“And parking this old boat is a bitch and a half.”
“Se rat kay k ap manje kay,” said Conquer. “It’s the house’s rat that eats the house.”
Jasmine beamed at him.
“Silas didn’t cheat on you, Verbena,” said Conquer. “China wanted to be queen bee. She called up that hag thing. She hated Amaretta for beating her at that Femme thing at the ball, so she tried it out on her first, then sicced it on Uncle Silas wearing Amaretta’s skin. It would’ve been you next.”
“Ghede Nibo tell you all that?” Jasmine asked.
Conquer shrugged.
“Not in so many words.”
“Hop in, nephew,” said Verbena. “We’ll give you a ride to the train.”
“The train?”
“This car don’t leave Brooklyn, child,” said Jasmine.
They all piled in, and by the time they deposited him at the Eastern Parkway station, his face was marked with various shades of purple lipstick.
“Bye, John!” they called in shrill unison as he slammed the back door and went to the curb, shaking his head and wiping his face.
“Just a minute, John,” said Verbena, getting out of the car and going to the trunk. “I think your uncle would have wanted you to have something of his.”
“The car?”
“Don’t be silly, baby,” said Verbena. “He gave it to Jasmine. Something that meant something to him.”
“The drums?”
“You know how hard it is to get genuine, consecrated Rada drums in Brooklyn? Do you have a temple? Are you a houngan? Are you gonna be?”
He shrugged.
“No.”
“So leave the drums with the faithful.”
She opened the trunk, leaned in, and came out hugging a grocery bag.
He took it from her, dubious.
Inside was a stack of Peter Rabbit novels, his uncle’s Isis Knot belt buckle, and the picture of him balancing on the fire hydrant as Uncle Silas held him up by his scrawny arms.
“Alright, Auntie,” he said, unable to keep a grin from his face entirely.
“Be lookin’ good, nephew,” Verbena said, running a hand down his cheek.
She got back in the car and waved one purple nailed wave.
Jasmine brought the Mercury out into traffic.
Conquer turned toward the station, and caught the disapproving glares of a group of Hasidim.
“What the fuck y’all lookin’ at?” he growled as he descended into the subway.
They scattered like crows.
Conquer Cracks His Whip
John Conquer pulled the junkie with the switchblade by his greasy shirt front, bringing his face into abrupt contact with the handhold pole. The sound was a New York City Subway vespers bell, the reverberation lost to the greater shake of the train pulling into 125th St. Station. The junkie’s knife clattered to the floor as he rebounded toward the opening doors and collapsed sprawling on the platform cupping his bloody nose in his hands.
Conquer sent the knife skittering back under the seats with a backward swipe of his heel, like a cat bidding his leavings adieu. Nobody looked up from their papers.
That was the third time some fool had tried to mug him in as many days.
He should get over his aversion to taxis.
Or maybe he needed a car.
Conquer expressed this to Detective Lou Lazzeroni when he found the cop waiting on the landing of the apartment building on 128th with a shaky, muscular dark skinned man in a rumpled pair of wine red bell bottoms and matching Masolino gators clutching a blanket thrown over his bare shoulders sitting on the step.
“You got the bread for a car?” Lazzeroni asked dubiously.
“C’mon Lou, you think I spend it all on Newports and white women?” Conquer said dryly.
“Kools and chitlins, I figured,” Lazzeroni said, smirking. “What I mean is, it ain’t just the car, it’s the insurance, the gas….”
“I’m aware of what car ownership entails,” said Conquer.
It was true that business hadn’t been great, but he wasn’t about to admit that. He could use a deal on a ride, but he didn’t want some old wreck and he wasn’t about to ask Lazzeroni for a favor. Lazzeroni was one of the good ones, for a cop, but get indebted to one cop and you could wind up owing the whole goddamned NYPD.
“And there’s parking,” Lazzeroni went on.
The man in the blanket over whose head they were conversing broke down into sniveling sobs, as though finding a good slice of street parking in the city had been a particularly traumatic undertaking for him. It was unnerving seeing such a large brother cry.
“What’s his story?”
