To Funk and Die in LA Read online

  His mother had cried thick, deep tears when D told her Danny Hunter, her father-in-law, had been killed. It was only after he'd hugged her and listened to her whispers that he realized she was crying, once again, about the shooting of his big brother Matty.

  D himself teared up, kissed his mother's brow, and then left her, wondering which of his three dead brothers she thought he was. This absence from his mother's memories made him feel truly like he was her only dead son.

  D had saved the Dr. Funk tracks for the end of the flight because the man's sound transcended eras—sweet doo-wop harmonies bumped up against chugging Latin percussion, Fender Rhodes against 808s, Hendrix leads against James Brown chicken scratch, Bootsy Collins plucks and Larry Dunn keyboards supporting a lead vocal that mated Larry Blackmon cartoon pronouncements by way of Maurice White huskiness. These sounds clashed like swords in battle, yet it was this loud, shimmering, insistent, driving, conquering contrast that made his songs anthems.

  D saved Dr. Funk because these songs reminded him of Grandpa Big Danny cruising down Crenshaw Boulevard on one of those crazy car-show days when the street pulsated with lowrider engines and the sound of Dr. Funk anthems like "California Sun" and "Hard and Fast." D would gaze up at his granddad smoking a Tiparillo and wearing a cream-colored wide-brimmed hat and know this man was the coolest motherfucker on the planet.

  D was about to dip into Dr. Funk's crazy catalog, starting with the classic Chaos: Phase I, when the seat-belt sign flashed and the pilot announced that the plane was starting its LA descent.

  He had lost an hour in memories of his grandfather. He put down his earphones and switched off his iPod Mini. He'd wandered through the deep percussive rhythms of funk for almost five hours, but now he had to acknowledge that this trip west was not going to be funky like an old bag of collard greens. It was going to be funky in the classic sense of nasty, foul, and maybe a little mean. Big Danny was dead. No, Big Danny had been murdered, which meant the funeral wouldn't be the end of this story.

  D closed his eyes. He hadn't seen or heard from his father in years. Not since the funeral of Jah, his last surviving brother, where Fred Hunter had fallen into a drunken stupor at the wake. Right after that service he'd hopped aboard a Greyhound bus headed south. Like a broken bottle in a ghetto playground, his father's soul was shattered. Fred Hunter finally got off the bus in New Orleans, his clothes a stinking mess of alcohol and regret. A week later he was on a merchant marine steamer, though no one in Brooklyn was sure if he could swim.

  D wasn't certain how much his father knew about his ex-wife's current illness. Aunt Sheryl said she'd told him. Truth was that the time Fred Hunter could have been helpful to her or to D had long since passed. As the youngest of Zena and Fred Hunter's four sons, D had had the least contact with his father. For him, Fred Hunter had been more a collection of images than a fully developed character. It was like he'd glimpsed his father's close-up in a trailer though his scenes hadn't made the final cut.

  But his grandfather? That had been a true leading man. D had spent parts of several summers out in LA with Big Danny, Grandma Shirley, his Aunt Sheryl, and little cousin Walli. It was the first time D had slept in a house—a Craftsman with wooden beams, a fireplace, and a wide porch where on many evenings he and Big Danny would play chess. He'd hang out at Granddad's grocery store, helping lift boxes, check inventory, and listen in on rambling conversations with the customers. When D first visited LA at ten, all the customers were black, many with roots in Texas and Louisiana. The twang in their voices was strange music to D.

  Gangs were rampant in South Central but Big Danny never feared them—perhaps due to the foreboding presence of Red Dawg, a.k.a. Rodrigo Brown. The connection between Big Danny and Red Dawg was as mysterious to him as Cali accents were to his East Coast ears. All he knew for sure was that the redheaded half-black/half-Mexican kid had a fearsome rep and undying loyalty to his law-abiding granddad.

  Which was crucial, since when D revisited LA in the early 2000s, the area was experiencing an influx of Mexicans and Central Americans, and gangs were shifting from Bloods and Crips to a jigsaw puzzle of Bloods, Crips, Mexican Mafia, and Mara Salvatrucha, battling the city's most enduring gang—the Los Angeles Police Department.

