The Jook Page 10

  "What are you going to do?" We were watching this story about a kid who went into a burning apartment to save a three-legged cat belonging to this crippled seventy-year-old woman.

  "I don't know," I said. I was scared of what was bubblin' inside my head. I didn't want to fix on it, but the idea wouldn't go away.

  She snuggled her head on my chest. "I don't cook breakfast."

  One of these days I was gonna catch me a domesticated chick who did. "Ain't no thang, Isabel. I didn't come here to get my eggs scrambled."

  "You sure about that?" She started kissing me and we got busy again.

  Later, in her bed, I woke up sometime in the early hours. I couldn't remember what I'd been dreaming, but it had given me the chills. One of the bedroom windows was open, the humid air of the night spilling into the room. I laid there, my hand on my chest, wondering how many beats my heart had missed.

  Chapter 9

  "Fuck." I slammed the phone down and kicked the coffee table, knocking some magazines onto the floor. Wouldn't you know the one I could make out the best was the cover I'd made of Sports Illustrated right after the Super Bowl. I picked up the magazine and tore it to pieces, cursing and wishing I could get my hands around Weems' chicken-bone neck.

  Lowe had been on the phone telling me how hopeless it was. If Weems said I was out, I was out. He also told me if Stadanko had put up a stink, the situation might be different. Stadanko was fronting $370 million, and since I hadn't broken no league rules, Weems really didn't have a legal right to ban me if it got to court. But Stadanko didn't say shit.

  "Goddamn," I got mad again, and looked for something to break. The phone rang again, and I was surprised it was still on the hook.

  "Yeah." I was in a mood to tear whoever was on the other end a new one.

  "I'm sorry."

  It was Wilma. "You sittin' in the front office, why didn't you tell me?"

  "Get real, Zelmont. I have my own office, and Stadanko doesn't need to tell me about something like this. His exposure is minimal, since, let's be honest, you don't have the money to fight him. And Cannon can be squeezed to say you were a medical risk. You're in a tough position."

  "But you know the way I should turn." I guess I wanted her to make me do it. I guess I wanted her to have me lust after her and the promise of money. In the end, I knew I wanted to do it for myself. I wanted to get back at Stadanko, Chekka, and all of them. Then I'd figure out something special for Weems.

  She didn't say anything, but I could almost feel her and smell her through the phone. Well?"

  "You going to be home around 4?"

  "I suppose." What the hell was I gonna do? I didn't feel like working out, it wouldn't burn off this hurt I had.

  "Good." She hung up and I waited. I didn't drink, although I felt like it. Didn't take a toke of nothing either. Instead, I watched some shit on cable, infomercials and such. There was one about a device that let you count cards and coins, and with a simple attachment it became a fan. This English dude with a pink face was very excited about the silly-ass gadget, how wonderful a time saver it would be around the house.

  I was imagining other uses of the coin counter when the doorbell rang. It was a motorcycle messenger Wilma had sent. He handed me an envelope and I didn't tip him. Man, I had to watch my ducats. Inside was a note written in Wilma's perfect schoolgirl handwriting. "The Encounter, 8:00, burn this," it said. I did, and got there when she told me to.

  The restaurant was inside the building at the airport that looked like it belonged in The Jetsons. There were curves coming out of the round upstairs part, making it look like a concrete spider. I'd heard somewhere that a black architect had designed the place. Wonder what ma and pa flying in from Iowa might think about that if they knew.

  "What the hell is this?" Danny Deuce had gotten used to his new style. He was dressed in a Calvin Klein blue serge number with a maroon shirt and a tie that looked like somebody spilled paint on it. You could tell he liked being the boss while his big brother laid low.

  ''Duck fajitas,'' Nap said. He'd cut off his dreads and looked like he'd lost some weight after his stay at Burroughs' little hideaway. His biceps were loose in the sleeves of his Prada sports coat. He scooped meat and onions and guacamole onto his plate. "It'll expand your palate."

  I didn't think Danny knew what the word meant but no sense getting him worked. Not now, at least. "So let's do this thing." I had more of my Maker's Mark.

