Down By the River Where the Dead Men Go

EIGHTEEN

LaDuke had parked the Ford under a dead streetlight and was standing with his backside against the car. I went to him, reached into my pocket, and pulled two of the three spansules out. I popped one into my mouth, dry-dumped it, and handed him the other.

“What’s this?”

“Something to notch you up. It came from McGinnes, so it’s got to be good. Eat it.”

“I don’t need it. I’m already wired.”

“I don’t need it, either. But this’ll shoot us all the way through to the other end. Eat it, man.”

The truth was, I did need it. And I wanted LaDuke right there with me. He looked at me curiously but swallowed the spansule.

LaDuke pushed away from the car, went to the trunk, opened it. The light inside the lid beamed across his chest. I walked over and stood next to him and looked inside. An Ithaca twelve-gauge lay on a white blanket, the edge of the blanket folded over the stock. The shotgun had been recently polished and oiled, but I could see it had been well-used; the blueing on the barrel had been rubbed down where the shooter’s hand had slid along with the action of the pump.

“This ain’t no turkey shoot, LaDuke.”

“I know it.”

“Why the Ithaca?”

“Bottom ejection. I p ht p hedon’t need shells flyin’ up in front of my eyes when I’m tryin’ to make a shot.”

“What, you think you got to aim that thing? For Chrissakes, just point it.”

“I got something else if I want to aim.”

“Put everything in the trunk and cover it. We get stopped, we’re fucked.”

LaDuke dropped to one knee, pulled his snub-nosed revolver from an ankle holster. In the light, I could read the words KING COBRA etched into the barrel-a. 357 Colt. He dropped it on the blanket, next to the shotgun. I drew my Browning, whipped the barrel of it against the trunk light, shattered the light. We stood in darkness.

“What the hell did you do that for?” LaDuke said.

“I’ll buy you a new bulb. That light was like wearing a bill-board. When we get down to Southeast, it’s gonna be stone-dark. We don’t need the attention.”

I put the Browning and the extra clip on the blanket, covered the guns, and shut the lid of the trunk.

“You coulda just unscrewed the bulb,” LaDuke said.

“I wanted to break something. Come on.”

We picked up Darnell outside the Spot. He got behind the wheel, and LaDuke slid across the bench to the passenger side. I got out and climbed into the back. Darnell looked at me in the rearview and adjusted the leather kufi that sat snugly on his head.

“Where to?”

“Half Street at Potomac,” I said.

“Back in there by the Navy Yard?”

“Right.” I caught a silvery reflection in my side vision, a flash, or a trail. Fingers danced through my hair and something tickled behind my eyes-the familiar kick-in of the speed. Darnell pulled out from the curb.

“This Ford’s got a little juice,” Darnell said. “I noticed it the other day.”

“A little,” LaDuke said, tight-jawed now from the drug.

I lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply. “We’re gonna go in like we’re knocking the place over. You got that, Jack?”

“Why?”

“I’m thinking we’re going to make like we’re taking the kid hostage, so they think he’s got nothing to do with us. They’ll probably come after us. But I want to make sure they leave the kid alone.”

“How’re we going to get in?”

“I’m Bobby, remember? The aspiring actor. I called earlier in the day, spoke to the man in charge… like that. Assuming I get that far, you step around the corner, show your shotgun to whoever it is we’re talking to, let him know what it meaow man in chns. After that, we’ll improvise.”

“Improvise?”

“You’ll get into it. And… LaDuke?”

“What?”

“We get in there, don’t call me by my name.”

Darnell pushed the Ford down M, made a right onto Half. Off the thoroughfare, the street darkened almost immediately.

“I’m thirsty,” LaDuke said quickly. “I need something to drink.”

“We’ll have a drink,” I said. “Let’s just get this done now. Then we’ll drink.”

“Up around there?” Darnell said.

“That’s the place,” I said. “Drive slow by it, then drive around the block.”

The perimeter was lighted by floods. Three cars, including the Le Sabre, were parked in the surrounding lot. A heavy chain connected the gate to the main fence. As we passed, I could see a padlock dangling open on one end.

Darnell drove slowly around the block and stopped the Ford along the fence of the warehouse across the street, where the white LIGHTING AND EQUIPMENT vans were parked. I took the last spansule from my pocket and broke it open. I leaned over the front seat.

“Make a fist, LaDuke, and turn it.”

