God, please just do this for Nandi. Punish me instead.
“Where does he play?” I said.
“Shelter? Bamboo. Little clubs, parties. He’s in demand. He plays salsa, ska, South African township, all the styles. I’ve seen him twice. I enjoy live music.”
I was running out of room on my palm. I hoped April was taking notes, too. I had never heard of Shelter, but Bamboo was an African and Caribbean restaurant in Baldwin Hills.
“After the party, I saw Spider playing drums at a restaurant. His playing style on the djembe was fascinating to me because it reminded me of his motion with a knife. The quickness. Between beats, he seemed to pat at the air, as if he was doing drills even while he played. The same butterfly energy and speed. I fear no man, but if I had no weapon, I believe Spider would kill me in . . .” He closed his eyes. They vibrated behind his lids, as if he was choreographing conflict. “He would kill me in less than a minute.”
“And if you had a weapon?”
Nyathi’s lips curled into the slightest of smiles. “As I said, I fear no man.”
Spider was the man I wanted. My bones felt it.
I asked Nyathi to list every venue he could think of where Spider might have played, or anyone who might have hired him. By the time he finished, my palm was full of scribbles. I would transfer the notes in April’s car. Her backseat was littered with reporters’ notebooks.
“It would not be good, Mr. . . . Hardwick . . . ,” Nyathi said, “. . . if the wrong people were to hear that you got this information from me.”
“I understand. Everything is in confidence.”
“I have only given you suppositions. But if one businessman’s thoughts might help you on your quest . . .” He gave me a sad, knowing smile. “Then God be with you.”
By the time I finished interviewing Xolo Nyathi, April was standing nonchalantly at the checkout counter with an armful of purchases. I walked past her without acknowledging her, and back outside.
“Mr. Hardwick!” Nyathi called sharply from behind me as I began back toward the car.
He had run out behind me. He looked over his shoulder before he approached me, then he slipped something into my palm. “A souvenir from my shop,” he said.
Silver gleamed in my hand: a small Ethiopian-style cross, with artistic flourishes around the traditional cross shape. I hadn’t owned a cross since I was a kid. Dad would love this guy.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll take all the help I can get.”
“I pray you find her,” Nyathi whispered. And he went back into his store.
I beat April back to her car, so I hung out on the corner of Fairfax and Whitworth to wait, mulling over what Xolo Nyathi had told me. While I waited, I put in a quick call to Chela’s cell.
“Hey, Ten—whassup?” Chela said cheerfully. She was enjoying her day’s adventure.
“Where are you guys?”
“Waiting for the check. I love the food here! Did you ditch ’em?”
“So far, so good.”
“We were just joking that if they keep trying to follow us, we’ll drive to Palmdale.”
On another day, I would have laughed. Palmdale was a long hike to nowhere.
April carried a loaded shopping bag and a large, thin object that looked unwieldy.
“Hey, could you put Dad on?” I said to Chela, keeping an eye on April.
“Thanks for the whole Bourne Identity escape thing,” Chela said, trying to cheer me up.
I heard muttering, and Chela’s voice was gone. I realized that if the day went wrong, I might never be able to speak to Chela again, but the cold knowledge was devoid of emotion. She would make it without me. She had a home.
“Whatcha got?” Dad’s voice sounded far away, just shy of the microphone.
A passerby came too close to me on the street, a man with short dreads and an army jacket. I stepped away from him and kept my voice low. “Umbuso Izulu. Heard of it?”
“Mmmmm-hmmmm,” Dad said. “Kingdom of Heaven. Gangs from South Africa, Zimbabwe. Moved over here in the nineties. Why?”
April’s car clicked as she unlocked it with her remote key.
“Hold on,” I told Dad, and walked to climb inside April’s car. I didn’t relax until my door was closed. “I think they’re involved in this.”
“Ambitious, ain’t it?” Dad said, sounding skeptical. “A movie star’s kid . . . ?”
April climbed into the car beside me, closing her door, too. She showed me a reporter’s notebook, flipping to a page full of neat lines of notes. She’d written down everything she’d overheard from Xolo Nyathi, just as I’d hoped. I blew April a kiss.
