To Funk and Die in LA

by Nelson George

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  A BRIEF MUSICAL MEETING

  "You hungry?"

  "No," Night said. "The food there was pretty good." He stared out the window at a couple of Lululemon-clad women exiting a yoga class. "Ahhh, man. It's good to be alive."

  "Were you worried you weren't gonna be?" D asked.

  "I thought about it when I was in rehab. There's so much great shit to do. What if I don't do my share? You know, I feel like I'm just a damn footnote in this music game. What if I could have been a whole chapter, maybe a big old book?"

  "Most people are footnotes."

  "Back when I was hustling in New York I used to sleep with old women to pay the bills."

  "I remember."

  "That whole time I dreamed of being in the position I'm in now. But what do I do? I fucked it up. I fucked it up a couple of times."

  "It ain't over, Night. Your man Amos tried to fire me but I work for you, not him. You just gotta focus. You gotta bring it home this time. By the way, while you were away I sequenced the LP."

  "Really?" Night said, surprised. "You are taking this manager shit serious."

  "Maybe too serious." They both laughed. "I wanted to see how certain things fit together. I want you to hear it. Even if you hate it, I think it might inspire you as we move forward."

  "Okay, manager—or is it producer?"

  "I have another surprise for you. I got stems for some unfinished Dr. Funk tracks."

  "Oh shit. They at the studio?"

  "Word."

  "Well, word the fuck up. Studio, please."

  * * *

  On first listen Night didn't move. He just took it all in, letting the music wash over him. On the second and third plays he paced around the control room, his fingers stabbing at imaginary keyboards and plucking an air bass. D and engineer Allen Hughes just sat back, excited by Night's excitement. After combing through hours of Dr. Funk material, D had selected three tracks from the mid-eighties for Night to study—electroboogie productions that had both live and programmed drums. Night fixated on the first track, which had the unadventurous name of "Groove #13." After the fourth play Night sat on the sofa next to D and said, "He told me it would all work out."

  "Who?"

  "Dr. Funk. He came by the rehab facility."

  "What?"

  "Yeah. Everyone there knew him. He'd been in a few times himself. He came to the front desk and asked for me. Told me he'd left some music where I could find it."

  "Meaning with me?"

  "I wasn't sure, but when you said you had some of his music, I knew. He said it would get to me. He also said some extra-fly shit. He said, I made it legendary. You make it contemporary and we'll both go to heaven hand in hand. Ain't that some shit? That's a lyric for sure."

  "Was there a woman with him?"

  "Serene?"

  "That's her."

  "Yeah, she had a serious vibe. But really sweet too. Kinda sexy in a Serena-and-Venus way. She told me I should write about tragic love. Dr. Funk cosigned it. Something to think about . . . Maybe a concept album about doomed love. I like that."

  "Did she say where they were going?"

  "He just said he'd check in with me once they got off the road. I had the impression they were headed toward the Bay. Crazy, huh? You think they're fucking?"

  "Nope. But then again, with Dr. Funk crazy is the norm. Okay, check out my sequencing in case you wanna fire me."

  "Oh yeah, D," Night said with a smile. "You as good as gone."

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  BITTER LIKE ALE

  Sam, the minivan driver, sat in the parking garage at LAX waiting on a text from Mr. Chung, who was arriving on Korean Airlines from Seoul. Sam was a ruddy-faced, middle-aged man who took life as it came, which for him was mostly a dark and bitter ale. He wasn't tough enough to be a baller or big enough to be a brawler. So Sam did what he could and, when the opportunity arose, took whatever fell from the tree.

  Sam glanced in the rearview mirror at "Victoria," or whatever they were calling her. He looked at her long, pale, slender legs and the short aqua dress that clung to her body, hoping this young woman wouldn't be too worn by the time she was passed down to him. She was maybe seventeen, but Sam didn't want to linger on her age. He didn't want to feel the slightest pinprick of conscience. Tonight, if she met his approval, she'd be Mr. Chung's companion.

  A fit, stern-faced black woman in a dark-blue tracksuit opened the minivan's passenger-side door.

