“I ain’t ask you to run no drugs, boy. I’m talkin’ about straight-up money for five minutes’ worth of honest work.”
The boy stopped dribbling. “What I gotta do?”
Tate made a head motion. “Step on over to my short.”
They went to the black Monte Carlo. Tate reached inside, withdrew a brown paper bag wrapped around a bottle. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his slacks and showed it to the kid.
“Okay,” said Tate. “Here’s what I want you to do. ’Bout seven-thirty, eight o’clock tonight, when the sky starts to darken up, I want you to take this bottle of scotch into that building over there.”
“Meridian Heights?”
“Yeah. There’s a security guard works the desk inside.”
“Old white dude. I seen him.”
“That’s right. I want you to give the bottle to the white dude. Tell him you found it out here on the street, that you got no use for it, something like that. Be friendly, man, like you mean it. Wish him a happy Fourth of July.”
“Okay.”
“He might be down in the boiler room by then. You know where that is?”
“You mean where the rats are at.”
“But you know where it is.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Now, for all I know, he might already be deep into a drunk. Even if he is, I want you to give this bottle to him anyway.”
“What you got in that bottle, some kind of poison and shit?”
“Watch your mouth, boy. And no, it ain’t nothin’ like that. I mean the man no harm. Just a plain old bottle of King George scotch is all it is, still got the seal on it. Like I said, it’s a present, that’s all.”
The kid wiped his runny nose. “If there ain’t nothin’ to it, why you not takin’ it to him your own self, then?”
“You want the money or not, boy?”
“I want it.”
“Then do as I say.” Tate handed the kid the bottle and the twenty-dollar bill. “One more thing, now. Anybody asks about me later on, you never seen me or talked to me, hear?”
“Sure.”
“I come around here once a month, might want you to watch my M. C. from time to time while I got it parked on the street.”
The kid stuffed the twenty into his pocket. “Cool.”
Tate placed his hand on the kid’s shoulder. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Michael Hill.”
“Look here, Michael. You handle that basketball pretty good.”
Michael smiled. “Gonna play in the NBA.”
“I believe you will. But don’t forget about readin’ those books, hear? Tough as it is out here, a man needs some kind of edge. Schoolin’ will give it to you. And stay away from those knuckleheads be tellin’ you it’s uncool to learn.”
“What my mom says.”
“Your moms is right.”
“Take it easy, man,” said Michael, before he turned.
“Yeah, young brother,” said Clarence Tate, watching the boy cross the street. “You take it easy, too.”
Dimitri Karras woke to the sound of the phone ringing by his bedside, his shirt soaked in sweat, his hair wet on his forehead. He checked his wristwatch, saw that he had been asleep for hours. He closed his eyes, tried to remember if he had dreamed. The phone continued to ring. He reached over and snatched it out of its cradle.
“Yeah.”
“Mitri.”
“Marcus. What’s up?”
“You all right, man?”
“I’m fine. What’s up?”
“I gotta see you, man.”
Karras didn’t ask for an explanation. There was something in Marcus’s tone that he had never heard before.
“Now?”
“Soon as possible. We need to talk.”
“Okay,” said Karras. “Where you want to hook up?”
“I’ll meet you on the beach. Say, a half hour?”
“Right, Marcus. I’ll see you then.”
The line clicked off to a dial tone. Karras racked the receiver and sat up on the edge of the bed.
TWENTY-FIVE
Sherril Drive dropped away from upper 16th and wound down through the park, the serpentine road sloping steeply, leveling out at a bridge that crossed Rock Creek. Karras navigated the turns, parked the Karmann Ghia next to Marcus Clay’s Riviera in a small lot.
Karras walked back over the bridge and took a bridle trail into the woods that rose and dipped alongside the creek. He hiked for a quarter mile, encountering no one, then jumped off a small embankment to a narrow strip of white sand at the water’s edge. Marcus sat in the sand, his legs outstretched.
