Without Fear or Favor

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  Johnson shook his head violently. “He’s not here,” Juku answered.

  “Yeah, well, you tell him he’s got an hour to get his ass down here and pick this thing up, or I might have to call the cops and suddenly ‘remember’ that I gave a ‘friend of a friend’ a private loan. I’m not going to prison again for your asshole pal.”

  Juku looked at Johnson, who shook his head as he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together to indicate he didn’t have the money to reclaim the gun. “I don’t think he has that kind of money.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass,” Gregorian said. “He can bring me what he’s got and owe me the rest. I’ll take a personal note from you, Juku, since you’re the one who got me into this mess. Or you can give me your vinyl record collection and we’ll call it good.”

  Johnson nodded. “Okay, yeah, I’ll tell him,” Juku said.

  “You do that,” Gregorian replied and hung up.

  Juku told Johnson, “You got to go get that gun, or he’ll turn us both in.”

  Johnson accepted the joint from his bleary-eyed girlfriend and took a hit and let it out before answering. “I guess so. But I’m not,” he said. “You are.”

  “Me?” Juku felt the blood drain out of his face.

  “Yeah, everybody knows you in this neighborhood, including the cops,” Johnson replied. “Nobody’s going to care if you go into a pawnshop and pick up something.”

  A young woman entered the room from the bedroom. “He’ll do no such thing,” she said to Johnson. “He’s not going to get mixed up in anything criminal. In fact, we want you out of here!”

  Johnson leaned back into the couch and hiked up his sweatshirt so that the small semiautomatic handgun in his waistband was visible. “Well, now,” he said. He smiled but his eyes were cold. “Seems like your woman is telling you who can be your friend.”

  Juku gave his girlfriend a look. “Stay out of this, babe,” he said, and turned to Johnson. “You did say you were only going to stay for a couple of days, and it’s been almost two weeks.”

  IT HAD BEEN a surprise when Anthony Johnson, with his teenage girlfriend, Lupe, had turned up at Juku’s fourth-floor, one-bedroom apartment. He didn’t know him all that well and was surprised that Johnson even knew where he lived.

  They’d met earlier in the year at a club where Juku, whose real name was Mike Sakamoto, was DJ’ing the music. At the time, Johnson, who’d let it be known that he’d just been released from San Quentin, seemed to be pretty cool. He talked a lot of black liberation theology which, as a Japanese-American hipster, Juku thought interesting from a philosophical point of view. They’d hung out some, done a little cocaine, smoked some grass, hit the music scene together. It had been kind of exciting to have a former hard-core gang member and, if Johnson’s boasts were to be believed, a killer as part of his “posse.”

  Still, the novelty had grown old. There was only so much rhetoric about the coming race war and shooting whites down in the streets that Juku, who looked and acted a lot younger than his fifty-odd years, was comfortable hearing. So he’d been just as happy when Johnson quit calling or showing up at the clubs he worked.

  Juku didn’t know he’d gone to New York City “to visit my cousin” until after he invited the couple in. A couple of beers and a few hits of pot later, after Lupe got up to go to the bathroom, Johnson had confided, “I was wondering if we could crash here for a couple of days? I’m waiting on some money I’m owed, and Lupe’s pregnant.”

  “She seems a little young,” Juku’s girlfriend, Monique, said.

  “Old enough,” Johnson said with a laugh.

  Monique scowled at the answer, but she was the one who insisted—because of the girl’s condition—that they stay “for a day or two until you can get a place of your own.” The apartment was tiny, but they’d put an air mattress in the living room for the couple to sleep on.

  However, a day or two had turned into more than two weeks. The money just kept getting delayed, “but I’ll get it soon,” Johnson insisted.

  In the meantime, Johnson and Lupe rarely left the apartment. They just lay around all day, smoking pot and watching television.

  One thing that had changed since Juku had seen Johnson last was that the latter’s black liberation rhetoric had increased in intensity and violence. “You ought to understand where I’m coming from,” he argued once when they’d been discussing the Black Justice Now movement. “You’re Asian. Whites treated your people as subhumans, too, though nothing like the African man. And someday, when the race war starts, you’re going to have to choose sides.”

