Free Fall (15 page)

I fed quarters into the parking meter and waited. It was eleven twenty-five.

At sixteen minutes after noon, Harold Bellis came out of his building and walked north, probably off to a business lunch at a nearby restaurant. Eleven minutes later, his assistant, Martha, appeared out of the parking garage driving a late-model Honda Acura. She turned south.

I ran back across the street, rode the elevator up to Bellis’s floor, and hurried up to the receptionist, giving her the Christ-my-day-is-going-to-hell smile. “Hi. Martha said she’d leave my calendar with you.”

She gave confused. “Excuse me?”

“When I was here this morning, I left my date book in Harry’s office. I called and Martha said she’d leave it with you for me.”

The receptionist shook her head. “I’m sorry, but she didn’t.”

I gave miserable. “Oh, man. I’m screwed. It’s got all my appointments, and my account numbers. I guess it just slipped her mind. You think it’d be okay if I ran back there and checked?” I gave her expectant, and just enough of the little boy so that she’d know my fate in life rested squarely on her shoulders.

“Sure. You know the way?”

“I can find it.”

I went back past the assistants and the cubicles to Martha’s office. It was open. I went in and closed the door, then looked over the files until I found the client index. It took maybe three minutes to find the client index and twenty seconds to find the Lester files.

The articles of incorporation of the Lester Corporation, a California corporation, were among the first documents bound in the Lester Corp files. The president of the Lester Corporation was listed as one Akeem D’Muere. D’Muere’s address was care of The Law Offices of Harold Bellis, Attorney-at-Law. Sonofagun.

I flipped through the files and found records of the acquisitions of nine investment properties throughout the South Central Los Angeles area, as well as two properties in Los Feliz and an apartment building in Simi Valley. The purchases included two bars, a laun-dromat, and the pawnshop. The rest were residential. I guess the weasel-dust business pays.

The Premier Pawn Shop location was purchased nine months and two days prior to Charles Lewis Washington’s death. There was a contract with a property management firm for six of the businesses, as well as receipts from contractors for maintenance and renovation work performed on seven of the businesses. Each property had a separate file. The Premier showed plumbing and electrical work, as well as a new heating and air conditioning unit, and there was also a receipt
from something called Atlas Security Systems for the installation of an Autonomous Monitoring System, as well as a Perimeter Security Alarm. Similar systems had also been purchased for the two bars. I wasn’t sure what an Autonomous Monitoring System was, but it sounded good. The cost of these things and their installation was $6,518.22, and there had been no mention of them in the police reports. Hmm.

I wrote down the phone number of Atlas Security Systems, then closed the file, and borrowed Martha’s phone to call them. I told a guy named Mr. Walters that I was a friend of Harold Bellis’s, that I owned a convenience store in Laguna Niguel, and that I was thinking of installing a security system. I told him that Harold had recommended Atlas and something called an Autonomous Monitoring System, and I asked if he could explain it. Mr. Walters could. He told me that the Autonomous Monitoring System was perfect for a convenience store or any other cash business, because it was an ideal way to keep an eye on employees who might steal from you. The AMS was a hidden video camera timed to go on and off during business hours, or whenever a motion sensor positioned to my specifications told it to. He gave me cost and service information, and then I thanked him and told him that I’d get in touch.

I hung up the phone, returned the files to their cabinets, left the door open as I had found it, then walked out past the receptionist and drove to my office.

As I drove, I thought about the video equipment.

No one shot at me on the way, but maybe they were saving that for later.

W
hen I got to my office at five minutes past one, there was a message on my machine from James Edward Washington, asking me to call. I did.

James Edward said, “You know a taco stand called Raul’s on Sixty-five and Broadway?”

“No.”

“Sixty-five and Broadway. I’m gonna be there in an hour with a guy who knows about what’s going on. Ray came through.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

I hung up, then called Joe Pike. He answered on the first ring. “Pike.”

“I’m going to meet James Edward Washington at a place called Raul’s on Sixty-five and Broadway in about one hour. He says he’s got a guy who maybe knows something.”

“I’ll be there.”