He did it, his eyes pinballing in their sockets. I poured half the spansule out on the crook of his hand, then poured the other half, a tiny mound of shiny crystal, on mine. I snorted the powder off my hand and up into my nose, feeling the burn and then the drip back in my throat. LaDuke did the same. His eyes teared up right away.

“Goddamn,” LaDuke said.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Darnell gave me one last look, and then we were out of the car. LaDuke popped the trunk, reached inside, pulled back the blanket. He holstered the revolver on his ankle, picked up the shotgun, cradled it, dropped extra shells in his pocket. I found the Browning, switched off the safety, and put one in the chamber. I slid the gun, barrel down, behind the waistband of my jeans, covered it with the tail of my shirt. We crossed the street.

The gate was a slider. I pulled the chain through the links. LaDuke pushed the gate along a couple of feet and the two of us slipped inside.

We moved quickly across the lot, over to the side of the building, where there was a steel door behind a flatbed trailer. Above the door, a floodlight blew a triangle of white light onto a two-step concrete stoop. LaDuke and I flattened ourselves against the brick side of the building, outside the area of the light. LaDuke rested the butt of the Ithaca on his knee.

“I’m all right,” he said, though I hadn’t asked him.

“Goodze= wi,” I said. “I’m going to go up on that stoop now, ring the bell.”

“I wanna move, man.”

“That’s good, too. LaDuke?”

“Yeah.”

“This goes off right, you won’t have to use that shotgun. Hear?”

“Let’s do this thing,” he said.

I stepped up onto the stoop, rang a flat yellow buzzer mounted to the right of the door. I rang it once, then again, and waited. Moths fluttered around my head. My bottom teeth were welded to my top and it felt as if someone were peeling back the top of my head. A lock turned from behind the door and then the door opened.

A wiry white man stood before me, his long brown hair tied back, knife-in-skull tattoos on thin forearms, the veins throbbing on the arms like live blue rope. He had a slight mustache and a billy-goat beard, and almond-shaped, vaguely inbred eyes.

He looked me over and said, “What?”

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Bobby.”

And then LaDuke, wild-eyed and chalk white, jumped into the light, a frightening howl emanating from his mouth. I stepped aside and the man stepped back, reaching beneath the tail of his shirt. The almond eyes opened wide and he made a small choking sound; he knew it was too late. LaDuke swung the shotgun like he was aiming for the left-field bleachers. He hit it solid, the stock connecting high on the wiry man’s cheek. The man went down on his side, all deadweight hitting the floor, no echo, no movement. When he found his breath, he began to moan.

LaDuke pumped the shotgun, pointed it one inch from the man’s face.

“Don’t talk unless I tell you to talk,” LaDuke said. The man closed his eyes slowly, then opened them. He stared blankly ahead.

We were in a long hall that had thin metal shelving running along either side. Paints and hardware sat on the shelves. I found a rag and dampened it with turpentine. Then I went to an area where there appeared to be several varieties of rope and cord. I took a spool of the strongest-looking rope and walked back to LaDuke, picking up a cutting tool-a retractable straight-edged razor used by stock boys and artists-along the way.

“What now?” LaDuke said. He was sweating and his knuckles were white on the pump.

“Go ahead and ask the man some questions.” The man’s face had swelled quickly; I wondered if LaDuke had caved his cheekbone.

“What’s your name?” LaDuke said.

“Sweet,” the man said.

“Okay, Mr. Sweet,” LaDuke said, “this is a robbery. We know about the business you’re running here. We’d like all the cash money you have on hand. First we want to talk to your associates. Where are they?”

The man c="3›

“How many in the room?”

“Four.”

“How many guns?”

“One.”

I cut a long length of rope, then a shorter one. I tied Sweet’s hands to his feet, behind his back. Then I stuffed the rag into his mouth and wrapped the short length of rope around his face. I tied it off behind his head and slipped the razor in the seat pocket of my jeans.

LaDuke sniffed the air. “What’s that, paint thinner?”

“It won’t kill him,” I said. “It’ll make him too dizzy to move much, though. Come on.”

LaDuke took the barrel away from the man’s face, rested it across his own forearm. I pulled my Browning, picked up the spool of rope, and gave LaDuke’s shirt a tug.

We walked quickly down the hall, our steps quiet on the concrete floor. At the end, we made a right and went down a hall no different from the first. I had to jog a few steps to keep pace with LaDuke.

“I could run right through a fucking wall,” he said.

“You’re doing fine,” I said. Just as I said it, we reached the last metal door on the right.

