“What the fuck’s happening, Larry?” she said.
“Waitin’ on those buyers,” said Larry, turning around to look at his woman. Larry scratched at his beard. He had another swig of beer, tossing his head back for a long one. His jean vest parted to expose his barrel chest and a great white belly covered with hair. Larry belched.
Albert did a bong hit, passed the bong over to Charlie, seated now on the couch. Albert shook a Marlboro red out of his box, gave himself a light. Charlie filled the bowl of the bong.
“You know these guys?” said Deborah.
“Remember that fat guy from Jersey, we met him in that bar in D.C., the dude bought us all those beers?”
“Yeah?”
“He knows ’em.”
“That supposed to mean something?” said Deborah.
“Shit, Deb, it’s a beautiful day. Why you gotta be so negative and shit?”
“Yeah,” said Albert, “you’re killing my high.”
“Just shut the fuck up, Albert,” said Deborah.
“You gonna let your lady harsh me out like that, bro?” said Albert. Albert blinked his close-set eyes and shook a curtain of greasy brown hair out of his face.
Larry didn’t answer. He crossed the room, gave Deborah a kiss, calmed her down. It was more to protect Albert than it was Deborah. Larry had seen Deborah kick Albert’s ass one night at a keg party out by the fire in the middle of the field. Albert claimed it was the barrel acid on top of the 714s that night that had thrown off his timing. But Larry knew it was his lady’s fierce will to come out on top. Hell, she even had to fuck him the same way—always on top. Deborah, she was one tough lady.
“Hey,” he whispered in her ear. “Let’s work on some peaceful vibes around here today, okay?”
“Okay, Larry,” she said. “Okay.”
Charlie used a poker to force the rest of the hit through the bong’s bowl. He put the bong on the lacquered wood table and walked to the front window. He looked out into the yard.
A red muscle car appeared over the hill near the tree line, came slowly down the gravel road. Poor Boy stopped polishing his bike, stared at the car as it stopped fifty yards from the house. Charlie gave a stoned chuckle as he squinted through the streaked window, seeing the Afros inside the car.
“Hey, Larry,” said Charlie, saying it loud enough so Larry could hear over the John Kay vocals and dirty guitar filling the room.
“Yeah,” said Larry.
“Buncha boofers in a cage just pulled up and stopped in the middle of the yard.”
“What kind of a cage, Slo Ride?” said Larry.
“Dodge,” said Charlie, who was called Slo Ride by his bros. “Red ragtop with black hood stripes.”
“That’s the way Eddie described it,” said Larry. “That’s them.”
Charlie watched the doors open, watched two figures emerge from the backseat. Charlie pushed a block of hair back behind his ear.
“Goddamn,” said Charlie.
“What?” said Larry.
“Two of ’em are walking toward the house. One’s packing double automatics and a suitcase and the other’s holding a sawed-off. They ain’t trying to hide it, neither.”
Albert stood up from his seat on the couch. He stabbed his smoke into the tire ashtray that sat on the table. “What the fuck’s going on, Larry?”
Larry picked at his beard. “Hell if I know. The way they do it down in Florida, I guess.”
“I’ll get the guns,” said Deborah, anticipation and excitement in her voice.
“Right.” Larry nodded rapidly. “And you go with her, Albert. Then go out the back door and get yourself against the side of the house.”
Albert and Deborah went back to the bedroom, came back quickly with guns and ammunition stacked like firewood in their arms. They dumped the guns on the couch.
“C’mon, Slo Ride,” said Larry. But Charlie hadn’t moved. He was smiling at the two who were now nearing the bungalow.
“What’re you waitin’ on, Slo Ride?” said Larry.
“Just lookin’ at our visitors, is all.”
“Yeah? Whaddaya see?”
“A bad-lookin’ nigger and a white boy who walks like a nigger. I’m tellin’ you, you ought to see it. It’s funnier than shit.”
“Never mind that,” said Larry. “Get your ass over here, now.”
Deborah slapped a magazine into the house M16 she had picked up off the couch. She switched the selector to full auto, cocked her hip, struck an SLA pose.
“How do I look, baby?” said Deborah.
“Just like Patty,” said Larry, a hint of pride in his voice.
