Soul Circus

“Tonight?”

“Damn right.”

“Nah, man, my day is done. I’m gonna go home and have a late dinner with Janine, see my stepson, make sure Devra and the boy got settled in all right. Pet my dog. You need to go home, too.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Look at me, Terry. Promise me that’s what you’re gonna do.”

“I’m going home,” said Quinn.

“Good man,” said Strange.

Quinn listened to the click of the cover, then looked at the cell in Strange’s hand. “You gonna use that or just wear out the parts?”

“I been debating on making a call.”

“To who?”

“Dewayne Durham. I got his number from Donut, remember?”

“And what would you tell him?”

“It would be an anonymous call. I’d tip him that his brother got done by Horace McKinley or one of his people. I was thinkin’, a call like that, it might speed along McKinley’s demise.”

“Why would you do that?”

“McKinley threatened me, Terry. Threatened my family. Talked about me losing my license, my business, everything.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time you been threatened. You said it earlier, you let yourself get disrespected like that every day.”

“This was a different kind of threat. Boys like that don’t concern themselves with licenses and businesses. They want to take you out, they take you out. Got me to thinkin’, it was the same kind of threat I got on my answering machine the night my office got burgled.”

“He’s working for the same people broke into your place.”

Strange nodded. “Would explain for real why he was so interested in hiding this witness. And he got all emotional back there, implied that he was protected. Which is why he goes about his business down here and doesn’t take the long fall.”

“Protected by who? The FBI?”

“Whoever. The government. Mr. Big. I don’t know for sure, and I never will know, most likely. You get the general idea.”

“But you’re not gonna make that call, are you, Derek?”

“No. I’m not in the business of killing young men, no matter who it is. Anyway, McKinley’s gonna die or be locked up soon enough, I expect, without my help. They can’t keep him out of jail forever.”

“And then you’ll be out here defending him.”

“Could be. But not defending him. Defending his rights. And yeah, there’s a difference. McKinley himself called me on that one earlier tonight. And I’ve been trying to work it out.”

“So have you?”

“Not entirely. It’s an ongoin’ process, I guess.”

“What are you going to do about the ones watching you?”

“Nothin’. Just keep doing my job. I already decided I’m not gonna let them fade me.”

Strange made a call to Lieutenant Lydell Blue. He told him about the house in the woods off Wheeler Road, gave him the license plate numbers off the red El Dorado and the Avalon, relayed what he’d seen and some of his suspicions, and reported on the death of Mario Durham. Blue thanked him, said that they’d get the local branch of the ATF involved, and commented that Strange and Quinn had had a full day. It prompted Strange to remind Blue about a full day they had both had together, thirty years earlier, involving two Howard girls, a bag of reefer, and a couple bottles of wine. Strange laughed with his friend and ended the call.

“Well, let me get on my way,” said Strange. “I’m about ready to go to sleep right here.”

“I’m gone, too,” said Quinn, touching the handle of the door.

“Terry,” said Strange, holding his arm. “Thanks for your help today, man. You know I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

“No problem.”

“Go home,” said Strange, staring into Quinn’s eyes.

Quinn pulled his arm free. “I will.”

“Always interesting with you around, man.”

Quinn smiled. “You, too.”

Strange watched him walk across the strobing landscape to his car. Head up, strutting, with that cocky way of his. He wanted to scream out Terry’s name then, call him back, tell him something, though he didn’t know what or why. But soon Quinn was in his Chevelle, cooking the big engine, and driving up the block.

Strange started the Caprice and slid an old O’Jays, Back Stabbers, into the deck. That nice ballad of theirs, “Who Am I,” with Eddie Levert singing tender and tough like only he could, filled the car, and Strange felt himself unwind. He put the car in gear and headed for home.

“YOU crossed that line,” said Dewayne Durham. “Might give me the impression you want to do me some harm.”

“I wanted to talk to you, is all,” said Horace McKinley. “Didn’t think it would work too good, us shoutin’ at each other across the alley.”

“Ain’t nobody here but me and Zulu.”

“My troops are all out workin’, too. What with all this talk I hear about us goin’ to war, thought it’d be a good time to sort some shit out.”

“What about you?” said Durham, looking at Foreman. “You always talkin’ about stayin’ neutral. Why you out here, Ulysses? Why you standin’ next to him?”

“Horace called me,” said Foreman. “Asked me if I’d mediate this discussion. Said y’all would need someone in the middle, someone who wasn’t gonna take no sides. It’s in my interest that the two of you work this out. So here I am.”

Durham and Walker stood on the back steps of the house on Atlantic, looking down at McKinley and Foreman, who stood in the weedy patch of yard. On McKinley’s ribbed wife-beater, high on his cowlike chest, was a wet purple stain. The butt of his gun rose from the waistband of his warm-up suit. He wasn’t trying to hide that he was strapped, and neither were Durham or Walker. Durham guessed that Foreman was wearing his iron, too. They all knew. But to mention it would be akin to admitting fear. And this was something none of them would ever do.

“We gonna stand out here all night?” said Foreman.

“C’mon in,” said Durham.

Durham and Walker gave them their backs and walked through the door, electing to lead rather than step aside to let the others pass. They were followed by McKinley and Foreman into a dark kitchen lit by a single votive candle and then a hall, where they found their way by touch against the plaster walls. Then they were all in a living room furnished with a card table and a couple of folding chairs. Candles had been set and lit on the floor, on the card table, and on the stairway. Drums and bass played softly from a beat box on the floor.

Durham and Walker stopped walking and turned. McKinley and Foreman also stopped and faced them, the card table between them. They stood with their legs spread and their feet planted. The big men filled the room. Candlelight danced in their faces and the flames from the candles threw huge shadows up on the walls.