Sims just watched, trying not to shake, but failing badly.
“Now, bitch, this is an old-school tape. So old they used to have the date on the screen. You see? Now read that date.”
Sims saw the date on right corner of the screen, but said nothing.
“June 17, 1994. So how the fuck he gonna be at county in 1999 or 2000 when he was at Ironwood? Last time he was in county was in 2004 when they got him for that bogus car wash thing.”
“Maybe I got the years wrong. It was a long time ago. Maybe he came down for a court hearing or appeal or something. He saved me.”
“My brother wasn’t there, you lying motherfucker. Me and my bro are close. If he was there, don’t you think I would have visited him? Callin’ me a lousy brother?”
Terminal slapped him hard on the face.
“Take off your clothes. All of them. Shoes and your panties too, bitch.”
“What? You’re kidding, right? I’ll … I’ll … I’ll just go on my way. Sorry to bother you.”
Terminal took the gun and jabbed it in Sims’s chest. Sims was shaking like the leaves of an old maple. “Now, bitch. I heard once you get the best interviews when the liar is in the nude. Some CIA interrogation shit.” Terminal went to the workbench, took off his leather jacket, and put on some gloves.
A minute later, Sims was totally naked. His penis had receded into him. Only a nub protruded. Terminal laughed. Terminal made him sit on a chair, then tied two rounds of duct tape around Sims, who tried to object, but the 9mm at his temple put an end to resistance.
“Oh, a little dick boy,” laughed Terminal. “A tiny bit boy. Wait a minute. Is that a dick or just a fat pearl tongue? I’m sorry. I thought you were a man, not a woman.” He laughed louder, truly amusing himself. He took a gloved hand and grabbed the diminutive member and yanked it. “Maybe we can pull it out. I bet you don’t have a girlfriend. I bet your wife left you for a man. Right, cunt girl? This is too funny. Maybe I’ll put a leash on you and parade you around the neighborhood and let everyone laugh at you. Like a circus freak. You might like that, right, faggot? Faggots like that humiliation, ain’t that right?”
He slapped Sims again. At this point, Sims was hoping he just would get shot in the head and end his miserable life. How stupid I was to think I could take these people on? He began to weep.
Terminal’s laugh started small, then rose like a tsunami until its thunderous shrieking crescendo overwhelmed every sound in its wake. He had learned the laugh from his big brother.
“You know how you can tell if a guy’s a faggot? We used to do this in Folsom all the time to the new fish. You be surprised how many faggots there are. But, you prob’ly already know you a dick sucker, right? But, we are gonna make sure. Okay, little buddy? It’s a surefire way. Foolproof. And so simple. You make a guy suck your dick and if his dick start to grow and maybe even get hard, then you know he’s a cocksucker. A faggot. I’m gonna give you that faggot test right now.”
A horn sounded outside the garage. Terminal ignored it and pulled down his pants unleashing a thick cock hanging down his thigh. “You like what you see, don’t you? You starting to get hard? Let me see, cunt.”
Then the horn wailed, nonstop for twenty seconds. It was right outside the garage now.
“What the fuck? Hold on, bitch fag. Don’t worry, honey, I’ll be right back.”
Terminal pulled up his pants, went out to the alley through a side door. A young Eighty-Nine Family member, an up-and-coming player named Showboat, was idling in his red Expedition. “Yo, Term, whose fucking car is that? Man, we supposed to keep this alley clear. That’s Family policy, man. You know that.”
“Hold on, Show.”
He went back into the garage through the side door. “That your Cutlass?” The numb Sims said nothing. Terminal slapped him sharp in the face. “That your Cutlass?”
Slapped again. He went to Sims’s discarded pants and rifled through them, pulling out some keys. He gouged one of the keys into Sims’s cheek. “One final time. Now, is that your Cutlass?”
“Yes.”
“Get up.” He ripped the duct tape off. Sims yelped. “Let’s go. I am tired of you.” He grabbed him by the shoulder and led him toward the side door. He ejected the fight tape and took it with him.
“What about my clothes? Please.”
“Where you going, you don’t need no clothes.”
When Showboat saw the naked Sims, he started laughing uncontrollably. “Term, I’m sorry. I din’t know you had no date. Them Corcoran habits hard to break.”
