Southside (9781608090563) (28 page)

“Shuddup. Don't lie to me. I'll go to San Quentin and you know that. Killing a judge and D.A. I'm not stupid. If you speak again, she's dead.”

LaBarbera, not wanting to push a maniac, gave up the megaphone. Hart shook his head. “Great job, Sal. Whaddya get in hostage negotiating class? A D minus?” I had to muffle a laugh. To me, a D minus is the worst of all grades. It indicates that you tried and sucked.

I was huddled safely behind the stolen UPS truck with LaBarbera, Hart, Kuwahara, Engstrom, several SWAT unit members, and the lead hostage negotiator. I could tell Kuwahara was pissed at his detectives for allowing me to get in close, but was too busy to deal with that now—until I opened my mouth.

“Maybe I should tell him I'll trade places with her,” I told the group.

“Shut the fuck up, Lyons, or so help me—” said Kuwahara. “No, no, just get out of here now. Go. Back away. Now!” Having no option, I obeyed, taking a couple of crouched steps away.

The SWAT unit snipers did not have a good shot. There was no good angle into the house. Back in the mid-1980s, the Desmonds, fearful of drive-bys into their kitchen, which faced the alley, had not only boarded up the kitchen windows, but had them cemented shut. This eliminated several angle shots.

Sims was holding his pistol to the head of Betty Desmond, his forearm wrapped firmly around her throat, his mouth so close to her ear, she could hear the cognac sloshing. He yelled out that if they did anything, if he heard or saw anything like a “flash or bang or grenade, tear gas or any other tricks,” he would immediately “kill the lady.”

Outside, Hart said, “This guy is so far gone.”

“Do we have a shot?” LaBarbera asked the SWAT unit commander.

“Not yet.”

Inside, Sims said, “Say a prayer, Mrs. Desmond. One single woman created Evil and Terminal. You must be the mother of the year. I am the motherfucker of the year.”

Betty Desmond looked around for something she could use to hit this deranged person.

Outside, I moved back closer to Sal and asked, “Who is the SIC?”

“What the fuck is the SIC?”

“Sniper in charge.”

“Where do you come up with this shit?” Still, he pointed to a man on a porch across 89th Street and two houses down. “Don't do anything crazy now, Lyons.”

“I'm not doing anything,” I said as I scampered away to the house with the snipers, two on the roof, two on the porch. The taller of the porch shooters was in charge.

“Get outta here.”

“I'm with Sal.”

“I know who you are. You're a distraction, goddamnit. Get the hell out.”

“One question. Just one. Do you know who Zaistev was?”

“The greatest sniper of all time. Not counting me. Now go!”

“That's what I wanted to hear.”

Inside the house, Sims spotted Mr. Desmond's prized cognac, the bottle of Rémy Martin XO that Terminal had bought for him years ago. “Look, the Desmond family has the fancy cognac. All my life, I wanted to try some of that XO.”

“Help yourself,” said Betty Desmond, praying for any distraction.

Sims dragged her to the cabinet where the Rémy glowed. “Open it and pour me a glass, a snifter. Let's do this right.”

She reached for the curvy bottle, but then suddenly he tightened his grip on her neck and yanked her away.

“No, no. Not a good idea. You might try and hurt me with that bottle. Any woman that raised Big Evil must know how to go on the attack.” He released his grip on her, but not his stare, not his aim. Without looking away from her, he thumb opened the Rémy Martin and lifted it. He considered pouring the amber into a snifter, but instead, eyes like a laser on Betty Desmond, brought the bottle to his lips and poured the cognac into his mouth. He put the bottle down, resumed his vise grip on her neck, and only then did he slowly swallow. He savored it as much as a man can with a SWAT unit waiting outside to kill him.

“Do you think it's a shame to drink this fine stuff from the bottle?”

“You're worried about shame now? Mister, you shamed yourself a long time ago. You shamed the memory of your son.”

Sims ratcheted her neck even tighter.

•  •  •

Outside, I crouch-jogged back near Hart, who was now safely behind a patrol car with Carly Engstrom and two other cops, next to the UPS truck.

