‘Not’ – the word creaked – ‘not – giving – up. Playing you – for time.’ When Garner started to grin, Kelson added, ‘DeMarcus – will break you – in half. I’ll break – Squirt.’
Garner laughed at him. ‘You’re a real trip, Mr Kelson.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
As Garner drove to the city, Kelson’s voice came back, and he could breathe without feeling like he was tearing holes in his throat. They rode in a green four-door Ram 1500 pickup, the man in the black T-shirt sitting next to Kelson in the backseat.
‘That’s a cool move,’ Kelson said. ‘You ever accidentally kill someone with it?’
‘Don’t bother,’ Garner said.
‘Ironic, huh?’ Kelson said. ‘Me talking too much, him talking too little.’
‘I wish you’d follow his example,’ Garner said.
‘Wish away.’ He directed Garner south into the city and told him about Payday and Painter’s Lane. He pointed him through the streets toward Rodman’s Bronzeville apartment building and had him park by the Ebenezer Baptist Church. ‘In this neighborhood, you might want Squirt to stay in the truck if you like your wheels and stereo.’
‘We’ll take the risk,’ Garner said.
They climbed the stairs and knocked on Rodman’s door. When Cindi answered, she eyed Kelson, then Garner, then the man in the T-shirt. ‘DeMarcus went out,’ she said. She wore a brown blouse, a long brown skirt, and sandals.
‘We’ll come back later,’ Kelson said.
But Garner pushed past him into the front room. The man in the T-shirt shoved Kelson inside and closed the door.
‘Sorry,’ Kelson said.
Cindi gave him a cold look but said, ‘No worries.’
Garner had his pistol out. He went from room to room, making sure they were alone. When he came back he pointed the gun at the couch and told Kelson and Cindi to sit down.
Cindi said, ‘Coffee?’
‘What?’ Garner looked at her hard for the first time.
‘Do you want coffee?’ she said. ‘DeMarcus went out for a couple hours. Sometimes he doesn’t come back when he says he will. Sometimes not for days.’
Garner gazed at the portraits of Malcolm X, Cindi, and Martin Luther King, Jr, over the couch, and he smiled. ‘Aren’t you the princess? Cute too. I’ll bet DeMarcus has a lot of fun with you. What a shame if that all ended.’
‘Does that mean you don’t want coffee?’ she said.
The smile fell. ‘It means I want you to call DeMarcus and tell him to get back here because some men are threatening to do very bad things to you.’
Kelson said, ‘If you try anything, DeMarcus and I will destroy you.’
But Cindi surprised him. ‘This gentleman knows what he wants. Let’s give it to him.’
Garner looked suspicious but said, ‘You’re the passive one in the couple, aren’t you – the Martin Luther King? And your boy DeMarcus, he’s the fighter – the Malcolm? You like a man who takes charge?’
‘I like a strong man,’ Cindi said.
‘I’ll bet you do,’ he said. ‘Call DeMarcus.’ He wiggled the gun at Kelson. ‘And you sit down.’
Kelson sat on the couch, and Cindi called Rodman. As the line rang, she watched Garner and said, ‘He isn’t picking up.’
Garner held his hand for her phone. ‘Give it to me.’
But she kept it and left a message. ‘Hey, baby, there’s a couple of men here. They say they need to see you right away. Or bad things will happen. That’s what they seem to think.’ She hung up and offered Garner the phone. He waved it away and gestured at Kelson. ‘Sit down with him.’
‘You sure you don’t want coffee?’
‘Just sit.’
‘Anything at all, baby,’ she said, like she meant it.
Garner eyed her. ‘And stop that shit.’
An hour later, the man in the black T-shirt still looked as cool as when they walked in, but Garner was sweating.
‘Call again,’ he told Cindi.
She dialed, waited, and left another message, asking Rodman to call back.
A half hour after that, Garner demanded her phone. He dialed the last number Cindi had called and left a third message. ‘Listen, you asshole, I’m here with your girl. You really, really want to be here too, because what’s a girl going to do when a man leaves his home?’
Another hour passed. The man in the black T-shirt went to Garner and whispered.
Garner nodded and said to Cindi, ‘Coffee. And food.’
‘Anything, baby,’ she said.
