.”
He stood and looked at me holding her up, both of us struggling to stay above water.
Garrett yelled, “Get y
our hands off my wife. Let her drown.”
I looked at him. He had his gun pointed at us, his audience waiting to see what he’d do.
Garrett commanded, “Let her go. I will not ask you again. Four . . . three . . . two . . .”
Garrett fired three more shots into the pool, the shots so close the energy from each shocked my system. His wife freaked out. Now Garrett was god. She fought me and the water, then went under. Death’s nearness terrified her, made it hard to keep her wounded head above water. It took another minute without gunfire to calm her, to get her to float while I treaded water.
It was like trying to tread while holding an anchor. She made it hard for me to keep my body upright with my head above the surface. She forced me to use energy and swim. Without her I could have used my arms and legs to keep afloat, but even that would have been temporary.
Bad Men and Wicked Women Page 23