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“Shit, he ain’t smilin’ at you.”
Hess stepped forward. Stewart grabbed the sleeve of his leather and pulled him back.
“Let him be, Shorty. He’s just havin’ a good time.”
Stewart felt the bunched muscles of Hess’s arm loosen under his grip.
“Buy me another shot, will ya, Buzz? I can stand another brew, too. Man, I’m thirsty as shit.”
Course you are, thought Stewart. All that speed you got in you.
They had two more rounds. After the set, Stewart got a go order from the bartender and motioned Hess and Martini toward the door. They killed a six on the drive uptown.
DEREK STRANGE HAD parked his Impala on Princeton Place under a street lamp and was locking it down when he saw Ke
Strange waited for his brother to get out of the car. Jones leaned on the window lip, crossed his left hand over his right forearm to ash his smoke. As was Strange’s habit, he sca
Strange straightened and gave Jones his full height and build. It was childish, he knew. Still, there were some things a man never could stop himself from doing, no matter how mature he was supposed to be. One was letting another man know that he had the goods to kick his ass if that’s what he had a mind to do.
“Lawman,” said Jones. “Must feel all naked and shit, out of your uniform. Where your sidearm at?”
Right under my shirttail, thought Strange. In my clip-on.
“Brother, you go
Strange said nothing. Through the windshield, he could see Willis’s big old row of buckteeth as he smiled. Willis, who had done time on a statutory charge, worked as a janitor, lived above a liquor store on H, and thought he was a stud. He saw Jones and Willis touch hands.
“My man,” said Jones, his smile gone, looking directly at Strange with his cold light eyes. “Makin’ the world safe for Mr. Charlie.” Jones took a drag of his Kool and let the smoke dribble from his mouth.
De
“Remember what I told you, boy,” said Jones. “Hear?” But De
De
“What you been doin’, man?” said De
“Worked today. Took this girl to the movies. You?”
“Just drove around some.”
“With those two?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d you go?”
De
I do know, thought Derek. Whatever you were doing, it had something to do with bad. Always would, with Jones and Willis around. Buying or selling something that was wrong. Maybe ru
“What were y’all doing over at this woman’s place?”
“Damn, boy, you go
“Just curious.”
“We were gettin’ our heads up. You happy?”
Derek looked at his older brother with disappointment. It was a familiar look to De
“You gotta get high before family di
“Ain’t like you never burn it.”
“Yeah, but I don’t make it my everything.”
“Father Derek,” said De
“That woman y’all were visiting,” said Derek, not able to back off. “Is she that Bacon girl Jones stays with in LeDroit Park?”
“How you know about her?”
“You told me. Hard to forget a name like that.”
“This was another girl, had his baby. Lives over your way.”
“Just what we need down here, more children bein’ made by no-account brothers like Jones.”
“So now you put on that uniform, you lose your color?”
“Bullshit.”
“Now you go
“That is bullshit, De
“I got eyes. You don’t need to be lecturin’ me on things I can see my own self.”
They had reached the door of the house. Derek put a hand on De
“The system, you mean.”
“Yeah. Nothing wrong with it, either.”
“I ain’t interested.”
“What you plan to do, then, be some kind of professional victim? Give up ’cause of all this white oppression you always going on about? So, what, all these race-hatin’ motherfuckers out here can point to a shiftless nigger like you and say they were right?”
“Shut up, man.”
“Or maybe you just go
“Told you to shut your mouth.”
“You and me, we weren’t brought up that way.”
De
“You’re better than you know.”
“I’m tired, man.” De
FOURTEEN
THERE GOES JULIA,” said De
“Diaha
“Reminds me of your mother,” said Darius Strange.
“Talks like a white girl, though,” said De
“Ain’t no crime in it,” said Darius.
“She be datin’ white men, too,” said De
“She’s still fine,” said Derek.
“Got your mother’s eyes,” said Darius Strange.
Darius sat in his green lounger, the sports page of the Washington Post open in his lap. His facial features had begun to sag, and his weight had shifted down toward his middle.
His sons sat on hard chairs beside him. Alethea Strange had cleared the di
The apartment was as it had always been. The furniture was the same furniture De
The men were watching The Hollywood Palace variety show on ABC. Bonanza had come and gone, and there was little else of interest on the other cha