He dreamed that he was falling.
He opened his eyes, and he was falling. The black water rushed up to meet him.
The cold water shocked him. He was numb at once, and his head went under as he tried to free his arms from the bag. He freed one arm and kicked furiously at the bag. Now his head was out of the water, and he used his free hand to try and unzip the bag, but his hand was like a club. He kicked at the bag, moving himself away from the dock. The bag and his clothes were heavy and he was going down again and he kicked.
“Aaaah!” yelled Walters. “God!”
He kicked, and the bag was down around his waist. He went under and came up and kicked and now his legs were free. But his legs were moving very slowly. His clothing weighed him down, and he couldn’t seem to move his legs. He treaded water and almost at once he was tired. He saw that he was far from the dock and the pilings around it. His arms ached. He tried to float, but his clothing and boots dragged him down. He let himself drop beneath the water so that he could rest. He fought and broke the surface of the water with a gasp. He could no longer feel his feet. His arms barely moved. He looked at the shoreline and knew he could not make it to the dock.
Daddy!
Walters turned his head. He was near the sunken rowboat. He could see the tip of the bow.
He used his shoulders and will to cut the water and move toward the boat. He went under and came up. He choked in air and moved toward the boat again. He shut his eyes against the water that was rising and then he closed his mouth and he was down.
He felt something solid and grabbed it. He pulled himself to the solid thing and hugged it.
I have reached the boat, thought Walters. I’ll float myself up now and I’ll be at the boat and above the water and I’ll hold onto the bow while I get my breath.
He tried to push away from the boat, but he was held fast. His down vest or his shirt, something was snagged on the boat. He panicked and writhed violently, watching the bubbles from a cough of exhale explode around him. Something slid across his neck, and he shook his head in panic and was bitten in the face.
In his panic, he let out the rest of his breath.
He had no air in his lungs. He was dizzy and his chest burned and he could no longer move his arms or legs.
In the gray water he saw shapes. The silhouettes of a woman and a little boy dog-paddling toward him.
I love you, Vance. I was always proud of you, son.
Bernie Walters relaxed. He opened his mouth and breathed. The creek flowed into his open mouth and flooded his lungs.
It didn’t hurt. It was peaceful. His chest didn’t burn and he was no longer cold or anything else.
The darkness came like a kiss.
TWENTY-FOUR
FRANK FARROW LIT a Kool. He leaned forward, dropping the match into a kidney-shaped ashtray set on a cable-spool table in front of the living-room couch.
Roman Otis stood in front of a rectangular mirror, running a little gel through his long hair, softly singing the Isleys’ “For the Love of You.” He couldn’t quite hit the highs like brother Ronald, but he had it in spirit. That was one nice love song there, too.
Otis smiled, admiring his gold tooth. He patted his hair, turning his head so the gel caught the light. You had to be careful not to put too much of that gel in your hair. He’d seen some brothers in the old days overdose it, goin’ for that Rick James look, came out lookin’ like glue and shit.
“Hey, Frank,” said Otis. “You just dye your hair again, man?”
“Some stuff I picked up at the drugstore down in Edwardtown,” said Farrow.
“Finally got that shoe polish out, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Otis pursed his lips. “Looks good, too.”
Farrow glanced at Gus Lavonicus, sitting at an old desk, trying to write a letter to his wife. He had the push end of a pen in his mouth, and his lips were moving as he struggled to compose the words. His legs were spread wide, as he couldn’t hope to fit them under the desk, and he was fanning them back and forth. When you got right down to it, thought Farrow, the guy was nothing more than a giant child. Farrow should not have agreed to let Otis bring him along. But he’d never say no to Roman — the two of them went that deep.
“How’s that letter to my sister comin’, Gus?” said Otis.
“I’m trying to find the right words.”
“Tell her she’s prettier than a flower,” said Otis, “some shit like that.”
Farrow sipped red wine. He dragged on his Kool. “That what you’d tell her, Roman?”
