Young Junius, page 22
part #4 of Jack Palms Series
“Get out,” the cop said. He was talking to the others, Milk and Sheila and Rough.
“You want no witnesses so you can give me that proper cop-style brutality?”
Johnson hit his nightstick into the palm of his hand. He ground his teeth as he spoke. “I want everyone else out, so I can have you all to myself.”
62
Sergeant O’Scullion stood with his men in front of the three brick towers. Though these were technically part of his detail, they were completely unlike anything else in it, except for Jefferson Park, just a few hundred yards back up Rindge Ave. Down here at this end of things, just off the highway, was a no-man’s-land he preferred not to consider.
Jerry’s Pit, Dougay’s Supermarket, and these two sets of projects. If it weren’t for poor Joyce Chen, the best Chinese food in town, he’d write off the area entirely. Sure, he heard from civic leaders that he needed to police the towers, if only so the mess didn’t spill over to the other side of Rindge, where the working whites—Italians and Irish mostly—had their two-families, but most of the time he thought the projects would be better off eating themselves alive in the war that was always brimming to the surface of this cesspool.
The radio squawked from his shoulder and dispatch came across with a three-car accident on Mass Ave. and Walden—a busy intersection that would create a mess in both directions if it didn’t get cleared. It was getting close to rush hour on a weekday afternoon; he’d hear about it if that wasn’t avoided. He had three cars now at the towers and another up on Mass Ave. at Pemberton Market, looking into the scene of a shooting from the night before.
The boy from the roof of 411 had been bagged, tagged, and taken to the morgue. If homicide came up with anything on his shooting, it wouldn’t be until the end of the week or later. Just like O’Scullion, they were sick of coming here and ready to write the kid off as another unsolved.
Covering the whole city, they had even more bullshit to take care of than O’Scullion. Another death on these roofs? Hardly worth writing up: no witnesses, as always, and no clear motive other than the usual—drug war.
The ambulance had taken the other kid from the back lot. No one had any leads on who laid him out, and Johnson doubted that would change.
“Fuck this,” he said to his men. “Accident up on Mass Ave. needs our attention. This shit?” He raised his hands. “A waste of our time.”
One of his men—Officer Roberts—spit on the ground. His face was ruddy and cold from the wind. At least he had the good sense to keep a dip in. The other officer, Kelley, pointed back up to the front of the first building. “Johnson’s car is still up there, sir.”
O’Scullion looked in that direction, saw the car nosed in behind a civilian’s parked Datsun. “Shitbird was supposed to canvas the building,” he said.
He called Johnson on the radio and got no response. He tapped at the radio with his fingertip, hoping the damn thing hadn’t frozen up again. But then it squawked: dispatch reminding him about the accident, upgrading it to an all-units call.
“I am en-route,” O’Scullion said.
He looked at Officer Kelley’s thin blond mustache and polished badge. Kelley, a five-year cop raised North Cambridge all the way. Catholic School, confirmed at St. John’s. Father was a fireman. A good boy.
“We roll, Officer. Johnson can’t see to keep himself in radio contact or respond to an all-unit, then that is his problem, not ours.”
What he didn’t say was that he didn’t care what Johnson did or if he got himself fired. Johnson was a Roxbury boy fresh from the academy, and city hall made the detail hire him as a part of affirmative action.
He spit onto the ground, reached into his jacket for a smoke. “We get up there fast enough, you can stop at Pemberton to get us all coffee.”
“That’s what I need,” Roberts said. “Let Johnson stay here with his kind. Maybe he can clean up their shit.” Roberts started back toward the front of the buildings and his car. “I know we can’t.”
Kelley looked to O’Scullion, who nodded at Roberts. “Better stay with your partner, son.”
O’Scullion stuffed a Marlboro between his lips and stared at Kelley until he turned to do as he was told. O’Scullion wouldn’t have put things as plain as Roberts—as a commanding officer, he knew better than to say these things out loud—but he agreed all the way.