Terminal came to the passenger side of the Lincoln and smashed the window with the handgun. “Whud you say?”
“Come on, Term, I just jokin’. Why you have to go and bust my window?”
“Buzz I can. That’s why. I’m teaching this bitch a lesson. Hey, did you ever see my brother’s fight video?” Terminal held up the tape and tossed it onto the passenger seat of Eddie’s Cutlass. “I’m a show this to you later.” Terminal popped the trunk on the Cutlass and forced in the naked, shell-shocked Eddie Sims.
Terminal drove Sims to an industrial area alley in Watts, where he parked, a few blocks from the edge of the Jordan Downs housing project. It was a desolate place at night, next to Alan Engle Scrap Metal, a sprawling compound just west of Alameda Street. Term has killed people here before. One time he killed a fellow Eighty-Nine Family member and tried to toss him over the fence in with a huge pile of brass destined for a Shanghai warehouse. But he couldn’t quite get him over the barbed wire, and the victim ended up being lodged onto the barbed wire like some sick modern art installation.
His mind was flashing back to that fond memory as he opened the trunk of the car. When the trunk was barely one foot open, a tire iron lashed out and struck him in the hip. With one hand Sims pushed the trunk open all the way and with the other struck Terminal’s right wrist with the iron. The gun, Term’s own SIG 9mm, fell to the graveled alley. The crazed naked man vaulted out of the trunk and began to savagely whale on Terminal’s face and head. In a frantic rush, he grabbed the gun and fired two shots into Big Evil’s brother’s chest.
He dropped the gun, pulled out the keys that were still in the trunk lock, jumped in the Cutlass, and headed out the alley.
He was almost to the mouth of the alley at 94th Street when he realized he didn’t have any clothes on. Sims jerked the Olds into reverse and headed back to Terminal’s body. Sims was never good at backing up and he began swerving all over the alley, twice scraping the Cutlass against a building. Heart thumping wildly, he slammed on the brakes around where he’d left Terminal and stepped out.
He looked from outside the driver’s door, but saw no body. Where could he have gone? Suddenly, a hand reached out from underneath the car and grabbed him by the ankle. Sims had parked right over Terminal. Terminal was bleeding out, but managed to grab the SIG SAUER near him and awkwardly fired across his body toward Sims’s ankles and feet. He missed. Sims jumped back into the driver’s seat. He drove forward ten feet and then reversed and crushed Terminal. He did that back and forth two more times, the Cutlass like riding a bucking bronco. He backed up some more and saw his dead enemy, jumped out of the car, pulled off Terminal’s red Fresno State sweatshirt and put it on. It was too much trouble to get any pants. Thinking in a rush about fingerprints, he grabbed the SIG, too, got in the Cutlass, and drove off as wildly as his heart was beating.
The sweatshirt was sticky. It had two holes in the front and was covered with blood. He was glad one of Fresno State’s colors was blood red. If a cop saw him, at least he would just see his shoulders, not his chest. At night, he might not be able to tell. Just don’t get stopped. All the way home, that is all he mumbled to himself. Don’t get stopped. Don’t get stopped. Don’t get stopped. He didn’t.
He pulled into his driveway, scrambled out, hysterically opening the gate that separated the front yard from the driveway leading to the garage and backyard. Inside his house, he stripped off the sweatshirt and thre
w it in a tall kitchen trash bag.
He slugged Hennessy, showered, slugged even more Hennessy, and dressed. He took the trash bag to the car and drove away. As he crossed Central and passed the Desmond household, he said out loud, “Sorry, Mrs. Desmond. You want Bobby’s shirt? It’s holy.” He laughed.
He drove a mile until he saw a Dumpster in an alley off Avalon, dropped the trash bag, covered it with other trash, and went home. He looked around the car to see if there was anything else he needed to get rid of. On the passenger seat floor mat, he saw the fight video. At first he was going to trash it, but then he got another idea that made him smile.
Some more Hennessy and he started to unwind. Started to feel proud. Started to feel real good. Like a real man. He packed some things and got in his car. Before his long journey, he had one stop to make. On Hoover Street. Sims laughed. They’d like fight films over there. And this movie was to die for.