  "Yeah, let's get the money," Danny said like a kid getting to go on the scary rides at Magic Mountain for the first time.

  "This is not going to be some gangsta smash and grab," Wilma said. "We know where the money is taken to be housed for transfer," she tipped her head toward me. "But there's much more we have to learn and set in motion before we strike."

  "Like what?" Danny said, stuffing fajitas and pieces of tortilla into his mouth. "This shit's a'right."

  Wilma's eyes were slitted, hiding the look she must have been giving Danny. "Stadanko is on a precipice. Coming at him is the Justice Department on one side and the Armenians on the other."

  "What in the fuck are you talking about?" Danny had more food. Nap wasn't grubbin' like he normally did, just eating a nibble here and there. Outside, a plane zoomed by, making the windows shake.

  "Through a college friend who's now in the major crimes section of the DOJ, I've learned that local vice cops placed an illegal tap on the Pink Cavern strip club in Brooklyn two-and-a-half years ago."

  Danny kept eating as Wilma talked. I drank and listened. Nap worked on a piece of bell pepper.

  "The cops were following a trail of Tijuana-issued heroin. Supposedly, the border cartel boys were looking to expand business to the east. The strip club was owned by a Puerto Rican-American named Octavio Colón who had ties to these guys.

  "If it was illegal, then how were they going to use anything they got off the tap?" I asked.

  "Cops do it all the time," Wilma answered. "They do the tap, find out something that puts them in a certain direction, and claim later they got the new goods through an informant or a tip from another bust. Anyway, who should be dating one of the strippers but Yagos Ondanian."

  "I know him, right?" Danny said.

  "He's been to the Locker Room once or twice," Nap told his brother.

  "Ondanian is part of an Armenian group muscling in on some of the Russian mob's action along the eastern seaboard. Well, anyway, the tap picks up him and his old lady hinting around about the heroin delivery."

  "I'm gettin' lost here." Danny kept chowin' down.

  "The point is," Wilma went on, "Ondanian managed to turn one of Chekka's Russian mafia connections. This guy now works for Ondanian."

  Danny looked blank and Nap seemed bored. Maybe I was the only one who got it. "That's when the Little Hand must have decided there were virgin pastures in L.A."

  "Right. At the same time there was this big push to bring a new franchise to L.A., and Stadanko was in the middle of it. Thus a perfect opportunity for Chekka. A lot of money floats around the league, what with insane TV and cable revenues. How better to hide the origins of your money than through Hollywood-style bookkeeping? They brang in some others, all of them bent to some degree or another. You can't make millions of dollars by always playing fair. And the NFL was anxious to have a team back in the number two media market in the U.S., so it was destined to happen." Wilma had some of her wine. She licked her bottom lip and I forgot for a few moments what we were there for.

  "And Ondanian follows Chekka out West?" Nap was finally eating like I was used to seeing him do.

  "Yes. There's now supposed to be a detente between the two mobs. But it's Ondanian that Justice has been keeping watch on since that night. The vice cops made sure the info leaked up so they'd have favors with the DOJ down the road."

  "But the Justice boys would be happy to nab Stadanko too," I said.

  "Yeah," Wilma said. A look I couldn't figure out suddenly came across her face, then left just as fast. "You
do pay attention when you want to."

  "You think I learned all them complicated plays by just running around?"

  "I can see you didn't, baby." The way she said that word got me twitchy in the right places.

  "So why in the fuck did you tell us that?" Danny spit out some food.

  "Please," his brother said, holding up his cloth napkin.

  Danny swatted it away, but the two smiled at each other.

  Wilma didn't hide what she was thinking about Danny this time. It was there for all to see. "Because as I learned long ago in law school, we need to know our target before we move. And therefore we need to do our research."

  Danny slumped in his seat like the little nitwit he was. "Yeah, whatever."

  "Anyway, we have another in on Stadanko." Wilma toasted Nap with her wine glass.

  "Huh?" Danny said.

  "Pablo's sweet on your brother," I said. "And Pablo is scamming Ysanya."