63
As Junius crawled up the first steps from the landing—he was less than a dozen stairs from Rock’s floor, probably no more than thirty feet from the door to the man’s apartment—he could hear the talk from the hallway more clearly. This top hallway and the one beneath it didn’t have doors. They were wide open onto the stairs, unlike all the hallways below.
“Celtics just too white,” someone said, “now Rick Mahorn, that’s my niggah. You just watch how he fuck with people. That is a niggah playing some ball.”
“Vinnie Johnson.”
“That bitch come out, he don’t give a fuck. What I’m saying. Motherfucker don’t care about nothing but shooting!”
“Microwave get hot.”
“But that’s how I play. Shit, talking about Bill Lame-beer. Motherfuck is lame. You know I wouldn’t pass him the ball. Look at Isiah: fucking Indiana. You have to be a punk to let Bob Knight fuck with your shit!”
Junius crept up one stair at a time on his belly, straining to see who was on the hall and where they were.
“Dumars ain’t no punk.”
“No. No. Motherfucker some straight gumbo-ass Southern-type murderer shit. Mean as dirt. Don’t say shit.”
“What about Parish, then? He black.”
“Shit.”
“From Louisiana—”
“Motherfucking Chief? The Chief? How you gonna be a tough motherfucker and people call you Chief? Plus he hang around too much with Larry Bird and Kevin McHale. Don’t get no whiter than them two!”
“True. It’s true.”
“And don’t start on no Dennis Johnson, neither. You tell me one niggah you know with freckles and a red-ass Afro. Tell me!”
“But he black.”
“He something—Cedric Maxwell, Tiny Archibald, shit, even M. L.-fucking-Carr black. Bill Russell! Way back! They brothers. But D.J.? Please. He like them punks. Danny Ainge: Mormon. Jerry Sichting? Please. Scott-motherfucking-Wedman?”
“Greg Kite.”
“Oh! Please don’t even say that name. Oh my god. They can’t be serious!”
“Bill Walton.”
“You need to stop.”
Junius had come up three stairs and could see partway down the hall, but where the talkers were. He could see the first four doors, and Rock’s apartment had to be either all the way in the middle or at the other end.
“But Parish—”
“Wait. Parish? Cetentary? The fuck is Cetentary? You ever heard of that shit? What is that? He studying for his priest test or something?”
Now Junius could see one of their backs. The quiet one faced the opposite direction, and Junius saw the back of his head. He’d come up just another two stairs, staying as low as he could. He could see the guy’s short black hair, a buzzed-up fade with a bit of a Gumby. He was shaking his head.
“Exactly. You don’t even know what that shit is.”
“Charles Oakley, that’s my man.”
“Yeah, yeah. He raw. He raw. But I’m saying the Pistons, they my team right. I like those motherfuckers. Even Dennis Rodman. Shorts high as shit and that motherfucker cannot shoot a shot to save himself, but he do something right. Something.”
“A.D. my man too. Mark Aguirre.”
“That’s what I’m telling you. Look at that team all up and down: niggahs! Exactly! That’s what I been saying to you.”
“Dantley a pump-faking motherfucker!”
They both started to laugh.
“Yeah! He be like—” And with that, the other one, the one Junius couldn’t see, suddenly popped into view. Maybe Junius had come too far up, but he wasn’t expecting a move like that. As soon as he moved, Junius recognized him as the one who did the shooting up on the roof—Hammer.
Junius ducked against the stairs, pulled his head down. He’d seen Hammer for just a moment, saw him stand and start throwing imaginary pump fakes.
Now it was quiet from above. Neither of the two spoke. Junius listened closely. Then he heard one of them hiss.
64
Elf followed Seven toward 412. Seven banged on the glass, and the kid with the mop looked up.
Elf recognized him now as Randy: one of his brother’s friends he used to see in the summers playing basketball at the courts up behind Pemberton Street. Randy was a set shooter, barely got both feet off the ground, but he could hit it. Elf had to give him that.
