“Yeah. You know who he is?”
At the same time, Hart, LaBarbera, and Batts said, “King Funeral.”
CHAPTER 12
One hour later, LaBarbera, Hart, and Trevon “Li’l Mayhem” Browning, eighteen, from Seven-Four Hoover, were driving to the home of Thomas Barrow, aka King Funeral, a menacing, muscular five-foot-nine thug, reputed, with his crazy young homies, to be responsible for keeping at least two Southside mortuaries in business.
King Funeral’s only sister, Bonnie, four years his elder, had once saved his life when she stepped in front of Eight Trey Gangster Crips who were about to shotgun her brother in an alley off 83rd and Denker. Bonnie had dated an Eight Trey shot caller and they honored her request to spare her brother. After, she asked Funeral one thing. Like a black female Don Corleone, she told him, “One day I’m ask you for a favor.” This favor would be to help her son Lyles “Tiny Trouble” Davis, stay out of prison. Bonnie had already lost her oldest son to Corcoran. At the precinct, Lyles had called his mom and she had called her brother to cash in that long-ago earned favor. King Funeral had no choice but to help the sister that saved his life.
Funeral kept the two-room dump right on 74th and Hoover where he came of age, but lived in a four-bedroom home in Palm-dale, fifty miles from the city. Hart was at the wheel, LaBarbera shotgun, and Li’l Mayhem in the back, uncuffed after a vigorous frisking. The road peeled away in fast-forward mode, and Hart was relentless on the gas pedal. Just fifteen minutes into the hour drive, Browning started complaining.
“I’m hungry.” The cops agreed, and five minutes later they were at the drive-in window of the In-N-Out Burger in Sylmar. Li’l Mayhem leaned up to Hart and said, “Gimme two double-doubles.”
Hart turned and looked at the criminal.
“Oh, yeah. Please,” added Mayhem.
Hart placed the order, four double-doubles, three fries, three large sodas, two Dad’s root beers, one orange Crush. “How do you know about double-doubles? Not an In-N-Out Burger anywhere near the Southside.”
“Man, don’t you know where the juvenile hall is? In Sylmar. Every time I got out, my boys used to take me here for a celebration. You feel me? I even know the burgers not on the menu. Animal style, protein style, four by fours. Just ’cause I’m from Hoova, don’t mean I ain’t worldly. I know plenty about the world. Geography and shit. You cops just think we stupid. We just temporarily trapped is all. I’m getting out and seeing the world. Seeing all the capitals. I bet I know more world capitals than you, cop Hart. That used to be my specialty in geography class.”
“It’s Detective Hart. But, all right, my Hoova,” mocked Hart. “What’s the capital of California?”
“Come on. Do I even have to answer that? Shit, Sacramento. Okay, wise man. How ’bout Libya?”
“Libya? Libya. Man, Libya’s capital is Tripoli. Okay, let’s go to Columbia.”
“Bogotá.”
“Well, I guess you should know that one since you’re doing business with those dudes,” said Hart. Once their food arrived, they drove away and Hart continued, “Okay. Now, where were we? How about Russia?”
“Man, it ain’t even my turn,” said Mayhem as he wiped cheeseburger juice off his mouth with his hand and smeared it on the rear seat. “But, if that’s the best you can come up with, then Moscow.”
Hart smirked. “You know, Sal. It’s kinda sad the kid here thinks he knows capitals because he knows three or four. Like, he knows Moscow and that makes him kinda smart for just knowing Moscow is the capital of Russia. You know what I mean? The sad thing is, he’s right. He is smart compared to his partners. At Fremont or Manual Arts or Gardena? Knowing that Moscow is the capital of Russia gets you put in the advanced class.”
Hart continued, talking like it was just the two of them in the car. “It ain’t their fault. It’s the parents. It’s the teachers who don’t care. It’s the decrepit classrooms with seventy kids in them.” Hart looked in the rearview mirror at Li’l Mayhem. “Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s good you know places like Bogotá and Tripoli and Moscow. Seriously.”
“Gee, thanks. I’m so glad I got your approval of my brain. But, maybe we oughta play for a few ducats. A Benjamin or something. You’re so smart. Putting everyone down in my ’hood. Let’s play the capital contest for some cash.”
“I don’t want your money. Plus, you probably don’t have but two dollars in quarters and dimes on you anyway.”
