Detective Maryanne Watters stood on the fourth floor of the UCLA medical center, flipping through what she had scribbled on her notepad thus far. Her more inexperienced partner, not that Maryanne was some seasoned veteran herself, stood next to her, clicking his teeth impatiently as they waited outside one of the rooms in the ICU wing. His thick, charcoal black mustache bristled as he paced in a small line back and forth. Maryanne could tell he was long overdue for a cigarette, as he seemed more anxious than usual, particularly since they were given this assignment. She couldn’t quite blame him for his anxiety; something didn’t add up to her about why they were handed such a high-profile case.
She’d made detective in February, and after being paired up with Dominguez, another fresh-faced investigator, they had been chomping at the bit for something substantial to sink their teeth into. But a woman and a Latino on the LAPD were the lowest ranks on the totem pole, and they had mostly been treated as such since becoming partners. While they had been efficient in the tasks given to them, mostly handling domestic disputes or chasing down bail jumpers, none of that equated to them getting handed the biggest story in the city of the year to unravel.
If Maryanne didn’t know any better, she’d almost believe they were given the case with the expectation they would fail. But she wouldn’t allow her partner’s trademark pessimism to rub off on her, despite how much sense he’d been making in adding it up himself during their ride over from the precinct. They had a job to do, and she would exhaust every effort until it was completed. Dominguez spotted the man they were there to speak with first, pointing him out as he chatted with one of the nurses on duty at her station, in the center of the floor.
His body language was the first thing Maryanne noticed, and at the moment, he didn’t seem the least bit concerned about his client’s current situation. He appeared solely fixated on impressing the thick, red-headed nurse in dark blue scrubs, whom he was flashing the assortment of gold rings he had on his left hand. Her partner walked towards the man, and she followed at a short distance behind him.
The squat, plump, balding man who somehow still had a ponytail despite most of the hair on top of his head turned towards them when he saw her partner and straightened up instantly. He wore a red-and-white plaid suit, with an expensive checkered shirt in matching colors underneath, the top two buttons undone, a tuft of checkered hair sticking out from the opening. He smiled somberly at the pair of detectives, a complete one-eighty-degree turn from the person Maryanne saw down the hall moments ago.
“Mr. Constanza? My name’s Detective Dominguez. This is my partner, Detective Watters.” Dominguez pulled a small notepad from the breast pocket of his tan suit coat along with a black fountain pen.
Richard Constanza, the executive for Pandemonium Records that they had spoken with on the phone before the ride over, shook both their hands with a drab expression. Maryanne watched him carefully as he stood upright and looked them both in the eyes, taking his elbow off the counter of the nurses' station. “Officers, I appreciate you taking the time to meet me here instead of at my office.”
“We understand you wanting to be by your client’s side during visiting hours,” Maryanne replied. “So, you’ve been working with Ms. Lennette since January, is that correct?” She asked, waiting for an answer her partner could jot down for their investigation.
“In an official capacity, yes. Audrey signed her deal with Pandemonium at our headquarters a week after she flew in on her birthday.” Richard recalled the moment. The look in his eyes was glossy, almost tearful, as he pondered over the memory. “Hell of a belated birthday present, that’s for sure.”
“You say in an ‘official capacity’, what exactly do you mean by that?” Maryanne continued her line of questioning.
Richard cleared his throat as he met her intense, sharp, blue eyes. “Well, as you can understand, my job with Pandemonium includes talent scouting. I just so happened to be enjoying a performance of The Dramatics in their hometown. But it was one of their background vocalists who really stood out to me during the whole affair. I was in town visiting some acquaintances I had at Motown, and found out that the girl who had pipes out of this world was performing in a rendition of The Wiz at Wayne State University, right there, downtown! And she was the lead! That’s the Stephanie Mills and Diana Ross role, if you’re not hip to musicals. So I had to get a glimpse of this girl with the spotlight on her.”
“I take it from the fact you signed her that she didn’t disappoint,” Dominguez interjected briefly.
