Gone 'Til November

TWENTY

Morgan woke tangled in sodden sheets. Bright light was coming in around the curtain edges. The nightstand clock told him it was three. He’d slept almost eleven hours.

Pushing the sheets away, he sat naked on the edge of the bed. His joints ached and his throat was swollen, his forehead warm to the touch. He realized he was shaking.

When he had the energy, he made his way into the bathroom, stood under the hot shower until the trembling stopped. Then he toweled dry, put the toilet seat down and sat there, head in his hands. You have to get up, he thought. You have to keep moving.

After a while, he went back into the room and got dressed. He stripped the sheets from the bed and pushed them into a pillowcase, along with the clothes from last night. He’d take them to the laundry room later, wash away the stale metallic smell that seemed to linger on everything he touched.

He opened the door, looked out. The sky was cloudless, the sun flashing off the Monte Carlo’s windshield. He’d left the Toyota beside a collapsed barn off a rural road two towns away, out of sight, then walked to where he’d parked his car and driven back.

Birds chattered in the trees, and he could hear the rush of the creek. Far above, a plane left a white contrail across the sky.

He wiped a wrist across his slick forehead. A band of pain circled his skull. He couldn’t afford to be sick, not now. Couldn’t afford to lose a day.

He went back in, closed the door, opened the top panels to let air in. In the bathroom, he swallowed a Vicodin half, then went to lie on the bare mattress, looking up at the water-stained ceiling. After a while, he took the Beretta from atop the nightstand. He set it in his lap, the metal cold in his grip.

If it ever got too bad, if the pain was too much, if the doctors couldn’t help him, this was what he would do. When his system began to shut down, when his skin turned ashen from the waste his kidneys couldn’t process, this was how he would end it. Vicodin and then the gun. The cold muzzle against the roof of his mouth, his finger on the trigger.

He was sleeping again when the knock came. Then another, hard on the door frame. He woke with a start, and the Beretta slid from his lap, thumped on the floor.

The fever was gone, but he felt drained, weak. He pushed himself up, went to the curtains, looked out. A dark green Range Rover with tinted windows, New Jersey plates, was parked next to the Monte Carlo.

The knock came again, rattling the glass. He picked up the Beretta, held it at his side.

“Yo, man, open the door.”

With his free hand, Morgan undid the dead bolt. He stepped back, his finger sliding over the Beretta’s trigger.

“It’s open,” he said.

When Dante came into the room, Morgan shoved him hard toward the bed, swiveled and raised the Beretta. DeWayne stood framed in the doorway. When he saw the gun, he ducked fast to the right, out of sight.

Morgan kicked the door shut, turned to see Dante getting up off the floor. He grabbed the back of his basketball jersey, jerked him off balance again. As he fell into a sitting position, Morgan crouched behind him, left arm around his neck, put the muzzle of the Beretta to his temple.

“Hold on, man!” Dante said. “Hold the fuck on!”

“He comes through that door, you’re going first.”

“What the fuck you doing, man? Chill.”

“Who’s out there?”

“DeWayne.”

“Who else?”

“No one.”

Morgan tightened his grip. “Tell him to come in.”

“I ain’t telling him shit.”

Morgan thumbed the hammer back for effect. “Tell him.”

“Man, you don’t want to do this.”

Morgan screwed the muzzle into his skin.

Dante looked toward the door. “Yo, DeWayne,” he called out. His voice was flat. “Come on in, it’s cool.”

The door cracked open. DeWayne looked around it into the room, left hand hidden behind his leg.

“Come in,” Morgan said. “Slow.”

The door opened wider.

“Let him go,” DeWayne said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Whatever you’ve got back there, put it on the bed. Do it quick.”

DeWayne’s lazy eye twitched. He waited a long five count, then came into the room, tossed a chromed automatic onto the bare mattress.

“Shut the door,” Morgan said.

He did, stood with his back to it.

Morgan loosened his grip on Dante’s neck and got to his feet, his knees aching. He took a step back as Dante got his feet under him, adjusted his jersey. Morgan reached under the back of it, took out the small automatic he’d felt. He dropped it on the bed.

