“I know you?” the man asks.
Jay holds up both hands to show he means no harm.
“Naw, man, I don’t know you,” he says.
“Then I guess you best get the fuck away from my car.”
“Sorry, man,” Jay mumbles, backing away and into the street, almost walking into the front end of a Honda hatchback going thirty-five miles an hour on Almeda. The driver punches his horn. Jay staggers back to his Buick. He pulls the grocery bag with him into the car, resting the carton of milk in his lap. Through the windshield, he watches the black guy across the street sliding into the front seat of the Ford LTD, which, on sec ond glance, Jay realizes, is dark blue.
Chapter 8
Sometime late, after midnight, Jay opens his eyes, sure he’s heard something, a noise inside the apartment. He turns over in dark ness, but can’t make out the lines on the clock by his bed. He reaches for his gun. He’s up and into the hallway in a matter of seconds, into the kitchen before he realizes the phone is ringing. The noise he heard. It rings a second time. Jay flips the light switch and looks at the clock above the stove: 2:37. The phone rings again. This hour, the news can’t be good. He fears this is the moment he’s been dreading. “Jay.”
His wife is standing behind him in the doorway, her faded brown robe around her shoulders. She’s staring at him: blood shot eyes, hair mashed to one side, a .22 in his hand. Her look is something past concern. She actually seems afraid of him. The phone rings again. Bernie goes to answer it. Jay picks it up first. He turns his back to her and clears his throat, speaking into the phone with a clear, calm voice, one he uses for juries . . . and cops. “This is Jay Porter.”
“Son, you got to come out here.”
It’s his father-in-law, wide awake.
Jay feels relief at first, thinking this is another legal service call, another kid in trouble. He sets the gun on the kitchen table, reaches for pen and paper.
“You hear me, Jay?” his father-in-law asks. “They shooting out here.”
“What’s that?”
“They shot up a house on Market Street, man’s wife and kids sleeping in the next room. By a miracle, a sheer miracle, they wasn’t hit.”
“Who? Who’s shooting?”
“ILA.”
“Jesus,” Jay mumbles, forgetting for a moment who he’s talk ing to.
Then he asks, “How do you know for sure it was—”
“They’ve been harassing these boys all week, son, after every meeting. The union’s gon’ vote on this thing soon, and some of the ILA are bent to see it come out their way. This boy here, man’s house I’m in, he’s been getting calls all week, saying what they gon’ do to him and his family if he votes for the strike. There are shells everywhere, broken glass right in the man’s liv ing room.”
“You call the police?” Jay asks. He glances at his wife, not wanting to alarm her, knowing she’s listening to every word.
“We’re waiting on ’em now. But we’re not gon’ see this go down like the last time. They got to take us seriously this time. We need a lawyer down here.”
“Now?”
“They almost killed the man, Jay, his wife and kids, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The police have got to know there’s gon’ be some repercus sions if they don’t do their part to protect these men. You under stand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jay looks at his wife, wondering how he’s going to explain this to her, him leaving at three o’clock in the morning. “It’s your father,” he whispers.
Bernie seems to understand at once. He doesn’t belong to only her.
She turns and pads softly out of the room.
She’s sitting up in bed when he gets off the phone. He returns the gun to its hiding place beneath his pillow, then puts on the same clothes he was wearing only a few hours ago. “Union boys are running into some trouble,” he says, his voice thin with fatigue. “I’m driving out to the north side.” He slips on his dress shoes, putting on the costume, knowing he ought to at least look the part.
“You got to stop this, Jay.”
Only she’s not talking about the phone call, him leaving in the middle of the night. “You can’t grab a gun every time the phone rings,” she says. “I can’t have this around my kid, Jay.” Then, a whisper, “I won’t.”
“Don’t start that now.”
“You’re not right, Jay.”
He stands in the middle of the room, eyes on his shoes.
Bernie looks up at her husband, her voice halting. “You’re not . . . right.”
Jay slides his wallet into the back pocket of his slacks.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” he says.
“I figured that part out already,” his wife says.
