A Killer’s Kiss

13

It was just a shed, set up on an abandoned lot hard by the railroad tracks, surrounded by a pile of abandoned cars, with electricity hijacked from the bus depot next door. A squatter of a place, the kind that sprouts wild and free of rent and regulation, until the Bureau of Licenses and Inspections gets wind of it and shuts it down, only to see it spring up in some other locale. And the word gets out again, and the clientele arrives, and the place shudders back to life.

“I know Barnabas,” said Derek to the tall, thin man in dreads sitting by the door. The boards nailed haphazardly around the door were shaking to the heavy bass of a reggae beat.

“You may know Barnabas, me bredren,” said the man at the door in a slow voice, “but does Barnabas know you?”

“We’re cousins.”

“For real?”

“Our grandmothers are related.”

“How about the dundus with the suit?”

“He’s with me.”

“A badge?”

“Now, why you want to go insulting me like that?” said Derek.

“So who you be, mon?”

“Just a guy looking for a time,” I said.

Derek stared at me for a moment, like I had suddenly turned into a circus clown. “Don’t be Joe.”

“Who’s Joe?” I said.

“Apparently you.” He turned back to the man at the door. “Is Barnabas around? Why don’t you call him outside and explain to him why you’re making his cousin stand here and wait like a dog?”

“All right, keep your cool. No offense meant. Just be doing my job is all.”

“You letting us in?”

“Go on ahead.”

As we were stepping through the sagging doorway, the tall man shot out an arm to stop my progress. “You better not be badge.”

“Do I look like a cop?”

He stared for a moment and then laughed. “No, mon, for real you don’t. Go on in and enjoy yourself.”

The inside was far bigger than it appeared from the street, not wide but long. Rusted industrial fixtures hung from the rafters, dropping bright cones of light through the smoky haze. A makeshift bar ran along one side of the room, a small stage was set against the middle of the other, tables and chairs and a few ratty booths were scattered around the edges of a dance floor. The place smelled like spilled beer and sweet tobacco and the sizzling fat of barbecue. A loud band was playing on the stage, most of the tables were taken, the dance floor was already crowded.

“Ooh, lookie that,” said Derek, leaning toward my ear and shouting over the pounding music. He pointed to the dance floor with his chin. “That’s a caboose and a half. I’d like to hitch up my locomotive to them booty cheeks.”

“Can we just find who we’re looking for?” I shouted back.

“In due time, bo. But first we have to scope out the opportunities.”

“Well, we’re being scoped ourselves right now, I can tell you that.” And we were. Heads turned when we walked into the bar, and they remained turned as they registered my presence.

“You shouldn’t have worn that suit,” shouted Derek.

“I don’t think it’s the suit.”

He gave me a quick up-and-down. “You are a little pasty, I must say.”

“Are you really Barnabas’s cousin?”

“I’m a friend of a friend of a cousin, but that’s close enough to count around here. There’s an empty booth over there.”

As we edged our way through the dancers, a man bashed his shoulder into mine and turned without apologizing. Derek stopped for a moment to dance with a woman in tight jeans who was sashaying by herself to the music. I pulled him away by the sleeve, and together we slipped into a booth with ripped leatherette seats and a scarred wooden table.

“Why did you yank at me for?” he said. “She was into me.”

“What’s the plan?” I said.

“Loosen up, bo. Really, now. A place like this, you got to groove to the island rhythms. Undo your tie, unbutton your collar, lay back, blow a little weed, relax.”

“I don’t want to groove, and I don’t blow weed. All I want is to find some answers.”

“Okay, cool. I admire a man knows what he wants. The guy I need to talk to is at the bar. You see him? Dude in the overalls with the black porkpie and tats up and down his arms?”

“Dark glasses?”

“That’s the one.”

“Big, isn’t he?”

“He’s got guns, I’ll say that for him. And his arms aren’t tiny neither. His name’s Antoine. He’s sort of a free agent, flits from group to group, is allied with no one so is accepted by everyone. Takes odd jobs even as he works for his own agenda.”

“What agenda is that?”

“Hard to say. He’s like a community rabble-rouser.”

“I bet.”

