“What about that gun?”
“It was a hack. I rented it from that dealer does business with Dewayne. Ulysses Foreman, lives over in PG? I already gave it back.”
“You tell him it was a murder gun?”
“Sure,” said Mario, still embellishing, still bragging. “I mean, he took one look at me, he knew what I’d done. You can’t hide something like that.”
“What you gonna do now, then, just wait?”
“I guess.”
Donut nodded his head, his eyes pink from the chronic. Durham could tell that Donut was just trying to think things out.
“You can lay up here for a little while, I guess. But not forever, hear? You my boy, but I can’t be no accessory to no homicide. With my priors, I’m looking at long time.”
“I won’t stay long. The thing of it is, I could use some money to stake me, so I can move on out of Southeast for a while.”
“I’m light right now.”
“Oh, I wasn’t askin’ for you to give me no cash. I got some in my pocket, my brother gave me. What I was thinkin’, I could double it, maybe triple it, with your help. I’ll give you what I got for some dummies I can sell out there on the strip. I can make a quick rack of money like that. The quicker I do, the quicker I’m gone.”
“Yeah, but you need to be careful behind that shit.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Dough,” said Durham, shaking his friend’s hand. “I’m harder than you think I am. I’ll be all right.”
Donut looked down at Durham’s feet. “You get some money, first thing you need to do is buy you some new sneaks.”
“I do need to get myself into the new style.”
“Looks like some of that bitch’s blood got on ’em, too.”
“I guess it did.” Durham looked stupidly at the PlayStation 2 controllers lying on the floor. “You wanna play some Street before you tip out?”
“I will, if you’re ready to lose.”
“I’m done with losin’,” said Durham. “Do I look like I could lose to you?”
HORACE McKinley snapped the lid down on his cell as he crossed the parking lot with Mike Montgomery, walking toward the hair shop. He was moving slow, and his stomach hurt some. He had eaten too much barbecue at lunch, but it had tasted too good for him to stop.
“That was James,” said McKinley. “Him and Jeremy circled around that Strange’s car a couple of times, then went back to their place.”
“They make an impression?”
“Some white boy was in the car. But they say they got their point across. I told them to stay where they’re at for a while. Sun ain’t down yet, and James sounds like he’s all fucked up on somethin’ already.”
“He usually is.”
“Yeah, but those two earned it. They done enough for today.” McKinley tipped his large head in the direction of Devra Stokes’s Taurus. “She’s in there. There go her car.”
They went into the shop. Devra was painting the nails of a woman her age, a goosenecked lamp throwing light on the table between them. Juwan sat at Devra’s feet, his plastic wrestlers in his lap and on the linoleum floor. Inez Brown was seated behind a desk, reading a magazine. She stood and smoothed out her skirt as McKinley lumbered through the door.
Devra and the young woman had been talking, but they stopped at the sight of the fat man and his long-armed companion. The new Eve was coming from the store stereo, and it had become the only sound in the room.
McKinley took a half-smoked cigar and a silver lighter from the pocket of his warm-up suit and flamed the cigar’s end. When he was satisfied with the draw he replaced the lighter in his pocket. He looked at the cigar lovingly as he exhaled, then gazed at the young customer as if he were noticing her for the first time.
“Sorry to interrupt your session, baby,” said McKinley, “but you’re gonna have to leave for a while, come back later on. Me and my employee need to discuss some business up in here.”
“She ain’t even done with my nails,” said the young woman.
McKinley lodged the cigar in the side of his mouth, reached for his wallet, withdrew a ten, and dropped it on the table. “Go on, get yourself some Mac-Donald’s, sumshit like that.”
“I ain’t hungry.”
“You look hungry to me.”
Her eyes went up and down his rotund body. “How would you know what hungry looks like?”
McKinley leaned down and put his face close to hers. “Go on, now,” he said. “Before I lose my composure.”
She looked away from him and stood quickly. She gathered her possessions and left the shop.
“All right, girl,” McKinley said to Devra, smiling pleasantly, showing her his fronts. “Let’s have a talk in the back.”
“I need to look after my son,” said Devra.
“Mike’ll look after the boy,” said McKinley. “He’s good with kids.” To Inez Brown he said, “Lock that front door.”
Devra got up from her chair and Juwan stood up with her. She danced her fingers through his short, tight hair. “Mama’s just going in the other room. I’ll be out in a while. Stay out here and play.”
The boy sat back down but kept his eyes on his mother as she walked through a doorway behind the register desk. He watched the fat man with all the jewelry follow her. He watched his mother’s boss, that little lady who wasn’t never nice to him, put her key to the lock of the front door.
“What you got there, little man?” said Montgomery, who had crouched down beside the boy, his forearms resting on his thighs. “Who’s that, the Rock?”
“That’s Afro Thunder!” said Juwan, pointing to one of the action figures. He didn’t mind talking to this man. His eyes told Juwan that this man was all right.
“My mistake,” said Montgomery, gently tapping the boy’s shoulder. “Tell me the names of the other ones you got, too.”
The back room, cluttered with supplies and lit with a forty-watt naked bulb, was little more than a narrow hall leading to a dirty bathroom. A door near the bathroom had a small window, barred on both sides, that gave to a view of an alley.
“Stand over there,” said McKinley, pointing to the door. Devra went to the door, crossed her arms, and leaned her back against the bars.
McKinley drew hard on his cigar and walked toward her. Smoke swirled off of him as he approached. It settled in the dim glow of the naked bulb. He stood three feet from her and smiled.