with the car's vibrations against his pale skin. The driver's passenger, a black man wearing a do-rag and a cold stare, drew hard on a joint, its sweet, pungent odor leaking out of the car. He burned the joint down to his knuckle and passed the butt to the driver.
The light changed, Mason popping the clutch, jumping out to put distance between him and the Caprice. The Caprice kept pace, escorting Mason to the next light at 18th Street, then roaring ahead, cutting in front of Mason just before they reached the intersection.
Mason slammed on his brakes, leaning on his horn, not stopping before the front bumper of the TR-6 kissed the rear of the Caprice. The passenger jumped out, sprinting to Mason's car. He leapt into the seat next to Mason, pointing a gun at Mason's belly.
It was a smoothly executed car-jacking, over in seconds and witnessed by no one. Mason was smart enough not to resist. 'You want the car?' Mason asked, keeping his hands on the wheel. 'You can have the car. Just leave me the burnt ends.'
'Don't want this pussy piece of shit,' the gunman said. 'Want your sorry ass.' He jabbed Mason in the ribs with the barrel of his gun. 'Now shut the fuck up and follow my man.'
The light turned green and the Caprice pulled away, its music suddenly muted, drawing no attention as they turned east on 18th. The gunman rode with his back against the passenger door, both hands gripping his pistol, staying out of Mason's reach. Mason doubted that he was the victim of a random street crime, certain now that Centurion Johnson had played him like a chump from the beginning.
Centurion had worked Mason with a velvet glove, stroking him and threatening him until Mason brought him the ledger, using Terry Nix as a cover. Mason imagined Centurion watching from a safe distance, laughing as Mason put his ragtop-and his guard-down. Mason would have to wait for a rematch with Centurion. In the meantime, he tried the gunman.
'You meet a lot of nice people in your line of work?' Mason asked.
The gunman motioned with his pistol to the road ahead, silently telling Mason to watch where he was going. Mason knew where they were going-into the East Side where Centurion and his Ebony and Ivory carjacking team would have the home-court advantage. Mason swerved to avoid a pothole that the Caprice rode over without fanfare. The gunman rolled with the car's pitch, casting an anxious look at the street, then pressing the barrel of his gun under Mason's armpit.
'Easy, slick,' Mason said. 'The car has a low ground clearance. I hit a pothole like that one and we'll have to tow the car out of it. I'm not going to turn stupid and give you an excuse to use that thing, so relax and tell me where we're meeting Centurion.'
'I tole you before,' the gunman said. 'Shut the fuck up and drive. That's all you gotta do. You do that, and I won't shoot your ass.'
The Caprice turned north a couple of miles east of downtown, following a maze of side streets and alleys until the only thing Mason was certain of was that he wasn't in Kansas anymore. The neighborhood had its own measure of darkness, devoid of streetlights and porch lights, illuminated only by passing headlights. The few houses Mason could make out had barred or boarded doors, overgrown yards, and no candles in the windows.
The Caprice pulled to a curb in the middle of a blacked-out street, Mason easing to a stop behind him, his passenger sitting up, tightening the grip on his gun. The driver of the Caprice walked toward Mason, a gun in one hand, his other hand behind his back, hiding something worse than the gun.
Mason tallied his odds. His passenger was too far away to jump without getting a bullet for his trouble. The driver was three steps away, close enough for a fatal shot. Mason squeezed the steering wheel, screaming inside at the futility of dying without trying, smelling his own sweat.
The passenger lunged at Mason as his partner reached the TR-6, jamming the barrel of his gun under Mason's chin. 'Hold real still,' he said, blowing dope breath in Mason's mouth. The driver stuck his gun in his belt, showing Mason the black bag he'd been hiding behind his back, shaking the bag open, pulling it over Mason's head, clotting his vision.
The bag reeked of a medicinal scent. Mason gasped and gagged, the rough fabric against his face. His sweat turned cold as a suffocating panic swept over him. He tore at the bag, trying to rip it from his face, the dark water taking him.
Consciousness came in painful pieces. Voices floated overhead, out of reach. Mason wanted to move, but couldn't, his head too heavy, his body too weak. Someone was playing a drum, he thought, until he recognized the internal percussion throbbing between his ears. Movement came to his arms and legs, whether by his own effort or others he couldn't tell, still struggling to open his eyes. Blinking at last in the dim light of a squalid room, knocked back by the stench of foul, dead air, he found the floor with his hands, then a wall behind him, then a hazy face in front of him.
'You not dead,' the face said.
'Too early to tell,' Mason said. 'Where am I?'
The face came into focus. It belonged to a boy sitting cross-legged on the floor, his round black face faintly familiar. 'My room,' the boy said.
'Are you dead?' Mason asked.
'Not yet,' the boy said.
'Then I guess I'm not dead yet either.'
Mason looked around, getting his bearings. The room was small, barely big enough for the mattress on the floor, a dresser missing its top drawer in one corner, a pile of dirty clothes in another, a poster of Shaq and Kobe on one wall, crumbling Sheetrock and exposed wiring on another. Black plastic trash bags were tacked around a window, shutting out the light that crept around the edges, catching dust mites.
'You got a name?' Mason asked the boy.
'Donnell,' the boy answered.
'You got a bathroom, Donnell?'
The boy smiled. 'You're funny,' he said, offering Mason his hand, helping Mason to his feet. 'Come on.'
The bathroom was in a hall outside Donnell's bedroom. There was a mirror above the sink with fluorescent lights on each side, the left side burnt out, the right side flickering like a gray candle. Donnell stood in the doorway, gazing up at Mason with unblinking eyes as if he'd made a grand discovery, finding a white man dead on the floor in his bedroom, miraculously resurrected.
'Give me a minute,' Mason told the boy, closing the door. He wasn't surprised when the toilet didn't flush or when the water ran from the sink faucet with a rusty hue. It was enough to be alive, even if he didn't know why. It was enough to be in Donnell's house, even if he didn't know where it was. And it was oddly comforting that the boy was familiar to him, even if he couldn't place him. He opened the bathroom door, pleased that Donnell was waiting for him.
'Donnell, are there any other grown-ups here?' Donnell nodded. 'Where are they?' Donnell pointed down the stairs at the end of the narrow hall. 'How many?' Donnell shrugged. 'You forget how to talk?' Donnell shook his head, giggling. The door to another bedroom opened and a stick-thin black woman called to the boy.
'Donnell, what you doin'? Get outta this hall!'
She grabbed the boy by the collar and dragged him back to his room, closing the door behind him. She leaned against the door, one hand on the knob, exhausted by the effort. A thin black dress, shapeless against her bony frame, hung on her like a sheet on a clothesline. Her eyes were dull, but Mason caught something in her look, the same familiarity he'd seen in the boy.
'Varonda? Is that you?' Mason asked.
'I didn't think you'd remember me,' she said. 'Be better if you forgot.'
'It hasn't been that long,' Mason said. 'What, nine, ten months? You were charged with possession with the intent to sell. I got you into a diversion program. Donnell was in court with you. That's why I recognized him.'
'He's a good boy, but he don't mind me like he should.'
'It's hard for a kid to stay in a dark room. Why does he have to stay in there?'
'Only safe place in a crack house like this,' she said, looking over Mason's shoulder.
Mason heard footsteps on the stairs as she spoke. He turned in time to see the passenger from the Caprice standing at the top of the stairs, his gun pointed at him again.
'Thought you was never wakin' up,' the man said.
