Righteous

by Joe Ide

  “Deronda?” Janine said. “What are you doing?”

  Deronda came back carrying a matte-black pump-action shotgun and a small pistol. “Hard as I work they gonna come here and try to take what’s mine? Steal my son’s future? Not today, bitches. Not today.”

  “Anybody ever tell you you were impulsive?” Janine said.

  “I’m not impulsive,” Deronda said. “I just make up my mind fast. Here.” She handed Janine the pistol. “It ain’t but a thirty-two but it will put a hole in your chest.”

  “I’ve never shot a gun,” Janine said.

  “Ain’t nothin’ to it. Point and shoot.” They heard noises at the back door. “Hide someplace,” Deronda said. She turned off the stereo and racked the shotgun. CLACK-CLACK! “Let’s party.”

  Janine went into the foyer and hunched down, holding the pistol with two fingers like there was poison oak on the grip. Deronda was crouched behind the sofa twenty feet away.

  “This don’t make no sense,” Deronda said. “If they want the truck why they coming in here? ’Less they want to rape us.”

  “Why don’t we call the cops?” Janine said.

  “I will,” Deronda said. “Right after I send these boys a message. Whatever you do in your life do not fuck with Deronda.” They heard the kitchen door open. “Shit, I forgot to lock it.” Two men were arguing in whispers. Deronda peeked over the sofa. “Yeah, come on, you trespassin’ muthafuckas. Deronda’s got a surprise for your asses.”

  Janine never sweated but she was sweating now. A poppy field of hives was budding on her arms, her heart throbbing in her throat.

  “Get ready,” Deronda said. She looked at Janine. “What are you doing? Hold the pistol right.” Janine obeyed but didn’t put her finger on the trigger. A light went on in the dining room, a dim glow falling on the living room.

  “Anybody here?” the guy said.

  “Turn the light off,” the other guy said.

  “Fuck you, Wing.”

  The intruders split up, the sounds coming from different parts of the house. Janine’s leg was asleep and she was afraid she couldn’t run. Deronda was squatting on both feet, ready to spring. Jesus Christ, she’s really going to shoot them. Behind Janine and around the corner was the hallway. To hell with this, I’m outta here. She turned and started duck-walking toward it but a light in the hall went on, a man’s shadow cast into the foyer. Don’t come in here don’t come in here please don’t come in here. The shadow got smaller and sharper. He was coming closer. Oh shit oh shit! He stopped. He was right around the corner, Janine could hear him breathing. Go back go back go back please go back. She tried to raise the gun, but it weighed a hundred pounds and her hand was trembling. She heard the guy take a step. She could see the tip of his sneaker. Oh shit oh shit oh shit!

  Deronda jumped up and started shooting toward the dining room. BOOM! CLACK-CLACK! BOOM! CLACK-CLACK! The gun nearly leapt out of her hands, buckshot ripping a light fixture off the ceiling. Janine heard the breakfront shatter. BOOM! CLACK-CLACK! BOOM! CLACK-CLACK! The man in the hallway ran back the way he came. Deronda came around the sofa, waving the shotgun as she moved out of view. “I need to get my aim right.” BOOM! CLACK-CLACK! BOOM! CLACK-CLACK! BOOM! Janine heard running footsteps, the guys escaping through the back. BOOM! CLACK-CLACK! BOOM! CLACK-CLACK! BOOM!

  Janine went into the living room and looked out the front window. Two Chinese guys came around the side of the house and raced toward the silver car. One was hobbling, a dozen holes in his pants. Deronda ran back into the room.

  “What’s happening?” she said. A third guy got out of the silver car and started helping the wounded one get in. “Ha HA!” she laughed. “Mess with Deronda and your shit is over!”

  “Who’s that?” Janine said. Another car pulled up and stopped about forty feet in front of the silver car. The headlights were blinding, the three guys squinting, putting their hands in front of their eyes. A girl got out of the second car, yelling something in Mexican. She had a gun.

  “The hell is this?” Deronda said.

  The girl started shooting, holding the gun sideways like they do in the movies; bullets shattering the silver car’s windshield, blowing off the side mirror and sparking off the asphalt. The wounded guy fell to the ground and rolled under the car. The second guy dived back inside, the third ran around to the back, hunched down, and took a gun out of his pants. The girl kept shooting.

  “Shit, that bitch is crazy,” Deronda said.