“There’s more.” I told him about the Lester Corporation and Harold Bellis and the contract with Atlas Security. I told him about the video equipment.

Pike grunted. “So Akeem D’Muere saw what happened to Charles Lewis.”

“It’s possible.”

“And maybe it shows something different than the police report claims.”

“Yeah. But if that’s the case, why doesn’t Akeem use it to fry these guys? Why is he protecting them?”

Pike fell silent.

“Joe?”

“Watch your ass out there, Elvis. It’s getting too hot for these guys to sit by. They’re going to have to move.”

“Maybe that’s how we finally crack this. Maybe we make it so hot that they’ve got to move, and when they move we’ll see what they’re doing.”

“Maybe. But maybe their idea of a move is to take us out.”

Nothing like a little inspiration.

Thirty-two minutes later I exited the freeway and turned north on Broadway past auto repair shops and take-out rib joints and liquor stores that had been looted in the riots and not yet rebuilt.

Raul’s Taco was a cinderblock stand on the west side of Broadway between a service drive and an auto parts place that specialized in remanufactured transmissions. You ordered at a little screen window on one side of the stand, then you went around to the other side to wait for your food. There was a tiny fenced area by the pick-up window with a couple of picnic benches for your more elegant sit-down diners and a couple of little stand-up tables on the sidewalk for people in a rush. A large sign over the order window said
WE HAVE SOUL-MAN TACOS.
An hour before noon and the place was packed.

I drove up to Sixty-fourth, pulled a U-turn at the light, then swung back and parked at the curb in front of the transmission place. James Edward Washington and a young black guy maybe Washington’s age were sitting across from each other at one of the picnic tables, eating tacos. The second guy was wearing a neon
orange hat with the bill pointed backwards, heavy Ray•Ban sunglasses, and a black Los Angeles Raiders windbreaker even though it was ninety degrees. Washington saw me and nodded toward the table. The other guy saw him nod and turned to watch me come over. He didn’t look happy. Most of the other people in Raul’s were watching me, too. Guess they didn’t get many white customers. Washington said, “This is the guy Ray was talking about. Cool T, this is the detective.”

Cool T said, “You say his name Elvis I thought he a brother.”

I said, “I am. Amazing what a marcel and skin lightener will do, isn’t it?”

Cool T shook his head and gave disgusted. “And he think he funny, too.”

Cool T started to get up but Washington put a hand on his forearm and held him down. “He’s white, but he’s trying to help about Lewis. That means he can be all the funny he wants.”

Cool T shrugged without looking at me. Aloof.

Washington took a taco wrapped in yellow paper out of the box and offered it to me. He said, “This is a Soul-Man taco. These Mexicans grill up the meat and the peppers and put barbecue sauce on it. You like barbecue?”

“Sure.” I unwrapped the taco. The paper was soaked through with oil and barbecue sauce, but it smelled like a handful of heaven. The taco was two handmade corn tortillas deep-fried to hold their shape, and filled with meat and chili peppers and the barbecue sauce. The sauce was chunky with big rings of jalapeño and serrano peppers.

Cool T finished off the rest of his taco, then pointed out the peppers. “It’s pretty hot, you ain’t used to it. They probably make one without the peppers, you ask.” He was showing a lot of teeth when he said it.

I took a bite, and then I took a second. It was
delicious, but it wasn’t very hot. I said, “You think they’d give me more peppers?”

Cool T stopped showing the teeth and went sullen. Shown up by the white man.

Washington said, “Cool T’s been living on these streets while I’ve been swabbing decks. He’s seen what’s going on.”

Cool T nodded.

“Okay. So what’s Cool T know?” I finished my taco and eyed the box lustily. There were three more tacos in it. Washington made a little hand move that said help yourself. I did.

Cool T said, “Those cops ain’t cops no mo’. They just passin’.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Mean they in business and they use the Eight-Deuce as what we call sales representatives.” He grinned when he said it.

I looked at Washington. “Is this for real?”

Washington shrugged. “That’s what his girlfriend says.”

Cool T said, “I friendly with this bitch used to live with a Gangster Boy.”

I said, “Are you telling me that these officers are in the crack trade?”

