“We can fix a window,” said Billy, putting his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “C’mon,
Mike left the register’s cash drawer open, as he did every night at closing, so that anyone could see from the street that it was empty. He took the store keys from his pocket and locked the front door.
DESPITE THE WARNING from Derek Strange, Kenneth Willis had phoned Alvin Jones at Ronnie Moses’s apartment on Thursday afternoon and told him that Strange was looking to hunt him down. Strange had put a scare into Willis, and a hurting on him, too, but it didn’t stop Willis from making the call. He couldn’t do Alvin like that. Alvin was kin.
On the phone, Jones denied any knowledge of the murder of Dennis Strange. He had decided not to admit it, on account of Dennis was Kenneth’s boy from way back and he didn’t want Kenneth to get upset. Also, he didn’t care to give Kenneth anything the police could use against him if Kenneth got picked up on something later on. Kenneth was strong, but even a strong man could get flipped.
“All right, Ken,” said Jones. “Thanks for the tip.”
“What you gonna do?” said Willis.
“What you think?” said Jones, as if he were speaking to a child. “Keep my head low. Understand, I ain’t have shit to do with your boy’s demise, but I can’t be fuckin’ with no police nohow.”
“You got a plan?”
“Man like me always got a plan,” said Jones before hanging up the phone.
The riots of Thursday night had given him his plan. Jones had gone out, near midnight, and stepped onto an eastbound D.C. Transit bus on Rhode Island Avenue with a stocking over his face and his gun in his hand, robbing the driver of eighty dollars in cash. It was the easiest robbery he’d ever pulled. Seemed like all of the police were over in Shaw. He knew they weren’t gonna give a good fuck about some little old stickup job when 14th Street was going up in flames.
And here he was today, in Ronnie’s apartment near 7th Street. Standing in front of the mirror, admiring his new shit, which he and Ronnie had looted from the Cavalier Men’s Shop between L and K just a little while back. Looking at his new Zanzibar slacks, his Damon knit shirt, and his side-weave kicks. The shirt, especially, was right on, a real nice color gold. Picked up the gold band on his favorite black hat. He cocked the hat a little so it sat right on his head.
Ronnie had left the crib to get more vines. Said he was heading down to his place of employment, the big-men’s shop, to get what he could, ’cause those clothes there were the only ones in town that could fit a horse like him. Said he knew where his sizes were and exactly the items he wanted, ’cause he’d had his eye on them for some time. Jones telling him he wasn’t thinking straight, to be shittin’ in his own feeding trough like that, but Ronnie had waved him away.
“I know what I’m doin’,” Ronnie Moses had said, heading for the door. “You with me, blood?”
“Go on,” said Jones. “I’m gonna take a little rest.”
“Lock the apartment, man, you go out.”
“Yeah, all right.”
Jones thinking, Now I am really gonna roll. Take someone off for some real cash. ’Cause the police, they are busy. Too busy tryin’ to contain those thousands of black motherfuckers out on the street to worry over
Jones went to his bag, had all his clothes and shit inside it, which he kept beside the sofa where he slept. He withdrew his old.38, had the bluing rubbed off the barrel. Jones had wrapped black electrical tape around the grip; his hands tended to sweat when he was working, and he needed to have a tight hold on his gun. He released the cylinder, checked the five-shot load, and snapped it shut. He dropped the pistol into the right pocket of his Zanzibar slacks. He found a crumpled-up stocking in a bedroom drawer, belonged to Ronnie’s bottom girl, and shoved it into the left pocket of his slacks. He checked himself in the mirror one more time, readjusted his hat, and left the apartment, locking the door behind him as he had said he would.
He went down to 7th Street and walked south.
There were hundreds of young people out on the street, looting stores, hollering and laughing, having fun. Boys and girls, and some older people, too. Cops trying to contain the rioters, having little success. Firemen hosing down burning buildings, ducking the occasional rock and bottle thrown their way.
Leventhal’s Furniture Store, at Q, it wasn’t much more than a shell now. The store had been stripped of goods and was burning inside. The apartment houses nearby were burning with it.
Leventhal’s, thought Jones, stepping around a flaming mattress. Jew name, wasn’t it? Like most of the stores down here, owned by Jews. Long after they’d moved out the neighborhood their own selves, they were still doing business on 7th, selling jewelry and furniture and stereos and appliances to blacks. Selling credit, really, and high-interest credit at that. Jones could see the glee on the faces of the looters as they broke into another store. Wasn’t much about Dr. King anymore,
His people. Truth was, Jones didn’t give a fuck about them. When this was done, they’d go back to their sad-ass lives. While he, Jones, would be driving south with cash in the pockets of his new outfit, maybe under the wheel of that white El D he’d seen across town. Had electric windows and everything.
He passed a brother in the street, wearing shades and fatigues, imploring some other young brothers to drop the stolen shit they were carrying and go home.
“Dr. King wouldn’t want this!” shouted the man.
Jones laughed. Now he’d seen it all.
A black man stood outside his deli, holding a pistol at his side, watching the neighborhood burn. His store was untouched. Jones passed other stores and heard dogs barking and growling viciously behind their doors. These stores, too, had gone untouched.
People ran around him and bumped and said not one thing. He coughed and rubbed at his eyes. The police had started using gas. He was sweating some, too. The fires in the buildings were throwing off serious heat.
Down by the big-men’s shop, he saw Ronnie lying facedown in the street, a sweaty white cop over him, knee down, cuffing Ronnie’s hands behind his back, other cops doing the same to some other young brothers, a paddy wagon parked nearby.
You fucked up, cuz, thought Jones. You have lost your job now, too. But I can’t help you, can I? You’ll be out in a few days, if you’re lucky, and you can put your life together then. In the meantime, I got work to do.
Down below L, past the Cavalier Men’s Shop, which had been picked clean, Jones could see a row of police and squad cars blocking off Mount Vernon Square. This was the line dividing black residents from the commercial center of downtown, white D.C. Isn’t no surprise, thought Jones. They’re protecting the master’s castle, like they always do.
Jones cut right and then right again, going north of Massachusetts Avenue. He had parked his car over here the night before. He had heard talk on the street that 7th was going to burn the next day. Funny how most everyone down here knew, when the police, they hadn’t known a thing.
THE HOUSE IN Wheaton had gone quieter through the morning and into the afternoon. Olga sitting at the kitchen table, smoking her Larks, watching the news broadcasts on the little black-and-white Philco set on a rolling metal stand. Olga telling Alethea how sorry she was for her “people,” not meeting Alethea’s eyes as she spoke. Frank lumbering around in his robe, reading the sports page, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, like it was any other day. Only their son, Ricky, had talked to her not as a Negro woman but as a