  "What are you doing?" Sam shouted.

  "I'm here to ask you a question," Serene Powers said. "Where will Young Joon Jung be tonight?"

  "Get out of my car!" Sam yelled.

  Serene replied by grabbing Sam's right hand and bending back his wrist. Sam screamed. Victoria just looked on. She'd already seen enough bad things on her journey to LA to know silence was usually a virtue.

  "Again. Where will Young Joon Jung be tonight? Wilshire Acupuncture? The Sixth Street Tavern?"

  Sam's body contorted in so much pain that he literally couldn't speak. Serene let go of his wrist.

  "Wilshire . . . He's at Wilshire every Tuesday. Please, no more," he howled.

  "Cool," Serene said. "I was just checking. If I were you, I wouldn't hang around here any longer tonight. But driving is gonna be a problem for you. Normally I'd say Uber back home, but—" she reached into Sam's blazer and took his phone, "you're gonna have to cab it. Tell your next employer to get you a new one."

  The driver's door then opened and Ride reached in with his huge hands and plucked Sam out from his seat and tossed him to the ground. Upon seeing Ride, Victoria looked like she wanted to scream, but she thought better of it when the side door opened and another large man wearing all black entered and sat down next to her.

  "Hello, my name is D Hunter," he said. "We won't hurt you. What's your name?"

  "Victoria," she said.

  Serene cut in and asked the same question in Korean.

  Victoria told her that she was actually Mina Bo-Young.

  "Okay," Serene continued in Korean, "we are going to help you and the other girls get home. But you have to help us."

  Serene, who'd had considerable practice dealing with scared teenagers, laid out her plan as Ride guided them away from LAX en route to Koreatown. Men were busy exploiting woman all over the world, Serene thought as she spied two men hassling a young woman in front of an airport hotel. She couldn't save everybody. She could whip men's asses twenty-four hours a day and not make a dent in their bullshit. So she focused on high-value targets like Young, the king pimp of K-Town.

  "Young likes to personally break in new girls," she explained to D and Ride, "and we know two other women just came in from Thailand. I just wanted to make sure we were going to the right spot."

  "Are you gonna kill this guy, D?" Ride asked.

  "If I have to."

  "No you won't," Serene corrected him. "I need him alive to gather information on his business. I'll turn him into the police when I'm ready. Are we clear on this?"

  "Yes," D said.

  "You one bad bitch, huh?" It was Ride.

  "Yes I am, but you already know. Don't doubt me."

  "I never met a woman like you," Ride said, sounding lovestruck.

  "No one has," D seconded.

  Serene was not flattered. "Gents, your presence is useful, but I will do what I have to do. You feel me?"

  She turned on SiriusXM Radio and found an oldies R&B station. While they rolled across Los Angeles toward Koreatown they grooved to One Way's "Cutie Pie," the Bar-Kays' "Holy Ghost," Lakeside's "Fantastic Voyage," and other vintage recordings. Mina thought her three black rescuers were so alien they might as well be from Mars, though the way they sang along to the songs made them seem a bit less scary.

  * * *

  War's "Slippin' into Darkness" was playing as they parked down the block from Wilshire Acupuncture. Ride pulled Big Danny's shotgun from beside his seat. D had the family Beretta in his waistband. Serene
tucked a Glock into her pants. "I normally work alone," she said. "I brought you two along because of what happened to D's grandfather, but know that I'm in charge. Follow my plan. Follow my lead. Everyone in this minivan clear?"

  Both men said yes and then exited the car, heading in different directions. Serene reached out and took Mina's hand. "You just need to be brave for a little while tonight and you'll be free of all these nasty men. Okay?"

  Serene told Mina to press the bell by the front door, then walked up behind her and did the same. She glanced up at the security camera and smiled, hoping she looked like a potential customer coming to loosen some kinks. The door buzzed open and a matronly looking Korean woman in hospital whites waved them both in.

  "I'm here for an acupuncture treatment," Serene said. "I have a sore shoulder." As the Korean woman sized her up, Mina disappeared through a beaded doorway.

