Young Junius, page 24
part #4 of Jack Palms Series
This would cure him. This would push away the pain, at least for the time being so he could get up off the floor or just get away from the hurt.
His shoulder was broken. He’d been shot in the leg. His right arm wouldn’t move, or it would, but each time it did he wanted to cry out. All this, but looking at the rock in his hand gave him at least a little hope.
“Cop,” he said. “Cop!”
Johnson grunted. Clarence couldn’t see him from the floor, but he knew where the cop was from the sound of his breathing.
“Cop!”
“What?”
“You see that pipe beside you on the bed table?”
He waited, listening to the cop breathe, feeling his own blood slow in his veins.
“Ain’t no pipe there, motherfucker. Your bitch took that shit when she left. She fucked you, niggah.”
Clarence groaned. He had other shit in the apartment he could use to smoke a rock, but he’d have to look for it. There was at least an old one-hitter and bat inside the night table itself. “You see—”
“Man, fuck you!” The cop stood up, the bed creaking be-neath him.
“Is there a lighter on the table?”
Now the cop turned to face Clarence. He looked gray, like he was half-dead, but he smiled. “Bitch took that too, niggah.”
He swung the stick at Clarence’s left hand, knocking the baggie out of it. It flew across the floor, and into the corner.
“Shit, niggah. Why you do that?”
“Don’t do drugs.” The cop laughed and then started coughing, his whole frame rocking with the force of the hacks. When he was done, he said, “Just say no. Motherfucker, didn’t you know Nancy Reagan told your ass?”
The cop laughed again, holding his sides with his arms like he was cradling a bag of broken bones. Despite it all, Clarence had to smile, if even just a little. “Niggah,” he said, grabbing his crotch. “This be your brain on my dick. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” the cop said. “Yeah.” He coughed again, laughing as much as he could, then stepped to where his badge was on the floor and, bracing himself against the couch, he bent slowly and picked it up. “That’s Officer Johnson to you.”
When he had straightened, Johnson hobbled toward the door.
“Fuck you, cop!” Clarence said, trying to get up. But feeling a shot of pain across his chest when he started to move kept him planted. “Fuck you in the ass with your nightstick!”
The cop didn’t say anything else, just pushed the door away from its frame. Before he was gone, Clarence said, “Wait! Wait. Cop? Just help me find something I can use to smoke this rock out? Please?”
He waited. It sounded like the cop was waiting at the door, like the origin of the hacking-breathing had paused.
“Please, man. Just help me smoke this shit and I be ok.”
“Fuck you.” That was all the cop said, and then he was gone; Clarence looked up and saw just the empty door frame.
He let his head fall back against the blankets, counting his breaths. He would rest for a little while, let himself count to fifty or maybe even one hundred, and then he’d get himself to the night table to find the rest of the Brillo, his one-hitter, and maybe even some matches. He had to have matches.
Or maybe Sheila would come back. Maybe she’d been waiting outside in the hall the whole time, just waiting for the cop to go away.
He felt his right pants pocket again with his left hand; he could still feel one rock left.
69
Elf stood up from the couch. He’d done just like Miss Emma said: sat and thought and figured out what to do next. He had to do what was best for his boy.
As far as they’d come together, wherever Junius was and whatever trouble he was in—if Elf could get to him before he got to Rock or tried to go after Black Jesus, tell him Marlene had put them on the wrong path—he needed to find his man and get them both out of 412.
“So you made up your mind now, have you?”
He nodded.
“What’s it going to be then?”
He patted his thighs, trying to figure out what to say. “I think—”
“You think? Son, you better know what you planning if you going to make a move up in these here towers. These are not a place for a boy to tread light.”
Elf stood up straighter. “Yes, ma’am. I have to go find my friend and tell him what you just told me. He on his way to get into a world of trouble.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Friendship worth something. Not as much as your own hide, but you can’t just watch that all day. Got to be some give and take.” Miss Emma nodded. “You know where you’re going, then?”
Elf guessed: “Up?”
“That’s right. If your friend went after Rock, he went up top and wouldn’t stop. But—” Now Miss Emma started to stand. She put her crocheting on the coffee table and steadied her body with both hands on the glider’s arms. Elf took hold of one elbow and helped to steady her. She thanked him as she crossed to the kitchen.
“Come here,” she said, when she was in front of the stove.
Elf followed, and when she pointed to a cabinet above the stove, he took a small footstool and set it in front of the oven, then climbed on it to get to the cabinet. He still had to stretch to reach the knob.
“You reach in there,” she said.
Elf stood on his toes and felt inside the cabinet, expecting to touch dust and things that were dusty, but instead he felt the metal end of something with a scored surface. He worked it toward him and when he had it in his hand, he knew it was a gun.
What he brought out was a small revolver with a black handle. “What?”
“That belong to my nephew, Randall. Boy don’t know I knew it up there. Damn if I know why it is, but that be where he put it.” She raised her shoulders and then dropped them. “Might be of use to you, not that I want that. But things come to pass, you might have a need for it.
