“Clear,” barked Mendoza with finality as he stood holstering his service weapon. The others, in turn, followed suit.
Mendoza radioed to Sweeney that they’d found an empty apartment at the Shakur residence only to be told that they too had found only an empty house on Halldale. They commenced to search both premises only to find a lot of nothing.
10
Ghost and the others had decided not to defend the spot. Nothing of significance had been left behind. A call was made to Sekou, explaining the situation. He felt there was going to be a raid and thus, moving on instincts, honed in the grimy streets where the slightest movements caused the greatest calamities, Sekou evacuated the homies and situated them in a safe house not far from his own residence. He in turn was able to watch the house in safety. And sure enough they came in force, but met no resistance, found no usable evidence. He knew it had to be in search of the tape of Lapeace and Anyhow on Crenshaw.
Sekou confirmed as much. He instructed Ghost to lay low and keep in touch. He in fact asked Ghost if he wanted to go to the Tyson fight in Vegas, but he declined. They exchanged regards and hung up. Sekou rang Lapeace at Tashima’s.
“Hey Shima,” spoke Sekou, “how’re you this mornin’?”
“Fine, just fine. You know, trying to keep up with your boy as he bounces off the walls over here.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. Let me holla at the ol’ man, huh?”
“Yeah, sure, you take care, huh?” said Shima as she padded down the hall to where Lapeace was sitting reading through an issue of Rap Pages magazine in her room.
“Here you go, love. It’s Sekou.”
Lapeace was handed the cordless.
“What’s crackin’?”
“Hey, homie. Look here, Bob Hope had a concert at See Throughs rest not long ago—this morning.”
“Yeah?” queried Lapeace and tuned to the codes spoken.
“Yeah, I was thinking that there may be another concert not too far from there. And that maybe you should try to call Ticketmaster or any available ticket outlet to see if there are any more available.”
“Hmmm. I think you’re right.Well, I talked to A.P. not long ago and there was no noise. But hold on, I’ll reconnect on the tray-way.”
Lapeace dialed the number to Mrs. Delaney across the street from his complex and was told that, yes, a whole mess load of armored police were in, around, and all through his complex. But that Aunt Pearl was not there. He calmed her worries, bid her well, and broke the line.
“Well, there it is, huh?”
“Yep,” Sekou quipped. “What’s the game plan now, cuz?”
“Shit, I guess I’ll be going up to that fight with you now.”
“That’s what I’m talking ’bout, homie! Get on then! The homie Maniac is movin’ with us. So it’s all good. What about Shima?”
“Naw, I don’t want her up there in all that.”
“Cool, I’m a go get dressed and I’ll be movin’ your way in a few. Should I pick Maniac up first?”
“No,” cautioned Lapeace. “We’ll have his girl drop him off at S-Macc from Trouble’s pad and we’ll scoop him there.”
“Oh, aight then.”
Aunt Pearl spied the comings and goings of the platoon of officers as they made sojourns through the complex and up and down the steps leading to Lapeace’s apartment. She, along with Ramona, stood idle in the recess of a neighbor’s yard watching with anxiety and a sense of foreboding as armload after armload of property was taken into custody.
So this was why, Aunt Pearl thought to herself, Lapi hadn’t been home. Well, she reasoned, my Lapi right, my Lapi wrong; right or wrong, my Lapi. And I’ll be damned if I let them encase my man-child in tomb and kill him like they did his father.
Aunt Pearl waited up the drive in stealth until all signs of the intruders were gone. She made her way, led by Ramona, along the street on the opposite side. Up the drive to the porch she went and calmly rang the bell. It was answered at once by Mrs. Delaney.
“Oh, Pearl,” she stammered with a sense of peril, “I’m sorry to see things going as they are.”
“I know, I know,” soothed Aunt Pearl, pulling nervously on Ramona. She felt Mrs. Delaney’s sincerity and knew she was genuinely concerned.
“Come on in here, Pearl. Bring Mrs. Ramona along as well. Lapeace called not long ago. Come, we’ll talk over a cup of decaf.”
