CHAPTER 24
It was raining when Major Johnson showed up with what appeared to be the whole Hobart posse. It was a light rain, and sometimes it would stop for a while and then pick up again, and the weather was warm. On the whole it was a nice rainy spring afternoon.
The Hobarts came down the alley from the back end of the project in single file. They all had on Raiders caps and Adidas sneakers. Most of them were in sweatsuits. Major had on a leather jacket with padded shoulders and a lot of zippers. As they came Hawk and I got out of the car to face them. I had the shotgun.
The Hobarts fanned out in a semicircle around us. I didn’t see John Porter. I took a look along the rooftops and saw nothing. Major stood inside the half-circle opposite us. He had the same half-amused, half-tense quality I had seen before.
“How you doing,” Major said. Hawk nodded slightly.
“Thought I should introduce you to the crew,” Major said.
Hawk waited.
“Figure you suppose to be scrambling with us, you ought to see who you gonna have to hass.” There was still no movement on the roofline. The rain misted down softly, and no one seemed to mind it. The boys stood arrayed.
“This here is Shoe,” Major said, “and Honk, Goodyear, Moon-man, Halfway, Hose.”
At each name Hawk would shift his eyes onto the person introduced. He made no other sign. Shoe was the kid I’d yanked out of the van. Goodyear looked like he’d been named for the Blimp. Honk was very light. Halfway was very short. Major moved slowly around the semicircle.
“This here is X, and Bobby High.”
I kept watching the roof, alternating glances at the street. The rain came a little harder.
“… and Junior,” Major said. “And Ray… ” There were maybe twenty kids in all. Major was around twenty. The youngest looked to be twelve or thirteen.
“Where’s John Porter?” Hawk said.
Major shrugged. “He ain’t here,” Major said. “I think maybe he soaking his hose.” He grinned. “John Porter heavy on soaking it. Say he need to soak it every day since he got out of rails, you know? Say his slut spend most of her time looking at the ceiling.”
“You come to tell me about John Porter’s sex life?” Hawk said.
“Come to see you, Fro. Come to intro the Homes. You ever been in rails, Fro?”
Hawk said, “It’s raining. You want to stand around in the rain?”
“We used to standing around,” Major said. “Stand around a lot. Stand around sell some sub. Stand around pick up some wiggle, stand around throat a little beverage. Maybe trace somebody.”
“Trace?” I said.
Major grinned. “You know, line somebody, haul out you nine and… ” With his thumb and forefinger he mimicked shooting a handgun.
“Ah,” I said. “Of course.”
“What kind of sub you sell?” Hawk said.
“Grain, glass, classic, Jock, motor, harp, what you need is what we got.”
Hawk looked at me. “Grass,” he said. “Rock cocaine, regular powdered coke, heroin.” He looked at Major. “What’s motor? Speed?”
“Un huh.”
“And PCP,” Hawk finished.
“You think I didn’t know that?” I said.
“What do you use?” Hawk said.
“We don’t use that shit, man. You think we use that? We see what it does to people, man. We ain’t stupid.”
“So what do you use?” Hawk said.
“Beverage, Fro. I already tol‘ you that. Some Mogen, some Juke, hot day maybe, some six. You use something?”
“I drink the blood of my enemies,” Hawk said and smiled his wide happy smile. His eyes never left Major.
“Whoa,” Major said. “That is dope, man!” He turned toward the others. “Is this a fresh dude? Did I tell you he was bad? The blood of the fucking enemies-shit!”
“How many people you lined?” Shoe asked Hawk.
Hawk looked at him as if he hadn’t spoken.
“I killed me a Jeek, last month,” Shoe said. “Motherfucker tried to stiff me on a buy and I nined him right there.” Shoe nodded toward the barren blacktop playground across the street. There were iron swing sets without swings, and a half-moon metal backboard with no hoop. The metal was shiny in the rain, and the blacktop gleamed with false promise.
“Doing much business since we here?” Hawk said.
“Do business when we want to,” Major said.
“Who’s your truck?” Hawk said.
Major looked at me for a minute and back at Hawk.
“Tony Marcus,” he said proudly. Hawk smiled even more widely.
“Really,” he said.
“You know him?” Major said.
“Un huh,” Hawk said. “My associate here once punched him in the mouth.”
The entire semicircle was silent for a moment. For all their ferocity they were kids. And a man who had punched Tony Marcus, and survived, got their attention.
“You do that?” Major said.
“He annoyed me,” I said.
“I don’t believe you done that,” Major said.
I shrugged.
We were quiet for a while standing in the rain. “Where the sly?” Major said. “She don’t like us no more?”
“Why should she be different?” Hawk said.
“This mean we not going to be on TV?”
Hawk was quiet for a moment. He looked at Major while he was being quiet.
“We need to talk,” Hawk said finally.
“What the fuck we doing, man?”
“Now, right now, you’re profiling,” Hawk said. “And I’m being bored.”
“You bored, man, whyn’t you put your motherfucking ass someplace else, then?”
“Why don’t you and me sit in the car, out of the rain, and we talk?” Hawk said.
You could tell that Major liked that-he and Hawk as equals, the two commanders conferring while the troops stood in the rain. Besides, it was a Jaguar sedan with leather upholstery.
“No reason to get wet,” Major said.
Hawk opened the back door and Major got in. Hawk got in after him. He grinned at me as he got in. I stayed outside the car, with the shotgun, staring at about nineteen hostile gangbangers, in the rain, which was coming harder.