Authors: Maxine Thompson

Slipping Into Darkness (9 page)

BOOK: Slipping Into Darkness

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Chapter Sixteen

I packed in a hurry, surprised I even had the presence of mind to go through such a menial chore as packing after what I'd just seen. I kept seeing an image of Tank's head in my mind. My hands were shaking like they used to do when I needed a drink, but that was the furthest thing from my mind. I was just spooked. I didn't even know who I was anymore. What kind of person was I to dispose of a head in the park? Then, in the next breath, I rationalized my actions. I was under pressure and I had to get out the country.

On the one hand, I felt guilty like a hit and run driver, but, on the other, time was of the essence. Tank was already dead, I reasoned. There was no sense in losing my brother too. I was under pressure and I did what I had to do.

Somehow, I managed to throw several pair of jeans, underwear, an all-occasion black dress, and jacket with my toothbrush into a small roller bag. I looked at my bookshelf and grabbed Sun Tzu's
The Art of War,
my Blue Book, The Alcoholic Anonymous Bible, and my
King James Bible
, which I put in my carry-on bag. I went to my bank and bought $5,000 in Traveler's Checks. I decided I'd worry about getting paid from Mayhem later, if there was going to be a later.

I headed to LAX from Baldwin Hills and made it in record time. I left my car in overnight parking. I managed to get through the checkpoint at the airport with no problem, but I had to check my gun, even though it was licensed and registered. Now I really felt vulnerable. I hoped I'd be able to get one once I got to Rio.

I did look up the anonymous account on the flash drive. It was an account in the Cayman Islands. The password and account number was there and this account had over $1 billion in it. I had no idea how much money I was going to need in Brazil. At one point I felt a twinge of conscience. I wondered if this was drug money or cootchie money that Mayhem had amassed.

“What benefit a man, if he gains the world and loses his soul?” crossed my mind. Then I pushed the thought aside. How much money that circulated in society had its origins in drug money? Was the source of the money I was trying to get released for ransom money for Mayhem drug money? I didn't know anything anymore. All I knew was I had to try to get my brother released. I still had an hour and a half to wait for my plane's departure. I called Chica. “Did you find anything on that tat?”

“Yeah, it sounds like it belongs to your man's family.”

“How do you know?”

“It's an old family out of East Los Angeles. I think it's his uncle's and cousins' familyâthat's why his surname is different. They seem almost like a secret society, they are so below the radar, but they are treacherous, from what I've heard over the years. Do you think Romero knows anything about the abduction?”

“I don't think so, but I can't find out right now. I'm getting ready to take a plane to Rio.”

“Where's that?”

“Brazil.”

“That far?”

“It's what I have to do.”

“Is it for Mayhem?”

“Yes. That's all I can tell you right now.”

“This is serious. I'm going to burn a candle for your safe return. Love you, Z.”

“Love you too.”

I hung up and glanced around. I wanted to call Romero and ask him if he knew if his family had abducted and was holding my brother hostage, but something stopped me. What if it was his family? Would he tell me? Whose side would he take in matters of the heart? Besides, even if he sided with me, could Romero get Mayhem released without the money?

I feel like all my efforts to find out about the kidnapping had led to failure, but, at least, I had tried, even if it was to no avail. Plus, I was really getting frightened. Was someone following me? How did they know I would be at my office? What kind of monster was I dealing with anyway?

I gazed surreptitiously around me. To my left, I observed what looked like a grandmother traveling with two preschoolers. It made me think of Venita and my nephews, and if they were safe. I wondered where she'd taken the boys. I noticed a group of Boy Scouts. I also saw a group of Chinese college students. There was no one suspicious looking around me, but my gut was churning like it does when something's not quite right.

Well, small wonder. I was right out in the open. I was sitting in the boarding area for Delta. I was a sitting duck. I only had my cell phone to take pictures with. I had my small carry-on bag with my big blue Alcoholics Anonymous book, and
The Art of War.
I was going to need all then help I could get.

All of a sudden I got a text from Venita: We safe. I'll contact you when we get settled.

I smiled against my will and had to begrudgingly admit a little feeling for my mother with her stepping up to the plate like this. Here she was, just getting settled in life after twenty years imprisonment, and now she had to be on the lam with her grandsons, who she really didn't know from Adam. All this, once again, for her precious Mayhem, though. Suddenly I felt a sliver of resentment. Almost immediately, I felt guilty for feeling jealous. Mayhem was the one of her children whose life was on the line. Still, I wondered something. Would my mother do the same for me if I were the one being held hostage?

She had tried to reach out to me all my life. She wrote letters to me for twenty years but I'd refused to write her back. Since she'd been out of the pen, she'd tried to be there for me, in her own way.

So what should I do?

I pretended to look out the large windows and listened to the gargantuan jumbo jets take off. But, trust and believe, I had eyes in the back of my head. I used a small compact mirror in my purse to look behind me. I never saw anyone suspicious looking at me. I turned back around and sat down, pretending to read a magazine, although I spent my time studying people out of the corner of my eyes.