“If that was my woman? I’d just go ahead and tell her that I planned to split that thing like an ax to an oak.”
“You always did know the right thing to say to women,” said Farrow.
“Goddamn right I did.”
“I can’t say that to Cissy,” said Lavonicus in his monotone.
“No,” said Otis. “I don’t recommend that you do.”
Booker Kendricks, Otis’s third cousin, came from the kitchen with two bottles of beer in his hand. He was a small, spidery man with rheumy eyes and rotten teeth, a multiple sex offender with violent attachments who’d finally gone down on a sodomy rape beef. Even Otis knew that his cousin belonged in prison for life. But the system had coughed Booker Kendricks back out onto the street.
“Here you go, Roman,” said Kendricks, putting a bottle in front of Otis. He snapped his fingers. “Aw, shit, did I forget you, Gus?”
“I don’t drink beer anyway,” said Lavonicus. “Yeah, you must be in training for that athletic comeback you’re gonna make someday.”
Lavonicus watched Kendricks as he turned on the living room’s television set. Despite the fact that Kendricks was a relative by marriage, Lavonicus didn’t care to spend much time around him. Sometimes he got the feeling that Kendricks was putting him on. He didn’t like that.
“Here we go,” said Kendricks, sitting in an overstuffed armchair. “Got the Bulls and the Knicks.”
Otis had a seat on the couch next to Farrow. “You all right, man?”
“Itching to do something,” said Farrow. “That’s all.”
Kendricks watched Larry Johnson sink a jumper, then wink at the bench as he jogged down the court. “Look at L. J., man. The man thinks he’s all that.”
“Johnson can play,” said Lavonicus, who had turned the chair away from the desk to watch the screen.
“Johnson can pa-lay,” said Kendricks, mimicking Lavonicus, then slapping his own knee in laughter. “Aw, shit, Gus. Say, man, tell me what it was like in that post-ABA career you had. Weren’t you on the squad of one of those teams that used to play against the Harlem Globetrotters?”
“The New York Nationals,” said Lavonicus softly. “I only did that one season.” They’d thrown him off the team after he coldcocked one of the Globetrotters who had called him a name.The fans had laughed like crazy; they thought the knockout punch had been in the script.
“Yeah, I remember the green uniforms y’all had. How’d it feel to be ridiculed, having balls passed between your legs, gettin’ the pill bounced off your head and shit, night after night?”
Lavonicus felt his ears grow hot. He imagined they were red now, the way they got when he let guys like Kendricks get to him like this.
“It was a job,” said Lavonicus, and he turned his chair back to the desk.
Farrow stabbed out his cigarette.
Otis leaned back on the couch, closed his eyes, and picked up the Isleys’ tune where he had left it in his head. He imagined that he was back in California. Frank had called him, and he’d come, but he didn’t much care for the East Coast. His work, it demanded that he move around. Sometimes it seemed like one big circle. Do a job, grab some money, spend the money, do a job… try to stay ahead of the law. Well, what else was he gonna do? He knew the way it would end, too, but it didn’t do much good to think on it. This was the life he had made for himself. He had accepted that a long time ago.
“Look at Rodman,”
said Kendricks, pointing at the screen. “That is one genuine nigger right there.”
They had all stopped listening to Kendricks. Farrow picked up his beer and went to the front window of the house. He looked out into the absolute darkness.
They were in a small brick rambler in the woods of southern Maryland. Off 301 somewhere and down a couple of two-lane black-tops, near a place called Nanjemoy, that’s all Farrow knew. They’d stayed here before the May’s job, but Booker Kendricks had been in Lorton then, and they’d been alone. This Kendricks could really get on his nerves. But Kendricks would be all right if anything went down. Farrow knew his history, and his type.
Farrow imagined they could do a job in D.C., and finish their business, in the space of a week or so. Then they could all get on their way.
Headlights appeared down the long dirt road that cut through the woods to the house. As they approached, Farrow could see that these were the lights of a late-model car.
“Here he comes,” said Farrow.