Mayhem reached into his pockets, and LaBarbera suddenly turned around, his right hand on his Glock 40, his left hand over the seat about to grab the Hoover’s throat, even though they had thoroughly patted him down earlier. “I’m cool, I’m cool. You already done frisked me.”
Mayhem slowly pulled out a tattered wallet and some cash. He had fifty-four dollars. “Let’s go for fifty. I even let your boss hold the green.” He handed LaBarbera fifty dollars.
Hart looked pissed off. Sal laughed. “Johnny, he’s calling you out.” Hart reached into his sport coat chest pocket and checked his cash. He had sixty-five dollars.
“Lebanon.” Hart said.
“Beirut. Madagascar?”
“Madagascar. Damn. Madagascar. Madagascar.”
Mayhem smiled. “Saying it over and over ain’t gonna help you, my detective. First round knockout. Give it up, Smarty Jones.”
Hart was getting a bit red. His foot was getting even heavier as the Vasquez Rocks slipped by on the left. The Ford hit 105. “Slow it down, A.J.,” Sal said. “Funeral ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“All right. I don’t know. What is it?”
“Capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo. Pay up.”
“First of all, even if that is right, this isn’t a sudden-death game. It’s just one strike.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“I’m saying it now. No game ends with one strike. We are doing three strikes, then you’re out.”
“Figured you like that three strikes rule. I got a homie in Pelican Bay on three strikes doing life because he swiped some lasagna. Believe that shit? Your whole life for some lasagna. Three strikes sucks.”
“Well,” said Hart, “Here’s your first strike. Liberia.”
Mayhem crossed his thin, but hard arms, sat down lower in the seat, and smugly said, “Monrovia. Named after President James Monroe. Just happens to be the only non-American capital city named after a U.S. President. How’s that for a dummy from the Southside? And for you, my cop, I wonder if you know the cap of Pakistan.”
Hart, after some serious brain searching, got Islamabad, but he stumbled soon after losing on Mongolia—Ulan Bator—and North Korea—Pyongyang—while Mayhem scored with correct answers to Finland—Helsinki—and Uruguay—Montevideo.
“Fuck,” said Hart.
Li’l Mayhem silently stuck his hand toward Sal who handed him his fifty back. Hart handed over fifty. “Don’t say a word, scum. I’ll pull this car off this lonely desert road here. Got me a shovel in the trunk. You’ll never be found.”
Mayhem didn’t say a word, probably figuring that was not out of the question. They sped in silence out of the craggy hills and into the suburban desert pot marked with cookie-cutter homes. This was once considered the promised land for middle- and lower-middle-class whites and blacks, a place where you could get away from crime and smog. But some of Utopia had turned into a desert nightmare. Sections of it were a lightweight version of Los Angeles, complete with gangs and drugs and bored teenagers whose virginity was long gone by fourteen.
“Take that next off ramp. Freeman Street,” Mayhem said. “Then go left like two miles and turn right on Daisy Hill Lane. That’s where he lives. I forgot the number, but I know the house.”
“Daisy Hill Lane?” said Hart, breaking his silence. “What a fuckin’ pussy name for a street. Why don’t they just call it Pussy Street? His wife must be in charge. I always knew he was a punk. How else would a man live on Daisy Mae Lane?”
“Daisy Hill Lane.”
“Daisy Hill. Dais
y Mae. Same thing. You think this asshole who used to shout ‘I’m from Hoover Street, this is Hoover here.’ You think he’s bragging, claiming ‘I’m from Daisy Mae Lane.’”
Mayhem knew better than to correct. A minute later they turned into King Funeral’s driveway.
CHAPTER 13
Detective Sal LaBarbera, the purported inventor of the “One Knock” policy, rapped his punched-through-many-a-wall knuckles on the black metal security door, rattling it like a gigantic tuning fork. Five seconds later, King Funeral, all 220 rock-hard pounds of him, opened the door and shook his shaved head. “I’d know that knock anywhere.”
“Damn, Fune, I figured you’d have a butler opening and slamming doors for you by now.”
“Cut the shit, Sal. You know I can’t trust no one. No one but the police and my rivals. One to lock me up, one to shoot me. Least I know where they coming from. Everyone else, you gotta be leery.”
