Young Junius, page 21
part #4 of Jack Palms Series
“So where you been at?” Sheila reached for his belt. Thin, warm rays of light shone through the blinds and onto the side of her face. He took the pipe as she went for his buckle and pulled on the belt’s end to open some slack. Clarence licked his lips and brought the glass up, thinking about what would come next—a beautiful idea that got interrupted by a knock at the door.
He sat up, put his finger to his lips. Sheila hummed her agreement as she opened his belt and pulled at the button, already unzipping his fly with her other hand.
“C Dub,” someone called from the hall: a deep voice that sounded like it might be Black Jesus or Rough. Rough he didn’t care about, never had to deal with if he didn’t want to. Black Jesus was a different story. Clarence sat up and listened. That was when Sheila started licking her lips, and he saw them shine as she put her hand down his boxers and pulled him out. He was sprung from the crack. Nothing like it. Then she kissed him, and when he felt her lips on his cock, he fell back onto the bed.
“C Dub! Clarence!” he heard someone calling from outside, but in his world all that existed was his dick and Sheila’s mouth on it. He knew only lips, tongue, warmth. Then her hand was a part of it too. That was what he liked.
“Fucking Clarence!” he heard, and knew it was Milk’s voice. Who could miss recognizing that little fucker? It had to be Milk and Rough outside then, two brothers he definitely did not give a shit about.
“Fuck off!” he yelled. Sheila stopped in surprise, but he grabbed the top of her head. A moment later, she started again.
The next thing Clarence heard was a bang—a sound like someone hitting his door with more than fists or feet. “The fuck?” he said. He opened his eyes to see the ceiling tiles above him like a chessboard.
Then the sound came again and this time it was more ragged, like wood breaking, and he looked up to see the door pop off the frame, lock and all, opening inward from the hall.
“Motherfucker!” He sat up.
Sheila stopped, and he felt cold air on his wet cock as soon as her mouth was gone. Roughneck came in behind the now-broken door and Milk was right behind him.
Sheila screamed at them to get out.
“Yo!” Rough looked like he’d been about to say something else, but when he saw what he interrupted, he froze.
“Oh, shit!” Milk said.
“What’s wrong? You niggahs have never seen a man’s dick before in your little lives?” Clarence pushed Sheila’s hand off his shaft and waved himself at them. “See this shit, niggahs! I’m a beat you with my dick!”
Roughneck turned to Milk like he had no idea what they were getting into, and he was right. They had no fucking clue.
Clarence stood up, Sheila right behind him. She said, “Ya’ll niggahs get the fuck out or I will fuck you up my damn self!”
Clarence was hard and he liked the look of it, liked it even better when he squeezed the base with his hand. “Yeah!” he said. “You like that?”
Rough stared with eyes wide, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead. “Put that shit away,” he said, holding his hand in front of him so he could meet Clarence’s eyes without seeing his lower half.
Clarence walked toward them. “No. Hold up!”
He went back to the foot of the bed and picked up the cop gun, turned to them with his dick in one hand and the gun in the other. “Now what? Tell C Dub which one of these you want between your lips!”
“Hold up!” Milk raised his own gun, a small revolver.
Sheila smiled at Clarence; she did not seem to be upset at all by the gun. She put both hands on her hips and started to say something, but then she put one finger across her upper lip. She was trying to keep from laughing.
“What?” Clarence said.
“Forty-four Charter Arms Bulldog, motherfucker,” Milk said. “Paid for!”
Sheila smiled wider, and Clarence looked down.
“Best put that away now,” she said.
“Bitch!”
“Yo, listen to the lady,” Rough told him.
“I’m a shoot that thing off.” Milk lowered his gun, still pointing it at Clarence.
“You afraid to fuck with a man got his dick out?” Clarence asked.
Rough held up his hands and took a step back. “No way I want to get some AIDS up in this shit.”
