“Get me a pack of double-Os while you in there, too,” said Jones.
“You got money?” said Dennis.
Jones waved him away. “I’ll get you at my girl’s.”
Dennis got out of the car and crossed the street, a slight limp in his walk. Jones and Willis watched him pass through the market’s open door.
“Damn,” said Willis, “you are good. All that shit about exploitatin’ our people, him bein’ nothin’ but talk . . . you lit a fire in his ass.”
“I can talk some shit, can’t I?”
“What if he has a change of mind?”
“He walked in there, didn’t he?” said Jones. “Ain’t no way he can change up now.”
Upon entering the market, Dennis Strange found that it was as he had imagined it would be. Several rows of canned and dry goods, a cooler for sodas and dairy products, a limited selection of fresh vegetables and fruits, a freezer for ice cream tubs and bars, penny-candy bins, a whole mess of nickel candy, and paperbacks on a stand-up carousel rack. A white man, who would be the owner, and a black man, who would be the employee, sat behind the long counter that ran in front of one wall of the store. The white man sat on a stool in front of the register. The black man, also on a stool, sat tight against the counter, a newspaper open before him.
A twelve-inch Philco black-and-white TV, its rabbit ears wrapped in foil, sat on the far end of the counter, the tuxedoed image on its screen flickering amid the snow. Even through the poor reception, Dennis recognized the hunched shoulders, fishlike face, and the old-time-radio sound of the host’s voice.
“We have a big show for you tonight. . . . Charleton Heston, Peter Genarro, popular singing group the Young Americans, Frankie Laine, Lana Cantrell, funnyman Myron Cohen, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and a young comedian I think you’re going to like, Richard Pryor!”
The white man nodded to Dennis. “How you doing this evening, friend?”
“I’m doin’ all right,” said Dennis.
The black man, who Dennis guessed was the stock shelver, hand trucker, general physical laborer, and muscle for the place if it was needed, looked him over but did not nod or greet him in any way. He was not being unfriendly, but simply doing his job. This was the kind of place where the employees recognized damn near every person who came through the door. Dennis reasoned that he would check a young man like him out, too, if that were what he was being paid to do.
Dennis went to the paperbacks and casually spun the carousel, inspecting the imprints, titles, and authors of the books racked on it. There were several Coffin Ed-Gravedigger Jones novels by Chester Himes, a couple of Harold Robbinses, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and a copy of Nigger, by Dick Gregory. Also, books by John D. MacDonald, all with colors in their titles, Avon-edition Ian Flemings, a few Matt Helms, Valley of the Dolls, and a ninety-five-cent Dell version of Rosemary’s Baby. The cover of this one claimed that it was “America’s #1 Bestseller.” Dennis’s mother said that all her friends had read it, but she was going to pass, as she had already raised two devil children of her own. Her eyes had sparkled some when she said it, though. She had been in the kitchen, washing dishes and looking at her baby birds, while she was talking. Dennis smiled a little, thinking of her there.
“We help you?” said the black man from behind the counter. “Gettin’ about ready to close up.”
“Just checking out these books,” said Dennis, moving away from the rack and walking toward the register, where the white man sat. He saw the black man casually slip his hand beneath the counter. “I will take a pack of menthols, though.”
“What flavor?” said the white man, getting up off his stool and putting his hand up to a slotted display over the register that held the cigarettes.
“Kools,” said Dennis.
He noticed that the white man had them in his hand before the brand name had even come out of Dennis’s mouth. Course this man would know what brand to pull. Every menthol-smoking brother walking in here was either going for Kool, Newport, or Salem. But if you had to bet on it, Kool was the cigarette of choice, especially for a young cat like him.
“You must have, what do you call that, intuition,” said Dennis.
“You hear that, John?” said the white man to the black man, and the black man’s eyes smiled. “I’m the Uri Geller of the grocery world.”
“You in the wrong business, Mr. Ludvig.”
“Here you go,” said Dennis, pushing a one-dollar bill across the counter.