Kendricks pulled a Rossi .22 from underneath the chair. He locked back the trigger without moving his eyes from the screen.
The headlights were killed out in the yard, and then there were footsteps and a knock on the door. Farrow looked through the peephole and unfastened the dead bolt. He pulled the door open and stepped back.
“T. W.,” said Farrow.
“Frank,” said Thomas Wilson, stepping inside. “Long time.”
TWENTY-FIVE
YOU REMEMBER ROMAN,” said Frank Farrow.
“How’s it goin’, man?” said Thomas Wilson, nodding at Otis.
He saw that Otis was still dressing sharp. Still doin’ that Nick Ashford thing with his hair, too.
“I’m makin’ it,” said Otis, smiling amiably, reaching over and shaking Wilson’s hand.
Wilson did not let the handshake linger. You could mistake Otis’s easy manner for weakness. He had seen a couple of men make that mistake up in Lewisburg. Roman Otis wasn’t nothin’ much more than Frank Farrow with a smile.
“Say hello to Gus Lavonicus,” said Farrow.
“Gus,” said Wilson. He saw an ugly white giant sitting at what looked like a child’s desk. The giant waved awkwardly and turned his attention back to the sheet of paper before him.
“And this here’s Booker Kendricks,” said Farrow.
Wilson looked at the skinny, greasy-lookin’ hustler with the yellow eyes, slouched in the chair. A pistol hung limply in his clawlike hand. Kendricks did not acknowledge Wilson. Wilson felt it was just as well.
“Beer?” said Farrow.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Get T. W. a beer, Booker,” said Otis.
“Damn, can’t y’all see I’m watchin’ this shit?” said Kendricks. “Starks is getting ready to light it up, too!”
“Get it,” said Farrow.
Kendricks went to the kitchen as Wilson took a seat on the couch next to Otis. Farrow stayed on his feet. He leaned forward and rustled his pack of Kools in Wilson’s face.
“Cigarette?” said Farrow.
“Nah,” said Wilson. “Thanks.”
“This used to be your brand in the joint, I remember right.”
“I gave them up a long time ago.”
Charles convinced me to throw them away for good.
Kendricks returned, placed an open bottle of beer on the cable-spool table in front of Wilson. Kendricks went back to the oversize chair and had a seat.
Wilson sipped his beer, fumbled it as he placed it back on the table.
“You seem a little uptight,” said Farrow, catching Otis’s eye.
“I’m tired is all it is,” said Wilson. “Took me over an hour to get down here from D.C.”
Farrow slowly paced the room. “How is it up in town? Any heat that you can make out?”
“None.”
“Good. Me and Roman were thinking you could set us up again with some kind of thing. Something cleaner than the last time. Less risk.”
“I’m working on it. Been out in the bars at night, listenin’ to people talk. Trying to find out where the after-hours action is these days. I’m thinkin’ a bag rip-off, or a high-stakes game. Somethin’ y’all could take off quiet.”
“I like the way you’re thinking.”
“Get you in and out of town real quick.”
“That’s our intent. We need a substantial payday this time. Roman and Gus here have run into a financial setback. Your cut will be the usual — ten percent. That okay with you, T. W.?”
Wilson nodded.
“Tomorrow we’ll see Manuel and Jaime. You’ve called them, right?”
“Yes.”
“What’d they have to say?”
They said you killed a minister in cold blood down on the Eastern Shore.
“They said to come on by,” said Wilson. “They’ll have a car for you on Monday.”
“I need something with a little muscle. I’ve been driving this piece-of-shit truck —”
“They’re on it,” said Wilson.
“Damn, boy!” shouted Kendricks, jumping up from his chair and shutting off the set. “Can’t nobody in this league fuck with the Bulls?”
“Hey, Booker,” said Otis. “Keep your voice down, man.”
Kendricks dismissed them all with a wave of his hand. “Y’all are just way too serious for a Saturday night. I’m gonna take a walk, catch some air.”
