Back at home, I was strong enough to get back to exercising vigorously. I was doing a set of push-ups, sit-ups, and the all-important pull-ups when the phone rang.
“We lost Term.” I recognized Detective Sal LaBarbera’s voice.
“Term? Terminal?” I asked incredulously. “Big Evil’s brother?”
“Lyons, how many Terminals are there?”
“What happened, Sal?”
“Someone called in a body by that Alan Engle, what is it, that ugh, recycling center. Not recycling, but—”
“Scrap metal place. The big one near Jordan Downs, right?”
“Right. So patrol goes over there. It’s a homicide. They call over here and Waxman goes over and it’s Bobby Desmond. They barely recognized him, but he didn’t have a shirt on and they saw all the tats. Waxman said he got two in the chest, but a major-ass beating, too. Face smashed in like with a baseball bat or pipe, plus tire treads on his body. Broken leg. Was run over. This was very personal. Term’s not getting an open casket.”
“Holy smokes. Must be the trend. Like King Funeral. Jack ’em up so bad the family can’t even say good-bye at the funeral. You tell his parents yet?”
“I went over there, but no one was home. They’re working folks. We’re trying to keep it quiet until they know. I’m telling you, but I am counting on you to be quiet, too. Oh, wait a minute. You can’t do a daily for the Times, can you? Sorry, I forgot you got your ass got fired.”
“Screw you, Sal. What about Big Evil? He know?”
“He probably knows by now. I wanted to tell him myself, but he was in the hole. He’d jacked somebody.”
“Typical Evil.”
“Anyway, he’s getting or got out today. Apparently there’s a guard up there, some white guy, who is on good terms with him, and he said he’d tell him.”
“Anyway, Sal, what do you think? In-house?”
“Most likely. Terminal had a lot of enemies. Eighty-Nines and the Swans. Not to mention all the Crip sets around them. It was definitely not a random thing. The level of violence was, like I said, very personal. Whoever killed Terminal had someone they loved killed by him.”
“Or his brother. Well, that narrows it down to what, thirty, forty people. Look, this could be a great story. An Evil follow-up. Can I tag along? Be the fly on the wall?”
“The other day we questioned you in a gang murder, and now you want to tag along with us? What makes you think you aren’t still a suspect in the Funeral killing?”
“There you go flattering me again. Come on with the tagalong. I’ll make you famous again.”
“Last thing I need is for you to make me famous. I’ll pass. But maybe I’ll run that by the bigwigs. Who are you working for?”
“I could freelance Terminal’s death to a lotta places. Maybe the Weekly. Maybe a magazine piece. I got that worst gang piece coming out Thursday in the Weekly. I’m back on it.”
“Call me tonight, Mike, but, you for sure can’t go to the Desmond household tonight when we notify.”
“Why not?”
“You know why. First of all, it’s not right. Second, she still hates your guts. From that magazine story on Evil. I saw Mrs. Desmond a few weeks ago when we were doing a ’cide on Eighty-Seventh Street and Wadsworth. She drove by and stopped when she saw me. Said it was too bad you didn’t die when you got shot.”
“Lovely woman. She raises the two biggest killers in the city, and I’m the bad guy. You know what, Sal? That’s okay. I know she tried to raise them, worked hard and all that. Sal, to change the subject, my shooting, anything new?”
“Still working it, but nothing yet. We’ll get the guy.”
“What about King Funeral? Who killed him?”
“It’s looking in-house. There haven’t been any paybacks on the Sixties or Eight Treys or Main Street or anybody else. Of course, no witnesses have stepped up. Probably have to wait till some Hoover gets busted, starts to panic about being locked up, and gives up some Funeral info as his get outta jail card. Same ol’, same ol’. Word might have leaked that Funeral gave us the tape, and, you know, any cooperation with the police, even if it was to bring you down, even to get someone out of a jam, is a serious violation of the gang code.”
“Say, wait a minute, Sal. What about me?”
“What about you?”
“Funeral gets killed. Terminal gets killed. I get shot. Don’t you see a pattern?”
“No. Not unless you’re a shot caller.”
