Righteous

by Joe Ide

  Seb was a good student and a dream target for the bullies. Wha’ ’appened to your other leg, mate? Di uh lion bite it off? Why come ’ere, to England, eh? Plenty uh nig-nogs round here already. Whatsat leg made ow uff? Come on, let’s ’ave a look a-it. They tripped him, pushed him down stairs. They threw his books in the street and stole his money. They pinned him to the ground, took off his prosthetic leg, and made him crawl for it. Seb understood cruelty, he’d seen plenty of it, but he did not forgive. The bullies were hit by bricks dropped from rooftops, their lockers smeared with feces, their pets killed.

  At university, Seb majored in economics and did well but survival was always foremost in his mind and studying “Macroeconomics and the Global Economic Environment” seemed to ensure nothing. He dealt weed and amphetamines and he gambled. He had lost a leg but his hands were inordinately quick. He learned to cheat. Stacking the deck, palming, false shuffling, false dealing, bottom dealing.

  A group of rugby players thought it was great sport to make fun of the African student with one leg; circling him as he limped along, taunting him and throwing rugby balls that whistled past his ears. Sometimes they’d follow him, right on his heels, telling him to hurry on now, or they took the bangers off his tray, chewed them, and spit them back on his plate. Seb slashed their tires and splattered their locker room with black paint and broke their windows with rocks. He hid in the bushes and shot their girlfriends with an air rifle. One girl lost an eye.

  The rugby players sought revenge and bulled their way into Seb’s flat. The first two through the door were met with Seb’s fast hands and a meat cleaver; raw flesh flapping, blood splattering on the walls. The others were horrified and took their mates to the hospital. Seb claimed self-defense and that the meat cleaver was the closest thing at hand, which was true, he kept it on his desk. He narrowly escaped prosecution, his missing leg a key argument in the defense. He was kicked out of school. No matter, he’d have dropped out anyway, he had plans. He sold all his belongings, stole from the McAllisters, borrowed money he would never pay back, and boarded a plane to America, where his passion lay and his destiny awaited.

  Years later, Seb made a trip back to Rwanda to find Gahigi, something he knew was impossible. He was delighted to discover his old friend still at the orphanage, working as a custodian. Since their parting as children, Gahigi had also sought revenge, killing Tutsis randomly. He’d only stopped because he’d been arrested on suspicion. The police beat him, but he said nothing and they let him go. Seb hired a lawyer who paid bribes to various officials and got Gahigi travel documents. He flew to America on a 747 wearing the cranberry Members Only jacket and carrying his belongings in a garbage bag. Seb met him at the airport.

  Seb cleaned up the blood in the hallway. He threw out his clothes and the cleaning supplies and took a forty-five-minute shower. That evening, he was working at his desk when Gahigi knocked on the door.

  “It is me, Seb,” he said.

  “Come in, Gahigi. I have told you before, you needn’t bother knocking.”

  Gahigi entered. “To be polite is important, Seb.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Sit down, my friend.”

  Gahigi remained standing. There was no blood on his T-shirt. Somehow, he must have changed his own bandages. He was somber, which was how he was when he had something important to say.

  “What is it, Gahigi?” Seb said.

  “Isaiah,” Gahigi said. “I am killing him very soon.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You must not get in trouble, Seb. So I am going. I will stay in a hotel.”

  “It is not necessary, Gahigi. We have been through much together and we will not separate now.”

  “No, Seb. This is my business.”

  “It is mine too,” Seb said. “Isaiah threatens us both and he will not give up. He must be dealt with decisively.”

  “What are you saying, Seb?”

  “I am saying, we will kill him together.”

  This time it would be simple. They’d shoot him and be done with it. This rude, cocky boy who threatened to derail all that Seb had worked so hard for. It was Saturday. They found him playing basketball at McClarin Park. Seb and Gahigi sat in a stolen car parked in front of Kayo Subs. Ironic, Seb thought. Maybe they’d shoot him at the intersection of Baldwin and Anaheim.

