Slipping Into Darkness Page 14

  I chose Venice Beach Pier to make the exchange because I knew there would be crowds of people around as witnesses, and if they tried to take me or Mayhem down, hopefully someone would see it.

  As we rode along in silence, I became suspicious. If Braggs and Stamper knew about the money, how did they know about the kidnapping? Wasn’t that too much coincidence? What if they paid the Eses to do their dirty work? This way they got the money, and they broke off the Eses a little piece from it. What if this was Mayhem’s money? My gut started talking to me. Something wasn’t right here. I remembered what Tank said about how Mayhem had gotten on the radar of bigger powers once he started making more money. Investing money on Wall Street.

  I thought about how corruption wasn’t just something that took place in the hood. Corruption spiraled all the way up the ladder to lieutenants, politicians, executives, judges, bureaucracies, the government. Corruption is everywhere. This was just high-level corruption in public service offices. Often jobs had to be green-lighted from above.

  Then it hit me. Who was to say this was their marked money they gave to Mayhem? I’d already seen one of his miscellaneous accounts and he had a billion in it. Three or four million was not a lot of money to someone like Mayhem.

  Moreover, who was to say if I gave them the money, they would release Mayhem unharmed? My bet was they would kill both of us, so I decided to change my tactic.

  Agent Braggs climbed back in the car. Stamper was riding shotgun. This time when the men drove with me, they drove with care. They weren’t trying to drive like they were bats out of hell now. No, they felt they were about to get paid. I was no longer their mouse in cat paws. I think they saw the look in my eye that said I was not the one anymore.

  It was almost noon, and traffic was heavy on the 105 to the 405 North San Diego Freeway. We were inching our way up to the Venice exit, so we could make it down to Venice Beach.

  I thought about how Venice Beach might be a safe drop-off place. It was filled with shops, vendors, people. Yes, plenty of people would be there to hide behind. People would be out walking on the boardwalk, on the pier. There was the tennis court, people lifting weights, people handing out cards for doctors who prescribed marijuana, people eating at outside cafes. It was a long shot, but I had to think of a way where Mayhem and I might have a chance.

  We finally made it to the dead end street you reach before you can walk to Venice Beach. We had to park on the street and it was about a five-minute walk to the beach to meet near then pier.

  “Give me your gun,” I ordered Stamper.

  He turned around, looked at me, and hesitated.

  “If you want this money, you better give me a piece. I know you have more than one on you.”

  Stamper looked at Glass Eye. He had a suspicious look but he also knew I was the one holding the money. That’s when I knew for sure they were acting on their own accord. This was no covert government action. Agents, just like police, had teenagers to put through college, second wives to support, large subprime mortgages, just like the rest of people. Everyone was desperate and living on the edge. Desperate people would take desperate actions.

  As we trudged toward the boardwalk, I looked off into the distance at the ocean. Generally, I would be happy to see the Pacific Ocean, but today, the ocean seemed dark, ominous.

  Off in the distance, I saw someone push my brother out of a darkened van with dark windows, parked near the pier on the beach. Slowly, Mayhem began walking up the boardwalk toward me. He still had that same proud regal walk. He held his head high. There were two men walking beside him, and from the looks of things, they were strapped.

  I had just turned up the boardwalk, walking ahead of Braggs and Stamper, when, without warning, Romero appeared like a genie, pulled me to the side opening of one of the shops on the boardwalk. Once again, he had shown up from out of nowhere, just as he’d done when I first met him and he saved me from gang rape.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked as he pulled me down.

  As soon as Stamper and Glass Eye saw Romero’s interference, they pulled their guns.

  But Romero had the drop on them at the same time as he pulled his gun and held up his badge. “LAPD.”

  Immediately, I pulled my piece and, for a moment, we each stood, guns pulled, the two of us against the two of them, at a Mexican stand-off.

  “Hey, this is a covert government operation,” Glass Eye said, breaking the tension. “You’re interfering with an operation we’ve worked on for months.”

  “Okay,” Romero said. “I’m coming with Zipporah, though. Could you step aside for a minute? We’ll be right out.”

  “You can’t come with us,” Agent Stamper protested.

  “Okay, then. Let me just talk to this detective for a moment. This is a really dangerous move. You guys are putting her in harm’s way.”

  “She’ll be okay,” Glass Eye snapped. A tic started under his good eye.

  Romero whispered in my ear. “Z, be careful. They plan on shooting you and Mayhem once they get the money.”

  “How did you know?” I whispered back.

  “I have eyes on the street. Why didn’t you tell me you were trying to help your brother?”

  “I didn’t know if it was your family.”

  “It was, but they were just being paid to do the dirty work. These agents are dirty. They set up this whole kidnapping.”

  “I thought so. What can we do?”

