Southside (9781608090563) (9 page)

Funeral: One of my niggas is from the South Bronx. Mad Bone. I should get him and test your ass.

Mike: Go ahead. Get him. I probably kicked his ass back there anyway. I'll do it again. Most of them fools from the day. Now, twenty
years later, they let themselves go. Got fat. Don't work out. Me, I'm still strong.

Funeral (laughing): Nigga, you a crazy drunk ass motherfucker. Talkin' all this shit. Yeah, you might be ah'ight for a white boy.

Mike: I ain't no white boy. I'm an Armenian man.

Funeral: Sure look white to me. But, you a trip, fool. Go ahead, Armenian man. I want to hear this tenth grade story now. Though it's probably some bullshit, too. Here, have 'nother sip a cognac. Good stuff. Courvoisier. Usually, I have me some Rémy, some XO.

Mike: It's pretty smooth. I'll bring you some Armenian cognac, Armenian brandy called Ararat one of these days.

Funeral: Yeah, if you make it out of here alive. Go ahead, nigga.

Mike: Where was I? Oh, yeah. Anyway, this guy, this muscular Mexican guy, he was really no bigger than me, a gangster from G-Thirteen. Gardena-Thirteen. Anyways, I bumped into him one day accidentally and he just like stared at me and I walked on. Right? So the next day, at the very same place near the lockers, there's a lot of people, big crowd just walking to another class, right? So we're walking toward each other and he goes out of his way to bump into me, hard. You know, shoulder-rams me and just stops and stares me down. And I'm thinkin', ah shit. But anyway, he just looking at me like “What you going to do?”

Funeral: Whadd'ya do? Don't tell me.

Mike: I walked away.

Funeral: Bitch.

Mike: Yeah, I guess. The rest of that day I just felt like shit, like such a coward. And I got to thinking the ass whopping that Mexican might have given me had to be a whole lot better than the mind whopping I was giving myself. I was beating my own self down over it. Way down.

Funeral: So what happened the next day or was that it?

Mike: Well, the next day, I'm thinking about it all morning because I know we're gonna meet up again and I just can't go through with this torment I put myself through for backing down. So couple
hours later, we're walking toward each other, same place, by the lockers. Then, outta nowhere, my neighbor, Blinky, this Samoan guy, the baddest street fighter I have ever known in my life, he comes over to me and hits me on the shoulder and says like, “Let's get a football game going on St. Andrews after school.” I say, “For sure.” We lived on St. Andrews Place. So anyway, the Mexican sees that Blinky is my friend and from that day on, he avoids me. Like the bubonic. Still, ever since then, I get pushed, I push back and hard. Even if I know I'm the underdog.

A pause for several seconds
.

Funeral: So what's the point? Getting shot is better than getting punked?

Mike: Getting shot isn't better than getting punked if you die in the shooting. But, if you just get wounded, you know, wounded, but not left crippled, that has its benefits.

Funeral: How? You mean you can brag about it? That what you mean?

Mike: In a way. I know it's sick, but that's just the way it is. Even in the Army or Marines in Iraq, Afghanistan. Like the guy that gets shot, you know, shot not too badly, but shot and then he returns to the unit. That guy? That guy gets respect. Instant respect. The other Marines are envious of him. Damn, Smith got shot. He's a man. He took the ultimate test and made it back. You see what I'm saying? Walked right up to death's door, knocked, and came out all right. People envy that. That's just the facts.

Funeral: Yeah. But I ain't never been shot. Been out here twenty-five, thirty years and never took a hit. Been shot at fifty times, never took one bullet. And I'm cool with that. And believe me, I get my respect.

Mike: I know you do. That's why I'm here, man. I respect you. But, I'm just saying getting shot has some good points.

Slight pause, then the soft sound of liquid pouring is heard
.

Mike: Thanks. I'm used to Early Times or Jack Daniel's. This stuff is smooth.

Funeral: Look, if you want, as a favor, I can have one of my boys shoot you.

They both laugh
.

Mike: For how much? Yeah, set it up. Little wounding. Not a graze. Something kind of serious. Like a shot in the side. So it can be like, “Where did Mike get shot? The torso. Ah, man. He gonna make it? I don't know, man. Took two in the torso.”

On the couch, a rapt Hart and LaBarbera look at each other. “That's what he got, two in the torso,” said Hart.