“Yeah, but this movie star’s kid is from South Africa,” I said. “She put herself right on their radar. We need to pull Nelson into this. I’m calling him.”
“Better coming from me,” Dad said. “You two fuss and fight. Gets in the way.”
“Fine. But he needs to jump on this even if the FBI won’t. The guy on the football field knew the same knife art I saw in South Africa. I’ve found a lead, a guy named Spider, who knows the art. A drummer. I’m going to talk to him.”
“All this from the knife?” Dad said.
“It’s an uncommon fighting style,” I said. “I got lucky.”
“Tell you what I know: Kingdom of Heaven had a nightclub, midnineties. Hollywood. It’s closed now, but those guys had a bad rep. Vicious, like the Colombian and Mexican gangs. From time to time we’d find a vic dumped in an alley, some poor African immigrant whose girlfriend or sister said he was at the club and never came home. Just kids, mostly. Twenty-one, twenty-five.”
“How’d they die?”
I knew what my father was going to say before he did.
“Multiple . . . ,” Dad began, and stopped. “Shit.” Multiple stab wounds.
I stared down at the cross in my hand. I clasped it so hard that the ridges bit into my palm.
“Nelson was on at least one of those homicides,” Dad said. “I sent him out so he could talk to witnesses. Black cop—you know, tryin’ to blend. The investigation never took off, but Nelson will remember. I might’ve heard somethin’ about abductions in South Africa, but I don’t think they ever pulled that in the United States. They’re smart. Like things quiet. Don’t want headlines.”
“They tried to keep the kidnapping quiet.”
“Yeah, but they knew it might not stay that way.” Dad sighed. He wasn’t quite convinced. “I’ll work on selling Nelson. What about you?”
I hesitated. Was I talking to Richard Hardwick the police captain, or to my father?
“I’m going after Spider,” I said. “I got a couple of leads. Clubs where he plays.”
April cast me a worried glance over her shoulder.
Up ahead, I saw a sign for a car rental company on the corner. When I gestured for her to stop, she looked disappointed, but signaled to change lanes.
“Don’t go solo,” Dad said. “Give me a minute with Nelson first.”
“Nelson’s gonna take more than a minute,” I said. “Even if you sell him, he has hoops to jump through. I’ll give you everything I have, but I won’t wait for him. No time.”
“Ten, if you move in too fast . . .”
I knew what he wanted to say. If I showed up asking questions about Spider, the kidnappers might get scared and any debates about Nandi’s future would be over. But they also might kill Nandi in the next twenty minutes. In the next hour. Until I heard about another ransom demand, I would assume they weren’t sending her home.
“Dad, moving too fast isn’t the problem,” I said. “We’re not moving fast enough.”
I read him the list of nightclubs Nyathi had mentioned, and Dad shared the names discreetly with Marcela or Chela, who wrote them down. Writing was still difficult for him.
“Remember what I said, Ten,” Dad said. “Every decision matters.”
“Yessir.” A stone caught in my throat. “Thanks, Dad. Love you.” It fell out of me.
; “It’s a solid lead, Tennyson. Be careful.” Short silence. “I love you, too, son.”
Some people grow up telling their fathers they love them, or hearing their fathers say it. Not me. Finally, after forty years, my father and I had run out of bullshit.
Better late than never.
SEVENTEEN
10:15 A.M.
April was still waiting in the parking lot of the car rental office when the salesman walked me outside to inspect my rented black Corvette 2LT convertible. The car gleamed like moonlight on wet asphalt, and I silently apologized for everything I might do to its perfect finish. The salesman was thrilled when I agreed to buy the insurance, but he wouldn’t have liked the reason.
I’d asked April to go, but she was still leaning on a hand-carved Ethiopian walking stick she’d bought at the store. Once we were alone, she stood within six inches of me. She forced me to stand still and look at her. I hadn’t realized how much my eyes were avoiding hers.
“I bought this cane for your father,” April said. She knew how hard Dad had worked to walk again. When she first met him, he was confined to his bed. Our history was in that cane.
