Young Junius, page 20
part #4 of Jack Palms Series
Aldo picked up the phone and heard the answering machine screech feedback from its speaker like a broken guitar. Sounded like Little Joe Cook from up the Cantab Lounge, singing about “The Peanut Man” whenever Aldo was trying to enjoy a drink.
“Hello?”
“Hello?”
“Mr. Posey?”
“Yes. This Aldo Posey. I thank you for calling.”
“Mr. Posey, I’m happy to hear you there today. You better head on up here to do something about your boy. I was just leaving a message to tell your wife.”
“Uh, ex- Miss Lawrence. We not—” He stopped. “She Miss Ponds now. Took back her old name.”
“Well. You mean you ain’t married to Mrs. Posey any longer? I am sorry to hear that, but times do change us. What you doing answering her phone?”
Aldo stumbled back a step. He looked around and saw his old living room surrounding him. Maybe this woman was too quick to be talking to this close to waking up. “I—”
“Perhaps that’s just none of my business. But I did want to say I’m making a few phone calls to find out what happened to your older boy. I will get to the bottom of this.”
“You don’t—”
“I’m also sending my Randall after Junius to make sure everything ok. Wouldn’t want him bumping into some of the wrong folks round here, you understand?”
“Yes, I—”
“Because you know things may happen. I heard police sirens out on the street today, and yesterday they took that boy Lamar off on a covered stretcher.”
Aldo closed his eyes, trying to think of a way to get himself off the phone. In the kitchen he could see the tall, thin cabinet along the wall where he used to keep his good gin.
“They young ones now,” she said. “Getting they selves into all sorts of trouble. It’s no damn good, I tell you. No damn good.”
“Yes ma’am,” Aldo said. “I—Let me get going so I can make my way over there to see about my boy.”
“Yes, I—”
“I do appreciate your call.”
“I understand. But let me ask you: When I find out what happened to your Temple, where you want me to call?”
Aldo shook his head. He didn’t need her to tell him what’d happened to Temple. Didn’t need anyone to tell him what he already knew.
“You just call back here,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t. “You could call back here, and I’ll check on you when I come to the towers.”
She was in the 412, she told him, the one closest to the highway. The one Rock owned. Where Clarence lived. Junius had been inside.
He shuddered against what could be happening and hung up the phone without saying good-bye.
One of his sons—his only son now—needed him. That was enough to make him move.
57
In his apartment on eleven, Clarence sat down on the bed after sweeping his sheets and blankets onto the floor.
In his hand he held three little bags with white rocks in them. He nodded, replaying his fight with the cop in his mind’s eye. He showed that pig who ruled these towers, taken what the cop had to sling and stood strong to beat him down.
He tossed the badge and the gun onto the bed beside him—the gun silver, shiny, well cared for. Its cylinder held five bullets, and maybe he had more .38 shells around in a drawer.
The Smith & Wesson 60, genuine cop issue. It would bring no less than five hundred on the street, or he could use it himself to get that interfering pig into any amount of trouble. He looked at the clothes in his closet, trying to decide if he had a suit nice enough to pass for a cop if he showed the badge. Maybe down in Central Square or Boston where they didn’t know him. He might score some serious shit that way. Even, and if he could pull this off Rock would really be impressed, a couple of fake drug busts: confiscations and all that shit. That could lead to more guns and drugs that he might as well sell for himself rather than turn over to Rock.
Yeah, there was plenty he could do with this badge.
He thought back to the morning, how he’d run out of the apartment, chasing Dee and Ness, the dumb fucks, and that damn kid who didn’t even matter. Junius Posey and his boy Little Elf. They could both suck his dick now. Fuck Lamar too. Let Junius put a cap in him. Just one less asshole that he, C Dub, had to deal with in his house.
“This my house,” he said out loud. He thought of Eddie Murphy’s routine in his live stand-up movie. “My house,” Eddie said, imitating his own father.
