“Where have you been?” asked Francesca. She was sipping a glass of red wine, sitting on a small green leather couch in the cool, dark den, her favorite room for relaxation. But she wasn’t relaxed.
“Trying to solve a murder, baby. Murder is my business.” I knew the fake tough-guy routine never worked on her, but I enjoyed it. Sometimes in life you just have to entertain yourself if no one else will. “Seriously, guess who got killed last night while we were at that gas station getting my car?”
“What do you mean ‘guess’? That’s a stupid request. Is this some twisted, morbid game show?”
“King Funeral.”
No reaction. None.
“The guy that taped me and played it for the cops. That guy that basically got me fired. He got killed last night. Near where we were. They actually were thinking maybe I did it because I was down there last night.”
“Michael, you live in a strange world. It’s like another planet from what I know.” Francesca could be warm, sexy, and cuddly. She was extremely generous and giving to friends in need. And she could be distant and cold. “Look, maybe this isn’t going to work out. I know we’ve been together for a while and had some great times, but I’ve been thinking, we are just so different. So, so different. When people ask us how do a chef and a crime reporter get together, it’s a good question. We are from two completely different worlds. That scene last night at the jail. At the gas station. You with a knife. That’s just not me. And we argue about little things. I don’t like to argue, even over little things. Like the other night when I told you I’d never heard of that singer they showed on that commercial for those soul singer CDs.”
“Jackie Wilson.”
“Yes. Hey, I’m sorry I never heard of Jackie Wilson, but you had to make fun of me.”
“Come on. I was just playing with you. I don’t care if you never heard of Jackie Wilson. I just thought it was kinda funny since you love Van Morrison so much.”
“What does Van Morrison have to do with it?”
“Forget it. The main thing is I love you.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t love me.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t tell me who I love. I love you. We have a great time together. When you aren’t working.”
“Well, someone has to work.”
I took the blow with a smile the way Roberto Duran would do when Sugar Ray Leonard stung him. But it stung, all right.
“No, I think sometimes you take advantage of me, Michael. You use me. We go to Italy. We go to the French Laundry. You are the big shot at Zola. I know you like that. Walk in and everyone treats you like you’re the boss. They all like you, but it doesn’t hurt that they think I am your girlfriend.”
“Of course, I like that. But, that is not the reason I love you. And what do you mean they ‘think’ you’re my girlfriend? You are my girlfriend.”
“I think maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a while.”
“What? What do you mean a while? A day?”
“I mean maybe a few weeks. I mean maybe a lifetime.”
“A lifetime?”
“Let’s see how it goes. We are just too different. Maybe you should find yourself a wild girl who knows who Jackie Wilson is.”
“Fuck Jackie Wilson.”
“Why don’t you go home now? Don’t call me.”
“Just like that?”
“That’s how it happens. Just like that.”
I knew when not to argue. I headed for the door. On my way, I tried to kiss her on the lips, but she leaned way back. It reminded me of the way Ali used to lean back when Ernie Tyrell threw a jab at him.
As I drove home, I put on an oldies station hoping for a long shot that Van Morrison would come on singing “Jackie Wilson Said.” He didn’t.
That night and the next morning, I was as low as I had been for ages. Lower than when I lay in the hospital bed with bullet wounds. Lower than when I was fired. I could feel the sadness and weakness deep in my bones. I had a great gal and my stupid actions were going to take her away.
I longed to call her, but knew well enough never to call from a point of weakness. Our routine was that I would leave her house in the morning and she would call after her morning walk. That next morning I ached for that phone to ring. She usually called my home number because my cell phone was so erratic in my hilly neighborhood. I was too old for this. Acting a damn fool. I waited for the call from her. It didn’t come.
• • •
I had to keep moving. I wanted to stay home and drink and drink and listen to Sinatra and pass out on the couch. But, thank Zeus, I didn’t.