  “What’s happening?” Janine said. “What’s she doing?”

  “What? What?” the girl screamed. “Fuck your fucking Chink Mob! Come on, you fucking bitches, come on and get some!”

  Gunfire flashed beneath the car, the rounds hitting the girl in the shins. She screamed, dropped the gun, and fell to her knees. The guy behind the car stood up and shot her twice. She bucked and slumped over sideways.

  “Oh my muthafuckin’ God,” Deronda said. The guys piled into the car and drove away fast.

  “I don’t believe this,” Janine said. She put her hand over her mouth, her mind connecting her own stupidity with the dead girl lying in the street, the white beams of the headlights reflecting off the pool of blood. It looked like news footage. People were coming out of their houses, shooing their kids back inside and talking on their cells. A couple of the men approached the body, bending forward like they were peering down a well. They looked more puzzled than horrified. The girl was screaming and waving a gun a moment ago. What happened to her? Janine couldn’t believe it either. How could the girl’s life just disappear and leave behind a lump of skin and bones no more human than a package of ground beef?

  “Did you know those guys?” Deronda said.

  “No,” Janine said.

  Deronda glared. “Well, they was after somebody,” she said. “And it sho’ the fuck wasn’t me.”

  Chapter Ten

  10-57

  Isaiah stood at the kitchen counter eating his Shredded Wheat thinking about his drive around the neighborhood last night. What stuck out in his mind was Manzo’s building, the Del Orto. The best apartments in the hood. So what? Why did that keep passing through his head? It was nonsensical, but he paid attention to it. Sometimes these random thoughts meant something.

  The doorbell rang. As a matter of habit, he picked up the collapsible baton off the coffee table and stuck it in the back of his pants. Peeking through the peephole, he was surprised to see Manzo. Ruffin made people nervous and vice versa, so he sent the dog into the bedroom and told him to stay. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. Isaiah went back to the foyer and opened the door. Manzo stood there, hostile, something definitely wrong.

  “You gonna let me in or what?” he said.

  Isaiah stepped aside and Manzo entered the living room. He looked around a moment, taking in the polished cement floor and the minimal furniture, probably wondering where the Raiders banner and votive candles were hiding.

  “What’s up, Manzo?” Isaiah said.

  “The hell is wrong with you, ese?” Manzo said. “You go to Frankie’s house? The guy is sick and you trick him into talking about Loco business? Frankie’s like my father, okay? You know your visit messed him up? Ramona had to take him to the doctor.”

  “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  “This is bullshit, Q. I save your fucking ass and this is how you repay me? You don’t go screwing around like that. It don’t matter who you are.”

  “I’m sorry, Manzo, I—”

  “I don’t give a shit if you’re sorry,” Manzo said. “You stabbed me in the back.”

  Isaiah knew he was in trouble. Manzo felt betrayed and betrayal was a capital crime in the hood.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” Isaiah said. “It was a mistake.”

  Manzo had that look of blind, unrestrained malice just like Vicente. A nerve had been touched, a reflexive response to a threat on la familia.

  “Fuck your mistake,” he said. “Nobody fucks with the Locos. I’m the shot calle
r,” he went on. “Do you know how this makes me look? Do you? You can’t disrespect me like that.”

  Isaiah tried to stay calm. Cowardice was another reason to kick your ass. His mind flashed again: The best apartments in the hood. Why did he keep thinking that? “Look, I’m sorry, Manzo. I was trying to find out about my brother.”

  “Yeah, your fucking brother. You know what? He deserved to get hit.”

  Isaiah felt his fury billowing up inside him. “What did you say?” he hissed.

  “You heard me.”

  The realization struck Isaiah like he’d been punched in the gut. The best apartments in the hood. In one motion, he reached back, grabbed the baton, and snapped it open. Manzo leaned away as Isaiah swung, the metal rod hitting him across the head, the sound like a triple to right field.

  “OH SHIT!” Manzo screamed.

  Isaiah’s fury exploded. All the years he’d spent defined by Marcus’s murder, all the years of grief, loneliness, and longing were about to be avenged. “You killed my brother!” he shouted. “YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!” He struck Manzo again and again, the gang leader howling as he staggered away, crashing into the bookshelves, smashing the turntable, LPs spilling to the floor. Isaiah kept swinging. He wasn’t going to stop until this motherfucking cocksucking son of a bitch’s eyes rolled back in his head and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. “YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!” he screamed again. He whacked Manzo across the back of the knee. Manzo collapsed, rolled, and came up aiming a gun. He was grimacing in pain, teeth bared like a man-eater, his entire body straining to hold back his trigger finger.

