The Lost Treasures of R&B. Nelson George
to sound helpful, D thought, but he detected a note of sarcasm in the detective’s voice. D could also feel some heat radiating off Detective Robinson, but clearly he was biding his time.
“Have you ever done security work for Asya Roc?”
“I’ve worked for A. Roc Productions a few times and, in so doing, had to put in some time with Asya Roc.”
“So,” Mayfield pressed, “the answer is yes?”
“Yes.”
“We have eyewitnesses who put you at an illegal boxing match in Brownsville last night. You were there working for Asya Roc.”
D didn’t say anything. He waited for the other shoe to drop.
“You were there, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” D said, “as I see you already know. Sorry I wasn’t forthcoming on that. I didn’t wanna get involved or involve my client.”
“So what happened?” Mayfield was talking like they were friends now. “We know you’re not a bad guy. A lot of people in the department and in the entertainment business vouch for you. But protecting these knuckleheads can put good people in bad positions.”
In response D told a detailed but imprecise account of the evening’s events. He explained that Asya had rolled to Brownsville on the way to JFK. When the rapper needed to use the restroom, some minor league gangsta types tried to stick him up. D admitted to punching one robber before pulling the entertainer out of there. The car took Asya to the airport and off he went to England. End of story.
D omitted the guns, being chased around Brownsville by two thugs, and the subsequent shoot-out. He anxiously waited for the two detectives to ask him about Livonia Avenue.
“Someone mentioned a possible gun sale,” Mayfield said. He plopped a mug shot down on the table. “We suspect this guy was the salesman.” It was a photo of Ice.
“I know Ice. I saw him there last night. But I didn’t see any transaction of that kind. In fact, the only thing I saw Ice do was bet on a couple of fights.”
Mayfield looked at him quizzically. “Wasn’t he involved in some sort of altercation?”
“When we came out of the restroom there was a beef among some of the bettors. That’s to be expected. If I’d had my way we would never have even gone in there. Anyway, I got Asya out of that spot as quick as I could. He’ll probably write a rhyme about how he shot his way out, but believe me, I grabbed the little motherfucker by his collar and carried his ass out the door.”
The two detectives laughed. This was good, D thought. But they didn’t say anything about Ice getting shot. Did they know? Would they tell D if they did? Maybe Ice hadn’t gone to a hospital?
“So you went with Mr. Roc to JFK?” Mayfield asked.
This was a big, dangerous lie. He knew Asya and his people wouldn’t cop to buying guns in a restroom. He’d be cool on that. But Asya would have to lie for D. He’d have to rely on that young MC to protect him. The kid would have a nice negotiating chip to give the police if he needed one later—he could toss D on the gun possession charges if he had to. But if D didn’t get in the car to JFK, where was he? He would have been in Brownsville during the time of the Livonia shooting, a much more serious affair. If someone showed those two cops D’s photo he’d soon be answering questions in a small room alongside a lawyer.
As casually as possible D said, “No.” The detectives looked at each other, trying not to act surprised. “I went back inside the fight club and caught a couple more bouts before heading home.”
“Okay,” Mayfield said.
D knew that JFK had cameras everywhere. They could easily go find shots of Asya Roc in the terminal sans his black-clad security guard. So he decided a small lie trumped a big one.
“My spidey sense tells me you aren’t telling the whole truth, Mr. Hunter.” Robinson’s voice was soft, almost feminine, quite a contrast to his large body.
“Well,” D said, “what makes you say that?”
“Any number of reasons. Gun possession by your rapper client could cost him serious time. And you too, if you were there and do not cooperate with us. Something to think about, Mr. Bodyguard. But if Ice was there and you ID him being there with the guns, a lot can be forgiven. A lot.” Robinson slid his card out of jacket pocket and passed it across the table.
“Keep us in mind,” Mayfield said as the two officers stood up.
Robinson added, “Welcome home, D.”
D watched them walk out the door, sighed, and ordered another chai latte.
COUNTRY BOY & CITY GIRL
It was D’s last day in his Soho office. Most of the furniture was gone. The conference room was already empty. The table, the walkie-talkies, their chargers, the lockers filled with blue suits and T-shirts, had already been sent to storage or sold. The room was bare save two metal chairs, a couple of ancient platinum records leaned up against a wall, and a brown box that sat at his feet. Inside were twenty blue buttons with gold Ds shining in the middle. When D Security had record labels as clients, these buttons had graced the lapels of his many employees as a symbol of his company’s professionalism. Now they sat, useless as old tokens, in a box at his feet.
The record business had been contracting since Napster introduced mass downloading at the turn of the century and had fallen off the cliff when iTunes disrupted the game a few years later. D had been forced to close D Security’s Soho office to cut overhead and scale back his staff, using only the most experienced folks, as competition for even the lowest security positions at drugstore gigs had become merciless, much less high-paying corporate jobs, which multinational paramilitary groups were scooping up.
After 9/11, people really wanted security. But now there were so many off-duty cops looking for extra cash that the market was flooded with burly guys licensed to carry firearms. There was a glut of security people who themselves were financially insecure. Moreover, physical security, while useful, had become old-fashioned. Cybersecurity was where the money was. Could you detect and repel hackers? If the answer was no, you were just a big piece of meat in a suit. D barely understood his damn BlackBerry, a device that labeled him as ancient as his Earthlink address. D wasn’t just getting older—something he savored considering his brothers’ early deaths—but was becoming functionally obsolete.
* * *
D was fondling one of his old company buttons when Edgecombe Lenox entered his office like the ghost of rhythm & blues past. Edge (as he’d been known in music circles) was wearing a three-piece royal-blue pinstriped suit, an egg shell–colored shirt, a floppy white felt hat with a royal-blue ban, a fat periwinkle-blue tie, whisper-thin gold chains, and powder-blue, pointy-toed shoes with thin blue socks. It was an outfit Bobby “Blue” Bland would have sold his soul for. Edge’s gray facial hair had largely been dyed black and shaped into a sinister goatee. He also sported two defiant primo Walt “Clyde” Frazier circa 1973 muttonchop sideburns. A gold blue-faced watch adorned his left wrist and a gold bracelet hung from his right, while his fingers were filled with an assortment of rings, including a sparkling diamond on his left pinky that was bling-bling decades before Lil Wayne was conceived.
D stood up, gazed at this vision of blaxploitation glamour, and said, “Whoa.”
“Good to see you too, young blood.”
Edge’s grip was firm, though his fingers were bony and flesh loose. Seventy-five was D’s best guess of his age.
“When you said you were coming downtown to see me I was surprised, but damn, Edge, I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Life is long, young blood,” Edge said, smiling. There were several teeth missing but the man’s mouth hung proudly open. “Until they toss that dirt on, things just keep on happening.”
D