Deborah said, “Bring ’em on.”
Larry could only look at her and smile.
Ronald Thomas leaned over toward the passenger seat, snorted a neat white mound off the crook of Russell’s hand. He felt the burn in his sinuses and almost right after, the medicinal drip in the back of his throat. The freeze was nice, but it made him want to do something: get out of the car, fuck someone up, talk to some bitches… do something. He heard Russell take some more blow up into his nose.
“Got-damn, boy, this shit is right!” Russell put out his hand. “Gimme one of them double-O’s, man.”
Ronald shook two Kools out from the bottom of the deck. He pushed in the dash lighter. He smiled a little, watching Cooper and that B. R. boy walking toward the house, putting something extra in their strides, Clagget having a time of it, trying to put a city black man’s down-step to it on those four-inch-high stacks of his. The two of them stopped at the shirtless biker cat who had been polishing his hog when they first drove up. Then Cooper got up on the front porch, stepped right in, just opened the screen door without knocking, went inside. B. R. Clagget stayed out in the yard, talking with the shirtless biker with the German army–looking helmet on his head.
“Right here,” said Russell, holding out the hot lighter, Ronald leaning over, putting fire to his Kool.
Ronald heard a rumble, looked in the rearview. A big ugly sucker wearing goggles and sitting low to the ground on a big bike was approaching from behind on the gravel road, his long straight hair blowing back in the wind. The bike went around the Challenger, the rider giving Ronald and Russell a good hard look before he continued on to where the other bikes were parked in front of the house. Ronald smiled at the man and nodded even as he shifted in his seat.
“Ronald,” said Russell.
“Be cool,” said Ronald. “Man’s just comin’ back to his crib.”
Ronald watched the big guy get off his bike, go over to where Clagget and the shirtless cat with the helmet were having their talk. Right about then, Ronald saw some movement on the side of the house: A thin white dude with a gun in his hand had himself pressed against the cedar shake siding, was moving slowly to the front. Ronald saw him put the gun back behind his jeans, try to get loose and natural as he pushed himself away from the house. Slick.
So it was those three out in the yard, one of them packing. And Ronald could see the dark outline of a few bodies through the bay window of the house. Two, maybe three in there. If he had to peg it, Ronald made it six against three: Cooper, Clagget, and himself. He didn’t count his younger brother; Ronald never counted on Russell in a pinch, simple as he was.
“See that shit?” said Russell.
“I see it.” Ronald slipped the .357 out of his slacks and placed it on his lap. “Now, you listen to me, boy—”
“Who you callin’—”
“Just listen. Whatever goes down, I want you to sit your ass low in that seat, and I want you to stay there. Don’t do nothin’ but that, hear?”
“Yeah, I hear.” Russell had pulled the .38 and was rubbing his thumb nervously against the checkered grip. He looked over at his brother. “Ronald?”
“Uh-huh?”
“This motherfucker’s gonna happen, ain’t it?”
“Gonna happen, all right.”
A line of blood had dripped down from Russell’s nose. He wiped
the blood from his upper lip. “When, Ronald?”
“If I was gonna place a bet”—Ronald pushed the gearshift into first—“I’d say it was gonna happen right about now.”
Bobby Roy Clagget swung the shotgun at his side, kind of threw his other arm out when he came up off the down-step. He had that free hand cupped like he was cupping a smoke. It felt good, walking next to Cooper. It wasn’t just that moving next to Cooper made him feel safe; moving alongside Cooper made Clagget feel bad, too.
It was hot out in the sun. Maryland in the summer, it was as hot and still as Carolina in July. Walking across the field toward the house, with the bugs buzzing in his ears, the sweat making the rayon shirt underneath the hunting vest stick to his back, Clagget had a feeling that he was a boy again, his stepfather yelling at him from the house as he walked along the plow lines of his mother’s farm.
They came near the shirtless guy polishing his bike. The guy had stood up and was watching them approach with a wary but cool eye. Clagget checked out the bikes sitting in the row: small-saddled, customized Harleys, all of them, their forks stretched and raked, Twin and Big Twin Knucklehead engines, one newer model sporting the AMF logo, a Panhead on the end. Shirtless’s bike was a Panhead as well. Growing up in the south, Clagget knew something about bikes; he had taken apart and put back together a street Yamaha his stepfather had won at cards just a few years back. He’d have something to talk about with the guy in the yard.
