Laying the guns on the dresser, Racehorse walked over to the closet. "We got to take an hour to get to Wilkins and Hastings. By then a hot car will be sitting there waiting for us. I told Prince that we didn't want a driver, Tony. I figured that you and I could handle it better by ourselves."
"I dig that," Tony answered. "The less people know about it, the better off we are."
Racehorse took his time dressing, putting on a black suit. He stuck both pistols down inside his belt and stopped in front of a floor-length mirror to make sure the guns didn't bulge. His dark brown eyes were unreadable as he studied himself closely. Sharp hawklike features stared back at him from a cold black face.
"You about ready, Tony?" he asked, his voice trembling slightly with excitement over the coming job.
"Yeah, Race, I'm just about ready. I got to pick up my hardware from my room, then we can pull up."
Forty-five minutes later a black coupe pulled up in front of a crowded tenement. A tall black Negro leaned out of the car window and spoke to one of the kids playing on the steps.
"What the hell do you want with Square Dave?" a cocoa-brown-skinned girl asked from the top of the steps. She was about thirteen years old.
The young Italian driver spoke quietly to the sharpfaced Negro next to him. Before the Negro could answer, a tall, husky, pleasant-faced black man came out of the apartment building. The girl at the top of the steps nodded toward the car.
"Them guys want to see you, Dave," she said in a small voice.
Dave stopped for a moment, then started on down the steps. The motor of the black coupe leaped to life. People walking up and down the trash-littered street stopped in their tracks and looked around. From dilapidated ruins that still passed for houses, people peered out, smelling trouble with the built-in instinct of the oppressed.
A warning flashed through his mind, and Dave hesitated. Flames of death streaked from the car window as shot after shot found its mark. As Dave staggered the rest of the way down the steps, the coupe roared away from the curb, leaving behind the beginning of murder and the promise of terror.
A clamoring crowd gathered around the dying man as two young hoodlums, dressed alike, pushed their way out of the crowd. The sounds of the distant sirens grew stronger as the street lamp's glare fell across the sinister looking R's on the backs of the men's jackets.
5
THE STIFLING AFTERNOON heat began to carry foul odors up from the gutters and alleyways. Charles Morales, a detective from the homicide division, took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. To a stranger, he could have passed for a well-dressed insurance collector, but to the inhabitants of this neighborhood, this short, powerfully built middle-aged man, with his bullneck and bowed legs, spelled cop, with capital letters.
Morales, glancing up and down the street for his partner, missed none of the poverty with his piercing blue eyes. He saw his big, red-faced partner coming out of a tenement building, and from the way he walked he could tell his partner hadn't had any luck. Waving disconsolately, Detective Gazier went into the apartment building next to the one he had just left. Morales shook his head sadly. Gazier was a good policeman, but he was just too short-tempered. For homicide, a policeman had to have patience. He wondered again how long it would be before the captain finally transferred one of them to another partner. He wished he had a rookie to work with. That way, you didn't have any problems. A rookie would listen, whereas with an experienced man like Gazier, it was hard to do things any other way besides the ingrained way.
The two officers continued to work the street, each man taking a different side. Half an hour later they met up at the police car. "The hell with it!" Gazier said, his voice rising from anger he had held inside all day. "These goddamn people down here don't want no help, Morales."
The smaller officer watched his partner, half amused. "It's not that they don't want any help, Gazier, it's something else. I don't know why, but these people are scared."
Both officers stared at each other. Neither man liked the way the other worked. Gazier believed that Morales was too easygoing, while Morales believed just the opposite of his partner. The days of cops whipping the people they arrested were in the past. Morales knew that Gazier still believed the best way to get a confession out of someone was to kick the shit out of him. But in his heart he thought this was an outdat ed policy.
Gazier laughed sarcastically. "I don't know how in the hell that could have happened. This is black bottom, and these niggers down here don't fear God, let alone some person putting fear into them."
