Time passed and I took to the hills that led to my pad. The home I used to have. That house too was quiet and shut down. No one lived there either. With Candy and Dandy gone, the place looked like any square's crib. Fuck it. I broke in by going over the rear wall and through the side door that never did sit right in the frame. I messed up the knob and the lock, but that was someone else's worry. Naturally the real estate people wouldn't be keeping up the subscription to the alarm service.
Most of my stuff was either in storage or, like my bumpin' music system, had been sold off. There was some mail on the kitchen counter. One was a letter from Terri. Having nothing else to do, I opened it. She'd sent a note saying maybe I should come down there and see her and the baby. That my sending her that dough must have meant I was ready to be a father. She'd tossed in a picture of her and the baby, and I held it up to a window to get a better look in the moonlight. Terri was still fine, just about busting out of the stretch top she had on. Then there was that kid standing in front of her. He was taller than a regular six-year-old, with wide shoulders and a smile of teeth. Good lookin' kid. He was my son. My son.
I stumbled through the house, holding the photo in one hand, then crumpled it 'cause I was angry at myself and angry at Wilma. There was no couch in the front room anymore. I made a pillow of my shoes and curled up on the floor. People think it doesn't get cold at night in Los Angeles. It gets plenty cold.
In the morning I snuck out and went down to Hollywood Boulevard to get some food at a little cafe where the owner knew me. Then I went back to the Locker Room. I parked on Georgia to have a full view of the place. Around a quarter past eleven, Wilma pulled into the lot in her Phaeton.
"Where's my cut, Wilma?" She'd been getting something out of the trunk when I came up behind her.
"I'm going to take care of you, Zelmont." She straightened up slowly and turned around. Wilma was clicking in a long skirt and loose silk top. She looked like new money and smelled of flowers.
"Uh-huh, like you took care of Danny."
"He was tripping, Zelmont. He was threatening me in public, blabbering on about what we'd done," She closed her trunk quietly, holding the leather case she'd gotten out of there. She was ready for business. "He was a liability. He had to be dealt with."
"This was your plan all along, wasn't it?"
"Yes." She didn't say it like a challenge, just a fact.
"And you never meant to make good to any of us."
"That's not true. The money is safe. Chekka is fighting his own crew for control of Little Hand. And Fahrar has his suspicions about the hijacking. But so what?"
"Where do I fit in?"
"However you want."
I knew she was bullshittin', but it sounded good to hear her say it. "I want what's mine."
She got close. "That can mean a lot of things." She kissed me.
"The money," I said, pulling away from her. Maybe I'd get a plane ticket and go see Terri and the boy Do something right like Nap wanted.
"Very well."
We met that night at the Coliseum. I'd been looking at the headless statue with the torch in front of the peristyles when she drove up. She got out of her car, hefting a gym bag.
"What will you do?"
She handed me the bag. It felt heavy. I opened it. The dough was in there. "Make a few things right." I zipped the bag back up and walked up the steps to the peristyles. I looked out over the field. In some corner of my head I could hear the crowd. Wilma came up behind me.
"You and Weems were partners in this, weren't you?" The field was a beautiful, sparkling green in the low lights they kept on along the edge of the dome. You could run forever on a field like that. I walked down toward the grass. I didn't care what her answer was.
"That's not how it started out, Zelmont." She kept up with me, a few steps behind. It was probably the first time she had ever followed a man. "But Julian had his investigation of Stadanko going too."
"That's why he sent Trace and Randy up to the cabin, to look for what we were looking for." I stopped halfway down, taking in the view. The crowd's energy was starting to build. Just win, baby. "But when you capped Randy, that was a message to him you weren't gonna ride the pine." I glanced back at Wilma. Her skirt and blouse were fluttering in the wind. Man, what a sight.
"Yes. Julian and I met after the cabin incident. I convinced him to lay in the cut, as you'd say, and let me take the risk of getting rid of Stadanko and Chekka rather than him."
I walked down to the field. She was still behind me. It was on the field I would be free. "You don't give a shit about the money, do you, Wilma?"
"Nine million is barely enough to keep the club in jockstraps and shoulder pads, you know that."
"But you needed the robbery and the files as a way to expose Stadanko." We were walking across the dirt track surrounding the field. To my right was the tunnel the Barons came out of at home games. The ghost people in the stands were cheering again. Zelmont Raines was back in the formation.
"That's true, Zelmont."
"You can't trust Weems." It felt as if I was standing outside of my body, watching the two of us. "He'll turn on you faster than a pit bull that's been poked in the eye now that you've done his dirty work."
I heard her pull the gun from her handbag. It was probably the piece she'd killed Randy with at the cabin. Later she'd no doubt link it to Danny "Let me worry about that, darling."
"Looks like you don't need your old partners, huh?"
"You won't run away run like Danny or be scared shitless like Ysanya. And I know you can't be confused like poor Pablo."
"Ysanya must be terrified. Nap ain't around and her old man is going down."
"She got a call in the middle of the night and ran off with whatever she could carry."
"The only thing I'm running for is the glory, Wilma. The Locker Room should be mine along with a piece of the Barons' action. I deserve that much for all the hell you put me through."
She raised the gun. ''You're right."
The crowd was chanting my name, the sound filling up the stadium. I turned away from her and took off down the field. I weaved and dodged, both my hips churning like well-oiled rocker arms. I threw the bag in the air and leaped up, spinning like I'd done in the Super Bowl. In midair I caught the bag with one hand, my other arm cocked at the elbow so I could twist and set my body right.
Wilma's bullet caught me dead center in the chest and the impact screwed up my landing. I was coughing blood even as I hit the deck. I could hear Wilma's high heels echoing on the stone steps as she walked up to the peristyles and out of the Coliseum.
I still had ahold of the bag, and through a haze I could see the goalposts. I got up, staggering. Then somehow my second wind kicked in. I felt great. Head up, shoulders forward, I was a human freight train. In the stands my mother was clapping. Terri had brought our child and Cody was laughing with joy at his father. It was beautiful. This was the way football was supposed to be, clean and pure like when I was eleven and played Pop Warner just for the love of the game. Before the scouts, the slaps on the back, the classes you were allowed to skate through, the coach in high school making his dreams yours, the alumni big wheels, the agents, the hangers-on. This was what the sport was all about, you and the ball and the goal line.
The crowd was on their feet, urging me on. They were chanting my name over and over again.
It was so beautiful.
I fell to the field, breathing in the fresh watered grass. I was gonna hold onto that bag forever.
Gary Phillips
