Cody Kruger sat at the kitchen table, scaling and bagging ounces of weed. A hill of sticky-bud hydroponic was before him. Kruger was careful, as Deon had convinced him to be, when weighing and compartmentalizing the marijuana. He liked to think that he worked more quickly and more efficiently when he was high, but in actuality the THC slowed him down and made him more susceptible to error. A blunt in a vanilla Dutch wrapper was burning in the ashtray beside him. “Kryptonite,” a TCB tune recorded live at the Club Neon, was playing loudly in the room from Kruger’s iPod, which he had hooked into his system. Kruger was baked and singing off-key the chorus to the song.
Charles Baker, annoyed and impatient, went to the system and turned the volume down.
“Ain’t you done yet?”
“Wanna do it right,” said Kruger. “If you don’t scale this shit out correct, you gonna hear about it.”
“Look, man, what you figure we fixin to make on all this?”
“Three, four thousand. It was only two pounds in the van.”
“Chump change,” said Baker.
“You can’t get it all in one day.”
“True. But once we hook up with that connect, everything gonna be elevated.”
“I thought you said Dominique didn’t give it up.”
“He claimed he didn’t know who his connect was. Claimed that only his brother did. Dominique said he was gonna talk to his brother and call you on your cell to set up a meet.”
Kruger nodded but did not comment. The mention of Dominique’s brother had unsettled him. From what Deon said of him, Calvin Dixon was not going to take what had been done to Dominique with a smile. He sure wasn’t going to hand over his connect. A dealer would take a bullet before he gave up his source, even Kruger knew that. But Mr. Charles did not seem to understand it. Mr. Charles thought he could just keep taking and not pay.
“Did you hear me, boy?”
“I heard.”
“You so fucked up you can’t speak.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“You fearful of all these moves we be makin?”
“No.”
“If you afraid, then say so.”
“I’m not.”
“Good,” said Baker. “’Cause I’m lookin for you to assist me on something tonight.”
“What?”
“I need a ride out to Maryland. A man there owes me some money.”
“We got money on this table right here.”
“This is on a whole’nother level. Man been owin me for over thirty years. I’m sayin, the interest been compounding. Payday gonna be large, too.”
“I got to see to this. You can borrow my car.”
“How am I gonna drive a car with no license? The po-po pull me over, I’m going back to jail.”
Kruger wetted the tail of a baggie with his tongue and sealed up an ounce. If he kept working, maybe Mr. Charles would drop the plan.
“I asked this old friend of mine to take me, but he gone soft on me. Now, I know you aren’t gonna turn your back on me like he did.”
“I’m busy here.”
“Thought you had some rod on you, man.”
“I got product promised to some customers in the morning. I need to get this done before I can think of anything else.”
“Okay, then. I’m gonna walk on over to the Avenue, find me a bar stool, and have myself a beer. You should be done in a couple hours.” Baker shook himself into his leather. “What’s the door code when I come back?”
“I know what it is.”
“Say it.”
“Knock knock pause knock.”
“Right. See you in a bit, young man.”
Kruger scaled and bagged diligently after Baker had slipped out the door. He would have been happy to sit here all night, working, getting blazed, listening to music, thinking about the things he could get with the cash this weed would bring. The new Vans and Dunks, the T-shirts with the rock star look, the Authentic jerseys with lids that matched.
If Deon were here, they’d talk, joke, and dream on the things that they might buy. He wondered where Deon was at and why he wasn’t answering his cell. Deon had been his boy, and now it seemed that Deon had up and walked away. What Kruger had left was Charles Baker.
Kruger had thrown his gun down a storm drain in the parking lot outside Dominique’s after he had transferred the weed from the white van to his Honda. It had made him sick to hold a gun on a boy his age while Mr. Charles did what he did. Kruger didn’t want to have a gun anymore. He didn’t want to do anything like that again.
Cody Kruger began to lose his high. He knew that Mr. Charles would not forget about that ride out to Maryland. He would be back soon, knock knock pause knock. There was no way to deny Mr. Charles when he set his mind to hunting. Kruger would drive him to see the man who owed him money, because with Deon gone, Mr. Charles was his only friend. Kruger was dim-witted and fried, and there was nothing else that he could see to do.
Twenty-two
Raymond Monroe, standing in Gavin’s Garage, closed the lid of his cell and slipped the phone into the pocket of his jeans. James Monroe was under the hood of an ’89 Caprice Classic, loosening a crippled water pump that he intended to replace. An open can of Pabst Blue Ribbon was balanced on the lip of the quarter panel. James stood straight, picked up the can, and took a long pull of beer.
“That was Rodney Draper just called,” said Raymond.
“Rod the Rooster,” said James, smiling, recalling the nickname they’d given him as kids on account of his funny nose. “Who’d ’a thought that boy would be running a company someday?”
“Rodney always did work hard. I’m not surprised.”
“What he wanted?”
“Alex Pappas called him today. Said he had a history question. Rodney didn’t answer it direct. He wanted to speak to me first.”
James looked into his beer can, shook it, then took another swig.
“Alex is tryin to find Miss Elaine,” said Raymond.
“Why?”
“To talk to her, I suppose. I’m guessing he’s looking to put all this to rest.”
“What did you tell Rod?”
“I told him to wait.”
“Ray…”
“What?”
“Charles Baker contacted me today. He was looking for a ride out to Pappas’s house. Wanted me with him, he said. He didn’t say why.”
“Did Charles say how it went with Whitten?”
“He didn’t.”
“That means it went wrong. And now he’s gonna try and shake down Pappas. This time it’s not gonna be over lunch in some fancy restaurant. This time Charles gonna do it his old way.”
“Well, I told him I wouldn’t do it,” said James. “I told him this ain’t none of my business.”
“It is if Charles hurts that man or his family. It is to me if he keeps trying to pull my brother down into the