“Marcus.”
“Dimitri. Thanks for comin’, man.”
They had been meeting at this place since childhood, a quiet, neutral spot in a park that had become an unofficial north-south dividing line separating the city by income and race. In the summer the oaks were full across the creek and blocked the view and muted the car sounds of Beach Drive. The water moved slowly here, and the air felt cool in the shade of the trees.
Clay said, “Have a seat.”
“I’ll stand. I been sleeping all day.”
“Was gonna say, you look like you just crawled out of bed. You don’t look so good.”
“I know it.” Karras dug his hands into his pockets. “Why’d you call me out, Marcus?”
Clay stood up, brushed sand off his tailored jeans. He found a flat stone and skipped it across the creek.
“I’m gonna ask you again, Marcus. Why’d you call me out?”
“All right.” Clay turned to Karras. “You want it short and to the point, here it is. I’m squarin’ off against Wilton Cooper and his boys tonight. Thought you might want to know.”
“Squaring off.”
“Gonna meet him face-to-face, the way he wants. The only way he understands.”
“You know where he’s at?”
“Clarence Tate knows. Tate’s settin’ it up.”
“And you trust Tate.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Shit, Marcus, you know where Cooper and the rest of them are, why not just turn ’em in?”
“For what? So they can rehabilitate Cooper? Maybe they gonna rehabilitate that white boy got death in his eyes, too. You think?”
“Aw, hell, Marcus, I don’t know.”
“I know. I know what’s got to be done. You can believe that.”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about, man? Revenge?”
“Revenge is a little boy’s game. I’m talkin’ about somethin’ else.”
“Justice,” said Karras. “You’ve got some warped idea about justice. That’s what this is about. Right?”
“That’s right.”
“Christ.”
“Listen. Cooper came into my store, wrecked it, and took one of mine. And it wasn’t just Rasheed they killed. They did those bikers out in Howard County, the ones were on the TV news. Blew up their shit on their own turf. Greased a man down in Carolina as well, and those are just the ones I know about. Those boys are on a killing spree. Someone’s got to put a stop to it, and I’m not talkin’ about puttin’ them in handcuffs and leadin’ them away to a warm bed and a hot meal. I mean stop it for real. Rasheed Adamson, he stood up for me when the time came. Now I gotta go on and do the same for him.”
“Just you,” Karras said bitterly. “You’re gonna face these guys yourself.”
“Not by myself. Rasheed’s brother will be there. Thought you might want to come along, too.”
“No,” said Karras quickly. “Not me.”
Clay said, “Suit yourself.”
Karras walked to the edge of the creek, watched the run of brown water. “You think I like letting you down, Marcus? Is that what you think?”
Clay spoke softly. “You ain’t never let me down, Dimitri. You always been a friend. But you just ain’t the type to step up. To step up and do something, I mean. In the end, I guess I didn’t expect you to join me. I just thought you might want me to give you
the chance.”
“The chance to kill a man. The chance to get killed. That’s what this is. You can forget it, man, because it’s not for me.”
“Like I said, suit yourself.”
“Right.”
“You might want to get the girl out the way, though. At least do that. This doesn’t work out, they’re gonna come lookin’ for Vivian, just for sport.”
“I did it already,” said Karras. “I took her home.”
“Yeah, makes sense. You were done with her, I guess.”
“I never fucked her, Marcus, if that’s what you mean.”
“Congratulations, man. You held back on gettin’ a nut with a nineteen-year-old girl. Takes a real sensitive stud to make a sacrifice like that.”
“Look, Marcus—”
“Next thing you know, you’ll be tellin’ me you’re givin’ up dealin’.”
“I am,” said Karras. He turned from the water to face Clay. “I’m through.”
Clay looked into Karras’s hollow eyes. “What happened to you, man? You ready to talk to me about it now?”