  Nap smiled for the first time. "There you go, brah. And on the QT, that's where your participation in the preparation of this scheme comes in." He wiggled his eyebrows at me like I'd seen Groucho do on AMC. It made me jumpy.

  "Look here, Nap, if you think I'm gonna make the fag dreams of your swishy boyfriend come true with a threesome, think again, pardner. A'right?" Another jet took off and Wilma's wine glass shook.

  "Don't worry, it won't be an unnatural act for you." Nap ate more of his grub.

  I drank whisky but didn't taste anything. Wilma was giggling and Danny was practically falling out of his chair.

  "Zelmont, we gonna rig up a video and sell that shit to all the bungholers from West Hollywood to London. Shit." He laughed so loud, other people in the restaurant turned to look at us.

  "You motherfuckahs better be kiddin' or we're gonna need a new goddamn plan, and now."

  "Zee," Nap clapped me on the shoulder, "don't even think twice about it. You ain't gonna be doin' no plumbin', at least not on a man." He squeezed my shoulder like that was supposed to make me feel okay. It didn't.

  Later, sitting in Wilma's pad in Westchester, I had that and another matter knocking around inside my head.

  "Why you in this, girl?" We were in the living room of her pad. The windows gave a view of the Loyola college campus.

  "Who's a girl?" She had on her glasses and was reading one of her legal magazines, California Lawyer or something. I was playing John Madden's NFL Extreme on the PlayStation I'd hooked up to her TV. I'd picked the Packers against the Barons. The Pack was losing.

  "My bad," I said. "But you're still duckin' the question. Why you down for rippin' off Stadanko? You got a gravy contract representing the team and other high-priced corporate clients. Why risk all that on this thieves enterprise."

  She took her head out of the magazine. "You can be quite poetic when you want to be."

  "You can learn a lot in locker rooms."

  "Apparently." She tossed the magazine on a small table next to the chair where she sat. "I intend for this to be a smooth operation." She put her hands together and raised her index fingers. She touched her lips to the fingers. "I'm in this because, sooner or later, some of the bad shit chasing Stadanko is going to catch him, and the Barons franchise will come down around him. There goes my fat contract. I'm a woman who demands, Zelmont." She got up, gliding over to where I sat. "What's wrong with wanting more than a paycheck?"

  She stood over me and took the controller out of my hand, letting it slip to the floor. "You feel threatened by a ruthless woman, Zelmont?"

  I would have thought so. But she turned me on every time she called my name. That couldn't be good.

  She had her shoe in my crotch, digging in softly with the heel. Wilma took my hand and tugged me off the chair. We walked to her bedroom door, our arms around each other. She had her hand on the knob as she turned her head and kissed me. Then she leaned against the door, thrusting her butt out at me. I stood close behind, grinding her through the pants she wore, my hand rubbing between her legs.

  Eventually we made it to the sack.

  In the morning when I got up, Wilma was already in the shower. I was surprised to see the walls of her bedroom were empty except for one painting. It was the kind I hate, all squiggly lines and shit. Why anyone would spend good bread for something like that was beyond me. I guess it was expected if you ran in certain circles.

  "I think it would be a good idea if you and Nap started showing yourself at the club." Wilma was naked, drying her hair. I watched her breasts jiggle. She threw the towel at me. "Pay attention, you horny roughneck."

  "Sure, coach. I'll sit here and imagine Cannon naked so I can keep myself focused."

  Now she was making a thing of bending down and looking in her dresser. She slowly slipped on her panties, playing with me. I faked like I was interested in the morning newspaper. I never read the paper except maybe sports, and the business section back when I had money I gave that up and enjoyed watching her get dressed. She sat on the bed and had me help hook her bra. Like she really needed me to do that.

  She snuggled into pantyhose, and from her long closet she got out a matching skirt and jacket.

  "What you got planned today?" I asked. She was zipping up the side of her skirt.

  "We have a meeting with Stadanko and the principal owners. We have to start going over the players' salaries and perks."

  A stab of jealousy tightened my gut. "Grainger in the mix?"

  I think so." She was brushing her hair, looking into a mirror over a make-up table.