  One evening, as they were watching the news, a story came on about the district attorney of New York City being shot by an assassin at a press conference during a protest. When the broadcaster said that the DA had been taken to the hospital in critical condition, Johnson laughed and clapped his hands.

  Noticing the confused looks on the faces of his hosts, Johnson explained. “The man’s a racist. When we were there, a cop shot an unarmed black kid—murdered him in cold blood, no doubt about it—but the DA, his name is Karp, won’t do nothing to cops. So I guess now the tables is turned. Good.”

  Johnson had changed the channel and didn’t bring up the subject of the DA again. Juku, who rarely paid attention to the news, didn’t inquire further.

  One of the rare times Johnson did leave the apartment was with Juku, whom he’d asked to take him to a pawnshop. “I need somebody who’ll give me something righteous for this,” he said, waving the silver revolver around before sticking it in his waistband. “But has to be somebody maybe willing to look the other way and not register it with the police.”

  Even though Johnson promised to “throw a little cash” his way, Juku wasn’t happy when they took Johnson’s battered old Lincoln to a pawnshop Juku had had some dealings with in the past. He had a massive collection of vinyl LPs that he’d kept in immaculate condition, which the owner, Georgi Gregorian, coveted and hoped that someday Juku would not redeem. Gregorian had a reputation for bending the rules . . . for a price.

  He looked over the revolver, then put it back on the counter. “It’s a nice weapon,” he said. “What do you want for it?”

  “Fifteen hundred,” Johnson said. “It’s worth twice that at least.”

  “Not to me, it’s not,” Gregorian replied. “I’ll give you a thousand.”

  “Oh, man, that’s robbery,” Johnson complained. “Shit . . . Okay. So long as you don’t feel a need to report the serial numbers to the po-po.”

  Gregorian frowned and raised an eyebrow when he looked over at Juku. “I see,” he said. “Well, in that case, I’ll give you seven fifty for the risk. Take it or leave it.”

  Johnson cursed and pleaded, but the pawnshop owner wouldn’t budge. He finally agreed. “But don’t sell it off. It’s special to me.”

  Scooping up the cash, Johnson left the store with Juku trotting after him. “I thought you said that white motherfucker was a friend,” he complained. “Someday oppressors like that be looking at the wrong end of a gun.”

  He’d never offered Juku any of the money. And when asked if he would be moving out soon, he started to get belligerent. “I told you I can’t until my money comes in,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to throw a pregnant girl out on the streets, would you?” He made sure that his hosts knew that in spite of pawning the revolver, he still had a small semiautomatic .380.

  NOW JUKU FOUND himself stuck between an angry pawnshop owner and a self-professed killer, all over a gun. He didn’t like guns, particularly those in the hands of former gang members and possible killers.

  “Tell you what, Motor Joker,” Johnson said with a sneer. “You go pick up the gun, and me and the bitch will clear out of here.”

  That’s how Juku found himself walking into the Bay Area Pawnshop just as the sun was setting. Georgi Gregorian looked up and scowled as he approached. “Where’s your friend Nkama?” he asked.

  “He sent me,” Juku replied. “Just give
me the gun so I can get the hell out of here.”

  “You got cash?”

  “He gave me two hundred bucks . . .”

  “Damn, you’re short,” Gregorian said. “But I want that gun out of here. Give me the cash and you can sign a note for the other five fifty, plus a hundred interest, that’s six fifty. Your friend’s a son of a bitch.”

  “All I know is he’s holed up in my apartment with some pregnant teenager from New York, along with my girlfriend. I want him gone, too.”

  “You worried he might do something?” Gregorian asked.

  Juku nodded. “He’s got another piece and he’s paranoid as shit,” he said, putting the money on the counter. “Just get the gun so I can get out of here.”

  Gregorian picked up the money. “Wait here.” He disappeared through a doorway.