  “Motherfucker,” he breathed.

  At the edge of his peripheral vision, Isaiah saw Ruffin peeking out of the hallway. Get him, boy, get him!

  “You’re dead, Isaiah,” Manzo said. “You’re fucking dead.”

  Get him, boy! Get him, goddammit! The dog just stood there like he was considering whether it was worth the risk. GET HIM, YOU STUPID DOG! FOR GOD’S SAKE GET HIM!

  Manzo got up on one knee, his aim unwavering, blood leaking from his hairline, streams of it snaking down his face. Ruffin was still thinking it over. FUCKING DOG!

  Isaiah stepped forward. He’d rather die with his hands around Manzo’s throat than continue living his stupid, shrunken life.

  “Yeah, come on, cabron,” Manzo said. “Give me one more reason to kill you.”

  Ruffin withdrew, huffing dismissively as he did. Manzo turned to look, and Isaiah threw the baton, charging right behind it. The baton hit Manzo in the face. He fired, but the shot went wide. Isaiah threw a lunging punch that knocked Manzo over, the gun falling on the floor. Isaiah sat on his chest and choked him, Manzo trying to pry his wrists apart. “I’m going to kill you,” Isaiah snarled, his temples throbbing, his sweat dripping on Manzo’s bloody face. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

  No one heard the gunshot, or if they did they didn’t want to get involved. The gun and baton lay between splotches of blood, dried black on the cement floor. The stereo was hanging over a shelf, the tone arm sticking up like it was waving for help. Ruffin was lying on some album covers, licking the blood off his paws.

  It was Manzo who robbed Frankie. The newly inducted shot caller needed capital to start his empire. It was the Locos who would benefit so why not use Loco money? So where had Manzo and Marcus met? At the best apartments in the hood. It wasn’t hard to imagine Marcus working there, busy, the money and heroin easily slipped into his backpack. It was smart, really, a kind of insurance. If the police found the contraband and word got around, it was solid proof that Marcus was the perpetrator. But why pick on Marcus and not somebody else? It might have been random. He was there in plain sight, he wasn’t Latino and had no friends among the Locos. Conveniently, he played basketball at the park every Saturday so Manzo knew where he would be. Sure, a bullet in the head would have been more efficient, but Manzo anticipated the murder investigation that always follows a shooting so he arranged the hit-and-run. An accident, not a homicide. Bottom line, Manzo was the only one who had the means, motive, and wherewithal to pull off something with so many moving parts. And that’s why he’d saved Isaiah from a beating outside Beaumont’s store. Guilt. Guilt for killing an innocent man with a good heart who’d never hurt anyone in his entire life and left a grieving little brother behind.

  Manzo wouldn’t go to the hospital so Isaiah patched him up. He knew first aid and had a first aid kit a paramedic would have been proud of. Mini–CPR unit, blood pressure cuff, emergency blanket, ice packs, heat packs, instant glucose, burn gel, blood stop dressing, ammonia inhalant, splinter outs, antiseptics in various forms, twelve different kinds of bandages, and an assortment of other stuff, so much he kept it in a suitcase. In the end, Isaiah couldn’t do it. Couldn’t strangle a man in cold blood. When Manzo got up, his knees wobbled and he collapsed. Isaiah caught him before he hit the floor and dragged him onto the sofa. When he came to a few moments later, neither of them had the energy to start it up again. Isaiah felt bloodless and blank. The outpouring of rage had exhausted him.

  Manzo had a sizeable gash on his head, welts all over him. Isaiah gave him a handful of ibuprofen and rolled him a joint from Raphael’s weed. He didn’t have enough ice packs to cover all the welts so he used packages of frozen vegetables.

  “I’m gonna kill you for this,” Manzo groaned.

  “You can try,” Isaiah said. “If I don’t kill you first.”

  “We’ll see what happens.”

  “I guess we will.”

  Isaiah’s neighbor, Mrs. Marquez, was a nurse, and she’d shown him how to stitch up a wound. Isaiah washed his hands with a surgical prep sponge, put on latex gloves, and drew five ccs of lidocaine into a fourteen-gauge hypodermic.