Milk stepped back as well, but kept his gun pointed. Clarence felt his pants start to drop and then fall to his ankles. A cold breeze rushed across his bare legs.
60
Marlene put down the phone after her call with Anthony. She’d only called to say hello and to tell him what was going on here, that she was handling it. All she wanted was to talk, hear herself say the events out loud and have him listen.
But Anthony wasn’t like that.
She got to the part about the shootings on the roof and the police all over her tower, and he went into his ultralawyer mode, talking about citizens’ rights, illegal searches, and motherfuckers needing warrants to get into people’s apartments—even if only to talk to them. She sighed and barely listened.
Of course he would think these things, have all the crap from right out of his books ready at the tip of his tongue. Next he’d want to come down and say it all to the police.
Of course he would.
She knew it would do less good than sending Seven to talk to the cops, that the Harvard Law School bullshit would do less to impress these North Cambridge cops than waving twenties at them.
But he got his fictional, optimistic, idealistic fire up, and now he was on his way over to defend her rights and those of everyone in her buildings.
Maybe it was time to just cut him off.
She’d wanted to sound him out on Junius and Elf, the only part of her day that actually seemed a strategic decision, and he’d barely responded.
He was far more concerned with her stash of Tec-9s hidden in an apartment refrigerator than her giving them to kids. Of course, he totally missed the nuance of her lying about who killed Temple Posey. So now he was coming over and she’d be damned if she’d be available at the front of the building when he started talking his shit at the cops.
She’d be damned if she’d stay up in her brother’s apartment, either. The heat still blew her away, she was bored, and the white wine wasn’t worth any of it. She was starting to think about heading home when she heard a knock at the door.
“Marlene,” Pickup said. “Yo, it’s Big P.”
She crossed the room to the door and opened it. Big Pickup stepped in onto the thick shag rug.
“I seen Seven break out and wanted to make sure you had everything all right.”
“No, that’s good. I was just thinking that I should get back to my own apartment. You want to walk me over?”
“That’s word,” Pickup said and nodded. “I can take you back there.” He gestured toward the hallway, knocked on the apartment door. “I’ll make sure they ready for us and send Drak back on over.”
Marlene put her cigarettes and lighter back into her purse and left the wine bottle and empty glass. “You want that?” she asked Pickup.
“What it taste like?”
She shrugged, offered him the bottle. He picked it up around the neck with one hand and poured some into his mouth, not letting the glass touch his lips. Then he made a sour face and shook his head. “Nah. That ain’t my speed. Give me a four-oh over that anytime.”
“Plus it’s the middle of the day,” she said.
“Plus that.” Pickup winked at her like they’d just shared a private joke. “You want to take the tunnel or go around front?”
“We still got cops outside?”
“A couple.”
“What you think I should do?”
“I’d take the tunnel. Might as well stay warm much as you can. It be crazy cold outside.”
Marlene exhaled. “Sounds good. Let’s go down and through.”
Raphael stuck his head in the door. “We ready.” Behind him, Marlene knew Sean Dog waited in the hall.
“Let’s go.”
They rode the elevator down to the basement of 410—Marlene, Big Pickup, Raphael, and Sean Dog—and crossed back through the tunnel into 411. Once home, they called for the elevator to take them up, and Marlene used her maintenance key to disable the other calls in the building. They rode all the way to twenty-two with no stops, no interruptions, no police.
Just the express.
Meldrak stood outside her apartment when they got there. He was glad to see them, glad to have Marlene suggest he get some rest and let Raphael and Sean take over the hall. After all, he had seen a friend gunned down in front of him.
As Marlene unlocked her door, the phone rang.
Seven had stopped on the sixteenth floor to get himself one of the cold Tecs. He pushed the Beretta down the back of his jeans and the nine down the front, pulled out his sweatshirt over them and his Triple Fat Goose over that.
Now he and Elf stood in the lobby of 411, and Elf asked where they would go.
