CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
TEO GARCIA HAS A STORY
D was out by the garage contemplating washing his grandfather's Buick when he heard someone ring the doorbell. Walli, who was upstairs in his room, yelled, "I got it!" out the window. D figured it was one of his high school pals. D knew Big Danny would have hated seeing his car with a speck of dust but worried that meticulously washing and drying it the way his grandfather had always demanded would be an all-day affair.
So when Walli stuck his head out of the backroom and said, "Someone's here to see you," D was relieved at not having to wash the car. That was until his cousin added, "Says his name is Teo." Based on Red Dawg's description, D grabbed a monkey wrench from the garage before heading inside.
"Is he alone?"
"Yeah," Walli said. Registering the concern on D's face (and seeing the wrench in his hand), Walli whispered, "Should I grab the shotgun?"
"No," D replied as he headed toward the front door, "just stand by the kitchen table while I answer the door. If I need that thing I'll let you know."
D peered through the frosted yellow glass of the front door to find a calm, middle-aged Mexican man wearing a cowboy hat with empty hands at his sides. D opened the door and stepped outside, so he'd be within arm's length of Teo.
"I'm D Hunter."
"I'm Teo Garcia. I hear you've been looking for me. Thought I should find out why."
They sat at the kitchen table, D in the chair where the shotgun was handy and Teo across from him, sipping water, his hat on the table. If Teo meant do to do D harm, he was pretty relaxed about it. Walli was standing by the front door, keeping watch in case someone nasty rolled up on the house. All he could see right now was a plump Latina playing with her iPhone in a parked Prius.
"So," Teo said, "Antonio at La Zona Rosa is an amigo. He told me he spoke to you and that you were a decent man but confused by some bad information."
"Please, Teo," D said, "unconfuse me."
"First of all, Red Dawg hates me. He's jealous that I made a music career for myself and found a new way to express myself while he stayed in the store selling sneakers. He's just a jealous man."
"So you had nothing to do with my grandfather's death?"
"Okay, you know I had history with Big Danny, and some of it not good. But hermano, I was a stupid, selfish kid who went to jail for stupidity. That's just the truth. But I hold no vendetta against Big Danny. None. If you don't believe me, I have my wife outside. I may sing gangsta corridos and praise bad men in songs, but my wife Juanita knows my heart. She will testify to my respect for your grandfather, especially after I really understood how he supported me. It's Red Dawg who now has a vendetta against me. He is trying to justify hurting me. He threatened me after Big Danny's murder so I have kept a low profile. I am a successful singer, D. I have a wife. I have a life. Red Dawg has nothing and he hates me for that."
"Are those amigos from La Zona Rosa looking for me?"
"No. I have spoken to them. They aren't happy with you, of course, but they are not out looking for you either, and I would never tell them about this house. Now, Red Dawg—I think they wouldn't mind seeing him again. And to be honest, amigo, I wouldn't mind if they found him."
"Well," D said, "I can't help you with that. But lemme see if you can answer a question: who killed Big Danny?"
"I do not know who pulled the trigger or why. But Red Dawg is blaming me and that has to stop. It will stop. But our problems should not be your problem. I will not let them be your problem, and you shouldn't let me be yours."
"Okay," D said.
Teo reached into his pocket and placed two tickets on the table. "I'm part of a big show at the Hollywood Palladium next week. I know you work with the singer Night. I am a big fan. I'd be honored if he could attend."
"Okay." D took Teo's hand when he offered it from across the table.
* * *
D was still sitting at the kitchen table when Aunt Sheryl came home from the beauty parlor an hour later. He and Walli were eating takeout tacos from a Mexican food truck.
"Ma," Walli said, "you'll never guess who came by today."
Sheryl stopped cold when he told her. "Oh my God. Are you all right?"
As D relayed the encounter, Sheryl grew increasingly skeptical. "You act like you believe him."
"He told a good story," said D. "You heard from Red Dawg since I last saw him?"
"No."
"The store is closed," Walli said. "I rode over there this morning."