We stood there, listening to male voices behind the door; under the voices, the buzz of a caged lightbulb suspended above our heads. I looked at LaDuke and placed the spool of rope at my feet. LaDuke managed a tight smile.

I stood straight, knocked two times on the door.

Footsteps. Then: “Yes?”

“Sweet,” I said with an edge.

The knob turned. When the door opened a crack, I put my instep to it and screamed. Something popped, and the man behind the door went down. LaDuke and I stepped inside.

“This is a robbery,” LaDuke said.

I made a quick coverage. The man on the floor: heavy, bald, and soft, holding his mouth, blood seeping through his fingers, repeating, “Oh, oh, oh…” A black man, mid-thirties, sat on a worktable set against a cinder-block wall. He watched us with amusement and made no movement at all. Two shirtless actors stood in front of a tripoded camera, in the center of a triangular light arrangement, a spot and a couple of fills. The first actor, who wore a tool belt around his bare waist, could have been the star of any soap, some housewife’s idea of a stud, all show muscles, his plump mouth open wide. The second actor, the only one of them with the nerve or the stupidity to scowl, was a young black man, thin and long-featured-Roland Lewis, no question.

LaDuke motioned the barrel of the shotgun at the pretty actor. “First, you get down, lie geheig flat, facedown. Don’t hurt yourself, now.”

“Better do it, Pretty Man,” the black man said.

“This isn’t what you think,” Pretty Man said. “This is just a job. You think I’m some kind of faggot? I have a girlfriend…”

The black man laughed. I kept my gun dead on him.

“Get down,” LaDuke said, “and put your face right on the concrete.” Pretty Man got down.

“You have a gun,” I said to the black man. “Pull it slow, by the barrel, and slide it to the end of the table.”

“Now what makes you think that I have a gun?” the black man said.

“I talked to your friend Sweet. He talked back.”

“Sweet?” The black man smiled. “I thought you were Sweet. You said you were Sweet, just before you came in.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not Sweet.”

“Then where’s Sweet?” said the black man.

“We put him to sleep,” said LaDuke.

“He ain’t gonna like that, when he wakes up.”

“Pull it,” LaDuke said. He had his shotgun on the black man now, too. I had an eye on Roland, who had not yet spoken but who stared at us hatefully.

“You know,” the black man said to LaDuke, “you kinda pretty, too. Maybe you and Pretty Man here ought to get together and-”

“You shut your mouth,” said LaDuke.

“Relax,” I said, looking at the black man but speaking to LaDuke.

“You boys are higher than a motherfucker,” the black man said, studying us with a hard glint in his eye. “You ought to cool out some. Maybe we can talk.”

“Pull it!” LaDuke screamed.

“You’re the man,” the black man said, “for now.” He put one hand up and reached the other behind his back. For a moment, I thought Roland might make a move-he was balling and unballing his fists, and he was leaning forward, like he was in the blocks-but then the black man’s hand came around, dangling an automatic by the barrel. He tossed it on the worktable and it slid neatly to the end. I went and picked it up, slipped it behind my back.

“All right now,” LaDuke said. “The money.”

“You’ve broken my crown,” the plump man whined, still on the floor, his hand and face smeared with blood. “You’ve broken it! Are you satisfied?”

The black man laughed.

Pretty Man raised his head from the floor, tears on his face. He looked at LaDuke. heig="0em"›

“Put your head down,” LaDuke said.

“Please don’t make me put me head down,” Pretty Man said, his fat lip quivering like a piece of raw liver. “Please.”

LaDuke pushed the muzzle of the shotgun against Pretty Man’s cheek, forced his head to the floor. Pretty Man’s back shook as he sobbed, and soon after that, the stench of his voided bowels permeated the room.

“Whew,” the black man said.

“Don’t be givin’ up no cash money, Coley,” Roland said to the black man.

“Shut up,” LaDuke said.

“Yeah,” Coley said, “you really ought to shut your mouth, Youngblood. ’Specially when a couple of crazy white boys are holdin’ the guns. You ought to just shut the fuck up and shit. Understand what I’m sayin’?”

But Roland did not appear to agree. He went on staring at LaDuke and I as if we were stealing his future. Then Coley got off the table, went to a metal desk that adjoined it, and opened a drawer. He withdrew a cash box, the type used in restaurants and bars, placed it on top of the desk, and opened it.

“It’s not all that much,” he said with a flourish and a wave of his hand. “Take it and go.”