“Man, why you going off like this?” Dante said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why you think?”

“I told him I didn’t need anybody.”

“I don’t know what you told him. But he told us to come down here, hook up with you. So that’s what we did.”

Morgan decocked the Beretta. “You drive down?” he said.

“Just got here.”

“We here to do work,” DeWayne said. “Just like you.”

He should shoot them both now, Morgan knew, leave them where they lay and head out. But then he would lose the motel as his base, bring in the police.

“Man wondering,” DeWayne said. “Where you at with it.”

“He should have called, saved you both a trip.”

“He said for us to see for ourselves.”

Morgan felt the adrenaline rush fading. He needed to sit down.

“Should have told me you were coming.”

DeWayne raised his shoulders, let them fall.

Morgan nodded at the desk chair, said to Dante, “Sit down.”

“You don’t look so good,” DeWayne said. “You all sweaty and shit.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Morgan said, the words sounding weak and false. He went into the bathroom, put the Beretta on the toilet tank, ran the faucet and drank cold water from a cupped hand, splashed some on his face. He looked into the mirror. His eyes were sunken, his cheekbones showing through. The skull beneath his skin.

“Hotter than a motherfucker down here,” Dante said. “I ain’t used to this shit.”

Morgan dried off with a towel, picked up the Beretta, went back into the room.

“Three’s too many,” he said. “No good. Especially down here. We stick out.”

“Big Man said there’s three or four of them you watching,” Dante said. “That’s why he sent us. Divide up the work, you know?”

“Don’t need it.”

“You want to call him, tell him different, go ahead. He tell us to go back, that’s what we’ll do. Until then…”

“So where you at with it?” DeWayne said.

Morgan looked at him. “If Mikey wants to know, I’ll call him.”

“Anything you wanna tell him, you can tell us.”

“He say that?”

DeWayne nodded.

And how much did he promise you? Morgan thought. A third? More? Or are you just planning to take it all?

“These people you watching,” Dante said. “They the ones got the money?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re not sure?”

“They the ones did Derek, though, right?” DeWayne said.

“Probably,” Morgan said. “Why?”

“I been knowing Derek’s people longtime. His father an OG. He watched out for me on the tier, you know what I’m saying?”

“That’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Derek was good people. They shouldn’t have done him like that. I’ll make sure that shit gets settled, you feel me?”

“You haven’t thought this through.”

“No thinking about it. Whoever did Derek gonna get got.”

“Money come first, though,” Dante said. “Big Man down to stems and seeds. He need that cash.”

“And then?”

Dante pulled at an earlobe. “Like the man said. Whoever did it got to go.”

“That’s what I mean, about not thinking this through. Think you can come down here, kill a cop, walk away?”

“A thieving-ass cop,” DeWayne said.

“You think that makes any difference?”

“It should.”

“We do it fast, then we git,” Dante said. “We be gone before they know it. With the money.”

Morgan felt fresh sweat on his forehead. The Beretta seemed heavier. He put it on the nightstand.

“You up to this?” DeWayne said. “You look like you about done.”

“Where you staying?” Morgan said.

“Holiday Inn,” Dante said. “Town or so over.”

Used your own name, too, Morgan guessed. And after things jump off and the police start checking motels, they’ll have that name, and an address, a description of the car, maybe a tag number. Stupid.

Morgan nodded at the guns.

“Pick them up,” he said. “Mikey give you my cell?”

“We got it,” Dante said.

“Go back to your room. Hit me on it later. I got a couple things to do first, get organized. Then we can talk about where it’s going, how to divide it up. Don’t do nothing until we talk.”

“All right,” Dante said. “Big Man calling the shots, though. You know that, right?”

“Up there, maybe.”

“Down here, too.”

Morgan said nothing. DeWayne opened the door.

“Later then,” Dante said.

They got into the Range Rover, Dante behind the wheel. As it pulled away, Morgan could hear hip-hop thumping inside. He watched them head back down the access road to the highway. Then he went back inside to wait for the dark.