Aunt Pearl led Ramona into the house and was directed to a love seat in the living room. Ramona, like Aunt Pearl, sat regally quiet as Mrs. Delaney made haste with the decaf.
Mrs. Delaney was an old trusted friend of the family and a community activist in her own right. She’d been responsible for the founding of the Black Scouts Youth Brigade, which cultivated survival skills and cultural awareness among neighborhood youth who would otherwise have been susceptible to criminal or gang activity. She was a stalwart standard-bearer who practiced public clandestiny, which was simply: what I do ain’t no secret, it’s just nobody’s business but my own. She’d lived in the same community, in the same house for thirty-seven years.
“Thank you, Belva,” Aunt Pearl said as she took the cup and saucer and blew lightly on the steaming coffee.
“Oh, don’t mention it. Can I get you anything else while I’m up?”
“No, this’ll be fine.”
“Well,” began Mrs. Delaney, sitting now across from Aunt Pearl and the ever vigilant Ramona, “he called this morning, early. Asked simply was there any abnormal activity on the block, or at his house particularly.”
“Hmmm,” sighed Aunt Pearl as she sipped and slurped the hot black coffee.
“I told him, yes, in fact there was. This was about seven or six-fifty or so.”
“They’d been there since then?”
“Oh Pearl, you wouldn’t believe just how close they’d come to pulling up before you and Ramona left.”
“You saw us?” Aunt Pearl asked incredulously.
“Pearl, now you know I see everything. Well, no sooner had you turned the corner there on Harvard did they come crawling up in various cars, vans, and trucks and what have you. Lapeace called soon after, I told him what the weather was like and that you had not been caught in any storm.”
“Well, thank goodness for that. I don’t know what he’d have done without knowing what was going on.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” commented Mrs. Delaney before taking a sip of her coffee. “Now Pearl, what is all this about . . . Why are the authorities on Lapeace?”
“I wish I knew. But I plan to find out and then fight like hell for his freedom.”
“I know that’s right. And you know you can count on me,” add Mrs. Delaney firmly.
Detectives Sweeney and Mendoza sat with looks of dismay and trepidation on their faces. Captain Killingsworth was pacing menacingly to and fro behind his desk. Both raids had proven to be busts. Not so much as a bullet, let alone a VHS tape of the Crenshaw shoot-out was found. Mostly taken from the Shakur residence were tapes containing Pop Warner football games, a few photos said to be of gang members, Lapeace’s computer, some articles of clothing, and seven books supposedly of a subversive nature. Less than that was taken from the Madison residence. The captain was fuming. Not only had there been no usable or damnable evidence seized but now the suspect would be wise to their investigation.
“What have you to say for yourselves, gentlemen?” Killingsworth stood, hands on either side of his narrow waist.
“Sir,” began Sweeney, “my CI, as you heard on the tape, led us in this direction. Which is not to say that just because we didn’t find a tape today doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t exist.”
“No, no, you’re right. It’s not that that has me pissed, but how were we eluded by both parties?”
“Well, captain,” spoke Mendoza, “these bangers are wise to some of our tactics. Being that today is Wednesday, they could have very well felt that we were gong to hit ’em.”
“Yes, well—” began Killingsworth but was
cut off by Sweeney.
“Besides, we had no choice, really. We got the info and we moved on it accordingly.”
“Yeah . . .” the captain spoke noncommittally.
“It’s all we could have done, really.”
“Well, you two get back out there and beat the bushes. I want something soon on this shit. We’re losing the initiative here. We need something solid on this. The assistant chief is breathing down my neck. So bring me something.”
“We’ll do our best, sir,” Sweeney said, lumbering to his feet.
“No,” whispered the captain, turning his back away from the exiting two, “you’ll do better than your best. You’ll do your very best, now won’t you?”
“Yes sir, we will,” said Sweeney solemnly.
“Thank you.”