Instead, I went to the county jail looking for Deputy Sarkis Sarkisian. He was there and gave me some time in a small office near the visitor’s room. I asked if he had heard anything about my shooting, any rumor, any buzz, anything at all about King Funeral, a smidgen that I would find of interest. He told me a story that fascinated me. Not only did the story itself fascinate, but the mere fact that I had never heard it before was perplexing.
In the mid-1990s, Sarkisian told me, there was a period where both Big Evil and King Funeral were trustees at the jail. Because of their reputations, the sheriffs used them to help keep the relative peace inside. Big Evil ran the entire Bloods module and King Funeral ran the large module containing the Hoovers, who were then Crips, as well as several other Crip sets. There were other trustees as well, Wild Cat from the Rollin Sixties, and guys for the Mexican gangs, usually shot callers for Geraghty Loma, White Fence Florencia, 38th Street and 18th Street. In return for trying to keep their modules quiet—they were not always successful—these trustees were granted extra access to the jail, more time outside their cells, better food, and use of a phone when they wanted it, which was often.
“One day,” said Sarkisian, “Funeral and Evil, they got along all right, anyway they were relaxing in a small, empty barracks-like room when a sadistic old white deputy sheriff named Dean Boylston came in with a new sheriff he was training. Boylston was about like fifty or so. Been at the jail his whole career.”
“Yeah, and?”
“Well, this was around the time they were having those gladiator fights in the SHU up in Corcoran. So Boylston orders, more or less, Evil and Funeral to get it on. Whoever wins the fight gets even more privileges.”
“So what happened?”
“Long story, long, bloody story short, Evil kicked his ass.”
“I’d have had my money on Evil.”
“No, you don’t understand. He kicked his ass.”
“What’s not to get?”
“No, I mean literally. He got him down, started to choke him out. Then Boylston made him stop. Kept screaming, “No killing! No killing!” So Evil straight out pulls Funeral’s jailhouse pants down and his underwear and literally kicks him in the ass. Then with his other foot, kicks him again and says, ‘I kicked your ass twice.’”
“Whoa. Humiliation.”
“That’s not the worst of it. This Deputy Boylston, he got one of them big old video cameras and he taped the whole thing. With that tape, you know, that old tape. What do they call it?”
“Not eight millimeter?”
“No, no. Used to be all popular, till DVD came around.”
“Oh, ugh, VHS.”
“Yeah, that’s it. VHS. He tapes it, even does some commentary like he’s Howard Cosell, ya know, like ‘in this corner from Seventy-Fourth and Hoover, da da da’ and down goes Funeral and so on. He tapes it and keeps the tape. He goes to Evil and told him something like ‘if you brag about this fight, or if I hear about it from anyone not in this room, then your privilege is gone.’ And to Funeral, he tells him ‘if you don’t keep the Hoovers in line, I’m gonna release this tape and everyone gonna see how big bad King Funeral got his ass kicked. Twice.’”
“So no one ever saw the tape?”
“As far as I know, no gangbangers did, but who knows for sure? Some deputies saw it. I never did, but that’s how I heard about it. Boylston died a few years back. B
ut, his partner, the rookie, he’s still around. I think you might have heard of him. He joined LAPD years ago. He’s a detective now.”
“What’s his name?”
“Johnny Hart.”
• • •
I drove to Southeast Division, aka 108th Street. I didn’t even call. I figured if Johnny wasn’t there, I could go to the projects or visit my sister in G-Town.
But, Hart was there.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the tape?”
“What tape?”
“The one where Big Evil kicks King Funeral’s ass at Men’s Central.”
“First of all, I was told to keep that secret. And what does it have to do with you?”
“You kidding me? Big Evil and King Funeral have a lot to do with me. I was accused by you of killing one. I made the other one famous. This tape might have something to do with my shooter.”
“How? Mike, believe me I thought about it and if there was a connection, the slightest hint of a connection, I would be on it and you would know about it. But, I can’t see any connection at all to what’s been going on with you.”
“It’s too much of a coincidence. And I don’t get why Evil never told me this story.”
“It’s a big deal to you, but to Evil it probably wasn’t that big of a thing. How’d you find out about it anyway?”