He got on the Harbor Freeway north. Took it to the Hollywood Freeway. It was just past one a.m. when he passed Magic Mountain on Highway 5. Pelican Bay, California’s most forlorn address, was less than seven hundred miles away.
CHAPTER 19
“How are you feeling, Michael?” Duke Collinsworth asked. I was the first one to the editor’s office and was waiting rather uncomfortably for Harriet Tinder and Ted Doot to show up. I felt an avocado pit drop hard in my stomach when the paper’s publisher, Jon Friant, walked in and took a seat after a quick handshake. I had never really met him. All I had heard about Friant was that his only concern was the bottom line. I had some minor trouble getting over the spelling of his first name. In almost all cases, Johns were cooler than Jons, who, in my limited experience, tended to be pompous assholes. What a difference an h makes. Friant asked how I was. I responded, as I always did when asked that, quoting Sky Masterson from Guys and Dolls: “Healthy at the moment.” Like Friant could give a fuck how I felt.
The others soon joined in around the oval mahogany table.
“Well, I’ll be honest with you, Michael, this is not good. Not good for you. Not good for the paper,” said Collinsworth. “Not good for anyone.”
“Except Miller and the LAPD,” said Tinder.
“Yes, Miller is loving this,” said pumpkin head Doot.
“Any ideas how to get out of this mess?” Friant asked. “First off, let me just say I am here almost as much out of curiosity as I am as the paper’s publisher. I will not make any decision, but to be honest, I am curious about the whole thing. I don’t understand it.”
“What don’t you understand?” I asked, my concern mounting when I heard the word “decision.”
“I don’t understand why the hell you or anyone would say what you did. I don’t get it.”
Tinder piled on. “Yes. It’s hard for us, hard for our readership to relate to someone who wants, or at least says he wants, to get shot. Explain that for us. Please.”
“I understand it does sound strange to someone who doesn’t speak that, um, that language. Like a foreign language, it would seem strange.”
“What language are we speaking of?” asked Doot. “Oh, let me guess. Street language? Street talk?”
“Well, for lack of a better term, yes.”
“What’s a better term then?” said Tinder.
“Bullshitting.”
“Were you drinking during this interview? Drinking alcohol?” said Doot.
“The guy I was with was a big shot in one of the biggest gangs in town, and he offered me a drink of his prized cognac. To refuse would have gotten this interview off badly. He would have been insulted, and trust would have been in jeopardy. So, to answer your question, yes, I did have a bit of his cognac. A couple small sips. I was not in any way drunk or remotely close to being so.”
“Too bad,” said Tinder. “That might explain your bizarre behavior.”
“Michael,” Collinsworth said, “I understand your beat is a difficult one. It was your idea to cover gangs, and I agreed that they needed to be covered. And I do not claim to know the intricacies of that world. How language is used. Still, I would think, given what happened to you, you must understand the seriousness of this.”
“Duke, there is no way in hell I wanted to get shot. That is simply ridiculous.”
“So, it’s safe to say that you were simply joking with this guy, right, Mike?”
“That’s all it was, Duke. Joking. I love life. I love my job. Why would I risk it? It doesn’t make any sense at all. I can’t believe anyone would have himself shot. Especially me. I have a lovely girlfriend. I’m healthy. I have a great job. My dream job.”
“But,” Collinsworth countered, “you just said this is one of the biggest or baddest, as you say, gangs in the city. Killers, I would assume. Don’t you find it bizarre to be talking to one of them about the benefits of getting shot? I mean, to these guys, if I’m understanding you correctly, shooting someone is about as grave an act as anyone of us here getting a cup of coffee.”
“I don’t know how else to say it. I didn’t want to get shot. We were joking.”
“Okay, Michael, we just wanted to clarify a few things and we needed to hear your side,” said Collinsworth. “Mike, I know you’ve had a rough few weeks, plus this has got to be frustrating, so why don’t you just go home now, get some rest. We’re just gonna go over a few things, get our strategy together. You know, we’ve been inundated with interview requests, not only for you, but for us, too.”