This Mr. Ludvig reminded Dennis of old man Meyer, from the corner DGS market where he lived. Same easy manner, same sense of humor, always making fun at his own expense. Prob’ly knew every kid’s name who came into his shop. Prob’ly spotted them for penny candy, too, the way Mr. Meyer had spotted him for fireballs, Bazookas, and such when he was a kid.
And the black man, John, wearing a button-down sweater even though it wasn’t all that cold, could’ve been Dennis’s father. Same age, about, same kind of physical strength, same kind of resignation in his face as to what he was. A straight man, in a way, to his boss. The way Darius was to Mike Georgelakos, the Greek over on Kennedy. Chuckling at jokes that weren’t all that funny, nodding at the same old cornball sayings he heard coming from the man’s mouth ten times a day. Doing it because he was of that time. A time that was bound to pass, but still. What choice had they had, really, in the face of feeding their families? Take care of your people, hope that they made a better life for themselves and their own kids when the time came. Or be some shifty, low-ass bum, a nothing that no one, not even heirs, would remember. This man John and Dennis’s father, Darius, they had chosen right. Two men who had chosen to be men, and in the process had given up some of their pride long ago. Because that is what they had to work with in their time.
“You okay?” said Mr. Ludvig.
“Fine,” said Dennis, who had been staring off to the side.
“Here you go, friend,” said Ludvig, handing him his change.
“All right, then,” said Dennis, looking from one man to the other. “Ya’ll have a good evening, hear?”
“You do the same, young man,” said John.
Dennis walked out the door. The black man, whose full name was John Thomas, came around the counter and went to the plate-glass window that fronted the market. He watched Dennis cross the street.
Dennis went to the Monterey and dropped into the backseat. He handed the Kools over the seat to Jones, who packed them against the back of his hand, removed all the cellophane, and tore a hole in the bottom of the pack. He shook one out, tobacco end first, turned it, and slipped it into his mouth.
“Well?” said Jones.
“You gonna have some problems,” said Dennis.
“How so?”
“Place is mined, for one. They got snipers up in the trees, too.”
Jones put fire to his cigarette. He blew the match out on the exhale and turned his head to look at Dennis. “You finished?”
“No, there’s more. Let me lay it out for you, like you asked me to, so you know.”
Jones’s eyes were flat. “Go ahead.”
“You know where the register always at in these places? It’s in the same place here. Except they done went and dug a moat around it. Dropped some cobra snakes in the moat and put a few crocodiles in there to keep ’em company.”
“That a fact.”
“Uh-huh. And you were right on about the money. There’s tons of it, man. Matter of fact, they got a big old safe in that market, exactly like the one they got down in Fort Knox, just so they can hold it all. Odd Job be guardin’ it, too.”
“Smart nigger,” said Jones.
“I think of any details I forgot,” said Dennis, “I’ll let you know.”
Jones’s lip twitched. “This a game to you?”
“Told you from the start I wasn’t gonna do it.”
“You need to understand somethin’, then. I hear you been talkin’ about this to anybody, especially that po-lice brother of y
ours, I’m gonna be lookin’ for you. And another thing: If I go down for this, for any reason, your name’s gonna be the first one I mention. ’Cause you was in there, boy; can’t nobody dispute that. And whoever you spoke to, they gonna remember your face.”
“You scarin’ me, brother,” said Dennis. “I mean, I am tremblin’.”
“You think I’m playin’,” said Jones, “you try me out.”
“We done?”
Jones breathed out slowly. “Drop this motherfucker off somewhere, Kenneth, before I lose my composure.”
“You need to go by your woman’s before you drop me anywhere,” said Dennis.
“Say what?” said Jones.
“You still owe me thirty. For the gage.”
Willis ignitioned the Mercury and pulled it off the curb. Full night had come to the streets.
THIRTEEN
YOU OKAY, LOVER?”
“I’m fine,” said Frank Vaughn.
“Your eyes look kinda funny.”
“Yours did, too. A minute ago, it looked like they were gonna pop right out your head.”
“Stop it.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m just a little dizzy. But it’s a good dizzy, babe.”
Frank Vaughn pulled out of the woman who was underneath him in her bed. Her name was Linda Allen. She caught her breath as he left her and rolled onto his back. He rested a beefy hand between the pillow and his head. The smell of Linda’s sex, the smell of their perspiration, and the smell of the liquor they had drunk and the cigarettes they’d smoked were strong in the room.