  They watched him play a full-court game with a group of young men from the neighborhood. They were quite good, quite athletic, all of them bigger and stronger than Isaiah, and yet he seemed to be the leader of his team. He did not shout or curse or complain as the others did. He took only an occasional shot, preferring to pass instead. He was accurate and clever, hitting his man at just the right time for an open shot. His team won six games in a row before they were defeated, more out of fatigue than anything else. Isaiah took his gym bag and went into the restroom.

  “Start the car, Gahigi,” Seb said. They sat there, the engine idling, waiting for action. All the other players had dispersed, but Isaiah still hadn’t appeared.

  “We are waiting too long, Seb,” Gahigi said.

  “Yes, I think you are right. Drive around to the other side. Perhaps there is another exit.”

  Gahigi was putting the car in gear when Isaiah walked up to Seb’s window. “Waiting for me?” he said.

  “Isaiah!” Seb said with a surprised laugh. “I was just thinking about you.”

  Isaiah looked at Gahigi. “Were you the one that ran over my brother? I’m sorry I didn’t bite your fucking head off.” Glaring, Gahigi moved his shirt aside, a gun tucked into his waistband. He put his hand on the grip.

  “Not now, my friend,” Seb said. “There are people about.” Gahigi reluctantly covered the gun again.

  “You are paying a price for dis,” he said.

  “Oh yeah?” Isaiah said. “Well, you better hurry. You might not be around long enough to collect.”

  “If you really want to know, I usually drive on our excursions,” Seb said. “It relaxes me, although I tend to be inattentive.” He lit a cigarette, a cruel glint in his smile. “I’ve had several near misses over the years, although on one occasion, I did hit a dog.” He huffed through his nose. “A useless mongrel, no good to anyone. I ran over it with some pleasure, as I recall. It was better off dead, if you ask me.”

  Isaiah somehow restrained his fury but couldn’t keep his voice from shaking. “Keep talking, Seb. Keep thinking you’re safe. I might not cut your leg off, but I’ll hurt you. I’ll hurt you bad.”

  “An idle threat, Isaiah,” Seb said, suppressing a yawn. “And I will tell you why. You are an honorable man, and however naïve that may be, an honorable man would not persecute someone if he did not have all the facts, and you have nothing. If you did, you would not be breaking into houses taking pictures of things that don’t matter to anyone. At this moment, you are but another useless mongrel. Toothless and irrelevant.” He flicked his cigarette out of the car. “Now if you will excuse us, we have another appointment.” As he rolled up his window he said, “Be careful, Isaiah. The traffic is quite bad around here.”

  Isaiah watched them drive away, and for the first time in his life, he wished he’d had a gun.

  Seb sat in his booth, smoking and sipping tea. He tried to put Isaiah out of his mind. He’d be dealt with soon enough. Thoughts of the future warmed him and brought forth an unaccustomed optimism. He had planned too carefully for his arrangements to fail. Every word of the meeting had been rehearsed, every contingency planned for and countered, even his wardrobe had already been chosen, right down to the pocket hankie and socks. Yes, all would be well.

  Gahigi was sitting at the bar. Seb could see his partial reflection in the mirror behind the skyline of liquor bottles. His head was bowed, his hands were around his beer bottle as if he was protecting a baby bird. He looked in mourning—but for who? His loved ones? Those he had killed? Maybe he was lamenting the loss of his soul. Seb’s had vanished when he hacked off the leg of the Tutsi militiaman, the blood splash
ing on his face like a warm rain, the man’s screams lost in the mayhem of Seb’s fury.

  “Gahigi?” Seb said. It was rare that Seb had to call Gahigi twice, the man’s hearing like a nocturnal predator’s. “Gahigi?” Seb said again. Gahigi looked around sharply as if he’d heard a locked door open.

  “Yes, Seb?” he said.

  “Come. Sit.”

  Gahigi brought his beer and sat down in the booth. Seb offered him a cigarette. Resigned, Gahigi took it, and Seb lit it for him.

  “You seem troubled, my friend,” Seb said. “Is it Isaiah?”

  Gahigi finished the beer and turned the beer bottle around like he was unscrewing a lid. “I am thinking I will go home, Seb,” he said.

