Free Fall

  I took a bite, and then I took a second. It was delicious, but it wasn't very hot. I said, "You think they'd give me more peppers?"

  Cool T stopped showing the teeth and went sullen. Shown up by the white man.

  Washington said, "Cool T's been living on these streets while I've been swabbing decks. He's seen what's going on."

  Cool T nodded.

  "Okay. So what's Cool T know?" I finished my taco and eyed the box lustily. There were three more tacos in it. Washington made a little hand move that said help yourself. I did.

  Cool T said, "Those cops ain't cops no mo'. They just passin'."

  "What's that mean?"

  "Mean they in business and they use the Eight-Deuce as what we call sales representatives." He grinned when he said it.

  I looked at Washington. "Is this for real?"

  Washington shrugged. "That's what his girlfriend says."

  Cool T said, "I friendly with this bitch used to live with a Gangster Boy."

  I said, "Are you telling me that these officers are in the crack trade?"

  Cool T nodded. "They in the everything trade. Whatever the Eight-Deuce in, they in." He selected another taco. "Ain't been an Eight-Deuce home boy locked down in four or five months. Pigs take off the Rolling Sixties and the Eight-Trey Swans and all these other nigguhs, but not the Eight-Deuce. They look out for each other. They share the wealth."

  "The cops and the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys."

  "Uh-huh. They in business together." He finished the taco and licked his fingers. "Eight-Deuce point out the competition and the cops take it down. You wanna see it happen, I can put you onto something."

  "What?"

  Cool T said. "Nigguh been sellin' dope out a ice cream truck over by Witley Park. He at the park every Thursday and the park in Eight-Deuce turf and they tired of it. The cops going over there today to run him off."

  Washington said, "I figured we could go over there and see what's what. I figure if it's our guys, maybe we can do something with it."

  I was liking Washington just fine. "Okay."

  Cool T said, "Not me. Anybody see me over there and something happen, I be meetin' up with Mr. Drive-By."

  Cool T stood up. Washington held out his fist and Cool T brushed his own fist against it, back and top and sides, and then he walked away.

  I looked at Washington. Well, well. "You did okay."

  Washington nodded. Cool.

  CHAPTER 17

  When we walked out to the car, I saw Joe Pike parked at a fire hydrant a block and a half north. We made eye contact, and he shook his head. No one was following.

  James Edward said, "What're you looking at?"

  "My partner."

  "You work with someone?" He was looking up Broadway.

  "If you look for him like that, people will know someone's there."

  James Edward stopped looking and got into the car. I slid in after him. "Use the mirror. Angle it so that you can see. He's in a red Jeep."

  James Edward did it. "Why's he back there?"

  "The men who killed your brother have been following me. He's there to follow the followers."

  James Edward readjusted the mirror and we pulled away. "He any good?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you?"

  "I get lucky."

  James Edward settled back and crossed his arms.

  "Luck is for chumps. Ray knows a couple of people and he asked them about you. He says you're a straight up dude. He says you get respect."

  "You can fool some of the people some of the time."

  James Edward shook his head and stared at the passing buildings. "Bullshit. Any fool can buy a car, but you can't buy respect."

  I glanced over, but he was looking out at the streets.

  James Edward Washington told me where to go and I went there and pretty soon we were on streets just like James Edward Washington's street, with neat single-family homes and American cars and preschool children jumping rope and riding Big Wheels. Older women sat on tiny porches and frowned because teenagers who should've been in school were sitting on the hood of a Bonneville listening to Ice Cube. The women didn't like the kids being on the Bonneville and they didn't like Ice Cube but they couldn't do anything about it. We drove, and after a while I knew we weren't just driving, we were taking a tour of James Edward Washington's life. He would say turn, and I would turn, and he would point with his chin and say something like The girl I took to the prom used to live right there, or, Dude I knew named William Johnston grew up there and writes television now and makes four hundred thousand dollars every year and bought his mama a house in the San Gabriel Valley, or, My cousins live there. I was little, they'd come to my street and we'd trick-or-treat, and then I'd come back here with them and we'd do it all over again. The lady that lived right over there used to make caramel-dipped candy apples better'n anything you ever bought at the circus.

