Gary Phillips - The Jook

His fucked-up hat was pressed tight against his head. "When I heard you got cut, I knew you'd be desperate for money. I'd developed a list of the losers who owe you dough." He grinned at me, his yellow eye giving me a shiver.

"You done lost your mind, boy."

"I got your boy, Zelmont."

He pulled his Toronado under where the 105 and 110 freeways cross, near Figueroa and 111th. Overhead the cars and trucks went by Down where we were there was nothing but dark shadows and the smell of gas and trash. Fahrar got out, leaving me chained to the bar. He came around the back of the car and opened the passenger door. Fahrar stuck the gun against my nose.

"You bad now?"

"You better"

"Shut up," he yelled, slapping me with the gun.

"Fuck you, punk. Let me loose and let's see how hard you are."

His answer was to poke the side of my face with his nine again. "I could run you in on assault for harassing the old lady."

"I didn't assault anybody, clown. You the one doing the assaulting."

He backed up, the gun still out toward me. "You're going to own up for once, Zelmont."

I screamed, "You gonna shoot me, Fahrar? You didn't even know Davida."

"It's not about her, asshole." He reached in and hit me with the gat again. I could feel blood on the side of my nose.

The end of that gun was the only thing in my world. I didn't hear the cars going by above us or my own breathing. It was just the gun and nothing else. He undid the chain and pulled me out, throwing me to my knees in the dirt.

"Your time's coming." He walked a wide circle around me, keeping out of reach. Then he got back in his car and took off, leaving me handcuffed and dirty.

"Let me loose, you high yella bitch," I hollered into the cloud of dust his wheels kicked up in my face. His tail lights disappeared into the darkness. I got to my feet, one of my knees skinned. Like an idiot I strained against the handcuffs, knowing they weren't going to break apart.

It was getting cold, and with only a shirt and no jacket I needed to get moving just to stay warm. I walked around under the freeway looking for something to get myself loose. Off to one side there was a lumpy shape. I walked over there. It was a homeless man sleeping on a ragged bunch of towels, his shopping cart near him. It was hard, but I did my best to dig through his junk in the cart. I wasn't in no mood to be delicate, and the noise woke him up.

"Say, man, you better get away." He sat up, stink coming off him like a backed-up toilet.

"Sit down," I kicked him in the chest, not too hard, but hard enough so he got the message.

"I'll cut you."

"You best sit the fuck down." I kept moving his junk around, trying to watch him too in case he wasn't bullshitting about having a blade. But all he had in the cart was broken plastic toys, pieces of faucets, used pens, hunks of Styrofoam, and other crap. There was nothing of use to me, or anybody else for that matter.

I left the cat and his sad life and went out on the sidewalk. I was shivering and probably looked like a nut to anybody passing by. I had to walk with my arms down in front of me to try and hide the cuffs. A Mexican woman with a basket of laundry on her head was coming at me from the other direction. She must have seen the cuffs 'cause she cut across the street in a hurry, almost getting run over by a pick-up truck.

At Imperial and Flower there was a filling station with a working phone on the east end of the lot. I managed to turn my pocket inside out, spilling out a few coins. A lowered Chevy Caprice rolled by, the eight-ballers inside scoping me out. They must have figured me for a mark, a drunk mark. I was down on my knees picking up the coins. The car came onto the lot, a Mack 10 number thumpin' on the car's speakers.

I got the phone off the hook and managed to get a quarter in the slot. But I dropped the dime. I bent down to pick it up, knowing that the hawks in the car were sizing me up. I couldn't see their faces, but I could read their minds. If things had gone different, if I hadn't had that scholarship and been picked ninth round in the draft, maybe I'd be in the car, looking to push up on a fool.

I got the dime in the slot and punched her inside line. The thing rang on the other end, me holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder and two hands clinked together. I watched the car.

"Hello," Wilma said.

"I need you to pick me up at the corner of Imperial and Flower, it's a Exxon Station."

"Zelmont, what's"

"Now, okay?"

"All right."

I let the phone dangle and walked to the lights shining down on the gas pumps. If them boys in the ride flexed, then so be it. I'd get these cuffs around the neck of one of those studs and take him with me to wherever the hell it was we went after this bullshit.

I stood under the lights waiting for Wilma. A couple of people who pulled in for gas seemed surprised when I didn't ask to fill their cars up like I was any other motherfuckah beggin' for spare change.

After a while, the punks in the Caprice got bored and drove off. When Wilma got there, I was moving back and forth, trying not to freeze.

"What happened?" she said, getting out of her Phaeton.

"I'll tell you when I'm warm." I managed to open the door and got inside.

Wilma pointed at the cuffs. "One of your chicks get too rough for you?"

I put the stare on her. "Can you get these off me?"

"Sure, baby," she giggled. She called Nap on her cell phone and drove me to where he was staying in the Valley in Van Nuys. It was a funky-looking apartment building near the Anheuser-Busch plant.

Nap worked on cutting the cuffs with a heavy-duty hacksaw he borrowed from the manager. After he got them off, I told them what happened.

"So we have to be careful," Nap said, looking at the cuffs. "With this cop having a big stick up his ass about you, he's going to make it his mission to fuck with your life until he can bust you for Davida's murder."

Nobody said anything for a few ticks, but I knew the gears were turning in Wilma's head. "Does Fahrar know Weems?"

"That's being overly paranoid, Zelmont." Wilma walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. "You have any beer?"

"Rolling Rock," Nap said.

"Really?" I said, walking around. "Then why don't you check, Wilma? Weems has a hard-on for law and order, ain't that right, Nap?"

"That's true. It's a known fact some of the members of his Internal Truth Squad are ex-cops."

"I know that," she said.

"Then check," I said. "We have to know what we got lining up against us."

She didn't like being ordered around. But she also didn't like being caught from behind. I waited while she sipped her beer.

"Fine."

I laughed. "Big spoiled baby."

"Shut up." She sat on the couch.

"Got anything stronger than that pale-ass brew?"

"In the cupboard." Nap pointed with the hand holding the cuffs.

I got down a bottle of gin. "Ysanya know you're here?"

"Why you want to know?"

"We got enough to worry about without that dizzy bitch spilling the goods, that's why."

Nap came towards me. "I said she's cool, Zee. You worry about your end of things."

"I am, that's why I want to know." The bottle was on the counter, my hand on the neck.

His shoulders hitched.

"She's unreliable, man," I said.

"You should know about being unreliable." He was breathing in my face. Now I'd find out how long I'd last before Nap beat me into the ground.

Wilma got between us. "All right, let's not fall apart until we're millionaires, okay? You two are supposed to be tight. Don't let a woman come between you."

She put her arm around my waist. "Grab the bottle and let's go. Everything's going to be all ours." She pulled me to her. "Then we can get out of here and start over, make it good."