King Suckerman

Twenty-Five

Sherril Drive dropped away from upper 16th and wound down through the park, the serpentine road sloping steeply, leveling out at a bridge that crossed Rock Creek. Karras navigated the turns, parked the Karmann Ghia next to Marcus Clay’s Riviera in a small lot.

Karras walked back over the bridge and took a bridle trail into the woods that rose and dipped alongside the creek. He hiked for a quarter mile, encountering no one, then jumped off a small embankment to a narrow strip of white sand at the water’s edge. Marcus sat in the sand, his legs outstretched.

“Marcus.”

“Dimitri. Thanks for comin’, man.”

They had been meeting at this place since childhood, a quiet, neutral spot in a park that had become an unofficial north-south dividing line separating the city by income and race. In the summer the oaks were full across the creek and blocked the view and muted the car sounds of Beach Drive. The water moved slowly here, and the air felt cool in the shade of the trees.

Clay said, “Have a seat.”

“I’ll stand. I been sleeping all day.”

“Was gonna say, you look like you just crawled out of bed. You don’t look so good.”

“I know it.” Karras dug his hands into his pockets. “Why’d you call me out, Marcus?”

Clay stood up, brushed sand off his tailored jeans. He found a flat stone and skipped it across the creek.

“I’m gonna ask you again, Marcus. Why’d you call me out?”

“All right.” Clay turned to Karras. “You want it short and to the point, here it is. I’m squarin’ off against Wilton Cooper and his boys tonight. Thought you might want to know.”

“Squaring off.”

“Gonna meet him face-to-face, the way he wants. The only way he understands.”

“You know where he’s at?”

“Clarence Tate knows. Tate’s settin’ it up.”

“And you trust Tate.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Shit, Marcus, you know where Cooper and the rest of them are, why not just turn ’em in?”

“For what? So they can rehabilitate Cooper? Maybe they gonna rehabilitate that white boy got death in his eyes, too. You think?”

“Aw, hell, Marcus, I don’t know.”

“I know. I know what’s got to be done. You can believe that.”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about, man? Revenge?”

“Revenge is a little boy’s game. I’m talkin’ about somethin’ else.”

“Justice,” said Karras. “You’ve got some warped idea about justice. That’s what this is about. Right?”

“That’s right.”

“Christ.”

“Listen. Cooper came into my store, wrecked it, and took one of mine. And it wasn’t just Rasheed they killed. They did those bikers out in Howard County, the ones were on the TV news. Blew up their shit on their own turf. Greased a man down in Carolina as well, and those are just the ones I know about. Those boys are on a killing spree. Someone’s got to put a stop to it, and I’m not talkin’ about puttin’ them in handcuffs and leadin’ them away to a warm bed and a hot meal. I mean stop it for real. Rasheed Adamson, he stood up for me when the time came. Now I gotta go on and do the same for him.”

“Just you,” Karras said bitterly. “You’re gonna face these guys yourself.”

“Not by myself. Rasheed’s brother will be there. Thought you might want to come along, too.”

“No,” said Karras quickly. “Not me.”

Clay said, “Suit yourself.”

Karras walked to the edge of the creek, watched the run of brown water. “You think I like letting you down, Marcus? Is that what you think?”

Clay spoke softly. “You ain’t never let me down, Dimitri. You always been a friend. But you just ain’t the type to step up. To step up and do something, I mean. In the end, I guess I didn’t expect you to join me. I just thought you might want me to give you the chance.”

“The chance to kill a man. The chance to get killed. That’s what this is. You can forget it, man, because it’s not for me.”

“Like I said, suit yourself.”

“Right.”

“You might want to get the girl out the way, though. At least do that. This doesn’t work out, they’re gonna come lookin’ for Vivian, just for sport.”

“I did it already,” said Karras. “I took her home.”

“Yeah, makes sense. You were done with her, I guess.”

“I never fucked her, Marcus, if that’s what you mean.”

“Congratulations, man. You held back on gettin’ a nut with a nineteen-year-old girl. Takes a real sensitive stud to make a sacrifice like that.”

“Look, Marcus—”

“Next thing you know, you’ll be tellin’ me you’re givin’ up dealin’.”

“I am,” said Karras. He turned from the water to face Clay. “I’m through.”

Clay looked into Karras’s hollow eyes. “What happened to you, man? You ready to talk to me about it now?”

“What happened? I finally fucked up.” Karras’s voice shook. “I sold a bag of dope a couple days ago to Noah Castle’s kid brother. The kid was in a car accident on Saturday with his friends. All of them got killed.”

“What’s that got to do with you?”

“The paper said they found dope and paraphernalia in the car. The kid was in high school, Marcus. I might as well have put a gun to his head myself and pulled the trigger.”

“Bullshit, man. That’s bullshit. You don’t know what happened in that car. And that boy would have found a way to cop his herb whether you sold it to him or not. Anyway, where they grow it, people be dyin’ over that shit every day. You ever stop to grieve about that? I mean, what’d you think all this time, Dimitri? All these fine times we been havin’ these last few years, gettin’ high, easy pussy anytime you want it, all that? You go up a mountain, man, sooner or later you gotta walk back down. Sooner or later you got to pay. Didn’t you think there’d be a downside to all of this?”

