Just as well he changed his look. He saw a squad car drive past, slow, along the street across from the playground. Jax stayed right where he was. Nothing draws cops faster than walking away (he'd been stopped dozens of times for the criminal offense of WWB--walking while black). At the court in front of him a handful of high school boys moved magically over the scuffed gray asphalt of a half court, while another dozen watched. Jax saw the dusty brown ball smack into the ground, then heard the delayed crack. He watched hands grapple, watched bodies collide, watched the ball sailing toward the board.
The squad car vanished and Jax pushed away from the fence and approached the boys standing on the edge of the court. The ex-con looked them over. Not a posse, no Glock-toting gangstas. Just a bunch of boys--some with tats, some without, some draped with chain, some with a single cross, some with bad intentions, some with good. Preening for the girls, lording over the little kids. Talking, smoking. Being young.
Watching them, Jax slipped into melancholy. He'd always wanted a big family but, like so many other things, that dream hadn't worked out. He'd lost one child to the foster system and another to his girlfriend's fateful visit to the clinic on 125th Street. One January years ago, to Jax's delight, she'd announced she was pregnant. In March she'd had some pains and they'd gone to a free clinic, which was their only health care option. They'd spent hours in the filthy, overcrowded waiting room. By the time she'd finally gotten to see a doctor she'd miscarried.
Jax had grabbed the man and come close to beating him bloody. "Not my fault," said the tiny Indian, cowering beside a gurney. "They cut our budget. The city did, I'm saying." Jax was plunged into rage and depression. He had to get even with somebody, to make sure this didn't happen again--to her or to anyone else. It was no consolation when the doctor explained that at least they'd saved his girlfriend's life--which probably wouldn't've happened if other planned budget cutbacks for healthcare to the poor had gone through.
How could a fucking government do that to people? Wasn't the whole point of city hall and the state capital to be there for the welfare of citizens? How could they let a little baby die?
Neither the doctor, nor the police who led him out of the hospital that night in handcuffs, had been inclined to answer those questions.
The sorrow and blistering anger at that memory made him all the more determined to get over with what he was about now.
Grim-faced, Jax looked over the boys on the courts and nodded to the one that he'd pegged as a leader of some kind. Wearing baggy shorts, high-top sneakers and a sports jersey. His hair was a gumby--thin on one side, rounded high on the other. The boy looked him over. "S'up, grandpa?"
Some guffaws from the others.
Grandpa.
In the old Harlem--well, maybe the old everywhere--being an adult carried respect. Now it got you dissed. A playa would've taken the piece out of his sock and make this little claimer hop to. But Jax had been seasoned by his years on the street and years inside prison and knew that wasn't the way to go, not here. He laughed it off. Then whispered, "Tall paper?"
"You want some?"
"I wanta give you some. If you're interested, asshole." Jax tapped his pocket, where his wad of benjamins resided, curled up fat.
"I ain't selling nothing."
"And I ain't buying what you think. Come on. Let's stroll."
The kid nodded and they walked away from the court. As they did, Jax felt the boy looking him over, noticing the man's limp. Yeah, it was an I-got-shot limp but it could've been a playa-gangsta limp just as easy. And then he looked at Jax's eyes, cold as dirt, and then the muscles and the prison tat. Maybe thinking: Jax's age would've made him head-high O.G.--who you fucked with at your peril. Original Gangstas had AKs and Uzis and Hummers and a dozen badasses in their posses. O.G.s were the ones used twelve-year-olds to cap witnesses and rival dealers 'cause courts couldn't send them into the system forever, like they did when you were seventeen or eighteen.
An O.G. would bust you up bad for calling him "grandpa."
The kid started to look uneasy. "Yo, yo, whatchu want exactly, man? Where we goin'?"
"Just over there. Don't want to talk in front of the whole world." Jax stopped behind some bushes. The boy's eyes darted around. Jax laughed. "I'm not going to fuck you up, boy. Chill."
The kid laughed too. But nervous. "I'm down, man."
"I need to find somebody's crib. Somebody going to Langston Hughes. You go there?"
"Yeah, most of us." He nodded toward the courts.