‘Keep fucking with me and I’ll fuck with you for real,’ he said.
She went into the kitchen, and for a while the man in the black T-shirt stood in the doorway and watched her cook. Then he went to Garner and whispered again.
‘Guess so,’ Garner said, and looked at Kelson. ‘He thinks we don’t need you anymore. You’re extra baggage. What do you think of that?’
‘I think you scare the hell out of me,’ Kelson said. ‘But I also think until DeMarcus comes back, I’m all you’ve got – and maybe DeMarcus isn’t coming back for a long time.’
Garner nodded and said to the man, ‘He right?’
The man seemed to think. As he did, his right eyelid hung lower than his left. He went to the couch and sat next to Kelson.
Kelson said, ‘Why do I figure he could kill me before I even saw him move?’
Garner said, ‘Because you’re smarter than you look?’
Five minutes later, Cindi brought two plates of scrambled eggs and toast from the kitchen. She gave one to the man on the couch and set the other on a table for Garner. She went back into the kitchen and returned with two cups of coffee.
When the men started to eat, Kelson said, ‘How about me?’
Garner laughed at him. ‘She’s a good little house bitch. She knows who’s boss.’
Kelson rose from the couch – but the man in the black T-shirt rose with him, and Garner swept his pistol into his hand.
Cindi told Kelson, ‘It’s all right.’ Soothing.
Garner said to him, ‘Listen to the girl – everything’s cool. You want it to stay that way, don’t you?’
Cindi asked Garner, ‘You mind if I make some food for him and me?’
Garner smiled. ‘I like you, sweetheart. You go ahead – and if you spit in his eggs, I won’t tell.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Kelson and the man in the black T-shirt sat on the couch again. Garner sat at the table and ate, threatening to shoot Kelson if he didn’t shut up. The second time he threatened him, a lump of scrambled egg fell from his mouth on to the table. He looked at it, perplexed, picked it up, and put it in his mouth again.
Then the man in the black T-shirt went to sleep. His fork dropped from his hand. His plate tilted on his lap.
Garner didn’t seem to notice. He was concentrating on steering his own fork to his lips.
‘Huh,’ Kelson said. He poked the man next to him in the ribs. The man grunted – the most sound Kelson had heard him make.
Garner picked up his toast, brought it halfway to his face, then seemed to find it too heavy. His arm lowered to the table, the toast still in his fingers, and he left it there. He half stared at his pistol on the table. He tried to speak. The words seemed too heavy. He reached for the pistol, missed, and the momentum tipped him off the chair. The impact when he hit the floor woke him, and he pushed to his hands and knees. Then he sagged, and his body sank facedown.
Cindi came from the kitchen with two more plates of eggs and toast. She stopped when she saw Garner and the other man. ‘Demerol,’ she told Kelson. ‘I used the max dosage for when we want them to sleep at Rush Medical. End-of-life care.’
She set the plates on the table across from where Garner had sat and studied the unconscious men. ‘No,’ she told Garner, ‘it’s not all right.’ She kicked him in the ribs. ‘It’s wrong.’ She kicked him again.
Ten minutes later, when Rodman
burst through the apartment door, fire in his eyes, Kelson and Cindi were eating eggs and toast, and Garner and the other man, their arms and legs bound with electrical cords, were sleeping on the floor by the couch.
THIRTY-EIGHT
‘You know I love you, Sam,’ Cindi said to Kelson, ‘but defending my honor? It’s insulting.’
They sat at the table in the apartment while Rodman ate an omelet he made after calming down. Bound and gagged, Ramsey Garner and the man in the black T-shirt lay on the floor.
‘I didn’t mean to insult you,’ Kelson said.
‘And it’s embarrassing to you. You boys want to fight each other, all I need to do is stand back and let you knock each other down.’
‘Or crumble some Demerol in our scrambled eggs?’
‘Mama’s little helper.’
‘I was trying to help.’
Rodman swallowed a piece of toast. ‘Cindi takes care of herself.’
Kelson smiled at the big man. ‘That’s why you crashed through the door?’
Rodman picked up his cup of coffee, considered it, downed half of it. ‘Maybe it’s a boy thing. Wanting to save the girl when we can’t even save ourselves.’
