"You was about to bust my head open a few ticks ago there, coach."
"That was only to scare you, Zee." Cannon was sounding too friendly. Bastard was scared. "You know I'd never really hurt you." He started breathing hard, coughing blood and spit. "I've never been shot."
"Neither have I, coach, and I intend to keep it that way." I started to climb past him again. I could hear people outside. Soon the law would be here.
"Zelmont," he said, pawing at me with his beefy hands.
"I'm here, coach." I leaned in close like I was gonna help him get loose. Instead I hit him a couple times, knocking his conniving self unconscious. I had to kick out what was left of the driver's side window 'cause it was up and was an electric number. Then I pulled myself loose. A crowd was around, including the irate broad with the Mustang we'd fucked up.
"You are in big trouble, mister." She shook a finger under my nose as I heard sirens getting close. A lot of eyes were on me in the dark. Several cars were stopped and traffic was backing up in the lanes on our side of the divider. That was good 'cause it meant the cops would have to go around the other way to get to this spot.
"These men kidnapped me." I leaned against the Navigator, looking all dazed and shook up and shit. That got some whispers going in the crowd. "Can somebody get me to an ambulance?" I started massaging my stomach. "Something doesn't feel right."
The Mustang chick, who was tall and had a sweet-looking pair of jugs on her, stared at me, not knowing what to do.
"Why don't you sit down until the police and ambulance arrive?" a woman in a flower print vest said, trying to be kind.
I could see the blue and reds blinking behind the sea of cars that had backed up.
"Yeah, that's a good idea." I stumbled over to the divider and leaned on it but remained standing.
Mustang Sally and a couple of young studs, no doubt hoping that being a Good Samaritan might earn a phone number from her or more, stood close to me, making sure I wasn't going to book. Then Cannon saved my ass. He came to and started bellowing.
"See, I told you they were up to no good." I pointed at the truck like a little kid telling on his sister.
"Help me," Cannon begged, his voice getting real weak.
The two studs had to prove their manhood. They looked at each other and marched over to the coach's SUV with some of the others who were standing around.
I pushed Mustang Sally to the ground and went over the divider into oncoming traffic. There was braking and cursing as I dashed across the lanes, hoping like hell I'd make it. An MTA bus almost flattened me. The driver, a woman with long braids that went flying everywhere as she rode the air brakes, stopped about four inches from my popped-out eyes. We looked at each other with our mouths wide open, my face all bright in her headlights.
But her sudden stop made other cars slow since they didn't know what was going on. I took off again toward the bushes and trees on the side of the freeway, my fear of getting caught bigger than my fear of getting run over. My hip was acting up some, but I got across just as a Highway Patrol car pulled up.
I went down the hill through the bushes and such on the side of the freeway and came to a cyclone fence at the bottom. I went up and over and was now on a dead-end street of small houses. Every last one of them seemed to have a dog that didn't mind barking. There was too much drama going on, and I had to get away and figure out my next move. I knew I was getting played, but not exactly how. I wound up near Hawthorne Boulevard and caught a bus heading north. The cops would be all over my pad and fan out from there, so I knew if I went south toward the crib I would get nabbed for sure. I got off at 165th Street and called Isabel.
"I need a ride, baby, can you do that for me?"
"I bet it has something to do with this business on the 11 o'clock news."
"That's right." What was the point in trying to scam her?
She didn't say anything for a few seconds. "All right, Zelmont, I'll come get you. I'll come for you wherever you are."
"You're something, Isabel."
" 'Bout time you realized that."
I waited outside an all-night supermarket for her, sweating in the warm night. I watched cars and trucks and buses go by on the street. Somewhere out there was my money, and Wilma was lording over it. Maybe she'd already split with the whole take. Fine. I'd keep after her until I couldn't search no more and then I'd still keep looking. I was gonna get what was due me.
Chapter 16
I cooled out at a fat farm in Hesperia up in San Bernardino County. It was co-owned on the sly by Burroughs and Monique Gold. She was a retired actress who did all those Fugitive and Mannix TV shows back in the day. She always had on a ton of black mascara and still wore her dyed coal-black hair way up in one of those beehives. I'd been to the place a few times in the off-season when I was the top dog 'cause they had a complete gym, sauna, massage, and whirlpool facilities. Back then it made for a good hideaway from reporters who were always getting in my face, and I sure didn't think Chekka, Weems, Trace, or anybody else would find me at this joint.
It was hotter than shit up there. I worked out on the machines and did laps in the pool, which was shaped like a giant teardrop.
''Representing the tears I shed for Hollywood," Monique said. She had to be pushing seventy, and as usual was holding a club glass in one hand and a thin cigar in the other. She stood at the edge of the pool in heels and a robe with leopard spots. The wraparound she had on was too short for a Barbie doll. But I had to admit, she had pretty good legs for an old girl.
"How many times a day you say that line, Monique?" I hauled myself out of the pool, sitting on the edge. A few of her clients were also doing their laps and splashed water like walruses.
"Many times, many times, darling." She put her glass on a table with an umbrella in the middle of it. She grabbed a towel from a chair next to it and bent down. Monique dried my back and shoulders.
"You've managed to keep your figure, sweet boy." She talked with the cigar hanging from her plump red lips. As usual she had on a fistful of mascara over her dark eyes and enough hairspray to knock out mosquitos from twenty feet away.
"What else have I got, Monique?"
She looked me up and down, puffing on her cigar. "You've got that right, darling."
"Better be cool. Some of your Newport Beach customers might not dig you flirting with Mandingo."
"They'd only be jealous. Maybe I'd have to share you."
I got up and was surprised to find the hip had moved wrong when I was sitting. I gritted my teeth in pain. The goddamn thing was getting to be unpredictable. Guess all the stress I'd been putting my hip through lately was starting to add up. Now it looked like I was gonna have to get that operation after all.
"You've been aggravating that condition." She touched my hip.
"How do you know?" Irritated, I started to walk off.
"Come with me," she said.
"I ain't got time for no games, Monique."
"No games."
I followed her into the main building, which was done up like a temple you'd see on an old rerun of Ben-Hur. We went into her office. It looked like a set from Xena.
"Here." She pointed at a shelf filled with weird-ass statues in the shape of half-animal, half-human creatures that had wings and horns and so on. Same kind of shit Nap had in his office.
"That's real nice, Monique."
She picked a good-sized statue off the shelf. It looked like a bear, but had long fangs and bat wings. "This is Nap."
"You're wig hat's on too tight, girl."