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“Can you come over?”
“It’s go
Qui
“Too late?”
“No, no. I want to see you.”
“Good. Did you have a productive day?”
“A lot happened,” said Qui
“What about Linda Welles? Anything?”
“Yeah, plenty,” said Qui
“You might be sleeping.”
“Wake me up.”
“I’m going to, believe me. Listen, Terry, they’re calling us in. Love you.”
“I love you,” said Qui
The line went dead. Qui
I’ll give it to you when you get here.
He had a couple of hours to kill before Sue would be by. Enough time to go down there, get it, and have it for her when she arrived.
It wasn’t about finding Linda Welles. It was about doing something, and in the process, getting back a piece of his pride. He knew this, but he pushed the knowledge to the back of his mind.
Qui
Qui
It never would have happened, I had my gun.
Qui
Okay, so he’d been punked. He could fix that now.
He thought of Strange. He hadn’t lied to him. He’d gone home like he’d promised.
Qui
IN Far Southeast, Qui
Do your job.
Qui
“Put your hands flat beside you,” said Qui
The young man did it. No one made a comment or laughed. No one moved.
“I ain’t strapped,” said the young man.
“I don’t care,” said Qui
“Who?”
“The girl on the flyer I showed you. You know where she is, who she’s with. Gimme a name.”
The barrel of the gun dented the young man’s skin as Qui
“She stayin’ with this boy Jimmy Davis, up on Buena Vista Terrace. Up there off Twenty-eighth.”
“Where on Buena Vista?”
“He’s in this place, got a red door.”
“Say it again.”
The young man repeated the name and address. Qui
Qui
At the next corner, Qui
He drove down Naylor and onto 25th, and looked around at the unfamiliar sights. He didn’t know this stretch of road, and anyway, his night vision was for shit. Street lamps and headlights were haloed and blurry. He wasn’t lost. He’d come out on Alabama somewhere and from there he could hit MLK. He wasn’t in a hurry. He was enjoying his Springsteen, his victory, the night.
He pulled up behind a car at a stoplight. Cars were parked along the curb at his right. In his rearview he saw a red import, tricked out in gold. He looked to his left. A white car with tinted windows rolled up had pulled alongside him. He couldn’t see the occupants of the car. He heard Strange’s voice in his head: A classic trap. Gangs hunt in packs.
Qui
Qui
He saw a ski
Qui
AUGUST
Chapter 36
GRANVILLE Oliver’s biceps pushed against the fabric of his orange jumpsuit. His manacles and chains scraped the table before him as he lowered his hands.
“Thanks for coming by,” said Oliver.
“Ain’t no thing,” said Strange.
“Sentencing’s today.”
“Ives told me.”
“Whichever way it goes, I figure we won’t be seeing each other again. So I thought we should, you know, say good-bye, eye to eye.”
Strange nodded. The room was quiet except for the muffled voices of attorneys and their clients seated in other cubicles behind Plexiglas dividers. A guard with heavy-lidded eyes sat in a darkened booth, watching the room.
“You did everything you could,” said Oliver.
“I tried.”
“Yeah, you and that white boy was working with you, y’all did a good job.”
Strange leaned forward. “Say his name.”
“Qui
“That’s right.”
“You two did all right, bringing that girl in like you did. For a while, seemed like her testimony was really go