White Heat Page 5

  CHAPTER 7

  Sun shoots streaks of blinding light into my eyes.

  I squint.

  Put on my shades.

  Head for the Firebird.

  People running down the street.

  Suspicious looks shoot my way.

  Already they’ve got armloads of loot.

  TVs. Stereos.

  A huge mattress.

  Some have smaller things, more practical things.

  Food. Diapers. Baby formula.

  Running.

  Jostling.

  Accosting people in their way.

  Not everyone loots.

  Some have just come out to watch the show.

  Several gang bangers heading my way.

  I have a gun.

  I can protect myself.

  But this isn’t the time.

  I duck behind a low wall.

  One of the bangers sees my car.

  Rushes to it.

  He breaks the driver’s window.

  Glass shatters.

  The cacophony of shattering glass fused with blaring sirens, droning chopper blades. People shouting.

  When he couldn’t hot wire the car, he started smashing all the windows. His friends joined in, slashing the seats and tires. Great, how was I going to get out of there? I thought about using the gun to scare them off. What was the point? The damage was done. Besides, they were probably better armed than me.

  The smoke from fires hadn’t blotted out the sun and sky yet. A large shadow hovered over me from behind. I turned around to see a huge barrel-chested black man standing over me. My hand was already on the gun. He looked familiar. Tiny, the man helping to move Teddie Matson’s things out of her apartment. I had to assess the situation quickly. Go for his knees? Groin? I was crouching. Even if I were standing, he’d have a great height advantage over me. I felt confident. Not that confident. Not when I was so outnumbered.

  He stuck a hand out. I didn’t take it. Got up on my own.

  “Relax,” he said.

  Sure. I fingered the trigger with my other hand.

  The bangers saw us. Headed our way. Caught between a gang and a Tiny. I almost saw my life passing before me. I wasn’t a big guy. Sort of compact like a mortar shell—powerful like one, I hoped. And if the body was a Volkswagen, under the hood was a Porsche engine. I had the training and a gun, but what good would it do if it was twenty against one? This wasn’t a Hollywood movie, after all.

  “This yo’ car?” the leader said. He wore a red bandana on his head. Bloods.

  “Yeah.”

  “We customized it fo’ yo’.”

  “Thanks. I was getting tired of it always looking the same.”

  “Ha ha. Very funny.”

  They moved closer. Tiny didn’t move. Neither did I. I figured if it was over it was over. But I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  The leader lifted his shirt, revealing a semi-auto pistol underneath. Another banger pulled an Uzi from under a jacket.

  “Now we gonna customize you.” He took a step closer. Tiny didn’t move.

  He put his hand on my shoulder, gripped tight. I was about to make an evasive move when he shoved me aside. He stepped between the bangers and me. “Why you wanna do this shit?”

  “Fo’ Rodney, man.”

  “Yeah, fo’ Rodney.”

  “This boy ain’t done nothin’ to Rodney. Not to you either,” Tiny said in a deep baritone.

  I didn’t want to be protected. I thought I could take care of myself. But, as they say, discretion is the better part of valor. I held off. This was probably the better way.

  “His people done it to Rodney.”

  “Yeah, man, white people.”

  “Aw go on,” Tiny said. “You boys wanna loot, get a free TV, go on. Hurtin’ on someone’s different.”

  “Who gonna stop us? You?”

  “Yeah, man. Me.”

  “There’s six a us. One a you. An’ him, if he can even fight fo’ himself.”

  “Yeah, whyn’t you let him speak fo’ hisself?”

  “He’s my friend. Now you done wrecked his car. Go on. Party. Get outta here.”

  The bangers stood there a moment. Anything could have happened. I was still standing behind Tiny. I moved next to him. The leader turned to me.

  “What’chu think about this verdict?”

  “Don’t answer, man,” Tiny said. “These guys don’t know ’bout Rodney. Don’t give a fuck ’bout Rodney. They’re just lookin’ for an excuse to party.”

