Shetani's Sister (21 page)

Maggie flushed the toilet and washed her hands. She took an identical skeleton key to the one for her bedroom door from a linen drawer and dropped it into her bosom. She joined him on the sofa in the living room and smiled to see the sharp picture on the pre-owned color TV.

At dusk, Rucker spotted Tank's gaudy Mercedes and tailed it to a block in the upper Forties on Figueroa Street. Rucker parked his van diagonally across the wide street from the target vehicle. The van's heavily tinted windows made Rucker's white face and even his black-clad form virtually invisible to the constant foot traffic past his spy post.

Through powerful binoculars, he watched a succession of young Black Elite Gang members with their gang insignia, fake or real diamonds glittering on their earlobes, get into the Mercedes. Rucker was puzzled to see each of them elevate his knees. They would get out of Tank's machine after a moment and take up positions from one end of the block to the other.

A half-hour later, they started to deal crack to the drivers of a stream of cars. Shortly, the salesmen returned to the Mercedes to get a fresh supply of merchandise.

Suddenly Rucker's eyes widened at a phenomenon. Tiny spots of light flashed through the entire block. Instantly the dealers faded away into bars, alleyways, and parked cars as a police car entered the block.

Rucker zeroed in on the sources of the flashes. He saw that the signal sentries were young boys and girls, none older than ten, with small pencil-shaped flashlights. He watched the phalanx of dealers resume business immediately when the police car had moved through the block.

Rucker reasoned that Tank's stash of merchandise was with the machine gun, probably in the secret compartment that One Pocket Stiles had mentioned. Rucker deduced that the momentary elevation of dealers' knees indicated the secret compartment was located beneath the floorboards on the front passenger side of the Mercedes.

Rucker's binoculars snared the figure of a medium-built black male without the Black Elite jewel in his earlobe, passing something and receiving what was apparently money from a motorist at the end of the block adjacent to the dealers' block of operation. Instantly the lookout sentries flashed the presence of the interloper throughout the block.

Rucker watched Tank blink the Mercedes headlights several times. A trio of husky Black Elites sitting in a station wagon parked in front of the Mercedes torpedoed away and attacked the astonished interloper with blackjacks, fists, and feet until he lay bloody and unconscious. The trio dragged him into an alley and drove the station wagon back to its post in front of the Mercedes.

Rucker checked his gun before he stepped out of the van. He carried the briefcase containing Shetani's mug prints as he jaywalked toward the Mercedes. He would try to discover the crack stash as leverage if Tank stonewalled and refused to help him locate Shetani. He quickened his step as he reached the pavement at the rear of the Mercedes.

Passersby gawked at him as he flung open the door of the Mercedes and slid in beside Tank.

“Say, motherfucker! What's going down?” Tank screamed as his right hand streaked for his waistband.

“Don't move! I'm Sergeant Russell Rucker of the LAPD, and I'm going to talk to you. That's what's going down,” Rucker said meanly as he rammed his gun against Tank's side.

Tank studied Rucker's bandaged face for a long moment before he laughed too loudly. “Hey, I think I know you, man.”

Rucker took Tank's gun from his waistband and dropped it into his own pocket. “Yeah, you know me. I saved your jive ass several years ago, when a gang of stompers were about to beat the shit out of you or waste you. You owe me, Idus, and I'm here to collect.” Rucker took his gun from Tank's side and placed it on the seat, between his legs. Tank pulled an obese roll of cash from a trouser pocket. “Sure, Officer, what do you want?”

Rucker's mouth curled. “I don't take money from fuckin' criminals. I want you to help me find Albert Spires.”

There was utter silence. Tank's garage-door shoulders jerked rigid, and his brutish black face became an anguished mask of outrage. “Man, you ain't Rucker. You a alien from outer space if you think I would fuck up a brother for the poleece. Hey, I don't really owe you shit, since, at the time you raised them niggers off my ass, my mama Mamie and other taxpaying citizens was paying your salary to protect me from bodily harm.”

Tank's trio of bashers left the station wagon and walked toward the passenger side of the Mercedes. Rucker whispered harshly, “I'll blow you away first and a couple of them before I go.” Rucker stuck his gun into his waistband. One of the trio stuck his head inside on Rucker's side.

“You all right, bro?” he said as he glared at Rucker.