Morales said heatedly, "Listen, I went to that boy's house and talked to his mother and father. From what I could gather, the boy's sister was standing at the top of the steps when those punks killed Dave. She was going to talk last night until somebody got a note to her father, and that was the end of that."
"Did you get the note?" Gazier asked.
"No, her father burned it, but he said they threatened to kill the girl if she talked, and that if they couldn't reach her, any of the other nine kids would do just as well."
"That's a bunch of bull!" Grazier said. "These niggers are all alike; now they're trying to make a big play out of a damn gang killing."
Morales managed to control his temper. He wondered just how in the hell did he happen to get such a fool for a partner when there were so many bright young officers working out of their station.
"Well, Sherlock," Gazier said sarcastically, "where do we go from here?"
Some children were crossing in front of the car. Morales waited until they had reached the sidewalk before pulling away from the curb. "We'll take a quick run back to the station and have us a small chat with those two punks we picked up last night. I still don't think we'll get any more out of them, but we can give it a try."
"You're probably right, Morales, as long as you treat those punks like they're in church, you're never going to get anything out of them."
"Just what would you like to see me do?" Morales asked. "Should I start kickin' the shit out of every kid that comes in front of me the way you do, Gazier?"
Gazier replied hotly, "Maybe if you start using a little force, you might get better results."
Morales drove the car into the police garage and parked before he answered. "Being an officer of the law, Gazier, does not give you the right to abuse the rights of others, just because you're in the position to do it."
"Don't worry about me!" Gazier snapped as they walked up the steps and entered the station.
A policewoman came toward them pleading with a young brown-skinned teenager. "Listen, Ruby," she said, "I've talked with your mother and she said that she would be glad to have you back home."
The tall, chocolate-colored young woman stopped and spit deliberately at the policewoman's foot. Putting her hands on her hips, she leaned back on her high-heeled shoes in a provoking manner. Her lips curled in a sneer, and sparks leaped from her jet-black eyes. "I wouldn't sleep under the same roof with that drunken bitch if my life depended on it. I'd rather peddle ass for a quarter a throw before going back there."
"Now, Ruby," the policewoman cautioned, "if you leave with that attitude, you'll be back."
"You were with me in the probation office," Ruby said. "My probation ended when the back money I owed was paid up, so ya ain't got nothing on me. I'm as free as a goddamn bird, so keep your lecture for some girl who has to listen to it, 'cause I don't care to hear that shit." She turned and walked away.
The precinct elevator stopped in the lobby, depositing two young men in black leather jackets.
"Well," Gazier stated loudly. "There go our pigeons."
"I wonder," Morales said wearily, "how those boys got out so soon."
Chinaman, a tall, slender Puerto Rican, spotted Ruby going towards the door. "Say Ruby-do," he yelled, "don't tell me, baby, these squares are just cuttin' you loose."
Ruby stopped at the door. "Chinaman!" she yelled. "What the hell are you and Shortman doing down
here in this craphouse?"
Chinaman grinned, showing a row of perfect white teeth. He sneered. "Some would-be detectives picked us up down in the bottom last night for loitering."
"For loitering," Ruby repeated loudly, before breaking up in laughter. "Not you!" she managed to say. "Maybe Shortman, but I can't imagine them pickin' you up on a charge like that."
Chinaman ran his hands through his thick black hair before answering. "I wish your man thought like that, baby," he said.
"I hope these bastards didn't give you no hard time, Ruby," Shortman jeered.
Detective Gazier stepped up and pushed the boys in their chests. "Listen, punks," he said, "I don't know how you got out so soon, but if you use one more swear word in here, I'll lock your goddamn asses up again, and that goes for all three of you."
"Big deal," Ruby said sarcastically. "Just listen to the big man, will you?"
"That goes double for you," Gazier snarled at her.
"Don't worry about these young people," a welldressed young man said from behind Gazier. "I'll see to it that they leave quietly."