  "Victoria," the woman called over her shoulder, "where is Mr. Chung?" When Mina didn't answer the woman followed her through the beaded doorway, giving Serene the opportunity to open the door again and let Ride in. Hearing the door slam, the Korean woman rushed back over to the small desk, but Serene got there first. She grabbed the woman's left arm and pulled it roughly. This woman was no punk; she was ready to tussle but Serene made that moot with a short, quick left hand. The woman was down and out.

  "Damn!" Ride said.

  Mina emerged from the back with a set of keys, which she handed to Serene. "This way," she said, then led them through the beaded doorway and down a hallway of closed doors. Mina nodded at the last door on the left. Serene reared back and kicked it in. Young Joon Jung, his gut protruding and his burgundy bathrobe open, was checking messages on his cell phone as a young Asian woman sucked his dick and another young woman looked on.

  Young had a very bad next minute. Startled, the young woman bit down on his dick. Ride then walked over and punched him in the chest before Serene slipped a hood over his head. As they dragged Young into the hallway, a white man in shorts walked out of an adjoining room with needles protruding from both shoulders and his back—evidently he didn't know about the clinic's side business. "What's going on?" he asked, but no one answered.

  Mina had rounded up three girls from the various rooms—Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese, all under twenty—who were talking nervously in broken English. When two new Thai girls emerged from the room, Mina came over and tried to calm them down. The idea of freedom had changed her from a suspicious, quiet girl into a leader.

  Serene heard a grunt behind her. She turned to see D knocking a burly but out-of-shape security guard to the ground with a fist upside his head.

  "We have Young," she said to D, who walked over to the hooded man and smacked him in the center of his face, breaking his nose and loosening his top front teeth.

  "Is the back room ready?" Serene asked.

  "Follow me," D said, grabbing Young by his bathrobe and pulling him through a door at the end of the hall. Inside that room were security monitors, computers, and S&M paraphernalia—most of it smashed to bits. He picked up a backpack from the floor. "I got the drives."

  Serene pulled out her phone and sent a text. Ride, Mina, and the five girls now gathered together in a corner of the room. Serene glanced at her watch and replied, "Let's move everyone into the alley." The scared girls, the hooded Young, and the three rescuers walked through the back door that D had broken and stepped into the alley. The girls were growing hysterical. Who were all these black people?

  A dark van came flying down the alley. A white woman—late thirties, with a military bearing—hopped out, nodded at Serene, and opened the van's back door. Serene and Ride ushered them into the vehicle. D stood with one arm around Young's neck. This was one of the three men who helped kill his grandfather, but the only one he'd had the opportunity to truly hurt.

  "Give him to me," Serene demanded.

  "Why? So he can pay someone off and go free?"

  "I am set up to handle this, D. You'll never get him on that murder charge. With the drives and the girls I can get him punished for human trafficking. Seriously punished. All you are about to do is get yourself a manslaughter beef."

  The white woman came up behind Serene, whispered in her ear, and waited to see D's play. She smiled at Ride with all the warmth of an ice cream truck freezer.

  "You taking him to the same place you took Dr. Funk?" D asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

  "No. Not anywhere close. Dr. Funk will be back in Los Angeles very soon. I'm sure he'll fill you in then. But this man here—before he sees the inside of a police station he'll see the dark side of hell. That I promise."

  Reluctantly, D handed Young over and then watched as the white woman strapped him into the passenger seat of the van.

  "You'll hear from me, D," Serene said.

  "Will I?"

  "Yes. You have heart. I don't know many men who do." She leaned over and hugged him.

  Ride said, "What about me?"

  "You want a hug?" she asked.

  "Hell yeah."

  Serene walked over and kicked him in the thigh, sending the big man to the ground. "Ride," she said, "don't you ever put your hands on a woman again."

  "Fuck you," Ride said.

  She said nothing and jumped into the back of the van, which then disappeared down the alley.

  Ride struggled to get to his feet, bracing himself against D. "Let's get the fuck outta here before those fools back there wake up."