“It just seems like a coincidence, and I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Michael, that’s my line.”
“Yeah, well, I’m gonna find out before whoever shot me comes back.”
“I’d tell you to be careful and don’t do anything crazy, but I’d be wasting my time.”
CHAPTER 21
The day before the Desmonds were to receive that hard visit from detectives, their son Cleamon got an intriguing visit from a stranger. To visit an inmate in California prison, the inmate must send you a visiting form, which is completed and returned to the California Department of Corrections, the CDC, in Sacramento.
But, there is a way around the visiting form. If the prison is more than two hundred miles away from the address on the potential visitor’s California driver’s license, they can visit an inmate unannounced as long as the inmate approves the last-minute in-house request. Abnormal is the case when an inmate, lonely for contact with the outside world, will deny a visit even if he has no idea who the person is.
Eddie Sims presented the top-of-the-line fake ID he had purchased near McArthur Park a week ago for eighty-five dollars. He used the name Barry Sanders, the great Detroit Lions running back, another favorite of his son, Payton.
Cleamon “Big Evil” Desmond was brought into the visiting area by four guards, one of whom held a shotgun. Desmond was denied his “super trustee” privileges after he knocked out a guard during a basketball game. Now he was cuffed, his hands locked to a chain around his waist, his feet shackled. Six foot three, about two-thirty. Graceful in chains. No unneeded fat. Fast as a jaguar. His muscles bulging, but not muscle-bound, his skin shiny, his eyes bright.
A guard released his right hand so he could use the phone to talk through the thick wire-meshed glass. Cleamon was curious who was here to visit. Sure wasn’t the real Barry Sanders. A minute later, Sims came in, sat down, and picked up the phone. It took thirty seconds to come on.
“Who are you?” Evil asked as the phone went on.
“A friend of Bobby’s.”
“Bullshit, motherfucker. If you a friend of my brother’s you wouldn’t be calling him Bobby.”
“A friend of Terminal. I didn’t want to be rude.”
“Rude? To me? That’s impossible.”
“I doubt that. I mean, don’t you think if someone did something wrong to you, or bumped into you without saying excuse me, wouldn’t that be rude?”
“That would be stupid. There’s a difference. Now, who the fuck are you?”
“I’m a friend of your family,” said Sims, starting to feel the security of the thick glass between him and the man who had killed his son. “In fact, I met your mother the other day. Nice lady. Lovely lady. Nice-looking older woman.”
“Now you starting to get stupid.”
“No, I meant that as a compliment. I’m sorry, I meant no disrespect. But, Bobby, I mean Terminal, your mother kept calling him Bobby, I guess that’s why I keep calling him that. Anyway, I used to work on Terminal’s car. He was a good rapper. Could get down. He used to freestyle at the shop where I worked.”
“Where was that?”
“Frank’s over on Central and Ninety-Second.”
“Yeah, know that place. So why you here?”
“Well, I was in the area, visiting a cousin in Eureka and figured I would come by and pass on my respects and condolences to you about Terminal. Like I said, he was a friend. He even showed me the video of you kicking Funeral’s ass.”
“Shit, I forgo
t about that. I wonder how he got it.”
“I don’t know. But, anyway, I been locked up myself and I know it’s nice to get any visit, even from a stranger. Break up the day, you know?”
“I know.”
“It must’ve been hard to hear the news about Terminal while you up in here. Were you two close?”
Big Evil thought back to another lifetime when he and his little brother used to play on the streets and sidewalks of 89th Street and 88th Place. That’s as far as they were allowed to roam. Their parents made life for the brothers in their volatile neighborhood as good as they could. Cleamon and Bobby rode new Schwinns when the other kids on the block had rusted hand-me-down Huffys. The Desmond parents opened a new world for their sons with trips to Yosemite and Mount Shasta and Pismo Beach while the other kids on the block never ventured west of the Harbor Freeway, the Westside. Cleamon smiled when he thought about those trips. He laughed when he thought about how he taught his little brother how to fight, especially the time he broke Bobby’s nose and told the crying eight-year-old that one day he would thank him for that punch.