Tank replied, “Yeah. I'm cool.” The trio returned to the station wagon. Then Rucker said calmly, “If you don't help me find Spires, I'll take leave and rent a room on this side of town. I'll hound you and harass you and your dealers out of business. Well?”

Tank's massive frame quivered with rage. He reached for the Mercedes's light switch. Rucker slammed the barrel of his gun against the back of Tank's hand. “Hey, man, you gonna pay for this rough shit,” Tank warned as he squeezed the wounded member. His eyes were maroon pits of menace.

“You're on paper, asshole, and it's against the law to threaten a police officer. Say you're sorry,” Rucker demanded as he poked the snout of the gun into Tank's side again.

“Yeah, I'm sorry, but I'll never help you cross the brother into the gas chamber,” Tank said firmly.

Rucker, the former auto-theft and chop-shop ace investigator, studied the Mercedes's dashboard for an extra control knob or switch that would access the secret compartment that he felt was beneath his feet. He extended a hand and let his fingers toy across the dashboard to get Tank's reaction.

“Hey, man, you ain't got no right to fuck with my machine without a search warrant.”

Rucker smiled. “Yeah, I know. And you know that a recent parolee with a two-carat diamond on his ear and the bread to buy a new Mercedes is in big trouble if his parole officer finds out.”

Tank sneered, “Hey, man, this ride and this diamond was copped in my mama's name. I don't own shit. Now, why don't you split and let the poleece find the brother if they can.”

Rucker's probing fingers moved beneath the dash. He flipped a switch and felt instant pressure beneath the soles of his shoes. He jabbed the gun in his left hand against Tank's heart. He raised his feet and saw the shag-covered lid of the compartment open upward. He leaned and pulled two garbage bags from the hole with his right hand. He dumped a machine gun from one bag and many vials of crack from the other onto the seat between them.

“You're going back to Q for parole violation, slick ass, and another bit on top of it, if you don't help me find Spires.”

Tank stared at his beloved machine gun and the small fortune in crack. He mumbled, “I can beat possession of crack on illegal search and seizure. I ain't got but fourteen months to serve out on parole paper. I can breeze through a chickenshit bit like—”

Rucker cut him off: “Don't bullshit me. You would be a basket case in thirty days with no Mercedes, no crack to smoke, no fine pussy to bang. Possession of the machine gun, which you can't beat, will get you a nickel, and maybe a dime in the joint, with your rap sheet. Gimme a fast yes or no to my proposition. I'm in a hurry.”

Tank fidgeted and writhed on the seat.

“Come on. If you've got a brain, your answer has to be yes,” Rucker prodded harshly.

“I'm in if I get all my merchandise back, and my piece and the machine gun.”

Rucker laughed in his face. “It's against my principles as a police officer to return deadly weapons and narcotics to criminals. I can only offer you a pass for the weapon and dope, and freedom from my personal harassment, after I get Spires.”

Tank nodded. “You win,” he said in a tiny shaking voice.

Rucker moved his face close to Tank's. “Don't try to con me, Idus. I want all-out, fast cooperation from you. I'm giving you a stack of Spires's mug shots. I want you to make sure that every one of your gang members and their broads knows what he looks like. You got thirty-six hours to find him before I get itchy to make this evidence known to the proper authorities. I'll bust you and adjust the report time frame of my confiscation of the machine gun and drugs to the moment that I bust you. I'm giving you my home phone number, where you can call me around the clock, to tip me, and only me, to Spires's hideout. Understand?”

Tank said meekly, “Yeah. You sure a cold-blooded dude.”

Rucker said, “Thanks for that. By the way, you called me a motherfucker when I got in. Say you're sorry.”

Tank's heavy eyebrows took flight. He gnawed at his bottom lip under Rucker's relentless cold blue eyes. “I'm sorry, old man.” Tank sighed. “It's gonna be tough to get my homeboys to work real hard to find a brother for the poleece.”

At that instant, Rucker's consuming drive to get Shetani forced him to drop all scruples and con Tank. “Not if you let them in on something confidential I know. Spires has been secretly indicted by a grand jury as an accomplice of the South Side Slayer in several of the eighteen murders of women in South Central. Tell your homeboys it's necessary to find Spires to get rid of the heat on your turf, and so the police can pressure Spires to get the identity of the South Side Slayer. Everybody in South Central wants the killer caught before he kills again.”