Funeral: Come back to work, big hero.

Mike: Yeah, walk in the newsroom, greeted royally.

Funeral: Big time hero.

Mike: All because a couple little pieces of hot metal went though some fatty part of my body. Not in any organs. I'd plan it out. Study the body.

Funeral: Sounds like you've been giving this some thought.

Mike: I think about a lot of things. So when we going to do this? Just my luck. We'll set it up and your boy turns out to be a bad shot.

Laughter
.

Back in the living room, King Funeral thumbed the remote. “That's it.”

“So?” asked Hart. “So, did you have Lyons shot?”

“You think I'm stupid? Just thought you might wanna hear that.”

The next day, as a hard, slanting rain lashed the city, Detectives LaBarbera and Hart, Captain Tatreau, South Bureau Commander Lester Kuwahara, and Lieutenant Lucy Sanchez of press relations gathered around the mahogany desk of LAPD Chief Charlie Miller.

“This is awesome,” said the chief as he gazed out his sixth-floor window through the deluge to the
Times
building across the street. How appropriate this downpour, he thought. How gloomy the
Times
building looked. How gloomy it would soon be inside. “This tape is awesome. After those assholes at the
Times
put all the bullshit pressure on us, and now this? I believe in miracles.” The last four words were uttered in sort of a sing-along to the hit song “You Sexy Thing.” The others winced as if stung by yellow jackets.

Lucy Sanchez wasn't even paying attention at this point. She was that stunned and disturbed by the tape. She liked Mike. She often talked to him. When he called the LAPD press office, he would usually ask for her. She had even made out with him at the Water Grill bar years and years ago. There were martinis involved and Hama Hama and Kumamoto oysters, too. She enjoyed the lingering kisses and more.

“This is almost too good to believe,” continued Chief Miller. “How sure are we that it is real?”

Lucy snapped out of her daze.

“It's real, Chief. We checked it,” said Tatreau.

“Sal and Johnny here talked to Lyons last night. They went and paid him a visit. They had a recorder with them.”

“Did he know?”

“No,” said LaBarbera, who was not proud of what he did, just following orders. “We weren't looking for evidence. We just wanted his voice. We checked with Legal before we went to him. He's doing really good, by the way. All things considered.”

“Yeah, he's home, ya know,” said Hart. “Doing good, like Sal says.”

“He could drop dead for all I care. Now gimme what you got. Get to the damn point.”

Hart and LaBarbera looked at Tatreau who took over. “They recorded him and took it to the lab. Three of our tech guys heard the tape. They compared it to the tape you just heard. It's the same guy.”

“Is this gonna come back to haunt me? Will you stake your rep, your job on it, Jimmy?”

“Yes, Chief. Sir, that voice is the voice of Michael Lyons,” Tatreau said firmly.

“Okay, then that's good enough for me. We're going public today. Five o'clock news. No. No. Six o'clock news.”

“Chief,” LaBarbera said, “I just gotta say something. We know it's Lyons on the tape. But, we don't know the context. I know Lyons and Johnny knows him well, too. You could even say we're friends.”

“Point?”

“Point is we both find it kind of hard to believe he is serious.”

The chief kicked his black Johnston & Murphy wingtips on his sturdy desk near a 1977 picture of him in uniform walking a beat on 25th and Diamond Street in North Philly. “He's telling a known thug, a killer, a prison rapist from what I've gathered, that he wants to be shot. It doesn't sound like a joke to me. That's not a guy you joke with.”

“I know. But, Mike is a street reporter. He lived in the South Bronx back when they called it Fort Apache. He hangs out in Watts, Green Meadows, and Compton. He could be just joking or talking smack, trying to act tough.”

Hart jumped in. “Trying to impress the guy. I can't see him wanting to get shot. He sure seems to get a lot of fun out of life.”

“Our point is simply this,” said LaBarbera. “Play the tape if you must, but give out that warning.”

