Gone 'Til November

TWO

Snow was swirling in the air-just flecks of it, only October still-when Morgan steered the old Monte Carlo onto Lyons Avenue. Rows of burned-out brownstones on both sides, abandoned and stripped cars. He passed an empty lot, saw two men standing around a fire in a fifty-five gallon drum. They watched as he drove past.

At the next corner, there was a makeshift shrine against a telephone pole. Flickering votive candles, a stuffed bear, a white T-shirt pinned to the pole. Something written on it, too far away to read.

He had the stereo on-Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “I Miss You,” the long version-and he turned the sound down now, swung a right onto a side street. He slowed, watched the houses, the car’s exhaust rumbling. The brownstone he wanted was ahead on the left; broken-down porch, weathered plywood over the big front windows.

He drove past slowly, taking in the barren front yard, the gang tags on the plywood. Hoped they didn’t have a dog.

He went up a block, made a U-turn, and parked in front of an empty storefront. He switched the engine off, the big V8 quivering for a moment with pre-ignition, then going silent.

Watching the brownstone, he got the bottle of Vicodin from the pocket of his leather car coat. He was feeling the pain again, on his right side just below his ribs. It always came with stress. He shook a pill into his palm, broke it in two, put half on his tongue, and dry-swallowed it. He caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview, not liking what he saw. His face thinner, his hair grayer, the color of ash.

Time to get on with it. He put the half pill back, the bottle in his pocket, opened the door.

When he got out of the car, he felt the deep arthritic ache in his hips. This cold this early, it would be a rough winter. He locked the door, looked up and down the street, saw no one. The houses were all condemned, an urban renewal project that never happened. The only people in them would be squatters-fiends and smokehounds looking to get off the street as the weather turned.

Early afternoon and the sky a hard gray, his breath frosting in the air. He wore cotton work gloves, but his hands were still cold. As he walked toward the house, bits of glass crunched under his boots: crack vials, broken bottles. This part of the city was paved with them.

He stopped outside the brownstone. Three stories, a wealthy white man’s house back in the day. The front yard was small and sloped, the stone steps that led up to the boarded-over door chipped and discolored. An extension cord ran from a second-floor window into the house next door.

He got the cell out, speed-dialed the number. Rohan answered on the first ring.

“Yo.”

“It’s Morgan. How do I get up in this place?”

“You early. Come around the side, man.”

Morgan closed the phone, went around the house to the small side yard. A toppled birdbath lay broken in the weeds. There was a door there, and it opened as he approached. Standing inside was a chubby teenager-fourteen, fifteen-with a red North Face jacket, baggy jeans. Under the jacket was a black T-shirt with red letters that said STOP SNITCHING. Morgan towered over him.

“You got a dog in there?”

“What?”

“Dog,” Morgan said. “You got a pit in there or something?”

“No, man. No dog in here.”

Morgan went past him into a big, bare kitchen, all the fixtures ripped out. The ceiling was sagging plaster, water-stained, ready to drop.

The boy locked the door behind them. Two dead bolts, a police bar that fit into a slot on the floor, all new.

“Hold on,” the boy said.

Morgan turned, raised his arms. The boy reached under his coat, touched his sides, then around to the small of his back, knelt, patted his ankles. He ran his hands down the sides of the coat, felt the bottle of pills, took it out.

“What are these?”

“Those are mine,” Morgan said.

The boy rattled the pills in the bottle, then dropped it back in Morgan’s pocket. He nodded at a hallway. “Awright.”

Morgan went down the hall, past a set of stairs with gaps in the railing. A series of linked heavy-duty extension cords snaked down the steps from above. Morgan followed them into the living room.

Rohan sat on an old couch in the center of the room, a scarred-up coffee table in front of him. He was hollowing out a cigar with a razor blade, a plastic bag of marijuana at his elbow. A floor lamp a few feet away was the only light. Next to it a space heater glowed red.

“You boys live here?” Morgan said to him. “You crazy.”