Cool T nodded. “They in the everything trade. Whatever the Eight-Deuce in, they in.” He selected another taco. “Ain’t been an Eight-Deuce home boy locked down in four or five months. Pigs take off the Rolling Sixties and the Eight-Trey Swans and all these other nigguhs, but not the Eight-Deuce. They look out for each other. They share the wealth.”

“The cops and the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys.”

“Uh-hunh. They in business together.” He finished the taco and licked his fingers. “Eight-Deuce point out the competition and the cops take it down. You wanna see it happen, I can put you onto something.”

“What?”

Cool T said. “Nigguh been sellin’ dope out a ice cream truck over by Witley Park. He at the park every Thursday and the park in Eight-Deuce turf and they tired of it. The cops going over there today to run him off.”

Washington said, “I figured we could go over there and see what’s what. I figure if it’s our guys, maybe we can do something with it.”

I was liking Washington just fine. “Okay.”

Cool T said, “Not me. Anybody see me over there and something happen, I be meetin’ up with Mr. Drive-By.”

Cool T stood up. Washington held out his fist and Cool T brushed his own fist against it, back and top and sides, and then he walked away.

I looked at Washington. Well, well. “You did okay.”

Washington nodded. Cool.

W
hen we walked out to the car, I saw Joe Pike parked at a fire hydrant a block and a half north. We made eye contact, and he shook his head. No one was following.

James Edward said, “What’re you looking at?”

“My partner.”

“You work with someone?” He was looking up Broadway.

“If you look for him like that, people will know someone’s there.”

James Edward stopped looking and got into the car. I slid in after him. “Use the mirror. Angle it so that you can see. He’s in a red Jeep.”

James Edward did it. “Why’s he back there?”

“The men who killed your brother have been following me. He’s there to follow the followers.”

James Edward readjusted the mirror and we pulled away. “He any good?”

“Yes.”

“Are you?”

“I get lucky.”

James Edward settled back and crossed his arms.
“Luck is for chumps. Ray knows a couple of people and he asked them about you. He says you’re a straight up dude. He says you get respect.”

“You can fool some of the people some of the time.”

James Edward shook his head and stared at the passing buildings. “Bullshit. Any fool can buy a car, but you can’t buy respect.”

I glanced over, but he was looking out at the streets.

James Edward Washington told me where to go and I went there and pretty soon we were on streets just like James Edward Washington’s street, with neat single-family homes and American cars and preschool children jumping rope and riding Big Wheels. Older women sat on tiny porches and frowned because teenagers who should’ve been in school were sitting on the hood of a Bonneville listening to Ice Cube. The women didn’t like the kids being on the Bonneville and they didn’t like Ice Cube but they couldn’t do anything about it. We drove, and after a while I knew we weren’t just driving, we were taking a tour of James Edward Washington’s life. He would say turn, and I would turn, and he would point with his chin and say something like
The girl I took to the prom used to live right there
or
Dude I knew named William Johnston grew up there and writes television now and makes four hundred thousand dollars every year and bought his mama a house in the San Gabriel Valley
or
My cousins live there. I was little, they’d come to my street and we’d trick-or-treat, and then I’d come back here with them and we’d do it all over again. The lady that lived right over there used to make caramel-dipped candy apples better’n anything you ever bought at the circus.

We drove and he talked and I listened, and after a while I said, “It has to be hard.”

He looked at me.

I said, “There are a lot of good things here, but there are also bad things, and it’s got to be hard growing up and trying not to let the bad things drag you down.”

He looked away from me. We rode for a little bit longer, and then he said, “I guess I just want you to know that there’s more to the people down here than a bunch of shiftless niggers sopping up welfare and killin’ each other.”

“I knew that.”

“You think it, maybe, but you don’t know it. You’re down here right now cause a nigger got beaten to death. We’re driving to a park where a nigger gonna be selling drugs and niggers gonna be buying. That’s what you know. You see it on the news and you read it in the papers and that’s all you know. I know there’s people who work hard and pay taxes and read books and build model airplanes and dream about flying them and plant daisies and love each other as much as any people can love each other anywhere, and I want you to know that, too.”