“He won’t say,” Lazzeroni said. “At least not to us. Told me he’ll only talk to John Conquer.”
Conquer took a second look at the man. He was built like a weightlifter. He tried to imagine what could possibly have spooked a cat with a frame like that. Had somebody rolled over him with a tank? The dude was well groomed, and there was gold on his fingers. Conquer didn’t recognize him.
“I’m gonna go have a smoke,” said Lazzeroni. He lit a Doral and went downstairs to the trash lined foyer, sucking it like a lollipop the whole way.
Conquer lit up where he stood and watched the shivering man for a minute. No needle tracks on those thick arms. He offered the man a cigarette and sparked it with his lighter. The butane flame shimmied in his wide, dark eyes.
“Thanks,” said the man, after dragging it in and blowing it out, along with some of the rattle in his limbs.
Conquer waited.
“You ain’t gonna believe me, Conquer.”
“Ain’t you heard? I’m the dude that does believe,” said Conquer. “But you got me at a disadvantage. How do we know each other?”
“We been in the same room a couple times, is all,” said the dude. “Name’s Leon Green.”
“’Uptown’ Leon Green,” said Conquer. “Yeah I heard of you. Muscle for King Solomon,” said Conquer. King Solomon Keyes was the unofficial lord and master of all the dirty deeds done in Harlem, and he employed a number of ex-boxers, ex-cons, and exterminators. Leon Green was all three. As paid murderers went, he was renowned for his professionalism.
Conquer’s curiosity about what could possibly have shook up a mean mother like Leon Green sharpened. The Uptown Leon Green he had heard of had once fought his way through four able-bodied deacons to dangle a preacher with a gambling problem out of the stained glass window of his own church and then walked out unscathed with the collection plate.
“It’s hard to talk about,” Green muttered.
Conquer waited some more.
“It told me I had to tell somebody about it, or it’d come back every night till I did,” Green began. “Otherwise I’d take this shit to my grave. If I had to tell somebody, I figured it ought to be you, ‘cause you the only motherfucker I ever heard of could maybe do something about it.”
Conquer leaned against the wall and folded his arms.
“You hiring me, Leon?”
“If I do, you got to keep it on the down low right? Like a priest.”
“Sure.”
Green blinked. He eased his hand into the pocket of his slacks. Conquer noted he moved stiffly and with difficulty, wincing as he shifted his weight. He pulled out a thick wad of cash in a gold money clip and peeled off a couple of bills.
He held the money up between two trembling fingers.
Conquer considered for a moment.
“I haven’t said I’ll take the case yet. Let’s call this a free consultation for now. Same rules apply.”
Green nodded.
“I come home late last night from the disco,” he said, so quiet Conquer had to lean in. “Like three A.M. Lights was all out, but the street lights always make the window glow, dig? I seen the shadow of it right away, thought some bitch ass junkie had busted in. Had my gat, and I figure breakin’ and enterin’ means justifiable, so I popped the motherfucker one time. I know I hit it. I know
I did,” he went on, getting breathy and shaky again. “Dead center. The sucker spread out its arms. It was huge. Next thing I knew it jumped from the sill and come across the room at me….”
“Hold up,” Conquer said. “Why do you keep saying it?”
Green drew deep on his cigarette and shook his head, biting his lip.
“It had…wings, man.”
“Wings,” Conquer repeated. “Like a bird?”
“Naw man, like a big ass bat, you dig? You know how bat wings be?”
Conquer nodded slowly.
“Uh-huh.”
“See man?” Green grimaced, shaking his head. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Goddamn!”
Conquer held up his hand.
“Stay cool. What happened then?”
Green put his face in his hands and scrubbed his cheeks furiously, as if to work what he had to say out.
“It got on top of me. I couldn’t move. I tried to fight the motherfucker. It was strong. I ain’t never….I mean, not since juvie,” his voice broke there, but he powered through. “It just was so goddamn strong.”
He covered his face and sobbed again.
Conquer fidgeted uneasily.