I wrist-jerked the Browning in the direction of the table, and Coley went back to it and took his seat. He was tall and lean, and he moved with an athletic confidence. He would have been handsome, if not for his pitted complexion and his left ear, which had been removed to the drum. I grabbed the money from the cash box-three banded stacks of hundreds and fifties-and stuffed it into my jeans.

I said to LaDuke, “I’m gonna get the rope.”

The spool was right outside the door. I came back in with it, tied Pretty Man’s hands to his feet, tried not to gag at his smell.

“Yeah,” Coley said, “Pretty Man done shit his drawers. Kinda funny, tough man like him, needin’ diapers and shit. See, in the movie we’re makin’, he’s supposed to be some kind of carpenter. Guess you can tell by that tool belt he’s wearin’. And Youngblood here, he’s like the apprentice, come in for his lesson. The way the story line goes-what we call the screen treatment — the carpenter’s gonna teach the apprentice a thing or two about showin’ up late for his lesson-”

“Oh no,” the plump man said. Blood and saliva pooled on the concrete where it had splashed from his mouth.

“This here’s our director.” Coley gestured to the plump man with a contemptuous limp wrist and a flick of his fingers. “Maybe I ought to let him tell you about tonight’s film.”

“My crown,” the plump man said.

“Everybody,” LaDuke said, “keep your mouths shut.”

I tied the plump man up, then pointed my chin at Coley. “Put the shotgunut fide on him,” I said.

I told Coley to roll over onto his stomach and lie facedown on the table. He did it without protest, and I bound him in the same manner, but more tightly than the others. I cut the excess with the razor and slipped the razor back in my jeans.

I looked at Roland. “All right. You, come here. You’re next.”

“No,” LaDuke said. “We’re taking him with us.”

“Why?” I said.

“Insurance,” LaDuke said.

“ Fuck no,” Roland said. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you motherfuckers-”

“You’re coming with us now, Roland!” LaDuke said, and then he looked at Coley, who had rested his cheek on the worktable. “If you try and follow us, we’ll kill him. You understand?”

“I understand everything just fine,” Coley said, a thread of a smile appearing on his face. His eyes moved to mine. “That gonna do it for you boys?”

“No,” LaDuke said. “I don’t think so.”

LaDuke walked over to the spotlight. He raked the barrel of the shotgun sharply across the bulb. The bulb exploded, glass chiming, showering the plump man’s head. LaDuke went to the fills and did the same. The stands fell to the floor, sparking on contact. The color of the light changed in the room.

“That about how you did the one in my trunk?” LaDuke said, his eyes wide and fully amphetamized.

“Something like that,” I said, knowing he wasn’t done.

LaDuke said, “Watch this.”

He turned, pointed the shotgun at the video camera. Roland hit the floor and Coley closed his eyes.

“Hey,” I said.

LaDuke squeezed the trigger. There was a deafening roar, and then the camera was just gone, disintegrated off its base.

“Oh no,” the plump man moaned, against Pretty Man’s steadily rising sob. “Oh no.”

My ears stopped ringing. I checked the rest of them-no one appeared to have been hit.

LaDuke pumped the Ithaca, smiled crazily, walked through the smoke that hovered in the room. “All right,” he said. “All right.”

He picked up a T-shirt that was draped over a chair and dropped it on Roland’s bare back. Roland got to his knees shakily and put the T-shirt on. LaDuke grabbed him by the arm, pulled him up. He hustled him toward the door and the two of them left the room. I walked backward, the Browning at my side.

“You made a mistake tonight,” Coley said in a very easy way. “Now you’re fixin’ to make the biggest one of your life.” div›

“That right,” I said, the speed riding in on the blood that was pumping through my head.

“Yeah. You’re gonna walk out of here and let us live. When really, what you ought to do-if you really think about it-is kill us all.” His eyes were dead as stone. “I mean, that’s what I would do.”

“I’m not you,” I said.

I backed away and left him there, moved into the hall. LaDuke and Roland had already turned the corner. I followed them, caught them at the end of the next hall, near the outside door. Sweet was lying there, unconscious and bound, his face ballooned out and black. We stepped around him and walked out to the lot.

LaDuke pushed Roland toward the gate. Darnell kept the headlights off and pulled the Ford along the fence. We slipped out, then put Roland in the backseat. I gave LaDuke my Browning and the extra clip, along with Coley’s automatic. He dumped them and his own hardware into the dark trunk. He went around and got into the front seat and I climbed into the back with Roland. Roland looked at the back of Darnell’s head, then at me.