“No. I guess I didn’t think there would be.”

“Yeah. You never have stopped to think. Long as I’ve been knowin’ you it’s been that way.” Clay gave Karras a sad smile. “I remember the first time my mother brought me over to your neighborhood. Up till then, I had rarely been west of the park. You took me over to your playground, where we got into a game. All your other friends, they were trying to talk black around me, act street, put on a show for the nigger from Shaw. Not you. You didn’t do it then and you’ve never done it since. At first I thought you were avoiding who we were. Then I started to wonder if you even noticed the differences between us.”

“I noticed. But what? You tellin’ me because you’re black and I’m not we can’t be friends?”

“We are friends. I love you like a brother, man, you know that. But the fact is, you’ve been sleepwalkin’ through your whole life.”

“Marcus, man—”

“I’m sorry, Dimitri. I thought that this time you’d be ready to step up. I shouldn’t have expected so much.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“Yeah, well.” Clay checked his watch. “Gotta get out of here, man. You with me?”

“No.”

“All right, then,” said Clay.

Karras turned his head, listened to the crack of twigs beneath Clay’s feet. The sound began to fade. Karras stared at his reflection, broken in the ripples of the creek. He looked behind him at the path on which they had arrived.

Marcus Clay was gone.

Wilton Cooper took a swig of Near Beer, looked at B. R. Clagget, naked and facedown on the bed. Dried blood was streaked on the boy’s buttocks from where Cooper had withdrawn. The copy of Pimp was still in Clagget’s limp hand; he had been reading it for a few minutes after Cooper had had his way with him, before he fell to sleep.

Cooper hadn’t meant to be so rough. He surely hadn’t meant to draw blood. But the boy was a weakbody to begin with, and now he was down with the fever, full-blown. Still, Cooper thought it his right to take a little ass from the boy. After all, could be the last nut he got for a long while. From this boy, anyway.

The phone rang on the nightstand. Someone answered the extension downstairs, then yelled for Cooper to pick it up. Cooper lifted the receiver, waited for the click-off sound of the extension.

“Yeah.”

“Cooper?”

“It’s me.”

“Clarence Tate.”

“Clarenze. What’s up?”

“Got ahold of Marcus Clay.”

“Okay.”

“Clay wants to meet.”

“Got his attention, huh?”

“Yeah. He wants to hand over the rest of the money. Tried to just give it to me, but I told him it wouldn’t work. Told him that you wanted to see him face-to-face.”

“You did good.”

“I did what you asked. There’s an apartment house on Fifteenth Street, just east of Meridian Hill Park, called Meridian Heights. Got a roof entrance and no security guard. I took care of that. Told Clay you’d meet him on the roof. You can take the elevator up to the top floor, then walk another flight of stairs to the roof.”

“Why Meridian Heights?”

“I own a condo there. Know the layout, and it’s safe. Public but not too public, if you know what I mean. Gonna be a bunch of noise around there tonight. Case you make some noise, no one’ll notice.”

“You always did strike me as smart.”

“Can’t be all that smart, talkin’ to a man like you.”

Cooper laughed. He stopped laughing and said, “Clarenze?”

“What.”

“Just don’t want any misunderstanding here. If this is some kind of setup—”

“It ain’t no setup.”

“If it is. I’m gonna pay a visit to your little girl — or someone I know will — and believe me, we gonna party down.”

“Nine-thirty tonight,” said Tate. “The fireworks’ll be gettin’ off by then.”

“Nine-thirty,” said Cooper. “Tell Trouble Man I’ll be there.”

Cooper racked the receiver. He went over to the bed and shook Clagget’s bony shoulder.

“B.R. B.R., wake up.”

Clagget rolled over on his back, exhaled slowly, opened his eyes. His breath was sour and held the promise of death.

“What, Wilton?”

“Rise and shine, little brother. We goin’ out.”

“Marcus.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Clarence Tate.”

Clay put his hand over the phone, looked toward the bathroom where Elaine was showering. The bathroom door was ajar, and Clay lowered his voice.

“Talk about it.”

“I set it up,” said Tate. “They’ll be on the roof of Meridian at nine-thirty. If they’re smart, they’ll be there sooner, and if you’re smart you’ll be there sooner than that.”

“I hear you. Anything I need to know?”

“Like I told you before, the white boy is sick with something. Weak. That’s Cooper’s Mary, so I figure Cooper will stick with him. Most likely the two of them will use the elevator, then take the stairs the rest of the way. The elevator’s slow—”

“You told me.”

“All right. Take some chain cutters. They got the door to the roof padlocked.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“He talked about my daughter again on the phone.”

“Relax.”

“Kill him,” said Tate.

“That’s the idea.”

“And after you kill him, kill him again.”

“Better get ahold of your shit, Clarence.”

“I can’t help it, man. I want that devil out of my world.”