When Green’s hands came away again, his eyes were bloodshot and beseeching. Conquer had seen that look before, but never in a man’s eyes. He wanted to laugh, to see a thug like Uptown Leon Green reduced to this. If he hadn’t been standing there listening to it and looking in the man’s eyes, if he’d got it second hand, maybe he would have. But hearing his cracking voice, seeing this ice cold gangster so broken, he couldn’t. Leon Green was a bastard and a half, but nobody deserved that. Nobody.
“I ain’t the only one, neither,” Green whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“It made a sound…like a truck motor or something you know? Gunning, screamin’ in my ear. That sound. Goes all up your spine, under your skin. But it wasn’t the first time I heard it. Night before last, I heard it from the bitch’s place across the hall. You know how sounds be in the city late at night though. I just ignored it.”
A motor?
“Same time?”
Green thought a minute.
“Yeah, could’ve been.”
“You see this thing’s face?”
“Nah man, just big black eyes,” Green said. “And it had sharp teeth. And breath like ass.”
“Clothes?”
“It was butt naked.”
“You the one called the cops?”
“Naw. Somebody else in the building. They heard me….screamin’ I guess. Maybe heard it too. Cops busted in and found me. Fuckin’ pigs….they fuckin’ laughed at me.”
His face shriveled again and he hid it with the back of his hand, which bunched into a fist.
“You said it spoke to you?”
“It put its chin on my shoulder, whispered in my ear. Told me what I told you; that if I didn’t tell somebody what happened, it’d come back tonight. I wasn’t ‘bout to tell them fuckin’ pigs….”
Conquer frowned, took out another cigarette and held it out to him.
“For later. You goin’ to the hospital?”
“Fuck no,” hissed Green, taking the smoke and tucking it behind his ear. “If this got back to King? Yo, you can’t tell nobody this shit, Conquer.”
“Alright, Leon,” Conquer said. “I won’t. But what do you want me to do?”
Green was quiet a minute, then he shrugged.
“Shit. Just forget it. I don’t want you to do nothing, man. I done what the motherfuckin’ thing told me to do. I’m just gonna sit up tonight with my piece, you dig? Listen for it. If I hear it again…I’m gonna kill it. All I wanna know from you is, can I do it? Do I need like, silver bullets or some shit?”
“I don’t even know what this thing might be,” Conquer said. “If I was you, I’d go get a room somewhere tonight.”
“You ain’t me.”
Conquer took out one of his red and gold business cards and held it out to him.
Green looked at it, took it. It disappeared beneath his blanket.
“What apartment is that, across the hall from you?” Conquer asked.
“Forty six,” said Green.
“See you around, Leon.”
Conquer went downstairs and joined Lazzeroni in the foyer.
“Last day on vice,” Lazzeroni said, as they both stepped out into the street. “I can’t wait to be done with this bullshit.”
“Only a cop would think homicide’s a step up from sex and drugs,” said Conquer. “So you found him?”
“Yeah,” said Lazzeroni. “Anonymous call from a neighbor. He was laying on his stomach in the living room.”
“What kinda state was he in?”
“Bleedin’ out the asshole and his back all torn to shit. He wouldn’t let us call a paramedic, or take a good look at him,” Lazzeroni said, flicking away his butt. “My guess is he brought somethin’ home from il fruttivendolo and the guy got rough, turned out to be more than Mr. Green bargained for.”
“Guy like that?” Conquer said, skeptically. “Not too many dudes he couldn’t handle. Answer me this. You get any calls from this address last night?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You should check with the lady lives in forty six,” Conquer said, looking up at the apartment building.
He knew Lazzeroni probably wouldn’t. It was his last day on vice, so he cared even less than usual. Maybe he’d tell one of the other cops. Conquer bit his lip. If it was gonna be done, he’d have to do it himself.
But hell, nobody had paid him.
“Why, what’d he say to you?” Lazzeroni said. “For that matter, why’d he want you in particular? You know this guy?”
“I’m surprised you don’t,” Conquer said, checking his watch. “I gotta catch the train, man.”
“Say you oughta go down to the police auction,” Lazzeroni said. “If you’re serious about getting a car, I mean. You’d be surprised at the stuff that gets seized.”