"Where do you think he is, Sheryl? He needs to know Teo stopped by. Where does he live?"
"Walli knows," she muttered, then exited the kitchen and headed upstairs.
"When you're finished," D said, "let's go visit Red Dawg."
CHAPTER THIRTY
A SOUL SPINNER IN PICO-UNION
The green Buick rolled smoothly down Crenshaw as it had before on countless days and nights. But behind the wheel was a younger Hunter, a fact very much on D's mind as he came to the intersection where Big Danny was murdered. Since he'd arrived in Los Angeles, D had avoided that spot where Crenshaw met Wilshire.
But now, after all the conversations about his grandfather's death and the many false and confusing leads, he finally felt psychologically equipped to face it. Of course there were no markers for Big Danny, no recognition of his life and death. He was just one of 280 murders in LA this year. Big Danny was just a statistic. D understood this was the way things were in LA, the US, and the world. For black lives it had been like this since the first Europeans felt it was necessary to call themselves white.
When D reached the corner the light was green, so he didn't linger or get sentimental. Not a tear or a solemn moment or even a sigh. Not even a look at Walli, who sat quietly in the passenger seat. Just a quick glance around—cars, a truck, and the odd pedestrian—and he turned right. After all that anxiety the moment itself was a nonevent, like the death of an old man in a big American city.
Red Dawg's place was just past MacArthur Park, where K-Town became Pico-Union and all the store signs shifted from Korean to Spanish. Despite Red Dawg's many years of service to Big Danny, Aunt Sheryl and Walli knew surprisingly little about his home life. He definitely had a woman, but they weren't sure if she was his wife or his baby mother. Aunt Sheryl had come across pictures of a baby boy in the house a few years back and she suspected he had more than one kid.
"We did a lot of things together," Walli said, "but he could disappear for several days at a time. Just close up the shop to handle personal business. Big Danny told me not to pry. But I did look on social media. He had a couple of photos on Facebook and some posts about sneakers. No Instagram or Twitter that I could find."
D turned the 225 onto Alvarado and then onto a block of cheap apartment complexes, none newer than the late eighties. A couple of teens rolled down the block on kid's bikes. Three middle-aged Latinos sat smoking in a tight circle in front of an apartment building. Turned out that's where Red Dawg lived.
The trio stared at D and Walli as they exited the car and continued watching as they walked toward the building. D nodded in their direction. No verbal or physical response. D and Walli were moving past them toward an outside staircase when a voice asked, "You looking for the mestizo?"
One of the men, slender except for an imposing beer gut, wore a black bowling shirt with white lettering across the breast that read, Southern Soul Spinners. On the back, in the same white thread, was an image of an adapter for playing 45 rpm records on a turntable.
"Yeah," D said. "He a friend of yours?"
"A neighbor," the man replied. "Nobody with such bad taste in music could ever be a true amigo." His previously silent compadres laughed.
D said, "You don't like hip hop, huh?"
"If it ain't a 45 I don't touch it. Anyway, he ain't home and it's been awhile."
D told Walli to head up and knock on Red Dawg's door.
"What," the man said, "you don't believe me?"
"Red Daw
g is a resourceful man. He might be back. By the way, my name is D Hunter." He walked over and reached out his hand, unsure what would happen.
The man smiled and nodded at his two friends before shaking D's hand. "I'm Ruben Santiago. You related to Big Danny?"
"I'm his grandson."
"Yeah," Ruben said, "you got the look. Not to mention you driving his money-getting green monster."
"You knew him?"
"Me, him, and Red Dawg had some epic card games."
Walli came downstairs with news that no one had answered his knock.
D asked Ruben, "Didn't he have a woman?"
"She's gone. He came home one morning when I was outside washing my car. He was bloody. He was scared."
D figured this had to have been after the fight at La Zona Rosa. "So he got his woman out of town and went underground?"
"Seems so," Ruben said. "When you rolled up wearing all black I thought you were some fly hit man called the Undertaker or something. But I saw in your face you were kin to Big Danny. This one," he gestured to Walli, "has his blood too."