  That Big Danny maintained his store despite these demographic changes seemed in retrospect a bit of a miracle. Only years later did D wonder if Granddad had more than one business going on in South Central, and what role Red Dawg had in it. The way his granddad was murdered suggested there was a subterranean aspect to his life, a level that D was sadly about to be introduced to, which caused his curiosity to burn with sadness.

  As the plane continued its descent, D gazed down at Los Angeles, a series of disparate villages and small towns tenuously linked by boulevards, freeways, and beaches. Maintaining close friends in LA was largely dependent on how short the drive was between their house and yours. A half hour was way too long except for true love or overwhelming lust. Otherwise, people didn't seem to become close friends. They were just people you knew—perhaps even cared about—but rarely saw. Traffic and distance determined the intensity of your friendships like daybreak defined working lives. D always felt isolated out here. This city, wide and long, was a thousand worlds where people listened to the Eagles or NWA or the Beach Boys or Black Flag or Shalamar or Charles Mingus or X or Tyler the Creator or Dr. Funk and thought they were in sync with this landscape when, in fact, they only had a piece of it. D didn't really know LA or even if he liked it. But here he was.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BIG DANNY'S HOUSE

  D stood at the curb outside the American Airlines baggage claim for thirty minutes, looking for, texting, and calling his cousin Walli before giving up and hopping into a taxi. The driver was Russian, very earnest and new to the job. D gave him his grandfather's address and the driver asked, "Is that in South LA?"

  "South LA? It's in South Central," D corrected.

  The driver plugged the address into his GPS and said, "South Central? I know no South Central. South LA I know."

  As the taxi pulled out D recalled that the Los Angeles City Council had voted for a name change a few years back, apparently trying to erase a lot of unwelcome history. While they worked their way through traffic from LAX, D mused on the way the twenty-first-century real estate business was so committed to the renaming game. Got an old-school twentieth-century ghetto you want to change? Rebrand it. Build a slick website, post pictures of rehabbed homes, talk vaguely about the area's rich history and the housing stock's tradition, promote the glitz of condos with gyms and in-house cleaners (no need to walk outside, folks), and spotlight its closeness to downtown (which was a reason the previous generation had split for the suburbs in the first place). It had worked in New York and D was sure that, in some form, this hustle was going down in Cali. The geography was different but the rename game was relentless.

  When they reached Adams Boulevard, D steeled himself against the sadness and rage he expected to feel for the next few days. The cars on the block were different but the homes, mostly Craftsman houses in a variety of shades, looked as sturdy as he remembered. Back when he visited as a teen, the block had been almost entirely black, save for a white woman and her black husband two doors down. Now he saw Mexican and American flags dangling from one porch. In front of another house two brown kids sporting soccer jerseys did tricks with a ball. Next to his grandfather's house was an empty home with a For Sale sign on the lawn.

  D gathered his suitcase from the trunk and rolled it slowly up the walkway, noticing all the lawns on the block turning brown from a water shortage. At the front door D found his key fit but the door wouldn't open. He knocked.

  "Who is it?" a timid voice called out.

  "Walli, it's D. My key isn't working."

  The door opened, revealing seventeen-year-old Walli Hunter, a lumpy, bushy-haired kid with hood experiences but boho tendencies, who was the product of a hyperprotective mother, an intermittently present father,
and doting grandparents. This resulted in an earnest, romantic young man who had been both smothered and abandoned. Which is to say, you were never quite sure which Walli you were about to meet.

  Like all the Hunter men, Walli had big shoulders and a solid frame. But he hadn't done a thing with those genetic gifts, having spent more time online than outside. He had his mother's reddish-yellow complexion (sans freckles) and sour expression, but was also open to joy and the fantastic. Out of loyalty to his granddad, Walli paid lip service to liking the Dodgers, but his real passion was history. He'd inherited D's spot at Big Danny's store, sitting there on long afternoons after school while his mother worked, listening to stories about black LA ("before these damn gangs fucked shit up") being spun back and forth across the countertop. As a result, Walli had become a good listener and collector of stories in a way that reminded D of his late friend and mentor Dwayne Robinson, which he thought was a great thing. To D, getting to spend more time with Walli was the only obvious benefit of this trip west.