  We drove and he talked and I listened, and after a while I said, "It has to be hard."

  He looked at me.

  I said, "There are a lot of good things here, but there are also bad things, and it's got to be hard growing up and trying not to let the bad things drag you down."

  He looked away from me. We rode for a little bit longer, and then he said, "I guess I just want you to know that there's more to the people down here than a bunch of shiftless niggers sopping up welfare and killin' each other."

  "I knew that."

  "You think it, maybe, but you don't know it. You're down here right now cause a nigger got beaten to death. We're driving to a park where a nigger gonna be selling drugs and niggers gonna be buying. That's what you know. You see it on the news and you read it in the papers and that's all you know. I know there's people who work hard and pay taxes and read books and build model airplanes and dream about flying them and plant daisies and love each other as much as any people can love each other anywhere, and I want you to know that, too."

  "Okay." He wasn't looking at me, and I wasn't looking at him. I guess we were embarrassed, the way men who don't know each other can get embarrassed. "Thanks for telling me."

  James Edward Washington nodded.

  "It's important."

  He nodded again. "Turn here."

  At the end of the block was a playground with a basketball court and six goals, and, beyond the court, a softball diamond with a long shallow outfield. A few teenaged guys were on the court, but not many, and a guy in his early thirties was running wind sprints in the outfield, racing from second base to the far edge of the outfield, then walking back, then doing it all again. A row of mature elms stood sentry along the far perimeter of the outfield, then there was another street and more houses. A sky blue Sunny Day ice cream truck was parked at the curb in the shade of one of the elms and a tall guy in a Malcolm X hat was leaning against it with his arms crossed, watching the sprinter. He didn't look interested in selling ice cream.

  James Edward Washington said, "That's our guy."

  We turned away from the park, made the block, and came back to a side street that gave an unobstructed view of the basketball players and the outfield and the ice cream truck on the far street. I parked on the side street so we'd have an easy, eyes-forward view, and then I shut off the engine. If the neighbors saw us sitting there, maybe they'd think we were scouting for the NBA.

  Maybe eight or nine minutes later four guys in a white Bel Air turned onto the far street, slowed to a stop, and the guy with the X hat went over to them. One of the guys in the backseat of the Bel Air gave something to the X, and the X gave something to the guy in the Bel Air. Then the Bel Air drove away and the X went back to his leaning. A little bit later a kid on a bike rolled up the sidewalk, jumped the curb down to the street, and skidded to a stop. The kid and the X traded something, and the kid rode away. Washington said, "Cool T better be giving it to us straight about those cops."

  I pointed at the X. "He's here, isn't he?"

  "He's here, but will the cops come, and if they come ar
e they coming because they're cops or because they're working with the Eight-Deuce?"

  "We'll find out."

  "Yes. I guess we will." James Edward shifted in the seat, uncomfortable, but not because of the seat. "They don't come and run this muthuhfuckuh off, maybe I'll do it myself."

  "Maybe I'll help you."

  Washington glanced at me and nodded.

  A couple of minutes later Joe Pike came up along the sidewalk and squatted beside my window. I said, "Joe Pike, this is James Edward Washington. James, this is my partner, Joe Pike."

  Pike canted his head to lock onto James Edward Washington and reached in through the window. You can't see his eyes behind the dark glasses, but it's always easy to tell where he's looking. His whole being sort of points in that direction, as if he were totally focused on you. James Edward took his hand, but stared at the tattoos. Most people do.

  I told Pike about the X at the ice cream truck and what Cool T had said about Thurman's REACT team and their involvement with the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys.

  Pike nodded. "Dees and his people are supposed to thump this guy?"

  James Edward said, "That's the word."

  Pike looked at the X. "It's a long way across the playground to the ice cream truck. If Dees moves the action away from us, we've got too much ground to cover to catch up. We might lose them."