“Let me go on up, fetch us some beers, maybe invite him to join us for a drink. He’ll know who’s selling the stuff. But you can’t rush these things, bo. You got to wait until the time is ripe. Until then there are a couple of sweet things at the bar that are waiting for a little Derek. You see the one with the hair, giving me the eye?”

“Is that what she’s doing?”

“Want me to bring one back for you?”

“Just a beer and your friend, please.”

“While we’re here, Victor, we might as well enjoy ourselves.”

I didn’t think that was going to happen.

Derek stood, bobbed his body to the music. “Be back in a flash.”

I sat in the booth, eyed the whole of the shack as Derek made his way to the bar, felt my paranoia grow. This was not my usual crowd. I didn’t really have a usual crowd, more loner than joiner am I, but whatever that crowd might be, the denizens of an outlaw reggae shack in the wilds of North Philly certainly didn’t qualify. I sat with my hands clasped on the tabletop, my knuckles whitening, and waited for Derek. Despite his promise, he didn’t seem on the verge of returning. He stood at the bar, hitting on a pair of tightly packed women, leaving me in limbo.

I saw more and more faces turn in my direction. Wondering what the hell I was doing here, no doubt. I was wondering the same thing. A small group seemed to be staring my way. I glanced away and then glanced back. They started moving toward me. I looked for Derek, he was focused on a very stretched tank top. The group got closer. Things were starting to get tense.

Then I saw an apparition move across the dance floor, broad-shouldered, thick-necked, with a countenance of angry irritation. He had grizzled gray hair, and wore a white smock smeared with blood, and as he walked slowly toward me, the group that had been heading in my direction halted their progress and stepped aside as if the old man were death itself.

Or maybe I was projecting.

He came right up to my table, placed his fists, knuckles down, on the wooden surface, leaned forward, stared at me with pitiless eyes.

“Who the devil are you?”

“Victor?” I said, my voice a questioning squeak.

“Where you hear about this place?”

“From Derek. He’s Barnabas’s cousin.”

“I don’t have no cousin Derek. What the blazes you want here, man?”

“Goat?”

He tilted his head, narrowed his eyes, stared at me for a long moment.

“Jerked or curried?” he said finally.

“Is the curry hot?”

“Hot enough for the likes of you.”

“Done,” I said. “And a Red Stripe, please.”

He stared a moment more, pursing his lips, and then he turned around and made his slow way back toward the dance floor. When he reached the group that had been eyeing me, he stopped, stared at them for a moment without saying anything, shook his head, and moved on. The group took a hard look back before retreating to the bar.

A few minutes later, Derek slipped into the seat across from me and plopped three Red Stripes on the table. The guy with the massive arms and the porkpie hat sat down next to me and slid over until I was pressed against the wall. He turned and stared, his eyes hidden completely by his dark glasses.

“You see that girl at the bar with those thighs and the rack?” said Derek. “Man, she was all over my ass. Shaking her thing like I wasn’t getting a good enough view as it was with the way her top was like three sizes too small. She might have been a size four in grade school, but that was before she started eating a whole haunch of cow for lunch. Oh, man, going to have to give her a free sample tonight, no doubt about it.”

“Can we get to it?” I said.

“Sure, man. No problem. I’m just saying did you see that rack?”

“Derek.”

“Calm yourself down. We’re just having a friendly here. Bo, this is my pal Antoine. Antoine, this here is my lawyer, Victor Carl.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said.

Antoine grunted.

“Antoine here is the one with all the answers,” said Derek. “Funny thing, though, bo, he didn’t like them questions you was asking. So he’s got a question of his own.”

Antoine turned his head and stared at me a bit more.

“Antoine wants to know,” said Derek, “why you so interested in who’s selling that Black Cat. And since, bo, you never done told me, I didn’t have an answer for him.”

I glanced at Antoine. He seemed like he would just as soon crush my skull with those arms of his than hear any of my legal tap dancing. In times like these, I’ve found, when your body, if not your soul, is in mortal danger and there seems to be no way out, sometimes all that is left is for you to tell a story. And it better be a good one. And if you to want to tell a good story, among a pack of males, there’s one perfect opening line.

“There was this girl,” I said.