'We
'Look, Nigel…'
'What?'
'I gotta see to my dog. She been inside all day.'
'Go ahead, then,' said Nigel. 'Don't be a stranger.'
Lorenzo and Nigel executed their old handshake, as natural as putting one foot in front of the other, then went forearm to chest. Lorenzo nodded at the two employees and crossed Georgia to his car.
'That your boy, huh,' said DeEric Green.
'Yes,' said Nigel, watching him go. He turned to Green and Butler. 'Y'all headin' out?'
'You got somethin' special you need us to do?' said Green.
'Just check on the troops and pick up the count. Tell the soldiers I realize they runnin' low, but I got a package comin' in later this week.' Nigel turned to Butler. 'Mind DeEric. Man's a veteran. You watch close, you gonna learn.'
Butler nodded. DeEric Green, energized by the compliment, got off the truck and stood straight.
'By the way,' said Nigel. 'My mother called me, said you brought her some of that Breyers. That was real nice.' Nigel looked from one to the other. 'Watch yourselves out there, you hear?'
Nigel went up the steps and entered his storefront door. DeEric Green and Michael Butler got in the Escalade.
Across the street, Lorenzo Brown pulled away from the curb and hit the gas. Through the intersection, parked just past Rittenhouse Street, he saw the same silver BMW from the dogfights over in Fort Dupont, and the two he'd encountered, Melvin Lee and his shadow, in the front seat. They turned their heads to stare straight ahead as he passed.
Lorenzo understood the codes of respect and disrespect, and the consequences of breaking same, but their minor confrontation at the dogfight hadn't seemed like it was all that big an incident. Not enough to warrant them tracking him down. Maybe they were there to watch Nigel and them. Lee did work for Deacon Taylor; leastways that's what Joe Carver had told him. Anyway, it was no business of Lorenzo's.
He kept on driving. He thought of his daughter, Shay. Down by the Fourth District Police Station, at Quackenbos, he hung a left.
In the BMW, Melvin Lee and Rico Miller watched the black Escalade come off the curb and head south.
'Let's go,' said Lee.
Miller ignitioned the 330i and drove north, then swung a U in the middle of Georgia and got in, four or five car lengths back, behind the Cadillac.
'What you suppose the dog man be doin' over there with Nigel?' said Miller.
'Brown worked with Nigel,' said Lee. 'Brown was Nigel's boy.'
'He comin' back?'
'He too soft to come back,' said Lee. 'You saw how he acted today.'
Yeah, I saw, thought Miller.
'Prison broke that motherfucker,' said Lee.
'They bookin',' said Miller.
'Get up ahead of 'em. You know they gonna be goin' up Otis. We'll block 'em there, have our talk.'
'They gonna run that light,' said Miller as the Escalade accelerated toward the next traffic signal, gone yellow.
'Then you gonna need to run it too.'
Miller blew the red.
Sherelle stayed on 9th Street, around the corner from the police station and the tall radio towers, in one of a series of boxy brick apartment buildings grouped back from the street. The apartments had back porches, many of whose screens were ripped and hanging from their wooden frames. Between the buildings there was plenty of green grass, worn grass, dirt, and open space for kids to run. Though dusk had gone to dark, kids were out there now.
Lorenzo Brown parked his Pontiac on the street in front of Sherelle's unit. He knew Sherelle's schedule. She worked a noon-to-eight shift at a makeup-and-hair shop over on Riggs Road. After Sherelle got off, she picked up Shay from her mother's duplex near Riggs, on Oneida Street. Sherelle and Shay got back to the apartment on 9th Street every evening at about this hour. Lorenzo knew because he'd watched them many times.
Soon they arrived in Sherelle's new-style Altima. Too much car for that girl to be carrying on her budget, but then Sherelle always did spend beyond her limit. Lorenzo could see his little girl in the backseat, Sherelle behind the wheel, and a big man beside her in the passenger bucket. That would be Sherelle's new George.
The three of them got out of the car and walked up onto the sidewalk. Sherelle, always on the full-figured side, looked like she had put on weight. She kept her style fresh, though, the way those hair girls liked to do. Shay, in a sleeveless shirt and shorts, looked plain pretty and sweet. She skipped along the sidewalk and reached for her mother's hand.
Lorenzo, seeing Shay, got out of his car without thinking on it. He was just a half dozen automobiles away from Sherelle's. The sound of his door made them stop and turn.
Sherelle's face hardened. She pulled Shay along. Shay looked back at Lorenzo and then up at her mother.
