Manhattan Noir

BUILDINGBY S. J. ROZAN

Harlem

Wouldn’t none of it have happened, hadn’t the Landry boy took to calling him “sir.”

His mama named him Rex and he was still resentful. Might have been okay for some boy with a handsome face, but that wasn’t him, and in school all it got him was, “Hey, lookee, here come that ugly Tie-RAN-o-sore!”

Later, when he did his stretch in Greenhaven, when someone said his name, he only heard “wrecks” because that’s what he’d made of his life.

It was a hard life, and nobody gave him nothing, not that that was some kind of excuse and he didn’t pretend it was.

His daddy could’ve been any of three different men and his mama never cared to find out. They stood around pointing their fingers at each other, and at her too, and so he didn’t want none of them for a daddy even if they’d wanted the job.

It meant he raised himself, pretty much, and he had to say, he done a lousy job of it.

But he wasn’t making excuses, how he ended up at Greenhaven. Berniece rolled on him, but hell, girl was probably scared shitless. He wouldn’t never hurt her, but how she supposed to know? What she see, he blown away her side man and was likely coming after her. Fact was, Chico’d porked the gun out, Rex just going there to talk to the brother, see about the rumors he was hearing down at the

Lenox Lounge. Seen Chico with Berniece, Bighead the bartender raised eyebrows at him, what’s up with that? So Rex just wanted to talk to Chico, and he even laughed, so funny seeing little skinny Chico with that big.45. Then he looked in Chico’s eyes, heard his voice, not the words but the sound just piling on. Chico never did know enough to shut up. Rex stood there as long as he could, looking at Chico, hearing his noise, and then a pressure started building inside him, building, building, and he threw himself on Chico and pulled the gun from Chico’s hand.

Next thing he knows, NYPD Blue is breaking down the door. Door was wrecked, and Rex was wrecked, and Chico sure as hell was wrecked. And he heard his own named different after that.

In Greenhaven, anyhow, they called you whatever damn thing they wanted, whatever they thought would get your goat. Most times he let it roll off, like when it was the C.O.’s jawing. But sometimes he could feel it happening, that building. And the next asshole gave him a hard time would find his teeth in the back of his throat. That right there accounted for Rex not making parole until his third hearing.

But he’d made it, and now he was out. And since he got out, no more fighting. No more brawling, nothing, not even with that crew of hip-hop assholes hung on the corner. They pissed him the hell off, bopping like they do, like they own the world. They didn’t never try nothing with him, though. They showed him some respect, behind his ten years at Greenhaven. Still, time to time he think they could use a little pounding.

But he ain’t gonna be the one. He was on parole, next eight motherfucking years. No way in hell he was going back inside, that was one thing for certain. He reminded himself that every time he felt the building, felt his temper start to go, found himself about to get physical with half-a-dozen boys could’ve been his children. Might have been his children hanging there, too, if Berniece hadn’t gone messing around with Chico, if she’d married him like he wanted, way back then.

Anyway, that was way back then. Berniece was packed and gone by the time he came out, and good riddance. He didn’t want no more to do with her, to do with nobody. He had a steady job, hard enough to come by. All he wanted was to come home, watch TV, drink some beer, and go to bed.

Less people you talk to, less trouble you could get in.

So he never did say nothing to the Landry boy.

That boy, seem like no one never gave him nothing, same as Rex. Raggedy clothes and no-name sneakers, tough way to make it on the street. But his mama raised him right.

Kid wasn’t no sissy. He put on that hard face Rex knew, face he used to wear himself. But he’d move out the way when the ladies come home from church, and he called Rex “sir.”

Time to time, Rex wanted to tell him watch out. Wanted to say, That crew you hanging with, they gonna drag you under.

He seen the kid’s face, seen how it light up when one of them older boys hand him a paper-bagged Bud; the kid way too young to drink. You fixing to turn out like me, Rex thought to tell him. You think these your homies, you think you tight with ’em. Next thing you know, one of ’em’s gonna be facing some serious time. That happen, he gonna sell the cops everyone’s ass, yours included.

But he kept his head down. Kid wasn’t his problem, and he never did say nothing.

Didn’t keep him from noticing, though. Noticing the kid on his way to school every day, take his books, try to keep his raggedy self clean. Didn’t cut school like the rest of them no-accounts. Rex wished he’d thought more about that himself, wished he’d kept up his schooling. Well, too late now. No, no one gave that Landry boy nothing but he kept trying. That’s what Rex noticed.

