Pistol Poets

watched him come. Zach carried a small canvas gym bag.

Red Zach had hair the color of a fire engine. Not natural, of course. Zach was a broad-shouldered, light- skinned black man with a pencil-thin beard also dyed red. He had sharp features, a pointed nose. Story around was Zach had some white blood in him somehow.

Jenks heard Zach clanging halfway up. Red Zach wore an impressive collection of gold chains and bracelets, a brown pin-striped suit that cost more money than Jenks saw in a month.

By the time Zach reached the fifth floor he was huffing and puffing pretty good.

“You know I’d climb down,” Jenks said.

“Better up here,” Zach said. “We can see if the cops come in either side of the alley and have plenty of time to dump the stuff. Besides”-Zach grinned big, capped teeth, white-“I need the exercise once in a while.” He patted the beginnings of a slight paunch under his suit.

Zach opened the gym back and showed Jenks the contents. It was full of little clear Baggies of white powder, prepackaged for street distribution. Jenks’s job was to ferry the stuff to the bartenders and hairdressers and street pushers who distributed the stuff in his area. Jenks knew he was looking at a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of junk.

“Here you go, Harold.” Zach handed over the bag. “You know what to do with it.”

“Right.”

“You okay?”

“I’m good.”

“You don’t seem like yourself,” Zach said. “You down? Got some kind of woman trouble?” He nudged Jenks, laughed.

“I’m just tired.”

“Uh-huh. Where’s your boy Spoon today?”

“I didn’t bring him.”

“Shit, I know that. That’s why I asked where he is.”

“Went to see his sister and her kids. Going to eat Chinese with them.”

Zach leaned on the rail, looked down into the alley, then out across St. Louis. “You know I been keeping an eye on you, Harold. You’re doing good work, and I’ve noticed that. I need loyal men on my team. You keep clearheaded and put in your time, and I’ll do right by you. You know what I’m saying?”

“I know.”

“I could send one of my boys up the ladder with the stuff if I wanted, but I come up here to talk to you personal. I’m bringing you along. You hear what I’m saying?”

“I hear you.” Jenks looked up at the gangster. “You know I appreciate it, Red.”

Zach nodded, squeezed Jenks’s shoulder. “Okay. You stay cool and I’ll check you later.”

Red Zach climbed back down the ladder. Jenks watched him get back into the limo with his boys. Jenks lit another Blunt, inhaled long and slow, watched the limo glide quiet out of the alley like smoke on the wind.

Back at Jenks’s shabby apartment, he threw the gym bag on the bed, looked at it for a long time.

For two years he’d been Red Zach’s boy. He knew Red was right. If he stayed tight, he’d eventually have a fine ride, a Caddy or a BMW. He’d have fine clothes, bitches that did whatever he said simply because he was Red’s boy.

But Jenks kept seeing Ellis’s eyes when Spoon had stabbed him. In one angry motion, Spoon had taken away everything the boy was, everything he’d worked for. And Jenks was to blame too. He’d been there.

Jenks pulled his big army surplus duffel bag out from under the bed. He packed his clothes, packed everything he valued, and threw away the rest.

And he took Red Zach’s gym bag too.

Red Zach sat in the back of his limo, mute goons on either side of him. The limo cruised the decay of East St. Louis’s side streets. He had more stops to make. A big day of pimping and gangstering.

He pulled out the latest copy of Esquire from between the seat cushions. There was a clothing advertisement which featured a square-jawed black man in denim. Stonewashed. Snakeskin boots. The jacket matched the jeans, and the black man had one leg up on some rocks, a mountain view in the background with an SUV off to the side. Zach couldn’t decide if the man in denim looked rugged or like a fag.

He thought about elbowing one of his goons, showing him the ad and asking what he thought. Never mind. It was no good talking to these guys. They didn’t do talk. And Zach couldn’t risk his image anyway. These boneheads expected him to strut around in ridiculous outfits and spit out homeboy talk. Fine. He’d put on the act for the troops. Whatever.

But Zach didn’t bust his hump to clear a high six figures a year just to waste away in the hood. He had reservations in Aspen. He wanted to catch Don Giovanni before the season ended. He’d recently become a gold-level member of the St. Louis Art Museum and there was a cocktail reception at the end of the month.

He needed some new clothes.

And some new acquaintances. He was surrounded by troops and his crew, but not pals. These leg-breaking motherfuckers were useful, but not good company.

Harold Jenks was a little different. That boy had something. A quality. But Zach noticed something was off. Jenks had something on his mind. And when a brother didn’t have his mind right, things could go bad.

five

Three beers later, and Morgan left Valentine’s office, drifted back down to the inhabited floors of Albatross Hall. No sign of Ginny.

Morgan felt woozy. Beer on an empty stomach, and he still wasn’t in top shape from the night before. He needed to go home, get a bite to eat. He needed to shower again after the cloying experience of Valentine’s smoke-filled office.

On the way out of the building he heard Ginny’s high, clear voice chasing after him. “Professor Morgan!”

He ran to the parking lot, started his car, and almost smacked a coed while backing out of his space. In his rearview mirror, he saw Ginny fumble with car keys, gallop toward a half-rusted, silver Toyota. Morgan gunned the Buick, squealed the tires, and scraped pavement on his way out of the parking lot.

He tangled himself in traffic on Garth Brooks Boulevard but thought he could still see her a dozen cars back. He yanked the Buick down a side street, found himself in a maze of student slums. He came out on Old Highway 12 and made the long, slow curve back to the house he rented. Morgan kept an eye in the rearview mirror, lips curving smug and satisfied when he didn’t see Ginny’s car.

Not today, junior newshound.

Morgan shuffled back into his little house. Not even 11 A.M. and he was beat, a little nauseous, skin slick with alcohol sweat. He’d begun the semester recklessly, unprepared. He didn’t even have syllabi finished for his two undergrad classes.

Sleep. He’d sleep away the rest of the day and start fresh tomorrow. And exercise. Sit-ups. He’d start doing sit-ups. He was a wreck.

“You look like shit, Doc.”

Morgan leapt back against the door, yelped, a high-pitched bleat like a puppy or a little girl.

“Take it easy, Doc.” It was Fred Jones. He perched like a ghost in the shadowy corner of Morgan’s living room, a bony apparition in a billowy sweater, sitting in a wooden rocker but not rocking.

“You can’t just barge into a guy’s house,” Morgan said.

“Whittaker sprang the deal on you,” said Jones. “I understand that. You wasn’t ready, so I figured I’d come talk to you one-on-one.”

Morgan had almost forgotten. He’d agreed to participate in something and wasn’t sure what it was. Still,