“Looks like you were in a fight already not too long ago.” She touched her lips, where Elf knew he had a scab.
She turned and walked back into the living room as Elf shut the cabinet and got down from the stool. He looked down at the gun in his hands: it had a short barrel and a cylinder that held six shots. Along its side, he read Smith & Wesson.
It was smaller than the Beretta, and definitely less gun than the Tec, but that suited him fine. He tucked it down the front of his pants easily; it fit better than the other guns.
“Thank you, ma’am. I’m a be careful.”
Miss Emma waved her hand. She’d already reached the rocker and begun her process of sitting down. “Times changing round here and it’s no place suited for me. Not no more.” She shook her head. “Uh uh.” She waved at Elf again. “Best you go now, boy, before I change my mind.”
Elf watched her settle into the chair. Her eyes were closed. “Go,” she said, but he was already at the door, letting himself out into the hall.
He shut the door quietly behind him.
Out in the hallway, it smelled of burned food or cooking oil. Something was wrong in the air.
Dee and Ness got into the 412 elevator so stoned and tired that it took them a full minute to realize neither one had pushed a button for their floor. Dee noticed it first, and laughed. “Damn, niggah. You know we just been standing here, right?”
Ness opened his eyes and turned to Dee. He looked like he might ask a question, but then he just waved his hand and closed his eyes again.
“Damn, yo. You dead on your feet up in this bitch. I mean we ain’t slept but—”
“Yeah,” Ness said, his voice quiet and barely there.
“Ok. You asleep then, fine. Tell that to Rock.”
“Who we going to? Rock or C?”
“Fuck C.”
“Heard that.”
“Leave us up in front that house all night, then up in that budget-ass diner. Uh uh. Fuck him. We talk to Rock today. Black Jesus at least!”
Dee stepped up to the buttons and hit twenty-two. The doors creaked shut. As Dee watched them, he thought he saw red marks on the lobby floor.
“That blood?” he asked.
Ness didn’t answer.
Inside the elevator, he heard the motors whir and the machine creaking as it took them up.
70
After leaving Clarence alone with the good Officer Johnson, Roughneck followed Milk to the stairs at the end of the hall. They started to make their way down at first; Rough didn’t know their next move, but the least they could do was see how Randy had managed with the mop.
They came down a flight and a half before they heard the first shot. Rough froze, his hand on the railing. It’d been a handgun, one shot from inside the same stairwell they were in; with the echo, it couldn’t have been fired anywhere else.
“Fuck was that?”
Rough turned to start back up the stairs. “Means some shit going down.”
He broke into a run, knowing it was more than ten stories to Rock’s floor and that running them would be faster than the elevator. If shit was going down, especially if it involved Junius—Rough still didn’t know why he even cared—he wanted to be there. If he could do anything to help Rock or protect Junius he wanted the chance.
He shouldn’t have let Junius leave Miss Emma’s without more of a fight, didn’t know why he hadn’t just talked him down and sent him out of the building.
Milk yelled back something about the elevator, and Rough called him a pussy, told him to come on.
Rough never thought Junius would reach Rock, but he was so far outside the towers’ norm he was unpredictable. Maybe that norm didn’t work anymore and Junius was here to shake it up. Maybe Rough might want to help make that happen.
He hit the landing between thirteen and fourteen exactly as he heard the second shot: this one from a shotgun at the other end of the building. “Shit,” Rough muttered. “Hammer.”
Below him, Milk trailed Rough by more than a flight. He swore again and called down for Milk to hurry it up.
At the next landing, on fourteen, he hit the door and opened it hard. No one stood in the hallway, just a clear path down to the other end and the opposite stairwell. If Hammer was at that end of the building, Rough wanted to be on those stairs when he got close to the action.
He waited for Milk to come into view and then started for the other end of the hallway at a run.
Seven made his way up the last few steps to twenty-one with his back against the wall. He had his gun trained on the next staircase the whole way, but by the time he reached the top step, he knew the next flight was empty. Whoever had fired had moved on.
Seven pushed back against the wall and up sideways until he felt his shoulder rub the edge of the doorframe.
He’d never done this before but had seen the cops on TV, T. J. Hooker especially, do the duck-in to check a room enough times to know how it was done. He raised the Tec to his chest and set it to full auto. Whoever was down that hallway better be ready.
Seven stood silent, loaded for bear.
He heard someone yell at the far end, and then another blast from the shotgun. Hammer wouldn’t care who he went after or what kind of property damage he did. Hammer was Lamar’s boy. They were both crazy.
Seven had heard Junius’s and two more guns; he knew there could be more.
He did the quick, slight turn around the corner so he could tell if anyone was close to him. No one was.
The next move, he figured, meant holding the gun between his bent knees and spinning into the doorway while he swung his arms up to point the gun down the hall. In his head, he could picture Hooker’s boy, Adrian Zmed, doing this. Adrian Zmed, that pussy from Dance Fever who always took his shirt off. No, that was not the guy he’d copy.
Instead he ducked his head around the corner again, getting a better look down the hall: he made out the back of someone’s black tracksuit.
