“I know. I had to try. I thought maybe, after all these years, you know, after you went inside, maybe you’d’ve changed.”

Robby knocked on the door. “You two about finished with the reunion and with your little slap and tickle?” He chuckled, a lewd one I would jump him about later, maybe knock a few of his teeth down his throat. “Back off, Robby.”

I moved Chocolate farther from the door so he couldn’t hear with his ear up against the thin wood. Her back bumped against the sink, my hips bumped against hers in the perfect dark. My mind, all on its own, flashed back to the image from the past, the “African goddess.” I became aroused. She nuzzled closer, “You’re a good man, Bruno Johnson. Thank you for that. Thank you.”

“I’ll tell Robby something to get him off your back. But when you get a chance, you’re going to have to go to ground. Hide out for a while until things cool off.”

“I got no money. And … and from what you saw, no means to make any. No one wants what I’ve turned into.”

I wanted to ask her what she’d been doing to survive and, instead, reached into my pocket. She knew what I was going to do. “You’re a good man. You’re a good man.”

I peeled off five one hundred dollar bills, enough money for a slave to the pipe to kill herself. “I have to trust you.” I put the money in her hand. “I know you’re going to use some of it for rock, but use the rest for food and a place to lay your head. I’m not kidding, Chocolate. I’m trusting you.”

“Sure, Bruno, thank you, thank you.”

“Go someplace where you don’t usually go. Go up north instead of south. Up Atlantic into South Gate, lay low over at the Grover Hotel. You know the place.”

“Really, thanks a lot. I promise I won’t buy any rock. A hundred bucks won’t go far on rock, but it’ll buy food and a place at the Grover.”

In pitch blackness, she thought the bills I’d handed over were five twenties. I held her a little longer, then pulled away. Her body like an oven, I instantly missed the warmth, the comfort. It made me think of Marie. I decided life was too short. FBI or no FBI, I was going to see her.

“Chocolate,” I whispered, “I need a favor.”

“Anything you want.”

Robby knocked on the door, “Come on. We haven’t got all night.”

I moved back over, moved my lips close to her ear. “You know about me going to prison, right?”

She hesitated, nodded. “It wasn’t right. Ask anyone, it jus’ wasn’t right. Anyone would have done what you did. Swear to gawd, Bruno, anyone.”

“Just listen. I’m in a real jam. A bad one. They’re trying to send me back. I need your help.”

She nodded again.

“If you get caught, it’s going to go down real bad for you.”

This time she didn’t speak or nod.

I took out the last five hundred in my pocket.

“No,” she said, “you helped me enough.”

I took her hand and forced the money into it. “Go to Killer King tonight before midnight, find a woman in the emergency room named Marie Santiago and tell her, code red, south side rumba. You got that?”

“Code red, south side rumba.”

“Right. Tell her two o’clock, okay? That’s two o’clock in the morning.”

“Code red, south side rumba, two o’clock in the morning. How am I going to get out of here? They’re watching the motel.”

“I’ll take care of that.”

“You sure? I’m gonna owe ya big this time.”

“Stay in here. Then wait five minutes after we’re gone and go through the fence out back. I’ll make sure all the cops are pulled off. Just make sure to go out the back, through the fence and south to Platt Avenue. You understand?”

“I know the way. You don’t have to tell me.”

I squeezed her shoulder, turned, and went to the door. “Remember, five minutes and then hustle over to Killer King. I’m counting on you.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

I opened the door, then shut it again, asked, “Hey, you know where I can find Jumbo?”

“Ah, Bruno, don’t go messin’ with that trash. He’s the devil. You’re crazy to even think about gettin’ hooked up with him.”

“Chocolate?”

She took a deep breath, “He’s got hisself a big pad over in Downey. Looks like an apartment building right in the middle of a neighborhood. It’s on two or three lots. It’s huge. North of Rosecrans, four or five blocks from the river. You can’t miss it.”

I opened the door again, the light made me squint.

Behind me Chocolate yelped, said, “My God, Bruno, these aren’t twent—” I closed the door. Her words drowned out behind the wood.

“Well?” Robby said, “Was it as good as it used to be?”

I stepped over and gave him a left jab to the jaw then an uppercut to the gut. He was soft, too many years as a supervisor. He went to his knees.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

He pulled his gun, something he never did lightly. He stopped short of aiming it at me. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” His words came out in a groan, his face a shade paler.

“You, man. What’s the matter with you? You were never like this before, crude and crass, uncaring about the other person. What the hell happened to you?”

“Life, asshole. It’s what happens to everyone. Did the bitch tell you or not?”

I wanted to sock him again. I turned and went down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the cool of the evening, the entire time thinking how to turn the thing around. At the car I waited. Robby didn’t follow right behind. I waited. He didn’t show. Did he go back and bat Chocolate around? I took a step toward the entrance just when he came out. He banged the door shut, his arm holding his stomach, his shoulders slightly hunched. He went around to the passenger side where I stood. I thought about backing up a step beyond his wrath.

“I lost my lunch. Thanks a lot.”

I didn’t feel sorry, not after the way he talked around Chocolate.

“What did she tell you?”

“She said the dude who threw the gas and lit the guy up was wearing purple.”

“That’s it? Purple? That’s all she’s got? We put her up, fed her, and that’s all she’s got? Purple?” He put his arm on the car, leaned over until his forehead touched the cold metal of the hood, and let out another long, sad groan.

The man was chasing me, making my life miserable, and I still felt sorry for him. And at the same time guilt for what I was about to do.

I was facing the motel, Robby facing me. A figure, concealed in shadows came out into the light. Chocolate. She held her hand up to her ear, index and thumb extended, the sign for a phone. Then she pointed at Robby. She melted back into the dark, back into the street. She was trying to warn me. She’d seen Robby on the cell phone after he left her and in between the time he came back to the car. He hadn’t lost his lunch, it was a crummy little alibi for a crummy little man. What had happened to the great Robby Wicks?

Why would he have to make a call without me hearing? Especially, before I told him what Chocolate had told me?

I held out my hand for the keys. “Hey, man, if you’re sick, let me drive.”

He kept his head on his arm and didn’t look up. “Drive where, asshole? That was our last lead. We’re through until he does it again. When he does, hope he makes a mistake and leaves us something this time.”

“He?” I asked.

Robby froze. Slowly he looked up.

I said, “I never said he. I did, but didn’t mean it that way. It’s they.”

For a moment he looked scared. It didn’t match the reaction he should’ve had. Fear flashed for a microsecond. Again, had I not known him so well, I might’ve missed it. He recovered. “They? What the hell you talking about, they? There’s more than one suspect?”

“I told you purple. That’s Grape Street. She said Grape Street Crips had a new initiation.” This was all the lie I needed. He took it from there. His eyes grew big. “You’re shit-tin’ me, right? We got all of Operation Safe Streets and the Gang Enforcement Team, working on this, and they couldn’t come up with that kind of intel. Some street ho—”