a pretty-boy hustler, all flash and no heart, like Deion.
“You brought me somethin’?” said Foreman.
Durham, having hiked up the volume on the Cadillac’s system, didn’t hear. He was moving his head to that single, “Danger,” had been in heavy rotation since the wintertime. Foreman reached over and turned the music down.
“Hey,” said Durham.
“We got business.”
“That joint is tight, though.”
“Mystikal? He ain’t doin’ nothin’ J. B. didn’t do twenty years back.”
“It’s still a good jam.”
“Uh-huh. And PGC done played that shit to death.” Foreman upped his chin in the direction of Mario. “C’mon, Twigs, show me what you got.”
Mario Durham hated the nickname that had followed him for years. It brought to mind Twiggy, that itty-bitty model who was popular from back before he was born. It was a bitch name, he knew. There wasn’t but a few men he allowed to call him that. Okay, there was more than a few. But Ulysses Foreman, built like a nose tackle, he sure was one of those men. Durham reached down into his jeans, deep inside his boxers, and pulled free a rolled plastic sandwich bag containing a thick line of chronic. He handed it across the bench to Foreman.
Foreman’s pearl red 1997 El Dorado Touring Coupe was parked on MLK between W and V in Southeast. Its Northstar engine was quiet, and no smoke was visible from the pipes. Foreman didn’t like to tax the battery, so he was letting the motor run. He sat low on the bench, his stacked shoulders and knotted biceps filling out the ribbed white cotton T-shirt he’d bought out that catalogue he liked, International Male.
Across the street, a twenty-foot-tall mahogany chair sat in the grassy section off the lot of the Anacostia Medical / Dental Center, formerly the sight of the Curtis Brothers Furniture Company. The Big Chair was the landmark in Far Southeast.
“This gonna get me up?” said Foreman, inspecting the contents of the bag.
“You know me,” said Durham. “You know how I do.”
Foreman nodded, glancing in the rearview. A Sixth District cruiser approached, coming slowly from the direction of St. Elizabeth’s, the laughing house atop the hill. Foreman never worried. If he didn’t know the beat police in this part of town, then he could name-check some of their older fellow officers, many of whom he had come up with back in the late eighties, when he had worn the uniform himself in 6D. Being a former cop, still knowing existing cops, it was usually worth a free pass. Leastways it stopped them from searching the car. The cruiser went by and was soon gone from sight.
Foreman reached under the seat and produced a Taurus 85, a five-shot.38 Special with a black rubber boot-shaped grip and a ported barrel. He handed it to Durham butt out, keeping it below the window line. Durham admired it in the morning sunlight streaming in from the east.
“It’s blue.”
“For real. Pretty, right?”
“Damn sure is.”
Durham turned it in the light, the barrel now pointed at Foreman. Foreman reached out and with the back of his hand moved the barrel so that it pointed down at the floor of the car.
“It’s loaded?” said Durham.
“You got to treat every gun like it’s live, boy.”
“I hear you. But is it?”
“Yeah, you’re ready.”
Durham nodded. “When you want it back?”
Forman weighed the plastic bag in his hand. “I say you rented about five days of strap right here.”
“That’s a hundred worth of hydro in that bag. I coulda
“You talkin’ about a Davis? Go ahead and buy one, then. But give me back my
“That’s all right.”
“There you go then, little man. You want to ride in style, you got to pay.” Foreman pushed his hips forward to slip the bag into the pocket of his jeans. “What you need the gun for, anyway?”
“Need to make an impression on someone, is all it is. Why?”
“I can’t be fuckin’ with no murder gun, hear? You plan to blow someone up behind this shit, I got to know. ’Cause I can’t use no gun got a body attached to it. We straight?”
Durham nodded quickly. “Sure. Do me a favor, though. Don’t be tellin’ my brother about you rentin’ me this gun.”
“Why not?”
“He might say somethin’ to our mother. I don’t want her stressin’ over me.”
“I can understand that. We don’t need to be worryin’ your all’s moms.”
Foreman had already decided that he would tell Dewayne Durham that he had rented a gun to his half brother, Mario. Dewayne might not like that, but it would be better if he knew up front. Foreman figured, what harm would it do? This miniature man right here wouldn’t have the courage to use the gun anyway. Foreman would have it back in five days, and he had some free hydro to smoke in the bargain. Didn’t seem to be any kind of problem to it that he could see.
They shook hands. Durham ended the ritual with a weak finger snap.
“Let me get on back to Mer-land where I belong,” said Foreman.
“I got an appointment I got to get to my own self.”
“You need me to drop you somewheres close?” Foreman had no intention of driving Mario Durham anywhere, but he felt it made good sense to be polite, go through the usual motions and ask. Foreman’s business relationship with Dewayne Durham was on the rise.
“Nah, I’m just down there around the corner.”
“Awright, then,” said Foreman.
“Aiight.”
Durham dropped the pistol into the large pocket of his oversize jeans and stepped out of the car. He walked down the hill and cut left. Foreman watched him, wearin’ a boy’s-size Redskins jersey, a slip of nothing in his Hilfigers, hanging like some sad shit on his narrow ass. “I’m just down there around the corner” – that was some bullshit right there. Twigs didn’t own no car, or if he did it wasn’t nothin’ but a bomb. Most likely he was headed for the Metro station to catch a train to that appointment he had. Must be a real important date, too. Foreman had to admit, though, Mario Durham always did have some good chronic to smoke. Dewayne, a dealer over in Congress Heights, advanced him however much he wanted.
Durham walked toward the Metro station in Barry Farms, passing hard-eyed boys on the sidewalk, thinking how different it felt when you had a gun in your pocket. Different on the physical tip, like he’d grown taller and put on fifty pounds of muscle. Lookin’ in those young boys’ narrowed eyes, thinking, Yeah, go ahead, fuck with me; I got somethin’ right here gonna make your eyes go wide. Having that.38 just touching his leg through the fabric of his Tommys, it made him feel like he had four more inches of dick on him, too.
He’d catch a Green Line train and take it over the river to the Petworth stop. The man’s office, he’d seen the sign out front with the magnifying glass on it all those times he’d been to that titty bar they had across the street from it, on Georgia. His office, it wasn’t far from the station stop.
Durham wondered, could the man in that office find Olivia? Because his kid brother wasn’t gonna wait much longer without taking some kind of action his own self. Sign out front claimed they did investigations.
That’s what it said.