  But instead of projecting warmth, Walli looked at D and, by way of greeting, said, "Ma had the locks changed awhile ago."

  "Well, someone should have told me."

  Walli shrugged.

  D gave him a hug, which was returned with a stiff embrace. "How you doing?"

  "I'm good," Walli mumbled.

  D followed him into the house and dropped his suitcase in the living room. As if being pulled on a string, D walked over to a framed picture of a man he revered (Big Danny) with a man he missed (Fred Hunter) sitting on the steps of this house, sporting Dodgers' caps and holding baseball bats.

  "Damn," he said under his breath. "Walli?" No answer. He turned to find his cousin wasn't in the living room; he was now at the kitchen table playing a game on his phone.

  "Is that why you didn't pick me up at the airport?"

  "I went out there, D," Walli said, "but the phone service is so bad. Lots of dead spots, even texting is hard out there. I didn't get your messages until I got back over the hill."

  "Over the hill? Were you at Burbank Airport?"

  "Yeah. I waited outside JetBlue for an hour."

  "JetBlue? American doesn't land there."

  "That's what I found out. You know Ma." Walli shrugged again and turned back to his phone.

  "I know. Details have never been her thing. Hey, I saw the house next door is for sale. How long?"

  "A while."

  "Damn. The Jacksons used to live there. They were so country they had the nerve to name their kids Tito and Marlon." D smiled, expecting a laugh at this, but Walli didn't get the reference. "Tito and Marlon," D continued. "The Jacksons. You know, like Michael and Janet?"

  Walli said, "Oh," and took a bite of his sandwich.

  Realizing it would take time to establish chemistry with his young cousin, D headed upstairs. While the living room was filled with natural light, the hallway and staircase felt as old as yellowed newspaper. The stairs creaked like an old man's joints and had cracks like a wrinkled brow.

  On his left was his father's old bedroom, where D used to stay and Walli now bunked in. D peeked in and spotted copies of Wired magazine, web-design manuals, and a MacBook on the bed. Across the hall was Aunt Sheryl's room, which she'd moved back into three years ago after her mother died. The room was an odd mixture of her adult life (magazines on hair care, samples of various products) and youth (Prince posters, colorful sneakers).

  D walked down the hall to the master bedroom and opened the door slowly. On his grandfather's wooden dresser was a hairbrush, a bottle of Old Spice cologne, an empty money clip, and two bottles of blood-pressure medication. D picked each of them up, rubbing his fingers across them as if their surfaces carried some kind of magic.

  He stepped over to the bed; Aunt Sheryl had freshly made it up. There was a taut, military feel to how the sheets fit the mattress. D brought a pillow to his nose, sniffing for a familiar scent. Frustrated by the minty detergent smell, he tossed the pillow on the bed and then climbed on after it. His big black-clad body curled up like a child's. He gazed up at the ceiling, where two large beams connected over the middle of the room, and thought of his grandparents staring up at it night after night for thirty-five years, the two of them connected like those beams.

  It wasn't until Walli walked in and looked embarrassed that D realized he'd been crying.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NIGHT IN THE VALLEY

  D was gazing up at the ceiling again, but this time in the living room as he laid on the sofa. He didn't want to share a room with Walli and sleeping in his grandfather's bedroom was out of the question. He was looking at the photo of his father and grandfather when his phone rang out the opening notes to Night's hit "Black Sex," meaning it was Al Brown, an old friend and Night's longtime comanager/support system.

  "I heard about your grandfather passing," Al said softly. "My condolences. How you holding up?"

  "I'm okay," D answered, lying. "Crazy how it happened. If he'd just died of old age, we would all have been okay, you know. But to die this way—"

  "You thinking about playing detective again, D?" Al sounded anxious.

  "No," he said, lying again. "It's too personal. I can't even think about any of that. Just want to help my family get through this."

  "Night and I would like to come by the services. Maybe the wake since it would be a little more private."