“To find your boy.”
“Where he at?”
“Exactly.” Seven stepped to the front windows of the building and looked across at 412.
“You think he up there?”
“We gonna find the fuck out.” Seven looked at Rock’s lobby. Elf didn’t see anyone out front or inside either. He saw two police cars parked between the buildings, but they were empty as well.
Seven rapped on the glass twice with his knuckles and headed out the door. Elf watched him, then followed.
He didn’t think Junius would go after Rock and Black Jesus on his own, not without him, but didn’t know what telling Seven Heaven would do. The truth was, Seven scared the speak out of him, and he’d just as soon keep quiet.
Outside, he followed the big man toward Rock’s building. The wind whipped at his face and stung his eyes. He didn’t see anything or anyone back toward the train tracks. Other than the two empty cop cars, there weren’t any police around at all.
What had he been doing upstairs watching TV then? Someone was supposed to come get him. He was ready to act and stand up with his own weapon; the time for him to do his thing had come.
“I—” he started to speak, but it was clear Seven wouldn’t hear him, not with this wind. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say.
Then he saw the whole lobby of 412, and a boy his own age using a mop to clean up.
That was all the security he saw.
Nothing else.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard.
Marlene answered the phone and it was Anthony. Sure enough.
Anthony calling back from his Harvard Law School apartment—Anthony the son of a New York lawyer-mother and lawyer-father just like he was out of the Huxtables on a Thursday night. Anthony who looked good enough to eat cake off of with his clothes off but who was now calling to tell her that he wouldn’t be coming over.
“I just don’t think it’d be prudent for me to get involved with what you have going on over there right now,” he said. “I mean, what good would it do to have me pointing out civil injustice to the police at this point?”
“You right,” she said. “I don’t think you should come either.”
“You don’t?”
Marlene held the phone tight, looked around her own apartment. She was glad to be back.
“Nah. You best just stay away until it’s time for us to have playtime. Best just to come up here for our fun.” He tried to interrupt, but Marlene kept talking. “See, you don’t be involved here. Maybe later, when you making paper to come in the courts and defend a person, that’s when you put your shit in. But now—”
“Marlene, I really don’t think—”
“I’m sure. Right now you best to keep away.”
“It’s just that I spoke to my father and—” But she was already hanging up the phone.
“Fuck you,” she said. Whether he talked to his father, his mother, his Harvard advisors, or just checked his gut in the time it took her to get from Malik’s place to hers, she didn’t care. It was time he saw how big the wall was between their two worlds.
She needed to see it too.
Then Pickup was behind her. “You say something?”
“Nah.” She turned around, saw Pickup waiting for her to tell him what to do. “Seven down with Shari’s kid grabbing up Elf and Young J. Who you got on the lobby?”
Pickup told her which of his soldiers he’d set up in the lobby of each building and where he had others camped out on the stairs. If the cops left, there were sales to be made, exchanges to be handled. Business needed to buzz again, get back up and running.
“Follow Seven and catch him up, see if he still down there. If not, hit the lobby and find if the cops gone. They is, get shit rolling. Then get over to 412. That where Seven gonna go. Watch his back.”
“But—” Pickup’s face turned to one of doubt.
“He doing something for me now. And he need your help.”
Pickup’s eyes narrowed. Seven had said something about making amends on his way out of 410 before, and now he knew that it came from her directly. What she didn’t know was how he’d respond.
Seven did what she said.
Now it was time to find out if Big Pickup would too.
61
Junius sat down on the stairs. He’d lost track of what floor he was on and knew he had to be careful around the higher floors, even more careful than he was already just to be in 412.
One step after another, lifting his leg high and bending his knee, he took each stair in the last few flights to the top. He wasn’t worried about Black Jesus because he had no clue how to find him. He wanted to go straight to the root: Rock.
