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  And without any seeming effort, the old Korean used his head like a brush, washing the back of the poster and the face of the stucco wall with Jambo's long tongue.

  Jambo was released only when he had no more moisture to give. He fell on his rump. The poster was smacked on the wall.

  Jambo Jambone X pulled himself to his feet, trembling. He swallowed unidentifiable grit, which scraped his throat raw.

  "Dude wants to see you," he croaked.

  Behind him, the Blood were all laughing. He heard the click of safety latches.

  "What's the matter, Jambo?" Dexter taunted. "You lost yourself?"

  More laughter. They didn't know. What did they know? They were kids. Kids with just a few Glocks between them facing . . . Jambo Jambone X didn't know what they were facing, but he instinctually understood that it was better than a Glock. Better than any weapon.

  "You jerks don't know!" he shouted. "This guy's a friend of the cool white guy! You better not disrespect him none!"

  The laughter rang out in raucous peals.

  "I am the Master of Sinanju," said the old Korean.

  "You tell 'em, Master."

  "I am with Esperanza, who would be governor."

  "You hear that?" Jambo said. "This man with the governor! He be important. You listen up, you punks."

  "When the one called Esperanza comes to this place of despair," the old Korean went on, "he will be treated with proper respect."

  "Say it again!" Jambo exclaimed.

  "There will be no shooting. No violence. You will listen quietly, and you will vote as I say you will vote."

  "Hey! You can't say that!" Dexter protested.

  "I am saying it."

  "It's un-American. Besides, we can't vote. We're too young."

  "I say we shoot the un-American gook," a youth announced, waving his pistol.

  "I second that."

  "Yeah," Dexter growled. "This we can vote on. All those in favor of smoking the uppity gook, vote with your pieces."

  A fan of pistol muzzles arrayed themselves in the precise direction of the old Korean, whose eyes narrowed before the menace. Cold fingers touched colder triggers.

  Jambo Jambone X realized that when those triggers were jerked back-jerked, not squeezed-the old guy who was a friend of the cool white guy was probably going to get dead. If he got dead, then Jambo Jambone X was going to have to tell the cool white guy with the thick wrists and very fast hands that his own brothers had done this.

  Jambo Jambone X then made one of the most intelligent decisions in his short life. He stepped between the fan of pistols and the old Korean.

  It was not bravery. It was not self-sacrifice. It was a simple subtraction. Take away the old Korean, and the white guy was going to take away Jambo Jambone X. One from one equals zero. Even a Blood could do that kind of subtraction.

  "You sayin' don't shoot?" asked Dexter Dogget of Jambo Jambone X.

  "I ain't sayin'."

  "You sayin' shoot, then?"

  "I ain't sayin' that, either."

  "Then what are you sayin', man?"

  "I'm sayin' you shoot him, you might as well shoot me."

  "Okay," said Dexter Dogget, the second oldest and next in line to lead the Blood. The trigger fingers began turning white at the knuckle joints.

  Jambo Jambone X closed his eyes. He said another prayer. It rhymed perfectly. "Lord, save my ass, or my ass is grass."

  Then a frantic voice rang out. "Nobody better shoot that gook!"

  "Anyone who shoots the gook gets capped!" a second voice warned.

  Jambo Jambone X opened his eyes. They kept opening until they were very wide.

  Coming up Compton was a wedge of blue varsity jackets. It was the Crips. And they were rolling.

  One of the Blood called out, "What's this gook to you?"

  "Cool guy made me promise to find him."

  Jambo Jambone X blinked.

  "Cool guy with thick wrists and fast hands?" he asked.

  "No. Cool guy with thick wrists and fast feet. Our man Rollo jump him from behind. Rollo too slow. White guy gave out a Kung Fu kinda kick. Rollo, he roll one way and Rollo's head roll another."

  Jambo Jambone X made the sign of the Cross, even though technically he considered himself a Black Muslim. But for the whispered words of a dying Blood, it might have been his own head rolling every which way.

  "You listen to that dude," Jambo cautioned his fellow gang members. "He know what he be talkin' about."

