You Can Die Trying (16 page)

“Yeah. His slob. His set name.”

“All right. So what was that?”

“Pebbles. Like on the Flintstones.”

Gunner took his notebook out and wrote the name down, though he knew the chances of his forgetting it any time soon were nil.

“Okay. Let’s talk about motive, now.”

“Motive?”

“That’s what I said, yes. Motive. This Pebbles character—he must have had some kind of reason for doing Ford, right?”

Henderson shrugged again. “I don’t know anything about homeboy’s motive,” he said. “And nobody else does, either. He just did it, seems like.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s right. He just did it. Least, that’s what all the homeboys in his unit’ve been sayin’. They all thought him and Ford clicked up.”

“It couldn’t have been something gang related? A Blood versus a Crip, something like that?”

“Could’ve been. Yeah. ’Cept they don’t mix gangs up like that in here. They put the Crips in one unit, and the Bloods in another. You know—separate. They’d be crazy if they didn’t.”

“But they still have to mix ’bangers from different sets within the same gang, right? Like the Wall Streeters and the Tees?”

The Wall Streeters and the Little Tees were both South-Central Blood sets, but they were known to be mortal enemies, just the same.

“Sometimes they have to do that, yeah,” Henderson said.

“So maybe that was the problem. Between this Pebbles and Ford.”

Henderson shrugged yet again. “I guess. ’Cept Ford, he was just a buster. He hadn’t been jumped in with any set yet.”

“You mean he was a wannabe.”

Henderson nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I said.”

“Then you did know him.”

Henderson shrugged. “A little.”

“You ever hear him talk about robbing a liquor store late last year? Over on Vernon and Third Avenue?”

The teenager shrugged again. “I never heard
him
talkin’ about it, but I heard some other people talkin’ about it. So what?”

“So I need to know who he was with that night. How many kids were involved?”

“I don’t know that.”

“Was it him and just one other homie, or did he have more help than that? Come on, Donnell. Help me out here.”

“I told you, man. I don’t know who homeboy was with. I never heard anything about that.” He seemed to get a sudden thought. “So what was he to you, anyway? I thought you said you didn’t like homeboys who bang.”

“I was working for his lawyer,” Gunner said, getting all the mileage out of one lie that he possibly could.

“Like you were working for Toby’s the last time, huh?”

“That’s right. Like that.” Gunner was looking at the kid’s prison garb disapprovingly, trying to make a point. “You and Toby still hang together, it looks like.”

Henderson shook his head. “Not anymore,” he said.

“No? Why’s that?”

Henderson just looked at him.

“Don’t tell me the Blues jumped you out, or something.”

“Fuck no. Shit.”

“Then what happened? Why don’t you and Toby kick it together anymore?”

“’Cause the motherfucker’s
dead
, man. Understand? I don’t see ’im around anymore, ’cause the ’Nineties popped a cap on ’im. Him an’ Cat both, last Christmas.”

Gunner didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t known either kid well enough to be grief-stricken—in fact, he hadn’t cared for either one of them at all—but Toby Mills would have only this year entered his twenties, and LeRon “Cat” Rucker couldn’t have been more than seventeen.

Just babies.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Donnell,” Gunner said. “Really.”

“Yeah. I bet.”

Gunner let the teenager stare at him in silence until it got to be too much, then rose to his feet. “Look. If there’s anything I can do for you”—he gave Henderson one of his business cards—“give me a call. I owe you one, all right?”

Henderson rolled the card around in his hands idly, then nodded his head. “Thanks.”

For a moment, the thought of making an impassioned speech about reform actually passed through Gunner’s mind. Unlike so many of his homeboys, Henderson had always seemed to be worth the effort. But in the end, Gunner’s pride was too fragile to take such a risk. If the kid just brushed him off, as he had in the past, the investigator would feel like an idiot, like a fool who’d tried to stop an avalanche with a snowplow. Besides, Gunner reasoned—considering where their conversation had just taken place—it was probably too late for the kid now, anyway.