  "Yup," D said, guiding the big man away from the back door and toward a much-needed meal.

  "How about treating me to dinner? You know any good Korean barbecue places?"

  "Shut up," D said. "We're having Mexican."

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  HOPING FOR JUSTICE

  "So," Detective Gonzales said, sitting in a DTLA Starbucks, his cappuccino steaming before him like a gift waiting to be opened. "I looked into the Espinoza situation and, yes, he was stabbed to death in a nearby correctional facility, assailants unknown."

  "Was he a professional hit man?"

  "He had multiple assault charges. A conviction for battery. In fact, he was awaiting sentencing for a fight at a K-Town massage parlor and was found with $2,000 cash in his possession. It doesn't sound like he was a real shooter—just a thief who ran afoul of the wrong people."

  "Any theories why he was killed?"

  "Espinoza had some affiliation with Calle 18. It's possible they heard about his windfall and someone demanded tribute. He was living in Pico-Union, which was their turf." The detective took a sip of his coffee, giving D a chance to mull over this inconclusive information.

  "So is my grandfather's case now cold?"

  "If you can't produce his records and your friend Red Dawg isn't helpful, then it's hard to know how to proceed. This Espinoza guy is interesting but dead. We never found a gun that matched the murder weapon. It's hard to connect the dots now. If Espinoza was hired to rob or kill your grandfather, then that business angle is our best bet for finding suspects."

  D sat back in his chair, having decided that he wouldn't hand over his grandfather's records since he was confident they'd found the perpetrator in Young Joon Jung. Moreover, his tangled connections with the Pak family would make any further investigation by LAPD deeply embarrassing. What would Aunt Sheryl think of all this? It was a secret that needed to be kept from his family, as well as Detective Gonzales.

  "Okay, detective," he said, "I will speak with my family. If my grandfather's list turns up, I will get it to you immediately."

  "Sorry about how things have worked out so far. But know that I'm keeping the case open for now. Don't worry."

  D walked out of the Starbucks and onto the street, wishing he could have had more confidence in the justice system. But there was nothing in recent American history that guaranteed justice for his grandfather, an old black man who had lived on both sides of the law. So he'd gotten the best justice he could. He hoped it was good enough.

  As he went to pick
up the Electra 225 from a municipal parking garage, D checked his smartphone. There was a text message from a number he didn't recognize, containing a link to an English translation of an article from the Korea Times. The headline read, "K-Town Businessman Indicted for Human Trafficking."

  He scrolled through the story:

  Prominent Koreatown businessman Young Joon Jung was arrested for human trafficking by officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In total, twenty-seven people were arrested at approximately fifty brothels in Operation Gilded Cage. One hundred and fifty illegal aliens have been detained and are being interviewed to ascertain whether they are victims of human trafficking. Young Joon Jung, who owns a variety of businesses in Los Angeles, is a member of the Koreatown Chamber of Commerce and has been a fixture in the neighborhood for two decades.

  D texted back, Thank you, Serene, and went to find his big green ride.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  FLOATING THE FUNK IN CUPERTINO

  Dr. Funk floated down onto the outdoor stage with a bit of digital flutter. But, by the time his platform-shoed feet landed atop the piano Night was playing, the hologram was as solid as technology would allow. In fact, his purple-and-red jumpsuit was so vivid that Night, his band, and the whole backyard seemed to fall under its shadow.

  D and Al stood stage right, hoping Night would remember all the cues. At rehearsal earlier that afternoon, the floating Dr. Funk had spooked him, causing Night to come in late on the song and step on the vocals of his digitized duet partner.

  But on this bright Northern California afternoon, before a crowd of Silicon Valley bigwigs, most of whom knew Dr. Funk's music primarily via hip hop samples, Night was in a groove. Get in where you fit in, D thought as he gazed at the young white and Asian folks gyrating in an amalgamation of several eras of hip hop dance by their picnic tables.

  Dancing down near the front of the stage was R'Kaydia and her Facebook fanboy. She was dropping it like it was hot for the social media geek, and he was ecstatic at her pulsating pulchritude.