“I’m gonna be gettin’ on,” said Ella.
“You need a ride?” said Darius.
“No, thank you,” said Ella. “I’ll walk.”
“I’m gonna call you both,” said Mike, “let you know about tomorrow. I’m hopin’ this here is gonna blow over and we’re gonna open up.”
Ella went out the door without a word. Darius watched her walk down the sidewalk through the group of kids, which parted to let her pass.
“You better get goin’,” said Mike.
“You, too,” said Darius.
“Ah,” said Mike with a wave of his hand. “I don’t worry ’bout nothin’.”
“Where’s Derek?” said Billy.
“Seventh Street, right about now,” said Darius, turning up the collar of his jacket. “Working.”
“God bless the MPD,” said Billy. “Tell him I was thinking about him, okay?”
“I will,” said Darius.
“Hey,” said Mike, his voice stopping Darius as he reached for the door. Mike’s forehead was streaked with sweat, and his barrel chest rose and fell with each labored breath. A cigarette burned between his fingers.
“What is it?”
“Thanks for comin’ in today, Darius,” said Mike.
Darius nodded, looking without emotion into Mike’s eyes. Neither could know that they would both be dead within the year.
Darius walked from the diner to his car on the street.
“Let’s go,” said Billy to his father. “Pa-meh.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere, goddamnit,” said Mike. “Those boys gonna break my window, somethin’.”
“We can fix a window,” said Billy, putting his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “C’mon, Ba-ba. It’s time to go.”
Mike left the register’s cash drawer open, as he did every night at closing, so that anyone could see from the street that it was empty. He took the store keys from his pocket and locked the front door.
DESPITE THE WARNING from Derek Strange, Kenneth Willis had phoned Alvin Jones at Ronnie Moses’s apartment on Thursday afternoon and told him that Strange was looking to hunt him down. Strange had put a scare into Willis, and a hurting on him, too, but it didn’t stop Willis from making the call. He couldn’t do Alvin like that. Alvin was kin.
On the phone, Jones denied any knowledge of the murder of Dennis Strange. He had decided not to admit it, on account of Dennis was Kenneth’s boy from way back and he didn’t want Kenneth to get upset. Also, he didn’t care to give Kenneth anything the police could use against him if Kenneth got picked up on something later on. Kenneth was strong, but even a strong man could get flipped.
“All right, Ken,” said Jones. “Thanks for the tip.”
“What you gonna do?” said Willis.
“What you think?” said Jones, as if he were speaking to a child. “Keep my head low. Understand, I ain’t have shit to do with your boy’s demise, but I can’t be fuckin’ with no police nohow.”
“You got a plan?”
“Man like me always got a plan,” said Jones before hanging up the phone.
The riots of Thursday night had given him his plan. Jones had gone out, near midnight, and stepped onto an eastbound D.C. Transit bus on Rhode Island Avenue with a stocking over his face and his gun in his hand, robbing the driver of eighty dollars in cash. It was the easiest robbery he’d ever pulled. Seemed like all of the police were over in Shaw. He knew they weren’t gonna give a good fuck about some little old stickup job when 14th Street was going up in flames.
And here he was today, in Ronnie’s apartment near 7th Street. Standing in front of the mirror, admiring his new shit, which he and Ronnie had looted from the Cavalier Men’s Shop between L and K just a little while back. Looking at his new Zanzibar slacks, his Damon knit shirt, and his side-weave kicks. The shirt, especially, was right on, a real nice color gold. Picked up the gold band on his favorite black hat. He cocked the hat a little so it sat right on his head.
Ronnie had left the crib to get more vines. Said he was heading down to his place of employment, the big-men’s shop, to get what he could, ’cause those clothes there were the only ones in town that could fit a horse like him. Said he knew where his sizes were and exactly the items he wanted, ’cause he’d had his eye on them for some time. Jones telling him he wasn’t thinking straight, to be shittin’ in his own feeding trough like that, but Ronnie had waved him away.
“I know what I’m doin’,” Ronnie Moses had said, heading for the door. “You with me, blood?”
“Go on,” said Jones. “I’m gonna take a little rest.”
“Lock the apartment, man, you go out.”
“Yeah, all right.”
Jones thinking, Now I am really gonna roll. Take someone off for some real cash. ’Cause the police, they are busy. Too busy tryin’ to contain those thousands of black motherfuckers out on the street to worry over one black motherfucker like me. Make a nice score, real money, none of this eighty-dollar shit, and leave town. Go down to South Carolina, where his mother’s people still stayed, and visit for a while. See what he could score down there.
Thank you, Dr. King. Thank you for this opportunity.
Jones went to his bag, had all his clothes and shit inside it, which he kept beside the sofa where he slept. He withdrew his old.38, had the bluing rubbed off the barrel. Jones had wrapped black electrical tape around the grip; his hands tended to sweat when he was working, and he needed to have a tight hold on his gun. He released the cylinder, checked the five-shot load, and snapped it shut. He dropped the pistol into the right pocket of his Zanzibar slacks. He found a crumpled-up stocking in a bedroom drawer, belonged to Ronnie’s bottom girl, and shoved it into the left pocket of his slacks. He checked himself in the mirror one more time, readjusted his hat, and left the apartment, locking the door behind him as he had said he would.
He went down to 7th Street and walked south.
There were hundreds of young people out on the street, looting stores, hollering and laughing, having fun. Boys and girls, and some older people, too. Cops trying to contain the rioters, having little success. Firemen hosing down burning buildings, ducking the occasional rock and bottle thrown their way.
Leventhal’s Furniture Store, at Q, it wasn’t much more than a shell now. The store had been stripped of goods and was burning inside. The apartment houses nearby were burning with it.
Leventhal’s, thought Jones, stepping around a flaming mattress. Jew name, wasn’t it? Like most of the stores down here, owned by Jews. Long after they’d moved out the neighborhood their own selves, they were still doing business on 7th, selling jewelry and furniture and stereos and appliances to blacks. Selling credit, really, and high-interest credit at that. Jones could see the glee on the faces of the looters as they broke into another store. Wasn’t much about Dr. King anymore, was it? It was about getting things for free, and getting back at every motherfucker, Jew and white man alike, who’d been bleeding them and stepping on their necks their whole goddamn lives. Leastways, that’s the way Jones saw it. His people, getting a little bit back.