For some unknown reason, my mind clicked to a concert I recently saw at the Sports Arena before I was shot. It was Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

In the midst of the chaos on 89th Street, I thought about that concert, and it gave me strength. The same strength I had when I saw Springsteen that night. When I heard him sing “Land of Hope and Dreams,” a song about dreams not thwarted, and faith rewarded. It was so uplifting, so rousing, more than a church sermon, more than any speech. And I felt invincible. I was on my feet most of the concert. And now, here on the Southside, I stood up.

Without saying a word, I rose from behind shelter and walked to the gate of the chain-link fence and entered the yard.

“Lyons!” yelled Hart.

“Fuckin' Lyons, you're gonna get her killed,” screamed Kuwahara.

I spoke loudly, as the irate LAPD command, foremost among them Kuwahara, now looked on and fumed in stunned silence.

“Mr. Sims,” I said, “Payton would not want you to do this. You must know this. This lady is a good woman. Please, Eddie Sims, let her go.”

Silence from inside.

“Look, you tried for me first, you can have a second chance right now. I'm the one that made Big Evil famous. I'll swap places. Let her go.”

I was three feet inside the gate, right there on the front yard where Big Evil and Terminal were raised, and I didn't fear a thing. I thought what a wonderful life I have lived. Full of wonder and tears, full of love and imagination. And I felt strong then. Proud, too. And, I guess I was a little sad, too. I had a lot of thoughts going on. Still, I continued my fervent plea. “You know, Edward Sims, Walter
Payton was a great running back, a great man. He's up in heaven hoping and praying you'll let that woman go. So is your son, Payton. So is Gale Sayers.”

Hart looked over to LaBarbera who was still behind the neighboring UPS truck. “Lyons is an imbecile.”

Commander Kuwahara scatted over to the Buick. “If that woman dies, Lyons is going down for accessory to murder. I am dead serious. Get him out or I'll have the SWAT unit shoot him.”

“You're kidding, right, Lester?”

“Unfortunately, but not about the accessory part.”

In the house, Sims was about to end this drama. “Say a prayer, Mrs. Desmond.” She lowered her head, softly weeping. “Say a prayer for Payton.”

Betty Desmond who had been shaking, suddenly calmed. She bowed her head and said, “Bobby, I'm coming to be with you. Payton Sims, I'm coming to meet you. Sweetness, you too.”

Eddie Sims looked at her, raised his pistol, then opened the front door and fired.

Nanoseconds after former Marine Corps sniper and current SWAT sniper commander Juan Jose Gallardo, Jr., son of a Vietnam War Marine Corps sniper, saw the door move, he fired, too. His projectile from the .50-caliber Barrett M82A1 tore through Sims's brain. Fortunately, Mrs. Desmond was five foot three and the lead whizzed above her, though she was showered with brains, bone fragments, and blood. She collapsed.

Sniper Gallardo yelled, “He's dead. All clear.”

Laying twisted near the gate, his face and the right side of his head covered in blood, was the body of Michael Lyons. The cops rushed to the house, most of them going on into the house from front and back. LaBarbera, Hart, and a paramedic ran to the fallen, motionless reporter.

“Is he dead?” Hart asked the paramedic who was quickly at Lyons's side.

“He's got a pulse,” the paramedic announced. His gloved hands, already streaked scarlet, were gentle on Lyons's face and head. “It might be a, no, it looks like a side head wound. Could even be a graze.”

“Lyons. Lyons!” Sal bellowed.

“Wake your ass up, you motherfuckin' imbecile,” hollered Hart.

I stirred a bit and then groggily opened my eyes and stared up at everyone for five dazed seconds until I could talk. “What, what happened? She okay? What happened? Somebody call me an imbecile?”

“I did,” Hart said. “Gale Sayers isn't dead, you fool.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah. What happened?”

“Sims is dead. She's not.”

I closed my eyes, and I guess I went to sleep right there on the lavish 89th Street sidewalk.

I spent just one night at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. Hart told me he'd thought I was dead with all the blood and being knocked out, but the paramedic had been correct. It was a graze. Francesca was getting ready to wheel me out of the hospital when Hart and LaBarbera arrived.

“Will you two please tell him not to play cops and robbers anymore,” Francesca said. “He's just not good at it.”

Hart laughed. “I would if I thought it would do any good, but, on the positive side at least he's getting better at it. First time, he got shot two times, this time he only got grazed.”

“Whaddya mean ‘grazed'? Man, I got shot in the head. I'm counting that as getting shot.”

