“I be back, mon. You be taking things slow as they come.”
He left.
I made sure my door was locked as I watched Henry approach the man in dreadlocks. They spoke for a moment. The man nodded and Henry went toward one of the houses, on the front step of which a group of very young women sat. The women wore blue jeans and leather jackets and gold. One woman had huge gold earrings, impossibly, painfully huge. Another had a gold necklace with chain links the size of manacles. When Henry arrived at the house he leaned over and kissed one of the women on the cheek. He patted another on the head and chatted a moment before squeezing through the group and entering the house. Passing him on the way out was a skinny young man with a high nervous step and sunglasses. I was watching Henry enter the house when the front door of the limousine opened and a young black man with the shoulders of a lion jumped into the driver’s seat.
“Where’s we off to now, Chauncey?” he said in a thin, slippery voice.
“Get out of here,” I said.
He turned and smiled at me and the next moment I heard the click of the door locks and my door opened. A very thin man in a fine brown pinstriped suit leaned in the open door and said, “Move over.”
I moved over. He sat down beside me.
His skin was dark brown, his fingers long and thin. There was about him a distinct air of elegance, the way he crossed his legs, the way he clasped his hands close to his chest. But more than anything he was thin, spectrally thin, droopy-eyed and gaunt, so thin it was impossible to tell his age; he could have been twenty-five, he could have been fifty.
“What can I do for you, friend?” asked the man in a deep, soothing voice.
“I’m just waiting for someone,” I said. “He’ll be right back. I don’t want anything else.”
“Generally, white boys in limousines down here want something.”
“I just want to get out of here.”
“Don’t we all.”
“Where we going?” asked the young man in the front.
“Around,” said the thin man.
“Shit,” I said.
The engine shivered quietly to life and the limousine lurched forward, almost running down a young girl carrying a two-year-old boy in her arms as she wandered toward the marketplace.
“Jesus, take the car, I don’t care,” I said with panic in my voice. “Just let me out first.”
“We only going for a ride,” said the kid up front.
“Drive carefully, Wayman,” said the thin man. “We don’t want to scratch the councilman’s car.”
“Then you know whose car this is.”
“Oh yes. Let’s introduce ourselves. Call me Mr. Rogers.”
“Mr. Rogers,” said Wayman with a cackle. “I like that.”
Mr. Rogers reached out a hand. Unsure of what to do, I shook it.
“Victor Carl.”
“Well, Victor Carl, welcome to my neighborhood.”
“Mr. Rogers,” cackled Wayman again.
“What do you think?” asked Mr. Rogers, gesturing out his window.
I looked around at the bombed-out hulks of narrow row houses, some collapsing in on themselves, others boarded up with plywood, crumbling steps, weeds rising like bushes from the sidewalks, empty bottles scattered. An old man, lips working over his toothless gums, sat on a metal chair and stared at the limousine as we passed.
“It’s fine, I guess,” I said.
“Fine for us, right?”
“No. I didn’t mean that.”
“Calm down, Victor.” He laughed a deep, surprisingly warm laugh.
“I just want to get out of here.”
“And you will. Calm down, enjoy the ride.”
He pulled down a panel on the door, revealing the limousine’s bar. There were decanters of liquor and glasses and bottles. He took one of the glasses and looked at the decanters.
“Now which one’s the scotch,” he said to himself. He reached for one, took off the crystal top, and poured. He took a sip and smiled. “That’s what I like about the councilman, always the best liquor. Turn here, Wayman, and remember this car is as long as a school bus.”
We turned down a side alley and then back up 6th Street, making a loop.
“I just wanted to have a little talk,” said Mr. Rogers. “Nothing too serious. You like being a lawyer, Victor?”
“How did you know?”
“I would have been a damn good lawyer,” he continued. “Would have knocked aside your ass in court, I know that, Victor. See, Wayman, man. It’s like I’ve been telling you. You get back in school, you can be anything you want. Even fools like Victor here can become million-dollar lawyers.”
“Would’s I also have to dress like him?” asked Wayman from the front seat, looking back at me in the rearview mirror.
Mr. Rogers sized me up and down, my scuffed wing tips, my shiny blue suit, my striped polyester tie. “Point taken,” said Mr. Rogers. “Where’d you get those shoes?”
“You want them, take them. Anything. Just leave me alone.”
“Last thing I want is those shoes. Where did you pick those flippers?”
“Florsheim.”
He snickered. “Turn up here.”
“I want you to stop the car and let me out, now,” I said loudly. The crack about my shoes had somehow set me off. I sat forward in the seat. “This is kidnapping. I insist you stop.”
“Victor, trust me,” said Mr. Rogers. “You don’t want us to let you off here.”
I looked around. Two kids were shadowboxing in a corner under a dim streetlight on an otherwise deserted street.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, slumping back.
“You know, you are messing in things way above your head, things you can’t even begin to understand. No sir. All politicians are liars, don’t you think?”
“There are some honest ones, I guess,” I said.
“But not Jimmy Moore. He’s a hell of a politician, but he lies and he steals and in the end he takes away everything he promised to give. Now I’m a businessman. I sell a product for a fair price and my customers keep coming back. And I make damn sure I get paid for it. But Victor, I sell more than just a product. I sell my customers a reason to wake up in the morning, a purpose for their lives, something to give meaning to everything they do. In that way, Victor, I’m like a god, and Jimmy resents that. You see, godhood was his career goal, but it wasn’t working out for him. I went to him after his sweet daughter died. I brought him proof of where she got the merchandise that killed her. It was a white group from the suburbs, from Bucks County, from Bensalem. And you think this is a hellhole. That’s where it came from and I had to hurt some people to get that proof. He said he didn’t care, that no matter where it came from I would pay the price. We were two men at war. We bloodied each other. But now the war is over.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There are things you’ll never understand, so I will make this simple.” He wagged a long, bony finger at me and spoke slowly, carefully. “I’ve been getting reports about you. You’ve been asking about missing money. Don’t. You’ve been stepping out of your role. Step back in. Listen to what I say, Victor, your health and career both depend on it, though I don’t really have any control over your career.”
He opened his eyes wide and peered at me, to be sure that I understood, and I did.
“Besides, Victor,” he continued, “anything you would do would hurt more than help. That’s simply your destiny. We all have destinies, Victor, and yours is to be a fuckup. Now, in addition to all this, it seems you know a friend of mine.”
“No. I don’t,” I said.
“How do you know who my friends are?” he said, a slash of anger in his voice.