“Bring it by next week.”
“I’ll be there,” she said, her eyes glistening. “Will you?”
“I’ll try.”
After hearing what Xolo Nyathi had to say about Spider, April hadn’t broached the subject of teamwork on the case. She knew her limitations; she only wished I knew mine.
“I write for a living, Ten, and I can never think of the right words with you,” she said. “But I’ll try this one—please? I don’t know what else to say. Because if you run out there and get killed, it will bust open a hole in me I’ll never fill up again. And your father. And Chela.”
“Now you’re worried about filling a hole?” I said. I couldn’t stop myself.
“Don’t you get it, Ten? I was afraid of this.”
“I’m adopting Chela,” I said, out of the blue. I needed to change the subject. “I’ve talked to a lawyer. We’re looking for her birth mother.”
“That’s great. Then you need to be here for her. Isn’t that the point of adoption?”
That stung. I shouldn’t have expected April to understand, but I wished she did.
“I promised Nandi, April,” I said. “I held her in my arms, looked into her eyes and told her I was coming back for her.” Saying it aloud sucked all the air out of my lungs.
April blinked fast, her mommy instincts afire, but she didn’t miss a beat of tranquil reasoning. “And you can do that—with the help of the police and the FBI. The information you just brought Lieutenant Nelson can help bring Nandi home. That’s what your promise meant. It doesn’t have to be you. Don’t keep repeating the same mistake, Ten.”
I tried to look at her, but instead I stared at the sky.
April leaned against me. Her chest sank to mine, firm and familiar. I cradled my arm around her back, holding her in place. She inched closer to me, and our pelvises brushed. Warm arousal flared, a memory of touching. Her scent fogged my mind.
“You’re barely on your feet,” she said. “Come home with me. Climb into bed. Let me hold you, Ten. Please?” Her whisper was hot in my ear.
You fucked up, Ten, my Evil Voice agreed. Leave it to the FBI. Go with April. LIVE.
Had I been waiting seven months for April to give me a second chance? Had Marsha only helped me forget everything April made me remember?
Fresh misery clawed at my stomach as I leaned over to kiss April’s forehead, like a brother. I took a step away from her, setting her free.
“Not today,” I said.
There was much more to say, but no more time.
Somewhere, Nandi was waiting for me.
The day staggered on in dream time. I was so tired, I dozed at the lights. When my eyesight blurred, I reminded myself that I hadn’t slept in two days, since Nandi vanished. The longer I was behind the wheel, the more sense April’s offer made.
Then I could swear I heard Nandi crying, and I drove faster, blowing past speed limits with the car’s gentle V8. Obstacles appeared out of nowhere, forcing me to jam on my brakes. I was half delirious, and April had known it.
I was also driving nowhere fast. What was my next move?
At the nearest 7-Eleven, I loaded up on Excedrin for migraine, craving both the caffeine lift and the pain relief. I ignored the throbbing most of the time, but it was hard to think. In the car, I kept the AC on full blast until my arms were covered with gooseflesh. I needed the cold air to keep my body and mind awake.
To keep alert, I lectured myself aloud: “Man, you can’t just show up asking questions the way you did in Little Ethiopia. Your face is all over TV today. You need to vanish.”
I hung on my every word. That brother’s talking sense.
I stopped at a large thrift shop to find clothes for a character I could commit to all day.
Good thing I was in Hollywood.
By 11 A.M., Tennyson Hardwick was dead. I was a brand-new man.
To erase myself, I replaced every item of clothing except my briefs. I remembered I might need to run, and rejected a pair of sandals reminiscent of Xolo Nyathi’s. I settled on plain brown loafers that looked brand new and fit fine. For clothes, I found a white guayabera and loose-fitting track pants. Business casual, and loose enough to give me freedom of movement. I topped off my ensemble with a fake Gucci bucket hat.
I drove to Ursula’s Costumes in Santa Monica to complete my new identity. I’ve been to Ursula’s a few times, so one of the salespeople, Heidi, recognized me right away. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw my face, so she’d been watching the news. But Heidi only gave me a sympathetic smile and a half wave, and she left me alone to browse.