“I’m gonna go wash up,” said Linda. “You want something?”
Vaughn checked his Hamilton wristwatch. Gray and brown hairs sprouted through the links of the stainless band. “I got time for a short one, I guess.”
Linda Allen got off the bed naked and proud, her posture straight. She shook her long hair off her shoulders as she moved. That was for him. Vaughn watched her with admiration. She was a tall, leggy brunette, now in her forties, a divorcée who had never had children and so had kept her shape. Her breasts were pink tipped, heavy, and stood up nice. Vaughn took in the cut of her muscular thighs, her ample round ass, and that warm box that always held him tight. God, this was a woman right here. Reminded him of Julie London in her prime. He had been with Linda for almost ten years.
He thought of this apartment, a one-bedroom in the Woodner, down by the lion bridge on 16th, as his oasis. He visited Linda on his night shifts, one or two times a week. Sometimes he came for what he’d come for tonight. Sometimes he came to rest.
He heard the toilet flush in the bathroom and then the sound of water flowing from the faucet. He reached over to the nightstand, shook an L&M from the deck, and lit it with his Zippo, which was customized with a hand-painted map of Okinawa. He took a deep drag, coughed a little, and lay his head back on the pillow.
His wife, Olga, was the same age as Linda, but the similarities ended there. Olga no longer had any shape to speak of. Her ass had flattened out, as had her breasts. Linda talked very little; Olga talked all the time. Vaughn’s ejaculations with Olga were typically no more sensational than urination. With Linda, he came like a stallion. The funny thing was, though, when Vaughn made love to his wife, he experienced emotions he never felt while he was fucking Linda. And he knew the difference was just that simple: One was love and one was just a fuck. A lucky man could get both from his wife, but Vaughn hadn’t had that kind of luck. It wasn’t anything to cry over. This arrangement worked just fine.
Vaughn heard Linda’s heavy footsteps out in the living room. He heard her opening the lid on her console hi-fi. He heard a Chris Connor tune coming from the speakers. That was another thing about Linda; she shared his taste in music. Entertainers who dressed right, musicians who had been trained to play their instruments, singers who sang rather than screamed. None of that rock-and-roll shit that his son, Ricky, now a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Maryland, listened to in his room.
Linda came into the bedroom, a clean, damp washcloth in one hand, a tumbler of Beam and water over ice in the other. Vaughn rested his smoke in the dip of the nightstand ashtray. She put the washcloth in his hand and sat on the edge of the bed. Vaughn ran the cloth over his uncut member, pushed out the last of his seed, and cleaned Linda’s smell from his pubic hair. He sat up, leaned his back against the headboard, and dropped the washcloth to the floor. Linda had a pull of the drink and handed the glass to Vaughn. He rattled the cubes a little and tipped some cool hot bourbon into his mouth.
Vaughn swallowed slowly. “What you starin’ at, doll?”
“Big old dog. I’m staring at you.” She rubbed her hand over his flattop. “For luck,” she said.
“I can use it.”
Linda ran her fingers down Vaughn’s shoulder, unconsciously touching the tattoo of his wife’s name floating in a heart. “Think we can go see some music one night? We haven’t gone out in a while.”
“Where you wanna go?”
“I like that girl, sings upstairs at Mr. Henry’s in Southeast. Remember her?”
“The colored singer, with the trio.”
“Roberta Flack,” said Linda, recalling the singer’s name.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Can we go?”
“Sometime,” said Vaughn.
Vaughn touched her left breast, squeezed the tip of her pink nipple, and felt it swell.
“You keep that up, you’re gonna have to stay.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I gotta get back on the street.”
BUZZ STEWART, DOMINIC Martini, and Walter Hess drove downtown in Walter’s ’631/ 2 Galaxie, a red-over-black beauty, drinking beer all the way. Hess had heard about the Ford from a cell mate of his and bought it from a mechanic up in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, when he was released. It had a 427 under the hood, a four-speed on the console, small hubcaps, rear skirts, and the chrome dress-up option from the factory. It was the cleanest vehicle of its kind on the street.
