Deacon’s eyes moved to Nigel. “He at that same place . . .”
“Forty-sixth and Hayes,” said Nigel.
“Right.”
They walked farther. Nigel thought of Lorenzo, back in high school, running this track at night in his jeans and basketball sneaks. Nigel watching him, cutting on his technique. Lorenzo bragging about how he’d smoke anyone in the forty, they had the mind to try him. Talking about running for the school, wearing the colors of the Rough Riders. Nigel telling him that he had no business in school, that school was for faggots and suckers. That if he stuck with Nigel, the two of them were going to have it all.
“Shit,” said Nigel softly.
“What?” said Deacon.
“Nothin’. I’m tired, is all. You ever feel that way?”
“Yeah,” said Deacon, narrowing his eyes. “Sometimes I do get tired. Just like you.”
NIGEL GOT BEHIND the wheel of the Lexus. Lawrence Graham slipped into the bucket beside him.
“I’m on,” said Nigel.
“What about me?” said Graham.
“I’m gonna need you for somethin’ else.”
Nigel turned the key and put the car in drive.
“Where we goin’?” said Graham.
“Pick up Lorenzo at the hospital. Listen to me careful, ’cause we ain’t got all that far to go.”
Nigel drove up Iowa, passing the Mercedes on the other side of the street.
Deacon Taylor and Marcus Griffin, sitting in Deacon’s car, watched Nigel pass.
“You two square it up?”
“Yeah,” said Deacon. “We good.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Told you, I don’t plan,” said Deacon. “I look for opportunities.”
NIGEL PICKED UP Lorenzo outside the hospital, where they dropped off the people going in for surgery and picked up those who were recovering. Lorenzo, slump shouldered, standing by an old head smoking a cigarette, looked like he’d been under the knife himself.
Graham got out, allowing Lorenzo to take the passenger bucket, and slid into the backseat.
“How she doin’?” said Nigel.
“She’s dead.”
Nigel drove back into the old neighborhood. No one spoke or reached for the radio. Nigel pulled into a spot on Warder Street, by Park View Elementary, and cut the engine.
“Why we stoppin’ here?” said Lorenzo.
“Thought we’d walk some,” said Nigel. “Talk.”
“I’m done talkin’. I’m ready to go. You said you were lookin’ for some clean hardware. I got everything back at my apartment that we gonna need.”
Nigel looked past the headrest to the backseat. He tossed his keys over his shoulder into Graham’s cupped hands. “Stay here, Lawrence.”
Nigel got out of the car. Lorenzo hesitated for a moment, then got out too.
They walked onto the elementary school grounds, lighted in some spots and in others under a blanket of full dark. The silhouetted figures of two boys, no older than eleven or twelve, moved through the night. Marijuana smoke roiled faintly in the air.
Nigel had a seat on a wooden bench by the swings. Lorenzo sat beside him.
“You see them kids?” said Nigel.
“Yeah.”
“’Bout the same age we were when we started out.”
“They look to be.”
“Smells like they’re sampling the product. The way you used to do.”
“I did love it,” said Lorenzo.
“And I was all about business. Even before I started grindin’, when I had my paper route and I’d bring you out with me before sunup.”
“You were focused on getting the newspaper on the doorstep just right. So you could get those Christmas tips.”
“And all you wanted to do was bust out streetlights.”
“I had the arm to do it too,” said Lorenzo. “I could wing some rocks. Someone should have put me up on the mound.”
“That’s what you should’ve been doin’ with your youth. Pitchin’ for some baseball team. Running track like you wanted to. ’Stead of gettin’ high and following me.”
“Past is past,” said Lorenzo, echoing what he’d heard so many times at the meetings.
“Look, Lorenzo —”
“Don’t apologize, Nigel. I made my choices.”
“Right. At least you doin’ good now.”
“I get headaches.”
“Damn near everyone go to work each day gets headaches. I’m sayin’, I see you in that uniform, doin’ something good out here, it makes me feel proud of you, man. Makes me think maybe I didn’t fuck you over all the way.”