“Thomas, we ain’t coming to lock you up,” said Hart. “Been there often, often done that.”
“Don’t remind me. C’mon, c’mon in. I don’t want my neighbors to see me associating with riffraff.”
Funeral was dressed casual nice, loose-fitting black slacks, a green-and-orange silk short sleeve and orange Nike Air Jordan 3 Joker sneaks. “Nice wheels, boss,” said Li’l Mayhem. “The Jokers are sweet.”
Funeral ignored him and led the cops into his living room, offering them a seat on a cushy seven-foot orange leather couch. A rust-colored carpet was strewn with big pillows and a chrome coffee table displayed two big books—one about Rome, one on Muhammad Ali. Li’l Mayhem pointed to the Rome tome and said to Hart, “Capital of Italy.”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“Hey, King,” said Mayhem, “did you know that Muhammad Ali won his Olympic Gold medal in Rome, or is that why you put them books out together?”
Funeral shook his head and looked at Hart and LaBarbera. “Almost nothing more annoying than a young brother who thinks he can educate a man. Maybe, I should tell you to wait outside with my rotty-shep or go wash my Escalade or clean my gutters, but just go in the den there and get us something to drink. You know what a den is, right? It’s a nice room.”
“I know what a den is, boss,” said Mayhem. “I even know what it stands for. D.E.N. Decorated extra nice. Maybe you didn’t even know that.”
“Your boy is one annoying piece of a shit,” said Hart to Funeral. “What I don’t understand is how you haven’t had him shot yet.”
“It is a mystery,” said Funeral. “Now, boy, spare us your bullshit and get me a drink before I decorate your face extra ugly. Get one for yourself, too. Then shut the fuck up. Detectives, how about some con yak? Relax for a minute with an old enemy.”
Hart glanced over at Sal who just shook his head once.
“Get the Rémy, youngin’. The fancy bottle.”
“Not a bad place,” said Sal.
“Compared to what? My old dump my momma raised us on 74th? Yeah, it’s a long way from there. But I ain’t forgot my peeps.”
“We know.”
Li’l Mayhem returned with Rémy XO and two snifters that he set on the coffee table and poured two deep drinks.
Funeral lifted his glass. “To all the guys, mine and yours, who didn’t make it through their tours.” The detectives nodded. Funeral poured a smidgen on the glass-topped chrome coffee table. It pooled up like balsamic on extra virgin, settling into a small glowing amber pool.
Hart surveyed the room. Sony eighty-inch HD TV. Bose sound system. Some framed photos, including one of King Funeral in an orange tux next to a gold Lamborghini Aventador J roadster. “Gangster life has been good to you,” said Hart. “Anyway, you know why we’re here. Get the tape. Let’s hear it.”
Funeral took his nose out of the snifter. “This some sweet stuff. I remember when you was at the Seventy-Seventh, Sal. I always had my forty of Olde English whenever you came by. ‘Member that one time I talked you into taking a swig?”
“Stuff was nasty,” said LaBarbera. That was ten years ago, and the stale taste of the warm malt liquor still registered on his taste buds’ memory.
“But, I gotta tell you, you showed my Hoovas that a cop could be a human,” said Funeral. “I’m serious. For a lot my niggas, that was the first time they saw a cop be kinda cool. They used to them uniformed motherfuckin’ robots. Anyway, I always kinda appreciated that in a strange way.”
“Great,” said Sal. “Get the tape.”
“Hold on, Sal,” said Funeral. “I’m gonna get it in a minute. I even made a copy for you, but I’d like to know what kind of goodwill is comin’ my way offa this. I know this is big-time important for y’all. I’ve been reading the Times stories. I see the TV news. I know y’all under a whole lotta pressure. I need serious credit here. Look, I know where we stand. I know I done a lot of wrong in my life, but I been trying to go legit. But I still have some boys to consider like Tiny Trouble. He’s my sister’s boy. So I’m just going to ask you two, you gonna forget how you got this tape?”
“No,” said Sal. “You been up front with me and I appreciate it.”
Hart shot the senior detective a look.