“That’s what I do, try and find out about things. Like who shot me, since you haven’t found out. But, there’s got to be a connection. Does Sal know about the fight, the tape?”
“Of course. What do you think? You think I keep things from LaBarbera?
“We talked about it and couldn’t come up with any tie-in to you. We are on this case, but like I told you time and again. It doesn’t look gang related. Not yet, at least.”
“Were there copies made of that tape? Do you think the Hoovers got a hold of it and that’s why Funeral got splattered?”
“I don’t know. The deputy who filmed it, who started the fight—”
“Boylston.”
“Yeah. What an asshole. But, he was my trainer when I first was working jails. Anyway, I don’t know if he made copies or not. I know he used to threaten to release it to fuck with Funeral. Funeral would’ve lost all his power if that tape got out. This was before the Internet was super huge like it is now with all this YouTube shit and all that, but even then it woulda made the rounds.”
“I bet it got out.”
“No, I think Funeral was killed because someone, maybe Mayhem or even his nephew, what’s his name, Tiny Trouble, might’ve bragged about how his uncle helped him get out jail by dealing with the police.”
“This is maddening.”
“Hey Mike, we’re still on your case, but, and I think Sal might’ve told you, we’re not on it exclusively. We’re getting fresh homicides, two, three a week. They need us on other stuff. We’re not giving up at all. We’ll get the guy. I just don’t think it’s related to that tape.”
“You still have the tape?”
“I never had it. I saw the fight, when it happened. But, I never saw that tape. I think Boylston took it to his grave. Maybe now he can still taunt Funeral with it in hell.”
I wanted a drink in a friendly place. I went to the Redwood Saloon. I hadn’t been there since that jacked-up news conference. I had a double Jack on the rocks.
“Hey, Jack,” Danny said, “You see the paper today? The mayor and the chief’s gang list?”
“No. What’re you talking about?”
“They made a list of the eleven worst gangs in the city. Said they were gonna target them. Put them out of business.”
“Never happen. Who made the list? Where’s the paper?”
“Where it always is. You haven’t been here for so long you forgot?”
I walked over near the juke, went through the paper, found the story, and walked outside.
On the sidewalk where I was shot, I read the story of the eleven worst gangs in the city as selected by the chief and the mayor. It was bullshit. The list contained five of the toughest gangs in Los Angeles, but had another six that were insignificant. They’d left out at least five gangs that were not only among the worst in the city, but among the worst in the nation. The Bounty Hunters, Florencia, Eight Trey Gangster Crips, East Coast Crips. The mayor and the chief of police were so clueless as to what was going on in the streets that they didn’t even put the Hoover Criminals on the list. Their leader had been killed, they play a major role in the jail system, they have turf that stretches for miles, and they weren’t even mentioned among the eleven worst gangs. The powers that be know so little about what’s going on in their own streets that they probably hadn’t even heard about Funeral’s killing.
Ten minutes later, I called Laurie Escobar, a friend of Francesca and the editor of the Los Angeles Weekly. I told her the story I wanted to do: blast the mayor and the chief for their errant gang list and come up with the real eleven, or in my story, the twelve worst gangs in the city. The Dirty Dozen. Corny, I know, but Escobar liked the idea, but was uneasy about me doing it.
“I have to tell you, Michael, I’m a little uncomfortable about having you write for us at this moment.”
“Because of that tape, right?”
“Yes, because of that tape.”
“Laurie, you know Francesca pretty good. Do you actually think I would risk losing her to get shot? It’s absurd to even think that. Yeah, that was me on the tape. Everyone knows that. I never denied it, but I wasn’t fired for that tape. It was an excuse to get rid of me because Doot and Tinder and I didn’t get along. Plus those editorials that Collinsworth wrote and the tape embarrassed them. Laurie, this is a good story. We can beat the Times, and beat the mayor and the chief. I know I can get LAPD gang and homicide detectives who will agree with my list. The mayor and chief have one gang from Torrance and one from Canoga Park on their list, but they don’t have the Hoovers, the Bounty Hunters, Eight Trey Gangsters, Florencia. Their list is a joke. There’s no reporter who knows the streets like me, you know that. Gimme a shot.”
