The Butcher's Granddaughter (11 page)

She didn’t look and said, “Yes.”

“Well, it’s either full of money or full of crack.” Her eyes lost their sparkle for a moment. “Either way, he’s not supposed to have it on him. Something’s wrong.” I could tell questions were boiling up inside of her, and I could feel a case of butterflies coming on myself as I grabbed a napkin and started scribbling on it. “Would you do me a favor?”

She nodded slowly, vaguely.

“I’m going to split in a second. Give me five minutes, then go up to him and tell him that there’s a guy named Bird out front who’s looking for him. Say it just like that.”

She was still nodding. “OK. Where’ll you be?”

“Where he goes. After that, just come back and keep these two big boys company. Promise?”

She looked hesitant. Then she nodded.

“I owe you dinner,” I said, and slid the napkin across the counter at her. “It’s been great to see you, Del, and from me, that’s something. If you feel like it, give me a call. I’ll make it up to you.” I gave her an honest smile and laid forty bucks on the table. I told the DeNulf brothers, “Drink up.”

Del was still looking at the phone number on the napkin when I got up and wandered back to the other side of the restaurant. I stepped through the steamed up kitchen doors, thanked Gabriel with a pat on the back, and jumped into the alley behind the place.

I looked at my watch. Twelve-thirty. Kingfish’s pickup man would be on his way to tell his boss that he waited and waited, but Double F never showed up. Kingfish would then make several calls on his cell phone. Some time later he would get a call back, and go wherever that call came from. He would not say a word. He would not ask Double F where he had been. He would not ask him why he missed the drop. Kingfish would simply walk up, pause long enough to pull a gun from his waist, and kill him.

The alley was cold, and I zipped up my jacket against it. The minutes clicked by.

I pulled a board off of an old forklift pallet and positioned myself next to the open kitchen door, my back sucked up tall and straight against the wall. I took a deep breath and held it as the rhythm of running feet mixed with the sudden, rhythmless confusion of Mexican slang.

Chapter 7

Lenny “Double F” Dwight’s right foot was almost touching the asphalt outside the kitchen door when I exhaled loudly and sank the end of the plank into his belly. There was a soft whump from between his lips and he died in midflight, like a well-pitched slider, right in front of me. I grabbed his jacket collar and dragged him around the other side of a dumpster about twenty feet from the glow of the kitchen. As I yanked on his lapels to haul him up straight, he puked between his knees and started coughing, taking in air as if he’d just come out of a deep vacuum.

“Hey D.F,” I said, “how do you stay so fast eating the shit that you do?”

He was standing up against the wall, but not on his own. I was helping him with a hand on his chest. In between coughs he unsquinted his eyes, recognized me and said, “Fuck you.” I stepped aside so the rest of the potato skins could follow the words out of his mouth. He finished puking and started to slump over again. I propped him back up.

“Now, is that any way to talk to an old friend?” I started. He grunted. It would be a one-sided conversation for a minute or two. “Word on the street is you ain’t never been caught, Double F. Didn’t seem like all that neat a trick to me.”

“Fuck you,” he managed again. “Lemme sit down, ya fuckin’ prick.”

I let go of his jacket, and he dripped back to the pavement and sat there with his head between his knees. I stayed standing up in front of him. “Tell me when you can see again. Then I’ll tell you how much longer you’ll be able to.” That got a look. He practically turned his head like an owl to give it to me. “This doesn’t look good, man. You should’ve ditched this over three hours ago.” I kicked the Nike bag. It was heavier against my foot than it should’ve been. Double F came alive like a cat.

“What da fuck, Birdy? Why you hasslin’ me? Shit, you don’ need to be goin’ like dis!”

“Apparently I do, motherfucker.” I put my hands in the air in mock surrender. “You know me, man. You knew I’d just be after a little information.” We both looked at the Nike bag. “But it looks like you’re carrying a little more than that tonight.”

A wry smile started to curl the corners of Double F’s wide mouth. He looked down at my hand, spread out open on his chest, and said, “Dass OK, Birdy, I got it now. Jus’ lemme get my breath back, homey. Gonna fuck you up.”

“You don’t want to do that, my man. See, I’m not the only one wants a word with you. I visited a mutual friend of ours about an hour ago. He’s going to be very concerned about your whereabouts.”

