When he got there, the squad cars had moved on. But he saw a couple of white men in street clothes, looked like police with their builds and the way they moved, kind of hurrying around the area of the liquor store. One of them ducked into the outside foyer area of a market and the other positioned himself with his back against the bricks beside the stairwell entrance to the second-floor apartments. The wino was gone.
Jones went to a pay-phone booth on the corner, dropped change into the slot, and dialed his cousin’s number. The phone rang and kept on ringing. The ring became a scream in Alvin Jones’s head. It told him that he was never going to see Broadway or ride down the street in that white El D.
“Come on, Kenneth,” said Jones. “Pick up the got-damn phone.”
KENNETH WILLIS HAD dressed in dark clothing and was rifling through his dresser drawer trying to find a pair of stockings this big redbone had left at his crib. He was gonna put one of the stockings over his face when the time came, the way his cousin Alvin had told him to do. “Funky Broadway” was playing from back in the living room, out this box he’d bought from the local Sears. He was charged up for what he was about to do, and Wilson going, “Shake shake shake,” and growling, “Lord, have mercy,” was charging him further still.
He found the stockings, a pair of fishnets. Well, Alvin had said stockings; he hadn’t said what kind.
Willis took one and, couldn’t help it, sniffed it before he stuffed it in his front pocket. He looked in the mirror. He was a big man with a chest and some big-ass arms on him, too. Wasn’t no one in that market gonna hesitate to hand over whatever he was asking for, they had a look at him. Also, he had a gun.
Willis went out of his bedroom to the small living-room area of his place, stepping on some stroke magazines he had left on the floor. The apartment was all messed up, like it always was. Ashtray was overfilled with butts, beer bottles sat on the eating table, and in the kitchen sink were dishes from last week, still had food on them, with water bugs crawling across the food. Even Willis knew this shithole needed cleaning. Maybe he would pay a woman to do it, soon as he had some money.
He pulled his shirttail out to cover the gun, which he had slipped behind the waistband of his slacks. Cheap gun, but damn sure looked like a gun when it got pointed in your face. It was a pocket.32 with a six-shot magazine, and it was pressing into his back. He’d put it somewhere else once they got in the car. His cousin had told him they’d meet on the sidewalk, out in front of the liquor store. Willis hoped he wasn’t late.
There was an Earl Scheib commercial on the radio now, and Willis turned it off. He went out the front door, locked the door, and headed down the stairs. He saw a white man with some shoulders coming into the foyer at the bottom of the stairs, where they had the mailbox slots on the wall, and then he heard the phone ringing back in his place, and he stopped where he was. The white man, a look on his face like he’d never seen a black man before, backed up and went outside. Must be one of them working for the landlord or something, come to collect. He was paid up, so it wasn’t no concern of his… Damn, that phone. Willis looked up the stairs to his place, wondering if he should go back in and catch it. Might be his cousin calling him about a change of plans. But he knew Alvin was already driving over here, because Alvin had told him the time to meet out front, and Alvin was never late. So it couldn’t be him.
Still, whoever it was, they were trying to get him for something. They were just ringin’ the shit out of that phone, too.
Willis went down the stairs. He didn’t want to keep Alvin waiting.
The sunlight was bright as he exited the front door of the building. Nice day. Wasn’t many people out, though, not even that wino who folks called Cricket, usually stood out front. Willis turned his head to the left and saw the white man he’d seen before rushing toward him. He had a revolver in his hand and his gun arm was out straight. Willis reached his hand up under the back of his shirt. He heard his back crack and felt a snap in his neck as arms wrapped around him and he was tackled from behind by someone strong. His chest and face hit the sidewalk at the same time, and he said “uh,” and tasted blood in his mouth, and heard tires screeching to a stop in the street. White voices yelling at him not to move, and some people in the neighborhood cussing at the police who had taken him down, and the hard feel of cuffs locking on his wrists.
“What we got here?” said the white police who had tackled him, the man’s knee now pressing into his back. Willis felt the.32 ripped out of his waistband, the automatic’s grip scraping his skin.
“Motherfucker,” said Willis, spitting blood on the concrete.
“Keep talkin’, nigger,” said a low voice in his ear.
Way he got yanked up off the sidewalk then, felt like his arms were gonna tear right off.
Across the street, down near 9th, Alvin Jones came out of the phone booth and watched as his cousin got took right outside his place. He watched them cuff him and bring him up to a standing position, rough, like they liked to do, and he watched them walk him to a squad car and push him inside. Somewhere in all that, he hoped he had caught Kenneth’s eye. Remind him that his blood was still out here, waitin’ on him, and everything was gonna be all right.
Kenneth was cool. Kenneth would not give him up. Jones wasn’t worried about that.
But it was a damn shame. All that money for the taking, and now it was out of reach. They’d been cheated out of a big opportunity. Wasn’t no guarantee something this good was gonna come around again.
He walked quickly back toward his car, his lips moving, his face contorted, fussing all the way.
Someone had fucked up their plans. Couldn’t be no random shit that got the law on his cousin.
Jones came to his Buick. Looking at it, knowing he had to get inside it, hating that he had to get inside it, ’cause he deserved a more stylish ride than this.
Why someone would do this to him and Kenneth he didn’t know. But that someone, whoever it was, was someone who needed to be got.
DEREK STRANGE HAD a one-bedroom place in an apartment house on the northeast corner of 13th and Clifton, just above Cardozo High School, a handful of blocks up from the very heart of Shaw. It was close to his parents, Howard University, U Street, and everything else a young black man could want or have need for in a city. The building sat atop the very edge of the Piedmont plateau. The landscape and the street dropped down sharply from there, with the downtown skyline, including the monuments, spread out below. The apartment was not plush in any way, and the neighborhood was what it was, but Strange had a million-dollar view.