“Duke, I am really sorry all this happened,” I said, intentionally not addressing Tinder, Doot, or Friant. “I’m really sorry to put you through this, to put the paper I love through this. I’ll know better not to joke with anybody anymore.”
“Just take care of yourself, and we’ll see you when you’re ready to come back to work,” said Collinsworth. “Don’t even think about work for a while. Get your health back. Work is not as important as health. Go home, Mike. Rest up. Feel better.”
I walked over to Greg’s desk, a slight smile on my face, a weight lifted off my shoulders. Atlas relieved of duty. Greg was on the phone, but I gave him a rare double thumbs-up and a big smile and indicated I’d call him later.
At home, I grabbed a novel, The Last Good Kiss by the late James Crumley, and laid on the couch and began to read. I was almost done with its famous opening line when the phone rang. I finished the line, “… drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon,” then picked up.
“Hello, Michael?”
“Yeah.”
“Hi, Mike, it’s Duke Collinsworth. How are you?”
“I’m good. I’ve just been relaxing, reading a good book.”
“Sorry to bother you. I talked to your cousin a little while ago, and he told me how strong you were.”
“Oh, yeah?” I replied, my curiosity redlining. Why didn’t he ask what “good book” I was reading, I thought. This must be serious.
“We really have thought long and hard about this. You’ve had some good times here and some hard times. I know you had a couple of warnings about drinking. But, though I haven’t been here long and don’t know you really well, I’ve heard from many people you’re a good guy. And I believe that. You’re old school, and so am I. You know you have a lot of friends here at the paper. Still, I have to think of the paper first. This has been a difficult situation for all of us, but I’m going to have to ask you to resign.”
Revenge. The word had a raw, wicked urgency. But, I never liked that word. Someone had messed with you and now you had to get back at them. That was revenge and who wanted that in their life. Still, in addition to finding the guy who shot me, all I could think about after I was forced to resign was revenge on King Funeral. At least I had a mission or two in life. Not the missions I wanted, just the missions I got.
Many years ago, I had bought a Special Air Service British Commando knife, a Fairbairn Sykes MK 3. I had always admired the SAS, though I’m not really sure why I got it. I guess just to have it. Display it. It’s a beautiful knife. The knife
is illegal because it has two sharp sides, but it was legal to sell it as a display item. I was going to display it all right. Right up Funeral’s ass.
What I most wanted to do, what I fantasized about, was to step to him on Hoover Street in front of all his boys and kick the motherfucking shit out of him right there. I was strong. Before I was shot, I could bench press 225 pounds seven times. I was fearless. I once took on six guys a block from the Forum in Inglewood just before a Lakers playoff game back in 1999. I ended up with a broken jaw, a busted nose, two black eyes and thirty-five stitches on my forehead from a well-swung red Craftsman pipe wrench. And I had started the fight, coming to the aid of a female friend named Omega. Just a friend, at the time.
I was a good street fighter. I once beat up a Samoan when I was seventeen. Truth be told, the Samoan boy—my friend and neighbor and Blinky’s little cousin—was only fifteen, but, still, he was a Samoan.
Yeah, I was strong and fearless and a good street fighter for a journalist.
That was the key. For a journalist. For a street gang leader, I wasn’t any of that. Well, maybe fearless. Or close to it.
So that scenario of kicking Funeral’s fat ass was just a lead pipe dream, a brutal fantasy. Besides, he’d be surrounded by a swarm of young Hoovers eager to make a rep. Still, I had to get back at Funeral for ratting me out. Maybe I’d do it the Hoover way. I’d bring my gun. Just for protection. I didn’t even know if he’d be there, at the shithole apartments where he grew up and still kept a unit, the place where I interviewed him. But I had to go check it out.
I drove along the eastern fringes of Hollywood Boulevard, two starstruck miles from where the Academy Awards are held. This was Little Armenia. I motored past the Armenian-owned flower shop, the Armenian-owned butcher and market, the Armenian-owned photo studio, and the Armenian-owned pastry shop famous locally for their baklava, to the bail bonds office run by Sharky Klian, my Redwood Saloon drinking buddy. It was in front of Sharky’s small office next to the Redwood that I had been shot, but this office was his moneymaker. The Armenian Power gang members of the neighborhood kept him busy.
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