"Anyone else come looking for him?" D asked.
Ruben's eyes traveled up and down the block, as if he thought someone was watching. "I seen some cars with some vatos trying to look slick roll by. But Red was gone, so . . ." He offered a shrug.
D gestured to his bowling shirt. "What's up? You a musician?"
Ruben reached into his back pocket and pulled out a flyer for a party. "I'm the DJ. Come through. Soul music. No crap rap. Just good songs you can hold your woman tight to."
Red Dawg was hiding in LA or maybe had left town, though D doubted that. No need to go hunt for him. He'd turn up or he wouldn't. Having Red Dawg out of the way was just one less thing D had to worry about.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A FARMERS MARKET MEET-UP
D thought the farmers market on Fairfax might be his favorite place in Los Angeles. A maze of shops and restaurants with roots in the 1930s, it provided a cozy sense of human interaction that he sorely missed as a New York native son.
He missed the closeness of strangers. The murmur of old and young voices engaged in conversation and spiked with questions reminded D of negotiating Broadway and Houston on a summer Saturday afternoon. He'd never known how much New York's endless chatter was a part of him and it wasn't until he sat at this table at Lotería Grill, a Mexican restaurant with great chicken mole, that he realized how comforting all the noise was.
He'd been raised in chatter and its absence in LA had left him slightly unsettled. So while D sat eating chicken mole, he let his ears entertain his soul. This late lunch meeting had originally been scheduled at some fancy Beverly Hills spot but D wasn't having it. If she wanted to meet it had to be on D's turf, and the farmers market on Fairfax was where he felt most comfortable.
Still, when R'Kaydia, fine as she was in a red strapless dress, silver bracelets and matching necklace, walked toward him with her hair in a natural curl, circling her bronze face like a halo, he worked hard to hide his excitement. But when she greeted him with a bright smile, D felt his heart sink as he realized, and then accepted, that he'd now have to talk to one person and not just listen to many.
"You turned down my offer." She sat down, staring at D both sexy and hard. "You don't wanna work with me?"
"I'm getting on board as Night's comanager. My attention and loyalty goes to him first."
"Walter Gibbs told you not to sign it, didn't he? You taking advice from a silly hustler like that? He's probably still mad because I didn't fuck him when I was twenty-five."
"Walter's an old friend but I make my own decisions. Plus, things changed. My grandfather left Dr. Funk some property. I have to find him anyway. I don't need or want your money to do that. If I find him and he wants to meet with you afterward, I'll hook you two up."
R'Kaydia pouted. "Sounds like I shouldn't have tried to hire you. I should have just asked for your friendship instead. That would have been easier. People tend to like me. Do you like me, D?"
"Not really," he said, then laughed. "I'm just joking."
"Oh," she said without smiling, "an unnecessarily honest man. I guess I can respect that. Tell me, when did I become unlikable?"
D repeated that he had been joking, but R'Kaydia seemed genuinely hurt. Thin-skinned, D noted. "What I mean is that I don't know you very well."
"Well, I'm not sure I like you either."
"I'm okay with that."
"Do you always wear black?" It was a question D had been asked hundreds, maybe thousands of times. But his answer was simple and always the same: "Yes."
"What, you flunked undertaker school?" That drew a smile from D. "So," she continued, "no red, no blue, no green? You must think it makes you look serious or intimidating, huh? Don't you get bored with all that sameness?"
D tried to muster some enthusiasm for this conversation. But since this beautiful woman really seemed to want to know, he struggled not to give a rote reply.
"I don't do it for how it looks," he said. "I do it for how it makes me feel."
"And what's that feeling?"
"It makes me feel grateful. Grateful to be alive. Every day is a blessing and an opportunity."
"Colors do that for me. You look at nature and you see color. The sky. Birds. Animals. Trees. The ocean. Life is vivid, D. You're living in California now."
"Black is a color too," he said defensively. "Black is the truest color there is."
R'Kaydia sat back in her chair. "You are the most philosophical bodyguard I've ever met."