The night the trouble all started, he noticed another thing. Noticed wasn’t none of that crew on the corner when he come home. Seeing as the only way they could spend more time in that spot would be to drag their mattresses out and sleep there, it was damned unusual to see the streetlight and the mailbox standing by themselves.

Next thing he noticed, he was nearly at the stoop when the Landry boy burst out from the door. He looked wildly both ways, his eyes hitting Rex’s. They had a look, asking for something, begging even.

“You okay?” Rex asked. First time he spoke to the kid.

The kid shook his head. He wetted his lips, like they was too dry for him to talk. Seemed to try to make words, but nothing come out.

“Chill, son,” said Rex. “Something wrong? Tell me.”

The kid moved his lips some more, but still there wasn’t no sound. He shook his head again and charged down the stairs. He raced away, sneakers slapping concrete. Rex stared after.

Thing Rex noticed next, someone was pounding on his door.

First, he was confused. He was back inside, he thought. It was early on, and some damn C.O. was thumping his cell door, telling him if he didn’t come out now he wasn’t gonna get no dinner, fuck if he ain’t hungry, see how hungry he be by morning.

But the pounding kept coming and Rex woke up. He blinked around his room, small and with roaches all over but he could come and go and eat any damn time he wanted.

Grateful for a minute for the noise waking him from that nightmare.

Then some yelling, “Police! Open up!”

Shit, he thought.

He yelled back, “Yeah!” He fought past the sheets, tight around him like they was tying him to the bed. “Okay, okay!”

He slid the chain and threw the bolt.

“Rex Jones?” One white guy, one black, both in suits, saying his name like a question but it wasn’t. They introduced themselves as Detectives Something and Something Else. They pushed in without asking, Something talking to distract him while Something Else looked around.

They couldn’t touch nothing without a warrant. Anyone grew up in Harlem learned that with their mother’s milk.

They had a warrant, they’d have waved it in his face right away. And plus, if they turned his place upside down there was still nothing to find. That was a fact, but he felt the sweat on his lip just the same.

“A few questions,” Something Else said, while Something smiled. The one talking was the black one, he had shiny white teeth. When the white one smiled he showed stained brown teeth. Like they was negatives of each other, Rex thought, and missed the question, didn’t even know they’d asked one until the room got quiet. Hell, he thought, and he said, “Say again?”

“Come on, Rex, it’s not hard. What did Tick Landry say to you this afternoon?”

“The Landry boy? He ain’t said nothing.”

“When you came in, he was going out. Running out, like he was doing something bad. He was, Rex. He ditched a gun that killed an old lady who wouldn’t give up her handbag. Where’s the gun, Rex?”

“How the hell I’m supposed to know?”

“Isn’t that what he told you?”

“Ain’t told me nothing. Just stood a minute, then went on down the steps. You telling me he killed a old lady?”

“We sure are.”

“No way he done that. He all right, that kid. Gotta have been one of his boys.”

“Well, you could be right, Rex. Have to say this, though: Doesn’t matter much to us. That whole crew’s garbage and we’re gonna sweep ’em up. Might be another one who shot the old lady, but Landry’s the one who was running scared that night. That’s what we call ‘suspicious behavior’ in our line of work. All we have to do now is connect him up with that gun. Only we don’t have the gun.”

“I sure as hell ain’t got it either.”

“But he told you where it was.”

“Fuck he did. Why would he do that?”

“Those boys, they look up to you. You did a dime at Greenhaven, Rex; that makes you someone on this block. Maybe you’re even running with them, in a fatherly way.”

“Me? Nuh-uh, man. I’m clean since I got out.” The sweat started on his lip again, and his back, too.

“Are you? You’d better be. Let me tell you something.” The cop stopped smiling. “I was new in this precinct when you went in. I’ve seen a lot of garbage like you go in and come out over the years, and I’m getting goddamn tired of it. In and out, in and out. I’m telling you: If you’re running with these boys, Rex, my man, you are fucked.”

That was the first day. The second day was pretty much the same. He found the pair of them waiting on the stoop when he got home from work.

“Where’s the gun, Rex?” This time it was Something, the white one, doing the talking. Rex preferred the black one, if they was gonna smile. All them brown teeth, shee-it.

“I don’t know.”

“Three people across the street swear you and the kid had a talk when he ran out of here. What did you talk about?

Not the gun, then what? The old lady, maybe, how it felt when he pulled the trigger?”

