Didn’t keep him from noticing, though. Noticing the kid on his way to school every day, take his books, try to keep his raggedy self clean. Didn’t cut school like the rest of them no-accounts. Rex wished he’d thought more about that himself, wished he’d kept up his schooling. Well, too late now. No, no one gave that Landry boy nothing but he kept trying. That’s what Rex noticed.
The night the trouble all started, he noticed another thing. Noticed wasn’t none of that crew on the corner when he come home. Seeing as the only way they could spend more time in that spot would be to drag their mattresses out and sleep there, it was damned unusual to see the streetlight and the mailbox standing by themselves.
Next thing he noticed, he was nearly at the stoop when the Landry boy burst out from the door. He looked wildly both ways, his eyes hitting Rex’s. They had a look, asking for something, begging even.
“You okay?” Rex asked. First time he spoke to the kid.
The kid shook his head. He wetted his lips, like they was too dry for him to talk. Seemed to try to make words, but nothing come out.
“Chill, son,” said Rex. “Something wrong? Tell me.”
The kid moved his lips some more, but still there wasn’t no sound. He shook his head again and charged down the stairs. He raced away, sneakers slapping concrete. Rex stared after.
Thing Rex noticed next, someone was pounding on his door.
First, he was confused. He was back inside, he thought. It was early on, and some damn C.O. was thumping his cell door, telling him if he didn’t come out now he wasn’t gonna get no dinner, fuck if he ain’t hungry, see how hungry he be by morning.
But the pounding kept coming and Rex woke up. He blinked around his room, small and with roaches all over but he could come and go and eat any damn time he wanted.
Grateful for a minute for the noise waking him from that nightmare.
Then some yelling, “Police! Open up!”
Shit, he thought.
He yelled back, “Yeah!” He fought past the sheets, tight around him like they was tying him to the bed. “Okay, okay!”
He slid the chain and threw the bolt.
“Rex Jones?” One white guy, one black, both in suits, saying his name like a question but it wasn’t. They introduced themselves as Detectives Something and Something Else. They pushed in without asking, Something talking to distract him while Something Else looked around.
They couldn’t touch nothing without a warrant. Anyone grew up in Harlem learned that with their mother’s milk.
They had a warrant, they’d have waved it in his face right away. And plus, if they turned his place upside down there was still nothing to find. That was a fact, but he felt the sweat on his lip just the same.
“A few questions,” Something Else said, while Something smiled. The one talking was the black one, he had shiny white teeth. When the white one smiled he showed stained brown teeth. Like they was negatives of each other, Rex thought, and missed the question, didn’t even know they’d asked one until the room got quiet. Hell, he thought, and he said, “Say again?”
“Come on, Rex, it’s not hard. What did Tick Landry say to you this afternoon?”
“The Landry boy? He ain’t said nothing.”
“When you came in, he was going out. Running out, like he was doing something bad. He was, Rex. He ditched a gun that killed an old lady who wouldn’t give up her handbag. Where’s the gun, Rex?”
“How the hell I’m supposed to know?”
“Isn’t that what he told you?”
“Ain’t told me nothing. Just stood a minute, then went on down the steps. You telling me he killed a old lady?”
“We sure are.”
“No way he done that. He all right, that kid. Gotta have been one of his boys.”
“Well, you could be right, Rex. Have to say this, though: Doesn’t matter much to us. That whole crew’s garbage and we’re gonna sweep ’em up. Might be another one who shot the old lady, but Landry’s the one who was running scared that night. That’s what we call ‘suspicious behavior’ in our line of work. All we have to do now is connect him up with that gun. Only we don’t have the gun.”
“I sure as hell ain’t got it either.”
“But he told you where it was.”
“Fuck he did. Why would he do that?”
“Those boys, they look up to you. You did a dime at Greenhaven, Rex; that makes you someone on this block. Maybe you’re even running with them, in a fatherly way.”
“Me? Nuh-uh, man. I’m clean since I got out.” The sweat started on his lip again, and his back, too.
“Are you? You’d better be. Let me tell you something.” The cop stopped smiling. “I was new in this precinct when you went in. I’ve seen a lot of garbage like you go in and come out over the years, and I’m getting goddamn tired of it. In and out, in and out. I’m telling you: If you’re running with these boys, Rex, my man, you are fucked.”
That was the first day. The second day was pretty much the same. He found the pair of them waiting on the stoop when he got home from work.
“Where’s the gun, Rex?” This time it was Something, the white one, doing the talking. Rex preferred the black one, if they was gonna smile. All them brown teeth, shee-it.
“I don’t know.”
“Three people across the street swear you and the kid had a talk when he ran out of here. What did you talk about?
Not the gun, then what? The old lady, maybe, how it felt when he pulled the trigger?”
“Didn’t talk about nothing. Kid just move his mouth around, like he got words in there ain’t coming out. Then he go on down the stairs. Like I told you yesterday.”
“Yeah, that’s what you told us. We’re just having trouble believing you, is all.”
“Ain’t my fault.”
“Well, but see, what it is gonna be, it’s gonna be your problem, if you don’t start making sense soon. Like I told
“Across the street? What the hell kind of witnesses is that?”
The detective put his arm around Rex, like they was old pals. Rex felt the pressure building. He made himself not move.
“See, Rex,” the brown teeth said, “you’re on parole. Any trouble you get in now-like, say, assaulting an officer who’s just being friendly-that could be bad. What do you have, another eight left?” His free hand brushed dust from Rex’s jacket. “Rex, we want that gun. You say you don’t know where it is. We don’t believe you, but it could be. You might consider making it your business to know.”
“What the hell do that mean?”
The cop shrugged. “These boys. They look up to you. That’s all I’m saying.”
The third day they showed up at his job.
“Rex? You in trouble?” His boss came into the boiler room where Rex was laying down sawdust to soak up spilled oil.
“No,” he said, and added, “sir.”
Before he went in he was a carpenter. Used to build things, good solid things. Something real-something wouldn’t be, wasn’t for him. Coming out, world was different. Not easy for ex-cons to find work, and no chance of getting back in the union. But one of the contractors used to hire him from time to time, he had a cousin, super at a fancy East Side building. The cousin put Rex on the maintenance crew. Now he spread sawdust and hauled the garbage out.
“Because there’s two cops here,” his boss said. “They want to talk to you.”
Shit, Rex thought, but he didn’t say it, just went out to the service alley. “What you doing here?” he said into the two smiles.
“We want that gun, Rex.”