Now D had had enough jousting. He'd told R'Kaydia his decision. He'd reach out to her when he had something to reach out about. He was tired of explaining himself. Plus, he felt patronized. "Listen, R'Kaydia, my enchilada is getting cold, so I'm gonna eat it now. If you wanna keep talking, feel free."
D figured he'd offended this moneyed Hollywood lady enough that she'd leave. Instead she stood up and got in line at the Lotería counter. She ordered a watermelon juice and then came back over to the table. She stood next to D sipping on her straw.
"Stay in touch, D," she said.
And then she was off, moving smoothly through the families and the shops in the farmers market, disappearing from his sight, though, he had a feeling, not from his life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A KOREATOWN NIGHT WITH MICHELLE
Michelle told D not to bring his green monster of a ride. They'd be making moves on an LA Tuesday night, and waiting on a valet would kill the vibe. So when the homeless black man walked into the middle of Wilshire Boulevard, weaving through the lanes and indifferent to oncoming traffic, D was sitting in the backseat of a Prius. The Uber driver, a midtwenties black man in a straw hat with long seventies sideburns, was singing along to Drake's Views as he had been since picking D up, and continued mimicking the Canadian's Auto-Tune vocalizing as he waited for the homeless man to move.
Perhaps it was Drake's whiney delivery or an earlier ingestion of herb, but the driver seemed unfazed by this nuisance. D tried to be equally blasé, but the homeless man looked like too many faces he'd seen—another brother who'd lost his big-city mind with no future but incarceration or an early death. It wasn't how D wanted to start the evening.
Michelle was waiting inside the expansive, stylish lobby of the Line Hotel; she guided him back to Roy Choi's trendy Korean restaurant, Pot. The tables were white and long. The menus were on newsprint. The music was classic hip hop. The crowd was young and vibrant. A Central American couple next to them ordered and then began doing the Dougie between tables. D approved of the vibe.
Michelle wore a black J Dilla T-shirt with Donuts written across her chest. Her hair was up in a bun, she wasn't wearing a lot of makeup, but she had on some fetching perfume that wafted across the table like an embrace. D was impressed with her ability to code shift, moving from identity to identity without hinting which one was really her. As much as D loved this particular look, he wondered if daytime Michelle was the real
Michelle; was the person sitting before him just her wearing a fun uniform?
"So, how's Night's album going?"
"Good. A lot of songs. A lot of directions."
"You're involved in narrowing them down?"
"Along with the rest of the team."
"Well, it sounds like an amazing job. A lot better than keeping screaming girls away from Night."
"Better, yes. Easier, no. At least I knew how to handle the fans—"
"And the groupies?"
"Them too. But being a manager is like being a politician. It's not my natural move to the basket."
"You'll learn," Michelle said. "It took me awhile to become a saleswoman. It's trial and error. My father used to be great. You probably know there were a lot of bad incidents between the first generation of Korean merchants and African American customers."
"Yeah," D said. "Same things happened in New York. You ever see Do the Right Thing?"
"Of course."
"Well, there's that Korean grocery store right across the street from Sal's Pizzeria."
"Haven't seen the film in a while but I remember that," she said. "I was surprised. It was good of Spike to include us, though they didn't have much to do."
"At least they didn't get burned down."
"Seoul to Soul, or something like that, right? I think John Singleton had something like that in Boyz too. I'm happy our presence in African American areas was acknowledged. But we weren't central to any of those movies."
"But if those movies were made now, how do you think those same Korean characters would be doing?"
"We'd own everything," she answered without hesitation.
"Oh shit."
She laughed at his reaction. "Well, maybe not everything. But a nice chunk of wherever we were."
"You're serious."
"Of course I am."
"Well, considering I'm in Koreatown, which is booming like crazy, I guess I should be asking you what the black characters would be doing. Odds are that Doughboy would be dead. I'm pretty sure Mookie got priced out of Bed-Stuy a long time ago. That spot where Sal's got burned down? A condo for sure."
To Funk and Die in LA Page 12