Conquer sneered.
“I’m serious!” Lazzeroni called as he turned and walked back to the station.
But with every jostling wino that lurched against him at every stop on the way back to St. Marks Place, the idea seemed more appealing.
The next morning, after a quick stop at the bank, Conquer found himself down at the impound lot with a brick of bills in a withdrawal envelope in his hip pocket. He felt cheap and a little guilty walking up and down the rows of impounded cars, refugees of behind the 8-ball debtors and the dead and gone, some still bearing scraps of the unpaid parking tickets that had landed them there under the windshield wipers.
That is, until he came upon the immaculate burgundy Chrysler.
It was a Cordoba, brand new, and stuck out among the rows of rundown Buicks and rust-spotted Plymouths like a wedding gown on Lexington and Eighth Avenue. For a quick instant, Conquer thought he saw movement inside. Somebody trying out the car? Could they do that? But no, when he put his face up to the drivers’ side window, it was empty.
“How do you like that?” said the fat, grinning lot attendant in oily coveralls, who, despite his size, had ambled up behind Conquer unnoticed.
“Not bad,” Conquer said straightening.
“That’s next year’s model. Fine Corinthian leather,” the attendant said, dragging it out in his best Montalban, sniffing the dingy, gasoline air as though it were a field of posies. “Nice 318 V-8 engine too. Car this cherry almost never makes it to the lot, you know what I mean? Shame. Probably gonna have to junk it.”
The guy wanted to talk. He was bursting to tell Conquer something.
“What’s the matter?” Conquer asked. “Not drivable?”
“Oh we auction off shit with no wheels some days, bad transmissions, busted axles….there’s guys that want stuff for parts, like fixing shit up, or they clean ‘em up and sell ‘em at double the price to some poor schlub on a used car lot, I dunno.”
“So what’s wrong with th
is one?” Conquer couldn’t see a damn thing. He kicked a tire. Solid. It was a beautiful car. It looked like it had just rolled off the line.
The attendant looked at him sideways, still grinning.
“This one came with the previous owner still in the trunk.”
Conquer stared at the car, ruminating.
“That’s it?”
The attendant looked disappointed.
“Most people don’t like a thing like that,” he said. “Dead pimp in the back. Afraid of ghosts I guess. Guys on the lot been gettin’ a bad feelin’ about this car. Shit, when they brought it in….”
“They took the body out, right?” Conquer interrupted.
“Well. Sure.”
“Did he bleed all over the trunk?”
“No….”
Conquer put on his shades and shrugged.
“Then wrap it up, baby.”
The attendant probably just wanted the car for himself and was scaring off bidders. While he waited for the auction to begin, he saw the guy give the same line to three other admirers and saw them walk off shaking their heads.
The other bidders elbowed each other and chuckled when an hour later Conquer had the keys in hand, like they’d all collectively put one over on him.
Ghosts.
Shit, he could handle any ghost that came with the thing. That was like a trip to the detail shop for him. He yanked the gaudy purple rabbit’s foot off the key ring and dropped it in a trash can before sinking into that rich Corinthian leather.
For a minute he thought he’d been had. The engine wouldn’t turn over. But in a couple seconds it started up like a dream. The radio came on in a blast of static and the angry, distorted voices of some AM talk show, old white dudes bitching about the latest young black trend. Maybe the battery needed replacing.
He tickled the dial and the sweet voice of Minnie Riperton came trickling out over the speakers like she was curled up on the passenger side cooing in his ear. There was an 8-track player on board, and a little button on the floor near his left foot that changed the radio station. The car was a steal. The pimp who’d owned it had apparently gotten iced before he’d had the chance to screw it up with a lot of chintzy fur and unnecessary chrome.
Driving back to St. Marks Place was like riding on a loveseat made of clouds, so he didn’t mind the traffic or circling the block looking for parking. He eventually navigated the big ship of a car into a spot in front of his place when a bunch of white punkers piled into a rusty station wagon and thoughtfully made room for him.
Conquer (The John Conquer Series Book 1) Page 7