"I'm looking for the girl was on the news this morning."
"Her? Geneva? Saw some dude get capped or something? The straight-A bitch?"
"I don't know. She get straight A's?"
"Yeah. She smart."
"Where's she live?"
He fell silent, cautious. Debating. Was he going to get fucked up for asking what he wanted to? He decided he wasn't. "You were talking 'bout paper?"
Jax slipped him some bills.
"I myself don' know the bitch, man. But I can hook you up with a brother who does. Nigger of mine name of Kevin. Want me to give him a call?"
"Yeah."
A tiny cell phone emerged from the boy's shorts. "Yo, dog. It's Willy . . . . The half courts . . . Yeah. Listen, dude here with some benjamins, looking fo' yo' bitch . . . . Geneva. The Settle bitch . . . Hey, chill, man. S'a joke, you know what I'm saying? . . . Right. Now, this dude, he--"
Jax snatched the phone from Willy's hand and said, "Two hundred, you give up her address."
A hesitation.
"Cash?" Kevin asked.
"No," Jax snapped, "American Fuckin' Express. Yeah, cash."
"I'ma come by the courts. You got those C-notes on you?"
"Yeah, they're sitting right next to my Colt, you're interested. And when I say Colt I don't mean malt in a forty."
"I'm down, man. Just askin'. I don't go round fielding folk."
"I'll be hanging with my crew," Jax said, grinning at the uneasy Willy. He disconnected the phone and tossed it to the kid. Then he walked back to the fence and leaned against it and watched the game.
Ten minutes later Kevin arrived--unlike Willy, he was a real playa, tall, handsome, poised. Looked like some actor Jax couldn't place. To show off for the old dude, show he wasn't too eager to earn any C-notes--and to impress a few of the bling girls, of course--Kevin took his time. Paused, tapped fists, hugged a boy or two. Tossed out, "Yo, yo, my man," a few times and then stepped onto the court, commandeered the ball and did a couple of impressive dunks.
Man could play hoops, no question.
Finally Kevin loped up to Jax and looked him over, because that was what you did when an outsider walked into a pack--whether it was on half courts or in a bar or even in Alonzo Henderson's Victorian-era barbershops, Jax guessed. Kevin tried to figure out where Jax was carrying the piece, how much paper he really had on him, what he was about. Jax asked, "Just lemme know how long you're going keep giving me the bad-eye, okay? 'Cause it's gettin' boring."
Kevin didn't smile. "Where's the benjamins?"
Jax slipped Kevin the money.
"Where's the girl?"
"Come on. I'll show you."
"Just the address."
"You afraid of me?"
"Just the address." Eyes not wavering.
Kevin grinned. "Don't know the number, man. I know the building. I walked her home last spring. I gotta point it out."
Jax nodded.
They started west and south, surprising Jax; he thought the girl would live in one of the tougher neighborhoods--farther north toward the Harlem River, or east. The streets here weren't elegant but they were clean, and many of the buildings had been renovated, it seemed. There was also a lot of new construction underway.
Jax frowned, looking around at the nice streets. "You sure we're talking Geneva Settle."
"That's the bitch you ask about. That's the crib I'm showing you . . . . Yo, man, you wanta buy some weed, some rock?"
"No."
"Sure? I got some good shit."
"A damn shame, you going deaf and all at your young age."
Kevin shrugged.
They came to a block near Morningside Park. On top of the rocky incline was the Columbia University campus, a place he had frequently bombed with Jax 157 years ago.
They started to turn the corner but both of them stopped fast.
"Yo, check it out," Kevin whispered. There was a Crown Vic--clearly an unmarked police car--double-parked in front of an old building.
"That's her crib? The car's in front of?"
"Naw. Hers's two buildings closer. That one there." He pointed.
It was old but in perfect shape. Flowers in the window boxes, everything clean. Nice curtains. Paint looked new.
Kevin asked, "You going to fuck up the bitch?" He looked Jax up and down.
"What I'm about is my business."