Hess worked in a machine shop on Brookeville Road and put every extra dime he earned into the car. He had few expenses outside of beer and cigarettes, the amphetamines he bought with regularity, and the Ford. He lived with his mother and father in a bungalow on the 700 block of Silver Spring Avenue. He bought his speed from bikers who rented a group house on the same block. His pills of choice were Black Beauties. When the bikers were out of Beauties, he bought White Crosses and ate twice as many. Whatever it took to get that tingle going in his skull.
Hess felt he had grown up some since his stay in prison. Certainly he had not hurt anyone as badly as he had in that final incident, the last of several similar but less serious attacks, that got him sent away. He had been standing on Cameron Street off Georgia, smoking a butt outside Eddie Leonard’s sandwich shop, when a group of young men drove by in a new Chevelle, yelling out the window at him and laughing, calling him “little greaser” and shit like that. It had got his back up and made him yell back, screaming “college faggots” at them ’cause he’d seen the Maryland U decal on the rear window of their car. Right away, they stopped the Chevy in the middle of Cameron. A big guy wearing a leather jacket with a football sewed over the M got out of the car. Hess pulled his hunting knife, a six-inch serrated stainless job he was carrying at the time, from the sheath in his boot and held it tight against his thigh. When the football player reached him, Hess brought the knife up and stabbed him in the face, just below his left eye. He then opened him up from his cheek clean down to the collarbone. All that blood. One of the college boys puked his lunch it was so bad. Walter Hess knew right away he was going to get sent up for that one. Too many witnesses, and there were his assault priors, too.
He had expected to get offered a deal like some of his friends had gotten back then. Join the Corps and we’ll drop the charges, like that. He brought it up to the lawyer the court gave him, but the fancy guy just shook his head. “They don’t want people like you,” the lawyer said. In his cell at
night, Walter would sometimes think about that and get confused. The army trained guys to kill, didn’t they? He didn’t even need training; it came natural to him. And if they took pretty-boy pussy boys like Dominic Martini, why wouldn’t they take a man like him?
“Pull over,” said Stewart. “Anywhere around here’s good.”
“Not yet,” said Hess.
Hess drove by the bus station, where people stood out front on the sidewalk, killing time and catching cigarettes. Martini watched the eyes of the young blacks tracking them as they passed. He and his companions looked like trouble, he guessed. Trouble and hate.
“Park it,” said Stewart, seeing an empty spot. They were on the 1200 block of New York Avenue, headed for the Famous.
“I need to find a spot closer to the club,” said Hess. “I don’t want none of these boofers down here fuckin’ with my ride.”
“Right there,” said Stewart. “Shit, Shorty, what you want to do, park it in the bar?”
Hess cackled like a witch. “Think they’ll let me?”
They parked and went inside. Immediately they found folks they knew among the white blue-collar crowd. Bikers from various gangs mixed with hard cases, construction workers, electricians’ apprentices, pipe fitters, waitresses, secretaries, and young men from good homes who had no business being there but aspired to grit. Some of the women had tattoos, both store-bought and home inflicted. One girl, who called herself Danny and had the tat to prove it, had lost a tooth in a fight with her old man but had not replaced it because, she said, the hole made a good place to fit her cigar. Stewart bought her a CC and Seven as soon as he came in. He had done her one night a year back, before her boyfriend had ruined her face, and felt he owed her a drink. The girl was sloppy, but she was all right. Stewart was feeling generous. He was happy to be with his people.
Martini stayed with beer. Stewart and Hess went over to the hard stuff as Link Wray and his latest version of the Raymen took the stand. Between the British Invasion, the white blues revival, Dylan, psychedelia, and the soul revolution, Wray’s music had not gotten much radio time these past few years, but he was still bringing in the local crowds. His set now consisted of his early smashes with some Elvis covers thrown into the mix. He opened with “Jack the Ripper,” his last big hit, from ’63. The place got moving straightaway. Stewart rested his back against the bar. He saw Dominic smiling, tapping his foot to the music. Hell, when Wray turned up his amp and let it rip, even that dumb shit could find a way to have a good time.
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