Clay said, “I’m gonna do the best I can.”

The shower stopped running. Clay hung up the phone. Elaine came from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. Clay stared at her as she went and stood before her mirror, rubbing lotion on her arms. She saw him in the reflection, his eyes still on her, and she turned to face him.

“What’s wrong with you, Marcus?”

“Nothing, baby,” said Clay, trying to smile. “You’re just so goddamn beautiful, that’s all.”

Dimitri Karras felt strange, sitting in his favorite chair. Over the years, the seat cushion had conformed to his body, but this evening it was hard for him to find comfort there. The room was hot, and there was too much noise coming up from the street.

He moved to the couch, cleaned some pot in the overturned top of a shoe box, filled the bowl of the bong. He lit a match but did not put fire to the weed. He watched the flame burn down until it reached his fingers, blew the match out. He studied the smoke rising off the match.

Karras leaned back and closed his eyes.

On those occasions when he was looking for answers, Karras thought that it would be especially nice to have a father. If he had a father, he could take a walk with his father now, ask him about choices, direction, the steps you had to take to become a man. But Karras had no father. And Marcus, he had never had a father. It was another thing the two of them shared. Another reason, he supposed, that the two of them had gotten to be friends, and stayed friends. Why they had always stuck together, looked out for each other, too.

Behind his closed eyes, Karras pictured Marcus, standing alone.

The picture changed. Now he saw his mother, leaning against the sink, her arms folded, the bird building its nest behind her outside the kitchen window. Wilton Cooper was in the kitchen, too. He was smiling, and he was walking toward her. His shadow crawled up her chest and blackened her housedress as he approached.

Karras felt his heart thump in his chest. He tried to make the images of Marcus and his mother go away, but they would not.

When he opened his eyes the living room had darkened, and the sky outside the window had gone to slate.

Dimitri Karras went to take a shower, because that was what a man did before he dressed to leave the house.

“Where you going with that tool, Marcus?”

“Out.”

Clay walked toward the front door with a set of chain cutters in his hand. Elaine was on his heels, crossing the room swiftly. He had tried to avoid her for the last half hour, but now her anger had boiled up to where he just had to go ahead and walk. He decided not to answer her rather than lie.

“Why are you being so evasive? You got something going on with Dimitri, is that it?”

Clay stopped at the door. “Look. I told you, I’m going out. That’s all I got to say.”

Elaine stood a few feet away, her arms folded across her chest. “Listen to me, Marcus. You and me made a promise to be together on everything from here on in, and for a long, long time. I want a future with you. I want to have your babies—”

“That’s what I want, too.”

“And now you’re walkin’ out of here all mysterious, with some kind of purpose in your step, you can’t even tell me where it is you’re off to. I’m no fool, Marcus; don’t go treating me like one. This has something to do with Rasheed’s death, doesn’t it? You’re on some kind of revenge trip, isn’t that right?”

“Not revenge.” Clay put his hand on Elaine’s arm. “Look, baby...”

Elaine pulled her arm out of Clay’s grasp. “Don’t ‘baby’ me. Don’t you soft talk me. You’re gonna stand there and disrespect me like that, not even give me a chance to plead my case? Look at me, Marcus!”

“I am.”

“You’re never going to get as fine a woman as the one standing before you right now. I swear to you, Marcus, you go out this door like this, I am not gonna be here when you come back.”

“I love you, Elaine,” said Clay. “You know I do. And I want all the things you want, for the both of us. That’s what I’ve been workin’ so hard for, and that’s what I’m gonna keep workin’ for, hear? Now, whatever you decide to do, that’s up to you. But I’ve got to go now.”

“Marcus—”

“Don’t say nothin’, baby. I’ve got to go.”

He left the house, closed the door behind him. At the bottom of the steps he turned and looked at the light in the second-story window. He went to the Riviera, opened the door, and dropped the chain cutters behind the front seat.

Clay turned the ignition key, pulled out of his space. He drove down to Newton, hung a right. Coming out of the turn, he saw a white man with shoulder-length black hair and a black handlebar mustache, leaning against a small car. Clay slowed the Riviera to a stop, put his head out the window.

“Hey,” said Clay.

“Hey.”

“Come to say good-bye?”

“Comin’ with you.”

“Decided to step up, huh?”

“That’s right. Cooper made a play on my mother. And there’s no way, Marcus...”

“What?”

“There’s no way I’m lettin’ you go up against him alone.”

Clay eyes softened. There was pride there, and admiration, too. It had been a long time since Karras had seen Clay look at him like that.

“Well,” said Clay, “get in.”

“We takin’ your ride?”

Clay nodded. “We’re gonna take a real car tonight. Besides, tall as you’re lookin’ right now, you’d have trouble squeezing into that toy of yours.”

Karras walked around to the passenger door, dropped into the shotgun bucket. He looked across the seat at Clay.

“What now?” said Karras.

“Gonna even up the odds.”

“We got a few more comin’ with us?”

“Don’t need a few more,” said Clay. “Just Al.”

Marcus Clay pulled back on the shift, put the Riviera in gear.