  Seb had been afraid of this. Maybe that was what Gahigi was lamenting; the loss of himself. Here, he was a stranger who would always be a stranger; two inches of white sock between his cuffs and his shoes; a jacket that nobody’d worn since the eighties, scars that identified him as either a victim or a victimizer; an African in a land of African-Americans, the two as different as their continents.

  “Why, Gahigi?” Seb said. “There is nothing for you in Rwanda.”

  “There is nothing for me here, Seb.”

  “How can you say this? We will go on as we always have.”

  “No, Seb. Your life is changing soon. I am happy for you. But my life is not changing. My life is nothing.”

  If Seb tried to convince Gahigi otherwise, they’d both know it was a lie. “Rwanda is still dangerous, my friend,” Seb said.

  “Everywhere is danger, Seb. Everywhere you go is danger.”

  Flaco Ruiz had been a bystander in the war between the Locos and the Violators, a war Isaiah felt partially responsible for starting. Flaco was ten years old when a gangster’s bullet hit him in the head. He was left with a paralyzed leg, halting speech, and a brain that struggled and stuttered. Isaiah dropped in on Flaco twice a week. He was almost nineteen now and living in a condo that Isaiah and Dodson had bought for him.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Isaiah said, knocking on the open door. Flaco and his girlfriend Debbie were sitting on the couch, holding hands and watching something on TV. Debbie had Down’s syndrome. She had a wide forehead, fat cheeks, and folds under her small eyes, but she was, hands down, the sweetest, kindest girl Isaiah had ever met. Once, he’d watched her pick up a single ant with a Post-it and carry it outside with all the intensity and focus of a diamond cutter. Seeing Debbie and Flaco together made Isaiah wistful; always murmuring to each other and giggling and holding hands wherever they went.

  Isaiah stayed awhile and they ate the pie and ice cream he’d brought. Flaco had been promoted to all-around helper at the pet boutique, and he told Isaiah he was going back to school. Privately, he told Isaiah he was going to ask Debbie to marry him and did he have any advice; a question akin to asking what it was like living on Jupiter.

  “I’ll get back to you on that,” Isaiah said.

  On his way home he stopped off at Beaumont’s to get some cranberry juice. His cell buzzed, he didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?” he said.

  “Isaiah, is that you?” A woman’s voice.

  “Yeah, this is Isaiah.”

  “It’s Sarita.”

  Isaiah’s heart seized up. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. “It is?” he said. She said she didn’t have time to talk, but could they meet up later?

  “I know this is short notice,” she said, “but how about tomorrow night, around eight? I’ll be at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City. Do you know where that is?”

  “No,” he said, “but I’ll find it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three for One

  Dodson took the wheel on the drive back to LA. Isaiah was too wrung out and hurting and he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Ken and Benny were in the back, both of them wrecked like they’d been run over by a train.

  When they stopped for gas, Isaiah called Sarita.

  “Janine is safe?” Sarita said.

  “Yeah, she’s fine.”

  “Benny and my dad?”

  “They’re banged up some, but they’re fine too.”

  “That’s wonderful, that’s amazing! Oh, Isaiah, I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said.

  She said something to someone else and got back on the line. “Are you all right?” she said. “You don’t sound so good.”

  “I’m fine. We’ve still got problems, you know. The triad will be after them and they won’t give up.”

  “Hmm, yes, but there may be legal remedies for that. We’ll talk. Just get here safe. We’re going to celebrate big-time.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Isaiah said. Cream-colored sofa, here I come.

  Dodson went inside to get snacks and to pee. He knew he shouldn’t have gone into that massage parlor. No need to tell Cherise about this. She’d call him foolish and irresponsible and she wouldn’t be wrong. He knew what she would say: Let me see if I understand. You broke into a room full of gangsters with a gun that shoots condiments?

  He was in the bathroom when his phone buzzed. A text. He looked at the photo and almost fell to his knees. He couldn’t breathe and started to shake. An acrid mix of terror and fury gushed up from his gut and nearly choked him. The photo was of Cherise. She was sitting in a chair, her hands zip-tied and resting on her belly. Tears and mascara were smeared around her eyes, a fat lip bleeding. Her hair was sticking up every which away, three buttons on her housecoat missing, threads dangling, her collar ripped. Yeah, that girl wasn’t going nowhere without a fight. But the expression on her face—anguished but enraged, like all she needed was an opening and she’d jump up and beat her kidnappers to death. Dodson’s fear was beyond fear, his anger so deep and primal he could feel himself morphing from human being to beast, vicious and uncontrollable, a drooling werewolf out for blood.

