Major grinned. “You know, line somebody, haul out you nine and… ” With his thumb and forefinger he mimicked shooting a handgun.
“Ah,” I said. “Of course.”
“What kind of sub you sell?” Hawk said.
“Grain, glass, classic, Jock, motor, harp, what you need is what we got.”
Hawk looked at me. “Grass,” he said. “Rock cocaine, regular powdered coke, heroin.” He looked at Major. “What’s motor? Speed?”
“Un huh.”
“And PCP,” Hawk finished.
“You think I didn’t know that?” I said.
“What do you use?” Hawk said.
“We don’t use that shit, man. You think we use that? We see what it does to people, man. We ain’t stupid.”
“So what do you use?” Hawk said.
“Beverage, Fro. I already tol‘ you that. Some Mogen, some Juke, hot day maybe, some six. You use something?”
“I drink the blood of my enemies,” Hawk said and smiled his wide happy smile. His eyes never left Major.
“Whoa,” Major said. “That is dope, man!” He turned toward the others. “Is this a fresh dude? Did I tell you he was bad? The blood of the fucking enemies-shit!”
“How many people you lined?” Shoe asked Hawk.
Hawk looked at him as if he hadn’t spoken.
“I killed me a Jeek, last month,” Shoe said. “Motherfucker tried to stiff me on a buy and I nined him right there.” Shoe nodded toward the barren blacktop playground across the street. There were iron swing sets without swings, and a half-moon metal backboard with no hoop. The metal was shiny in the rain, and the blacktop gleamed with false promise.
“Doing much business since we here?” Hawk said.
“Do business when we want to,” Major said.
“Who’s your truck?” Hawk said.
Major looked at me for a minute and back at Hawk.
“Tony Marcus,” he said proudly. Hawk smiled even more widely.
“Really,” he said.
“You know him?” Major said.
“Un huh,” Hawk said. “My associate here once punched him in the mouth.”
The entire semicircle was silent for a moment. For all their ferocity they were kids. And a man who had punched Tony Marcus, and survived, got their attention.
“You do that?” Major said.
“He annoyed me,” I said.
“I don’t believe you done that,” Major said.
I shrugged.
We were quiet for a while standing in the rain. “Where the sly?” Major said. “She don’t like us no more?”
“Why should she be different?” Hawk said.
“This mean we not going to be on TV?”
Hawk was quiet for a moment. He looked at Major while he was being quiet.
“We need to talk,” Hawk said finally.
“What the fuck we doing, man?”
“Now, right now, you’re profiling,” Hawk said. “And I’m being bored.”
“You bored, man, whyn’t you put your motherfucking ass someplace else, then?”
“Why don’t you and me sit in the car, out of the rain, and we talk?” Hawk said.
You could tell that Major liked that-he and Hawk as equals, the two commanders conferring while the troops stood in the rain. Besides, it was a Jaguar sedan with leather upholstery.
“No reason to get wet,” Major said.
Hawk opened the back door and Major got in. Hawk got in after him. He grinned at me as he got in. I stayed outside the car, with the shotgun, staring at about nineteen hostile gangbangers, in the rain, which was coming harder.