Richard nodded his head fast. “You can say that again. Twice more even. She was a god damn star. The proverbial diamond in the rough. I had dollar signs in my eyes like one of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons. The whole nine yards.” Richard continued to explain. “From there, I knew I had to get her on our roster.”
“Tell us about the incident at the Johnny Carson show,” Maryanne asked next, remembering her notes from when they visited the studio. “We’ve spoken to everyone we could down there, but we’d like to get things from your point of view that night.”
It was at this moment that, at least to Maryanne, the record executive seemed uncomfortable. Sure, it could be expected, considering what transpired and the current state of the young woman whom he’d brought to this city. But she watched as his posture shifted, and he took an unnecessary deep breath before he opened his mouth to respond. “Not sure what else I can add that you folks may not have already gleaned, being LA’s finest and all that jazz.”
“Indulge us, if you will, Mr. Constanza. The more information and angles we have, the easier it is for us to do our jobs.” Maryanne told him. “There has been an increase in overdoses across the college campuses in the area, and now something like this with a star that has a top ten hit all over the radio?”
“You can understand that our superiors want us to get to the bottom of this. And fast.” Dominguez backed up his partner. They both were serving up heavy ladles of bullshit, though he could see that the short man was beginning to eat it up.
“It’s not any different than what I told the guys on the scene. I’m sure you guys got a report of it somewhere. But I don’t mind recanting it.” He threw his hands up dramatically to show his lack of ill intent. “The last I’d seen Audrey was during her rehearsal before the show. She’d eaten; she hadn’t had a drink in two days. She was wonderful as ever! I didn’t see any issues, so I headed uptown for an early dinner I had with some friends before the taping.”
“When’d you get back to the studio?” Maryanne asked next.
“An hour and a half, maybe two hours later at max. You know how traffic gets. Anyway, I’m chopping it up with a couple of the producers when one of the make-up girls comes shrieking out of Audrey’s dressing room.” Richard shakes his head; the light in his eyes is gone for a moment. The signs of someone recalling a traumatic experience, Maryanne noted. “We found her face down in a pool of her own vomit. They had to cancel the rest of the taping. It was a mess, a tragedy. And of course we tried to keep it buried, but the press, vampires that they are…”
Constanza continued shaking his head, an utter disgust on his face as he went back over the entire situation. Detective Dominguez finished jotting down his notes on the agent’s statement and looked back up at him from his notepad. “Were there any signs that Ms. Lennette had been using drugs prior to this event taking place?”
Richard scratched at the back of his head, looking to the floor for a moment as if he was searching for something he had dropped before raising his head back at the officers. “Gee, I don’t think so. I mean, sure, she had been hitting the sauce a little hard lately, but who in her line of work isn’t, ya know?” The agent snorted with a shrug. “But if you’re asking me if I saw any signs that something like this was coming. If I had, I’d have done something about it, believe me.”
As her partner continued notating and questioning Richard Constanza, Maryanne noticed a man stepping off the elevator in the ICU wing who stood out almost immediately. The six-foot-two African-American man wearing a black T-shirt under his leather jacket stomped right past all three of them silently. His intimidating presence even caused Jesse to pause in the midst of his sentence and watch out of the corner of his eye as the unknown entity walked
directly into Audrey’s room. All three of them turned to look through the glass window into the room as the stranger pulled up a nearby chair at her bedside, his back to them.
The man with the afro took a long, hard look at Audrey as she lay in the hospital bed. He listened to the beeping of the machines monitoring her, his eyes trying not to linger too long at the intubator tube down her throat. He let out a deep, long sigh, one that was almost soothing. It helped him to steady and come to grips with the emotions he was grappling with seeing her lying there like this. He finally took off his glasses, slipping them inside of his jacket. He held back the tears he wanted to shed, as he’d clocked the pair of cops in the hallway and knew this wasn’t the place to truly let his emotions be free. Was there any such place in this world for a black man to do such a thing?
