On that night so hot they wore it like a robe, tossing that little body over his shoulder, Goliath saved David, leaving Achilles only angry. And after Troy took walking through a minefield as proof he didn’t even need to duck when people tossed bullets, Achilles felt resentment, wondering how different it would be if he were also so confident. After the morgue, he knew it wasn’t the confidence he’d wanted, or the reassurance that Troy would have walked into a minefield for him. He’d wanted Wexler left behind that night, so that everything could remain normal, so his brother wouldn’t take luck for latitude. Achilles loved Wexler like a brother, as the saying went. But Troy is his brother. There was like; there was is; and, there was his fear of is becoming was.
For two nights, Achilles followed Pepper while Ines slept. Everywhere he went, people smiled when Pepper arrived and sighed when he pulled off. Even the cops treated him well, leaning in the back window like groupies after autographs. Pepper traveled primarily from the Bricks to a house in East Point and back, making an occasional detour at an old apartment complex named Hollywood Court where dogs were fought in an abandoned nursery. The second night, the police stopped Achilles. The truck was still registered in Troy’s name, which they found suspect enough to make Achilles ride in the police car while they went on another call.
The nursery was too crowded and the house in East Point was a gated community in a sea of subdivisions, surrounded by flat land providing little cover, so Achilles broke into the church being built near the Banneker Homes. The bell tower provided a perfect line of sight, and room to maneuver as needed because there was no bell, only a large speaker mount. After firing his second shot — he planned to get off at least two — he would cut the barrel off the gun, drop it into his backpack, and walk away. Why would the police set up a roadblock or search pedestrians over the death of a drug dealer? If anything, they should reward the shooter.
Ines was antsy, threatening to return to New Orleans, so he decided his second night in the tower would be the night. He waited a long time before the golden Hummer finally appeared. The bodyguard limped into the building with the fire damage. Wexler had said his name was Cornelius. Achilles preferred to think of him as the accomplice. A white cargo van pulled up. Accomplice loaded two muzzled pits into the van, tapped the side of the vehicle, and it pulled off. He leaned against the wall, smoking and picking at his nose. Achilles sighted on the back door of the Hummer and waited.
The clickety-clack of high heels bounced off the wall. Two prostitutes passed the entrance to the Bricks, slowing as they neared the guys posted at the entrance. The guys at the gate didn’t even look up, understandably so. It was a hip-hop version of Jack Sprat. One was large-breasted but fat enough that if she lost the weight, she’d lose the bait. The other was thin as a stick and walked as if she was on stilts, teetering as if she might topple over at any minute.
Meanwhile Accomplice paced around the car, occasionally checking his watch. He moved with an exaggerated gait, a walk meant to announce his street cred, but which was so extreme he was the caricature of a street hood, the hop in his step something you’d see in an SNL skit featuring a white comedian doing his best impression of a B-boy. Finally, he got into the car and drove off.
Around two in the morning, the Hummer returned with the van close behind. Again, Accomplice loaded two muzzled dogs, tapped the van, and it pulled away, lights off until it hit the street. This time Achilles crawled to the other side of the tower to track the van’s progress, but it disappeared from view at the highway on-ramp. The bodyguard paced around the Hummer again, talking on his phone while he did his pimp walk. He stopped at the edge of the light, gesticulating wildly, holding the phone up to his mouth as if it was a walkie-talkie, yelling into it before slamming it shut and pocketing it, dropping his cigarette in the process. He lit a cigarette at the wrong end and fumbled with two more, successfully lighting the fourth only after he leaned back against the wall. He held the first breath so long that only a wisp of smoke slipped out when he exhaled. He French-inhaled and slapped the air in front of his face. Still leaning back against the wall, he crossed one leg over the other. Achilles dropped his sights to the man’s legs. One shot could take out both knees, and Achilles was good with a gun. His father had made sure of that. His father’s only rule: Don’t kill anything you can’t eat and don’t maim anything you don’t kill. Two rules roundly disregarded in combat.
Achilles waited, the feeling shifting from neutral to impatient. He had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t want the driver’s knees, he wanted Pepper’s head; he was aiming for apricot, as the snipers put it. Patience was the key. He had known this moment was coming as soon as he heard that Troy was found outside of the Bricks. For all Achilles knew, Accomplice was involved, or another foot soldier, but nothing demoralized a group more than spilling the brains behind the operation. The bodyguard was pacing again, and as he walked thoughtfully, head down, in the shadow of the wall, it became clear that the swaggering step was merely camouflaging a limp.
Merriweather walked like that. When they went to visit him at Walter Reed Hospital, they were reminded of everything that could have possibly gone wrong for them but didn’t. At one point, Merriweather and Wexler had ended up in the same room. Achilles finally understood the meaning of the word irony. How had their luck changed all at once? They survived a baker’s dozen of snipers, mortars, IEDs, artillery, RPGs, bombs, land mines, claymores, numerous troops in contact incidents, missiles, grenades, friendly fire, and suicide. Then, barely a month before they’d be done, Jackson catches the IED, Merriweather unzips the kid, and Wexler, upset at Merriweather, runs off into the dark and ends up in a minefield. While he’s being carted off, the last thing Wexler says is, “Merriweather won’t get away with it.”
Wexler was right. A couple days later, Merriweather was shot in the ankle while the squad moved in on a residence where Taliban sympathizers were known to be hiding. But he took it like a man. After Wages ran out to the road and dragged him to cover, and Troy packed the wound with Quikclot that stopped bleeding but burned like hot sauce on the devil’s ass, Merriweather said, “I don’t know what’s fucking worse, the bullet or the so-called first aid.”
They laughed, but Achilles was thankful he’d never needed Quikclot. When they later went to see Merriweather show off his new foot, each time he adjusted the prosthetic, Achilles saw the permanent burns the Quikclot left on his calf. But no matter to Merriweather; he clipped his prosthetic on and strutted around the room like he’d never strutted before, a dip in his walk deep enough that you could miss the limp, if you didn’t know him. Wexler later claimed he hadn’t meant what he said, that Merriweather had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was how Achilles preferred to think about it. That’s what he told Sammy.