Tank murmured, “That might work.”

A county ambulance wailed by, carrying the battered crack-dealer interloper.

Rucker handed Tank his card and left the Mercedes, carrying the garbage-bagged contraband. He collapsed in the van from the high-voltage tension and his weakened condition. Finally, he summoned the strength to drive toward Hollywood.

At that moment, Tank blinked his headlights for his three enforcers to join him in the Mercedes. Rucker had left Tank shaken and in a very paranoid condition. He was a street prince, with bookoo long green and his pick of a multitude of choice foxes. He was living fast and high, and for the first time in his life he felt important and powerful. A recurring vision of his cell in San Quentin rattled his nerves. He looked in the rearview mirror at Rucker's van in the distance. Should he send the enforcers to hit Rucker, to escape his trap and recover his guns and crack. Then he thought that it would be wiser to find Spires and avoid Rucker's threat to send him back to Q.

He decided against risking the gas chamber as enforcers piled into the Mercedes. He said solemnly, “That white dude was a cop on my payroll. He lays inside info on me on what's coming down in Black Town. The South Side Slayer had a buddy with him when he iced several black ladies. That crazy mass murderer's name is Spires, the one that's got the poleece ripping and runnin' and fuckin' with people over here. My poleece errand boy hipped me that Spires has been secretly indicted for the murders he committed with his buddy, the South Side Slayer. The cop said the poleece is gonna up the heat until Spires is busted. Now, we ain't got nothin' in common with no crazy square-ass nigger who kills black sisters. Right?”

The fearsome trio nodded with grim faces. “I want you guys to take this stack of Spires's mug pics and make sure all Black Elite and their cunts see what the dude looks like. Tell everybody to call Red Dog at One Pocket's all-night poolroom when they locate him. Tell everybody I'm laying out a thou reward. We got to raise this heat.”

He gave them the mug shots and watched them roar away in the station wagon. Several moments later, his half-dozen crack vendors were given Shetani mug shots and the same pitch.

Tank thought about the loss of his crack stock and shrugged. He'd be out of business for a day or so, until his crack wholesaler came through. As always when he was in a jam, he decided to get off the street and stay in his old room at his mama, Mamie's house for the next thirty-six hours. He'd have Red Dog, the manager and security guard for One Pocket's poolroom, call him at his mama's house when the tip came through on Spires's hideout.

At midnight, Shetani was awakened on Maggie's living-room sofa by a heart-jolting nightmare. He had been pursued by an insane mob armed with gigantic meat-cleavers. His tormentors were the Brooks twins, his mother, Petra, Pee Wee, and the Floridian twins he had shot to death in Harlem. He reviewed his master plan for escape from L.A. and his survival afterward. He couldn't leave until Mavis delivered the gram of skag early the next evening.

He would force Maggie to drive him around the block in the early a.m. to spot good transportation that he would hot-wire. With Maggie as chauffeur, he would ease out of the state. Maggie? He'd have to work out a way that she couldn't be a trace threat to his whereabouts. Maybe he would have to put her to sleep in some painless way, since he liked her and her feisty personality very much. He'd pimp and hold his stable by proxy. He really trusted Diane, his Jewish straw boss.

He injected a pinch of Mexican brown and lay listening to Maggie snoring behind her locked bedroom door.

In early evening, Mavis Lee sat in her boyfriend's blistered Pontiac, smoking their last crack rock on a market parking lot. “Hey, Petey, what time you got?” she said breathlessly, amber eyes asparkle, as she rode the final crystal rocket to Planet Rapture.

His fingers toyed with her vulva as he glanced at his wristwatch. “It's seven o'clock,” he said, his other hand unfastening her blouse. His cherub face was radiant as he buried his head in her bosom and gnawed, licked, and sucked her nipples.

Her airy hand invaded his sex works as she leaned to nip his earlobe, on which a fake diamond glittered. They molested each other until the rocket crashed into a dull, dark pit.

“Petey, I'm gonna call the connect again to cop for that dude that's gonna lay the C-note on me. I want some more smoke!” She buttoned her blouse and went to a pay phone near the Pontiac.

One of Tank's Figueroa Street dealers came out of the market. Petey honked him to the Pontiac.

“Dusty, how 'bout laying a ten-dollar thing on me until later tonight at the poolroom?” Petey asked.