“That uniform don’t change who I am.”
“Who you are is who you are today. Not what you were before you did your bid.”
“Bullshit. You come on back to my apartment, you gonna see how much I changed.”
“One thing ain’t changed,” said Nigel with a sad chuckle. “You still thickheaded.”
A young woman pushing a baby carriage turned the corner off Warder, walked down Otis, and passed under a street lamp. Lorenzo and Nigel studied her with interest.
“What you think her thing is?” said Lorenzo.
“I don’t know. Fine at fifteen, a mother at sixteen. Fucked and forgotten by some boy she ain’t never gonna hear from again. She done made her own mother a grandmother at thirty-two. Now she livin’ at home, a high school dropout with no skills, wonderin’ what she gonna do with her life. Sitting on the couch, watchin’ Judge Brown and the soaps, eatin’ sweets and smokin’ cigarettes. Fifteen years from now? She gonna be a grandmother herself, and that fine young girl gonna look like every other dusty-ass woman you see on the bus.”
“You ain’t been on a Metrobus for twenty years.”
“You know what I mean.”
“How about this?” said Lorenzo. “She made a mistake and she knows it. The boy who got her that way is working hard to rent an apartment so they can live together as a family. Her mother watches the baby during the day so the girl can stay in school, get her degree. And maybe her mother will raise the baby for a few years while the girl goes on to college. And that kid gonna watch an educated mother and a hardworking father, and by example, all those good things gonna rub off.”
“Another way of looking at it, I guess.”
“You ought to see all the people I meet on my job every day, Nigel. All the stories I hear.”
“I can imagine,” said Nigel. “The game, it’s just a tiny part of what’s goin’ on out here. Remember back when they was callin’ this town Dodge City?”
“That was reporters and shit, made that name up. The ones who were too scared to come into the neighborhoods they were writin’ about.”
“The everyday people who lived in this city hated that name.”
“As they should have,” said Lorenzo. “Drama City be more like it.”
“Like them two faces they got hangin’ over the stage in those theaters. The smiling face and the sad.”
“City got more than two sides.”
“Whatever it got,” said Nigel, “you on the right side now. The side where people get up and go to work. Wash their cars out in the street, tend to their gardens. Watch their kids grow.”
“Maybe. But I’m still gonna avenge my friend. Rico Miller? Shit, motherfuckers like him, they’re in their element behind those walls. I ain’t gonna let him have that gift. Boy needs to be put down like an animal.”
“I’m not sayin’ he doesn’t deserve to die. I’m telling you you can’t be a part of it.”
“You don’t need to worry, Nigel. I’m not goin’ back over to where I been. I’m gonna be at work tomorrow and the day after that. But I’m still gonna do this thing tonight.”
“It don’t work that way.”
“We’ll see.”
“You been out of it so long, you forgot how it goes. You go in, you got to go in fierce. Forget they’re human. Forget that you’re human too.”
“I know
it. Remember, I’ve done this before.”
“But you cleaned your slate. Now, what, you gonna go and throw away your soul again?”
“What about yours?”
“Mine’s been lost forever.” Nigel looked away. “I’m sayin’, this ain’t you anymore.”
“I’m on this.”
“I don’t want you with me, Lorenzo.”
“I don’t give a fuck if you do or if you don’t,” said Lorenzo, turning to stare directly into his friend’s eyes.
“You that set on it?”
“I am.”
“Thickheaded,” said Nigel.
“C’mon.” Lorenzo stood. “Let’s get on over to my crib. Wanna show you what I got.”
They walked down Otis toward Lorenzo’s apartment. Lawrence Graham followed in the Lex.
TWENTY-FIVE
LORENZO BROWN ENTERED his apartment. Nigel Johnson and Lawrence Graham followed. Jasmine, as always, was waiting just inside the door. She backed up and growled at the sight of Nigel.
Lorenzo crouched, patted her belly, and rubbed behind her ears. His touch calmed her down.
“Dogs don’t like me,” said Nigel, taking a seat on the hope chest behind the living-room sofa. Graham stood with his back against the wall.