  “We don’ need no excuses. We gonna take this city down.” He turned, followed by his comrades. Headed out to the street.

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t want no killings on my head. Not on my property either.”

  “This is your company? That was you walking around, looking out from the backroom?”

  “Yeah. Maybe I shouldn’t have let my employees get on you like that. C’mon.” He led me into the back door, to the back office. It was cluttered with papers, folders, notebooks. Girly calendars. The desk was old, wooden, stained brown. He sat behind it. I moved a stack of papers, sat on a spotted couch. He gave me a cup of coffee. “This city’s going to burn.” He leaned back, let out a huge sigh. Sipped his coffee. His voice softened, his manner relaxed. He didn’t have to put it on for the bangers anymore. “Not a smart move coming down here today.”

  “I didn’t know the verdict would be coming in. Probably wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. I’ve got a job to do.” I drank the coffee. It was cold. Bitter.

  “And what is that?”

  “I need to find Teddie Matson’s family?”

  “Seems her brother didn’t want to talk to you.”

  “Look, what is this resistance? I’m trying to help find her killer.”

  “Nobody trusts you.”

  “’Cause I’m white. Jesus, what difference does it make?”

  “To me it doesn’t. To Warren it obviously does.”

  “Hell, Teddie didn’t live down here. She lived in a white neighborhood. I don’t see—”

  “Maybe that’s one of the reasons Warren’s so pissed. Maybe he didn’t like her living uptown, so to speak. Maybe he felt she had some success, then abandoned her own. Maybe—”

  It wasn’t a maybe for him. He knew what he was talking about.

  “Will you tell me where her family lives?”

  He leaned back so far in his chair it looked like he was going to fall over. It looked like the chair could hardly hold his bulk. But it did. He leaned back farther, till the back of the chair hit the wood paneled wall. The panels were dark with grease stains. It was like that in just about all the automotive businesses I’d ever been in. Grime everywhere.

  “You can’t drive home in your car. I’ll loan you a truck. No charge. Well, I have to charge you a buck just to make it legal.”

  “I appreciate that. But I don’t want to go home. I want to find her family.”

  “Man, you’re the end. Like my mother used to say, you’re a persistent little cuss. Why do you have such a bug up your ass? And don’t tell me it’s your job. You can come tomorrow or the next day, when things quiet down.”

  “The longer I wait, the colder the trail gets. I’m already down here.”

  “Your white face is gonna act like a trouble-magnet.”

  “I’ll take that risk.”

  “Are you stupid or gutsy?”

  “A little of both, I guess.”

  “Man, I just don’t get it. What is this, some kind of white guilt?”

  It was guilt, but not the way he was thinking of it. Not white man’s guilt. I felt guilty about Teddie. More than guilty. Sick. I couldn’t bring her back, but I could do what I could to help bring her killer to justice. Noble thoughts? Lofty? Maybe. I couldn’t help it. I wanted the Weasel. I wanted to kill him. Maybe that’s why I didn’t pull the gun on the bangers. I was saving my bullets. But a quick gunshot death would be too easy for him. Maybe I’d tear him apart with my hands
. Maybe I’d slice the layers of his skin off one at a time with the razor-sharp Gerber dagger I always carried strapped to my boot. Yeah, a gun was too quick. Let the bastard suffer.

  I didn’t like myself much for thinking like that. It seemed so primitive. But what the hell. The son-of-a-bitch deserved it, and it hardly looked like a civilized society anymore. Not just the day of the riot, but for a long time before.

  “Not guilt. Duty.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me who you’re working for or why this person is so concerned about finding Teddie’s killer.” Before I could speak, he put his hand up. “Don’t give me that crap about client confidentiality either. Let me see your investigator’s license.”

  He took it from me, perused it for a couple minutes. I guess it passed inspection. He got up, tossing what was left of his coffee cup in the wastebasket.

  “Let’s go.”

  He locked the back door. Went to the front turned off the lights, took the cash from the register, stuffed it in his pants. He grabbed a .38 revolver from behind the counter, put it in his belt and covered it with his shirt.