"Your business, your business . . . . Sure it is," Kevin said in a soft voice. "Only . . . the reason I'm asking is, 'cause if she was to get fucked up--which I have no problem with, I'm saying--but if something was to happen to her, yo, check it out: I'd know it was you. And somebody might come round and wanna talk to me 'bout it. So, I'm thinking, with all that tall paper you carrying around in your pocket there, maybe I had a little more of it, I might forget I even seen you. On th' other hand, it's possible I could remember a lot 'bout you and that you was interested in the little bitch."
Jax had seen quite a bit of life. Been a graffiti king, been a soldier in Desert Storm, known gangstas in prison and outside, been shot at . . . If there was a rule in this crazy world it was that however stupid you thought people were, they were always happy to be stupider.
In a fraction of a second, Jax grabbed the boy's collar with his left hand and swung his fist up hard into the boy's gut, three times, four, five . . .
"Fuck--" was all the boy got out.
The way you fought in prison. Never give 'em a single second to recover.
Again, again, again . . .
Jax let go and the kid rolled into the alley, groaning in pain. With the deliberate, slow movement of a baseball player picking out a bat, Jax bent down and pulled the gun from his sock. As terrified Kevin watched helplessly, the ex-con worked the slide of the automatic to chamber a round then wrapped his do-rag around the barrel a number of times. This was, Jax had learned from DeLisle Marshall on S block, one of the best, and cheapest, ways to muffle the sound of a gunshot.
Chapter Eighteen
That evening, 7:30 P.M., Thompson Boyd had just finished painting a cartoon bear on the wall of Lucy's room. He stepped back and glanced at his work. He'd done what the book had told him to do and, sure enough, it looked pretty much like a bear. It was the first picture in his life he'd ever painted, outside of school--which is why he'd worked so hard studying the book in his safe house earlier today.
The girls seemed to love it. He thought he himself should be pleased with the picture. But he wasn't sure. He stared at it for a long time, waiting to feel proud. He didn't. Oh, well. He stepped into the hallway, glanced at his cell phone. "Got a message," he said absently. He dialed. "Hey, it's Thompson. How you doing? Saw you called."
Jeanne glanced at him then returned to drying the dishes.
"No, kidding?" Thompson chuckled. For a man who didn't laugh, he thought he sounded real. Of course, he'd done the same thing that morning, in the library, laughing to put the Settle girl at ease, and that hadn't worked so well. He reminded himself not to overact. "Man, that's a bummer," he said into the dead phone. "Sure. Won't take too long, will it? Got that negotiation again tomorrow, yeah, the one we postponed . . . Gimme ten and I'll see you there."
He folded the phone closed and said to Jeanne, "Vern's over at Joey's. He's got a flat."
Vernon Harber had once existed but no longer did. Thompson had killed him some years ago. But because he'd known Vern before he died, Thompson had turned him into a fictional neighborhood buddy he saw occasionally, a sidekick. Like the dead real Vern, the live fictional one drove a Supra and had a girlfriend named Renee and told plenty of funny stories about life on the docks and at the pork store and in his neighborhood. Thompson knew a lot more about Vern and he kept the details in mind. (When you lie, he knew, lie big, ballsy and specific.) "He drove his Supra over a beer bottle."
"Is he all right?" Jeanne asked.
"He was just parking. The putz can't get the lug nuts off by himself."
Alive and dead, Vern Harber was a couch potato.
Thompson took the paintbrush and cardboard bucket to the laundry room and set them in the basin, ran water to soak the brush. He slipped on his jacket.
Jeanne asked, "Oh, could you get some two-percent on the way home?"
"Quart?"
"That's fine."
"And some roll-ups!" Lucy called.
"What flavor?"
"Grape."
"All right. Brit?"
"Cherry!" the girl said. Her memory nudged her. "Please," she added.
"Grape and cherry and milk." Pointing at each of the females, according to her order.
Thompson stepped outside and started walking in a convoluted path up and down the streets of Queens, glancing back occasionally to make sure he wasn't being followed. Breathing cold air into his lungs, exhaling it hotter and in the form of soft musical notes: the Celine Dion song from Titanic.