When Randy saw him, Elf nodded. Seven kept banging on the doors. “Open the fuck up.” Randy pushed the mop into its bucket, splashing water onto the floor, where Elf noticed the white tiles had red streaks across them. The black tiles still looked the same.
“Come here,” Seven told Randy, and Randy came to the doors. “Now open the fuck up.”
Randy had to look up to meet Seven’s eyes, and when he did, he pushed the door open immediately. He tried to keep his body in the way, ask what they were doing, but Seven pushed past him immediately. “Who here?” he asked.
Randy looked puzzled.
“What up?” Elf gave him the nod and they bumped fists.
Randy said, “Ain’t seen you playing ball.”
“Nah.” Elf shrugged. “Business.”
“Who the fuck is here?” Seven asked, louder this time.
“Just me.” Randy pointed to the mop. “Niggahs got me cleaning up a mess of blood because Clarence up a cop. Now Rough and Milk gone up to see about Clarence, and the cop went up too.”
Seven’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Cop?”
Randy shook his head. “Clarence fucked his ass up. Niggah beat him down.”
“Clarence.” Seven didn’t say anything else.
“You seen Junius?” Elf asked.
Randy shook his head.
Seven crossed the lobby and pushed the elevator button. “Come on,” he said.
“To where?”
The elevator doors opened. “Up, niggah.”
Seven looked down at Elf as they rode up.
Elf tapped his fingers against the side of his leg. His head bobbed a little, like he had some song in him. He stared straight ahead at the elevator doors. Neither him or Junius had come up in these projects and, from what Seven knew about Willie’s boys, they probably didn’t come up in projects at all. Where Willie’s crews rolled it was mostly two- and three-families, houses on streets with sidewalks, even a few trees. There was one project over there, six or seven buildings that looked bad but held nothing like the pain of the towers—none of them were more than three or four stories tall.
“Yo, you know those projects up on Powder House by Broadway?”
Elf nodded. “North Street Projects,” he said, and Seven could tell he wasn’t from them by the way his mouth didn’t curl around the words.
“Your man J come up there?”
“Nah. Neither us.”
Just a kid was all he was. Even if he was older than Junius, Elf didn’t act it. Maybe Junius knew that and left Elf behind on purpose. He might’ve had something there.
The doors opened and Seven stepped out onto fifteen. “Come on.”
He walked halfway down the hall to an apartment that he hadn’t visited in years. Just before he knocked on the door, he looked down at Elf. “Stand up straight.”
He knocked and heard her inside, saying she’d come in a minute, that she was on her way. Seven smiled at the sound of her voice and looked away from Elf so the boy wouldn’t see. Then he shook his head when she said, “One minute!” She was the same as always.
She opened the door without asking who it was, still trusting the insane world around her, and then brought her hands up to her mouth when she saw him. She smiled through her hands, laughed even.
“Steven,” she said. “Where you been, boy? You know it’s too long since I seen you!”
“I’m here, Miss Emma. Here now to pay you a visit.”
“Well, isn’t that—” She stopped and invited them in, stepping back and waving them to the same old couch that had been there before. The same plastic was still on it and she probably had the same pitcher of red Kool-Aid in the refrigerator.
“Who is this now?”
Seven glanced back at Elf, but didn’t know his real name. Miss Emma wasn’t one for nicknames. “This—”
“Elvin. Elvin Jenkins, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”
Seven patted his back. At least the kid knew when to show some manners.
“Sit, sit.” She commanded them to the couch. “So what brings you to my door today, Steven?”
“We looking for a friend of ours, and I might have to go upstairs. Thought I could leave Elvin with you for a minute.”
Elf turned to Seven fast, confused.
“What you mean, Steven? I thought we were here to find Junius.”
“Oh, Junius just here,” she said.
Seven felt his jaw drop and he closed it fast. “He was?”
She nodded. Steadying herself with a hand on the armrest, she slowly let herself down into her glider. “Randall brought him, but they didn’t stay long. He seemed real upset about his brother.”
“Randall?” Seven asked.
“Temple?” Elf said.