“That’s ’cause they know you’re scared of ’em,” said Lorenzo.
“I can’t forget that shepherd in the alley behind Princeton, took a piece out my hand.”
“That was twenty years ago.”
“I just told you I can’t forget it.” Nigel pointed to the hallway. “Do me a favor and put that animal back in your bedroom.”
“Yeah, okay. C’mon, girl.”
Lorenzo went down the hall, Jasmine behind him. Nigel and Graham exchanged a glance. They heard the sound of Lorenzo’s bedroom door closing and the footsteps of Lorenzo coming back down the hall.
“Where your hardware at?” said Nigel.
“You’re sittin’ on it.”
Nigel got off the hope chest. Lorenzo moved it aside and pulled up the throw rug that lay beneath it. Under the rug was a rectangular cutout that was fitted in the hardwood floor. Where two sides of the rectangle had been grooved out, Lorenzo grasped the cutout and lifted it from its place. He leaned it against the chest.
In the space beneath the floor were two large metal toolboxes. Lorenzo lifted them out one by one. The muscles of his forearms rippled against the weight.
Lorenzo opened one of the toolboxes. Its inner tray had been removed to accommodate three handguns wrapped in oiled shop rags. Lorenzo unwrapped one of the guns, a Glock 17, and showed it to Nigel.
“It’s live,” said Lorenzo.
“What about the others?”
“They’re carrying full loads too.”
“Where you get these?”
“Remember Hoppy, stayed over there on Lamont?”
“Thought he was out of it.”
“He back in.”
“They clean?”
“Straw buys out of Virginia. Never been fired. Serial numbers still on ’em.”
“Why?”
“Why I have ’em?”
“Yeah.”
“For the reason I been sleepin’ on the same side of the bed my whole life. It feels right.”
“What else you got?” said Nigel.
“Forty-five Colt and a thirty-eight Special.”
“And in the other box?”
“Extra magazines and bricks. Couple clean rags. A box of latex gloves.”
“Lemme see the thirty-eight.”
Lorenzo replaced the Glock in the toolbox and withdrew another gun. He unwrapped a Taurus seven-shot revolver with rubber grips and handed it to Nigel.
Nigel hefted the Taurus and turned it in the light. He released the cylinder, spun it, checked the load, and snapped the cylinder shut. He holstered the Taurus in his waistband.
“This is me right here.”
“Let’s do it, then,” said Lorenzo.
“I need some water before we go.”
“What, you want me to serve it to you? Water in the kitchen, same place it is in every house you ever been in.”
Nigel went back to the Pullman kitchen. They listened to him bang a glass against another and heard the faucet run and the cry of the old pipes as the water ran through. It seemed as if Nigel was running the water for a long time. Lorenzo looked at Graham, and Graham shrugged.
Nigel returned, gun in hand.
“Let’s go,” said Lorenzo.
Nigel pointed the gun at Lorenzo’s chest. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son.”
Lorenzo stood motionless. Back in the closed bedroom, Jasmine began to bark.
“Dog knows,” said Graham. “Funny how that is.”
“Dogs don’t like me nohow,” said Nigel.
“Don’t play,” said Lorenzo.
“I’m not,” said Nigel. “I’d rather see you dead than see you go back to where you were.”
“That’s a lie. You couldn’t use that on me if you wanted to, Nigel.”
“No,” said Nigel, making a head motion to Lawrence Graham. “But he could.”
Graham pushed away from the wall, stepped across the room, and took the gun from Nigel’s hand.
“He tries to follow me,” said Nigel to Graham, “you pull that trigger, hear?”
Graham nodded.
“Pull it seven times, you got to.”
Graham nodded again. His eyes smiled.
Nigel closed both toolboxes and made certain they were secure. He picked them up and headed for the door. Graham, holding the gun on Lorenzo and not taking his eyes from him, backed up and opened the door for Nigel.
“Nigel,” said Lorenzo.
Nigel stopped walking but did not turn his head. “What?”
“You can’t, not without me. You my boy.”