Rohan didn’t look up. He brushed tobacco onto the floor, packed marijuana into the blunt.

“No, man, this the shop,” he said. “Just business here.”

He was in his mid-twenties, wearing an identical North Face coat, a white basketball jersey underneath, black jeans, Timberlands. His hair hung long in braids. Morgan could see the three tattooed paws on the side of his neck. A chromed automatic rested on the cushion to his right.

The boy brushed past Morgan, went over to stand by the heater, the mantel of an old dead fireplace at his back. He stood wide-legged, arms crossed. Morgan could see the butt of the gun in his waist.

Rohan licked the edges of the blunt, pushed them together, surveyed his work, licked some more. He took a plastic lighter from the table and passed the flame back and forth over the wet edges to seal them.

“How old are you?” the boy said.

Morgan looked at him. “What do you care?”

“Just askin’.”

“Morgan a player back in the day,” Rohan said. “A straight-up OG.” He looked up for the first time. “He be the Trouble Man back then. Like the movie.” He looked at the boy. “You see that flick, Raj? Marvin Gaye music? Dude drive around in a Lincoln Continental, blowing up people’s shit?”

“Nah.” Raj shook his head.

Rohan fired the lighter, got the blunt going. He drew deep, held it out. Raj took it, hit off it, gave it back, the acrid smell of it filling the room. Rohan blew a long stream of smoke to the side, held the blunt in Morgan’s direction. Morgan shook his head.

“This the chronic,” Rohan said. “Not that weak-ass shit Mikey-Mike peddling these days.”

“Where’d you get that from?” Morgan said.

Rohan shrugged, held the blunt out, and Raj took it again.

“Free market these days, yo,” Rohan said. “If the product weak, if the price ain’t right, people gonna go elsewhere. Everyone know Mikey’s weed ain’t been for real since the Colombians got busted. His coke and dope, too. And now he facing his own case. He scraping, and everyone on the street know it.”

“That’s temporary.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But he couldn’t even make the re-up last time, if I remember correctly. Now I moved a lot of his shit when it was good, and we made mad money together, but things different now.”

Raj handed the blunt back, and Rohan set it on the edge of the table.

“He knows all that,” Morgan said. “He’s working on it. He’s making some moves, get the good stuff flowing again soon.”

“When he do, we talk. If the shit’s good, then we do business. If it ain’t, we don’t. That’s the way things work.”

“You two go way back,” Morgan said. “Word gets around you’re not with him anymore, it’s bad for everyone.”

“You talking about loyalty? It’s about product, yo. Tough enough to make a living as it is, without slinging bad shit, taking people’s money for it, expecting them to be happy because of who it came from. I’ve got a responsibility to my people, you know?”

“I understand. Mikey got a sample of the new stuff, wanted me to lay it on you.”

Rohan looked at Raj, then back at Morgan. “Why you wait so long to tell me that?”

Raj laughed. “Yeah, lay it on us.”

Morgan looked at him, and Raj met his eyes, didn’t look away.

“Morgan still be talking that old-school jive,” Rohan said, “but I follow. Like it is, brother. Like it is. Where the shit at?”

“In my car. Up the street. I’ll give it to you, you try it. You like it, there’s more coming. You don’t, then that’s that.”

“You still got that hooptee? Cutlass or some shit?”

“ Monte Carlo.”

“You oughta shake some dollars loose from Mikey. Get yourself a new ride. That shit be out of style.”

Morgan went back down the hall to the kitchen, saw a gray blur cross the floor and disappear into a doorless pantry. Rat.

Raj came up behind, started undoing the locks.

“Be back in a minute,” Morgan said.

“Best be.”

Morgan went through the side yard, down to the street. He walked the block to the Monte Carlo. Still no one in sight. He went around to the trunk. Raj watched from the doorway.

Morgan keyed the trunk open, raised the lid so it shielded him. He took the Beretta from under an army blanket, the metal cold even through his gloves. He put the gun in his right-hand pocket, reached into the wheel well, and took out the paper lunch bag there. Inside was a plastic sandwich bag of marijuana. He slipped it into his left-hand pocket, shut the trunk.

