I pulled to the curb two blocks north on Atlantic Avenue. “Listen, all you have to do for the two hundred is go pick up my car, that clean, root beer-brown Plymouth and drive it down to the park at Century and Bullis. You know where that is, right?”
“Bullshit, man. Buuuuuullshit. I ain’t some dumbshit pilgrim. Why you need me to do it? Why cain’t you jus’ drive on into the parking lot if it’s your car?”
“Because that’s the thing,” I said handing him the keys. “You’re too smart for me. It’s not my car. It’s hot. But either I borrow your car for a couple of weeks or you go pick my car up and take it to the park.”
“Kiss my ass. This sounds like a free ride right ta the can.”
I peeled off two more hundreds. “Four hundred just to drive a stolen car, what, ten, twelve blocks?”
“Four hundred ain’t worth a couple days in the can and a Gee-ride case hangin’ over my head. I’d have to work the case off with asshole cops like you. No, no soap. Kiss my ass, Johnson. Keep your four bills. Get the fuck outta my car.”
He had a point. I showed him the entire grand, fanned them in front of his face. “Okay, but this is all I have. Don’t hold out for more because there isn’t any.”
He stared at the money, at what it represented, and knew he could buy a lot of young tail with a thousand.
The light in his eyes started to fade. “Listen,” I said, “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but there’s some money in that car. Five thousand dollars. I’ll split it with you. This thousand plus twenty-five more, that’s thirty-five hundred to drive the car ten blocks. That’s worth the risk. Take it or leave it. Tell me now because I know I can drive a couple of blocks in either direction and find some other mope to take this kind of deal for half the price.”
“I’m in.” He grabbed at the money. I yanked it away. “Half now and half when you meet me at the park.” He was about to protest when I handed him the five hundreds. The feel of the paper shut his mouth. He took the keys and got out. I watched him walk down the sidewalk among all the late-night street people going about their scandalous activity. He blended right in and checked out the area in such a casual manner that if you weren’t watching for it you’d have missed it. When he was almost to Taco Quickie, I made a legal intersection U-turn and headed south.
My Plymouth was a trap.
Chapter Thirty-Four
I passed the parking lot in time to see three BMFs putting the boot to the poor pedophile. Five hundred wasn’t worth a beating like that and a trip to jail to boot. I should’ve felt remorse and told myself Vanfleet was better off being taken out of the lineup. Better for everyone he ran with, influenced, molested, and abused.
They had the 45K I took off Q-Ball and his two guns. I didn’t have too long and Vanfleet would tell them the color and make of my car and there’d be a BOLO. A calculated risk. I’d keep the car a little longer then dump it. I headed over to 117th and Alabama. The conversation with Robby suddenly popped into my head. I pulled to the curb and slugged the steering wheel. He knew about that place, he’d said as much. And if he had Taco Quickie staked out, he’d have my pad staked as well. He had me boxed. Marie was right, take the ten grand, the tickets, the kids, get on the freighter, and get out of Dodge. Bail right now before something irreversible happened. Like getting picked up.
I put the purple Monte Carlo in gear and drove. I had to think. I turned on Bullis Road, headed south. If luck had been with me, I’d have been at the park right now paying off the perv out of the 45K. I continued on south, my subconscious doing the driving. I tried to envision life in a Third World country with eight kids and a lovely wife, the hardships with out any money. When I returned to reality, I was eastbound on Rosecrans Boulevard, entering the city of Downy not but a few miles away from Jumbo’s pad.
Fate.
Only I knew it wasn’t fate. Jumbo owed me a hundred twenty-five for the train heist. Plenty enough to start a new life, plenty enough reason to take the chance, go head-to-head with him and that Crazy Ned Bressler.
The house was just as Chocolate described, larger than all the houses around it. Easy to spot. In a time when most dope dealers were downplaying their wealth so law enforcement wouldn’t tumble to them and seize it, Jumbo washed his money with auto parts stores, donut shops, and two strip joints, each of which had the ability to hide vast quantities of money. So he flaunted it. He paid all his taxes and flaunted it. He’d even, on occasion, asked me my opinion on stock investments. But the most effective method was what he called the shoebox approach.
After the first heist, I met Jumbo at Tits Up, his place on Compton Avenue, for a beer and to pick up my pay. Jumbo had thought it ironic how I’d once chased him and now worked for him. He bragged about how he’d thwarted cops’ efforts. He put the US currency in shoeboxes and mailed them regular air mail to the Middle Eastern country of Jordan. The money was put in a bank and wire transferred back to him as an investment from a shell corporation. He claimed the infusion of cash on his taxes. There was more to it I was sure, but he could justify every overt penny. Hence, the large manse set in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
He knew I’d show sometime and wouldn’t chance a scene at his own pad. Chances were slim that I’d find him at home.
In the long circular brick and concrete driveway, under the portico, sat Jumbo’s Beemer along with a whole mob of other expensive cars: Beemers, Lexuses, Mercedes.
The ten-foot-tall front doors were inset with clear beveled glass that gave an obscured view of the marble entry and the white carpeted spiral staircase to the second floor. The security video camera was partially camouflaged in the old Victorian gas lamp illuminating the exterior. I tried the door.
Unlocked.
Trap or overconfidence?
I went in. On an oak table just inside the door sat some sort of crystal decoration, an orb setting in a nest of icicles. I picked up the orb, the size of a cue ball, hefted it, and put it in my jacket pocket, kept my hand there.
Faint music echoed from somewhere deeper in the house. If he was running scared, he sure had balls for throwing a party.
Three steps down to the immense sunken living room, which was filled with a middle-class yuppie crowd, stood Jumbo trying to fit in, a true poseur. The group ebbed and surged around their host and the open bar, manned by two women in white see-through halter tops. I guessed this to be some sort of celebratory party.
My eyes came back to Jumbo and stayed on him until he felt their glare. When he looked over, his skin went ashen, his hand limp, dumping some of his cosmopolitan, the liquid a diluted red. He wasn’t being bold after all, having the party. He’d thought I’d been taken off the board. He must have inside information. The crowd, in tune with their benevolent host, a few at a time, went quiet until the entire party stood holding their free drinks, with small plates or napkins of canapés, their eyes on me. I took the crystal orb from my pocket, pulled back and threw it with everything I had at the plate glass wall that separated the living room from the perfectly landscaped backyard.
The crystal orb bounced off. The plate glass wall shattered into millions of tiny cubes. The crowd collectively gasped. When their amazement faded, they all looked at me, then back at their host. The glass crackled, the noise growing louder until the entire wall came down in one folding sheet. The crowd surged away in a tidal wave. Their momentum grew until they stampeded to the door, flowed around me, a pylon in a turbulent sea. I held Jumbo’s gaze, wanting to look side to side, knowing at any moment Crazy Ned Bressler was about to sneak up with an ice pick and scramble my brain through an unsuspecting ear. Do it so quick no one would see it.