116
I let Pansy out to her roof, ignoring her attitude because I came home without a treat.
I never have to ask myself why something scares me. So much does. A child doesn't fear death— doesn't understand what it is. A child fears pain. Immediate pain. The terror is to remember.
The freaks count on it.
117
I walked all the way to Chinatown the next morning. Stopped at a bakery for a bag of small hard poppy-seed rolls. Chewed them slowly, one at a time. To settle my stomach. Stopped again at a greengrocer, got a handful of fresh parsley and cold bottle of pineapple juice. Sipped it slowly, crossing the still-wet streets, watching.
By the time I got near Mama's, I was munching the parsley, cleaning out my mouth.
The Plymouth was parked in the alley, the rear end too close to the wall. Max could catch flies in the air without hurting them, but he couldn't drive worth a damn.
I knocked on the back door, thinking about Luke in the basement. How basements used to frighten him.
About last night.
One of Mama's crew let me in, nodded his head toward the dining area.
Max was in my booth, the Prof across from him. The little man was rapping away, waving his hands like it was sign language.
I sat down next to Max. One of the waiters brought me a glass of water, went away.
'How'd it go, bro'?' the Prof greeted me.
'Okay. It was okay. I gave them their property. We're all square.' I didn't bother to ask him how he knew about the meeting.
I looked over at Max. Spread my hands in a 'what?' gesture. He nodded. Rapid-fire universal gestures, the kind you can use anywhere in the world: thumb rubbed against first two fingers, finger pointing straight ahead, same finger making small circles next to his temple. Then he made the sign for 'okay.' He gave the money to the crazy man, no problems.
The Prof wasn't satisfied yet. 'Come on, homeboy. What was the scene with the Queen? What'd she say— how'd it play?'
I ran it all down to him, gesturing for Max. After all these years, I could do it pretty fast. If Max doesn't get something, he lets me know.
'You know what I was thinking, Prof? How I wasn't scared…you understand? I'm in a basement in Corona, some kind of voodoo temple. They decide to do something to me, I'm gone. Nobody'd even hear a shot on that block. Nobody'd care. But I'm calm. From the beginning. Like nothing's gonna happen to me.'
'Her game's not pain, bro'.'
'Yeah. You believe…? I mean…you understand what she told me?'
'All preachers the same, Burke. They say what makes the people pay.'
'You think it's a hustle?'
'You think it's all different names for the same thing?'
'Afterwards? Here's the truth…you won't know until you go.'
I saw Wesley. In a fiery pit, the stare from his dead eyes chilling the air, the Devil backing into a corner, afraid.
118
I drove to the South Bronx by myself. Muddy Waters for a soundtrack. A live performance from the fifties, taped in Chicago. The Master, still fresh from the Delta then, getting it down right. Shouting about catching the first train smoking. Nobody in the audience thought he was planning to buy a ticket.
The last cut on the tape. 'Bad Luck Child.'
Terry let me inside, his small face animated with news.
'I got a letter from Mom. She's learning modern dance. She said she'd show me when she comes back.'
'Yeah? She tell you to mind the Mole?'
'Sort of. She said to watch out for him. To go with him, when he goes outside but…
'But not when he goes with me, right?'
'Yes. But…'
'It's okay, Terry. I'm not taking the Mole anywhere. I just need to ask him some stuff.'
119
The Mole was peering intently into a glass beaker the size of a mason jar, surgical gloves on his hands. I looked over his shoulder. A jet-black spider in a triangular web, a fat bulbous teardrop, glistening. The Mole slowly rotated the jar. On the spider's underside, a bright red hourglass. Black widow.
He took a pair of metal tweezers from his shirt pocket, plucked a piece of white spongy material from his workbench. The white stuff was maybe half the size of the nail on my little finger, a monofilament line strung through it. He took the screen off the top of the beaker, grabbed the line, held the white lump delicately poised over