  A few seconds later, instead of Gregorian, a large black man emerged from the back room with a gun pointed at him. He was followed by two more men, also with their weapons leveled at him. Two others rushed in the front door.

  “POLICE! HANDS UP!” the large black man shouted.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Juku screamed as he was thrown against the counter and frisked by one of the other officers. He was then spun back around, though the officer kept an iron grip on his arm.

  “Where’s Anthony Johnson?” the black man asked.

  Juku felt faint. “He’s at my apartment.”

  “Which is where?”

  “On Turk Street,” Juku replied. “He won’t leave.”

  “How do you know him?” the detective demanded, still pointing his service revolver at him.

  “He used to come into a club where I DJ’d a few months ago. He just got out of San Quentin and talked a big game. Then a couple weeks ago, he showed up with his girlfriend, Lupe, and asked if he could crash for a few days. But every time I ask him to leave, he threatens us.”

  The man nodded. “What’s your name?”

  “Moto Juku . . . well, that’s my stage name. It’s Mike Sakamoto.”

  “I’m Detective Clay Fulton, New York Police Department. These other gentlemen are detectives with San Francisco PD.” Fulton held up a photograph. “You recognize this man?”

  “That’s him, that’s Anthony Johnson.”

  “Do you know him by any other name?”

  Juku thought about it. “He called himself Deme Nkama or something like that when he pawned the gun. But I’ve never heard him use it any other time.”

  “Ever heard of anybody named Nat X?”

  Although the detective’s face was impassive, Juku could feel the tension in the other man’s body. He shook his head. “Sorry, no. I’d tell you if I had. I just want that guy out of my life.”

  Fulton thought about it, then asked, “Do you think you could get him to come out? Maybe if you said Mr. Gregorian would only take a note from him personally?”

  Juku shook his head. “I don’t think so. He’s paranoid and hasn’t hardly come out of the apartment for two weeks. I think he’d know something was up.”

  “And if he does, then we may have a hostage situation,” Fulton said to the other officers. He motioned to them to step out of Juku’s earshot. Whatever he said, one of the officers hurried outside while talking on his radio.

  Fulton returned to where Juku was nervously waiting. “I can’t guarantee I can get him out of your life, we may need you to testify against him.”

  Juku’s eyes got big. “What did he do?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Fulton said. “Like I said, I can’t say he’ll be out of your life if you’re needed at trial. But with your help, I think we can get him out of your apartment. Does he have a car?”

  “Yes, an old Lincoln parked right across the street.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Please, my girlfriend . . .”

  Everybody turned when the officer who’d left returned and nodded. Fulton smiled. He called to the back room, “Where’s the gun?”

  Another detective appeared and held up a bag containing a silver-colored handgun with a mother-of-pearl grip. “Right here,” he said.

  “Anything?” Fulton asked.

  “Nope, wiped clean. No prints.”

  “How about the cartridges?”

  “Partials.” The detective held up another bag with six bullets. “Maybe something.”

  Fulton pointed at the gun. “Let me have it, please,” he said, and picked up the backpack Juku had arrived with and put both on the counter.

  “What are you doing?” Juku asked.

  “Anthony Johnson asked you to come get the gun,” Fulton said. “You’re going to take it back to him as soon as a little something I asked for arrives. Now let me tell you how this is going to go down.”

  Forty minutes later, Juku returned to his apartment. He found Johnson standing at the window looking out on the street.

  “Where the hell you been, Juku?” Johnson demanded.

  “He had other customers and made me wait until they were gone,” Juku replied. “He wasn’t happy about getting two hundred bucks.”

  “Fuck him,” Johnson said. “You get it?”

  Juku held up the backpack. “Yeah. I had to sign a note to get it back. But just leave and we’ll call it even.”

  Johnson snatched the bag out of his host’s hands and unzipped it. He grinned as he pulled the revolver out and snapped the chamber open, spinning it to see that it was loaded. “There’s my baby,” he cooed.

  “You got what you want, now leave,” Monique said.

