City Primeval

“He hasn’t really done anything,” the girl said, holding the phone and looking through the windshield at the empty street that was lighted by a row of lampposts but seemed dismal, the storefronts dark. She felt the jolt and the car lurch forward as she heard metal bang against metal and Alvin Guy say, “Son of a bitch-” She heard the operator’s voice in the telephone receiver. She heard Alvin Guy yelling at the operator or at her, “Nine eleven, nine eleven!” And felt the car struck from behind again and lurch forward, picking up speed.

Clement held his front bumper pressed against the Mark, accelerating, feeling it as a physical effort, as though he were using his own strength. The Mark tried to dig out and run but Clement stayed tight and kept pushing. The Mark tried to brake, tentatively, and Clement bounced off its bumper a few times. The Mark edged over into the right lane, the street empty ahead. Clement was ready, knowing the guy was about to try something. There was a cross-street coming up.

But the guy made his move before reaching the intersection: cut a hard, abrupt left to whip the car off his tail, shot into a parking lot-no doubt to scoot through the alley in some tricky jig move-and Clement said, “You dumb shit,” as headlights lit up the cyclone fence and the Mark nosed to a hard, gravel-skidding stop. Clement coasted in past the red sign on the yellow building that said American La France Fire Equipment. A spot beamed down from the side of the building, lighting the Lincoln Mark VI like a new model on display.

Or an animal caught in headlight beams, standing dumb. Clement thought of that, easing his car up next to and a little ahead of the Mark-so he could see the chicken-fat jig through his windshield, the jig holding a car telephone, yelling at it like he was pretty sore, while the girl held onto gold chains around her neck.

Clement reached down under the front seat, way under, for the brown-paper grocery bag, opened it and drew out a Walther P .38 automatic. He reached above him then to slide open the sunroof and had to twist out from under the steering wheel before he could pull himself upright. Standing on the seat now, the roof opening catching him at the waist, he had a good view of the Mark’s windshield in the flood of light from above. Clement extended the Walther. He shot the chicken-fat jig five times, seeing the man’s face, then not seeing it, the windshield taking on a frosted look with the hard, clear hammer of the evenly spaced gunshots, until a chunk fell out of the windshield. He could hear the girl screaming then, giving it all she had.

Clement got out and walked around to the driver’s side of the Mark. He had to reach way in to pull the guy upright and then out through the door opening, careful, trying not to touch the blood that was all over the guy’s light-blue suit. The guy was a mess. He didn’t look Cuban now; he didn’t look like anything. The girl was still screaming.

Clement said, “Hey, shut up, will you?”

She stopped to catch her breath, then began making a weird wailing sound, hysterical. Clement said, “Hey!” He saw it wasn’t going to do any good to yell at her, so he hunched himself into the Mark with one knee on the seat and punched her hard in the mouth-not with any shoulder or force in it but hard enough to give her a drunk-dazed look as he backed out of the car. Clement stooped down to get the guy’s billfold, holding the guy’s coat open with the tips of two fingers. There were three one-hundred-dollar bills and two twenties inside, credit cards, a couple of checks, ticket stubs from the track and a thin little 2 by 3 spiral notebook. Clement took the money and notebook. He leaned into the Continental again, bracing his forearm against the steering wheel, pulled the keys from the ignition and said to the girl giving him the dazed look, “Come on. Show me where your boyfriend lives.”

They drove over Eight Mile to Woodward and turned south, Clement glancing at the girl sitting rigidly against the door as he gave her a little free advice.

“You take up with colored you become one of them. Don’t you know that? Whether it’s a white girl with a jig or a white guy with a colored girl, you’re with them, you go to their places. You don’t see the white guy taking the little colored chickie home or the white girl neither. He ever come to your place?”

The girl didn’t answer, one hand on her purse, the other still holding onto her gold chains. Hell, he didn’t want her chains, even if they were real. You start fooling around trying to fence shit like that…

“I asked you a question. He ever come to your place?”

“Sometimes.”

“Well, that’s unusual. What was he in, numbers, dope? He’s too old to be a pimp. He looked like a pimp, though. You know it? I can’t say much for your taste, Jesus, a guy like that-Where you from? You live in Detroit all your life?”

She said yes, not sounding too sure about it. Then asked him, “What’re you go

“I ain’t go

“No.”

“But he lives in Palmer Woods? Those’re big houses.”

Clement waited. It was like talking to a child.

They passed the State Fairgrounds off to the left, beyond the headlights moving north to the suburbs, going home. The southbound traffic was thin, almost to nothing this time of night, the taillights of a few cars up ahead; but they were gone by the time Clement stopped for the light at Seven Mile. He said, “This ain’t my night. You know it? I believe I’ve caught every light in town.” The girl clung to her door in silence. “We turn right, huh? I know it’s just west of Wood’ard some.”

He heard the girl’s door open and made a grab for her, but she was out of the car, the door swinging wide and coming back at him.

Shit, Clement said.

He waited for the light to change, watching the pale pink figure ru

Clement jumped the car off the green light so the door would slam closed, turned right, cut across Seven Mile in a jog to the left and came to a stop at the edge of the golf course parking lot. The girl was ru

He said, What in hell you doing, anyway? Getting your exercise?

Clement extended the Walther, steadied it in the palm of his left hand, squeezed off a round and saw her stumble-Jesus, it was loud-and shot her twice more, he was pretty sure, before she hit the ground.

Anybody standing there, Clement would have bet him the three rounds had done the job. Except he saw the girl, for just a second, sitting in a Frank Murphy courtroom fingering her chains. Better to take an extra twenty seconds to be sure than do twenty years in Jackson. Clement went to have a look. He saw starlight shining in her eyes and thought, That wasn’t a bad looking girl. You know it?

Walking back to his car Clement realized something else and said to himself, You dumb shit. Now you can’t go to the man’s house.