“Take care of yourself, Donnell,” Gunner said. Then he turned tail and got the hell out of there.

Mickey had to call him three times, but he finally got Gunner to stop and turn around before barging through the curtains leading to his office out back.

“You’ve got a visitor,” his landlord warned him, using a comb to gesture toward the rear of the shop. The little black boy in the chair before him waited wordlessly, the torture of his haircut almost at an end.

“Who is it?” Gunner asked irritably.

“Never seen him before. But he says his name is ‘Marvin X Rush.’ Can you dig that? ‘Marvin X.’”

He broke out laughing.

Nothing but the name was amusing to Gunner. He was in no mood for visitors. The curious timing of Noah Ford’s death had added an unwelcome twist to a case he had already decided would be impossible to solve, and if he needed anything at all right now, it was time to think. Not talk bean pies with every neighborhood Muslim who had an armload of the things to sell.

“Mr. Gunner. My name is Marvin X Rush. I hope I haven’t come at a bad time.”

He stood up from Gunner’s threadbare couch and stuck out his hand. Gunner’s guess was he was in his early twenties, of medium height and slightly built. He was bespectacled and cleanshaven; handsome, but ordinarily so. And of course, he couldn’t have been more wholesome looking if the brothers at his local mosque had just run him through a car wash.

The good news was, he was dressed casually, not in the suit and tie Black Muslims generally conducted Allah’s business in.

Gunner shook his hand, eyeing him warily. “Would it do me any good to say you have?”

Rush just smiled, uninsulted. “Of course. I didn’t mean to intrude.” He started gathering up a stack of papers he had left on the couch behind him, preparing to leave. “I’ll come back some other time.”

“Forget it. You’re here now, and so am I, right? Have a seat, Brother X. Make yourself at home.”

Gunner went over to the chair behind his desk and took his own advice. “Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea? A naked white man on a spit?”

Rush smiled again, determined to be civil. Gunner figured he had to be a graduate of the Never-Let-Them-See-You-Sweat school of salesmanship.

“No, thank you” was all he said.

“All right. So to what do I owe the pleasure? You in the market for a private investigator?”

“No. But my business here does relate to your employment in that area.”

“Is that right.”

“Yes, sir. You see, I am the head of a community services group known as STIFLE, which of course is an acronym for ‘Stop The Insanity of Fascist Law Enforcement.’ As the name implies, we are a coalition of neighborhood brothers and sisters who have come together to stop the Los Angeles Police Department’s abusive and inhumane treatment of the people in this community. Perhaps you’ve heard of us.”

Gunner looked at him blankly. “Can’t say that I have.”

Rush seemed disappointed. “I see. Well, in the coming months, you won’t be able to open a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing our name. That I can promise you. We have a number of fund-raising functions planned that will bring our message to the people, big time.”

“Great. I’ll be sure to check the newspaper for dates and times.”

Rush caught the shallowness in Gunner’s voice and stopped, his enthusiasm for the future suddenly dimmed. “You don’t mean that, of course,” he said. “But that’s all right. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t come here to invite you to one of our rallies, anyway.” He stood up and walked over to Gunner’s desk, dropping the stack of papers he’d brought along with him in front of the investigator like a lead weight. “I came here to show you this.”

Gunner merely glanced at the facing page. It was a statistical printout of some kind, entitled “POLICE MISCONDUCT LAWYER REFERRAL SERVICE, OVERVIEW.”

“Do me a favor,” Gunner said, “and pretend I don’t know what this is, or what the hell it has to do with me. Because I don’t. On both counts.”

“That is statistical data outlining the severity of our problem, Mr. Gunner. It’s an overview of all the complaints our legal office has received against officers of both the LAPD and the LA County Sheriff’s Department in the last six months. Complaints of physical assault, racial and sexual harassment, false imprisonment, illegal search and seizure, and a host of other misconduct charges too numerous to mention. If you’d look at the top line, there, I believe you’d see that the total number of complaints recorded is two thousand four hundred and sixty-five.