When he’d heard the news of Terminal’s violent death, he’d felt only rage. But now, thinking back on those days, he got a rare visit from sadness, felt the unfamiliarity of moisture in his eyes.
“Man, whoever you are, he was my little brother. Things didn’t work out how my parents planned it. But, he was my little brother. I loved him like only a brother can. I wish I could have been with him that night. I wish.”
“That’s sad, man,” Eddie said, as serious as can be. Then he went for the kill shot. “You know, Big Evil, I had a wish just this morning, too.”
“Oh, yeah? What that be?”
“I just wish you could’ve been there and seen little Bobby’s face when I shot him and drove my car over and over his punk ass.”
Evil boiled, his rage about to explode. Sims didn’t let up. “Gonna be casket closed for Bobby. Face looked like a watermelon dropped from the Empire State Building.”
With peerless fury, Big Evil slammed his forehead into the wire-stuffed glass separating him from Sims. An unholy wail, like that of a Cape buffalo-gored lion, erupted from Evil’s crazed mouth. The guards rushed to him, yelling for backup. With his one free hand he struck the glass three furious times before the guards tried to tackle him. One guard went for the shackled, but bucking legs. Not a smart move. The other went Barry Bonds on Evil’s shoulders with his nightstick. Two more guards entered the room. One with a taser that had little effect. Five men were on the shackled Evil while he screamed, “That guy killed my brother! He killed my brother! Get him! Get him!”
The guards were too busy to pay attention to the words. They were struggling to get the upper hand. They didn’t have it. Two more guards showed up, both with shotguns that were useless in the cramped quarters.
By the time they finally got control, Eddie Sims was halfway to Eureka. At first, he considered just dumping the Cutlass at the airport and getting a flight to Los Angeles, if they had those flights, or to Sacramento. He didn’t want to chance driving seven hundred miles. They probably got some video in the lot, in the prison itself. It would be sad to leave the Cutlass. He knew he would never see it again.
But, then he gambled. Who is going to believe Big Evil? And after the fight he most likely put up—Sims had seen the opening salvos—he must certainly be in the hole by now with no communication with the outside or inside world.
So he drove home. However, just to play it cautious, he took the long way, heading down from Eureka, then heading east at Fortuna along meandering Highway 36, past sycamores and pines, past fields of wild fennel, to the two-horse towns of Platina and Red Bluff. There, he checked into a sixty-one dollar room at the Red Bluff Travelodge on Antelope Boulevard.
He put on the local news channel based in Sacramento and saw nothing about himself or Big Evil or Pelican Bay. Checked the papers in the morning. Nothing. Why worry? No one would believe a killer like Evil.
He filled the gas tank and zipped down Highway 5. Just past bankrupt Stockton, he chicaned over to Highway 99, which went through the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, past Modesto, Merced, Fresno, Visalia, Corcoran, and Bakersfield before it met up again with Interstate 5.
Seeing Big Evil try to attack him, even through bulletproof glass, was terrifying. He loved it. If he died right now, it would be worth it for that moment. But he moved on to more pleasant thoughts—his next victim.
CHAPTER 22
Detective Ralph Waxman was the primary investigating the wicked killing of Terminal, but it was Sal LaBarbera and Johnny Hart who went to the Desmond household to give the parents the grim news. Sal had known the family over twenty years, having first come in contact with them while investigating an assault when he was a patrolman. A black man had been badly beaten, pulverized into a temporary coma in the alley by the garage. Young Cleamon was questioned but not arrested.
Throughout the following nearly two decades, after the brothers, Cleamon and Bobby, had grown into Big Evil and Terminal, LaBarbera would visit the home on a nearly monthly basis, looking for one or the other of them, sometimes both. Mrs. Desmond would be pleasant sometimes, curt others. “I am sick and tired of you coming around here every time someone gets shot. Are Cleamon and Bobby the only suspects in this city? Get out of here. Tired of your damn knock, too.”
So, when they heard that powerful single knock on the door, the Desmonds knew who it was.
“Hello, Detective Sal. Johnny. So who did Bobby supposedly shoot now?”
