shoes. The man driving the Fury, he had waited on them that day, and what the man had done for Nettie, he had made her feel like she was the only woman in that shop.
Afterward, Isaac had taken the salesman aside, said, “Thank you, my man,” and the man had shrugged and said, “Ain’t no thing,” and Isaac knew the man meant it. But it was something, what he did that day for Isaac’s woman.
Isaac had shot the white man because that was what he had been paid to do. And the hustler, who knew what he would have done with that gun, right up in the face of the Rosenfelds. The hustler had called him “brother,” but he was nothing of the kind. Now, the shoe salesman, the one driving the car? He was something else again. He was one down brother.
Chapter 21
Gorman ripped open the box of shells, pointed the Mossberg barrel up, thumbed shells into the breech.
Constantine looked in the rearview. “Keep that shotgun down,” he said.
“Concentrate on your driving, driver.” Gorman stuffed a fistful of shells in the side pocket of his jacket. He dropped the rest of the box to the floor.
“Keep it down, Gorman,” Valdez said from the front seat.
Gorman giggled, laid the Mossberg across his lap.
They drove down R, passed the liquor store, saw dim lights, bars on the windows, little else. Constantine turned right on 14th, passed the children’s charity outfit, passed the projects, hooked a right on S. The wind from the open window blew back his long black hair.
Gorman reached into his shirt pocket, withdrew the snowseal. He carefully unwrapped it, bent his head down, put his nose very close to the mound of crystal meth. He inhaled sharply through one nostril, then the other.
Constantine looked at Valdez. “What is this?” he said.
“This is it, driver,” Gorman said. “That’s what the fuck this is.” There was white powder specked with blue on the tip of Gorman’s nose.
“Take it easy, Gorman,” Valdez said quietly.
Constantine turned right on 13th, went south one block, turned right again on R.
“Pull over right here,” Valdez said. “Don’t cut it.”
Constantine took the Road Runner to the curb. Down the block, past row houses, the liquor store looked small standing alone amongst the rubble of demolition. On the other side of R stood the Central Union Mission. A group of people-a dozen, maybe-stood on the sidewalk, outside the doors of the mission.
“All right, Gorman,” Valdez said. “Three Irishmen, a sawed-off under the left register. They’ll be wearin’ vests.”
“Head shots,” Gorman said.
“If we have to,” said Valdez.
Gorman took the snowseal, rubbed it on his gums, licked it, tossed it out the window. He put the stocking on his head. His eyes met Constantine’s in the rearview. There was chemical color now in the gray man’s face, confidence in his smile.
“Constantine,” Valdez said, fitting the stocking tightly on his head, then pointing a thick finger down the block. “You curb it right past the liquor store, there. Got it?”
“I got it,” Constantine said.
Valdez looked at his watch. “Let’s go.”
Constantine drove down the street as Valdez rubbed his palms dry on his jacket. Gorman pumped the shotgun.
“No matter what happens,” Valdez said evenly, staring ahead, “you don’t leave us. You leave us, I’ll kill you. You understand that, Constantine? I promise you.”
Constantine pulled the Road Runner to the curb where Valdez had pointed. Valdez and Gorman yanked down on their masks.
Just as he stopped, Valdez and Gorman got out of the car, closed the car doors, ran across the sidewalk, Valdez with both guns drawn, Gorman with the shotgun at his side, and pushed on the door of EZ Time Liquors. Then they were both inside.
Constantine sat alone in the Plymouth, listened to the heavy idle of the 440.
Across the street, on the sidewalk of the mission, a woman with large hoop earrings leaned against a garbage can, talking loudly to another woman who stood nearby. “That motherfucker dogged you, girlfriend,” she said.
Both women laughed.
A shotgun blast boomed like a bomb from inside the liquor store. The sound of exploding glass came from the store, and then a second explosion from the shotgun, and then more glass.
Some people from outside the mission stopped looking at their shoes and turned their attention across the street. The two women by the garbage can glanced toward the liquor store, and then the one with the hoop earrings pushed playfully on her friend’s shoulder.
“He dogged you,” she repeated.
Someone ran inside the mission. A few people walked slowly across the street, still looking at the liquor store but not nearing it. One of them, a man wearing a Blazers cap, noticed Constantine sitting in the driver’s side of the idling black car. The man studied Constantine, turned his head, turned toward 14th, and walked away.
Constantine heard muffled shouts from behind the black bars and glass. He felt a sudden weakness in his knees. Constantine pushed in the lighter, waited for it to pop. He drummed his fingers on the dash.
The lighter popped out Constantine used it to fire a smoke. He dragged deeply, exhaled through his nose.
The shotgun fired once more in the store, then several gunshots, then two different shotgun sounds, close together. After that, more gunshots.
The people on the sidewalk stepped back. Constantine heard a siren from far away. Steadily, the siren grew louder. Another siren sounded, from a different direction.
The cigarette dangled from Constantine’s lips. He kept his left hand on the wheel. His right hand worked the Hurst through the gears. He let up on the clutch, pushed the gas, felt the friction point, felt the Plymouth begin to jump.
The sirens grew louder.
No.
He depressed the clutch, pushed the shifter into neutral. He felt a warm calm, and a sudden wash of power. He had the vague sensation of his hardening sex. The Beat pounded hot, in his chest and his head.
“Come on,” he whispered.
He looked into the store. He saw gunsmoke hovering in the dim light. By the door he saw the raised barrel of Gorman’s shotgun.
Then, in the rearview, Constantine saw the first cop car, a blue-and-white, coming up behind him on R. He pitched his cigarette out the window.
“Come on,” said Constantine. “Come on.”
The first thing Gorman did, as he pushed through the front door of EZ Time Liquors, was shove aside two customers standing near the beer cooler that ran along the rightmost wall. Then Gorman stepped back, squeezed the trigger on the shotgun, and blew the fuck out of the cooler’s glass doors.
He pumped the Mossberg, turned, and fired into the vodka bottles shelved on the left wall. He felt a shower of glass and booze. He pumped the shotgun once more, pointed it at the Irishmen behind the counter.
Valdez had made it to the counter, one. 45 in the old Irishman’s face, the other at his side. Weiner had said there would be three of them, but today there were only two, a father and son, big, square-headed guys, big guts and big hands. Their hands were up, their faces empty of fear.
“You know what this is,” Valdez said loudly. “Let’s have it!”
The two customers-old juicers wearing blue maintenance uniforms-hit the floor behind Gorman. One of them