The blue-black crack dealer tilted a brown paper bag containing a wine bottle to his mouth. “Man, I ain't holdin' a speck of nothin'. Want a hit?” he said tipsily as he extended the bottle.

“Naw, Dusty, I pass,” Petey said, with his gray eyes on Mavis leaving the phone booth. “Later, man,” Dusty said, and walked away to a moped behind the Pontiac. He drove the rainbow-hued machine to the driver's side of the Pontiac as Mavis slid into the car. Dusty dropped a Shetani mug shot on Petey's lap and said, “Hey, man, eyeball this dude's pic. Tank's paying a thou reward to the first lucky person that spots him and finds out the location of his pad.”

Petey studied it. “I saw this guy on TV. He's hotter than a sissy with AIDS.”

Mavis leaned over and glanced at it before Petey gave it to Dusty. “Shit, I can't hit the lottery, but it sure would be a gas to spot that nigger,” Petey said.

Dusty laughed. “If you get lucky, Tank said don't fuck with the dude or nothin'. Just call Red Dog at the poolroom, and give him the rundown for Tank.” Dusty zoomed away.

“Baby, the connect's old lady told me to call back in fifteen minutes,” Mavis said petulantly.

“Well, that means he's gonna be holdin' soon,” Petey said, and moved the Pontiac away, toward an exit.

Within ten minutes, he parked at the end of Mavis's block near the skag dealer's house. They lit cigarettes and puffed away nervously while they waited for the dealer's Eldorado to arrive.

“Sugar! The pic! I know that dude!” Mavis exclaimed as she hit her forehead with the heel of her hand.

Petey's high-yellow face was skeptical. “Come on, girl, you jivin'.”

She leapt into his lap and threw her arms around his neck. “It's the nigger I'm coppin' for! I ain't jivin'!”

He pushed her off his lap. “There's Big Cotton's ride. Go cop, so we can cop some smoke.”

She got out and walked to the Eldorado as Cotton got out. They entered the house. Mavis came out in less than three minutes. She got in and said, “I'm ninety percent sure the guy in Maggie's house is the guy on the pic. Why don't you go to the door with me and peep at him, so you can be sure.”

Petey studied her face for a long moment before he said, “Girl, since you're sure, we better cool it and call Red Dog. We don't wanta fuck up and blow the thou. 'Sides, that nigger's crazy and dangerous like a motherfucker.”

He drove off to a pay phone around the corner and called Red Dog. He drove to the poolroom and parked. Red Dog rushed out and sat in the back seat. “Sis, are you sure 'nuff sure this is the dude you met?” Red Dog said in his coarse, barklike voice as he leaned across the back of the front seat to thrust a Shetani mug shot before her eyes.

As Mavis studied it in a lance of streetlamp, Dog's sad, liquid brown eyes studied her. “Sis, don't let the grand reward make your brain tell your eyes no lies. I ain't had no sleep, checkin' out bullshit leads since last night.”

Mavis passed him the pic. “I'm sure.”

Dog said, “Sis, say it again, 'cause I ain't ready to call Tank out here to no fluke.”

Mavis looked at Petey and said peevishly, “Dog, I'm sure! I'm sure! Okay?”

As he got out of the Pontiac he said, “Lay right here till Tank gets here.”

They watched his long, wiry frame hasten into the poolroom. A large diamond coruscated on his earlobe as his red-mopped head animated at the telephone through the poolroom plate glass.

Rucker was fast asleep when Tank called him at 8:00 p.m. Tank gave him a detailed rundown on Mavis's dealings with Shetani.

A moment after Tank's call, Opal called from New York. She became upset at the harsh sound of Rucker's breathing due to the constant buildup of mucus in his throat because of his unhealed neck wound.

Despite his protestations that he was well, her call terminated with her declaration to fly to L.A. after her mother had been buried.

Rucker's legs threatened to go out on him on his way to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and saw double images of himself in the mirror. He went to the bedroom and checked his Magnum. He dropped extra cartridges into the coat of the dark suit he would wear.

He met Tank and Mavis on Figueroa, several blocks south of the poolroom. Tank drove away to leave Mavis and Rucker alone in the van.

“Do you have the heroin for Spires?” he asked gently.

She hesitated, and nervousness quivered her mouth. He smiled warmly. “Young lady, please trust me, I'm not on a narcotics investigation. I won't trick or trap you. I just want Spires.”