  Dexter scoffed. "You shermed, Jambo. Them's Crips. Big and blue as life."

  "Don't say I didn't warn you," Jambo warned.

  The old Korean, who up to this point had remained silent but unconcerned, stepped around Jambo Jambone X. He shook his wide emerald sleeves back from his skinny little arms. Jambo could tell he meant business.

  Jambo whispered, "The one with the gold earring, he be my brother. Don't hurt him too much."

  "That is up to him," the old Korean said in a cold tone.

  "If you gotta kill him, I try to understand," said Jambo.

  "You will lay down your weapons," said the old Korean.

  "Crips'll smoke us," Dexter pointed out.

  "They will not."

  "Good," said Dexter, grinning thinly. "Because we gonna smoke them."

  The fan of muzzles turned, as if mounted on the rail of a circling battleship.

  The Crips froze. They were not carrying their weapons in their hands.

  And a moment later, neither were the Blood.

  They went, "Ouch! Ow! Yeow! Yikes!" as a flurry of campaign posters zipped by their gun hands, inflicting wicked and painful paper cuts and forcing them to drop their weapons to the dirty pavement.

  The blizzard of posters fell at their feet. Some fell faceup. Some facedown. The upward-facing posters caught the attention of the Blood, now well named because of the conditions off their gun hands. Looking up at them were the liquid eyes of Enrique Espiritu Esperanza.

  "He the guy you want us to vote for?" Dexter gulped.

  "He is," intoned the wise old Korean-the wisest, kindest Korean ever to roll through the South Central District.

  "He got my vote," Dexter promised.

  "Mine, too."

  "First, he must know that you are loyal," Chiun suggested.

  "What we gotta do?"

  "These posters must be placed in appropriate places in this neighborhood," said the wise old Korean.

  "You got it!"

  "And we get the old guy," said the approaching Crips.

  "Who you calling 'old'?" protested Jambo Jambone X. "This here's my man. Yo, Master. Tell these cheeseeaters."

  "Begone, eaters of cheese," intoned the Master of Sinanju sternly. "I will have nothing to do with you."

  "White guy wants you," said the spokesman for the Crips, pulling out a .357 Magnum. "So you come."

  Other Crip armaments came into view then. The Blood, their weapons on the ground and their hands dripping red, gave a collective, "Oh, shit."

  The Blood dived for their guns. The Crips picked their targets. Jambo Jambone X threw himself in front of the old Korean. A bloodbath impended.

  Remo Williams picked that moment to saunter around the corner.

  "Nobody do anything stupider than being born," he said.

  Nobody did. The sound of his easy, no-nonsense voice caused faces on both sides of the imminent bloodbath to freeze. Eyes went round. A few crotches darkened from the contents of fear-struck bladders.

  "In fact, everybody better lay down their guns," he added.

  This instruction was obeyed with military precision. Pistols of all types clicked as they were carefully laid on the sidewalk.

  "Look what I found for you," Jambo Jambone X said, pointing to the Master of Sinanju.

  "He lie," said the Crip spokesman. "We found him. You owe us quarters."

  "No. I get the quarter."

  "I'll give you all a quarter, if you shut up," said Remo.

  "I want the quarter," Jambo
insisted. "It gonna be my lucky piece."

  "Or I can juggle a few heads for the entertainment of the survivors," Remo added.

  "You the man," Jambo said instantly. "Whatever you say."

  Remo strode up to Chiun, whose hands found themselves in the sleeves of his kimono.

  "I have nothing to say to you, white."

  "Yeee!" said Jambo. "Don't call him no names!"

  The old Korean sniffed disdainfully. "He is white. He will always be white. I will call him what I choose."

  The eyes of the assembled Crips and Bloods went from the face of the old Oriental to that of the white dude, their pupils reflecting various degrees of fear, horror, and consternation.

  "What you sayin'?" Jambo hissed. "You can't talk to the dude that way. He take your head off."

  "He is a pale piece of pig's ear," intoned the old Oriental.

  "Yiii!" hissed the assembled Crips and Bloods. They backed away. They had no desire to see their jackets soiled when the old Oriental's neck stump began to pump blood all over the place, because his head wasn't there to receive it.