“My house,” Clarence said, and beat his chest. He looked around his apartment and thought about Rock up in the penthouse with a whole wall of windows. This was no way for Clarence Williams to live. He’d take it all, everything he deserved, which was, as Tony Montana put it, “The world, chico…and everything in it.”
Clarence pushed two of the rocks into his pocket and squeezed the third out of its baggie. He broke off a piece and put the rest on the night table. The glass pipe was right where he’d left it, ready with the Brillo.
He pushed the shard onto the metal pad and lit the glass. That was when he heard a knock.
He tapped the glass with the lighter and lit the flame, holding it under the Brillo again. There was nobody on the other side of that door right now more important than his hit. He brought the flame toward the pipe again and put his lips to the other end.
The knocking turned into banging. He hesitated, took a deep breath and said as loud and as menacingly as he could, “Who is it?”
Gary Johnson had to wait for the ambulance to come, for the paramedics to load Pooh into it on a stretcher, and finally for the CSI dicks to start working on the scene before he felt like he could crawl out of the dumpster. Until then, there were just too many cops around, too great a chance he’d be seen.
They’d want to know how he got fucked up, where his gun and badge were, and if Sergeant Onion-Butt O’Scullion found out about that—well, Gary Johnson just couldn’t let that happen.
He tried to avoid looking at the stretcher when they wheeled it into the ambulance, wanting to avoid more bad news. He still saw it, though, and he was relieved when it went in uncovered, even if that meant the boy would tell what he’d done.
If Pooh was alive, Gary Johnson knew he still had a chance to make everything right.
When the ambulance was gone and the CSI crew started, he noticed his nightstick in among the trash bags—a small blessing. He squeezed the plastic grip in his hand for the feel of something hard and real. Finding assurance in that, he slipped over the lip of the dumpster.
The ground came up to hit his feet like a punch in his spine, and he blacked out for a second, then discovered himself slumped against the rusty metal. He stepped slowly toward the back door of 412 and dropped the business end of his nightstick into his left hand. The impact didn’t hurt; no, it felt good. Feeling something solid felt better than the loosely fastened connections of his body.
He brought the stick down onto his palm again.
He was going to feel even better when he used it on the crackhead who did this.
58
It took Milk doing half the lobby himself, but now Randy finally had the hang of using the mop. Black Jesus and Mike Only had left long ago, gone back up to Jesus’s apartment to chill out.
Milk stood with hands on his hips and his lips pushed out like he couldn’t believe any of this shit, just watching. “You know this bullshit,” he said.
Rough nodded. “What we gonna do?”
Milk spit through his front teeth in the direction of the mop, managed to land a stream right in front of it.
“You know what I think.”
“That I’m a go up and handle Clarence myself? Just roll up on him?”
Milk nodded. “That’s what I been saying. Not like he didn’t try his shit on you this morning.”
“True.” Rough thought it over, knew Clarence had gone rogue, way past what was all right. Maybe Rock would even thank him for handling the situation if he did something.
“Niggah need a beating. He gone too far.”
Rough held his hand up to quiet Milk and listened. Other than the sound of Randy sloshing the mop against the floor, he couldn’t hear anyone. But for a second, he thought he heard something, someone listening.
“Hold up.” Randy stopped the mopping and the three of them stood still in the lobby. Rough heard the elevator moving somewhere above them, listened as it started up and then creaked to a stop a few floors later. He heard its doors open and close. Then the building was quiet. A siren squawked and rolled from the back alley, most likely the ambulance that had passed through the parking lot ten minutes earlier.
Rough turned to see it cross in front of the building and then wind through the parking lot, headed toward Route 2, its lights flashing and spinning, the horns blaring.
“Shit. Now we got ambulances carting off niggahs I don’t even know about. Who was that?”
Milk shook his head. “Fucked-up, yo.”
“This day just hopping the fuck off!”
“It won’t get fixed until you start righting it.”
Rough rolled his eyes. “One note you blowing, all damn day.”
“Because it be right.”
