with a handle like a silver fox head. He go over to the window and start look out. Him rubbing him neck. Him staring at the floor. Him taking so long over this, I start wonder if I read this thing all wrong.
When him come back, him rest the walking stick on the side of the desk and put both hands palm down on the surface. Him body rigid. And when him lean forward, the long nail on the little finger of him left hand scrape against the wood.
‘I want Samuels.’
‘Samuels? What you want with Samuels?’
DeFreitas don’t like that and him snap at me, ‘That between me and him.’
I wait. I know timing is everything. So I just sit there.
‘We got a very small family. Well, we all here, apart from Milton who is just a boy. How I going manage without Samuels?’
‘Him give you some trouble nuh? Over these guns.’
‘True, but we have come to an understanding now.’
‘Give me Samuels and I stay outta Chinatown.’ I sit for a minute and I just look at him. Then him say, ‘Take it or leave it. I not haggling with you.’
Sun Tzu say, ‘
Driving back to Chinatown Hampton say to me, ‘What we going do ’bout Samuels’s chores?’
‘Kenneth Wong been pestering me this long time to give him something to do. Divvy up Samuels’s jobs and let Kenneth run some errands with Milton.’
‘You mean Miss Fay little brother?’
‘How many Kenneth Wong you know?’
‘She not going like that. Her little brother involve with you and your business.’
‘You worry ’bout your own business, and I will worry ’bout Fay. Anyway, is just for now, till we find someone else.’
I wind down the car window and stick my elbow on the sill. And then a funny feeling come over me so I tell Hampton to pull into a gas station and I go inside and buy a cigar, a big, fat Montecristo.
I get back in the car and I light it. And I take a satisfying puff. And I think to myself well that is the first big thing I manage to do without thinking in the back of my mind that Zhang was there to fix it if it all go wrong. The first big thing that I fully responsible for. It seem like I change today. I grow up. I am forty years old and I finally become a man.
It feel good to watch the smoke curl outta the window and drift away on the gentle afternoon breeze.
21
‘
Three month later Mrs Samuels come see me. Samuels dead. Shot in the back of the head. He been missing three weeks but the police just come tell her last week that they find his body shot and burned and left in a alley. She know who do it. But there no point going to the police over a thing like that. They not going move against a man like Louis DeFreitas. She even go see DeFreitas herself to plead with him, and beg him for some support. But all he say to her is for her to come see me. He tell her I will take care of everything.
She wait before she come because she didn’t want bother me. She know Samuels not work for me no more, that he working for DeFreitas at the time he die, so really is DeFreitas’s responsibility. But she dunno what to do because she got four children to feed, and she got to keep a roof over their head, and she got school fees, and she only earning a little money work part-time in Mr Chung shop. She fret so much she can’t think, she can’t eat, she can’t sleep. She dunno which way to turn. She dunno what she going to do. And she start cry.
So I tell her she right. Samuels really DeFreitas’s responsibility but, I say, in truth I feel partly responsible because if Samuels was still working for me there is no way DeFreitas would have lay a finger on him. DeFreitas know the rules, you can’t go rough up somebody else’s man. So in view of this, then I happy to help her.
I tell her to hush herself and blow her nose. I take care of everything. Rent, school fees, Blue Cross medical insurance, clothes for the children, a little extra every month, whatever she need to make ends meet and make a good home for her and the children. She don’t have to worry about a thing. And I just touch her light on the arm.
That is when she really start to bawl. It get so bad I have to call Hampton to come drive her home. And even as she going outta the gate she still thanking me, and waving at me, and telling me what a good man I am.
When I tell Judge Finley what happen he say to me, ‘So what, you surprise DeFreitas kill him?’
‘Yes. I never think he go do a thing like that.’
‘I thought that was exactly what you had in mind the day you jump up and
‘No, man. I was just making a point.’
‘So what you think DeFreitas was going do with him?’
‘I think maybe he give Samuels a good hiding and teach him a lesson. Maybe bust him down the ladder. I never imagine he would go kill a man over a thing like that.’
‘Well then you must be the only man in Kingston who think that way, because right now a man can get shot just for wearing the wrong colour shirt in the wrong part of town. So maybe this be a warning to you to throw out every green or orange shirt you got in case anybody think you supporting the Labour Party or the PNP.’
Next day Fay come tearing into Matthews Lane and straight into the bedroom where she start flinging open drawers and emptying everything into a suitcase she got open up on the bed. I go stand up in the doorway and I say to her, ‘What you think you doing?’
‘What does it look like I am doing?’
‘Well, it look like you going somewhere. But it seem to me like you already gone from here so I dunno why you think you need to take anything else.’
Right then she stop what she doing and she turn and look at me.
‘I heard about Samuels.’
But I don’t say nothing to her. The two of us just stand there. She looking at me, and me looking straight back at her.
‘Cat got your tongue?’
When I look at her I see that she really hate me. Her face look hard and her mouth got a real cruel twist. If she was a man she would have thump me. She would have try to mash me up just so she can let off some steam and work out how she feel. But she not a man and she can’t do that. She can only stand there and think that maybe she can wear me down with her stare.
But just then she grab the vase and throw it at me. It hit the doorframe and smash, and it shower all the water and glass over me because the flowers was still standing in it. I feel like I going just jump on her and beat her till I wipe that look off her face. But I don’t move a muscle. I just stand there. And I brush myself down a little, try wipe off some of the excess water. And then I turn ’round and go back down the couple of step, and sit down at the table and pour myself a bowl of tea.
I expect she going carry on packing but she don’t. She follow me. And then she start talking while I sitting there with my back to her.
‘He was shot in the back of the head and his body burned. That is execution style. You think I don’t know that?’
I don’t say nothing to her.
‘One minute Samuels is working for you, the next minute he is being executed in West Kingston. And I suppose