Cindi smiled at him too. ‘You didn’t want to save anything when you came in. You wanted to stomp on it.’
Rodman narrowed his already narrow eyes. ‘Speaking of.’ He stood and picked up Ramsey Garner the way another man might heft a sand bag. He carried him toward the back of the apartment.
‘What are you doing?’ Cindi said.
‘Throwing him off the fire escape.’ But a few moments later, the sound of the shower came from the bathroom.
Cindi used Rodman’s fork to spear a bite of omelet. ‘Going to take more than cold water to make that hophead talk sense.’
But when Rodman dragged Garner, still bound and gagged, back into the room by his shirt collar, leaving a trail of bath water on the floor, the freckled man looked awake and angry.
Rodman released his collar and Garner flopped to the floor. ‘Look what I found,’ Rodman said, then stepped over Garner, straddling him. He stared down at him. ‘My girlfriend thinks I’m the kind of man who’d piss on you,’ he said with perfect calm. ‘Do I look like that kind of man?’
Garner’s eyes shined with anger.
‘I need an answer,’ Rodman said, ‘because I’m trying to figure out who I am right now. Call it an identity crisis.’
Garner made a sound like he was spitting into his gag.
‘Option two,’ Rodman said. ‘My friend Sam and I go out for an hour and leave you with Cindi. I’ve got this testosterone thing, but she’s hardcore.’
Garner made more sounds.
So Rodman pinched the gag in his big fingers and pulled it from Garner’s mouth. ‘You trying to say something?’
‘Fuck you.’
Rodman put the gag back over his mouth. He hovered over him, and, when he spoke, his voice was calm and quiet. ‘I’ll tell you a little story. Fifteen years ago, Sam and I went to police academy together. I always wanted to be a cop – since I was a kid, right? Then my little brother stepped into the middle of a drug bust and a cop shot him. The cop said my brother had a pocketknife, but if he did, no one else saw it. The review board ruled the killing justifiable. I dropped out of the academy the next day. Everyone said I was distraught. I suppose I was. But the real reason I dropped out was I knew if I ever bumped into the cop who shot my brother, I would tear his lungs out. I don’t know why I thought about his lungs. They just seemed right for big hands like mine. You got anything to say to that?’
Garner nodded.
Rodman pulled the gag off.
Garner said, ‘Fuck you.’
Rodman said, ‘Some guys never learn.’
He grabbed Garner’s collar and lifted him to his feet. Garner’s ankles were bound tight, and Rodman held him, wobbling, as if he might let him fall to the floor again. But he pulled him to the table and pushed him down in a chair. A pool of shower water stood on the floor where Garner had been lying. Another pool formed around his feet.
‘You’re a mess,’ Rodman said.
Garner eyed his partner on the floor by the couch. ‘Is he dead?’
‘Sleeping,’ Cindi said.
‘You did this?’ the freckled man said.
‘You’re an easy trick,’ she said.
‘Cunt.’
She got up. Calm. Like maybe she would clear the table. But she slapped his face. She sat back down on her chair. ‘I get so tired of men like you,’ she said.
A welt rose on his cheek. ‘Bitch.’
Kelson said, ‘Explain what happened. How the library bomb worked. How the Cranes got you to set it up. Exactly what you told Victor Almonte to convince him to do a suicide job.’
Garner spat at him.
‘Does the army train you to do that? Insult your captors? Rock them back on their heels?’
Garner called him a motherfucker. A cocksucker. A half dozen other names.
Kelson laughed at him and said, ‘You’re betraying the fear you won’t admit to.’
Rodman said, ‘You can talk to us, or we’ll let Cindi loose on you.’
Garner forced a grin. ‘I like it when a nigger girl hits me.’
‘You like it when I knock out all your teeth?’ Cindi said.
Garner licked his lips. ‘You let me lick you afterward, that’ll be fine.’
‘How’d you get this way?’ she said. ‘Did your daddy spank you too hard when you were three? Did your mommy tickle your tinkle in the tub?’
Rodman said, ‘Answer our questions, we’ll let you go.’
For the first time, Garner cut the psycho act. ‘Why would you let me go?’
‘Why would I want you here stinking up my apartment?’ Rodman said.