“Yeah. Ok.” Rough stepped toward the elevator and pushed the button. “That’s what we do, then. We roll on up to eleven and gat down this motherfucker to make shit right.”
Milk clapped Rough’s shoulder. “That’s it, my brother. That is what I’m talking about.”
Rough shook his head. “No other way to shut you up, apparently.”
Above them the elevator started to whir its way down. Even if it was Milk’s idea and Milk pushing him, maybe he had wanted this all the way.
Maybe that was why he hadn’t turned in Junius and Elf when he saw them on the roof or tell Clarence when he and Junius both came through the lobby. The truth was—and he’d known it a long time now—Clarence was a fuckup, someone who would bring down their organization. Rock, Rough, Black Jesus—whoever was in charge—would have a problem until Clarence got dealt with. Maybe Milk was right about Rough being afraid, but you could only train karate katas on the roof for so long. Came a time you had to stand up and act.
The elevator opened and Rough and Milk got in. Milk looked at Rough before pressing the button for eleven. Rough nodded. “Time to take this shit on up.”
When the elevator doors closed, Randy stood up straight and rested his arm on the mop. He’d be fucked if this shit was what he signed on for, if this was any of the work he wanted to be doing during his week off from school.
Sure, he was in this shit now, and he’d carry it out—he owed it to his cousin to at least do that much—but after this week he was going back to school. This life didn’t have shit on school. Maybe you could make a buck here and there, but he didn’t see a future in it. He’d be just as happy to keep his ass in class. Even if Tobin sucked, maybe he could roll his grades up a bit and talk Mrs. Johnson into getting him to the Intensive Studies Program over at Longfellow. Last year they took Tasha up there, and she came back saying she loved it.
Shit, reading a book definitely beat mopping blood off the floor.
The back hallway door opened and Randy froze. The blue uniform stopped his body, but it was the face that came in attached to it, the one he last saw laid out in a pool of blood, that stopped his breath cold.
The cop walked in as if loose pieces of him were shifting around inside his middle. His legs plodded onward with fluid determination, but the person above them, especially the face, looked like it was from another place or even another body. In his hands, he carried the nightstick Black Jesus had picked up. He squeezed it tight enough to brighten his knuckles.
The cop wheezed and his voice came out like a sucked-in breath. Whatever he said, Randy didn’t hear. Then he barked, “Where they go?” Randy could see the determination on his face and the white around the cop’s irises that said he was going to really do something.
Randy pointed to the elevator.
“What floor?” The cop’s lips were tight, his teeth clenched around the words. He still had dried blood in his mustache.
“Eleven.” Randy pointed again at the doors. “They up on C Dub floor.”
“Motherfucker who looks like he been in a fight? Crackhead son of a bitch?”
“C Dub? Yeah, I guess you could describe him like that.”
The cop nodded. He removed one hand from the nightstick and steadied himself against the wall. “That’s who I want.” He scraped himself together enough to close the distance to the elevator doors and then jabbed at the call button with the end of his stick.
Randy held the mop, guessing how hard it would be to get into the ISP program. Sure, he’d mop up the floor today, but that was the extent of what he planned to do for Rock.
59
“It’s Sheila,” the voice said: Sheila D, and Clarence knew it was her. No other woman had the sixth sense to know exactly when a man had drugs to shake her ass out for. Sheila always knew.
Clarence looked down at his lap, considered if it was worth a blow job to let her in. That didn’t take long to decide; Sheila didn’t just give a good blow job, that woman knew every bit how to give a goddamned masterpiece performance. She’d leave a lipstick ring around the base so dark you’d remember her the next time you took a shower, get to thinking about her again so you wanted more.
Clarence looked at his pipe.
“C Dub,” she said. “You hear me out here! What you doing?”
Clarence checked the lighter. He knew she had the x-ray hearing to know if he lit it, but he didn’t care. For all she knew, he could be lighting up a Kool. He laughed. The woman just knew, like she had crack-rock radar. Even when he had a good stash of coke, she knew to come around. It was like she could smell it from three floors away.
