Sheila’s kids came into the kitchen for breakfast.
“I’m hungry,” said Timmy, the eleven-year-old.
“I’m hungry,” said Tony, the eight-year-old.
But there were all these boxes, bullets and the like, stacked up in front of the cabinet where she kept cereal, and she wasn’t about to touch them.
Who’re these white people? What’s all this stuff? It was a different kind of morning, just say. She put glasses of milk in front of the kids.
“Yuck!” said Timmy.
“I want Lucky Charms!” said Tony.
“We don’t have no Lucky Charms, you know that,” said Sheila. She got up the courage to take the boxes of cartridges and gingerly move them to another spot. They were heavy. She opened the cabinet. No cereal. In the other room, Cinque was handing Crystal a twenty and sending her to Sam’s to buy beer, bread, cold cuts, and cigarettes, and Sheila asked her nice to buy some cereal and milk. Crystal shot her some look; probably she was counting on keeping the change. Sheila wasn’t going to hold her breath, just say.
Dead Drop 1
UNITED STATES POST OFFICE, COMPTON STATION
He says, Are you telling me these trucks stayed right here? and I said, Yes, sir. And he looks at me funny and says, They’re dirty, these trucks, because they are parked on this street all night. At first, you know, I think he is joking. But still I’m looking him right in the face because it’s near impossible to tell. He’s a real cold fish. Cold fish eyes. By and by I’m like: he means it.
So what I said? I said to him, We ain’t got the keys, sir. And he says: What? What did you say?
Yeah, like that. I tell him, We’d like to keep ’em looking clean too, sir, but we ain’t got the keys to the trucks. The carriers come back and park them where they like. Been doing it that way a long time, I guess.
Well I, well you know, you know what I heard was. What I heard was that they sent him over here from Century City ’cause he’s reweighing all the damn flats up there. Says he knows the mailroom boys in all the office buildings are fudging on the first class rates. Every now and then he finds one that’s under by ten cents or so and he sends a bunch of ’em right back. Lawyers going bananas in their fancy offices. You know how they like to send out their flats.
Say, now what’s that gal up to?
You lose something under there, miss?
Damnedest things people do.
Sure be happy to help you find it. No questions asked.
Well, she’s got her mind fixed on something. Not that I’m ever sorry to see a lady in that position. Anyways, that’s why I’m heading out to the hardware, get these here keys copied. Bet you lot of people get their mail late today, I’ll tell you.
Tania stands and readjusts her wig and casts a quick glance around her. The man and his companion, both wearing uniforms that seem somehow even more drab, even less convincing an assertion of authority, than those worn by ordinary letter carriers, watch her abstractedly while they talk. She is a sort of oddity here in Compton. The drop is under one of the drive-up mailboxes behind the post of fice building; the Lincoln waits around the corner. Tania is unarmed and feels exposed here without the others. As she hustles back, more anxious about getting to the car than she is concerned about the LETTER TO THE PEOPLE’S surviving the curiosity of the two postal employees, she catches a sidelong glimpse of her own photograph, hanging among the wanted posters.
1466 East Fifty-fourth Street
Sure enough, there was no breakfast in the bag Crystal lugged back. Sheila hoped it was nice and heavy. Cinque cracked open one of the quarts of Colt.45 and lit a cigarette while Crystal carried the remaining stuff into the kitchen, where the fat white one right away started making sandwiches. She was pretty nice, the only one didn’t creep around like she was in a museum of black people or something. Sheila asked for two sandwiches for Timmy and Tony right away, then called them in from the front room, where they were watching cartoons with the white man. The kids ate a sandwich and Charles Gates had one and Crystal too and the pile of sandwiches for Cinque and the white people looked pretty skinny, but the fat one didn’t seem to mind too much. Sheila took another nerve pill.
Charles Gates took his sandwich into the front room, where he stood eating it, looking on as Cinque and the white dude watched the street through the windows. Cinque spoke to him without turning around.
“You think you could find us a cheap van or station wagon? Just buy it from whoever?”
“Well, I could look around.”
“Just need to run, that’s all.” Cinque reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. He counted out ten twenties, two fifties, and two hundreds.
Charles Gates suddenly had this great entrepreneurial idea: He’d call around to friends on behalf of the SLA, offering fifty dollars for the afternoon’s use of their car, and then offer copious apologies when the SLA disappeared with it. It was such a sweet idea he started right away, walking to the pay phone down at Sam’s. Hey, man, I said it’s for the SLA! No takers, though, and they all gave him shit about it. Think I’m lying? He walked back to the house, fingering the cash in his pocket, to tell Cinque he’d try again later. He’d hold on to the money, right, just in case he had to make a deal quick.
Dead Drop 2
MABE’S, NORMANDIE AVENUE
Mmmmm-hmm. So I say, I’m a tell you what you need to do, girl. You better watch your mouth. Mmmmm-hmm. ’Cause I don’t want to hear that. ‘Cause that’s some feeb excuses. ’Cause that’s bull. I never had no problems getting in the movies. I hand them they money and they say, Come on in, Sharifa, same as everbody else. And she say, she say, Why you don’t believe me? See my ticket? Show me some raggedy-ass stub she be picking up off the ground somewheres. This here girl a genius of deception, I tell you. Mmmmm-hmm. And she goes, they say I dressed in-appropriate. And I say of course you are dressed in-appropriately. You dressed inappropriate ly in here. You dressed in-appropriately when you be going down to the church. You dressed in-appropriately when you lying on your sofa at your house. You are a in-appropriate person by in large, you knowm saying? That’s why my momma tell me not to book around with you when we kids. That’s why you pregnant when you eighteen, fool. Mmmmm-hmm. That’s why you gots four kids and no money. Mmmmm-hmm. But they let anybody in the movies. They let Woolsy in and he a screamer. They let gang kids in and they be ripping on the seats with they knives. And I give you five dollars to be taking my kids to the matinee, and I want to know where it’s at and what you did with them when they wasn’t at the movies like I said. I’m sorry, I just saying the truth ’cause God don’t like a liar and God don’t like ugly. That’s what I tell her.
Honey, what can I get you?
Just coffee? Honey, you look hungry!
All right, all right, just axing ’cause you look like you need a real meal.
In there. Uh-huh.
Damn, they got a what you call, Hamburger Hamlet, right up near the Forum if she only want to eat where the white people at.
Well, if she just need to take a pee, I let her. Not like some cheap white restaurant lady.