  Cherise was looking at the camera, looking at Dodson. Where were you? it said. Why weren’t you here to protect us instead of running off to Vegas? They’re going to hurt me, Dodson. They’re going to hurt our baby. Dodson’s head was about to rocket off his body and smash through the ceiling, the veins in his neck like night crawlers wriggling away from his pounding heartbeat. He looked at the picture again and paced around in a circle, breathing shallow and fast. “Oh, you muthafuckas is dead,” he said. “I’m gonna kill every one of you.” It was only now he read the message. It said: THREE FOR ONE.

  “Three for one?” he said. “The fuck does that mean?” It took a moment before he got it. Trade Janine, Benny, and Ken for Cherise. Three for one. Shit. He didn’t even have to think about it. He didn’t know those people, they didn’t mean any more to him than strangers off the street. If they got killed so be it. That’s what they got for being stupid. One way or another, Cherise and Lil’ Tupac were coming home.

  A man came in and saw Dodson, his eyes gaping and crazed, his mouth in a snarl, a fury coming off him like flames from a blast furnace. “Uh, sorry,” the man said, backing out and closing the door. Dodson tried to calm himself down. He threw some water on his face, sucked in some long breaths, and looked at himself in the mirror. He had to keep his head together, think his way through this, stay in control. The shit was going to get deep and the stakes were everything that mattered in his life. He had to keep his cool. He texted back. OK

  Dodson drove, everyone else dozing. The air-conditioning was on but sweat had beaded on his upper lip, his insides were whirlpooling, and he was choking the steering wheel so hard his fists were tired. He was glad he was in the Audi, the car doing ninety plus, whipping by other cars like they’d shut off their engines. He considered showing the photo to Isaiah but Isaiah was trying to prove himself to Sarita. He’d take over, do something complicated, try to save everybody and get Cherise and the baby killed. No, Dodson would do it his own way. Simple. No games, no tricks. Three for one and that was it.

  It was dark when they crossed the
border. Dodson called Deronda. “Where are you?” he said.

  “We parked in Nona’s backyard, waiting for her to get home from her work,” Deronda said.

  “Janine okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s aight. She ain’t such a bad egg—for being Chinese.” Dodson heard Janine say something in the background. “Girl can eat like Cherise’s brother, Jerome. You seen him? On Thanksgiving they had a turkey for the family, and another one just for him.”

  “Stay there,” Dodson said. “We’ll meet you.”

  Isaiah dropped Dodson at his apartment, and he ran into the building without looking back. He vaguely heard Isaiah say something about the baby and good luck. He raced up five flights of stairs to the apartment. The door was closed but unlocked. He went in, hoping there was a Red Pole there he could kill. “Cherise?” he said hopefully. Nothing had been disturbed, but the place couldn’t have felt emptier if they had moved out. He went into the bedroom. Covers and sheets twisted up, spots of blood on the pillow, slippers in two different places, a bed table knocked over, a broken lamp, broken glass, and a hardback book on the floor. So she was probably reading when it happened. Two or three of them came in, told her not to make a sound, thinking she’d be scared by the ski masks and guns and wouldn’t resist. Knowing Cherise, that didn’t happen. She screamed and fought, holding her stomach and kicking with both legs like she was riding a bicycle upside down. They had to yank her out of bed, ripping her robe, and when she wouldn’t stop screaming they hit her. The image made Dodson nauseous, his whole body was clenched and trembling. “I’m gonna kill these muthafuckas,” he whispered. “I’m gonna kill ’em all.” He went to the closet and took a shoe box off the top shelf. He opened it, found the S&W Model 627 .38-caliber revolver with a five-inch barrel. Most revolvers held five or six rounds, the 627 held eight. Even if he missed every other shot he could still kill four of them.