  Manzo was alarmed. “Hey, man,” he said. “I hate needles.”

  “It’s the only way unless you want an infection.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Fuck it, man, let it go. It’ll heal up by itself.”

  “So the leader of the Sureños Locos 13, who’s been shot, stabbed, and beat up who knows how many times, is afraid of a little needle?”

  Manzo almost said yes but grumbled under his breath instead. He wouldn’t let Isaiah shave the area around the gash so Isaiah did his best to keep the hair out of the way. He numbed the gash, cleaned it, and used a suturing kit to stitch it closed. Manzo gritted his teeth but didn’t make a sound.

  “You came here to kill me?” Isaiah said.

  “No, I came here to scare the shit out of you,” Manzo said. “The gun was for show. What was all that shit about killing your brother?”

  “Don’t play stupid. I know it was you.”

  “Me? Me personally? You’re fucking crazy. The Locos had a hit out on him—what’d you expect us to do? He robbed Frankie.”

  “No, he didn’t. You did.”

  “The hell are you talking about?” Manzo tried to move, winced, and inhaled through his teeth. “Shit that hurts,” he said. “Look, I know your brother did the robbery, okay?”

  “How?” Isaiah said, his anger returning. “How do you know? Were you there?”

  “I didn’t have to be.”

  “Then how do you know it was Marcus? Did Frankie see him? How? It was dark out, wasn’t it? And the guy had to be wearing a mask. Did Frankie hear his voice? Did Frankie—”

  “Shut up for a second, okay?” Manzo said. He sat up, the ice packs and frozen vegetables falling to the floor. He grunted and touched the stitches on his head.

  “Don’t,” Isaiah said. “Let them be. They’ll dissolve by themselves in a week or so.”

  Manzo took a deep breath. “I’m gonna tell you what happened, okay? If you don’t believe me, so be it.” Isaiah nodded. “So after your brother robbed Frankie—”

  “That didn’t happen, Manzo,” Isaiah said. “He couldn’t have—”

  Manzo silenced him with a look and started again. “So after your brother rob
bed Frankie, he ran to his car and drove the wrong way, into a dead end. He had to turn around and go back. Frankie saw the car just before he passed out.”

  “How did he know it was Marcus’s car?”

  “He didn’t, but after he got out of the hospital, I was taking him to physical therapy and he saw the car again, parked right near the hardware store. A dark green Explorer, right? We waited until your brother came out of the store and followed him home.”

  “So you did kill him.”

  “We would have,” Manzo said, “but by the time we got our shit together he was already dead.”

  Of all the possibilities Isaiah had considered, that wasn’t one of them. “How did you know he was dead?”

  “We read about it in the newspaper. Jorge saw it on TV. It was an accident. No disrespect, but he was lucky. Vicente wanted to torture him.”

  Isaiah sat silently. Manzo was telling the truth. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Manzo lay back on the sofa and closed his eyes.

  “You owe me, Isaiah,” he said. He dozed off.

  Isaiah went outside and sat on the stoop. Ruffin sat next to him, laying his chin on Isaiah’s knee, maybe apologizing for not attacking Manzo like any other self-respecting pit bull would have done. Isaiah was still incredulous. Marcus robbed Frankie? No. Couldn’t happen.

  An hour later, Manzo woke up. He went to the bathroom, washed up, and came back. He moved like his entire body was sunburned.

  “You want a ride home?” Isaiah said.

  “No, I don’t want a fucking ride home. Gimme the rest of the weed.”

  Isaiah stood in the doorway and watched Manzo get in his car, wincing as he slid into the seat. As he drove away, he shot Isaiah a look. “You owe me, Isaiah. You owe me big-time.”

  Isaiah was numb. He got a beer out of the fridge, lay back in the easy chair, and held the bottle to his cheek. The voice in his head wouldn’t shut up. Did Marcus commit the robbery? Well, did he or didn’t he? Why don’t you find out? What’s the matter? Scared? He knew he should have settled it earlier, but he’d put it off, hoping the question would somehow settle itself, and Marcus would be vindicated. He didn’t like to think about it. Was Marcus everything he believed him to be? Was Marcus living a double life? No, of course not. But if—and of course he didn’t—but if Marcus had robbed Frankie, the money would be in the storage locker.