  I said, "Why don't you set up on that side, and we'll stay here. If Dees moves that way, you've got them, and if he moves in this direction, we've got him."

  Pike stared behind us up the street, then twisted around and looked at the park. "You feel it?"

  "What?"

  Pike shook his head. "Doesn't feel right."

  He stepped away from the car and stood without moving for a time and then he walked away. I thought about what Joe had said. They're going to have to make a move.

  James Edward watched Pike leave. "He's sorta strange, huh?"

  "You think?"

  A few minutes later we saw Pike's Jeep pass the ice cream truck and turn away from the park. James Edward looked at me. "You don't think he's strange?"

  We moved deeper into the afternoon, and business was good for the man in the ice cream truck. Customers came by in cars and trucks and on motorcycles and bicycles and on foot. Some of the cars would slow as they passed and the X would stare and they would make the block a couple of times before they finally stopped and did their deal, but most folks drove up and stopped without hesitating. The X never hesitated, either. Any one of these people could've been undercover cops but no one seemed to take that into consideration. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe business was so good and profits were so large that the threat of a bust was small relative to the potential gain. Or maybe the X just didn't care. Some people are like that.

  Once, two young women pushing strollers came along the far sidewalk. The X made a big deal out of tipping his cap with a flourish and giving them the big smile. The women made a buy, too. The one who did the talking was pregnant. Washington rubbed his face with both hands and said, "Oh, my Jesus."

  School let out. More players joined the basketball games. The guy running wind sprints stopped running, and the time crept past like a dying thing, heavy and slow and unable to rest.

  James Edward twisted in the seat and said, "How do you stand this goddamn waiting?"

  "You get used to it."

  "You used to be a cop?"

  I shook my head. "Nope. I was a security guard for a while, and then I apprenticed with a man named George Fieder. Before that I was in the Army."

  "How about that guy Pike?"

  "Joe was a police officer. Before that, he was a Marine."

  James Edward nodded. Maybe thinking about it. "You go to college?"

  "I had a couple years, on and off. After the Army, it was tough to sit in a classroom. Maybe I'll go back one day."

  "If you went back, what would you study?"

  I made a little shrug. "Teacher, maybe."

  He smiled. "Yeah. I could see you in a classroom."

  I spread my hands. "What? You don't think there's a place for a thug in the fourth grade?"

  He smiled, but then the smile faded. Across the park, a girl who couldn't have been more than sixteen pulled her car beside the ice cream truck and bought a glassine packet. She had a pretty face and precisely cornrowed hair in a traditional African design. Washington watched the transaction, then put his forearms on his knees and said, "Sitting here, seeing these brothers and sisters doing this, it hurts."

  "Yes, I guess it does."

  He shook his head. "You aren't black. I see it, I see brothers and sisters turning their backs on the future. What's it to you?"

  I thought about it. "I don't see brothers and sisters. I don't see black issues. Maybe I should, but I don't. Maybe because I'm white, I can't. So I see what I can see. I see a pretty young girl on her way to being a crack whore. She'll get pregnant, and she'll have a crack baby, and there will be two lifetimes of pain. She'll want more and more rock, and she'll do whatever it takes to get it, and, over time, she'll contract AIDS. Her mother will hurt, and her baby will hurt, and she will hurt." I stopped talking and I put my hands on the steering wheel and I held it for a time. "Three lifetimes."

  Washington said, "Unless someone saves her."

  I let go of the wheel. "Yes, unless someone saves her. I see it the only way I can see it. I see it as people."

  Washington shifted in the bucket. "I was gonna ask you why you do this, but I guess I know."

  I went back to watching the X.

  James Edward Washington said, "If I wanted to learn this private eye stuff, they got a school I could learn how to do it?"

  James Edward Washington was looking at me with watchful, serious eyes. I said, "You want to learn how to do this, maybe we can work something out."

  He nodded.

  I nodded back at him, and then Floyd Riggens's sedan turned onto the far street and picked up speed toward the ice cream truck.

  I said, "Camera in the glove box."