“Didn’t talk about nothing. Kid just move his mouth around, like he got words in there ain’t coming out. Then he go on down the stairs. Like I told you yesterday.”

“Yeah, that’s what you told us. We’re just having trouble believing you, is all.”

“Ain’t my fault.”

“Well, but see, what it is gonna be, it’s gonna be your problem, if you don’t start making sense soon. Like I told you, we have witnesses.”

“Across the street? What the hell kind of witnesses is that?”

The detective put his arm around Rex, like they was old pals. Rex felt the pressure building. He made himself not move.

“See, Rex,” the brown teeth said, “you’re on parole. Any trouble you get in now-like, say, assaulting an officer who’s just being friendly-that could be bad. What do you have, another eight left?” His free hand brushed dust from Rex’s jacket. “Rex, we want that gun. You say you don’t know where it is. We don’t believe you, but it could be. You might consider making it your business to know.”

“What the hell do that mean?”

The cop shrugged. “These boys. They look up to you. That’s all I’m saying.”

The third day they showed up at his job.

“Rex? You in trouble?” His boss came into the boiler room where Rex was laying down sawdust to soak up spilled oil.

“No,” he said, and added, “sir.”

Before he went in he was a carpenter. Used to build things, good solid things. Something real-something wouldn’t be, wasn’t for him. Coming out, world was different. Not easy for ex-cons to find work, and no chance of getting back in the union. But one of the contractors used to hire him from time to time, he had a cousin, super at a fancy East Side building. The cousin put Rex on the maintenance crew. Now he spread sawdust and hauled the garbage out.

“Because there’s two cops here,” his boss said. “They want to talk to you.”

Shit, Rex thought, but he didn’t say it, just went out to the service alley. “What you doing here?” he said into the two smiles.

“We want that gun, Rex.”

“I told you, I don’t know nothing about that gun.”

His boss was watching from the doorway.

“You shouldn’t of come here,” Rex told the cops. “I need this job.”

“And we need that gun. And funny, we find none of those boys seems interested in talking to us. Can you believe that? Good thing the Landry boy already talked to you.”

“He didn’t.”

“Well, then.” The white teeth smiled, the brown ones following like a shadow. “Then it’s a good thing he’s going to.” The two cops made a point to nod and wave to Rex’s frowning boss as they left.

That night Rex dreamed he was back inside. Not in his cell, but in one of them crooked, leaky passageways they got all over Greenhaven, connecting someplace you don’t want to be in to someplace you don’t want to go. The passageway was filled with garbage and he was digging through it, his heart pounding, fit to burst, things getting scarier and scarier as he went looking for something, he didn’t even know what. He could feel the pressure building, building. And before he got even close to finding anything, a bright white shape and its dark shadow came and swept all the garbage up, and him too, buried him in it.

He woke up all tangled in sweaty sheets. Shit, he thought.

Shit, and shit.

That day he didn’t get as far as work, not even as far as the corner, before Something and Something Else come swooping, one from the front and one from the back, surrounding him all by their two selves.

“Let’s take a ride downtown,” Something said through them damn brown teeth.

“What the hell for?”

“You’re a material witness, Rex. Maybe you remembered some details that might help us.”

“I ain’t remembered nothing because ain’t nothing for me to remember! The Landry boy never said nothing to me!”

“Not even lately?”

“I ain’t spoke to him lately.”

“Why not? I thought we agreed you would.”

“Didn’t agree about nothing! I ain’t spoke to the kid. Look, I can’t go downtown with you. I got to get to work.”

“That’s okay, Rex. We’ll call your boss. We’ll explain where you are.”

Rex looked at them, a matched set in different colors. Looked a couple of times. “Okay,” he said.

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I tell you where the gun is.”

Because Rex had an idea, a great one, fucking genius.

Tell them a lie.

Why not? Say he seen someone, not the Landry boy and he wasn’t sure who, but someone, seen him drop a.45 in the basement. Make him up: tall kid, with one droopy eye. Not one of them rapper assholes from the corner. Someone he ain’t never seen before or since. Say, when he run into the Landry boy he’d been out to get some chips and beer, but when he come home from work earlier, he seen this tall kid then. Yeah. Yeah, that would work. Then he take them to the boiler room. They ain’t gonna find nothing, and he’d say, Well, shit, there’s where I seen him drop it. They’d be pissed, bust his balls that he ain’t told them before, but who gives a shit? After that, they’d go away, leave him alone.