  “We’re going to try to get your brother–”

  Suddenly, in the near distance, I saw Mayhem haul off, cold cock one of his abductors, then break out running toward me.

  “Mayhem?” I called out, interrupting Romero.

  “Z, is that you?” Mayhem called out, flailing his arms about.

  “Hurry up. Come in here,” I said, running out toward him, blasting for all it was worth to try to cover my brother from the gunshots coming his way. Braggs and Stamper ducked behind another store.

  Romero was close behind me on my heels. He was shooting his service revolver, trying to cover my back. A barrage of bullets flew out from all directions. I was just shooting back. At the same time, I was able to block Mayhem as he ducked down behind me. Ducking and covering Mayhem with my gun, I was able to get my brother into my hiding spot at the store.

  The store owner, a Vietnamese lady, was shouting in a Vietnamese accent, “What’s happening? What’s going on? Don’t shoot up my store!”

  Meanwhile, people began stampeding up and down the beach, feet sounding like a herd of elephants. The young and old were hollering, screaming. Cries echoed all up and down the beach. “It’s a sniper!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Run for your life! Duck!”

  “Get Tae-Tae and ’em!”

  Everything was happening so fast, I remember Romero running back into our little shelter. Mayhem had taken the gun out of my hand and was shooting back at his abductors.

  Absently, I turned around to our hiding place. “Romero, where are you? I have Mayhem. What happened to those agents?”

  I noticed that Romero was slumped over, leaned up against the wall. I don’t know what I was thinking when I crawled over to where he was sitting. He seemed like he was all right, maybe just tired because he was bent over.

  I took him in my arms. “Romero, are you all right?” I held his head back and noticed blood burbling from the corner of his lips. “What happened to you?” I screamed helplessly.

  Suddenly I felt something wet.

  I looked down and saw blood gushing from his chest. “Oh, no. Romero, you’ve been hit!” I began screaming and I almost blanked out, but I had to pull myself together. Everything seemed too crazy to fathom. How could this happen? Just when I decided I was ready to marry him. I held his head in my arms. “Hold on, baby. Hold on. I want to marry you.”

  Romero looked at me and tried to smile. “I’ll always love you, Z.” With that his head fell to the side. I touched his carotid artery. There was no pulse. Romero
, the love of my life, was gone.

  Mayhem had shot all his pursuers, or they had turned away. He turned to me, trying to calm me down, but you could hear my cries wailing up and down the beach, rivaling with the squawks of the pelicans circling over the ocean.

  The two special agents, Richard Braggs, and Jerry Stamper, had disappeared like a mirage. I wondered if Romero had reported these two men to Internal Affairs. Did these two men want the American Dream so bad they would put their jobs on the line like that? I guess Mayhem was an easy target. He was dispensable for their plan. They figured they could get his money and it would be no problem. They didn’t plan for Appolonia being held hostage with the money in Rio. They had probably planned to get the drugs and the money when she returned.

  I thought of Mayhem. Appolonia. All of our fatal flaw was that we wanted the American Dream too. Later, I wondered, who were these two men? Were they just pretending to be DEA and FBI? Or were they were using the Eses to do their dirty work by paying them to do the kidnapping? They probably planned to keep the ransom money.

  In this world, in Los Angeles, nothing is what it seems.

  It was two weeks later, after Romero’s funeral, that I realized I was pregnant.

  Author Bio

  Dr. Maxine Thompson is a novelist, poet, columnist, short story writer, book reviewer, book blogger, an editor, a ghostwriter, an Internet Radio Show Host for past 10 years, and a Literary Agent. She is the author of novels, The Ebony Tree, Hostage of Lies, and L.A. Blues and L.A. Blues II, Short story Collection, “A Place Called Home” (Kindle Bestseller), (Non-fiction) The Hush Hush Secrets of Writing Fiction That Sell, The Hush Hush Secrets of Making Money as a writer, a contributor to bestselling anthologies “Secret Lovers,” “All in The Family,” and “Never Knew Love Like This Before,” (Also a Kindle Bestseller), Proverbs for the People, Saturday Morning (Contributor, and Edited Anthology for Saturday Morning Literary Workshop. She was included in Heather Covington’s book, Literary Divas; The Top 100+ Most Admired African American Women in Literature.

  (www.amberbooks.com. Released April 2006)

  Urban Books, LLC

  78 East Industry Court

  Deer Park, NY 11729

  L.A. BLUES II: Slipping into Darkness Copyright © 2012 Maxine Thompson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-6228-6025-8

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living, or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Distributed by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Submit Wholesale Orders to:

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  C/O Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Attention: Order Processing

  405 Murray Hill Parkway

  East Rutherford, NJ 07073-2316

  Phone: 1-800-526-0275

  Fax: 1-800-227-9604