“That was fifty bucks, right?” Gunner asked.
Talking to no one but a dial tone.
The answer to the question everyone always asked was yes, there really was a Big Mother.
His name was Ozzie Bledsoe, and he was as big as a weight lifter could get without bursting out of his skin like an overcooked hot dog. Gunner didn’t know his exact age, but he figured the former Mr. California to be somewhere in his late forties to early fifties, though he looked much younger than that. There were lines beneath his eyes and his hair was turning gray almost as fast as it was falling out, but other than that, the goateed black man seemed completely unaffected by age.
According to Ozzie himself, he had picked up the Big Mother name in the county joint, back in the mid-seventies when he was still more interested in pulling armed robberies than pumping iron. Some kid in the next cell over had just started in calling him “Big Mother,” yelling it out at the top of his lungs every time he addressed him, and pretty soon, everyone was doing it. Even the guards. What else could you call a black man who was six four, 265 pounds, with a back as wide as a four-lane highway and biceps as big as beer kegs?
In any case, the name came in handy when, in the fall of ’91, he decided to open a gym of his own. He’d been a retired felony offender for over ten years at that point, and had made a few dollars doing bodyguard work for various people in the entertainment industry. He bought an old gas station with a large service bay to start, stayed there for a couple of years, then found a warehouse building near the Compton airport and converted that. Big Mother’s Gym had been there ever since.
He saw Gunner walk in the door and immediately started shaking his head. The teacher confronted by his most unproductive student.
“Uh-uh-uh,” he said. “Look at you. Just look at you!”
“Come on, Mother. I’m a sick man, have a heart.”
“I’ll say you’re sick. Look at what you’ve done to yourself! Man, Gunner, was a time you were in here every other day. Had arms as big as me an’ a stomach you could iron clothes on. And look at you now. Just look!” He appraised Gunner’s waistline critically. “All that muscle gone to waste …”
“It’s called getting old, brother. Some people do that, you know.”
“Yeah, well, that don’t mean you have to get fat an’ ugly, too. You’d bring your behind in here more often than two, three times a year—”
Gunner waved him off and said, “Never mind all that. My cousin make it in here yet?”
“You mean the one—”
“Yeah, him. Del.”
Mother jabbed a thumb at the room behind him, chuckling, and said, “You can usually find ‘im over at the abdominal station, harassin’ the females. I haven’t seen ‘im today, but if he’s here, that’s probably where he’s at.”
“You haven’t been giving him a hard time, I hope.”
“Who? Me?”
“About his accident, I mean.”
“Oh. That.” Mother started chuckling again. “Last time we talked about it was the day he came in here to sign up. I told him we were happy to have ‘im, under one condition: He wants to use the treadmills, he’s gotta wear a helmet.”
Mother fell out, laughing like Gunner had just told him a joke, and not the other way around. Heads turned throughout the gym, reacting to the sudden blast of sound. When Mother laughed, he laughed for the world to hear; it was a deep, booming laugh that shattered silences and made a shambles of conversations taking place zip codes away. Only an air raid siren could be more conspicuous.
Gunner shook the big man’s hand and went to find Del.
It was a brief search. He wasn’t in the first place Gunner looked for him, at the gym’s abdominal station as Mother had suggested, but he did turn up in the second: the free-weight area, where he was actually engaged in doing incline bench presses. He was huffing and puffing, pushing a relatively light amount of weight, but other than that, he appeared to be as comfortable doing physical exercise as anyone else on the premises. Gunner was amazed.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” he said.
Del glanced up at him, surprised. “Ha-ha,” he said, in midrep. “So what’s so important?”
“I’m fine, cuz. Thanks for asking. And you?”
“I thought you were in a hurry. But if you wanna make small talk—”
“You’re right. I am in a hurry.”
“So what’s goin’ on?”
Gunner told him. He talked and Del listened, both men moving from weight station to weight station as Del doggedly continued his workout, until Gunner finally fell silent and waited, looking to his cousin for some kind of reaction.
“So? What’s the question?” Del asked. He was seated at a preacher bench now, both arms busy doing barbell curls.
“Question is, are you going to be where I can find you if the shit hits the fan? Or should I make other plans?”
“Say that again? I don’t understand.”
“Look. This isn’t just the usual bailout I’m talking about here, Del. The kind of trouble I’m in this time can’t be fixed with just a few dollars for meal money and a place to crash for the night. I’m going to need more help than that.”
“You talking about a job?”
Gunner shrugged. “Only if I can’t find something else. And only if you can really use me.”
“Use you? Man, I can always use you,” Del said. “You know that. I just wish—”
“Yeah, I know. You wish I’d make it permanent this time.”
This was an old refrain of Del’s, and Gunner had known he’d have to hear it sooner or later, the topic of discussion being what it was.
“Listen. I’m tired of bein’ just any port in a storm for you, Aaron, okay? You’ve gotta grow up, man, and growin’ up starts with havin’ a job. A real job.”
“I’ve got a real job.”
“No, what you’ve got is trouble. That’s what you’ve got. That’s all you’re ever gonna have, line of work you’re in. When are you gonna figure that out?”