“Aww shit! You went to da King? Aww, fuck, Bird! What’d he say?”

“Nothing, yet. I don’t think he’s missed you. But he will when his man shows up with an empty trunk. And guess who’s gonna tell him everything he saw?”

Double F stared at me for a long minute. Then he resigned himself with a sigh and said, “All right, white boy, whatchoo wanna know?”

“Not what...who.” I pulled the morgue photo out and held it about an inch from his face. He moved a hand from his stomach and used it to grab the print and push it away to a viewable distance. I let go so he could hold it all by himself. He didn’t recognize her, then he lied.

“Yeah, I know da bitch. Seen her ’round Scream before. Healthy fo’ a white ho.”

“How long ago?” I asked. I wasn’t even paying attention to his answers. Some guys can’t lie well about the color of their underwear. He kept checking the Nike bag with his foot. There was something in it he didn’t want me to see.

“’Bout two weeks, maybe three.”

“She use?”

“I jes drop da shit, homey. Sellin’ it somebody else’s job.”

“I think you’re lying to me, D.” I shrugged. “That’s all right. Where you gonna be in about two hours? I need to let Kingfish know. I owe him.”

His hands started to shake and his eyes got large and white in the darkness. They skipped over my face, begging me to be joking. “You would turn in a brotha, wouldn’t ya, muhfuh?”

“You better fuckin’ believe it.”

“Man, I ain’t lyin’ to ya, I swear! I seen her aroun’!”

All I could do was shake my head. “D, you think I’m stupid? What color’s her hair?”

He stared hopelessly at the black-and-white photo.

“Not much help, is it?” I was tired of messing around. “Look, man, I was gonna just ask nice and go on my way, but when you walked in with a bag that should have been on its way to Kingfish, I figured you wouldn’t be in a talkative mood.” I took a second to look at him, hard. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. “You might be crazy, D, but I know you’re not stupid. Therefore, I know you’re not trying to steal the Kingfish’s spot. So...what’s in the bag? Crack? Or cash?”

His eyes glanced at something over my shoulder. It was the oldest trick in the world, and I fell right for it. In the split-second it took me to realize there was no one behind me, his fist crossed my cheekbone and pain washed through my head in a wave. As I went down I threw out a foot and caught him in the knee. He yelped and curled up against the wall, never letting go of the bag. I stepped back to him, shaking off the punch, and said, “All right, I’ll let you have that one. I deserved it. Try it again and I’ll make sure even surgery won’t fix your knees. Now how about you stand up and we talk like men?”

He stayed on the ground, rubbing the knee. I picked up the morgue photo of the redhead and sat down next to him instead. After a pause I said, “So you’ve never seen her?”

He didn’t look at me, shook his head. “Naw.”

“Well, D.F., I’m in kind of a tight spot, now. See, Kingfish was real nice to me tonight, tellin’ me where you were and whatnot, and, well, he’s gonna expect a little something in return. You get me?”

He nodded again. “I been runnin’ shit ona side, babe. Slant muhfuh over in Little Tokyo. He come up with some new shit.” Double F reached out and unzipped the bag. A rubber-banded roll of hundred-dollar bills fell out. He grabbed it and tossed it back in casually. Then he rummaged around inside for a minute, and came up with a small wax paper slip envelope, maybe two inches square. I took it. He talked.

“You innerested inna little info, Bird?”

“Always, babe.”

He pointed at the packet. “Don’ ax me what iss called, man, ’cause it don’ got no name yet. Iss chemical tag longer’n my dick.”

“Try crack,” I said indifferently. “So what?”

“
Synthetic
crack, my man,” he went on. “Little Jap uptown jes figure it out. He take a bond outta some fuckin’ chemical and whack! You got dat li’l crumb.”

I studied the open wax paper in my palm. The crystal in it was about the size of a frozen pea. It looked just like rock cocaine or crack, except it was as clear as glass. Normally, crack crystals look smoky. “Keep going.”

“Iss simple, babe. You holdin’ da future a da street!” He was squatting next to me now, excited, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“Bullshit. What makes it better than crack?”

“Y’all ever done dope?”

I shook my head.

“Da sky on pure shit like twelve, mebbe fi’teen minute. Two hits a dat little scrap in yo’ han’, and you be up for a hour, hournahaf.”

