by F. X. Toole
The blade pierced a kidney and the stomach, and Puddin went down face-first, gasping. Air Jordan hopped across him and shoved the sword into his back, the blade going through the A of USA. The sword split a rib and pierced a lung. Blood from the puncture sprayed from Puddin’s nose and spurted from his mouth, bubbled out of his back with each gasp. Puddin swayed to his feet, felt himself going out, and fell again. He clamped his mouth tight shut, trying to keep back his blood, but he coughed and red erupted from his nose and mouth again. He gagged on the blood, which made it gush from him all the more. He wasn’t dead yet, but he knew he had been killed. His body began to jerk and shudder from shock and loss of blood, his heart pumping out of control.
“Shoot the nigga,” said Fridge. “Git it over wit, shit!”
“No good,” said Air Jordan, holding a hand to his bloody head as he extracted the sword. He got down close to Puddin’s eyes. “Punk be dyin on he own blood, can you dig it?, but he still got time a think about me before he check on out.”
Shareef said, “Air Jordan be trippin.”
Air Jordan grabbed up Puddin’s equipment bag, and all four ran for his car. Inside, Air Jordan rifled through the bag, finding the wallet, then the phone. He first covered his fingers with the towel so there wouldn’t be fingerprints and then took three dollar bills from the wallet. He tossed the wallet and scattered the contents of the bag on the ground but kept Puddin’s phone.
“But the po-lice see that wallet, they know who he is.”
“That what we want,” said Air Jordan, holding a rag to his head.
Knowing Puddin was dying back at the rear of the lot, they drove slowly to the driveway at Vernon Avenue, blaring rap music from the car radio echoing between the buildings. They entered traffic as if nothing had happened, and none of the other drivers noticed them.
Puddin gagged on his blood. He tried to rise again but couldn’t; he tried to pull himself over to Vernon but couldn’t.
“Confiteor Deo Omnipoténti, “ he said, the Latin gurgling in his throat. “I confess to Almighty God.”
He couldn’t finish because blood choked the channel of his throat and he couldn’t breathe. He coughed to clear it, then got to one elbow, dipped two fingers in his blood, and fell back. He forced himself up again, and using his blood for ink, printed the letter A ten inches high on the light-gray asphalt. Consuming the last of his life, he dipped his fingers into his blood again, this time printing a ten-inch J next to the A... AJ. He coughed a great spray of blood across himself, then slid back down, the earth spinning off and away from under him.
Henry Puddin Pye cooked in the sun for an hour and a half. It wasn’t long before flies found him, began crawling up his nose. Ants walked across his vacant eyes. At three-thirty that same afternoon, a group of Mexican children eight and ten years old found him, were shocked and intrigued by what they saw. The oldest ran to the gas station on Vernon and Alameda and told the Iranian owner what was there. He dialed 911.
~ * ~
Earlier in the day Mac had stopped in San Bernardino to feed Enrique and Cannonball. Now it was 4:15 P.M. and he had hoped to drop off Enrique and leave, but he and Cannonball had to stay for a bottle of cold Bohemia with Enrique’s family, ecstatic over his win. As Mac and Cannonball swung from the 405 to the 110 Freeway that would take them to Mac’s place in Gardena, Mac was concerned that Puddin hadn’t called him. Air Jordan was on Mac’s mind, so he dialed Puddin’s number. It was answered on the first ring.
“Yeah,” said Air Jordan.
“Who’s this?” Mac asked.
“Who you think?”
“Is this Puddin’s number?”
“Puddin who?”
“Puddin the fighter.” Mac by then recognized the voice, and his head arched back in pain.
Air Jordan heard the worry in Mac’s voice, smiled, and hung up. He flicked the phone to off and smiled again. A white strawberry from Memphis was sucking him off.
Mac called back. A recorded message informed him that his party was away from the phone.
Mac immediately called Señora Cabrera. “You seen Puddin this afternoon?”
“Only this morning.”
“Air Jordan was in there again, right?”
“Pudeen make hin leave.”
“What did Jordan say to you?”
“He want money or he hurt my girls.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
~ * ~
What Mac couldn’t know at the time was that the police arrived four minutes after the 911 call. They reported the murder to the desk sergeant by radio, and he contacted the coroner’s office. While the coroner’s investigation proceeded, several members of the crew saw the letters AJ but at the time couldn’t make a connection. Once finished, they transported Puddin’s body to the morgue and contacted Willa.
“The coroner wonders if you could please come down? We need you to identify someone?”
“Identify who?” whispered Willa, dread fluttering through her.
“We believe his name is Henry Pye.”
“What he look like?”
“He can best be described as being a male African-American, as being eighteen years of age, as being six feet one inch in height, as weighing one hundred eighty pounds, and as having short, black curly hair.”