  "You gonna take that?" asked a Crip.

  "Little Father," the white dude said simply. "I have just one thing to tell you."

  "I am not interested, stealer of sweethearts."

  The Crips and Bloods shrank further. They were fighting over a chick. Somebody was bound to die.

  "Cheeta Ching is going to cover Esperanza's speech."

  "Quick!" Chiun shrieked, pointing to the paper snowfall of campaign posters at their feet. "The posters! They must be in their proper places! The streets must be cleaned! I do not want to see a speck of dust when the beauteous Cheeta comes!"

  The Crips and Bloods frowned, like a bas-relief of basalt idols.

  "He crazy?" Dexter demanded of the white dude.

  "Better do what he says," Remo put in. "When he gets excited like that, even I get nervous."

  The faces of the assembled Crips and Bloods went from the cold mask of the white dude they all feared to the frowning face of the wispy Oriental, with stupefaction growing in their eyes.

  "You, afraid? Of him?" asked one.

  Remo nodded. "He taught me everything I know. Everything."

  That was all the Crips and the Bloods needed to hear. Madly, they scooped up Esperanza campaign posters. They stole push brooms and barrels from hardware store displays. They got to work on Compton Street, determined to make it presentable for the old Korean who had taught the downest white men in the world everything he knew.

  Chapter 15

  Cheeta Ching had not slept in two days. There were hollows under her sharp, predatory eyes. Her brain felt like it had been dipped in Alka-Seltzer fizz.

  A face haunted her. A strong, white face with prominent, almost Korean cheekbones and deep-set hollow eyes. Those eyes had pierced her ambitious soul. His name was burned into her soul.

  "Nero." She spoke the name aloud, tasting its unKorean vowels. "Nero."

  She had never met anyone like him. Well, maybe once before. Years ago.

  She had almost forgotten the experience. A strange man had broke into her apartment and tied her to a chair. After he had perversely dressed her in a flowing Korean native dress.

  Cheeta had thought she was going to be raped. So she had resorted to the formidable weapon that had brought her to national prominence: her razor-sharp tongue. Cheeta heaped abuse on the man. Threatened him. Taunted him. Nothing seemed to work. It was a first. No man-from network presidents to her husband-had ever failed to wither under a Cheeta Ching tonguelashing.

  She had steeled herself for the worst.

  Instead of raping or kidnapping her, the attacker simply shot a roll of thirty-five-millimeter film of Cheeta, tied to the chair, dressed in Lyi dynasty ham-bok dress, and sputtering scorn.

  Then he had left, much to Cheeta's relief.

  After she had struggled free of her bonds, Cheeta Ching had contacted Don Cooder, her arch-rival, and accused him of staging the attack. Cooder had denied it.

  "You're not even in my class," Cooder had snarled.

  Cheeta then hung up and hired thugs to beat him up, shouting "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"

  Satisfied, Cheeta then waited for the photos to appear in some tabloid. They never had. Nor had they been used to blackmail her.

  It was a mystery, and eventually Cheeta Ching had put it out of her mind. But she had never been able to put her strange assailant out of her mind. There was something about his cruel forcefulness that lingered, and sometimes made her fantasize about his return-even though the memory of that ugly incident still made her shiver.

  The man who had attacked her reminded her of Nero. A little. The face was different. The eyes were alike. But it was not the same man, she was sure of that. The other had been a pig.

  But Nero was different from other men. He was . . .

  Words failed Cheeta Ching. No surprise. Most of her on-air material was written for her. Still, there was something about him, something that had made her shiver at the first glimpse of his lean, strong body. Shiver in the same way she had just shivered at the memory of the strange, picture-taking intruder. He was . . .

  "A dreamboat," she decided finally, dipping into her half-forgotten teenage vocabulary. "That's what he is. A dreamboat."

  Cheeta was hunched in a cubbyhole of the local network affiliate, eating spicy jungol casserole soup. It was in her contract that she be catered in Korean ethnic foods, and God help the idiot who served her Moo Goo Gai Pan. She was trying to figure out what had happened to the tape of her self-interview.

