Clockers (26 page)

“Can I tell you something?” Rodney’s voice was soft and solicitous. “I think you fucked up tonight.”

“How?” Strike asked distantly, not wanting to know.

“You should’ve done it yourself. Shit,
I
would’ve.”

“I ain’t you.”

“I hear that.”

”
You
would’ve? Then why didn’t you?”

“‘Cause I thought you needed to get a little bloody, you know? Have like a personal investment in things.”

“Bloody.” Strike shook his head, thinking about what his life would be like without Rodney in it.

“Yeah, see, I could’ve got any pipehead out there to cap Darryl for a handful of bottles, but I needed me a hit man with some int
ell
igence, you know? Somebody who I don’t have to keep an eye on their
mouth
every time my back is turned. You get what I’m saying?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Somebody who knows me and what I’m
about.
”

“I hear that.”

“So now I just hope whoever you got on this knows
you,
because right now their head is on your head. See what I’m sayin’?”

Strike didn’t answer.

“Because I’m out of this. If the police or anybody else ever ask me, I just don’t know and that’s the truth.”

Strike fought down the feeling that he did fuck up by not doing it himself, that if he had murdered Darryl personally, everything would be perfect right now. But he had a hard time holding on to that with any conviction.

“Anyways, I hear Ahab’s lookin’ for a new assistant manager.”

“What?” It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Strike but it did, because he had never thought about how things would play out after Darryl was gone.

“Yeah, they got a opening.”

“Whoa, wait up.” Strike smelled grease in the air.

“Naw, it’s a good deal. You put five hundred in the manager’s desk every Monday night, he looks the other way, let you use his office, anything you want. He’s never there anyhow. It’s perfect because this is a lot of traffic you gonna be drawing, and you got to work it so it blends in and don’t draw attention to itself. You got out-of-state plates, white people—and coming in an’ out of an apartment in the Heights or like comin’ in an’ out of my store, me, with
my
goddamn jacket? It’s kind of obvious, you know? Anybody standing across the street for a half hour is gonna know, specially if they see customers comin’ out with nothin’ in their hands. So I got to be free of this, I got to have someone in
front.
And this is perfect. My man comes in, goes to the bathroom, comes out, orders food or something, he already put the money behind the toilet tank for you, you all go get it, count it, the guy sits down with his Golden Mobie and a orange soda while you get his ounce, put it right up where you got the money. He goes in gets it himself, nobody knows nothin’.”

Strike recalled the play in Ahab’s with the white guy, thinking, Bullshit, I ain’t handling no dope. He thought about a mule, a buffer between him and the consequences, just like Rodney was doing to him. He thought about business, the murder fading a little in the face of details, in the face of the future. “Do I have to be in the damn kitchen all day?”

“Y’all could be out front with a
mop
if you want.”

Rodney suddenly slammed on the brakes and flew out of the car, across JFK to a double-parked Chevy. He hunched over and yelled at the driver, a gray-haired man with a mustache, a Tyrolean hat and heavy-framed glasses. “Where’s my damn money!” The guy extended a placating hand, saying something soft, Rodney saying, “Naw, naw, naw,” reaching in and taking the guy’s keys out of the ignition. “Get out my damn car. This car
mine
now, so get on out.” Rodney, keys in his fist, backed into the middle of JFK so the guy could get out on the driver’s side, the guy rising shakily, going for his wallet Rodney quickly looking to Strike winking, then exchanging keys for money, saying to the guy, “Y’all got to live up to your word. That’s the most important thing a man owns, his
word.
”

The guy got back into his car, said, “Yeah, I hear that,” then peeled out. Disregarding the traffic, Rodney made his way back to the Cadillac, counting the money.

“The houses you use, you got a room anywheres or you just keep a safe?” Rodney drove with his knees doing the steering, his hands busy refolding his cash roll.

“For what?”

“For answering me. You got somewheres you can close the door, put a lock on it?”

Strike shrugged noncommittally.

“‘Cause when Erroll gets the ki, he’s gonna bring it to
you
now.”

“Erroll just robbed me.”

“Yeah, but this ain’t yours to rob—this shit is
mine.
You take the ki, split it up in quarters, take three of the quarters and stash ‘em with three of your houses. You take the last quarter to the house with your locked room. That’s gonna be your working quarter. I’m gonna tell you who’s coming by to cop the next day, so you have everbody’s stuff all bagged with you when you go into the restaurant. Somebody comes by Ahab’s I dint tell you for, you don’t even look at them twice, you don’t even serve up no
food
to them, OK? But here’s the thing: everybody getting ounces but different. If somebody coming in from Jersey City, you give ‘em a straight-up ounce ‘cause they can get pretty good stuff right in town. Somebody coming from like Fairlawn? You put a half on it ‘cause it’s a little harder for them to get better closer. But, like if somebody’s coming up from Virginia? You put a one, one and a half on it cause stuff is so shitty down there you can step all over the ounce and they still bringing home the best stuff around. So like I’ll tell you who’s coming in for what, and you cut it up, throw a different color tape on the bag so’s Virginia’ don’t go crazy with happiness and Jersey City not come back at all Some people we making a lot more off than others but it’s all profit, and it’s all easy.”