  Mark Thurman was in the front passenger seat and Pinkworth was in the backseat. The sedan suddenly punched into passing gear and the X jumped the chain-link fence and ran across the outfield toward the basketball court. He was pulling little plastic packs of something out of his pockets and dumping them as he ran.

  James Edward opened the glove box and took out the little Canon Auto Focus I keep there. I said, "You see how to work it?"

  "Sure."

  "Use it."

  I started the Corvette and put it in gear in case the X led Riggens across the park toward us, but it didn't get that far. Riggens horsed the sedan over the curb and cut across the sidewalk at the far corner where there was no fence and aimed dead on at the running X and gunned it. The X tried to cut back, but when he did, Riggens swung the wheel hard over and pegged the brakes and then Riggens and Thurman and Pinkworth were out of the car. They had their guns out, and the X froze and put up his hands. Thurman stopped, but Riggens and Pinkworth didn't. They knocked the X down and kicked him in the ribs and the legs and the head. Riggens went down on one knee and used his pistol, slamming the X in the head while Pinkworth kicked him in the kidneys. Mark Thurman looked around as if he were frightened, but he didn't do anything to stop it. There were maybe a hundred people in the park, and everybody was looking, but they didn't do anything to stop it, either. Next to me, James Edward Washington snapped away with the little Canon.

  Riggens and Pinkworth pulled the X to his feet, went through his pockets, then shoved him away. The X fell, and tried to get up, but neither his legs nor his arms were much use. His head was bleeding. Pinkworth said something sharp to Mark Thurman and Thurman walked back across the park, scooping up the little plastic envelopes. Riggens climbed the chain link and went into the ice cream truck and that's the last we saw of it because a burgundy metal-flake Volkswagen Beetle and a double-dip black Chevrolet Monte Carlo playing NWA so loud that it rocked the neighborhood pulled up fast next to us and three gu
ys wearing ski masks got out, two from the backseat of the Monte Carlo and one from the passenger side of the Volkswagen. The guy from the Volkswagen was wearing a white undershirt maybe six sizes too small and baggy pants maybe forty sizes too big and was carrying what looked to be a Taurus 9mm semiautomatic pistol. The Taurus fit him just right. The first guy out of the Monte Carlo was tall and wearing a black duster with heavy Ray-Ban Wayfarers under the ski mask and was carrying a sawed-off double-barrel 20-gauge. The second guy was short and had a lot of muscles stuffed into a green tee shirt that said LOUIS. He was holding an AK-47. All of the guns were pointed our way.

  James Edward Washington made a hissing sound somewhere deep in his chest and the tall guy stooped over to point the double twenty through my window. He looked at me, then James Edward, and then he gestured with the double twenty. "Get out the muthuh-fuckin' car, nigger."

  James Edward got out of the car, and then the tall guy pointed the double twenty at me. "You know what you gonna do?"

  "Sure," I said. "Whatever you say."

  The tall guy smiled behind the ski mask. "Tha's right. Keep doin' it, and maybe you see the sun set."

  CHAPTER 18

  The guy with the Taurus brought James Edward Washington to the metal-flake Beetle and put him in the right front passenger seat. The Beetle's driver stayed where he was, and the guy with the Taurus got into the back behind Washington.

  The guy in the long coat said, "They gonna take off and you gonna follow them and we gonna follow you. You get outta line, they gonna shoot your nigger and I gonna shoot you. We hear each other on this?"

  "Sure."

  "M'man Bone Dee gonna ride with you. He say it, you do it. We still hear each other?"

  "Uh-huh." While the tall guy told me, the shorter guy in the Louis Farrakhan tee shirt walked around and got into my car. When he walked he held the AK down along his leg, and when he got in, he sort of held the muzzle pointed at the floorboard. The AK was too long to point at me inside the car. The guy in the long coat went back to the Monte Carlo and climbed into the back. There were other guys in there, but the windows were heavily tinted and you couldn't see them clearly. If Pike was here, he might be able to see them, but Pike was probably on the other side of the park, still watching the cops. But maybe not.