I’m gonna bring that girl flowers one day, if I survive the one I’m in.
Careful shopping and fifteen solid minutes in front of a mirror gave me a full beard and sideburns neatly trimmed down; enough facial hair to obscure my features, but not so much that I would stand out. Aviator sunglasses finished my new look.
It wouldn’t fool the people closest to me, but I hoped it would be enough.
Next, I had to find my body language, and my voice.
I’m good with accents. I could pull off a decent southern African accent, but I didn’t dare try it in the field. South Africans spoke English, but they also spoke Xhosa, Zulu, or Afrikaans, too, just for starters. As for the rest of the continent, I didn’t know any Swahili, Wolof, or Amharic either. My cover story would have to steer clear of Africa.
“Hey, man,” I said to the mirror. “What’s your name?”
The man in the mirror mulled it over.
“I’m Clarence, mon,” the man in the mirror said with a perfect Jamaican accent. His shoulders slouched down, his belly poked out, and he shoved his hands into his pockets. He was ten pounds overweight. He might have been athletic once, but had become bored with his body. He was no threat to anyone physically. He liked music, women, and smoking blunts.
“Clarence Love. I’m a singer, yeah? From Kingston. I’m new to L.A., just tryin’ to find my way round. Looking for new places to spread the Love.”
His voice was music. He extended his arms Christlike and grinned, inviting me to bask in his fabulousness. Clarence Love was born.
A text message vibrated in my pocket. I had to fumble for my phone; the pocket was deeper than I’d thought. My hand shook. Please let it be Maitlin with good news.
Instead, it was a text message from Marsha:
Stop hot-dogging B4 you get killed. I can help with the Kingdom. Come see me ASAP.
It didn’t sound like good news, but it was the closest I’d had all day.
The Chateau Marmont in Hollywood is notorious for bad behavior. The founder of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, said in 1939, “If you must get in trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont.” The hotel was built on a hill above the Sunset Strip in the 1920s, an imitation of a French royal residence. With its private balconies and
hasty escape routes, that place is screaming with gossip. I ought to know.
The hotel was living up to its reputation, yet again. How did Marsha know I was investigating the Kingdom of Heaven?
As my Corvette sped toward Marsha’s suite at the Chateau Marmont, I made a mental list of everything I knew about the woman I’d been fucking for the past week. The list wasn’t nearly long enough. The more I thought about her, the more nervous Marsha made me.
When I pieced together my history with Marsha, thoughts surfaced that crumbled my stomach to dust. She’s been spying on you and your family. She didn’t find you by accident. Five days after you met her, Nandi disappeared.
The first day we’d met had been a game, start to finish. She’d been conducting a sophisticated surveillance that probably was illegal, and her body did all of her talking. Luring a mark into bed is the oldest trick in a liar’s book. Was Marsha using me? And if so, why?
One last, terrible thought persisted: Does Marsha have something to do with Nandi?
By the time I got to the hotel, I was pissed off six different ways. I unpacked my Glock, nestling it snugly down the back of my pants, hidden by my loose shirt. I wasn’t going anywhere else without my weapon.
As Clarence Love, I asked the concierge to call Marsha’s suite, testing my accent. He didn’t recognize me from my earlier visits, so one thing went right.
When Marsha opened her door, she was wearing only a T-shirt above endless brown legs. “I like your new look, Clarence,” Marsha said.
My Glock tugged on my waistband at the small of my back. “We need to talk,” I said.
Marsha moved aside, untroubled by my empty eyes. “Yes,” she said. “We do.”
I never turned my back on Marsha as I walked into her foyer and she locked her door behind me. She was in a junior suite, about five hundred square feet, with a combined sitting room and bedroom, and a full dining area and kitchen. The furniture was 1940s style.
For the first time since I’d known Marsha, I ignored her prominent queen bed. I watched the corners for shadows, in case she wasn’t alone. A fluttering curtain in the dining area made my fingers twitch to reach behind my back.
From Cape Town with Love Page 20