"And just who in the hell are you?" Gazier asked grimly as he wheeled around.
The young man stepped back and removed his glasses before replying. "I happen to be these young people's attorney. Is there anything strange about that?"
"Well, if that's the case," Gazier growled, "you better get them the hell out of my sight if you don't want them locked up again."
"Don't worry, officer," the lawyer replied, nodding his head for emphasis. "We are leaving now."
They walked out of the building in a tight little group. The lawyer, seeing a cab at the curb, waved it down. He smiled at the people with him, reached in his pocket and removed some white cards. "These have my home address on them. I would appreciate it if one of you would make sure that Mr. Nelson got one."
Ruby accepted the card. "I'll be sure to give it to Prince. Thanks a lot for what you did for me."
After the cab pulled away from the curb, Shortman swore. "Damn," he said, trying to read the card.
Ruby laughed. "That's pronounced Antares Noetzold; the `Att.' stands for `attorney."'
It was twenty minutes before the cab reached its destination. The driver turned down a raw dirty street along the waterfront. The surrounding tenements and shacks were still overcrowded with kids of Mexican and Italian descent. Chinaman and his partner stepped out of the cab in front of a huge, grimy warehouse across from some deteriorating piers. Ruby leaned over the seat and gave the driver an address. As the cab shot away, she waved at the boys as they entered the warehouse door.
On the North End, Danny turned off of Davison and drove down Lumpin Street. He stopped in front of a dirty gray frame house. The front yard was barren of grass. There was an old tree that had died years ago; now it stood withered and shriveled like the rest of the neighborhood.
As Prince climbed out of the car alone, an alley cat leaped from the broken-down porch and ran towards the rear of the house. He stared at the familiar surroundings. A cold chill ran up his spine and he shook it off. He hadn't remembered it as quite this bad, but children seldom realize just how unpleasant their environment really is until they gain some experience to measure it by.
Prince knocked on the door lightly, then pushed the screen door open and stepped inside. The two elderly people sitting on the aging couch glanced up, sur prised.
"Hi, Grandma, Grandpa," Prince said quietly as he walked across the tiny front room.
The old brown-skinned woman peered over her glasses. Her face was a thousand wrinkles, her head full of gray hair. As she stared over her glasses, her eyes twinkled. "Jeb, Jeb, will you look who's here. Why, I believe it's Melvin." She stared more closely. "It sure is. It's Mildred's boy, Melvin." She tried to hurry across the room to embrace him.
Prince held the thin old woman in his arms. He thought, wistfully, she don't weigh over a hundred pounds. All during his prison term, she had been one of the few people who had written to him. On rare occasions, she would send him a few dollars and say that God had allowed her to hit the number for a few dollars. She never had more than a few pennies to put on a number, so he knew when she sent him two or three dollars that she had given him most of the hit money. At those times he had almost felt like crying.
"Boy, when they let you out of that there jail?" his grandfather asked loudly.
Prince stared across his grandmother's shoulder at the old man who had given him so much hell in the past. He would have liked to take that frail neck in his hands and choke the life out of the evil little old man who had made their lives so unbearable.
He managed to smile. "Hi, Gramps, I got out this week."
The old man snorted. "Huh, well, we sure ain't got no room for you here. That's just what I told that white man when he came around last year asking if we had some place you could stay." He stared at Prince angrily. "My old age pension ain't enough to take care of us, let alone you eatin' up everything in the house."
Prince fought back a sharp retort. "I don't want to live with you, old man, if it was the only goddamn house in the world. I just come out to say hello to Grandma, that's all."
"Don't take on like that, Jeb," the old lady said quickly. "We ain't seen Melvin in years."
"He just like his ma was. She wasn't no damn good either. Sleepin' with everything in pants. I don't need him or nothing like him in this house." The old man's voice rose. "When they found his ma dead in that room, the best thing that could have happened was for him to have been dead too."