“Del—”
“Okay, okay. Forget I said anything. We’ve been through this enough times, I oughta know by now how pointless it is.”
Angry now, both men spent the next several minutes not speaking to each other, acting as if the silence didn’t bother them in the least. Gunner could feel another headache coming on, resulting from the clang of iron weights being dropped throughout the gym.
Finally, Del said, “Maybe he won’t die. This guy you shot.”
Gunner shrugged. “Maybe he won’t. I’ve been lucky before.”
“But even if he does, you’re covered, right? Because Foley was there—”
“Yeah, he was there.”
“And he told them what happened.”
“Yeah, he told them.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is Poole, and how badly he wants to burn me this time. He told me to stay away from Pearson, and in his mind, I ignored him. Cops take that kind of shit personally, Del. If Pearson lives, Poole might get over it, but if he doesn’t … I’m in for a career change, like he said, whether I want one or not.”
Del nodded, resting between sets. “So when are you supposed to hear from Ziggy?”
Gunner shook his head. “He didn’t say. But I’m going to call him soon as I get out of here, see if he’s found out anything yet.”
“And then?”
“Then I’m going to ask around some more, find out if anybody’s ever heard of this Goldy person Pearson talked about. The girl he said he was with the night Nina was killed.”
Del nodded again, rather than give voice to his true opinion: that he wouldn’t waste a minute of his time looking for some nonexistent Goldy woman, if he were in Gunner’s shoes.
Instead, he asked about Claudia.
“There is no Claudia anymore,” Gunner said.
“Oh.”
“Don’t look so broken up. It’s for the best.”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“Anyway, no one can pin this one on me. I was ready to go the distance, she wasn’t. It happens.”
Del shrugged. “Yeah. It does.”
Gunner stood up and reached into his pocket, Suddenly in a hurry to leave. “Before I forget, here’s your money.”
Two months Del had been waiting to get his seventy-five dollars back, and now he felt like a heel for taking it.
Nobody at the Deuce had heard of Goldy either.
Gunner had made two complete passes through the bar in three hours, hitting every table, booth, and stool, and now he was tired of asking. Watching people shake their heads and say no, the name wasn’t familiar, sorry. Everybody polite, trying to be helpful, but no one having anything to offer him but apologies.
He gave up about twenty minutes after nine.
By that time, the Deuce was in full swing, women laughing and men shouting, Boyz II Men on the stereo, tables and chairs scraping across the floor to suit some new arrangement, ice cubes and drink glasses and bottles of booze clinking, clanking, crashing together …
A typical Monday night at Lilly’s.
Except that Gunner had traded his customary seat at the bar for one at a table, trying to put some distance between himself and Lilly’s liquor. This was one of those rare occasions when his problems were too monumental to be dulled by good bourbon, even when consumed in massive doses.
He still had no idea how Michael Pearson was doing. He hadn’t been able to catch up with Ziggy until almost six o’clock, and his lawyer had had nothing to report at that time.
“Guy I’m talking to, he was supposed to get back to me, but he never called,” Ziggy had said. “So I’ve got to call him at home, try to reach him there. Where can I find you later, I finally hear from him?”
Gunner told him he’d be at the Deuce anytime after seven, and Ziggy recited the number, having used it enough times in the past to commit it to memory.
And so Gunner was here, hours later, waiting for Ziggy’s call. Sharing a table with Jetta Brown, who was talking up a storm, not at all minding that Gunner’s thoughts were elsewhere. Jetta never needed you to actually listen to what she was saying, she just wanted you around to bounce her voice off of, so that she herself might hear it better. She had a cute face and a body built for action, but her runaway mouth kept most men out of range like an electrified fence.
Of course, her husband, Ollie, did too, when he was around, but that was a different story.
“I asked you a question,” Jetta said.
She had been silent for several seconds, having finally gotten around to involving him in the conversation, and Gunner had failed to notice.
“What?”
“I asked you a question. You didn’t hear me?”
“I heard you. I just …” He tried to think. What the hell has she been talking about? “You were saying something about Ollie going back home. To Tennessee.”
“For?”
“For a funeral. His brother’s, or his stepbrother’s.”
“His stepbrother’s. Lincoln. Go on.”
“And he’ll be gone for a week. So you were wondering …” He stopped, enlighteried; not really remembering what she had asked, just figuring it out, knowing her as well as he did. “… if we were going to get together sometime.”
“That’s right.” Jetta smiled. She never used to have time for Gunner, but lately she’d been flirting with him with serious intent.
“I don’t think that would be such a good idea,” Gunner said.
“Why not?”
“Because Ollie would object, he ever knew. And make dog food out of us both.”
“Shoot,” Jetta said, swatting the very thought out of the air with an open palm, “Ollie ain’t even thinkin’ about you.”
“Exactly what I like about him best. He never thinks about me.”
Ollie was big, fat, and consistently ill-tempered, and what he couldn’t pulverize with his bare fists, he could mangle beyond recognition. Gunner had seen him do it.
“You’re scared of Ollie?”
“I tell you what. If you can find a man in this room who isn’t scared of him, I’ll pick up your tab tonight. And call that man a doctor.”
