“So what’s the third reason?” I asked.
“I recognized that motherfucker’s kicks. He got the new Jordans last week.” Lazarus stood up. “I gotta send a message. Right?”
I threw up my hands. “I’d say so. Yeah. I mean, you gotta do something.”
“Come see Cornelius with me.”
“Man, Cornelius doesn’t know me.”
“You’re in there all the time.”
“So? I’m just another dude who likes his vegi-fish and cornbread. Whatchu want me there for, anyway?”
“’Cause I’ma go see Jumpshot after that. And I’d like some company, you know what I’m saying?”
“I know what you’re saying, Laz, but I’m not tryna just run up on a armed motherfucker. What, you just gonna knock on his door? Say you’re the Girl Scouts? Why would he even be home?”
“If he’s not home, he’s not home. If he is, I’ll play it like I’m coming for help, like, ‘You’re the man on the street, find out who jacked me, I’ll make it worth your while.’”
Laz looked sharper, more angular, than I’d ever seen him. Like he was coming into focus. “I guess if he wanted to shoot you, he woulda done it half an hour ago,” I said.
“Exactly. Now he’s gotta play business-as-usual. Besides, I’m known to be unarmed. Now you understand why: so when I do pick up a strap, it’s some real out-of-character shit.”
“I don’t wanna be involved in no craziness, Laz.” I said it mostly just to get it on the record. Once you put in a certain number of hours with a cat like Lazarus, you become affiliated. Obligated. It starts off easy-going: You come over, you chill, you smoke. Ay T, you hungry? I’m ’bout to order up some food. Put away your money, dog. I got you. Then it becomes, Yo T, I gotta go out for a hot second. Do me a solid and mind the store, bro Or, Man, I’m mad tired. Can you bring Jamal this package for me? I’ll break you off. Good lookin’ out, T.
I stood up and walked out of the room.
“Fuck you going?” Laz called after me. I could tell from his tone that he was standing with his arms spread wide, like Isaac Hayes as Black Moses.
I came back and shook my duffel bag at him. “Unless you wanna carry those ten bricks back home in your drawers.”
“Good call.”
We drove to the spot, and I waited in the car while Laz talked to Cornelius. Most innocent-looking store in Crown Heights: Healthy Living Vegetarian Café and Juice Bar. X-amount of fake-bodega herb-gates with, like, one dusty-ass can of soda in the window, but Healthy Living was a high-post operation. They sold major weight, and only to maybe two or three cats, total. You had to come highly recommended, had to be Jamaican or be Abraham Lazarus.
The funny thing was that Cornelius could cook his ass off. You’d never know his spare ribs were made of gluten — that’s my word. Tastier than a motherfucker, and I ain’t even vegetarian. All Cornelius’s daughters worked in there, too, and every one of them was fine as hell. Different mothers, different shades of lovely. I stopped flirting after Lazarus told me where he copped his shit. Started noticing all the scars Cornelius had on his neck and forearms, too. He was from Trenchtown, Laz said. Marley’s neighborhood. You didn’t get out of there without a fight.
The metal gate was still down when we got there, but Cornelius was inside sweeping up. He raised it just enough to let Laz limbo underneath. I watched them exchange a few words: watched the face of the barrel-chested, teak-skinned man in the white chef’s apron darken as the pale, lanky dread bent to whisper in his ear. Then Cornelius laid his broom against a chair and beckoned Laz into the back room.
It wasn’t even a minute later when Laz ducked back outside and jumped into the ride. He didn’t say anything, just fisted the wheel and swung the car around. His face was blank, like an actor getting into character inside his head. I’d always thought his eyes were blue, but now they looked gray, the color of sidewalk cement.
“So what he say?” I figured he’d probably ignore the question, but I had to ask.
“He said, ‘Abraham, there are those that hang and those who do the cutting.’ And he gave me what I asked for.” Laz opened the left side of his jacket and I saw the handle of a pistol. Looked like a .38. Used to have one of those myself.
“I was hoping Cornelius would tell you he’d take care of it,” I said.
Laz shook his head about a millimeter. “Not how it works, T.” He made a right onto Jumpshot’s block, found a space, and backed in — cut the wheel too early and fucked it up and had to start over. “Bumbaclot,” he mumbled. There was another car-length of space behind him, but Laz missed on the second try, too. I guess his mind was elsewhere. He nailed it on the third, flicked the key, and turned to me. Surprising how still it suddenly felt in there, with the engine off. How close.
“It’s cool if you want to wait in the car, T.” Laz said it staring straight ahead.
I ground my teeth together, felt my jaw flare. Mostly just so Laz would feel the weight of the favor. “I’m good.”
“You good?”
“I’m good.”
“Let’s do this.”
It was a pretty street. Row houses on either side, and an elementary school with a playground in the middle of the block. I used to live on a school block back Uptown. It’d be crazy loud every day from about noon to 3 — different classes going to recess, fifty or sixty juiced-up kids zooming all over the place. Basketball, tag, double-dutch. Couldn’t be too mad at it, though. It was nice noise.
A thought occurred to me and I turned to Laz, who was trudging along with his hands pocketed and his head buried in his shoulders like a bloodshot, dreadlocked James Dean. “It’s too early for a tournament, right?”
That was Jumpshot’s other hustle. Dude had eight or ten TVs set up in his two-room basement crib, each one equipped with a PlayStation. For five or ten bills, shorties from the neighborhood could sign up and play NBALive or Madden Football or whatever, winner take all. Even the older kids, the young thug set, would be up in Jump’s crib, balling and smoking and betting. Jumpshot handled all the bookie action, in addition to selling the players beer and weed — at a mark-up, no less, like the place was a bar or some shit. It was kind of brilliant, really.
“Way too early,” said Laz.
We stopped in front of Jumpshot’s door. “Play it cool,” I reminded him.
“We’ll see,” said Laz, and a little bit of that Brooklyn-Jew accent, that soft, self-assured intonation, surfaced for a second. It occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this. Maybe he didn’t own a gun because he didn’t trust himself with one. I don’t know if the thought made me feel better or worse.
“He’s got a loose ceiling tile in the bathroom,” said Laz. “Right above the toilet.” And he pressed the buzzer, hard, for about three seconds.
Static crackled from the intercom and then a grainy voice demanded, Who dat? A bad connection to ten feet away.
Laz bent to the speaker, hands on his knees, and over-pronounced his words: “Jumpshot, it’s Abraham. I’ve got to talk to you. It’s very important.”
A pause, two heatbeats long, and then, “A’ight, man, hold on.”