But even Sheila couldn’t keep him from his hit. He flicked the lighter.
“C Dub!” she shouted.
He brought the flame under the pad and sucked hard.
“Mmmm!” he hummed to her as he watched the tube fill with white smoke, hoping if she heard him she’d shut the fuck up and just wait. Then he tasted the blast and sucked it down hard into his lungs. He pushed a breath in behind it to go deeper, and then he hit the pipe again to get more on top of that.
Lung capacity: that’s what it came down to. Ever since he started smoking weed at thirteen he’d been increasing how much he could suck in. Now he held it, watching the world go cloudy and gray for a second before it all came clear and turned to a new set of colors. That was the boom; the boom-bang. He checked his forearm: even the welt left by Johnson’s nightstick didn’t hurt. He stood up. Nothing hurt anymore.
“Clarence!”
He let a little smoke seep out through his teeth as Sheila resumed kicking the door. He crossed the room and checked the peephole. Sheila stood holding up her middle finger like she knew exactly where he was and when he’d look. He unlocked the door and held it open just an inch, put his lips to the gap and blew smoke out into the hallway; he emptied his lungs in a steady stream at her face.
“Ooh,” she said, “I know you got that good stuff now!” She leaned into the door trying to open it.
“Mmmm hmm,” he said.
“Now let me in, baby. You know I make it worth your while.”
Clarence moved his foot and let the door swing open for Sheila to come inside. She took the pipe out of his hand and walked toward the bed like the place was hers.
“Yeah, baby. Come on and bring yourself in.” Clarence glanced out into the hallway and shut the door.
“You know you want it,” she said. She sat down.
Sheila was dressed like always: with a shirt that revealed cleavage pushed up by a too-small bra that offered it to the world on a tray. She’d already lost some of her game: the shirt she wore over her tank was worn, a flannel plaid worn more for warmth than look; her jeans were last year’s tight acid-wash instead of the black leggings girls were wearing now.
But Clarence didn’t care.
Shit, half his clothes were still from the 70s and he liked their style better than the overpriced Girbauds and Z. Cavariccis that brothers wore now. Pants showed you were a man, he’d always thought, and so, true to form, he had on a dark pair of brown work pants like his father wore when he worked for the city. When he wanted to get wild for a club or something, he had a pair of black nylon parachute pants with a lot of zippers in the back of his closet.
Shit, even if the wash on Sheila’s pants was wrong for the year’s fashion, the tight-ass seams didn’t hide a thing. She’d gained a few extra pounds, but what woman in her thirties hadn’t. Her hair could use a new cut, but she had shed that Jheri curl like the bad habit it was, and now sported a ‘do that Clarence could actually put his fingers in. He shrugged, knowing Sheila wasn’t much. Still, he’d had good times with her. It touched something inside him to have her around.
She sucked on the pipe and reached for the lighter to heat the Brillo again.
“Nah,” she said, “this here’s done.” She held out the pipe for Clarence to add more rock.
Clarence set her up again with a bigger piece. He cooked it and brought the pipe up to his mouth. Sheila started to protest, but he put his fingers over her lips.
When he dragged in the smoke now, he didn’t take it into his lungs; instead he kept it in his mouth and leaned forward, brought his lips to hers and kissed her, pushing the smoke in. She moaned her approval and leaned back onto the bed, pulling at his shirt. He resisted, stood up, and hit the pipe again for himself now, dragging deeply. He was hoping that if he stood in front of her long enough she would go for his belt.
By the time he had his hit, though, she was reaching for the pipe again, greedy for more. Clarence didn’t care: his blood pumped hard in his veins and everything was all right with his world. What he loved so much was to hit the rock and have Sheila hit his cock at the same time. He stood and waited, then flopped down onto the bed next to her when the feeling moved him. She smoked what she wanted and then leaned toward him, started running her hand across his chest.