“Can we come in?”
“Here we go again. I’m too tired to argue. I had a strange day.” She unlocked the security door. They walked in.
Hart couldn’t resist. “What was so strange about it?”
“What do you want?”
“Is Cleveland home?” At that, Cleveland Desmond entered the front room.
“Sit down, ma’am, Mr. Desmond,” Sal said in a quiet tone.
“Oh, my God. No!” Mrs. Desmond said in a trembling, terrified murmur. She began moaning, slowly, like a forty-five hit single on thirty-three rpm. Her husband rushed to her side and put his arm around her. “Please, Jesus. Please. Don’t let it be. Please, Jesus.”
Sal shook his head. “I’m sorry. Bobby is gone. They found him in an alley in Watts this morning. I’m really sorry to tell you this.”
Betty slumped, her husband guided her down on the couch. He sat next to her, gently running his hand over her hair. There were just a few tears slowly leaking from her heartbroken eyes. It was the news they had been avoiding, but at the same time expecting, for more than fifteen years. Now the news landed home with death’s abrupt splat, like a big city Sunday newspaper landing on a rainy driveway. The couple sat there in silence. Finally, Mr. Desmond said, “Let’s pray, dear.” He handed her a framed photograph of their slain son and she held it to her chest.
Sal and Johnny got up. “We’ll be outside. Please come get us when you are done. We need to talk. Our thoughts are with you.”
Johnny chimed in, “Sorry for your loss.”
They stepped off the porch and walked toward the chain-link fence near the sidewalk. Johnny said, “You know, Sal, in a way I really am sorry for their loss. Not that I’m sorry about Term getting killed. He can rot in hell for all I care. Things would be better ’round here if he got killed fifteen years ago. But, how can such a nice couple as those people inside raise two kids who killed over, what, thirty-five, forty people?”
On cue, maybe two, three blocks away, five-rapid fire gunshots were heard.
“That’s how,” said Sal. Neither bothered to call in or investigate the shots. Mere gunshots around here didn’t merit investigation. Someone needed to get hit. “I mean, if Cleamon had been raised in a nice neighborhood, with these parents, he could’ve grown up to have been a CEO or something. He was, he is a leader. He’s probably running the black rows up at the Bay right now. Bobby, I don’t know about him. He was more the joker.”
“Yeah, he was a funny guy. ‘Cept when he killed someone.”
Five minutes later, they were back inside. Mr. Desmond was cracking the seal on a bottle of Rémy Martin XO.
“Bobby brought me this Rémy three, four years ago. I never opened it. Would you like some?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Desmond.”
“Honey, have a sip with me. For Bobby.” He poured a smidgen in a glass for his wife. He poured himself three fingers into a snifter. They tapped and looked heavenward.
“I know it’s rough, but the sooner we get on this, the better,” Sal said. “I tried to get ahold of you earlier, but I didn’t have a work address or cell. We want to catch the person who killed your son.”
She gasped at that. Cleveland kissed her cheek. “Honey, Bobby’s in a better place now.”
Sal and Johnny looked at each other. “Anyway,” said Sal, “when did you last see Bobby?”
“Last night around seven, I think. It was dark.”
“Earlier, you said its been a ‘strange’ day,” said Hart. “What did you mean?”
“Well, I meant, well, the day wasn’t so strange. Just a normal day at work, but last night was weird. Now I wonder if it had something to do with what happened to Bobby. I can’t believe he is gone. Does his girlfriend know? His boys? Does Tamara know?”
“You are the first family we’ve told,” said Sal. “We kept it from the media.”
Johnny and Sal both thought not that the media would give a damn about a killing down here now that Lyons was not at the Times. Sal continued. “I tried to get ahold of Cleamon up north, but he was unavailable. There is apparently a guard there who is on friendly terms with him and he was going to tell him. So he knows. Please go on about last night.”
She told them about the visit from the man who came to the door and had a gun and claimed he wanted to thank Cleamon for saving him from the Crips in jail.
Johnny took notes.
“When did he say that happened? Cleamon hasn’t been in county for a long time as far as I know,” Sal said.
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