Father Carey drove Willa, her two boys, and her sister Daisy to the morgue. Willa and Father Carey were ushered to a chilled glass cubicle with one small overhead light that lit the top end of a metal gurney. On it lay a body covered in white. Beside it was a stainless steel chair. The attendant pulled back the sheet, and Willa let out a low moan. She kissed Puddin’s closed eyes and touched his lips. She sat down beside him and kissed the torn skin and broken knuckles of his hands.
“Wake up, baby, you my angel child, you my baby man.” She looked up to Father Carey, still unable to accept what was before her. “Wake him up, Father, this my dream baby. This my angel child.”
~ * ~
After speaking with the Señora on the phone, Mac forgot about going home and drove straight for Not Long. He wanted to telephone Willa but was afraid.
When they pulled into Not Long’s parking lot, Cannonball said, “Best call.”
Mac dialed Willa’s cellular number, knowing that she always carried the phone with her. A man’s voice answered.
“Who’s this?” Mac demanded.
“This is Father Carey.”
“This is Mac McGee, Father. Is Willa all right?”
“I’m about to drive her home.”
“Where are you?”
“It’s Puddin. We’re leaving the morgue now.”
Mac shouted. “What are you doin in the goddamned morgue?”
“I’m sorry to tell you. It’s Puddin.”
“He can’t be dead! How can Puddin be dead, for Christ’s sake? How could God let that happen? Why not take me?”
“Ah, Mac, if I knew that, I’d be God himself, wouldn’t I now?”
“How did Puddin die?”
“Someone did it.”
“Where?”
“In a parking lot. Some gym on Vernon.”
“Sewing Machine?”
“That was it.”
“How?”
“Some kind of sharp instrument. Maybe a sword.”
Cannonball watched Mac, then lightly touched his shoulder. Mac said, “I’ll see you at Willa’s, Father.”
The priest said, “Mac?”
“Yeah?” said Mac. His chest had caved in.
“Don’t do anything, understand me?”
“What’s to do, Father? A hundred percent of nothin’s nothin.” They first drove to the Acapulco. It was busy, but the señora came straight to them, worry in her face.
“Where Pudeen?”
“Puddin’s—” Mac couldn’t say it.
“He passed,” said Cannonball.
“He die for me,” said the señora, reaching for the gold Virgin of Guadalupe medal at her neck. “Where it happen?”
“It was the ugly.”
“I think so, too. But I got no proof.”
“I should hab poison hin the firs night.”
~ * ~
It was still light as Cannonball pulled into the parking area next to Sewing Machine. Broken red bicycle-reflector glass and wads of yellow police tape at the rear of the lot drew them to where Puddin was murdered. When they got out of the car, they saw the rusty dried blood. Mac went down on his knees, then down on his face. “My baby boy.” He wanted to die.
Cannonball knelt beside him, patted him. “Puddin a good boy, Mac, he all right now, he fine where he at now.”
Mac got to his feet and stumbled around the wash of bloodied asphalt. He passed near the AJ Puddin had left, but the angle was wrong and he didn’t see what it was.
But Cannonball saw it and knew what Puddin had left them. “Muthuhfucka,” said Cannonball, pointing. His heart felt like it turned sideways in him. “We got proof now.”
Mac saw it and his blood pounded through him like a madman racing down a tile hall. Parts of him flooded, other parts went dry. He covered his mouth to stifle a howl and forced himself to remain on his feet. He squeezed out the words, “Let the good times fuckin roll.”
Cannonball drove to Willa’s, but the house was dark. “C’mon back the gym, res’ a minute. When she home, we come on back.”
At Not Long, Cannonball brought out a half-empty bottle of Manischewitz concord-grape sacramental wine. He filled two jelly glasses.
“This my Manisherry I drink sometimes I be down.”
The two old men each drank a glass of the powerful sweet wine, then a second. Neither felt the alcohol. Mac shuddered, then lost control and wept. Cannonball sat silently in the darkness, his woolen blue cap low over his eyes.
Mac wiped his face. It was after eight. He called Willa again and Father Carey answered.
“She’s holding up, but it’s sad to see.”
“Should I come over?”
“Daisy, the boys, and a houseful of friends are with her now. Willa asked if you could come by later so you two can talk alone. She’s a mighty woman,” said the old Irish priest.
“I’ll come by after nine sometime.”
Mac hung up and noticed that Cannonball grimaced. “What’s the matter?” Mac asked.
“This Air Jordan boy, he know you car?”
“Might.”
“We take my old pickup, you stay down low,” said Cannonball, pulling on a faded khaki windbreaker. “But first lemme get Lena.”
Cannonball and Mac cruised the streets around the Acapulco but had no luck finding Air Jordan. At 9:15 Mac gave up for that night.
“Let’s go to Willa’s,” he said.