  Nero couldn't have stolen it, she told herself. Never.

  Yet the tape he had given her proved to be blank. And the network had refused to run her interview with Enrique Espiritu Esperanza, calling it "Soft and unprofessional."

  Cheeta had instantly blamed this on her cameraman. But the missing tape still bothered her.

  There is only one way to solve this mystery, she decided, as she stirred her jungol and let the scrumptious turnip-and-cabbage odor soothe her flaring nostrils.

  She picked up the phone and called personnel.

  "Did anyone named Nero drop off a resume today?" she asked the personnel manager.

  "No. Nor Demo. Nor Nemo, or any of the other names you keep mentioning."

  "Well, if anyone with any of those names drops off a resume, I am to be notified instantly or it's your job."

  "You don't hire and fire at this station," the personnel manager had said.

  "Fine," Cheeta Ching replied tartly. "I won't fire you. What I'll do is rip your Adam's apple out of your gullet with my naked teeth."

  There was a pregnant pause while the threat sank in.

  "The very minute anyone with those vowels in his name drops off a resume, you'll be the first to know, Miss Ching," the personnel manager said, helpfully.

  "Thank you," Cheeta said sweetly. "I'm glad we understand each other."

  Cheeta hung up the phone. It rang a second later. It was the station news director.

  "We just received word that Esperanza is giving a speech down in the South Central district. I can get you a cameraman, if you want to cover it."

  "I want to cover it," Cheeta said quickly, bolting from her chair. Here was her chance to redeem herself. And maybe run into Nero the Divine, too.

  The thought of coming into contact with the dark-eyed Nero made more delicious shivers course up and down her spine. She wondered if it would stimulate ovulation. She had tried just about everything else.

  The station microwave van came off the freeway and into the worst section of South Central Los Angeles.

  The driver looked startled. He pulled over to the side of the road, his face wearing a confused expression.

  From the back of the van, Cheeta poked her stickyhaired head forward.

  "What's wrong?" she demanded, shrill-voiced.

  "I think I took a wrong turn," he said, pulling a folding map from the glove compartment.

  "Don't
you know your own city, you nitwit?"

  "I thought I did. But this can't be South Central."

  Cheeta peered through the windshield. She saw a neat downtown area. No litter clogged its gutters. The sides of buildings were wet from recent scrubbing. Even the sidewalks looked freshly washed.

  More incredibly, there were no loitering gang members, no back-alley drug dealing, no hookers in tight clothes leaning against building facades.

  "Why not?" she asked, her too-smooth face puckering in perplexity.

  "Look at this place," said the driver. "It's neat as a pin. South Central is a dump."

  "Maybe the city cleaned it in preparation for Esperanza's speech," Cheeta suggested.

  "Lady, you don't know this city. Or South Central. The cops are petrified to come here after dark."

  The driver returned to the map.

  "Says here we should be on Compton Street," he said doubtfully.

  "The sign says Compton," Cheeta pointed out.

  "I know," the driver said bleakly. "I feel like I'm in The Twilight Zone."

  "If we miss this speech," Cheeta warned, "I promise to cable you to a fire plug and leave you there after sundown."

  The driver pulled out into traffic. "We're on the right street. We gotta be."

  As he tooled his van further down the street, the driver began feeling light-headed. Gone were the graffiti. The gutters were immaculate. Even the air smelled good. He noticed air-wick dispensers located at strategic points, on window sills and storm drains.

  And surreally, he saw two black teenagers scrubbing spray-painted profanity off the side of a church. One wore a blue Crips bandanna on his head, and the other had a bloodred Bloods bandanna stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans.

  "I am in The Twilight Zone," he muttered.

  The media had already set up cameras and microwave stations in front of the Ebeneezer Tabernacle Church, where Enrique Espiritu Esperanza was scheduled to make a speech. Rival anchors milled about. They were merely local anchors, but to Cheeta Ching all anchors were potential rivals. They were either clawing their way up to her slot, or they were sniping at her as their careers crashed and burned.

  Cheeta saw that two of the female reporters were of Asian descent, and her eyes became catlike slits.