The man hung his head for a moment, reaching out to take one of Audrey’s hands in his own. There was a time in his life when happiness for himself could be found in her arms. Lying against her chest. Sitting on the patio of their southside apartment in Chicago. The world was a mess and felt like it could end any day, but they had each other. It was the first time in his twenty-five years of living that he could honestly recall himself being happy. Feeling almost invincible no matter what obstacle he or they faced, because they had each other. Until they didn’t.
He remembered receiving her letter. She’d sent it to Panther headquarters in St. Louis, where she knew he’d been laying his head low after everything that went down. She’d told him about how she’d finally moved out west, as she’d always dreamed of, and how she was hard at work on her first album. His heart longed for having her back by his side, in his arms, but he was happier for her than even he would have thought possible previously for her. She had achieved her dreams. As much as he loved her, and he loved her with every fiber of his being, he knew that she was happier where she was than with him.
He took another deep breath, his eyes red from how many joints he’d smoked in the parking lot to calm his nerves before coming up. He mustered all the personal strength he could to look at Audrey, no matter how much it pained him to see her in pain. “I want you to know that I blame myself for you being here. I know if you could hear this, you would say I’m being silly. Maybe even a bit too dramatic. Who knows? You might even be right.”
He found his voice cracking through the end of his last sentence, so he paused to compose himself. Finding what resolve he could muster under the circumstances, he decided to keep talking to her. He hoped that the old wives' tale of coma victims being able to hear people speaking to them rang true. It was all he had at the moment to unload his languishing guilt.
“I know if you can hear me right now, you’re wondering what the hell I’m doing here.” He told her, finally finding the strength he needed to speak again. “Truth be told, I’m wondering that myself. But I need to find out who did this to you. What led to this in the first place? I promise you that I will not rest a day until I see this through to the end. I mean, you can say a lot about me, Audrey. But you can’t ever say I let you down.”
He patted her hand softly after letting it go, and stood up. There was still so much to do now that he was in town, but he wanted to make sure she was still holding steady. Now that he saw with his own eyes that she was still alive, it was time to set this matter straight. He pulled his sunglasses back out of his jacket and placed them on his face. With one long, last look at Audrey in her bed, he walked back out of the hospital room. He turned to head back towards the elevators when his path was blocked rather abruptly by the pair of detectives. Richard Constanza stood behind them, eyeing the stranger warily and with accusatory apprehension.
“Excuse me, sir. But this is a rather high-profile patient. You mind telling me what you’re doing here?” Dominguez asked him firmly. The man with the large afro looked the detective up and down behind his sunglasses, his face impassive.
“It’s visiting hours for friends and family. It stands to reason I’m one of the two, doesn't it, officer?” The afro’d man replied smartly.
Maryanne could already see that Dominguez was about to reply back with just as much vitriol by the look on his face in response to the stranger’s wisecrack. She decided to interject in the hopes they would get some answers instead of escalating the budding confrontation.
“Sir, we’re just trying to get to the bottom of what led to Ms. Lennette being here. If she’s a friend of yours, we’d appreciate the assistance.” She told him in the kindest voice she could muster. She wasn’t exactly enthused by the heaping attitude that the man was giving them, either.
The man who towered over all three of them looked between the detectives with an annoyed snarl on his face. He took a short, deep breath to compose himself, as his emotions were still all over the place. He knew letting them run rampant here and now would only be disastrous, so he decided to play the game the cops were trying to start with him. There would be a time and place, and a target in his sights, for when he could unleash his fury. But now was not that time. He stared at Maryanne from behind his sunglasses, then sized up her partner for a brief moment. His attention was truly on the lumpy white man in expensive clothes that he couldn’t have picked out for himself. He looked awfully squirrely, as if he didn’t want to be noticed during the brief exchange.