Double F was slowly starting to make sense. And slowly starting to be very important to the Kingfish. “All right,” I said, “so what’re you carrying? The cash or the shit?”

He wordlessly unzipped the bag and held it out to me, open, so I could see inside. It was full of money. Kingfish’s spot of tens, twenties, and fifties were all bundled with rubber bands. At a glance it looked like about forty thousand bucks. It was all crowded into one end, with a few more of the little wax packets mixed in, and a cell phone. The rest of the bag was filled with neat stacks of treasury-banded hundreds. There were a lot more of those.

“Jesus, you crazy motherfucker,” I said, shaking my head and almost laughing. “You’re playing both ends against the middle! I was wrong, man. You’re crazy
and
stupid.”

The fear returned to his eyes and he put a hand on my shoulder as I stood up. “Whadda you mean, Birdy? I’s jes doin’ some personal invesment, you know, an’ I needed a li’l, uh, you know...uh...”

“Capital,” I helped him.

He looked at me like that wasn’t the word, then went, “Yeah, dass it! Anyway, homey, dis li’l JTown dude, he wanna make hisself a li’l profit off da shit, but don’ wanna get capped fo’ it, right? So I—”

I waved my hands at him, almost in hysterics. “So wait, wait. You dumb piece a shit.” I started pacing back and forth in front of him. “Let me get this straight. You took what looks like about forty large from Kingfish, right?” He opened his mouth to protest and I said, “Excuse me, man,
borrowed
it from Kingfish. And you used it as a show of good faith to a manufacturer in Little Tokyo. Not just a dealer, mind you, but the actual chemist himself, right? Oh, this is rich, this is tremendous! So he sticks in what, a couple of crumbs of crack?”

“Yeah, muhfuh, plus about a G an’ a half.”

“A hundred thousand dollars?!! For fucking what?”

“To keep da King from cappin’ his slant ass!”

“So tell me this,” I said, getting very quiet, like a kind and understanding uncle. “Kingfish runs, what, ten, maybe twelve runners like you?”

Double F nodded suspiciously.

“And they all run about as much shit as you, give or take?”

“Yuh.” Realization was crawling across his eyes in a slow leak.

“And your plan is to go tell the baddest ass man in south L.A. that you bought off this producer for a hundred grand, and then go back and tell this chemist that Kingfish is OK with it, and make yourself a little jack on the side running synthetic crack,
in direct competition with The Man
, to the same fuckin’ customers you deliver to now?”

He nodded. His face was raw with fear. He’d suddenly realized that men with guns and cold hearts were probably fanning out right now, looking for him all over the streets of Los Angeles.

“Man, Double F, you think a hundred grand is gonna satisfy Kingfish? He’s gonna be losing three times that a night after this stuff hits the street! Tell me this, moron: how are you gonna run for some cheesedick Asian chemist after Kingfish pulls both your kneecaps off with pliers and
stuffs them in your fucking mouth!?
” I was laughing almost hysterically. “And, when the Asian mobs figure out what you’re doing, do you know they’re not just going to kill
you
, but your whole family and as many of Kingfish’s people as they can find?
Your pain will never end!
” I had his lapels in my fists, my face in his.

He started bawling and looking down both ends of the alley like Death himself was going to leap out and take him to the Man. I let him cry for a minute, and then let go of his jacket and picked up the Nike bag. He groped for it helplessly, like a semi-conscious drowning man grasping for a rope he doesn’t have the strength to hang onto. I propped him back against the wall. “Yep, buddy, you’re screwed nine ways from Sunday. I think it’s deal time. How about you?” I reached in the bag and pulled out a cell phone. I hit the R/S button and said, “Which one of these speed-dials the King?”

Double F held up a single finger.

The call rang through and Kingfish’s gravelly voice said, “Who dis?”

“The Bird. Guess what I got sitting in front of me?”

There was a long, very uncomfortable silence, and then, “One dead motherfuckin’ runner, I ’spect.” Hate and malice dripped from his words.

D.F. stood up suddenly and tugged anxiously at my sleeve. Through clenched teeth he whispered, “What da hell you doin’?”

I wrapped a palm around the mouthpiece and said, “Saving your fuckin’ life.”

I told the Kingfish everything except that D.F. was going to lie to him and keep running the synthcrack on the side. When I was done, he said, “Put dat little scrap a shit onna line.”