“What happened? I finally fucked up.” Karras’s voice shook. “I sold a bag of dope a couple days ago to Noah Castle’s kid brother. The kid was in a car accident on Saturday with his friends. All of them got killed.”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
“The paper said they found dope and paraphernalia in the car. The kid was in high school, Marcus. I might as well have put a gun to his head myself and pulled the trigger.”
“Bullshit, man. That’s bullshit. You don’t know what happened in that car. And that boy would have found a way to cop his herb whether you sold it to him or not. Anyway, where they grow it, people be dyin’ over that shit every day. You ever stop to grieve about that? I mean, what’d you think all this time, Dimitri? All these fine times we been havin’ these last few years, gettin’ high, easy pussy anytime you want it, all that? You go up a mountain, man, sooner or later you gotta walk back down. Sooner or later you got to pay. Didn’t you think there’d be a downside to all of this?”
“No. I guess I didn’t think there would be.”
“Yeah. You never have stopped to think. Long as I’ve been knowin’ you it’s been that way.” Clay gave Karras a sad smile. “I remember the first time my mother brought me over to your neighborhood. Up till then, I had rarely been west of the park. You took me over to your playground, where we got into a game. All your other friends, they were trying to talk black around me, act street, put on a show for the nigger from Shaw. Not you. You didn’t do it then and you’ve never done it since. At first I thought you were avoiding who we were. Then I started to wonder if you even noticed the differences between us.”
“I noticed. But what? You tellin’ me because you’re black and I’m not we can’t be friends?”
“We are friends. I love you like a brother, man, you know that. But the fact is, you’ve been sleepwalkin’ through your whole life.”
“Marcus, man—”
“I’m sorry, Dimitri. I thought that this time you’d be ready to step up. I shouldn’t have expected so much.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“Yeah, well.” Clay checked his watch. “Gotta get out of here, man. You with me?”
“No.”
“All right, then,” said Clay.
Karras turned his head, listened to the crack of twigs beneath Clay’s feet. The sound began to fade. Karras stared at his reflection, broken in the ripples of the creek. He looked behind him at the path on which they had arrived.
Marcus Clay was gone.
Wilton Cooper took a swig of Near Beer, looked at B. R. Clagget, naked and facedown on the bed. Dried blood was streaked on the boy’s buttocks from where Cooper had withdrawn. The copy of Pimp was still in Clagget’s limp hand; he had been reading it for a few minutes after Cooper had had his way with him, before he fell to sleep.
Cooper hadn’t meant to be so rough. He surely hadn’t meant to draw blood. But the boy was a weakbody to begin with, and now he was down with the fever, full-blown. Still, Cooper thought it his right to take a little ass from the boy. After all, could be the last nut he got for a long while. From this boy, anyway.
The phone rang on the nightstand. Someone answered the extension downstairs, then yelled for Cooper to pick it up. Cooper lifted the receiver, waited for the click-off sound of the extension.
“Yeah.”
“Cooper?”
“It is me.”
“Clarence Tate.”
“Clarenze. What’s up?”
“Got ahold of Marcus Clay.”
“Okay.”
“Clay wants to meet.”
“Got his attention, huh?”
“Yeah. He wants to hand over the rest of the money. Tried to just give it to me, but I told him it wouldn’t work. Told him that you wanted to see him face-to-face.”
“You did good.”
“I did what you asked. There’s an apartment house on Fifteenth Street, just east of Meridian Hill Park, called Meridian Heights. Got a roof entrance and no security guard. I took care of that. Told Clay you’d meet him on the roof. You can take the elevator up to the top floor, then walk another flight of stairs to the roof.”
“Why Meridian Heights?”
“I own a condo there. Know the layout, and it’s safe. Public but not too public, if you know what I mean. Gonna be a bunch of noise around there tonight. Case you make some noise, no one’ll notice.”
“You always did strike me as smart.”
“Can’t be all that smart, talkin’ to a man like you.”
Cooper laughed. He stopped laughing and said, “Clarenze?”
