22nd, across town. That was gonna be his next ride. Once you got your mind set on a car, it was like seein’ a woman in a club and knowing you were gonna be killin’ it in your bed by the end of the night. He knew he was going to own that Caddy in the same way. Thing that hurt him, though, he’d owned a Cadillac nine years ago, at twenty-two, and here he was, grown man of thirty-one, driving a Buick. Seemed lately like he was walking backward through his life, passin’ hisself on the way down.
But right now, Jones felt good. He was wearing a new button-down from National Shirt Shop, his Flagg Brothers, and his favorite hat, black with the gold band, picked up the gold off his eyes. A.38 was wedged tight between his legs, right up against his dick. “Funky Broadway” was on WOOK, and Wicked Wilson was singing it loud. Broadway. He was gonna get up to that motherfucker someday, show them how they did in D.C. Drive up there in his Cadillac, too. By then he’d have it tricked with spokes.
Jones cruised down H, along the retail center of Northeast, heading toward 8th, where his cousin Kenneth lived in that little place he’d been staying in for a while, over the liquor store. Whole lot of grown people and kids were on the sidewalks, some carrying bags, some playing, some just moving along. Outside the liquor store stood a wino, asking passersby for change. Jones saw Kenneth’s Monterey, parked up a ways, and looked for a place to put his Special. They were gonna take the Mercury, on account of it was more reliable and had a little more horse. Jones wasn’t nervous about the robbery or nothin’ like that. Plus, he’d had a couple of drinks.
Jones saw a police car in his rearview and his hands, due to habit, tightened on the wheel. Then the car pulled over and stopped a little bit up from the liquor store. Jones looked ahead. Another police car was coming from the opposite direction. It went by him and he watched as it, too, slowed near the liquor store and came to stop, nose to ass with the first squad car. Alvin made a turn onto 9th, found a space, and cut the engine. He slid the pistol under the bench seat, got out of the Buick, locked it, and jogged on up to H.
When he got there, the squad cars had moved on. But he saw a couple of white men in street clothes, looked like police with their builds and the way they moved, kind of hurrying around the area of the liquor store. One of them ducked into the outside foyer area of a market and the other positioned himself with his back against the bricks beside the stairwell entrance to the second-floor apartments. The wino was gone.
Jones went to a pay-phone booth on the corner, dropped change into the slot, and dialed his cousin’s number. The phone rang and kept on ringing. The ring became a scream in Alvin Jones’s head. It told him that he was never going to see Broadway or ride down the street in that white El D.
“Come on, Kenneth,” said Jones. “Pick up the got-damn phone.”
KENNETH WILLIS HAD dressed in dark clothing and was rifling through his dresser drawer trying to find a pair of stockings this big redbone had left at his crib. He was gonna put one of the stockings over his face when the time came, the way his cousin Alvin had told him to do. “Funky Broadway” was playing from back in the living room, out this box he’d bought from the local Sears. He was charged up for what he was about to do, and Wilson going, “Shake shake shake,” and growling, “Lord, have mercy,” was charging him further still.
He found the stockings, a pair of fishnets. Well, Alvin had said stockings; he hadn’t said what kind.
Willis took one and, couldn’t help it, sniffed it before he stuffed it in his front pocket. He looked in the mirror. He was a big man with a chest and some big-ass arms on him, too. Wasn’t no one in that market gonna hesitate to hand over whatever he was asking for, they had a look at him. Also, he had a gun.
Willis went out of his bedroom to the small living-room area of his place, stepping on some stroke magazines he had left on the floor. The apartment was all messed up, like it always was. Ashtray was overfilled with butts, beer bottles sat on the eating table, and in the kitchen sink were dishes from last week, still had food on them, with water bugs crawling across the food. Even Willis knew this shithole needed cleaning. Maybe he would pay a woman to do it, soon as he had some money.
He pulled his shirttail out to cover the gun, which he had slipped behind the waistband of his slacks. Cheap gun, but damn sure looked like a gun when it got pointed in your face. It was a pocket.32 with a six-shot magazine, and it was pressing into his back. He’d put it somewhere else once they got in the car. His cousin had told him they’d meet on the sidewalk, out in front of the liquor store. Willis hoped he wasn’t late.
There was an Earl Scheib commercial on the radio now, and Willis turned it off. He went out the front door, locked the door, and headed down the stairs. He saw a white man with some shoulders coming into the foyer at the bottom of the stairs, where they had the mailbox slots on the wall, and then he heard the phone ringing back in his place, and he stopped where he was. The white man, a look on his face like he’d never seen a black man before, backed up and went outside. Must be one of them working for the landlord or something, come to collect. He was paid up, so it wasn’t no concern of his…
Still, whoever it was, they were trying to get him for something. They were just ringin’ the
Willis went down the stairs. He didn’t want to keep Alvin waiting.
The sunlight was bright as he exited the front door of the building. Nice day. Wasn’t many people out, though, not even that wino who folks called Cricket, usually stood out front. Willis turned his head to the left and saw the white man he’d seen before rushing toward him. He had a revolver in his hand and his gun arm was out straight. Willis reached his hand up under the back of his shirt. He heard his back crack and felt a snap in his neck as arms wrapped around him and he was tackled from behind by someone strong. His chest and face hit the sidewalk at the same time, and he said “uh,” and tasted blood in his mouth, and heard tires screeching to a stop in the street. White voices yelling at him not to move, and some people in the neighborhood cussing at the police who had taken him down, and the hard feel of cuffs locking on his wrists.
“What we got here?” said the white police who had tackled him, the man’s knee now pressing into his back. Willis felt the.32 ripped out of his waistband, the automatic’s grip scraping his skin.
“Motherfucker,” said Willis, spitting blood on the concrete.
“Keep talkin’, nigger,” said a low voice in his ear.
Way he got yanked up off the sidewalk then, felt like his arms were gonna tear right off.
Across the street, down near 9th, Alvin Jones came out of the phone booth and watched as his cousin got took right outside his place. He watched them cuff him and bring him up to a standing position, rough, like they liked to do, and he watched them walk him to a squad car and push him inside. Somewhere in all that, he hoped he had caught Kenneth’s eye. Remind him that his blood was still out here, waitin’ on him, and everything was gonna be all right.
Kenneth was cool. Kenneth would not give him up. Jones wasn’t worried about that.
But it
He walked quickly back toward his car, his lips moving, his face contorted, fussing all the way.
Someone had fucked up their plans. Couldn’t be no random shit that got the law on his cousin.
Jones came to his Buick. Looking at it, knowing he had to get inside it, hating that he had to get inside it, ’cause he deserved a more stylish ride than this.
Why someone would do this to him and Kenneth he didn’t know. But that someone, whoever it was, was someone who needed to be got.
DEREK STRANGE HAD a one-bedroom place in an apartment house on the northeast corner of 13th and Clifton, just above Cardozo High School, a handful of blocks up from the very heart of Shaw. It was close to his parents, Howard University, U Street, and everything else a young black man could want or have