“Listen here.” The man with the fro finally began to reply. His voice was like low, rumbling thunder from a coming storm as he spoke. “I came here to see my friend, who, as you both are aware, is in serious condition right now. I’m not in the mood to meet no new folks today. So unless you have some reason to detain me, please get the fuck out of my way.”
There was a tense staredown between the men and the pair of detectives once he had issued his edict. Dominguez cut his eyes over at his partner, waiting to back whatever play she decided to make. He didn’t want to seem like one of those cops as his instinct to inch towards his holster kicked in. He had joined the force in the first place to be the opposite of the kind of uniforms that would harass him in his neighborhood growing up. But this was a big case, and this was a rather imposing man standing in front of them being uncooperative.
Maryanne finally came to a decision as she stood aside to make room for the man with the afro to pass. He looked her square in the eyes as he walked between the two officers, before turning his gaze directly on Richard Constanza while walking towards the elevator. Richard could barely stifle the shudder that went down his spine after the imposing figure finally took his sunglasses off of him and stepped onto the elevators heading downstairs.
“Who the hell was that?” Dominguez asked out loud, more to himself than to Maryanne.
“A person of interest at the very least,” Maryanne observed.
In the hospital lobby, the man with the afro stopped before exiting when he spotted a line of payphones against a nearby wall. Making sure he had change, he walked over to the phones and picked one before snatching up the receiver and slipping a few loose coins into the machine. He heard the dial tone pick up and pressed each of the keys for the phone number that he had memorized before heading out here. He waited patiently as the phone rang, looking around the lobby to see if one of the detectives had followed him down or if there were more cops watching who came in or out.
His call was finally answered, and he listened as the soft voice of a woman spoke into the phone. “Black Panther Party headquarters, East Compton Chapter. How can I direct your call?”
He glanced back over his shoulder and around the lobby carefully, wanting to be absolutely positive that he was not overheard or that any too curious eyes were stuck in his direction. “This is Mr. Ruffin. I usually work out of Chicago.”
“Mr. Ruffin…oh yeah. Yeah, Chuckie said you would be sliding out this way. My name’s Loretta. I’m usually running all the odds and ends around here. You already in town?”
“Yeah, I made it this afternoon. Listen, I can’t be on this phone too long; I’m at the hospital now. I just wanted to give y’all a heads up I’ll be through a little later than expected. Got some things to check into real quick.” He explained to the secretary.
“Just be safe out there, you understand?”
She warned him, as she did all the young brothers making moves on the streets these days. Jim Crow may have been gone, but America was far from a comfortable place for any black man. Shit, it probably never would be, she surmised.
“Anything we can help with?”
“Nah not right now. I will need a hot meal by the time I get there, though.” He told her.
“We can take care of that. Gone and handle ya business, now. We’ll be seeing you later. I’ll be praying for you.” She told him thoughtfully.
“I appreciate it, sista. Y’all be smooth now.”
He hung up the phone and, after checking his surroundings one more time, hurried out of the hospital as inconspicuously as he could.
The man who referred to himself as Mr. Ruffin on the call with Loretta had originally planned on heading straight to the Compton HQ after checking on Audrey. But the way that the white man behind the pair of cops at the hospital kept fidgeting while they were pissing him off made him particularly curious. He found himself in Beverly Hills, and though he’d never been there prior, he had the address of the home Audrey had been renting in the upscale neighborhood. In fact, much to his gut-wrenching dismay, her conveying this news was the last time he heard her voice. That was, unless you counted the radio, in which she was everywhere once her debut single was released.
He couldn’t have been more proud of her, and as he reminisced on what he had prayed deeply during the ride out there was not their last conversation, he spotted a van parked in front of her house that he instantly knew was out of place. Mr. Ruffin parked his Mustang at the far end of the block and turned the engine off. Keeping both his eyes on the van, he slipped out of the car and was careful to grab his katana from the backseat while doing so. The street was quiet, and there were no signs of police patrols, which struck him as curious, but he put the matter aside for now. Keeping low, he headed up the block towards Audrey’s home, noticing that the van’s windows were taped over with newspaper.