  "Thanks for offering," D said. "Be good to see you guys. I'll text you the address and time. Is Night loving Cali?"

  Al sighed. "In my opinion LA is not the best place for him to spend time. But Amos Pilgrim wanted him close, and the label feels they can keep an eye on him out here too." His tone was changing, but even on the phone with a friend he remained cautious with his words. "Honestly, I'd prefer he was back on the East Coast. The temptation to go to pool parties in secluded homes is not the best thing for a guy with too many babies and a drug problem."

  "I agree," D replied softly, realizing that Al was telling more than he was saying. "I was planning to come out for some of the sessions a little later. After the services I'll definitely stop by."

  "The offer to be a comanager still stands, D. Pilgrim and I are both good with it. Night mentions it all the time. He's still a little hurt you didn't come on board after the last tour."

  "I know." Now it was D's turn to sigh. "The timing wasn't right. After all that stuff in Brownsville last year I had a lot of testifying to do. A couple of cops wanted to charge me for obstruction of justice. Lucky for me a black DA got elected and shut that shit down. If Hynes had still been the Brooklyn DA, I would surely be in Rikers."

  Al laughed. "But all that's behind you now, D. I know you're dealing with your grandfather's death. Take some time for yourself and then come see us."

  "Where're you cutting?"

  "Some joint in the Valley," Al said sourly. "The idea was to get Night some sun during the day and then cut at night. Instead he cuts in the a.m. and hangs out all night."

  "That doesn't sound like our man."

  "Yup. That's why I'd love for you to come on board. I'm babysitting and I'm getting too old for this shit. I am really thinking about retiring to the R&B old peoples' home."

  D chuckled. "Somewhere in Vegas, right?"

  "Of course," Al said. Then he went quiet for a moment. "Between you, me, and the light pole, he's not cutting much worth hearing."

  "Oh man, Al, I can feel you sucking me in. But I gotta deal with my fam right now. Can't get into Night's drama at the moment. I just can't."

  "Understood," Al said. "Deeply understood."

  After that D got off the call quickly, not wanting to leave any more space in his already cluttered mind for Night's musical problems. Tomorrow he was going to see his grandfather's body and talk to an LA detective. He didn't need any additional reasons to be sleepless.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BIG DANNY WAS A LOAN SHARK

  Detective Israel Gonzales agreed to meet with D at the Starbucks at the Holiday Bowl
, which back in the seventies had been a bowling alley and in another incarnation the Sakiba Lounge and sushi bar. It was one of the most prominent examples of an architectural style that had appeared futuristic in the 1960s, when images of atoms and flying saucers were cutting edge. Starbucks, always smart about putting a local spin on its franchise, had kept much of the original design flavor.

  Gonzales was sipping a fruity red concoction at a window seat when D entered. The heavyset policeman waved him over to the empty chair across from him.

  "Mr. Hunter, my condolences," Gonzales said, "A grandfather murdered like that is quite a shock." Gonzales took another sip of his drink and then shook his head.

  "It is for me and all the family, detective. Who would gun down a seventy-year-old man at a stoplight?"

  "A semiretired retailer in South LA at that. His wallet in his pocket. He had $8,500 cash in the glove compartment." The detective's voice betrayed a hint of mental rehearsal. "He paid for his coffee with small bills. It's a little strange that the owner of a grocery store would go to another place for coffee, but it seems like that was your grandfather's regular spot. I mean, he went there even though there's an excellent new coffee shop right next door." Gonzales let that sit with D a moment before continuing. "Were you close to your grandfather, Mr. Hunter?"

  "I mean, we communicated. Whenever I came out here on business I always tried to see him." As D talked, the question of his grandfather's coffee habits and the cash nagged at him.

  "Your grandfather did well for himself. Had that grocery store, the athlete shoe shop next door, and that club on Manchester."

  "I believe he sold his interest in the club years ago."

  "Apparently not. According to the club's manager, a Hank Cauldwell. He sold some shares in it but still controlled 51 percent."

  This surprised D. "Oh. Like I said, I thought he'd sold it off a few years ago. I wasn't privy to all his moves."