Sweeney followed Mendoza to their work cubicle. His mind was racing a million times a minute. He needed to forge a solid lead to the tape. He needed to get that tape. Or, at worst, find someone who at least had seen the tape. The tape was the key to the case since no one was talking and Anyhow was now useless. He sat with a plump in his work chair and leaned back with his feet up on the desk. His brow was knitted into a thinking scowl. Certainly, he reasoned, Robert hadn’t sent him on a blind mission. No, that thought he dismissed almost immediately. For Robert had proven most reliable in the past. Fuck! He thought as he scooted his chair up to the desk and began shuffling through a stack of papers he’d compiled from the Cren mass, which had yet to be filed into the murder book. There had to be something here. The papers were filled with notes, inadvertent statements, names, phone numbers, and addresses of various people he and Mendoza had talked to over the past two months. Most names on the sheets were of gang members from a variety of sets. Who said bangers weren’t informants? Most of what he knew on every gang killing or shooting was gotten from the combatants themselves. Mendoza had gone to get coffee and had now returned.
“Hey,” Sweeney suggested. “Ever do a call back on this guy Bennie . . . last name Weems?”
“No,” Mendoza answered, setting down the coffee, “but he’s in L.A. County on a few burgs if you think he’s worth the trip.”
“We don’t got squat else at this point. So what’s say we make that trip?”
“Sure partner, why not,” Mendoza answered while tugging on his mustache. He knew the phases they had to go through to piece together the puzzle of a murder investigation. All the little, seemingly stray and disconnected pieces came together to form a coherent whole—or rather a full picture leading first to the killer, then to a conviction. All leads had to be followed up on. And no lead was too small.
The Los Angeles County jail, or Men’s Central jail, is a behemoth structure of windowless concrete that stands defiantly on the outskirts of downtown L.A. It’s a lonely and sad-looking building that holds no paint. Its original gray concrete had recently been attached by an enclosed bridge to a nother-painted jail consisting of two towers. The Twin Towers jail is a modern septagon made detention center that stands seven stories above the ground. They are beige and light brown. L.A. County jail, including all its facilities, is notorious for having eighteen thousand prisoners housed at once, at any given time: vicious waves of racial violence sweep regularly over the captive population as the New Afrikans frequently do battle with the Mexicans, each cutting, stabbing, and beating the other into submission until the next clash where the loser avenges his humiliation.
Sweeney and Mendoza turned onto Bauchet Street, which housed both the Men’s Central jail and the Twin Towers. They motored their Crown Victoria up the street to the back of the jail where they showed their law enforcement credentials to a service technician who guarded the gate leading to the PERSONNEL ONLY parking lot. They traveled up two stories and brought the Crown Vic to a crawling stop. At the front bar entrance to the main corridor they again had to show their credentials to a deputy behind a one-way mirrored booth. They explained who they’d come to see; the sheriff ’s deputy sent for the prisoner to be brought down to a designated interview room.
The prisoner, Bennie Weems, also known as Freedom, was a supposedly stand-up guy who had owned a few businesses out in L.A. before succumbing to his cocaine addiction, which evaporated the whole of his business adventures and got him caught up in a series of commercial burglaries that ultimately landed him in the L.A. County jail facing a fifteen-year term. He’d already escaped once, running from an ass whipping he was sure to get in wayside from a group of prisoners who’d caught him breaking into lockers. His family persuaded him to turn himself in and now he was kept in the 1750, Men’s Central jail, Module of High Power. He paraded himself as his own attorney but was in fact an undercover informant. He’d given reliable information on several occasions and had always held out on the juiciest tidbits of information, culled from conversations with real high-powered criminals, in hopes of getting some of the strain off himself.
“Weems,” spoke a deputy’s metallic voice over the intercom speaker, “you have an attorney visit.”This prompted Bennie to get dressed into his high-power orange jumpsuit and splash some water onto his grizzled face. He dried off his mug and pulled his dreadlocks into an offending bun. Deputy Fernandez came onto the tier with a set of waist chains and proceeded to bind and cuff Bennie until he was secure. Fernandez signaled to the control booth to open the designated cell and the prisoner came out onto the narrow tier and ambled up toward the exit, giving and receiving greetings from most as he passed.