  Johnson glared at her and walked over waving the gun. “You know what, bitch, you got a big mouth.”

  “Yeah, bitch,” Lupe parroted. “You got a big mouth.”

  “Hey, get the fuck out—” Juku began to say as he tried to step between his girlfriend and her antagonist. But Johnson clubbed him to the ground with the gun.

  “Shut the fuck up.” Johnson leaned over and put the barrel of the gun against Juku’s head. “You want me to pull the trigger, Jap boy?”

  Monique screamed. “No, please,” she begged. “I’m sorry. I’m just afraid of guns.”

  Johnson looked up at her, his eyes bright, insane. But then he laughed and the madness subsided. “Afraid of guns? Smart girl.” He put the gun in his waistband. “But don’t worry, we’ll leave in a day or two.”

  Suddenly, a car alarm went off outside. Scowling, Johnson went over to the window and looked out. “What the fuck? Some homeboy is trying to break into my car.” He rushed out of the apartment.

  Reaching the street, Johnson pulled the revolver from his pants and held it at his side as he walked over to a large black man who had gained entry to the Lincoln. “Step back, motherfucker,” he said. “I want to see your face before I blow your fool head off.”

  The man backed out of the car with his hands up. But when he turned around, it was Johnson who looked confused. “I seen you before,” he said.

  “New York City,” Fulton replied. “I’m a cop, and you’re under arrest for murder.” He reached inside his jacket for his gun.

  “Fuck you, pig,” Johnson said, and pulled the trigger. But instead of the explosion of a hammer striking a shell to send a bullet on its way into the cop’s brain, there was a dull click.

  “Dummies, dummy.” Fulton pointed his gun at Johnson with one hand and wrested the revolver from the killer’s grip with the other. “Get on the ground.”

  Other police officers came running up. But as Johnson started to follow the command to get down, one of his hands began to reach for the pants pocket where the .380 waited. He stopped when he felt the cold steel of the detective’s gun on the top of his head.

  “Go ahead, asshole, please,” Fulton said quietly, hopefully. “I want you to go for whatever you got in that pocket. There’s nothing I’d like better right now than to blow your brains all over the street.”

  Johnson’s arms went back out to the side and he lay flat as another officer frisked him and removed the gun. He looked a
cross the street and saw his former host and the two women emerging from the building, escorted by uniformed police officers.

  It dawned on him then that he’d been betrayed. “I’ll get you, Juku!” he screamed. “I’ll get you!”

  Juku shook off his police escort and walked over until Fulton intercepted. “Fuck you, Johnson,” Juku said. “You’re going away, and I’m going to help put you there.”

  “Don’t worry about him,” Fulton said. “Somebody’s waiting for him back in New York who will make sure the only way he gets out of prison again will be in a pine box.”

  16

  PETE VANSAND YAWNED IN THE back of the courtroom. Bored and tired of sitting on the hard wooden bench, he could hardly keep his eyes open as the district attorney waited patiently for a prospective juror to answer his question.

  “Mrs. Fenton, would you please tell us your thoughts about how police officers interact with residents and business people in the black community?” Karp had asked the middle-aged black woman.

  Her first response was to nervously glance at the court security officers standing at the back doors, and then he caused those in the courtroom waiting for her answer to chuckle when she asked, “Will I get in trouble if I say something that might not be nice?”

  Karp smiled and shook his head. “No, no. Your honest, deeply held thoughts are what this process is all about. It’s the only time we’ll have to share our thoughts during these proceedings. So what would you like to say?”

  The woman hesitated and fidgeted in her seat. “Well, I . . .”

  “Come on, get on with it,” Vansand muttered under his breath. Jury selection for The People of the State of New York v. Anthony Johnson had been going on for two weeks, and there was one more seat to fill. The voir dire, the questioning of the prospective jurors, had been mildly interesting as Karp and the lead defense attorney, Margarite Nash, jockeyed for advantage. But Vansand was ready for the grand finale of what he considered his story—one of those rare times when the journalist was actually part of the story, and he intended to reap the benefits.