“I never was,” said Nigel. “But I’m gonna do you right this one time.”
He walked out of the apartment. Graham closed the door with his foot and pointed his chin at the sofa.
“Have a seat,” said Graham.
Lorenzo sat down on the sofa as Graham settled into the worn armchair beside it. He held the gun loosely, its barrel pointed at the hardwood floor.
“And don’t try and act like you gonna rush me, either,” said Graham.
They stared at each other and spoke no further. They listened to Jasmine barking in the other room.
RICO MILLER HAD downloaded an electronic version of “In da Club” to his cell phone, so that the song played when someone called. Someone was calling him now. He picked the phone up off the folding table in the living-room area of his bungalow and answered. It was Deacon Taylor.
Miller listened to Deacon as he watched Melvin Lee. Lee, slouched on a sofa Miller had spotted by a Dumpster one day, held a live cigarette between his fingers. The ash was long and about to drop. Smoke hung heavy in the air, turning slowly under the light of a naked bulb.
Lee’s eyes, bugged in their sockets, had no life. His arms were thin and knotty, coming out of his shirt like twigs. Miller did not remember Melvin being so small.
Deacon talked on, smooth and precise. Miller’s eyes narrowed as he listened to his voice. When Deacon was done, Miller said, “Yeah, all right,” and hit “End” on his phone. He closed the phone’s lid and placed it back on the table.
“Deacon,” said Miller.
Lee stared straight ahead.
“He said he couldn’t get you on your cell . . .”
“I been had it off.”
“. . . so he tried mines.”
“He angry, right?”
“No. He’s actin’ real nice. Said he knew about the parole lady. I told him I had to, ’cause she was fixin’ to violate you. He said that shit was unfortunate, but it had to be done. Said he understood.”
“What else?”
“Told us to stay right here till he figures out how to put us somewhere safe.” Miller licked his lips. “‘You sit tight right where you at,’ he said,
like he knew where we was.”
“What’re you sayin’, Rico?”
“Deacon be talkin’ out the side of his mouth, Melvin. He done with us. Maybe he know where we at or maybe he tryin’ to find out. Either way, he gonna send someone over here eventually. And when that someone come, he ain’t comin’ as a friend.”
Lee put his cigarette to his lips and dragged on it hard. A rope of ash dropped to his lap. He made no move to brush it away.
“We need to move,” said Miller. “Gotta lay up somewhere else.”
Lee exhaled smoke. His cigarette hand shook as he moved it down to rest on his thigh.
“You stay here and keep an eye on the front,” said Miller.
Miller walked back into the bedroom. Lee stared at the plaster wall before him, chipped and water stained, and the bedsheets covering the windows.
There ain’t no place to run to, thought Melvin Lee. Lee felt the heat of his cigarette as it burned down toward his fingers, but he made no move to put it out.
Entering his bedroom, Miller kicked aside a PS2 controller and some magazines. He stepped on a game case and crushed it, not caring, as he crossed the room. None of his possessions had ever made him happy. They had no value now.
Miller went to the closet and parted the shirts and jackets that hung on its rod. He freed the false wall, a sheet of particleboard fitted behind the clothing, and dropped it behind him. He removed his cut-down Winchester pump-action shotgun from the rack. He retrieved his Glock, his S&W .38, several bricks of bullets, a box of low-recoil shotgun load, and his harness and holsters. He placed everything on his bed.
Miller went to a dresser he’d bought for twenty dollars at the Salvation Army store. On top of the dresser sat the shoe box containing the count taken from DeEric Green’s Escalade. Beside the shoe box was Miller’s knife. He’d cleaned it and secured it in its sheath. He looked at his nickname, burned from top to bottom into the leather.
Creep.
His mother was the first one to call him that. That was, when she wasn’t calling him a punk or worse. Berating him, slapping him in public at every drugstore or grocery they went to when he’d ask for an action figure or just a pack of gum. When he cried, she only slapped him harder.
“Gonna teach you not to cry,” she said. “I ain’t raisin’ no sissies.”