Miller didn't like this. He wanted to lay the whole culpability for the shooting of Lyons on Lyons himself. Even more so, he wanted the
Times
to look like the shit they tried to smear on the LAPD. He wanted the
Times
to be held responsible for this shooting and for the panic they'd tried to create. He absolutely loathed the
Times
, to the point his shoulders knotted when he thought about the paper. He wanted the
Times
to be blamed for everything wrong about Los Angeles. For the smog, for the traffic, for the drive-by shootings, for there being no NFL team here, for the 1992 riots, the 1994 North-ridge earthquake, the deadly 2008 Metrolink crash in Chatsworth, the overdose of Marilyn Monroe, the motel shooting of Sam Cooke, the deadly drunken fall of William Holden, the drowning of Natalie Wood, the arthritis of Sandy Koufax, the birth of the mini mall, and the closing of Larchmont Hardware and Henry's Tacos.

“Look, here's what is going to happen,” the Chief declared in his most pompous voice, a voice to annoy a Cambridge English professor, a tone to make Cicero cringe. “I and I alone will make an announcement that there has been a significant development in this most curious of cases. A most perplexing case, indeed. There have been no arrests in this case, but a major new lead has been discovered by our detectives. Then I will play the tape, announcing beforehand that the voice is Michael Lyons, the famed glory asshole gang-loving reporter who was shot downtown last week. That's it. Come what may. Let the public reach their own conclusions.”

“Okay, but we have to make—” began Hart.

“Okay?” mocked the chief. “Well, it's so comforting, Detective Hart, that I have your okay. That makes me feel very good. Very good, indeed.”

Hart swallowed, then continued. “Chief, I was just going to say
we need to make sure that the other voice is not identified. That was part of the deal. I know Commander Kuwahara spoke to you about this, but I just needed to say it again.”

Miller took a long, slow inhale. “Kuwahara already mentioned the deal with this Hoover, as you just stated, but you felt the need to, I guess, what, remind me? Once wasn't enough? Do you think, young Hart, that I am an old, dense geezer and that is why I need to be told repeatedly about something?”

Silence in the room. Finally, Hart said, “I'm sorry, sir.”

“So, how are we going to play it?” Lucy asked.

“Should I get the word out that there'll be a news conference here at six?”

“Yes, Lucy,” said Miller. “But, absolutely no leaks. I want this to be a bombshell. A goddamn improvised explosive device set off in the
Times
newsroom. Announce a news conference at six regarding the Lyons shooting. I think you should say the conference is not to announce an arrest. I don't want any let downs. Just say, at first, it is to give a update. Then around five, start leaking that this is going to be a shocking announcement. Okay, Luce? Lucy?”

Lucy's thoughts had once again strayed back to the Water Grill where Lyons got her as wet as the Hama Hamas they were slurping, slithered in two fingers, then pulled them out, sucked one of them and gave her the other. How she went down on his drenched middle finger. How she rubbed him through his slacks.

“Lucy?” said the chief. “Lucy?”

“Yes, Chief, yes, sorry,” she said snapping out of it.

As the LAPD strategized, a man named Eddie Sims returned to his modest three-bedroom home in Los Angeles on 89th Street just east of Central Avenue. The neighborhood known as “The Kitchen” after the name of a liquor store and the heat of its streets. Turf of the Kitchen Crips, it was one of the three Crip gangs that surrounded Eighty-Nine Family Bloods territory just west of Central.

Sims had vamoosed out of town after he shot Michael Lyons as the reporter exited the Redwood Saloon. He had emptied his nine-shot Smith & Wesson 9mm with hands as still as an alcoholic four hours without a drink. It was shocking to him that he hit Lyons at all. Sims then dashed to his idling Cutlass, sped off, and was on the freeway, gun under the driver's seat, less than a minute after he torso-shot Lyons two times.

He managed to keep the Olds under seventy miles per hour as he maneuvered onto the 10 and headed toward Las Vegas. For the first five miles, he was shaking like Tina Turner in her prime, his foot lightly Bo Jangling on the accelerator. But, he chilled soon enough and four hours later, while Lyons was being mended, Sims was checking into a forty-nine dollar room at the Best Western Mc-Carran Inn on Paradise Road near the airport and the strip.

That night he stayed in his room and watched the news. There was nothing of interest. He finally fell asleep around three in the neon morning, his reloaded S&W in the nightstand drawer atop the Gideon Bible.

After four hours of sleep, he'd woke disoriented, but, soon, exhilaration
took over. He felt alive, juiced, electric. He tuned to CNN. Nothing.
Today
show, nothing. Same for the local channels. No news of Lyons.