As I said, this was my first flight since 9/11. I'd flown more as a child when I'd gone on Caribbean and Hawaiian cruises with Shirley and Chill and the other foster children than I'd flown as an adult. I was pleasantly surprised to be seated in first class this time. I guessed it wouldn't make any difference if the plane went down whether I was first class or coach, but this felt better, since I didn't know what I was going up against or what I'd have to face.

I let out a sigh of contentment, loosening up my jeans' top button. I had plenty of room to stretch out. For a moment, I decided to put my problems aside and luxuriate in all this space.

I prayed as the plane took off, since I'd always heard that was the most dangerous partâtake off and landing, but once the plane leveled off, I calmed down. Then I thought about 9/11, and had to calm myself down again. I used self-talk to bring myself back down. I guess I didn't have to worry about terrorists, the way they checked everyone getting on the plane.

When the flight attendant came through taking orders, she asked if I wanted to order a drink, and I was almost tempted to say yes, but I said, “No.”

I reviewed the chain of events over the past forty-eight hours. The Academy Awards ceremony. The two federal agents' strange appearance. Mayhem Skyping me. The information I learned from Tank. Moving my nephews to my mother, hopefully to safety. The information from F-Loc. The tattoo shop. The strip club. The massage parlor. Bonzo's henchman. And worst of all, Tank's beheading. It was too much for me to figure out what the pattern was yet, so I tried to quiet my thoughts.

What a moral quagmire! I'd already done something against my honor when I didn't turn in Tank's head. What was the right thing to do?

I opened
The Art of War
and words jumped out at me regarding strategy being more important than fighting in a battle. I was too tired to read, to concentrate, or to think, though, so I rested my head back and closed my eyes. I wondered what this trip would bring. How would I get in touch with Appolonia? I wondered if that shot or that malaria pill was why I was feeling so spacey.

I must have dozed off because suddenly I was nine years old again. I had awakened early one morning to Venita pacing the floor. “That boy has stayed out all night,” she mumbled more or less to herself.

I overheard Strange walk up to Venita and say, “That li'l nigga too grown. He may be out here slangin' that rock with these Crips, but I'ma show him. I'ma beat his ass when he get in here. You may be scared of his ass, but I ain't.”

Finally, shortly after sunup, Mayhem came slipping through his bedroom window, one ten-year-old leg at a time. Unfortunately, Strange was waiting on the other side of the window for him with an ironing cord. Mayhem took a few licks, but as soon as he broke loose from under Strange's wailing cord, he caught the belt in his hand. In a swift move of the hand, Mayhem pulled out a knife and swiped at Strange.

Strange backed up, grabbing his upper arm. “This li'l nigga done cut me. I'ma kill him when I get my hands on him.”

Mayhem made it lickety split to the front door, and stopped at the threshold, but not before he left a threat, which turned out to be a promise. “You ever touch my mother again, I'll kill you. You touch me again or even look at my sister wrong, I'll dead you.”

Mayhem shot back out the front door, never to return, other than when Strange was at work so he could check on me, my baby brother, Diggity, and my mother, who was pregnant with my baby sister, Righteousness. From that point, though, he was on his own. I guess it's true. There can't be two men in one house. Mayhem became a man from the time he was ten years old.

That's when the dream went back to the day my daddy died. “Be careful, li'l girl,” my father was saying.

Suddenly I felt a gentle hand shaking me. “Are you all right, miss?” I looked into the freckled face of a thin strawberry-blond flight attendant. “You were crying out.”

I was sweating profusely and panting. Eyes bucked, I sat up, staring wildly all around me. When I saw I was still on the plane, I calmed myself down, and relaxed, pushing my back into my seat. I was safeâfor now.

Chapter Seventeen

When I first landed at the Rio de Janeiro/ GaleÃ£o-Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport, I might as well have landed on Jupiter, I was so in awe. My first impression of Brazil was that it was like what I imagine parts of the MotherlandâAfricaâwould look like. There were people who looked like pure Africans. I guessed they were the ones who I resembled the most.

Then there was another rainbow mixture of all races. The people were bronze, ivory, amber, persimmon, and ochre. What I noticed most were the young women, men and children were exceptionally good-looking. This was a land of beautiful people, I decided. Even the old people looked attractive. Maybe they got the best of the gene pool in the world. I didn't know.

Mainly, I saw people who looked like me as I made my way to the Delta terminal to pick up my suitcase. It was the strangest feeling. On the one hand, I felt like a stranger, but on the other, I felt at home.

I had looked Brazil up online on the flight down. Brazil had the largest Black population other than Africa. This was where the first slave ships stopped. However, the Blacks still had the least political power.

First, I went through customs, which was a half-hour process. The time passed by quickly because I was mesmerized by the sights and the sounds. The smells of fried cassava and banana filled the airport from the street vendors. The unidentifiable smells of different foods from the shops insides the airport made me hungry and my stomach growled. The sounds of the language colored the air like an international Tower of Babel. I saw people of all races.