Funeral continued, “On the other hand, I can’t have it out there that I gave up this tape. Can’t have the streets know where you got it from. Just say police have discovered in a search or something, but you cannot say I gave it to you. Even if it is just to nab a journalist. Any cooperation at all with the police and well, ya know, the boys, young-and-old school, don’t approve of that. A man could get shot offa this. Even me. I’m only doing this, and I want you to understand this, I’m only doing this to score some points for my sister’s kid and maybe get a little grace in the future. Plus, I really don’t give a fuck about Lyons. He been making a career writing about our misery and he try to come off like a brother, like he down with us. Now he trying to be a hero, when he ain’t nothing but a fuckup. If this tape was some Sixty confessing he kilt Jesus Christ, I would not give it up. You feel me? But the reporter, shit.”
“Jesus. Play the fuckin’ tape, Thomas.” said Hart. Funeral shot him a look but pushed the remote’s play button. Silence in the house. The tape rolled.
CHAPTER 14
The voice of King Funeral: So why you want to do a story on the Hoovers? We been cool lately. It’s them Sixties niggas and them Grape Streets, they be the ones starting shit. The fuckin’ Mexicans, too. F-Thirteen. Florencia. Do something about them, fool.
Mike Lyons: I had a big story on the Rollin Sixties already. About Wild Cat. You know him?
Funeral: I know him. We cool. We was at the SHU in Corcoran together.
Mike: I didn’t know that.
Funeral: You don’t know a lot of shit. You just think you do. You just think because you know ten percent and all them other reporters at the Times only know one percent that you the gang man, the expert, but you don’t know what the fuck is going on.
Mike: Educate me, then.
Funeral: I’m not your teacher.
Mike: Look, first of all, you don’t know anything about me and my past.
Funeral: I don’t need to.
Mike: I lived in South Bronx slums and East St. Louis. Where I lived makes the worst blocks on Hoover Street look like Disneyland.
Funeral: Fuck you. New York is old, motherfucker. Them’s the old days. John Corleone times. This is today. We got sets all over the country. Even the Bloods are setting up, taking over in New York. Even in the Bronx. L.A. gangs is the takeover crews. You feel me? Invaders. Marauders. Just because we got some flowers on some blocks don’t mean shit. We also have the firepower. So don’t try and impress me with your badness. Please.
Mike: All I’m saying is, you know what, forget it. You probably ain’t never been out of California and you know everything.
Funeral: Oh, so you gonna come down to my crib and disrespect me.
Mike: I ain’t disrespecting you. I wouldn’t do that. I’m just tryin’ to get the true story. We going to
do a story on you guys, you’re a famous set, you know that.
Funeral: We ain’t no damn set. We a straight-out cartel.
Mike: Okay, but the other reporters and the editors they’re fine with just talking to the cops and shit and writing and publishing the story about the Hoovers that way. I’m the only one reaching out and trying to get the story from you guys.
Funeral: Reason no reporters come down here is they liable to get their ass shot.
Mike: Worse things can happen.
Funeral: Like what? What, you don’t care? Is that right? You that much a badass reporter you don’t care if you get shot? Nigga, please. I oughta shoot you myself. And I might just do that, but I know you put out a safety net, prob’ly told everyone at the paper where you were going. Probly bragging to everyone, too. “I got me an interview with King Funeral.” Am I right? Tell me.
Mike: Yeah, I ain’t gonna lie. I did tell my editor I was gonna interview you, but only because I needed an excuse to get out the office early and go to my bar.
Funeral: I can smell it. You wanna drink? Hoovers got hospitality. Give you a drink, then shoot your ass.
Mike: Well, I’d hate to get shot sober.
Pause. Some liquid noise.
Mike: To the boys who couldn’t be here.
Funeral: That’s cool. I don’t know. I don’t trust reporters. Maybe you ah’ight for a reporter. Compared to what, though?
Mike: Eddie Harris, Les McCain.
Funeral: Got that right. I do gotta say I ain’t never seen a reporter anywhere ’round the ’hood ’cept when there’s a shootin’ and all the police is here. All the TV crews. But that don’t even happen that much anymore. Guess shooting on Hoover ain’t news anymore. But no one, not a one, ever comes here when nothin’s going on. ‘Specially at night.
Mike: I’m here and nothin’s going on. And it’s night.
Funeral: Yeah, I guess you are. Now let me ask you a question. What you just said. You just talking tough or trying to impress me? ’Cause if you are, you wasting your time and mine. But, what you said, “There’s worse things than getting shot.” What you mean?
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