The killer had kept an eye on Jeanne when he'd told her he was going out. He'd noted that her concern for Vern seemed real and that she wasn't the least suspicious, despite the fact he was going to see a man she'd never met. But this was typical. Tonight, he was helping a friend. Sometimes he said he wanted to place an OTB bet. Or he was going to see the boys at Joey's for a fast one. He rotated his lies.
The lean, curly-haired brunette never asked much about where he went, or about the phoney computer salesman job he claimed he had, which required him to be away from home frequently. Never asked details about why his business was so secret he had to keep his home office door locked. She was smart and clever, two very different things, and most any other smart and clever woman would have insisted on being included more in his life. But not Jeanne Starke.
He'd met her at a lunch counter here in Astoria a few years ago after he'd gone to ground following the murder of a Newark drug dealer he'd been hired to kill. Sitting next to Jeanne at the Greek diner, he'd asked her for the ketchup and then apologized, noting that she had a broken arm and couldn't reach it. He asked if she was all right, what had happened? She'd deflected the question, though tears filled her eyes. They'd continued to talk.
Soon they were dating. The truth about the arm finally came out and one weekend Thompson paid a visit to her ex-husband. Later, Jeanne told him that a miracle had happened: Her ex had left town and wasn't even calling the girls anymore, which he'd done once a week, drunk, to rage at them about their mother.
A month later Thompson moved in with her and the children.
It was a good arrangement for Jeanne and her daughters, it seemed. Here was a man who didn't scream or take a belt to anyone, paid the rent and showed up when he said he would--why, they felt he was the greatest catch on earth. (Prison had taught Thompson a great deal about setting low bars.) A good arrangement for them, and good for a professional killer too: Someone in his line of work who has a wife or girlfriend and children is far less suspicious than a single person.
But there was another reason he was with her, more important than simple logistics and convenience. Thompson Boyd was waiting. Something had been missing from his life for a long time and he was awaiting its return. He believed that someone like Jeanne Starke, a woman without excessive demands and with low expectations, could help him find it.
And what was this missing thing? Simple: Thompson Boyd was waiting for the numbness to go away and for the feeling in his soul to return, the way your foot comes back to life after it's fallen asleep.
Thompson had many recollections of his childhood in Texas, images
of his parents and his aunt Sandra, cousins, friends from school. Watching Texas A&M games on the tube, sitting around the Sears electric organ, Thompson pushing the button for the chords while his aunt or father played the melody as best they could with their pudgy fingers (they ran in the family line). Singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" and the theme from The Green Berets. Playing hearts. Learning how to use tools with his father in the perfectly neat work shed. Walking beside the big man in the desert, marveling at the sunsets, the lava beds, coyotes, the sidewinders, which moved like music but could still sting you to death in a flash.
He recalled his mother's life of church, packing sandwiches, sunbathing, sweeping Texas dust out the trailer door and sitting in aluminum chairs with her girlfriends. He recalled his father's life of church, collecting LP records, spending Saturdays with his boy and weekdays wildcatting on the derricks. He recalled those wonderful Friday evenings, going to the Goldenlight Cafe on Route 66 for Harleyburgers and fries, Texas swing music pumping through the speakers.
Thompson Boyd wasn't numb then.
Even during that hard time after a June twister took their double-wide and his mother's right arm, and nearly her life, even when his father lost his job in the layoffs that swept the Panhandle like an Okie dust storm, Thompson wasn't numb.
And he sure wasn't numb when he watched his mother gasp and stifle tears on the streets of Amarillo after some kid called her "one-arm" and Thompson had followed and made sure the boy never made fun of anybody again.
But then came the prison years. And somewhere in those Lysol-stinking halls numbness crawled over feeling and put it to sleep. So deep asleep that he didn't even feel a blip when he got the word that a driver snoozing at the cab of a Peterbilt killed his parents and aunt simultaneously, the only thing that survived being the shoe-shine kit the boy had made his father for the man's fortieth birthday. So deep asleep that when, after he left prison and tracked down the guard Charlie Tucker, Thompson Boyd felt nothing as he watched the man die slowly, face purple from the noose, struggling desperately to grip the rope and hoist himself up to stop the strangulation. Which you just can't do, no matter how strong you are.
The Twelfth Card Page 20