“Okay,” he said.

He told them the story, listened to some bullshit about How come you ain’t told us before? He said, because he’s trying to stay out the whole thing, do they want to see the place or not? Of course they do. He took them into the basement.

“Here,” he said, and pointed to the darkest, dirtiest place, the shadows behind the furnace. Above the white teeth and the brown teeth a black nose and a white nose wrinkled all up, like don’t either of them want to go back there. “Shit,” he said, “right here,” and reached like he was gonna find something, moved his hand around. And thought, shit.

Shit if he don’t feel something hard and cold.

He wrapped two fingers around it and pulled it out.

Both cops jumped back, so funny, like Chico. “What the fuck!” one of them yelled, he didn’t see which. Then they both had guns pointing at him, standing legs spread, two hands like in the movies.

“Hey!” Rex told them, his heart thumping his chest like it want to get out and run away. “Chill! Y’all don’t want to get your hands dirty, I’m just taking it out for you.” He held up his hands, the.45 dangling.

Something Else took out a handkerchief, took the.45 with it, while Something kept his gun pointed at Rex. Whole thing over, they looked at it and looked at him. Finally they both smiled, all them teeth gleaming in the dark. “Thanks, Rex,” they told him.

Cops so grateful, they gave Rex a ride to work, so he ain’t late. He tell them drop him a block away, don’t want his boss seeing them.

“You think you’re a pretty smart son of a bitch, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.” And he did, finding them a fucking gun in a place he didn’t even know no gun was. And he did all day, till he come home just in time to see them two motherfuck-ers hauling the Landry boy out in handcuffs. The boy’s eyes looked right into Rex’s again, like before, and this time they looked even more scared.

More like Chico’s.

“What the fuck? What up with this?”

The white cop shrugged. “His gun, Rex.”

“It ain’t mine!” the boy shouted.

“Street says it’s your brother’s. Same thing.”

“How’s it the same thing?” Rex stood in their way.

“His brother’s in North Carolina, has been for a month. So it wasn’t him used it on the old lady.”

“Wasn’t me neither!”

“He just a kid,” Rex said.

“Old enough to be tried as an adult if the charge is serious. We’re talking about murder here, Rex. Hey, by the way, thanks.” The cop smiled his teeth at Rex. “We appreciate that you gave up the gun. I’d suggest you get out of the way now, though. Unless you want to come with us?”

The kid’s eyes widened when the cop said the part about the gun. He looked like Rex just took away all his candy, and he looked young enough to care.

That night Rex couldn’t sleep for dreaming.

He dreamed the Landry boy’s mama ask him to give the boy a Hershey’s bar but he can’t find him. He started to eat the chocolate himself but when he looked at it, it wasn’t no candy, it was old smelly garbage.

He dreamed Chico was walking down the street and he wouldn’t turn around when Rex called his name.

He dreamed he was standing in the middle of his apartment, pressure building inside him. The door and windows had bars on them, and he was stuck in there with the roaches.

At work his boss asked him, “How long did you work for my cousin, Rex?”

“Three years,” Rex said. “On and off.”

Rex could see him doing the math, see him thinking, How much do I owe this guy? Rex figured one more visit from them two detectives, he have his answer. Then where was Rex gonna get rent money from, even for that dump? And how was he gonna explain to his parole officer how come he can’t keep a job shoveling shit?

That night, same as the one before. This time when he woke up, Rex couldn’t remember what he dreamed, except all three of his mama’s men pointing and laughing at him, him being so little and them real big. Make him so mad, make all that pressure begin building, but nothing he can do.

Next day on the way to work he saw the Landry boy’s mama dressed in her church hat, getting on the subway. From the look in her eyes you might’ve thought someone punched her in the stomach. Long ride down to Rikers, Rex thought.

And more dreams the next night. This time he woke up at 4, sat staring out the window until the sky got gray.

When morning finally came, he called in sick. He spent the rest of the day getting let into Rikers to see the Landry boy.

Shit, he thought, check out this shit, busting my hump to get into Rikers. Finally, they put him in a room and brought the kid in to sit across the table.

When he saw Rex, the boy put on that hard face. “What you doing here?”

“Got some questions.”

“Who give a shit?”

“You just answer me.”

“Why you tell them where my brother’s gun at?”

“Didn’t mean to.”

“What the fuck do that mean?”