After I got my suitcases, I panned the crowds looking for someone holding a sign for me. Finally, I saw an attractive woman who looked to be in her late forties holding a sign. “Zippora Saldano.” My name was spelled wrong; however, I'd been waiting for an hour, so I was relieved. I'd never been this far away from home, and I was a stranger in a strange new country. Unfortunately, this was no vacation either. I had no gun. All I had were my wits. I felt tensed up inside and tried to relax.

“Here I am,” I said, flagging my hands and arms up and down. The lady put her sign down and came forth with a tentative smile. At the same time, I noticed a sadness tugging in the corner of her mouth.

“Hello. Are you Zipporah? I'm Esmeralda, Appolonia's grandmother.” She spoke a lilting English with a strong accent, but I understood her, so I was relieved.

Did she say grandmother?
She didn't look old enough to be a grandmother. “Yes, I'm Zipporah. Call me Z, though. You look too young to be a grandmother.”

“Actually, I'm a great-grandmother. We all had our children young. I'm fifty-four. My daughter is forty and Appolonia is twenty-eight. The sad thing is my daughter is dying.” Her face crumpled and I thought of Trayvon. “You never expect to bury your child before you.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

We looped our way in and out through the throngs of people, until we made it the curb. Esmeralda grabbed my small roller bag, hoisted it up, and put it in the back of her Volkswagen bug. She drove past the white sandy Ipanema beach, the sparkling ocean, the palm trees with their fronds flowing in the breeze. Acacia trees lined the streets, and I saw the famous baobab “bottle” trees. I saw exotic-looking birds with bright yellow, green, and blue feathers. I watched the waltzes of large birds of prey, the falcon and the eagles, in the clear emerald sky. The fragrance of nutmeg and cinnamon filled the surrounding markets where people haggled and bargained for prices.

Finally Esmeralda turned into a city I learned was called Rocinha. Rocinha was a favelo (a slum) nestled in the foot of a mountain. In the distance, you could see the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer from the Corcovado mountain in the backdrop of Rio.

The favelas appeared to be part of a maze of shantytowns. Appolonia's
abuela,
Esmeralda, took me to her modest home. I was just amazed how close all the homes were together in the favelas.

As soon as we rounded a narrow street on a hill, I heard the staccato rat-tat-tat of gunshots. The noise reminded me of an AK-47. A large army tank was nestled on one side of the hill, and return fire flashed from the other side of the hill. My ears went deaf and tingled from the blast.

“What theâ” I caught myself to keep from cussing. “What's going on?” I asked, ducking for cover. That's all I needed was to come this far and get killed in crossfire.

“Z, keep your head down. The soldiers are fighting the drug traffickers. They're trying to clean up the favelas before the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.”

Out of nowhere, a man, who darted out in front of our car, was hit by a barrage of bullets in the back and dropped dead in front of my face. Thunderstruck, I was speechless for a moment. Esmeralda just speeded up, pulled around the body, and kept driving. She just acted like this was an everyday occurrence. My goodness! They were dropping bodies over here like in South Los Angeles.

“What in the hell was that?” I couldn't hold in my cussing a minute longer. My throat felt as dry as sandpaper. My lungs were wheezing from the shock.

“That was a known drug trafficker. We don't know nothing and we don't see nothing here, if you know what's good for you. Hurry up. Let's get inside.” Esmeralda pulled up to a grey adobe-looking building that was connected to other houses.

Once we made it safely inside her modest Spanish home with a glazed red tile roof, I was relieved. It was a shotgun house, with the rooms aligned in a phalanx. The quarters were small, but neat, clean, and orderly. A shrine, which held several candles and a crucifix, was seated in one corner. Two parakeets tweeted in a harmonic blithe song in an ivory cage by the window.

A picture of an attractive teenage girl smiling shyly into the camera stood on a mantle. “Who is she?” I pointed to the picture.

“Orchid. She's my granddaughter. Appolonia's sister.”

“I thought you said you were a great-grandmother.”

Esmeralda didn't answer. She began cooking something which smelled heavenly. “We're having
feijoada.
”

“What is that?”

“Stew.”

When we sat down to eat, Esmeralda bowed her head in prayer and held my hand. As soon as I dipped the spoon in my mouth, I found this dish arguably to be the best stew I'd ever eaten. It was made with black turtle beans and various cuts of pork and beef, served with rice and collard greens and a deep-fried cassava and banana.

Throughout the meal, I could hear bullets whizzing and exploding. If I thought L.A. was like a little war time Afghanistan, I was wrong. Rio had L.A. beat hands-down. I guess I'd come to Rio at the wrong time. At any given moment, gunfire erupted between the security forces or police blitzes and the drug traffickers. I heard gunshots all through the meal until I gratefully was able to tune it out.

After our meal, Esmeralda sat down in the living room and she was ready to talk. She spoke in a hushed tone. “I thank you so much for coming to help us.”

What did she just say?
I thought. Who said I was going to be able to help them? And who was “them”?

“You're going to have to meet with Diablo and talk to him. Please help get my granddaughter back.”

BOOK: Slipping Into Darkness

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