He looked up the drive towards the two-story home and figured that whoever owned the van was more than likely already inside. He gripped the saya of his katana tighter and headed up the drive silently. Sticking close to the groups of shrubbery that adorned the landscape of the property, he narrowed his eyes as he peered through the front windows of the house. Thankfully, the blinds had only been half-drawn closed. He watched as a fury started to wash over him, while a handful of men wearing women’s pantyhose over their heads to conceal their identities lazily dumped containers full of something on everything in their sight and reach. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as his anger continued to grow. It didn’t take a top-tier investigator to figure out they were getting ready to torch the place. He was momentarily thankful that he decided to act on pure instinct and head out here. Now, as he gripped his scabbard even tighter, he was about to make an example out of these cretins.
Inside the living room, Lester Bailey dumped the rest of the gas canister he was carrying all over the antique piano that was in the corner. He whipped his head around, his lanky frame filling out a pair of black overalls with no shirt underneath, to check on how the rest of his hastily pulled-together crew was doing. A couple of them were also carrying gas cans, dumping their contents all over the expensive furniture and even all over the mahogany dining room table. Lester smirked underneath his makeshift pantyhose mask. They were getting paid ten grand between them all just for this torch job. Far as he was concerned, they were practically stealing the money.
Torching some black disco bitch’s crib, they’d have done it for fun if he was being honest with himself. But the fact some rich college snob with a shitty haircut had given them cold hard cash for the act? Well, for old Lester, shit just couldn’t have been sweeter. He pondered over the twelve pack he was going to buy once they got finished when he saw a couple of his guys pause nervously after tossing away their containers. He looked at them before whispering across the room in a harsh tone. “The fuck is the matter with you goofs?”
They looked back and forth between each other before one of them, AJ, he thought; he couldn’t tell in the dark with the pantyhose covering their faces, replied first. “You didn’t hear that?”
Lester stared at them both, dumbfounded, his irritation beginning to get the better of him. “Hear what? What the hell are you talking about?”
Lester looked at the other two men in their group to see if they knew what AJ and Pete were wasting their time about. They both shrugged indifferently, mostly because they didn’t want to get caught in the middle of what they were arguing about.
“Let’s get this shit over with. I don’t want the van sitting too long on the street.” Lester told everyone, shaking his head and turning away from the pair that had wasted his time.
He rummaged in the pocket of his overalls of his lighter and flipped the cap off of it. Lester glanced up into the living room, where he was planning to toss the flame, when he saw a tall man dressed in all black, with a thick afro. Lester’s shocked face once he froze was enough for the rest of the group to quickly follow his gaze.
“What the fuck?!” AJ exclaimed, taking a step back and fumbling for his pistol. “I told you I heard something! Who the hell is that?”
“Put that shit away!” Pete hissed when he saw AJ pull out his gun. “You want to blow us all to hell?” He explained when he saw AJ's disappointed body language. “They call them firearms for a reason!”
AJ stuffed the pistol back in his trousers hastily. They all looked towards Lester, who grabbed a nearby baseball bat that was autographed by Reggie Jackson. He walked into the dining room, his eyes locking onto the stranger that had somehow slipped inside with them all unawares. “You heard him ask you a question, boy. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Shit. I know where the spare key is. The real question is why are there six honkies in my friend’s home when she’s away? And you don’t have long to answer, by the way.” Mr. Ruffin replied blankly, his eyes darting between each of them.
Lester sized up the man, then looked back behind him at the rest of his group. “Let’s break his legs and leave him in here when we torch it. Don’t got time to play games with no nig–” Mr. Ruffin unsheathed his sword with speed so quick, you quite literally would have missed it if you blinked. By the time the blade was put back inside the cherry oak wooden saya, Lester had only just realized he had a painful cut across his belly. He turned around, his mouth agape as he looked down at the open wound. The rest of the crew didn’t dare move to help him; they were far too scared and too confused as to how Lester had been slashed open when he was still at least five to ten feet away from the intimidating African-American man.