“Thought I was giving them a story. Trying to do the right thing.” He shook his head, to leave that be. “Must be me and your brother just think alike. How come he put it there?”

The boy stared. Seemed like the air went out of him. His shoulders slumped, the hard face sagged. “My moms don’t let no gun in the house.”

“Did you know where it was at?”

“No.”

“Did your boys?”

The kid moved his shoulders, didn’t say nothing.

“Suppose they drop the charges, let you outta here. What you gonna do?”

“’Bout what?”

“You tell me.”

“Don’t know what you mean.”

“You going back to school?”

The kid blinked. “Sure.”

“Why?”

“Why what?

”

“Why you going back? You got plans?”

For a minute, the kid didn’t answer. Then he nodded, real slow.

“What plans you got?”

“Gonna be a engineer.”

“Why?”

“So I could build stuff. Bridges and shit. Buildings where there ain’t nothing now.”

Rex looked at the kid, watched him sit there, watched how young he was.

“That take college. You got a chance?”

“Grades, you mean?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Got a A in math, A minus in physics. B’s, everything else.”

“You got a sheet?”

The boy looked around the scuffed room. “Till this, I ain’t never been arrested.”

“If you get outta here,” Rex said, “I ain’t gonna tell you stop hanging with your boys. They your boys, you ain’t gonna turn your back. But you got choices. They got some shit going down, you stay out of it. You following me?”

The boy shrugged. “Don’t see how it matter. Cops got my ass. I ain’t getting out.”

“Are you following me?!”

The boy jumped in his chair, to hear Rex shout like that.

The guard in the corner turned to look.

Rex asked one more time, quietly, “Are you?”

The kid gave him a wide-eyed nod. “Yes, sir.”

“Okay,” said Rex. “Now you tell me one more thing. You kill that old lady?”

Right into Rex’s eyes, the Landry boy shook his head.

“No, sir.”

Something and Something Else was both surprised to see Rex walk into the precinct squad room. “Hey, look who’s here,” the white one said, but Rex sat in the chair at the black cop’s desk. Might as well give him the collar.

“Came to confess.”

The cop’s eyes opened wide, got white all around them.

Matched his damn teeth.

“Confess? To what?”

“Was me shot that old lady. That gun I give you, it belong to me.”

“Jesus, Rex, what kind of bullshit is this?”

“That kid ain’t done nothing.”

“Neither did you.”

“You got a witness seen him?”

“We’ll find someone.”

“You won’t, ’cause he ain’t done it. You got his prints on the gun?”

“No, but-”

“You got mine?”

“Yeah, but I saw you pick it up!”

“Can you prove that’s when them prints come from? Nah, forget it, I know you can’t. I shot the old lady and I give you the gun, with my prints from when I done it.”

“Rex,” the white cop said from his beat-up desk, “you did this, tell us why.”

“He was robbing her,” said the black cop. “Wanted her pocketbook.” Way he said it, it was clear to Rex he wasn’t buying that.

“Uh-uh,” Rex said. “Not that. ’Cause she look like Berniece, that’s the reason right there.”

“Who’s Berniece?”

“Skinny-ass bitch that sent me up.”

Something looked over at Something Else and Rex knew he had them.

“Fuck,” Rex said. “Why you think I been jerking you ass-holes around? Do that kid a favor? Why I’m gonna do that? Do I owe him something?

“Then why’d you change your mind and give us the gun?”

“You was gonna take me in! I thought I could give you some bullshit story, put my hands on the gun so you’d think my prints come from then, and you’d be dumb enough to buy it.”

The white one flushed. “And why’re you having a change of heart now?”

Rex shrugged. “Didn’t expect you to be so dumb to where you gonna go pick up that kid. He all right, that boy. Ain’t done nothing.”

“So you’re just gonna give it all up? You’re gonna go back inside, just like that?”

“Shit,” Rex said. He thought about the room with the roaches, the job with the sawdust. He thought about the Landry boy’s eyes.

He thought about things that wasn’t there before someone made them, and he thought about the pressure building, building.

“I was going back in, sooner or later,” he said. “I got tired of it, is all.”

“Well, damn,” the cop said. “What the hell, garbage is garbage, I guess. If we can’t get one of those kids, I suppose we’ll take you.” He looked over to Something’s desk and waited for the brown teeth to smile. “All right,” the white teeth said, “if that’s what you want, I’ll book you. That it, Rex?”

“Yes,” said Rex, and added, not to neither of these fools, but to himself, definitely to himself, “sir.”