  “Help me with this.”

  We pulled a large, hand painted sign from behind the counter. It was awkward. Bulky. We taped it across the front window. In two-foot-high red letters it read “Black Owned and Operated.”

  CHAPTER 8

  We stepped outside, squinting into the sun. People were running by, in both directions. Police cars, sirens wailing, sped by. No one stopped to help a man lying in the street. Tiny looked around, surveying the situation: “The good life is just a dream a way,” he said.

  He went to the cab of one of his trucks, started the engine. Motioned for me to get in as I was about to head for the man bleeding at the curb. I went to the downed man. He was Asian. Korean? A gash was leaking blood over his right eye.

  “You all right?” I started to reach for him.

  “Lemme ’lone,” he said, pushing himself up off the curb. He staggered away. I started to go after him when Tiny called out.

  “Let’s go, man.”

  I jogged back to Tiny’s truck, got in. He eased it toward the street. A rock cracked the windshield. Thrown by a boy who couldn’t have been more than nine or ten. Tiny didn’t make any attempt to chase him down. He killed the engine.

  “This is shit,” he said, surveying the street up and down. “We better walk.” He looked at me. Studied my face. No emotion in his eyes. “You’re gonna stick out like a sore thumb. At least in the truck you couldda ridden in back.”

  “Got some shoe polish? I can go in blackface.”

  “Not funny.”

  But he didn’t seem to take offense. I wasn’t trying to be racist or offend, only to make light of a bad situation. The humor may have been in bad taste, but that’s how I dealt with tense situations. Bad jokes.

  Tiny and I closed the wrought iron gate that led to his lot, locking it with the biggest padlock I’d ever seen. The rusty chain that he triple wrapped around the two sections of fence had to be almost an inch thick.

  “Hell, this won’t keep ’em out,” he said, clasping the lock shut. Tugging on it. “Nothing will.” He spun the cylinder of his revolver, snapping it back in place. “Let’s go. No use keeping the vultures waiting.”

  We started off down the street. The acrid smell of smoke blanched my nostrils. He pulled out a green kerchief and held it over his nose. Not red or blue. No identifying with Bloods or Crips. A neutral green. But hell, that was probably somebody’s colors. Somebody’s signal to go to war, too. I coughed. Tiny ripped his kerchief in half, handing me a ragged end. I flashed him the OK sign. I wanted to say thanks, couldn’t talk. The green cloth made a fair smoke screen. But hey, fireman, how ’bout one of those oxygen bottles you’ve got on your back? That’s something I’d be tempted to loot for.

  Running, jostling bodies sprinted up and down the street, loaded with booty. VCRs. TVs. Even mattresses. It was as if there was a giant sign hanging over L.A. being pulled along by the Goodyear blimp that said: “Free Shopping Day.”

  A police car pulled up in front of a stereo store. The window had been bashed in, the door pulled from its hinges. People were running in and out, taking anything they could carry. Going back for seconds. Thirds. The cops jumped out of their car, pounding batons on a low wall. People zipped off. The cops headed back for their car. Three young men came out, loaded for bear. They started chanting, “Rodney King. Rodney King. Rodney King.” It lasted about five seconds. They laughed self-consciously. Gave up the chant. Ran off with their loot. The cops didn’t give chase.

  “This isn’t about race anymore,” Tiny said. “Got nothing to do with Rodney King.”

  A mob of kids ran toward us. We ducked into the doorway of a book store. No looting there. It didn’t seem to interest them as they kept running. If I had been at home, I’d probably be shouting at the TV for the police to “shoot the looters” like Jack was, no doubt, doing now. But down there on the streets, it was different. They were just people. Maybe doing things they shouldn’t. But still people. Still Americans. At least most of them. There were, we learned later, a lot of illegal aliens taking part in the Big Party.