“I don’t wanna die,” Roland said, looking suddenly like the teenaged kid he was.

“Boy?” Darnell said. “These two just saved your dumb life.”

I reached over the front seat and found a cigarette in the visor. LaDuke grinned and clapped my arm. I sat back, struck a match, and took in a lungful of smoke. Darnell pulled out into the street and headed north. He switched on the lights and gave the Ford some gas.

“Where we goin’?” Roland said, the toughness back in his voice.

“We’re takin’ you home,” I said.

None of us said anything for some time after that.

Darnell got us out of the warehouse district and kept the Ford in the area of the Hill, driving down the business strip on Pennsylvania and then into the surrounding neighborhoods. It was near midnight, and most of the shops were closed, but people still moved in and out of the doorways of bars, and on the residential streets the atmosphere was thick and still.

“Pull over,” LaDuke said, pointing to a pay phone standing free in the lot of a service station. Darnell drove the Ford into the lot.

“What we gonna do now?” Roland said.

“Call your mom,” said LaDuke.

“Shit,” Roland said.

LaDuke left the car and made the call, gesturing broadly with his hands, smiling at the end of the conversation. He returned and settled back in the front seat.

“Let’s go,” LaDuke said to Darnell. “His mother’s place is in Northeast, off Division.”

“I ain’t goin’ home,” Roland said. “Anyway, we got some busineot, oss to discuss.”

“What kind of business?” I said.

“That money you took, it must have been ten, maybe more. I can turn that ten into twenty.”

“Forget about the money.”

“I only want what’s mine. I worked for it. On the real side, man, that shit is mine.”

“Forget about it,” I said.

LaDuke pointed to the shifter on the steering column. “Put it in gear,” he said.

“I told you,” Roland said, “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

I shifted in my seat, turned to Roland. “Maybe you’d like just to sit here and talk.”

“About what?”

“We could start with what happened to Calvin.”

Roland licked his lips and exhaled slowly. “Man, I don’t know. Calvin just left-see what I’m sayin’? He didn’t want to come along. The next thing I knew, I was readin’ about that shit my own self, in the papers.”

“You must have been real broken up about it,” I said. “You didn’t even go to his funeral.”

“Look, Calvin was my boy. But I had my own thing to take care of.”

“Get going,” LaDuke said to Darnell.

Roland said, “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, not till we settle up on my cash money.”

Darnell’s eyes met mine in the rearview. “You thirsty, man? You look kinda thirsty.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m thirsty.”

“Why don’t I just drop you off, maybe the two of you could have a beer. I’ll swing back, pick you up.”

“What’re you going to do in the meantime?”

“Me and Roland here,” Darnell said, “we’re gonna drive around some. Have ourselves a little talk.”

Darnell put us out on Pennsylvania. LaDuke and I went into the Tune Inn, noisy and packed, even at that hour, with Hill interns and neighborhood regulars. We ordered a couple of drafts from one of their antique bartenders and drank the beers standing up, our backs against a paneled wall. LaDuke and I didn’t say a word to each other or anyone else the entire time. At one point, he began to laugh, and I joined him, then that ended as abruptly as it had begun. I was killing my second beer when the Ford pulled up on the street outside the bar window.

We drove across town and over the river, deep into Northeast. Roland sat staring out the window, the streetlights playing on his resigned face, his features very much like his mother’s in repose. I didn’t ask him any more questions; I wauestaris done with him for now.

We pulled up in front of the Lewis home, Darnell letting the engine run on the street. On the high ground, where the house sat atop its steep grade, I saw Shareen in silhouette, sitting in the rocker sofa on her lighted porch. She got up and walked to the edge of the steps. Roland stepped out of the car, moving away from us without a word of thanks. We watched him take the steps, slowly at first, then more quickly as he neared his home. As he reached his mother, she embraced him tightly, and even over the idle of the Ford, I could hear her crying, talking to her son. Roland did not hug her back, but it was more than good enough.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

“Sure,” Darnell said.

LaDuke did not comment. He smiled and rubbed the top of his head.

We dropped Darnell at his efficiency near Cardoza High, in the Shaw area of Northwest. I thanked him and peeled off a couple of hundreds from the stack. He protested mildly, but I pressed it into his hand. He shrugged, pocketed the cash, and walked across the street.

“I could use a drink,” I said.

“Yeah,” LaDuke said, surprising me. “I could use one, too.”