Francesca tenderly rubbed her hand over the bandage on the side of my head where I had chalked up another thirty-two stitches. “Sometimes, darling, I think you like getting shot.”

Back at Francesca's home, I stayed in lockdown mode all weekend and wrote. No e-mail, no cell, no landline, no Internet, unless I needed to Google something for the six thousand-word cover story for the
Weekly
. The
Weekly
's covers were never written this quickly, but this was a huge story, and I promised I would have it to them on Tuesday morning.

Francesca came home with a wild mushroom pizza on Saturday and lasagna on Sunday. She also brought a six-pack of the pizzeria's new house root beer, Capt'n Eli, my drink of choice when I wasn't drinking.

While I was taking a break and eating, I resisted the urge to check my e-mails, for fear I would be drawn into that quagmire. But,
on late Sunday afternoon, while heating up the lasagna in the oven, I did finally check my phone messages. I had twenty. Most of them were from friends, six from media outlets wanting interviews. One was from Betty Desmond.

“Hello, this is Mrs. Desmond. Betty Desmond. Cleamon and Bobby's mother. That's Big Evil and Terminal to you,” she said with the slightest of chuckle. “Sal gave me your phone number. I hope you don't mind. Well, I know we don't get along like best of friends, but I did want to call and thank you from the top to the bottom of my heart for what you did out there on my front yard. I know you know I was quite upset with that story you did on my son, Mr. Lyons. I remember talking on the phone to Cleamon about it. He told me ‘Ma, don't worry about it. That reporter's crazy.'” She chuckled again, this time not so faint. “I guess he was right, thank God. They tell me you are already out of the hospital. That's good. Thank you and God bless you.”

She didn't leave a number, but it showed up on my phone. I didn't call her back right then, but I would, both for the story and for what we had been through together. I'd finish the saga of Eddie Sims first, then call her Monday for some quotes. By then, I laughed, she'd probably be back to being pissed at me.

I was asleep by the time Francesca got home sometime after midnight. She was asleep, on her side, when I awoke at seven a.m. Monday and began kissing her neck.

Afterward, we showered and dressed and walked seven blocks to G&B Coffee on Larchmont. A double cap with whole milk for her, for me a large black coffee. From there, she went on her morning walk, but she had changed her course. The week before, a sixteen-year-old boy riding his bike at Clinton Street and Norton Avenue, part of her regular walk route, had been shot to death with the sun shining bright. It wasn't just the Southside. Even three blocks from Francesca's two-million-dollar home, kids were killing kids.

I went home and wrote all day. It was, along with getting a good
interview, my favorite part of journalism. I had all the ingredients assembled, now I needed to put them in the right order, make it flow. Then I went over and over the story, cutting here, adding there, taking out a sentence, a word, an “and,” a “the.” Then, if it worked, if it was true, in went some poetry. Not too much. Sometimes I had a tendency to over season a story, but I had learned, from an unlikely source—Francesca—that it is usually best to let a great story alone, let it write itself, just get out of its way. She told me when she had the best ingredients—a tomato from a Fresno backyard, a prawn from old Dublin Bay—she didn't need any brilliant yellow saffron, just some good salt.

By ten, I was done for the night, satisfied and drained. I showered, changed my head bandage, then drove over to Zola where I had a glass of Barolo with Francesca and some staff.

Monday, I called Betty Desmond. It was a cordial conversation, her thanking me again. I asked her a few questions. How had she felt when she first saw Sims at her porch? Did she think she was going to die? Did she try to get through to sad, twisted Eddie Sims? She said she was terrified at first, but then, when she realized what was going to happen, she grew calm, was at peace. She didn't
think
she was going to die, she
knew
it.

She said Detectives LaBarbera and Hart had shown her where Edward Sims lived, just the other side of Central, about eight, nine houses down.

“When Sal and Johnny took me over there, I remembered that house, because it had these beautiful rosebushes. It was sad, though, because one of them was crushed, lying on its side like it was dead. Sad. I remembered that house from years ago. Way back when, before all this Bloods and Crips garbage got so terrible, Cleveland and I used to take walks and there was this man at that house. Used to be out there almost every evening, watering his yard, working on a car, throwing a football with this young boy I guess was his son. Very nice man. Used to always say, ‘Good evening.' That's all he ever said,
‘Good evening.' I bet that was Eddie and Payton. I know it was.”