up those books, Manumit and Dawning, put them inside a paper grocery bag.
Our eyes went back to the BREAKING NEWS.
They replayed old footage of them taking the bodies away.
Tried to hold it back, but a low moan came from my body.
Panther reached over, wiped a few tears from my face.
She pulled her hair back, put on some sweats. She had bought herself a few things yesterday. She walked me to the gate. The guesthouse had its own entrance.
I told her I’d be back before long. I wanted to check on my crib, see what I had to do to get it back right, run a few errands, go check on things that I didn’t want her mixed up in.
She said, “Ask your brother if we can stay here until we get our cribs hooked up.”
“If we get a Shop-Vac and some heavy-duty trash bags, I can have your place cleaned up by tomorrow afternoon. Can hit mine tomorrow evening.”
“But, baby, dag. His shit is phat. I want to get a bikini and get in that heated pool. And that sauna. And the steam room. And the tub has jets. I mean, damn. You see that kitchen? He has Viking appliances. Viking. Man, if I could cook a Sunday dinner over here... dag. I feel bad because I don’t even like that whack sitcom he’s on, but this crib ... phat as all get out.”
I almost smiled. She sounded her age. That was good.
She motioned at the backpack, asked me, “Mind if I ask where you’re going?”
“To finish this. And I have to make what wrong I can right.”
I thought about it, gave her her keys back. Would chance it in my own car.
Sunset. I took a trip to Santa Monica. Parked in the mall like everybody else. Mixed with the crowd and headed down the hill to the pier. Walked by kids bundled up to get on the Ferris wheel and roller coaster. I made my way beyond all that to where the fishermen hung out, went to the railing. I dropped the backpack at my feet and looked out at the ocean.
When I didn’t think anybody was looking I kicked that backpack. I had turned around and started walking back toward Santa Monica Place before I heard it splash. The incoming tide swallowed most of its sound, added it to the rest of the ocean’s secrets.
The high-tech cellular phone I had, I broke that in half while I walked.
Down at my old job, a red dot faded from a computer screen.
32
Shutters was five minutes away.
I parked on the streets this time.
Freeman was leaving the hotel as I walked toward the roundabout. Leaving with his head down, shoulders hunched, lines in his forehead, mouth fixed in anger. He looked up at me, that frown and unibrow cutting deep. Then he had that look of recognition. I could tell he didn’t know where he knew me from. His desperate and depressed stroll took him around me.
No sedan. No Italian suit. Black man in Old Navy sweats. I was nobody special.
Saw the workers motion toward Freeman, all were talking in Spanish. If I understood the original language of Wenot, the original settlers in Yang-ya, I‘d’ve known that they were talking about how his room had been broken into and his million-dollar book had been stolen, about how by the time the police had arrived something had happened and Freeman sent them all away without filing a report, said he had made a mistake. Whatever news had been on about Freeman’s fiasco had been a blip, a blip that I had missed because I was too busy killing a man with my hands, too busy trying to stay alive.
When I thought I was about to die, I had prayed. That feeling was still with me.
Sade was at the bar, chocolate martini at her side. Her keen features, her makeup, her hair down, rolling over her shoulders. She looked real good. Beautiful woman. Nice brown pants over her long legs, sheer blouse. Could see the outline of her bra, the shape of her breasts.
I sat a barstool away from her. A copy of The Voice: Britain’s BEST Black Paper was in front of her, her eyes tuned into an article about cops beating a race rap in a brutal beating case. She didn’t notice me, not at first. Daniela wasn’t on duty. Sade had no one to talk to.
She saw me and smiled like it was her birthday. After a day like today, with