More flurries now, wet and thick, the wind blowing them around. A sheet of newspaper flew along the gutter, wrapped itself around his leg. He pulled it loose, let the wind take it, walked back to the brownstone, hands in his pockets, feeling the weight of the gun.

The pain was gone now. He went up the walk and into the side yard. Raj stepped aside to let him through.

Morgan handed the plastic bag over. Raj took it, shut the door, worked the locks. He held the bag up, shook it. A gust of wind rattled the door.

“Looks like the same old shit to me,” he said.

“Fire it up. See.”

They went into the hall, Raj leading the way. Morgan let him get a few steps ahead, then took the Beretta from his pocket and said, “Yo.”

The boy turned, saw the gun, and Morgan shot him twice in the chest, the noise loud in the narrow hallway. The impact bounced him off the wall, left blood there, and Morgan stepped around him as he fell, moved quickly into the living room.

Rohan was already up from the couch, the gun in his hand. Morgan shot him through the left shoulder. His legs tangled and he went down, clipping the edge of the table. The gun fell back onto the couch.

Morgan kicked the table away, held the Beretta on him. Rohan rolled onto his side, gasping. He lifted a hand as if to ward off another shot.

“Cash,” Morgan said.

“Fireplace. Up in there. The stash, too.”

Morgan went to the fireplace, still watching him. With his left hand, he reached up into the flue, felt material. He lifted until it came loose, drew it down and out. A canvas knapsack. It thumped on the floor when he dropped it.

“It’s all in there, man,” Rohan said. “Just take it.”

Morgan knelt, unzipped it. Banded stacks of money, a G-pack of vials. He shook it all out onto the floor. Rohan lowered his hand, pressed it to his shoulder inside the coat, the white jersey turning red.

Morgan stood, pointed the Beretta at him, his finger on the curved trigger. He nodded at the couch. “If you’re gonna reach for that piece, son, now’s the time.”

Rohan shook his head. “I ain’t reaching for anything.”

“All right, then,” Morgan said, and fired three times. Casings hit the floor. Bits of insulation from Rohan’s jacket floated in the air.

Morgan put the cash back in the knapsack, hefted it, left the G-pack on the floor. A reward for whoever found the bodies.

He decocked the Beretta, put it in his pocket, went around and picked up casings. He had to hunt for the last one, found it under the couch. He was breathing heavy by the time he was done.

When he was satisfied he’d left nothing behind, he went back out through the hallway, picked up the two casings there. Raj lay still, but there were red-flecked bubbles on his lips. Beneath the bloody T-shirt, his chest rose and fell in shallow breaths.

Morgan left him there, undid the locks on the kitchen door, closed it behind him. Wind pulled at him as he walked back to the Monte Carlo. The street still empty, he opened the trunk, dropped the knapsack inside, shut the lid. He unlocked the driver’s side door, got behind the wheel.

As he pulled away from the curb, he turned the stereo up. The same song, Teddy Pendergrass singing to an ex-lover, telling her how he’d changed.

Morgan made a right onto Lyons, back toward downtown Newark. At the next intersection a crossing guard stepped out into the street. She wore an orange vest, blue uniform, carried a STOP sign.

He braked smoothly. The guard moved to the middle of the crosswalk, and the kids came across. Fourth, fifth grade maybe. Girls with ribbons in their hair, winter coats, pink vinyl knapsacks, the boys running ahead, laughing.

Last to cross was a girl no older than nine or ten. She turned and looked at Morgan, met his eyes through the windshield. Not smiling.

Don’t look at me like that, little girl, he thought. I know what I’ve done.

The crossing guard hurried her along, smiled at Morgan. He raised a hand to her, drove on.

The snow was sticking now, the wind driving it against the windshield. He switched the wipers on, listened to them thump, turned the music louder, Teddy still pleading: Miss you, miss you, miss you.