"Come on, son," the grandmother said, taking his hand and leading him towards the kitchen. "Let's go out back and talk a little. Don't pay no attention to what Jeb says. He's always evil as hell about something."
Prince followed her, glaring angrily back at the older man. When they reached the kitchen, he reached in his pocket and gave her fifty dollars. "Here, Grandma, I know that old sonofabitch don't give you no money."
She stared at the money as though he had a snake in his hand. "Melvin, what I'm goin' do with all that money? I ain't got nothin' to spend that much money on." She thought about it for a minute, then asked, "Where you get all that money, boy? You ain't did nothing wrong, have you?"
Prince smiled at her. He had known she would ask something like that. "No honey," he said and gave her a little squeeze. "They got me a job before they let me out, you know how they do? So, I worked all this week and this is my check, part of it anyway. Here," he said and pushed the money towards her.
She removed ten dollars from the bills. "This is all I need, Melvin. I can get me a chew and play a few numbers with the rest."
Prince walked around her and went to the stove. He opened up one of the pots and dropped the rest of the money in on top of some cold grits. "Well, if you don't want it, just burn it up whenever you warm them grits up." He walked back past her, stopping to kiss her on the cheek.
"I heard them lids in there, mama," Jeb yelled. "You ain't feedin' that boy, is you?" He glared at Prince as Prince came out of the kitchen and stalked out of the house.
Danny started the car and remained silent as Prince slid beside him. They talked very little as they went back across town.
6
ROMAN PACED BACK and forth in the spacious bedroom of Prince's new apartment. Suddenly he stopped and stared down at Prince, who was lounging in a large Hollywood bed. "What the hell can you be thinking about, Prince? You been home just two fuckin' weeks and the whole city is in an uproar. We got to slow down, man. Already the cops done raided the Roost twice."
Ruby laughed unpleasantly. "Just listen to your second in command, Prince. He sounds like he's ready to give it all up, just because the pigs stopped by asking questions. And if he don't stop all that walkin' he's going to wear out our goddamn rug, baby."
Prince ran his hand through her long black hair. "We got damn near every pusher in this city paying us now, Roman. So what do you want us to do, let some tough bastard who thinks he can get away without pay
ing us off the goddamn hook?"
"Listen, Prince," Roman replied, "this guy ain't no punk. He's been supplying the whole west side with drugs for the past three years."
Prince pushed Ruby away and stood up. He pointed his finger at Roman. "Now you listen, Roman, and you listen good, 'cause I ain't goin' say it but once. You take your ass down to the Roost and make sure everybody down there puts on his outfit. Then you make sure they spread out all over the city so that everybody will get the wire that there's going to be a hit made somewhere in this city today." Prince sat back on the bed, sure his point was well made.
Ruby rolled back into his arms while he talked. "After you're finished with that, Roman," he continued, "you call down to the warehouse and have the boys send over five hot cars for immediate use. Make the drivers put on their jackets. I want the whole city to know that the Rulers are making this hit."
"Okay," Roman finally agreed, "but just who in hell am I going to use to fill up those five cars? There ain't enough guys in the Rulers free."
"Don't worry," Prince answered, "I've taken care of all that. Send Little Larry up to Ed's Drive-in on the Heights. Steve and that gang of rich punks he runs with will fill up one of the cars."
"Ain't you kind of leery of those white kids, Prince?" Ruby asked. "You know the first time something goes wrong, they'll tell everything they know."
"Don't worry, honey. For one thing, the people they deal with all have nicknames, plus most of the business is transacted over the phone. I'm keepin' them 'woods so far in the dark, they won't be able to bust each other."
He grinned up at Roman. "Oh, yeah, Roman, I almost forgot. I'm having fifty silk suits dropped off at the Roost tonight. The merchants on the west side sent them to us to show their appreciation for our protection, so keep somebody there to look out for them, baby."