“What do you mean?” Jack asked.
“Saturday you asked me about the Black Kings,” Warren reminded him. “You said you were just curious. Now tonight one of those mothers tries to knock you off. Now I know something about those losers. They’re into drugs big time. You catch my drift? What I want you to know is if you’re mixed up with dealing, I don’t want you in this neighborhood. It’s as simple as that.”
Jack let out a short laugh of incredulity. “Is that what this is about?” he asked. “You think I’m dealing drugs?”
“Doc, listen to me,” Warren said. “You’re a strange dude. I never understood why you’re living here. But it’s okay as long as you don’t screw up the neighborhood. But if you’re here because of drugs, you gotta rethink your situation.”
Jack cleared his throat. He then admitted to Warren that he’d not been truthful with him when he’d asked about the Black Kings. He told him that the Black Kings had beaten him up, but that it involved something concerning his work that even he didn’t totally understand.
“You sure you’re not dealing?” Warren asked again. He looked at Jack out of the corner of his eye. “ ’Cause if you’re not straight with me now you’re going to be one sorry shit.”
“I’m being entirely truthful,” Jack assured him.
“Well, then you’re a lucky man,” Warren said. “Had David and Spit not recognized that dude who came cruising around the neighborhood in his Camaro, you’d be history right now. Spit says he was fixing to blow you away.”
Jack looked up at Spit. “I’m very grateful,” he said.
“It was nothing, man,” Spit said. “That mother was so fixed on getting you that he never once looked behind him. We’d been on his tail almost the moment he turned on a Hundred and Sixth.”
Jack rubbed his head and sighed. Only now was he truly beginning to calm down. “What a night,” he said. “But it’s not over. We’ve got to go to the police.”
“Hell we do,” Warren said, his anger returning. “Nobody’s going to the police.”
“But there’s someone dead,” Jack said. “Maybe two or three, counting those homeless guys.”
“There’ll be four if you go,” Warren warned. “Listen, Doc, don’t get yourself involved in gang business, and this has become gang business. This Reginald dude knew he wasn’t supposed to be up here. No way. I mean, we can’t have them thinking they can just breeze into our neighborhood and knock somebody off, even if it is only you. Next they’d be icing one of the brothers. Leave it be, Doc. The police don’t give a shit anyway. They’re happy when us brothers are knocking each other off. All you can do is cause you and us trouble, and if you go to the police, you’re no friend of ours, no way.”
“But leaving the scene of a crime is a-” Jack began.
“Yeah, I know,” Warren interrupted. “It’s a felony. Big deal. Who the hell cares? And let me tell you something else. You still got a problem. If the Black Kings want you dead, you’d better be our friend, because we’re the only ones who can keep you alive. The cops can’t, believe me.”
Jack started to say something, but he changed his mind. With his knowledge of gang life in New York City, he knew that Warren was right. If the Kings wanted him dead, which they apparently did-and would all the more now with Reginald’s death-there was no way for the police to prevent it short of secret-service-type twenty-four-hour guard.
Warren looked up at Spit. “Somebody’s going to have to stick tight to Doc for the next few days,” he said.
Spit nodded. “No problem,” he said.
Warren stood up and stretched. “What pisses me off is that I had the best team I’ve had in weeks tonight, and this shit has cut it short.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I’ll let you win next time I play against you.”
Warren laughed. “One thing I can say about you, Doc,” he said. “You can sure rap with the best of them.”
Warren motioned to Spit to leave. “We’ll be seeing you, Doc,” Warren said at the door. “Now don’t do anything foolish. You going to run tomorrow night?”
“Maybe,” Jack said. He didn’t know what he was going to do in the next five minutes, much less the following night.
With a final wave Warren and Spit departed. The door closed behind them.
Jack sat for a few minutes. He felt shell-shocked. Then he got up, went into the bathroom. When he looked into the mirror he cringed. At the time he and Spit had been waiting for David to arrive with the car, a few people had glanced at Jack, but no one had stared. Now Jack wondered why they hadn’t. Jack’s face and sweater were spattered with blood, presumably from the vagrant. There was also a nasty series of parallel scratches from the vagrant’s fingernails down his forehead and over his nose. A cross-hatching of scratches marred his cheeks, from the underbrush, no doubt. He looked like he’d been in a war.
Jack climbed into his tub and took a shower. By then his mind was going a mile a minute. He couldn’t remember ever being in such a state of confusion, except after his family had perished. But that was different. He’d been depressed then. Now he was just confused.
Jack got out of the shower and dried himself off. He was still half debating whether or not to contact the police. In a state of indecision, he went to the phone. That’s when he noticed that his answering machine was blinking. He pushed the play button and listened to Beth Holderness’s disturbing message. Instantly he called her back. He let her phone ring ten times before giving up. What could she have found? he wondered. He also felt responsible for her having been fired. Somehow he was sure he was to blame.
Jack got a beer and took it into the living room. Sitting on the windowsill, he could see a sliver of 106th Street. There was the usual traffic and parade of people. He watched with unseeing eyes as he wrestled with his dilemma regarding calling the police.
Hours passed. Jack realized that by not making a decision he was in essence making one. By not calling the police he was agreeing with Warren. He’d become a felon.
Jack went back to the phone and tried Beth for the tenth time. It was now after midnight. The phone rang interminably. Jack started to worry. He hoped she’d simply fled to a friend’s house for solace after losing her job. Yet not being able to get in touch with her nagged at him along with everything else.
27
NEW YORK CITY
The first thing Jack did when he woke up was to try calling Beth Holderness. When she’d still not answered he’d tried to be optimistic about her visiting a friend, but in the face of everything that had happened, the inability to get ahold of her was progressively more distressing.
Still without a bike, Jack was forced back into the subway for his commute. But he wasn’t alone. From the moment Jack had emerged from his tenement he’d been trailed by one of the younger members of the local gang. His name was Slam, in deference to his dunking ability with the basketball. Even though he was Jack’s height, he could outjump Jack by at least twelve inches.
Jack and Slam did not talk during the train ride. They sat opposite each other, and although Slam didn’t try to avoid eye contact, his expression never changed from one of total indifference. He was dressed like most of the younger African-Americans in the city, with oversized clothes. His sweatshirt was tentlike, and Jack preferred not to imagine what it concealed. Jack didn’t believe that Warren would have sent the young man out to protect Jack without some significant weaponry.
As Jack crossed First Avenue and mounted the steps in front of the medical examiner’s office, he glanced behind him. Slam had paused on the sidewalk, obviously confused as to what he should do. Jack hesitated as well. The unreasonable thought went through Jack’s mind of inviting the man in so that he could pass the time in the second-floor canteen, but that was clearly out of the question.