They stopped in front of the biker. Clagget noticed his very blue, almost Chinese eyes, and the twin SS stickers on the Prussian helmet pushed back on his head. An awful scrape ran from shoulder to elbow on the biker’s right arm. The sound of a bluesy guitar came from the bungalow’s screen door.
“How do,” said Cooper, smiling broadly. “Larry around?”
“Inside,” said the man. “You got—”
“An appointment? Sure do. And what’s your name?”
“They call me Poor Boy.”
“Tell you what, Poor Boy. I’m gonna go on in, have my meeting with Larry. Anyone else in there with him?”
Poor Boy looked at the .45s slung loosely under Cooper’s arms. He looked at Clagget’s shotgun. “Well… there’s Deborah, Larry’s lady. Dude named Charlie, goes by the name of Slo Ride. Another dude named Albert.”
“This Albert got another name?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Okay. So I’m gonna go on in. This here’s my young friend B. R. He’s gonna stay out here, keep you company. That sound good to you?”
“Sure,” said Poor Boy, his hands fluttering nervously.
Without another word, Cooper stepped up onto the bungalow’s porch, touching one of four pillars that held up the overhanging roof, and went to the screen door. Clagget watched him open the door, step inside without stopping to knock or even announce himself. Yeah, Cooper was one genuine bad-ass dude.
Clagget looked at Poor Boy’s scraped arm. “Where’d you get the road rash?”
“Dropped my bike on Six Ninety-five.”
“You didn’t hardly scratch the bike.”
“Saved it with my arm and leg. Leg’s worse.”
Clagget chin-nodded at Poor Boy’s Harley. “It sure is nice.”
“Thanks.”
“Panhead, right? Got those fishtail pipes. Like Peter Fonda’s Captain America.”
“Huh?”
“Easy Rider.”
“Peter Fonda. That all you know? You know movies, but what you know about bikes?”
“Broke down a Yamaha once.”
“Fuck a Yamaha.”
“Bike’s a bike.”
Poor Boy said, “Rice rocket ain’t no bike.”
“If you say,” said Clagget.
Poor Boy stared at the kid, the khaki hunting vest over the disco shirt, a ticktacktoe design, rust on yellow; rust-colored baggies, cuffed at the ends, breaking low on the stacks. Even with the shotgun in Disco Boy’s hand, Poor Boy had to know.
“Say, man,” said Poor Boy. “You mind if I ask you somethin’?”
“Go ahead.”
“What’s a natural-born white boy like you doin’ hangin’ out with a bunch of niggers?”
“Just fortunate, I guess.”
Both of them turned at the sound of a monster bike coming down the gravel road. The rider was fat and uglier than a pig’s ass, and he clutched the ape-hanger handlebars in the crucifix position as he went around the Challenger and blew in toward the house. He sat way low in the saddle and leaned back against the sissy bar with his feet high on the pegs. He came to a stop near Clagget and Poor Boy, cut the engine, got off the bike.
The guy towered over Clagget by a head, outweighed him by a hundred and fifty pounds. He wore black boots with heel-wrapped chains, fingerless gloves, and Red Baron–style goggles. His arms were tattooed wrist to shoulder, and there were teardrop tats coming down behind the goggle of his right eye.
The big biker looked Clagget over thoroughly. “What the fuck are you supposed to be?” he said.
Poor Boy chuckled. With the big guy around, he had gotten back some of his courage. “He’s with some rugheads came to make a buy from Larry.”
“That a fact.”
“Name’s B. R.,” offered Clagget. “Didn’t catch yours.”
The big man hesitated. Disco had the shotgun—he’d play Disco’s game.
“Lucer,” said the big man.
“Loser?” said Clagget.
The big man sighed. “Not Loser. Lucer. Billy Lucer. It’s my name.”
Clagget looked at Lucer’s bike. “Old Shovelhead, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Boss tubes,” said Clagget, pointing to the pipes on Lucer’s bike. “You slash ’em like that your own self?”
“Yeah. Slash-cut ’em and turned ’em out.”