‘And what about him?’ Garner nodded at the unconscious man in the black T-shirt.
‘We keep him here until he wakes up,’ Rodman said. ‘Feed him coffee. Get his heartbeat where it belongs. Chat with him. If he behaves, we let him go too.’
‘He won’t talk to you,’ Garner said.
‘Then I’ll throw him off the fire escape.’
‘He doesn’t talk,’ Garner said.
Rodman looked at Kelson.
Kelson said, ‘It’s true. I don’t know if he can. He whispers some, though.’
Rodman told Garner, ‘Then if you want to lug him out of here asleep, be my guest.’
Garner thought some more. ‘What do you want to know?’
Rodman pointed a thumb at Kelson. ‘What he said. How did the whole thing work?’
‘I told him before,’ Garner said. ‘I did a variation on a cell phone trigger.’
‘What was the variation?’ Kelson asked.
Garner stared at the man in the black T-shirt, as if willing him to get up and help. He said, ‘The accountant – your friend Neto – needed to finish the transactions. I gave him a number to text when he was done. The text set off the backpack.’
‘How’s that a variation?’ Kelson said.
‘You usually use a cell phone trigger to keep from getting blown up,’ Garner said. ‘I used it to contain and destroy the evidence, including Neto and the phone. Good plan if Neto’d sent the money where he should’ve.’
‘But a blast gets attention,’ Rodman said. ‘Why do it?’
‘Talk to Chip Voudreaux. His idea.’
‘Not the Cranes’?’ Kelson said.
‘Voudreaux handled the details. He asked me to help, and I know explosives. I guess you use the tools you’ve got.’
‘Stupid way to do it,’ Rodman said.
‘How did you convince Victor Almonte?’ Kelson said.
‘Like I said, I told him this was part of the bigger effort. Almonte came back from Jalalabad broken. I fed him a story about a computer whiz kid who was using the library to send funds to the insurgents. Neto played his part like he was born to it. Those last days, Almonte got healthy. That bomb didn’t rip him apart. It put him togethe
r again.’
Cindi said, ‘Keep telling yourself that.’
He gave her a superior smile. ‘Unless you were there, you don’t know.’
‘You’ve got a sick head,’ she said.
Rodman said, ‘How does Genevieve Bower tie in?’
‘Does she need to?’ Garner started to look smug again. ‘She was Harry Crane’s hobby twenty years ago. He should’ve cleaned up when he got tired of her. Now he’s got me and the others to do the job.’
Cindi said, ‘You take any job no matter how nasty?’
‘I don’t judge,’ Garner said. ‘You know how many fifty-year-old Afghans I saw with fourteen-year-old wives? Send Harry Crane over there, he’d be a warlord, and all the fathers would give him their daughters. Not so long ago, he could’ve stayed in the good old USA. He could’ve floated down the Mississippi and plucked you off a plantation when you were fourteen, and afterward the other men would pour him a glass of whiskey and congratulate him on his good taste. No, I don’t judge.’
‘Well, I do,’ she said, ‘and I think you’re filthy.’
‘Each to his own.’
‘Not in my home,’ she said, and she got up and hit him again.
THIRTY-NINE
Marty rented two rooms a mile from his house, in the basement of a South Wabash office building. In one room he had a bed, a refrigerator, a hotplate, and a microwave oven. In the other he kept four computers, seven decks of cards, a green plastic bowl with three disposable phones in it, and the necessary furniture. Above his computer desk, a monitor showed images of the corridor outside the rooms and the street upstairs. Marty got in trouble often enough that he kept this hiding place to disappear into until he could worm his head out without getting it blown off. Sometimes he woke at his house in the middle of the night with a gut sense that someone was coming for him, and he’d grab his bag and go, go, go – but only the one mile to his basement rooms. He knew that most fugitives got caught by running to unfamiliar ground, where they revealed themselves by using credit cards and ATMs or just by looking lost. He kept the basement refrigerator stuffed with microwave dinners. On top of the refrigerator, he stacked cans of pork ’n’ beans and SpaghettiOs, which he’d loved since he was a kid. He could stay for a month or more pigging out on comfort food, watching internet porn, and playing solitaire.
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