Seven swore into the quiet. He’d never pulled and fired on someone, but this time there was no chance to ask questions. He’d come all the way inside Rock’s tower, just below the man’s floor, and now he only had room to act.
He nodded to himself, agreeing with it. Even if Junius wasn’t the one to slide up on Rock and make things different, even if Marlene had been wrong to send a boy to do a man’s job, it was still the right job to do. They saw what crack was doing to their people, and it was time to take a stand.
Seven closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind; he saw Adrian Zmed with no shirt on. That was enough to pop his eyes back open. He wanted to swear again, louder this time, but he didn’t dare. Instead he ducked to his left as he raised the Tec-9 in both hands—arms out straight—and dropped down onto one knee in the doorway.
Halfway down the hall one of Hammer’s boys, Deacon Speakin, crept toward Junius.
Seven opened a quick burst from the Tec that punched a series of holes in the back of Speakin’s black sweatshirt. He turned around, and Seven lit him up again.
Speakin fell against the wall and then down onto his knees. He looked at Seven with empty eyes and then fell forward onto his face. His legs scrambled for a few moments, and then he was still.
That was all it took: a turn, a few fast, quiet bursts from the Tec, and the boy was down. Seven had fired about twelve shots in that quick moment, all of them hitting home.
Seven heard the persistent sound of a dog barking from somewhere above him: Rock’s Bonnie.
He stood and stepped into the hall.
Black Jesus and Mike Only sat in Mike’s apartment smoking cigarettes and listening to Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, the latest jazz album they were trying to figure out. They’d made their way through Coltrane and Charlie Parker, started at Kind of Blue for Miles and got hooked. They understood Sketches of Spain well enough and decided it wasn’t their thing.
They fell in love with Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters and “Watermelon Man” even before Beverly Hills Cop and “Axel.” But Miles kept changing things up, was an enigma they felt deserved more attention and listening before they could fully understand all he’d done. The first few times they heard Bitches Brew, they had no idea what Miles was thinking, though they could imagine what he’d smoked.
Mike sat on his Eames lounge chair, the one luxury indulgence in his apartment, and Black Jesus sat on the old couch. He bent forward toward the coffee table, holding his Kool over the ashtray.
“That,” Mike said, after a familiar refrain that could have been stolen from “So What.”
Black Jesus nodded. He took the ashtray off the coffee table and leaned back into the couch. If Mike had an ashtray balanced on the arm of his chair, there was no reason why he shouldn’t have his own also.
The phone rang.
“Shit,” Mike said. “That be him, then.”
Black Jesus ground his smoke into the ashtray and picked up the phone. “Yo.”
Rock’s voice came through the line. “You heard that?”
“Uh uh. What?”
“Shit popping off now. You best get on up.”
“Berry wilding?”
“Worse. Hammer letting off blasts. I’m a leave Berry in the place, pack my Uzi and go out.”
In the background, Bonnie barked like she was really after something.
“We coming.” Black Jesus hung up the phone and stood. Mike was already up. He cut the record player just in time for them to hear a blast from a few floors above.
“Shotgun,” Mike said. “That’s Hammer.”
Black Jesus had already pulled his S & W .44 from his shoulder harness and flipped open the cylinder. Just like always, the first slot sat empty. He pulled another round from his jacket pocket and slipped it in.
71
Elf stood in the hallway on fifteen in front of the elevator. He could hear the creaky old car moving inside its shaft. That was when he heard a strange sound: something echoed loud in the stairwell on his right.
He stopped and listened. He knew it had been a gunshot from the floors above—where Junius would probably be. If Junius still had Seven’s Tec-9, the one with the silencer, it was not a shot from his gun.
He turned back to the elevator and definitely heard the car moving close to him. He jabbed at the call button and it lit up just as he could hear the car pass above. He’d missed it by less than a few feet, and now he could hear it keep on going.
“Fuck!” He pounded his hand on the door of the elevator just before he heard another blast from above, this one even louder than the first.
Dee turned to Ness in the elevator. “You hear something?” he asked.
He’d heard a couple of different sounds, all of them muffled, but one sounded close, as if someone was banging on the outside doors of the elevator. “The fuck was that?”
Ness didn’t say anything, still had his eyes closed, so Dee shoved him against the wall. He fell easily, slumped down, and then started to collect himself.
“The fuck?”
“You hear that, niggah?”
Then Dee heard something much louder, a shotgun blast from above. “Goddamn,” he said, reaching for his gun.
Big Pickup didn’t see Roughneck, Black Jesus, or Hammer out front of 412. He saw the sun dipped low behind the Polynesian place, almost gone from sight, and the cold of dusk sweeping trash along between parked cars. The night’s first star and a thin crescent moon hung over the horizon.
The police cars had all gone, and the front of the towers was like a dead zone. Perfect time for sales to pick up.
Pickup patted his chest over his heart as he made his way toward Rock’s building. An older man crossed the parking lot from the direction of the T, heading his direction. The man looked like he’d been through some hard shit, maybe even a fight in the last few days. He walked with his coat open, like even the cold didn’t bother him now.