Once he and deputy Fernandez were out of earshot of the other prisoners he was told that he didn’t really have an attorney visit, but a pass to 6000 control. This, Bennie knew, was more than likely a visit from some law enforcement agency seeking information. And he’d picked up a few good things off the tier. He was more than willing to bargain the info for his freedom. Walking slightly in front of his escort, Bennie ambulated his six-foot-five frame along the corridor until he’d reached the solid door he knew all too well. There he was led into the room, greeted by Mendoza and Sweeney, and chained to the chair.
“Hey, Bennie,” Sweeney greeted, with his stubby hand extended and a fake, shallow smile, “how’s it going?”
“Things aight,” Bennie countered.
“You remember my partner, Mendoza, huh?”
“Yeah, sure I remember him.” Bennie struggled to find a comfortable footing in the little chair and in the conversation, where in negotiations for his info he often felt like he was in a poker game with professionals.
Sweeney and Mendoza laid out their leather-bound notepads and scooted their chairs up to the table.
“Well, we are here in hopes of you being able to help us on a serious matter we are investigating,” spoke Sweeney while scribbling Freedom’s name atop the notepad.
“Well, you know my stilo. I help you, you help me. I am soon coming up on my sentencing date and, well, you know . . .”
“Yeah, we know,” Mendoza said sarcastically. “You want us to bargain . . . or should I say haggle, with you, huh?”
“I mean—”
“No, we know what you mean,” interrupted Sweeney in defense of Bennie’s fragile pride. “We’ll keep all options open as we go through the motions of what’s useful and what’s not. Is that all right with you?”
“Absolutely,” Bennie confirmed.
“Good then, let’s see what we got. Um, do you know anything about that big shoot-out a couple of months ago on Crenshaw where a whole lot of innocent bystanders were killed?”
Bennie frowned and looked toward the floor. “Yeah, I have a few lines on that. A friend of mine was killed at the gas station. She was burned to death.”
“Really?” questioned Mendoza. “What was her name?”
“Kimberly Byrd.”
Mendoza immediately flipped through his notepad to the list of victims and deceased. He thumbed his way down the list and stopped at number five. He shot a furtive look toward Sweeney and said, “Yeah, she’s here.”
“How were you acquai
nted with her, Bennie?” Sweeney ventured.
“She used to boost clothes for me. We had a cipher of boosters and she was a pro. I’d known her a few years.”
“Intimate?” asked Sweeney.
“Naw, just business.”
“Okay,” soothed Sweeney, while he and Mendoza both wrote down their thoughts. “What have you got?”
At that moment Sekou, Lapeace, and Maniac were crossing the state line into Nevada at Whiskey Pete’s. Lapeace was sitting low in the passenger seat reclined to a ninety-degree angle. He was thinking about his life. Wide-open spaces made that possible a lot. He’d often go out to Santa Monica Beach alone and either walk or sit on the sand and think. He’d look out over the Pacific, into that vast sea of water, and let his thoughts go. Some of his best ideas on stocks, interior design, lifestyle, and friendship were initiated or developed in wide-open spaces.
Now as Sekou’s SUV floated over the state line and the sound system banged out “Shorty Wanna Be a Thug” by 2Pac, Lapeace peered out over the vast expanse of sand and desert and contemplated his future. It had been difficult as of late to smile. His usually jovial persona had grown pensive with the weight of the coming doom. The pad had been raided. Obviously the word was out that a tape existed. Shit, he thought, gotta put a lid on this before it spills all the way out. He reached for Sekou’s mobile phone, signaled for him to turn down the music, and dialed his attorney, Safi. He’d have to tell him about the raid. Plus, he’d need to know what kind of warrant had been served. He was concerned in the extreme about his status. Was he at that moment a fugitive or not? Crossing the state line could, if he were, be cause to insert the FBI into the situation for interstate flight to avoid prosecution. Lapeace was put straight through to Safi by Erma.
T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. Page 14