Kendricks slipped the pistol into the pocket of his baggy slacks and put on a jacket. “See ya later, Tall Tree,” he said, smiling at Lavonicus before leaving the house.
Lavonicus blinked his eyes hard, but he did not raise his head.
When the door closed, Otis said, “Hard to believe that man shares a drop of my blood.”
Farrow said, “Where’s he goin’, anyway, in this cold?”
“I don’t know,” said Otis. “But if I owned one of these farms around here, right about now I’d be putting a lock on the barn door.”
“Likes those kickin’ mules, huh?” said Farrow.
“I don’t even think they have to kick to get his fancy. All he needs is the right texture to get him started. You want to know the truth, I wouldn’t even trust my cousin around a rare steak.”
Wilson cleared his throat. “That about it? ’Cause I got to make the drive back into town.”
“Wait a minute,” said Farrow, turning to Lavonicus. “Gus, give us a couple of minutes alone here, will you?”
“Sure.” Lavonicus stood and ducked an arched frame as he entered the hall to the back bedrooms.
“Gus don’t know much about the details of our history,” said Otis. “He don’t need to know, is what I’m sayin’.”
Farrow stopped pacing and looked down at Wilson. “You find out where that cop lives?”
“No,” said Wilson. “Not yet.”
“What about his sons?”
“His sons live with him. That much I got from the papers.”
“Find his address,” said Farrow. “I owe him a visit.”
Wilson nodded and said, “That it?”
“One more thing,” said Farrow. “Want to get this out on the table once and for all, and then bury it.”
“Go ahead.”
“Your pizza chef friend. I want to make sure you’re not carrying a grudge over what happened.”
“I’m not. I told you as much on the phone.”
“Look at me, T. W., not at the floor.”
Wilson locked eyes with Farrow.
“What happened in that pizza parlor was a necessity,” said Farrow. “In a situation like that, when you pull the trigger one time you have to keep pulling it until nobody’s left alive. Charles might have been the most stand-up guy who ever walked down the block, but the cops would’ve broken him, and he would’ve fingered us all to make a deal. Anybody would have. What we did to him was just business and self-preservation. Ours and yours. So I want you to tell me now that you don’t have a problem with what went down.”
Wilson’s mout
h twitched.
“Do you have a problem, T. W.?”
I’d kill you now if I was man enough. But I am not man enough. God help me, I’m as weak as they come.
“No,” said Wilson. “I don’t have a problem.”
“Good,” said Farrow. “I’ll see you Monday at the garage.”
“Right.”
Wilson killed his beer. He stood from the couch and walked from the house.
“Man’s still got that tired Arsenio fade,” said Otis, pushing his own hair back behind his ears. “Needs to get himself to a shop where they’re doin’ that new thing.”
Farrow listened to Wilson’s Dodge pull away. “What do you think of him?”
“The man is troubled, that much is plain. But troubled don’t mean dangerous.”
“No, it doesn’t. Wilson’s weak and afraid. He always was someone you could push around.”
“So we got nothin’ to worry about, right?”
“He’s paralyzed,” said Farrow. “He’ll never make a play.”
Thomas Wilson gripped the steering wheel tightly to stop the shake in his hands. Anger was making his hands shake, but there was something else, too: fear. The fear was stronger than the anger. And the knowledge of this made him ashamed.
Wilson turned left off the two-lane and drove north on 301.
How had he come to be with these kinds of men? Looking back on it, it was an obvious path that had brought him to where he was now.
His life had turned with his coke addiction. He understood completely what Dimitri Karras was riffing on at those meetings, though of course he could never admit to Dimitri or the rest of them that he was a member of that same NA club. By way of explaining the hole in his personal time line, he had only told them that he had gone away for a few years to find his calling. Gone away, hell. Put away was more like it.
It had started as a casual thing for Wilson, back in the late seventies. That’s the way it always started with this shit; cocaine was the drug that always drove the car and never gave up the keys. By the time you knew it, it was too late.