She agreed to give me the story. I think her friendship with Francesca helped me. The pay would be fifty cents a word, twelve hundred words. I could sure use six hundred dollars.
She gave me the number and e-mail of Doris De Soto, the hard-charging news editor at the Weekly. De Soto loved the idea. Anytime she could criticize the mayor and the chief in one story, she was all aboard.
It was Friday afternoon. The Weekly came out on Thursdays, so Doris told me to get it to her Monday evening or Tuesday morning at the latest, and they’d run it next week. Cool. Or, as Big Evil would say, “bool.”
The Weekly was a free paper loaded with advertising for tit enlargement, butt reductions, butt additions, even anus tightening. Nevertheless, the paper was well regarded. They often beat the Times on political and street stories and their television, movie, and restaurant critics were respected.
For the next four days, I felt a live wire coursing through my veins for the first time since Francesca told me to go home. I was hitting the streets with the vigor of the Michael of old. I had a routine. I would spot my potential interviewees, drive a bit past them, get out the car, notebook in hand, a minimum of two ink pens handy, and, as nonchalantly as possible, step to them. Could be one guy, could be seven. “Excuse me, fellas, my name is Michael Lyons. I’m a reporter. I’m working on a story about that stupid list the LAPD came out with about the worst street gangs in the city. You guys see that list?” I quickly wanted to establish that I was against the LAPD’s list.
It is uncommon to get a hit on your first foray into the streets. Usually, you strike out several times before you get something worth writing down or even get someone to talk. I spotted a possible gang member on foot turning from 53rd Street onto Hoover. At first, as is so often the case, I figured it wouldn’t be worth it and I’d drive on. But, like a good reporter, I decided what the hell, don’t be lazy, so what if I strike out. I’ve struck out a lot. So did Babe Ruth.
I drove past. Parked along Hoover near 54th Street. I confronted the kid, and this time I hit a home run. He was a for-real Hoover Criminal. The Hoover, nicknamed Set Trip, gave me a good interview, some good quotes. “Why weren’t the Hoovers on the list? We the most hated gang in L.A. We even hate each other.”
“Is that what happened to King Funeral?
“I don’t know nothin’ ’bout that,” Set Trip said, glancing around as he spoke. Chances are the young thug knew who had killed King Funeral—most likely another Hoover. Like all the super gangs in L.A., they had plenty of in-house killings. Maybe it had been Funeral’s cooperation with the police over the tape of me that did him in. The detectives wouldn’t find out until someone was arrested for a felony and, utterly fearful of prison time, gave up the shooter of Funeral as a deal to get cut loose. That guy would have to leave town.
I knew it was a long shot, but I played it anyway. “Say, you heard about that reporter who was shot downtown, right?”
“Yeah, I heard. We ain’t as stupid as everyone thinks. I read the paper. I even heard about a couple wars we was into. They should just send the Hoovers over there to Iraq and Afghanistan, Syria too. We clean that shit up in a week.”
“Yeah. But the reporter. You hear anything on the street about who shot him?”
“All I know is who didn’t shoot him,” Set Trip said.
“Who didn’t shoot him?”
“Hoovers didn’t shoot him. He’d be dead if we shot him. Same with Grape Street. I don’t know but if I had to guess, I’d say it was a loner.”
“A loner? What’s a loner?”
“A loner, you know, a loner, some guy not in a gang, not in a set. Just some guy that reporter pissed off.”
I don’t know why, but I couldn’t resist. “Say, Set Trip, that reporter who got shot, that was me.”
“No shit? Well, I be goddamn. I be getting interviewed by somebody famous and shit. Good for you. Welcome to the club.” He lifted his shirt and showed off a serious stomach scar. Then he wound up and gave me a hard side five.
I was really just joking with King Funeral when I said getting shot has its benefits, but, truth be told, in certain neighborhoods getting shot does get you some quick respect. Ask Set Trip.
Southside (9781608090563) Page 14