  "He's too nice," I said. "All the time askin' how you doin', how you feelin'. Boy got to get in the right mindset if he wants to get somewhere in this league." I knew I sounded like Terri, my son's mother, and I didn't care.

  "They can't all be hard like you, Zelmont." Wilma patted my cheek. "I'll see you later." She told me how to set her alarm, gave me a peck and left.

  I sat there for a while, then finally got my ass out of bed. I went home and got into my sweats. No sense letting myself slip when, if nothing else, I knew I'd have to depend on my body for the job.

  As I pushed against the creaking in my fibula, it occurred to me I might even call Terri and see about the baby. Now why all of a sudden was I starting to worry about that knothead kid?

  Chapter 10

  "Don't need you, Zelmont." Danny sipped on a tall glass with a dolphin stirrer in it. Several of his boys marched around, looking for something to do as the afternoon came on.

  "You don't own this place, Danny. You just the caretaker until your brother comes back."

  "Then maybe you should talk to Nap." He tilted his head like he was hoping I'd start something. "But he left me in charge, and really, you ain't necessary to this operation."

  "This ain't no army base, this is a nightclub."

  "One you ain't needed at 'less you standing in line and payin' at the front door." He stood there, daring me to pop his full-of-himself ass. If I did, one of his clique was gonna bust a few caps in my dome, crying while he did it.

  I split. Now I was back in the unemployment line until the job went down. Which meant my stupid grandstanding play of sending money to Terri was just that, stupid. Then wouldn't you fuckin' know I got the call when I rolled home.

  "Zelmont, no more delays," said my attorney Barry Kleinhardt. A few hours later I was sitting near the links at the Wilshire Country Club.

  "Ah hell, Barry, ain't I been on the fair and goddamn square? Didn't I make an offer to her parents to further the little ho's education?"

  Kleinhardt rubbed at what was left of his disappearing hair. He threw his pen on the glass table and scooted his chair back on the patio, then put the bottom of his golf shoe against the table's metal edge. "She's in a wheelchair, Zelmont. It doesn't matter that you say she came on to you, or that she was sixteen at the time and she showed you fake ID stating she was twenty."

  A wrinkled white man, his gut hanging over his belt buckle, walked past us. He had one of those old-fashioned thick mustaches and he looked at me
like he expected me to get up and start serving drinks to him. I opened my mouth and gave him the ghetto glare. He picked up the pace and went into the clubhouse.

  I hadn't checked her ID. But it was a good defense Kleinhardt had tried, as he'd found out she did have the bunk driver's license.

  "You gave her wine and then showed her the magic torpedo, and baby, you should be thankful for the four and a half years I've been fighting this charge."

  "Four years and half a million," I said too loud. A few of the golfers at other tables on the patio looked over their shoulders at us. I leaned in under the umbrella. "Let 'em wheel that connivin' bitch into court, Barry. Your investigator got testimony from them boys on the wrestling team she blew. Don't that show the chick's a freak?

  "I'll grant you it shows a pattern, Zelmont. But we've only found guys who are willing to testify about the last year or so, after her eighteenth birthday Young men who are in her appropriate age range."

  "And race."

  Kleinhardt held up his hands and sat straight in his chair again. "If you'd signed with the Barons it'd be a different story. A couple hundred thousand more and her family would be satisfied."

  "Family." Her father showed up once he smelled money coming out of my black ass. He hadn't been around for years before that. And her frizzed-hair mama, a couple of times it seemed if I'd given her a turn with my sweet thing she'd have got her daughter to back off.

  Kleinhardt bit his bottom lip on one side. "Zelmont, we have photos of her made up, and she looks older. Her friends that brought her to your house that night have been deposed and said she wanted to meet you in the worst way. Her girlfriend Becky said the two of them talked about what it would be like with you."

  "Isn't that good enough?"

  "No," he said. Kleinhardt looked off at the green as if an answer might rise up from the ninth hole. "We drew Judge Kodama, and she don't play around when it comes to adults and minors, especially with guys like you. Even though her old man is black."