She said, “Yeah. A gram…Man, I'm scared a him. What if he kidnaps me or something when I see him?”

Rucker put an arm around her shoulders. “Listen, and follow carefully my plan, and you won't have anything to worry about. In fact, you will not have physical contact with him.”

She smiled stingily, and Rucker started to explain his plan.

Shetani sat at Maggie's living-room front window, peering through the curtains at the street for a sight of Mavis. He felt familiar twinges of pain in his stomach, and his skin was damp with the dew of junkie need.

The jangle of the phone jerked him. A moment later, he heard Maggie's voice from the bedroom. “Pick up the phone, Mr. Spires.”

He went to the phone beside the sofa and picked up to Mavis's whispered voice. “I stashed the package in the same spot like last time, in Maggie's backyard, 'cause my dad won't leave for work until much later. I'll get my C-note in the morning, before he comes home. Bye.”

Shetani locked Maggie up in her bedroom and went to lift a sofa cushion where his .45 and Rucker's lighter police special were stashed. He checked the smaller gun and stuck it in his waistband. He unlocked the wooden back door, and then the steel-mesh second door. He stepped through the open doors to the pitch-black yard. He walked toward the stash apple tree, outlined against the dreary sky.

The ghostly carcass of Maggie's husband's last pickup truck glowed white in the rear of the yard.

Rucker, in his weakened condition, inadvertently bumped the open passenger door of the truck that he crouched behind for cover. The rasp of the door's rusty hinges was amplified like a claxon in the cemetery stillness.

Shetani stopped, and his feline eyes focused on the truck. He drew the gun and moved toward the tree. Rucker's breathing was loud and spastic with tension and his fear of passing out.

Ten feet away from the tree, Shetani halted again and strained to hear the sound that Rucker stopped by holding his breath.

Rucker was about to exhale noisily when Shetani's foot banged against a tin can and drowned out the exhalation. Rucker held his breath again as Shetani stooped to pick up the dope packet at the base of the tree.

“Reach and freeze. I'm Rucker!” Rucker hollered with as much strength as he could muster.

Shetani darted behind the tree and reflexively fired three aimless shots at the truck.

“Throw your gun out and get on your belly, or I'll kill you,” Rucker ordered.

Shetani peppered the truck with the remaining bullets in the gun and dashed for the back door.

Rucker leveled his Magnum and saw two dim images of Shetani. He fired two rounds and moved away from the truck from fleeing Shetani.

Shetani clawed at the locked steel-mesh door as he stared at Maggie's impassive face peering at him through a kitchen window. She had freed herself from the bedroom with the duplicate key and bolted him out.

“Mama! Mama! Please, let me in! Please, Mama,” he begged piteously, in a child's voice.

She left the window to call the police. Rucker stood thirty feet away with the Magnum leveled with both hands at the back of Shetani's head. “Get on your belly, or I'll kill you,” Rucker said in a feeble voice as he teetered.

Shetani spun to face him with a demonic expression deforming his face. “You ain't well, pig cunt. I'm gonna kill you,” Shetani roared as he advanced on Rucker.

Rucker shot him through the right hip. The impact slammed him against the back door. Shetani sat on his rump and stared hypnotically at the spew of claret from the wound. He uttered a savage cry of psychotic rage and struggled up to his feet. He moved toward Rucker sideways, like a poisonous reptile.

Rucker leveled the Magnum on the head of one of Shetani's images. His finger had actually started to press the trigger when his dead father's voice roared inside his head like a proclamation from the heavens. “Russell, laddie, you're the family's fourth-generation cop. You'll be just fine with God and yourself, inside and out, if you never kill anybody out of hatred or anger. Laddie, only take a human life when you can't avoid it or your own life is directly in danger.”

Rucker lowered the Magnum and fired two rapid shots at the hips of both images. Shetani fell with a gaping wound in the other hip. He crawled toward Rucker with the laborious determination of a monstrous tortoise. “I've got to kill you,” Shetani said with bared teeth.

“Why me, Spires?” Rucker asked hoarsely.

Shetani bellowed, “You killed Tuta! You killed my baby sister!”

Rucker felt himself falling into a whirling black abyss as Shetani crawled within three feet of him. He vaguely saw and heard the mob of policemen storming into the backyard. He fired three aimless shots above Shetani as the blackness claimed him absolutely.