“I brought this material to you today because I think you need to see it. If my information about the work you’ve been doing this past week is correct.”

“Information? About me?”

“Yes, sir. About you, and the case you’re supposed to be working on behalf of a former police officer named Jack McGovern.”

Finally, Gunner understood.

Trying to keep a cool head, he said, “Look. It’s none of your business, but I’m going to tell you this, anyway. I’m not working for Jack McGovern. Jack McGovern is dead.”

“I know who you’re working for, Mr. Gunner. Not by name, of course, but I know roughly who he is, and what he’s hired you to do. He’s hired you to sabotage the legal suit Harriet Washington’s filed against the police on behalf of her son, Lendell.”

“I don’t do ‘sabotage’ work for anybody, Brother X. But that’s something else that’s none of your business.”

“The perpetuation of the racist and violent police state presently terrorizing this community is everybody’s business, Mr. Gunner. Including yours.”

“No shit.”

“Jack McGovern murdered Lendell Washington. In cold blood. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous.”

“So I’m ludicrous. Is that a crime?”

“We’re talking about one of the most sadistic white men to ever wear the uniform, Mr. Gunner. Did you know that?”

“I know all about the man’s history,” Gunner said.

“Then how do you explain what you’re doing?”

“I don’t have to explain it. I’m an American. Keeping my reasons for doing the things I do to myself is my God-given birthright.”

“Meaning, you don’t hold yourself accountable. Is that it?”

“Accountable to who? You?”

“Accountable to your people, Mr. Gunner. To your brothers and sisters out there waging war against the devil in your name.”

He had spoken from the heart; his faith in the words lit a fire behind his eyes Gunner had not seen until now.

“I wage my own wars, Brother X,” Gunner said, getting to his feet. “But thanks for dropping by anyway, huh?”

“You’re selling out, brother.”

“Call it whatever you like. Just do it somewhere else. Please.”

It was the
please
that did it. Marvin X Rush heard the emphasis his host had placed on the word and immediately understood he was treading on dangerous ground.

He was through the door and out on the street before Gunner could even offer him his literature back.

10

The first thing Monday morning, Gunner made a phone call from home.

“Wiley Legal Services,” a diffident female voice said.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Wiley, please.”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Aaron Gunner.”

“Erin Gunnert?”

Gunner repeated his name, spelling it once for her. She put him on hold and gave him some substandard soul music to listen to while she was away.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gunnert, but Mr. Wiley’s in conference right now and cannot be disturbed. Can I take a message for him?”

“Yeah. You can. Tell him I’ll be up to see him in fifteen minutes. And if his conference isn’t over by then, or he’s suddenly gone to lunch, he’s going to be needing some new furniture in the receptionist’s area. You got all that?”

She said she did, but he doubted it very seriously.

Milton Wiley’s law office was on the fourth floor of a hard-luck medical building on Crenshaw Boulevard in Hawthorne, just two blocks north of Rosecrans. The building had one working elevator out of a possible two and a ground-floor pharmacy swarming with wailing children. By the time Gunner reached the door to suite 404, he was ready to wring Wiley’s neck.

The heavy-set black woman behind the receptionist’s window rang Wiley’s office with comical efficiency as soon as Gunner gave her his name. She was still calling him Mr. “Gunnert.”

“He says you can go right in,” she said dryly, pointing to a door leading out of the waiting room to Gunner’s right.

Gunner had the door open in his hand when a voice behind him said, “Whoa, there, brother! Hold on a minute!”

He turned around to see a broad-chested young black man get up from his chair in the waiting room and move toward him, tossing a dog-eared magazine casually aside with no regard for where it landed. He had an inch or two on Gunner in height, and close to thirty pounds in weight, and he looked like the kind of character who knew how to use it all in a fight.