Fuck whatever Seven advised, or where he thought Junius should start. Going after somebody you didn’t know how to find in a tower of your enemies did not make sense. In Bruce Lee terms, you got into the temple and went straight for the boss. You tried your best to take him down and his boys found you along the way. You had to go through the right-hand man eventually, but that didn’t mean you hunted his ass down. If he was worth anything, he’d be there when you found the boss, protecting his right hand.
And so Junius marched.
He passed the twentieth floor, the twenty-first, and started up to the twenty-second floor. Then halfway up, he stopped.
He could hear talking in the hallway above but, craning his neck to look through the bars, didn’t see any legs or sign of a person waiting guard. There was very little to see where he was: just the next landing above him and a few stairs leading up to the twenty-second floor. He got down low and started to crawl up a few steps to the landing. With his feet out behind him and the Tec-9 in one hand, his finger off the trigger, he crawled up onto the next landing, imagining soldiers in Vietnam doing the same. Here he was in the middle of his war zone, a soldier without a side, looking to find his way.
He could hear the talking more distinctly now from the hall: two men, at least, standing guard outside of Rock’s apartment, just talking shit. Neither of them was Black Jesus. Nothing ever came that easy.
“Motherfucker,” Clarence said. He grabbed his boxers and pulled them up to cover his bad self. He went for his pants, still trying to match Milk gun for gun. Sheila turned away laughing and sat down on the bed.
“This just beats it all, don’t it?” she asked, reaching for the pipe and lighter on the bed stand.
Roughneck stood with his fists in some kind of karate pose, ready to throw. It was a moment of embarrassment for Clarence, but one he mentally wrote off as just another dope-fiend move. He wasn’t afraid or ashamed of being a dope-fiend anymore.
“You niggahs need to get up out of here.” His high was somewhere in front of him, just above him and out of reach. He looked to Sheila sitting on the bed, getting set to light the pipe again. “You ruining a moment. Get the fuck out!”
Milk stood still, his gun on Clarence. “Fuck with him, Rough.”
And then Roughneck moved—fast. He was in front of Clarence in a blink and then below him, doing some kind of sweeping kick. Clarence fell backward. He fired, and then saw Roughneck’s fist crack down on him. Clarence saw black, heard Sheila scream, and felt another stiff punch. He’d fired into the ceiling or the wall facing the street. One of those two.
Then he was off the bed on the floor, and Roughneck kicked him in the ribs and stomped on his gun hand.
Clarence let the gun go. He bit down hard, keeping his mouth shut and refusing to scream.
“You fucking up, C,” Rough said. “Fucking up for the whole of 412.”
Milk said, “You can’t beat on a cop, yo!”
Clarence opened his eyes, looking to see if it was over, but Rough came in quick with a left from the hips that caught the side of his face.
“Yeah,” Clarence said, when he stopped spitting blood on the rug. “That’s cool. You got me. Now what you gonna do? Just be on out.”
“Man, fuck,” Milk said. “Tell me why I don’t just shoot his ass.”
“Because murder is a capital offense.” This was a new voice that came from behind Rough: a tired one that sounded like gravel on concrete. Something hard banged against the doorframe, and when Rough moved aside, Clarence saw the bald, black, raisin-headed cop he’d beat down in the lobby.
“What you want?” Clarence said. “Come for more?”
The cop knocked his nightstick against the doorframe, beating out a rhythm. Then he smashed it down against the broken door as hard and loud as he could.
“I come for my gun. My gun and my badge and your ass.”
Rough chuckled and stepped back. “Shit. Be my guest to it.”
Officer Johnson stepped inside. Clarence could see now that he had one eye swollen shut and his nose was a mess. “You welcome to my ass, Officer. Matter of fact—”
Clarence got partway up and dropped his boxers. He turned to show the cop his cheeks. Rough moved in, kicked him in the hip and bounced him off the end of the bed, onto the blankets.
Clarence rolled to his back and started pulling up his boxers, laughing the whole time.