She laughed. “Yes to both. He said he was here looking for Guardy Little. Seemed real eager to find him, too.”
Seven bit his lip. The boy had gotten further than he expected. He didn’t know if that was bad or good. Under his breath, he said, “Black Jesus,” to let Elf know who she meant. The fact that he was with Roughneck didn’t make sense.
“Black—” Elf said, and stopped himself.
“How long ago?”
“Mmmm, not more than a half hour, I’d say. Enough time for me to call around to his people and let them know where he be at.”
“His people?”
“Course Randall left right after he did. Hardly stayed long enough to say a proper hello.”
Seven stood up fast. “I—” he said.
“I just spoke to his father on the phone ten minutes ago. Told the man to come up here and see about his boy. Young man all upset like that, no telling what he might do! Nothing good, though, I’m betting.”
Seven took off his jacket and set it on the couch. He pulled his sweatshirt around his waist, making sure not to betray any of the bulk of his guns to Miss Emma. That would be the last thing she could handle.
She stared at the jacket, and he picked it up fast before she had to tell him where it went—on the old coatrack next to the door.
“I think you right about him getting into trouble,” he said. “Especially looking for Guardy. He don’t even know where to look.”
She shook her head. “The things that happen here these days. And what happened to his brother?” She started to cross herself and then stopped. “Makes me so I don’t know what to do.”
Elf stood up, but Seven held him where he was with a hand. “Miss Emma, it all right if my friend stays here with you while I try to find Junius?”
“That’s ok,” Elf said. “Really.”
“Of course it is. I’m happy to have him. Always nice to have company.”
Elf stood up. “Nah. Nah. I’m a come.”
Seven opened the door behind him and pulled Elf into the hall. “Just one second, Miss Emma.”
“I’m not—”
Seven grabbed Elf with both hands and lifted him onto his toes, then shoved him against the wall. He brought his face close, so Elf could hear him whisper, “You stay the fuck here. I see you out in this hall, I knock your ass out myself and leave you in a janitor closet. Ok?”
Elf started to speak, and Seven shoved him into the wall again, harder, hoping Miss Emma wouldn’t hear. “I don’t give a fuck what you think you gonna do. Your boy up in here and I’m a get him out. Neither one of you up to killing Rock or Black Jesus. Just two young bucks and that’s how you need to stay.”
Seven reached down the back of Elf’s pants and pulled out the Beretta, stuffed it into his pocket. He worried a little that if something happened to him and Junius, he might need a gun to get himself home, but the chances of that leading him to help instead of harm were small; he’d be better off walking out with his hands raised.
Otherwise he’d probably drop the gun on Miss Emma’s rug and scare the shit out of her or worse.
He let go of Elf’s jacket, smoothed where it’d been bunched.
“Now I’m going back in there with you and you make nice. Talk to her until I get back with your boy.”
Seven didn’t wait for Elf to answer, just pushed him back through the door.
“Niggahs be leaving me behind all day!”
Seven shoved the back of his head. “I apologize for not being able to talk more right now, Miss Emma, but I think you’re right about someone finding Temple’s brother before anything goes wrong. Do you mind?”
She shook her head, started to get up, and Seven waved her down. “Sit,” he said, “Sit. I’ll see you later.”
Seven glared at Elf once more, hard. “Bye, Elvin.”
Then he was gone.
65
Rough watched the way the cop stood there, uneven on his own feet, like something had bent in his middle and made his top half kink to the left. This was the same cop he threw in the dumpster. He couldn’t be more surprised to see the man back on his feet.
“Go on. The rest of you just get on out.”
“That’s cool with me,” Rough said, holding up his hands. Milk shot him a look.
“I just be getting on then,” Sheila said, taking the pipe and Clarence’s lighter off the bedside table. She pulled her flannel shirt around herself, trying to cover her chest. She made a production out of the way she walked, practically sashaying across the room like she had just won something. It was hard not to notice. She tipped her head to the cop as she passed him, said, “Officer,” just as sweet as you please.