  And it was a party. Giddiness run rampant. These people acted as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Most of them grabbed stereos. The brand didn’t matter. They’d keep the ones they liked best. Sell the rest. Some of their situations were a little sadder, though the people were just as giddy. They were taking cartons of Frosted Flakes, diapers and Tide. Whole families participating together. Real family values.

  Tiny and I bolted from the doorway and ran down the street, ducking for cover by low walls, doorways, shrubs all along the way. We weren’t out to party. We were on a mission. He was taking me to Warren, to Teddie’s family. I didn’t know why, but I was curious about it. Warren obviously wanted nothing to do with me. Yet here was Tiny taking me to him. What was this all about? Was it a setup? Were they going to beat some confession out of me when we hooked up with Warren? Was I being paranoid? Were my own prejudices coloring my thoughts? Was I scared shitless to be one of the few white faces down there when the fires of hell were breaking out all over? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I just wanted to find Teddie’s family.

  Maybe I should have gone home. Watched the whole conflagration on the tube with a gun in one hand, a beer in the other. Hell, we could’ve had a party. Like a Super Bowl party, only this would have been a Hellfire party. Everything’s burning. Get out the violins and fiddle while the city turns to dust.

  But my car was trashed. And though Tiny would have let me borrow a truck, something told me not to go. Maybe it was the same crazy something that had made me join the Navy. Maybe it was the same something that had made me fuck up my marriage. My life. Maybe my dad was right. Maybe I was a fuckup. Maybe I’d fuck myself for good down here—Marion you’re always going out of your way to hurt yourself, mixing where you don’t belong—in the middle of this inferno?

  Maybe that’s what I wanted.

  A group of men came out of a trashed beauty shop with armloads of blow dryers. What were they gonna do with all those?

  We came to Florence and Normandie. Half a block away the cops were regrouping. Or retreating. Or hiding out. It was hard to tell. There was a swarm of them, but they weren’t doing much of anything. People were looting, throwing rocks, bottles and the like right under their noses. As we left the intersection, I glanced back. A large semi was pulling into the intersection. We continued away from the intersection. Later I learned that this was where Reginald Denny, the driver of the semi, was pulled from the truck. Beaten within an inch of his life. We were gone before it happened. But I still have pangs of guilt for having been so close and having done so little. Now I know how lucky we were.

  In a sense it was a quid pro quo situation. Tiny’s black face was my passport among his people. My white face was his insurance that the cops might just leave him alone—if they knew he was with me. That might have been w
hy he wanted to help me out. Protection. But it wasn’t an uneasy truce. I felt comfortable with him. Like we’d known each other all our lives. Maybe we had. The last thirty minutes had been a lifetime.

  We crouched behind a low wall at a service station, surveying the situation. He watched two sides. I watched the other two, covering each other’s backs. We were both armed; neither of us wanted to use our guns.

  Noise barked from every direction. Sirens. Shouts. Choppers hovering. Shots. Too many shots. It all blended into a cacophony of confusion. The din was ear-shattering and lifeless, inert, all at the same time.

  “Why’re you helping me?” I asked Tiny as we scoped the street out. He never answered my question, though I asked several more times.

  There was an explosion in the distance, then the shock wave. A new column of black smoke appeared every few minutes. Slow-motion funnel clouds.

  “Man, don’t they know they’re tearing down their own goddamn neighborhoods,” he said, scanning the horizon. “Where’re they gonna get food and clothes when all this burns to the ground?”

  We were on the move again, ducking in and out of doorways. We ducked into a mom-and-pop grocery. The owner came at us with a thirteen-round semi-auto pistol. He was Korean. He wasn’t shouting at me when, in pidgin, he said: “Get out. Get out now. Don’t come back. Don’t never come back. I don’t need your business. Animal. Animals. You peoples are all animals.”

  The Korean racked the slide of his pistol. Tiny and I split, two jackrabbits in a hunter’s sights. Tiny never said a word about the Korean. About the animosity between blacks and Koreans. It was hard to tell if he didn’t care. If he’d made peace with it in his own mind. Or if he was storing up a reserve of rage that would explode sooner or later.