Jetta laughed. Cheating on Ollie was a nonstop party for her because men took all the risks; her husband didn’t have it in him to harm a hair on her head, and she had always known it. How could a woman resist having a little fun at such a man’s expense when hurting his feelings was the only consequence of getting caught?
“He loves you, Jetta,” Gunner said. “Why don’t you give the man a break?”
“A break? Honey, every time I let that fat fool get in the same bed as me, I’m givin’ him a break!” She laughed again. The tight blue dress she was wearing was only barely able to hold her little breasts in check, it was cut so low in front.
Gunner just shook his head, disgusted with her. He’d been amused by her promiscuity only seconds ago, and now he couldn’t think of a thing in the world more loathsome.
“What’s the matter with you?” Jetta asked.
“Nothing’s the matter with me. I just don’t like being asked to help you fuck over a friend, that’s all.”
“A friend? Ollie ain’t your friend!”
“He sure as hell is more mine than yours.”
“Say what?”
“You heard me. You—”
“Gunner, baby, I gotta talk to you,” Mean Sheila cut in, having suddenly appeared at their table. The Deuce’s resident prostitute was in her usual drunken state, too impaired by liquor to realize she was interrupting a full-scale argument in the making.
“Not now,” Gunner said, waving her off brusquely.
“Nigger, you’re crazy,” Jetta said to Gunner, doing the investigator one better by ignoring Sheila altogether.
“I’m not crazy. I’m just honest. Your act isn’t funny anymore, Jetta. It’s old and it’s tired, and it’s cheap.”
“Cheap?”
“Gunner—” Sheila said, gamely trying to interject again.
“Who the hell you callin’ cheap!”
“You,” Gunner said flatly. “You see anyone else around here with their legs open?”
Jetta’s hand flashed out to throw her drink in his face, but he caught her wrist before she could raise the glass off the table. Furious, she leapt to her feet to attack him properly, as Mean Sheila finally got the hint and backed off, heading for cover. She didn’t get far. Within seconds, a sea of bodies swallowed her up on its way to Gunner and Jetta’s table, everybody screaming at once, everybody smelling blood.
Eventually, four Good Samaritans managed to pry Gunner and Jetta apart; one for him and three for her. Gunner gave up peaceably, but Jetta did anything but, kicking, scratching, and cursing like a woman possessed.
And then Lilly pushed her way to the center of the crowd.
Jetta stopped struggling and shut up, boom, just like that, and everyone else did likewise. Playtime was over.
“All right, what the fuck is goin’ on here?” Lilly asked, sounding not unlike a woman about to kick some very serious ass. She was looking straight at Gunner.
“This nigger here—” Jetta started to say.
“Shut up, Jetta. I’m talkin’ to him,” Lilly said.
Jetta shut up.
Not waiting for Gunner to speak up, Lilly said, “I told you ’bout bringin’ your problems in here and startin’ shit with my customers, didn’t I? Did I tell you I wasn’t gonna have it, or not?”
Gunner wanted to answer, to explain that everything he had said to Jetta to incite this mini-riot had been meant not for her but for Claudia Lovejoy—he could see that now with surprising, if belated, clarity—but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He felt foolish enough as it was; confessing to everyone here that his rejection of Claudia was killing him more than it ever would Claudia would surely just make matters worse.
So he said nothing, which of course made the house grow
quieter still. Because of all the things one could do to get on Lilly’s nerves when she was trying to chew you out, nothing worked quite as well as refusing to defend yourself.
Nothing.
“Go get the phone,” Lilly said.
No one could believe they had heard her correctly.
“What?” Gunner asked.
“I said go get the phone. You weren’t so busy tearin’ my place up, you’d’ve heard me the first time.” She gestured toward the bar and the telephone nearby. “You got a phone call.”
“Who is it?”
“How the hell should I know? Do I look like your goddamn secretary?”
Before he could ask any more stupid questions, Gunner went to the phone.
It was Ziggy.
“We got problems, kid,” he said.
Gunner threw his head back and closed his eyes. “Pearson’s dead.”
“No. Not dead. But he’s on a respirator, in a coma. His doctors don’t expect him to ever come out of it.” He paused to see if Gunner would respond to that, then said, “He lost a lot of blood, and there was some kind of internal infection, my man wasn’t too clear on the specifics. In any case, he’s in pretty bad shape.”
Gunner still didn’t say anything.
“You there?”
“Yeah. I’m listening.”
“Look, try not to worry about it. He might pull out of it, you never know. And as long as his condition is up in the air, the cops will probably sit tight and leave you alone. They wanted to take you in on an assault charge, they could have done that Saturday night. The fact that you’re still walking around suggests they’re not interested in charging you with anything short of manslaughter. And they may never get that opportunity, if we’re lucky.”
“I don’t feel lucky,” Gunner said.
“Relax, kid. It’s gonna be okay. Just try to lay low for a while and stay near the phone. All right?”
“Sure, Ziggy. Thanks.”
Gunner could feel Lilly’s bream on the back of his neck even as he hung up the phone.
“You finished?” she asked. Stunning him yet again with her uncanny ability to cross her arms across the endless expanse of her chest.
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