him up alongside the head and make it good. He’s got a head as hard as h bowling balls.’
‘Got it.’
‘Anybody gives you any shit, show them some bronze. Then wait for me.’
Sharky nodded. He went back to the concession stand1 and watched Arch Livingston walk to the red exit door, his hands loose at his sides, striding on the balls of his feet like a prizefighter.
Sharky smiled at Cherry. ‘Just you and me, pal,’ he said:
and Cherry said, ‘Right, brother. You and me.’
Livingston disappeared through the door.
Livingston stepped cautiously through the exit door into what was the second floor of the parking garage. The entrance was one deck below on a side street. A noisy car elevator dominated the core of the building, surrounded by numbered parking places. Most of them were full. From somewhere close by, Stevie Wonder’s plaintive voice’ lamented the sorrows of ‘Livin’ for the City’.
Livingston moved slowly along the rows of cars, holding his .38 down at his side. The music grew louder. He stopped behind a pale green Lincoln. A black man wearing a floppy white bat and a silver grey full-length suede coat sat in the front seat with the door open, beating his knees in time with the music, a .32 Special lying on the dashboard a few inches from his hands.
Livingston moved around the car until he was directly behind the gunman. It was then he recognized him as a young tough named Elroy Flowers. ‘Keep your hands on your knees and —,
He never finished. Flowers moved unexpectedly and with the agility of a greyhound, swinging both legs out of the door as he reached for his pistol. It was a mistake. Livingston slammed the car door, smashing Flowers’s ankles between the door and the jamb, and swung his pistol in a wide overhead arc down on top of Flowers’s head. The felt hat deadened the blow but not enough. The half-conscious gunman grunted, reaching out blindly with one hand and knocking the pistol to the floor of the car.
Livingston grabbed a handful of Flowers’s shirt and coat, swung him out of the car, spun him around, and slammed him against the hood. He put the flat of his hand against Flowers’s head and shoved him hard into the window of the Lincoln.
The window cracked and Flowers’s eyes went blank. He sighed and dropped straight to the floor. Livingston dragged him by his shirt front across the floor and into the car elevator, dropping him face down on the metal floor. He pushed the up button and then jumped off the elevator and ran across the parking deck to the fire steps, taking them two at a time as he raced to the third floor.
The elevator shuddered, groaned, and started rising. On the third floor another black man was leaning against the fender of a cream-coloured Rolls-Royce. He was bigger, more dangerous, than Flowers, a blockhouse of a man in a dark blue suit. He was reading a racing form which he tucked under his arm as the elevator started up. He walked casually towards it. Behind him Livingston stepped through the third-floor door and leaned against the back of a parked car, holding his .38 in both hands and aiming it at the centre of the big man’s back.
The big man peered down into the slowly rising elevator and saw Flowers lying on the floor.
‘Hunh?’ he said. His hand slipped under his coat, reaching for his armpit.
‘Don’t do nothin’ stupid, nigger,’ Livingston yelled. ‘I got softnose loads in this piece.’
The big man turned towards him but kept his hand inside his jacket.
‘Bring it out slow and easy, motherfucker. You do anything sudden, I put a hole in your belly big enough to park that Rolls in.’
The big man continued to stare. His hand stayed inside the coat. Doubt troubled his eyes as he calculated the odds.
‘Don’t get fancy, man. I’m the heat and I don’t miss.’
The rear window of the Rolls glided silently down and a voice that was part silk and part granite said, ‘Okay, Steamboat, cool it. I’ll talk to the man.’
The back door of the Rolls swung open. The man called Steamboat uncoiled and withdrew an empty hand.
Livingston peered over the .38 into the interior of the Rolls. It was a study in gaudy opulence. The seats were upholstered in mauve velvet with gold buttons. The floor was covered in ankle-deep white shag carpeting. Built into the back of the front seat were two white telephones, a bar:
and an icemaker. A bottle of Taittinger champagne sat on the bar shelf.
The man who sat in the corner arrogantly sipping champagne matched the decor. He was shorter than Livingston’ and looked younger, but he was beginning to show the signs of good living. His afro flared out, encircling his head like a halo, and his moustache was full and trimmed just below, the corners of his mouth. He was wearing a dark-blue, pigskin jacket, rust-coloured gabardine pants, and a flowered shirt open at the neck, the collar flowing out over the lapels of the jacket almost to his shoulders. Gold chains gleamed at his throat, diamonds twinkled on his fingers, a gold Rolex watch glittered from under one cuff. His mirror-shined shoes were light tan with three-inch hardwood heels. A white handkerchief flopped casually from his breast pocket. He stared at Livingston through gold-framed tinted glasses, then looked down at the .38 that was pointed at his chest.
‘You mind, nigger?’ he said, nodding towards the gun.
Livingston appraised the back seat, lowered his gun, and laughed.
‘Shit,’ he said, ‘I could get you ten to twenty for what you done to this poor Rolls.’
‘Get on in, goddammit. All my fuckin’ heat’s runnin’ outa here.’
Livingston got in and pulled the car door shut.
‘Been a long time, Zipper.’
‘Ain’t that the truth. Last time I saw you, you was wearin’ a fuckin’ monkey suit, sittin’ in the front seat of a goddamn patrol car. Bi-i-ig shit.’