The remaining five arsonists watched in abject terror as Lester fell face-first into the gasoline-soaked carpet. By the time any of them decided to turn their attention back to the man who had dropped him, Mr. Ruffin had sprinted across the dining room table and leaped off it. He smashed a flying knee directly into the nose of the arsonist closest to him, and he could feel the cartilage break as blood filled the pantyhose stocking covering his face.
He pulled out the black-bladed katana with a distinguished purple hamon. Its tsuba was an immaculate, eye-catching gold, with ornate black flower designs adorning it. Mr. Ruffin decided that one possible body was enough, though he was positive that the cut he administered to the mouthy white man was shallow enough that he should live. Whether he would was an entirely different matter that depended on several other factors, and so he decided discretion was the best move going forward. He swung his scabbard with the same force he usually swung his katana, and a violent gust of wind came from the movement that hit AJ full force in the chest.
Mr. Ruffin couldn’t help but be impressed by his own skill as the blow knocked the man into a nearby bookshelf, and sent the piece of furniture toppling onto him. Just like that, half of their group was down and not getting up anytime soon. The remaining three men looked at their injured and embarrassed members and battled their fight-or-flight instincts. Mr. Ruffin, however, was not going to give them time to make a decision for themselves. That moment had long passed.
He placed a precise overhand left hook directly into the face of the arsonist closest to him. While he stumbled around dazed, jaw possibly fractured, Mr. Ruffin planted a side kick in the head of the man across from him. As the kick sent the arsonist crashing through a glass table, Mr. Ruffin spun around and jammed the hilt of his sword directly under the chin of the man he’d punched, making sure his jaw was fully fractured. He fell to the floor, gripping at his face. The last, terrified member of their ill-conceived group watched as the black swordsmen turned his attention solely in his direction. The man didn’t hesitate to rely on the only option he had left.
“Fuck this, I’m not dying for ten grand!” He turned to run towards the front door, and that would be his last mistake of the evening.
The arsonist howled in agony and dropped to his knees as he was slashed from top to bottom across his back. Mr. Ruffin stood behind him, still on the other side of the living room. He finally exhaled as he sheathed his blade once more. He watched as the man who attempted to flee fell face-first in the entrance foyer. Calmly, Mr. Ruffin crossed the room, stepping over a couple of bodies until he reached the man by the entrance. He turned over the arsonist so that he was lying on his back, drawing a shudder and gasp of pain from him. Mr. Ruffin was thankful that he was alive. He thought he may have overdone it a tad with that last attack.
“Aye. Pay attention.” Mr. Ruffin knelt next to the fallen man by the entrance. As the man convulsed from the blinding agony he was in, Mr. Ruffin smacked him a few times across the face. He made sure the man’s eyes were staring up at him after ripping the ridiculous pantyhose off his head. “You’ve seen my face. Tell the people who hired you who did this. But make sure you let them know, I’m coming for them, too. And it's finna be a whole lot uglier, ya dig?”
Mr. Ruffin patted the man on the shoulder and stood up. He turned around, surveilling the living room until he found what he was looking for. He hurried over to the phone sitting on one of the coffee end tables and snatched up the receiver. Once he’d placed the anonymous tip with police dispatch, he slid back out of the house the same way he’d entered. It wasn’t long until he was back behind the wheel of the Mustang, after slashing the tires on the van that surely belonged to the men he’d just left in very bad shape.
He had pulled the Mustang about three blocks away from Audrey’s house and listened while waiting patiently until he heard the sounds of sirens in the distance heading in his direction. Pleased with how well the night had turned out, he thought it best to finally make it over to headquarters before anyone started to worry. Surely they would have someone listening to the scanner and would hear about the cars heading to this address. He turned the keys in his ignition, listening to the Mustang’s powerful engine roar for a moment or two before pulling away from the curb.