At 9:18 they slowly passed the Acapulco again. The last diners had gone, but the lights were still on inside as Mac and Cannonball looked over. A nondescript dark car was in a parking space. From it, Air Jordan and his homeys slid out. Three strutted for the door. Emil, the last, hugged his cracked ribs. Cannonball drove on. He passed the dog-leg turn going north on Compton, then made a U-turn up the block. Neither he nor Mac had said a word.
Cannonball pulled over to the curb. TV lights flickered against the drawn blinds of the little, boxy 1920s houses that lined the dark street. Barred windows added to the hurt.
Cannonball said, “You get out here, baby, I park up the block. Once I inside, you wait a lick and then come in right behind wit Mist Glock spittin fire.”
“Yeah, but what if the Señora gets hurt?”
“What if they in there hurtin her right now?”
Mac wanted to dance in their blood, but he knew that he could never shoot first unless it was clear someone’s life was in danger. He wanted to kill more than he wanted to live, but still he didn’t want anyone to get hurt—the Christian dilemma. But for the Señora’s sake and Cannonball’s, he had to think things through. “What if we wait for them ouside? Citizen’s arrest, take them in the dark, get them in their car?”
Cannonball understood. “But what if they see us outside? What happen they grab the lady?, split wit her?, see us and start shootin? What we do then? Naw, we got to be quick.”
Mac tapped his cellular phone. “We could call the police.”
“What the po-lice goin do but talk, huh? We the ones wit evidence.”
“You’re right, but I go in first,” said Mac.
“No good,” said Cannonball. “They know you, so that leave me. I go in first, play the fool. Now they thinkin about me and you come on in. If they packin, I turn Lena loose in they ass so deep they think they be sittin on whale dick.”
“What if they’ve already drawn weapons?”
“They crazy, but cut on that old lady?, naw!”
“I’m talking about guns,” said Mac.
“So what?, like Miles Davis say. This our one shot for Puddin, and maybe for cuttin loose the lady.”
“All right,” said Mac. “But be careful. Be old and look poor.”
“I be so pitiful they think I dead,” said Cannonball.
Mac got out of the truck and Cannonball pulled forward. As he drove, he took Lena from his belt at the middle of his back. Already cocked, the .45 had one round in the chamber, seven in the magazine. He tucked the weapon under his left armpit, clamped it in place with his arm, and covered it with his jacket.
Mac followed, walking briskly, the cocked black Glock in his hand and pressed against his dark pant leg. Up ahead, Cannonball was nearing the Acapulco, could hear the blaring Mexican music Air Jordan had turned up to intimidate the Señora.
Inside, Air Jordan was waving his cane and screaming into the Señora’s face. “Bitch!, whatchu mean!, you don’t pay me my money? You lookin at sudden death! “
“Kill me, I don’t care, do it,” said the Señora, her Indian eyes black as obsidian. “You can’t hurt me no more.”
“I can’t, huh? I cut your pussy off, make you eat it, cunt hair and all, I can do that, bitch!”
“I gib you no money, you kill Pudeen.”
“Who say? How you know that?”
“I know,” said the little Mexican lady. “And Senor Mac, he know. He kill you for me and for Pudeen.”
“Who Mac?” Fridge demanded.
“Yeah,” said Air Jordan. “He that old man in here talkin snakes and shit?”
“I talk to you no more.”
Air Jordan jammed the barrel of his Walther into the Señora’s eyeball. Fireworks of pain flared in her face, but she didn’t cry out.
“Gimme my money, I shoot you dead now!”
“Do it. But you die, too. Ebrybody die.”
Emil clutched his cracked ribs, winced with every breath. “C’mon man, this gettin messy, let’s forget it.”
“Fuck messy. The bitch owe me too much, and she know me too much.”
“Shit yeah,” said Fridge, drawing his Beretta. “Bitch got a die she holdin back on our money, man!”
Fridge pushed the no-sale key on the register with the muzzle of his gun, and the empty cash drawer sprung open.
Seeing it, Air Jordan hit the Señora in the head twice with the Walther, knocking her down. “Where my six hundred dollar?” He jerked her to her feet again and pulled her close so he could see her eyes when he shot her. He shoved the short, stainless steel barrel into her mouth.
Before Air Jordan could pull the trigger, Cannonball shuffled through the door. Air Jordan whirled, aiming the Walther at Cannonball’s face. The Señora gave no hint that she knew the shabby old man.
Air Jordan continued to shout, veins bulging in his dreadful face, crack cocaine toasting his brain. “Who you, muthuhfucka?, whatchu doin in here?”
“Oh, no, Lord have mercy, put that down, don’t shoot! I not doin nothin brothuh main, I jus’ a hongry ol’ nigga come in a res’, get me a fish taco.”
“You get you black ass tore up you come flat-footin in like that!” shouted Air Jordan. “What the
fuck you want?”
“Fish, dass it,” said Cannonball. He stepped from one foot to the other, like the floor was hot. “But now I don’t want nothin, no suh, I be gone!”
