He doesn’t notice the headlights in his rearview mirror right away, at least they don’t mean anything to him at first. It’s not until he’s exiting the I-10 freeway, going south on Lockwood, that he gets the feeling again, the sour ripple at the base of his chest, the tickle in his gut. He looks in the rearview mirror and realizes the square white lights have been behind him for some time, on the freeway and now here on Lockwood Drive. He tries to keep his nerves on an even keel as he glides into the right lane, waiting for the car to pass. The driver stays behind him, in the left lane, keeping a steady pace. Jay slows, then speeds up, then slows again. But no matter what move he makes, the driver stays on his tail, eventually sliding into the right lane, directly behind Jay. Its headlights blast through the Buick’s back window, bounc ing off his rearview mirror and momentarily blinding Jay. He can’t tell the make or model of the other car, can’t see the driver’s face from here. In his mind’s eye, he pictures a black Ford, a white male at the wheel, and wonders again if the guy is a cop, if he ought to pull over.
When Market Street comes up on the right, Jay makes a sharp turn without signaling, his car fishtailing widely as he speeds onto Market. He cranks the wheel heavily to the left to keep from slipping into a steep ditch lining the side of the narrow road. When he finally manages to straighten the car, he looks into his rearview mirror. The square white headlights are behind him still.
Up ahead, past Phillis Wheatley High School, Jay sees half a dozen cars parked in front of a graying wood- frame house. There are lights on in the neighbors’ front windows, folks peek ing from behind curtains to watch the commotion, the police activity on their block. There are two squad cars parked in front of the gray house and uniformed officers standing on the patchy lawn.
The car behind Jay stops suddenly in the middle of the road. Its headlights snap off.
Jay can finally make out the shape of the car, its long, boxy sil
houette. It’s a Ford LTD for sure, black as the night on all sides. The driver starts to back away from the house, away from the cops and the scene on the street, pivoting on the narrow road, almost dipping into the ditch on the left side to make the turn. The driver heads east, back toward Lockwood Drive, picking up speed. Whatever his business with Jay, he does not want to handle it here, in the company of others. This only deepens Jay’s apprehension, the nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach that the man in the black Ford means nothing but trouble.
He parks in front of the gray house, leaving his .38 in the glove box, and steps into the red-and-blue swirling haze of the cop cars. He recognizes some of the union men standing in the front yard. They’re smoking cigarettes and drinking out of mis matched cups. Somebody took the time to make coffee, to pass it around. This is union business now. Kwame Mackalvy is stand ing on the cracked driveway, arms folded across his chest. He’s talking to a young Hispanic woman who’s scribbling Kwame’s every word onto a notepad.
He called the fucking press, Jay thinks.
As he steps onto the grass, walking toward the front door of the house, a cop puts out a hand to stop him, landing a firm shove in the center of Jay’s chest.
“Who the hell are you?” the cop asks.
He’s a kid, black. Jay’s got ten years on him, at least.
The black cop cuts a look at his white partner, showing off. “I asked you a question,” he says, digging his finger into Jay’s sternum.
Jay is slow to answer the cop, resenting the need to justify himself to a kid who wouldn’t even have a job on the police force if it weren’t for the civil rights Jay’s generation marched and died for. “You want to take your hand off me?”
“What did you just say?” the cop barks.
Reverend Boykins crosses the patchy lawn. He’s in a suit and tie, impeccable, even at this hour. “This is Jay Porter, Officer. He’s a lawyer.”
These are the magic words. The cop releases Jay without another word.
Kwame Mackalvy waves Jay over to his spot on the driveway. “I got Sylvia Martinez from the
“No,” Jay says bluntly and without breaking his stride.
He walks up the cinder-block steps and into the house. Inside, the air is a good ten degrees hotter than it is outside, more humid too. There must be thirty people piled into the tiny house. Union men, neighbors, kids up past their bedtime. There’s a woman in a cotton nightgown crying on the couch, a man kneeled in front of her, holding her hand. He’s wearing nothing but blue jeans and house shoes. Jay walks to the family, speaking to the woman first. “You okay?” he asks.
She doesn’t look up or acknowledge where the voice is coming from. She simply nods, her eyes glazed over as she stares blankly through the hole in her front window, watching police officers pick up shotgun shells from her yard.
“Mr. Porter.” The man, young for a husband and father, stands, still gripping his wife’s hand. Jay recognizes him from the church meeting a few nights ago. “Donnie Simpson,” the man says. “ ’Preciate you coming out here.”
Jay nods, shaking the man’s hand. “What happened?”
“Three shots, right through that window.”
“Nobody was hit?” Jay asks.
“No, sir. The kids was sleep in the bedroom with us.”
Across the room there are two little girls and an older boy in T-shirts and pajamas, sitting at a card table with a bowl of plastic fruit resting on top. They’re eating Frosted Flakes out of the box, the older boy doling out equal portions to his sisters. The girls are watching the cops, the excitement in the house. None of the kids is more than ten years old, all of them tall and lanky like their father.
“They stay out here on the let-out couch usually. But late summer like this, we keep them in the back room with us, where the window unit is.”
Jay nods, looking at the kids, thinking the same thing as Mr. Simpson.
“If they had been out here . . .” Donnie says, his voice low.
“You see who did it?”
“No, sir. We was sleep.”
“How do you know it was ILA?”