“What.”
“Just don’t want any misunderstanding here. If this is some kind of setup—”
“It ain’t no setup.”
“If it is. I’m gonna pay a visit to your little girl—or someone I know will—and believe me, we gonna party down.”
“Nine-thirty tonight,” said Tate. “The fireworks’ll be gettin’ off by then.”
“Nine-thirty,” said Cooper. “Tell Trouble Man I’ll be there.”
Cooper racked the receiver. He went over to the bed and shook Clagget’s bony shoulder.
“B. R. B. R., wake up.”
Clagget rolled over on his back, exhaled slowly, opened his eyes. His breath was sour and held the promise of death.
“What, Wilton?”
“Rise and shine, little brother. We goin’ out.”
“Marcus.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Clarence Tate.”
Clay put his hand over the phone, looked toward the bathroom where Elaine was showering. The bathroom door was ajar, and Clay lowered his voice.
“Talk about it.”
“I set it up,” said Tate. “They’ll be on the roof of Meridian at nine-thirty. If they’re smart, they’ll be there sooner, and if you’re smart you’ll be there sooner than that.”
“I hear you. Anything I need to know?”
“Like I told you before, the white boy is sick with something. Weak. That’s Cooper’s Mary, so I figure Cooper will stick with him. Most likely the two of them will use the elevator, then take the stairs the rest of the way. The elevator’s slow—”
“You told me.”
“All right. Take some chain cutters. They got the door to the roof padlocked.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“He talked about my daughter again on the phone.”
“Relax.”
“Kill him,” said Tate.
“That’s the idea.”
“And after you kill him, kill him again.”
“Better get ahold of your shit, Clarence.”
“I can’t help it, man. I want that devil out of my world.”
Clay said, “I’m gonna do the best I can.”
The shower stopped running. Clay hung up the phone. Elaine came from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. Clay stared at her as she went
and stood before her mirror, rubbing lotion on her arms. She saw him in the reflection, his eyes still on her, and she turned to face him.
“What’s wrong with you, Marcus?”
“Nothing, baby,” said Clay, trying to smile. “You’re just so goddamn beautiful, that’s all.”
Dimitri Karras felt strange, sitting in his favorite chair. Over the years, the seat cushion had conformed to his body, but this evening it was hard for him to find comfort there. The room was hot, and there was too much noise coming up from the street.
He moved to the couch, cleaned some pot in the overturned top of a shoe box, filled the bowl of the bong. He lit a match but did not put fire to the weed. He watched the flame burn down until it reached his fingers, blew the match out. He studied the smoke rising off the match.
Karras leaned back and closed his eyes.
On those occasions when he was looking for answers, Karras thought that it would be especially nice to have a father. If he had a father, he could take a walk with his father now, ask him about choices, direction, the steps you had to take to become a man. But Karras had no father. And Marcus, he had never had a father. It was another thing the two of them shared. Another reason, he supposed, that the two of them had gotten to be friends, and stayed friends. Why they had always stuck together, looked out for each other, too.
Behind his closed eyes, Karras pictured Marcus, standing alone.
The picture changed. Now he saw his mother, leaning against the sink, her arms folded, the bird building its nest behind her outside the kitchen window. Wilton Cooper was in the kitchen, too. He was smiling, and he was walking toward her. His shadow crawled up her chest and blackened her housedress as he approached.
Karras felt his heart thump in his chest. He tried to make the images of Marcus and his mother go away, but they would not.
When he opened his eyes the living room had darkened, and the sky outside the window had gone to slate.
Dimitri Karras went to take a shower, because that was what a man did before he dressed to leave the house.
“Where you going with that tool, Marcus?”
“Out.”
Clay walked toward the front door with a set of chain cutters in his hand. Elaine was on his heels, crossing the room swiftly. He had tried to avoid her for the last half hour, but now her anger had boiled up to where he just had to go ahead and walk. He decided not to answer her rather than lie.