“Ain’t no wonder it’s so loud.”
“One of the loudest on the street.”
“Yeah,” said Clagget, “it sure is a nice sled.”
“Thanks,” said Lucer, squinting at Clagget, not sure if the skinny, toothless kid with the fucked-up face was putting him on.
“Yeah, I mean to tell you, it really is nice.” Clagget took a few steps over to the bike. “You mind if I kick it over?”
Lucer looked at Poor Boy for a moment, then back to Clagget. “I guess it’s all right.”
Clagget smiled. He had seen this in a flick at the drive-in, Angels Die Hard or The Savage Seven, he couldn’t remember which. He never thought he’d get the chance to do it himself.
“I do thank you,” said Clagget.
“Hey,” said Lucer, as Clagget lifted his right leg.
Clagget put his shoe to the flame-painted gas tank, kicked the bike over on its side. It hit the hard ground, bounced a few inches, kicked up a cloud of dust.
“You’re fuckin’ dead,” growled Lucer, moving forward.
Clagget stepped back a couple of feet and swung the shotgun between the two men. “You boys know what this is?”
Poor Boy nodded stupidly, stumbled back a step. Lucer stopped dead in his tracks.
Clagget pumped the sawed-off, pointed the shotgun at the one called Poor Boy. “And you sure do know what that sound is, don’t you?”
Poor Boy opened his mouth to speak. Before any words came out, they all heard the double clap of gunfire and then a woman’s scream from inside the house.
When Wilton Cooper stepped into the living room of the bungalow, he saw three biker types spread out in a loose triangle, all of them holding guns. There was a fat man tapping the barrel of a .44 against his side and a kinky-haired stoner holding a revolver of undetermined caliber and a tall bitch cradling an M16. Fat Man stood in front of the couch, with Stoner standing to the side next to a wood table with smoking paraphernalia on it. The tall Pocahontas-looking freak—she was back in what would have been a dining room, near the kitchen—she had those bright, fearless eyes Cooper had known in certain stickup boys he had run with back in the years past. Of the group, she was th
e one to watch.
They were just standing there, waiting for Cooper to say something, he guessed. The stereo was cranking, the singer digging out the first verse of the song from somewhere deep in his throat: “You know I smoked a lot grass, Loooord I popped a lot of pills….”
Cooper moved closer to the group, smiled. “How do?” he said.
“You Cooper?” said Larry.
“It is me,” said Cooper.
“Larry,” said Larry.
Cooper said, “Well, all right.”
Larry nodded to the kinky-haired one with the uncertain eyes, wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon Mexican, some fool thing about pussy written on it. Like wearing that shirt was going to get him some play.
“This here’s Slo Ride,” said Larry.
“Pleased to know you,” said Cooper.
Larry motioned his head behind him, managed to do it without taking his eyes off Cooper. “And my lady, Deborah.”
“My pleasure, baby,” said Cooper.
Deborah had moved back farther into the dining room. Smart girl. Cooper wondered where the fourth one had gone to; out in the yard, Poor Boy had said that a cat named Albert was in the house. Could be back in the kitchen, some shit like that, or maybe out back, moving around the bungalow. No matter. Cooper had faith in B. R., and he knew Ronald Thomas would be on it, too. Cooper would just put Albert out of his mind, deal with him if he had to when the time came.
“Goooddamn… the pusher,” growled the singer from the speakers.
“Turn the music down,” said Larry to Charlie. “I can’t fuckin’ think.”
“That’s okay,” said Cooper. “Used to hear this tune all the time. Had a lot of boys, looked something like you, used to play this all the time, back at my alma mater.”
“Yeah?” said Charlie. “Where’s that?”
“Louisiana State.”
“Angola?”
“The same.”
“Had some bros in there myself.”
“I figured you did.” Cooper dropped the suitcase on the wood table. “Well, anyway. What y’all say we do our business? Kind of in a hurry to get back to the city, if you know what I mean.”
Cooper opened the suitcase, and Larry stepped over to have a look. His eyes widened: It was a shitload of cash money in there, rubber-banded and stacked. He picked up one of the bundles, flipped through it, made sure there wasn’t blank paper behind the cover bill. He tossed the stack back into the case.
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