Strike thought about teaching someone to cut and bag: No way on earth I’m gonna be up to my goddamn elbows in that. Spend half my life breathing in grease, the other half walking around with felony time in my pockets. Goddamn Rodney—heads I win, tails you lose.

“Yeah,” Strike said. “Real easy. I’m taking delivery, cuttin’, bag-gin’, sellin’, takin’ money. What the hell
you
doin’? What the hell I need
you
for? Damn.”

“What the hell you need me for?” Something hard and icy came into Rodney’s voice. “‘Cause Erroll Barnes ask you for forty dollars and you rip open your hand on your zipper you tryin’ to get the money out your pocket so fast.”

Strike exhaled in a clammy huff. “I fuh-feel bad for him, you know.”

Rodney laughed. “Who you talking to?”

The laugh made Strike tense with dread, something starting here that he was helpless to stop.

“Shit, I nail me a hundred-dollar bill to a tree on JFK and Weehawken in front of a crowd? I’ll go around the world, get me some Chinese pussy, come back, that goddamn money still gonna be up on that tree ‘cause everybody know it’s
mine.
What you think happens
you
put a hundred-dollar bill up like that?” He stared hard at Strike, then talked straight ahead out the window. “What you need me for? Goddamn, you just a fuckin’ front for my jacket.”

Strike glanced over and saw Rodney’s lips, tight and bloodless.

“Rodney, faw-forget it, man.”

“Shit, get you in prison, see what you need
me
for.” Rodney was practically barking now.

“Rodney, man. I was just crackin’.”

“Crackin’.” Rodney’s eyes got whiter, bigger. He seemed to balloon with rage, transforming himself from an elder-statesman dope dealer back to the psycho stickup man from the seventies, the old-time Rodney who once drove five hours from Dempsy to New Haven to beat a guy half to death with an aluminum bat for paying for a bundle of heroin with five counterfeit twenties.

“You ain’t nothin’.” Rodney spit out the words. “You too scared to steal from me. That’s all your value to me, right there. I finally got me a front too scared to steal from me, and that’s all I want. Shit, Darryl had him some balls, that was
his
problem.”

They drove in a tight three-block circle for the better part of an hour, past gaudy flagstone facades and riot gates, past caved-in brownstones and gardens of glass, past the same people in front of Macho Man Social Club and Who Is That Lady beauty parlor, everybody always looking as if they were headed somewhere but never going more than fifty feet all night. Rodney kept muttering about prison and nailing up money on trees and Erroll Barnes, ignoring all his people hailing him, while Strike sat rigid in the shotgun seat, hardly breathing, his whole world going upside down.

Strike was used to seeing Rodney drive by the benches in a bug-eyed funk about once a week, usually because someone just dissed him or cheated him or in some way underestimated his essence, and it often ended in violence, the news coming back through the grapevine a few hours later. But now Strike was on the inside of that rolling nightmare; he’d gotten sucked out of his movie seat and onto the screen. He took a deep breath and tried to derail this thing.

“Yo Rodney, man, c’mon man, it’s me, it’s me, I luh-love you, man.” He tried to make it sound hearty and offhand.

“You
love
me?” Rodney cupped his crotch, staring straight ahead.

Strike blew air through his cheeks. “Rodney, man—”

Suddenly Rodney screeched up short, jumped out of the car before Strike even had a chance to flinch, ran over to a man and a woman standing in front of an all-night video store. The man was about Strike’s age, but tall and muscled, with a close-cropped beard.

Strike prayed that Rodney was going to do some mayhem on this guy instead, but then the two men started talking, Rodney relaxed and smiling, laughing even, doubling over and making that hissing sound of his. That was surprising enough, but when the conversation ended and Rodney kissed the bearded guy full on the mouth, Strike just about levitated with shock.

Rodney got back in the car, himself again, grinning and juiced. “You know him?”

“Naw, who’s that?” Strike kept his tone mild, feeling as if he was sticking his head out of a foxhole.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t know him, he’s in college.”

Strike felt slightly insulted but didn’t show it.

“Yeah, he my son.” Rodney continued driving, waving to the clockers now. He turned to Strike. “You know what he just said to me? He said, ‘Hey Pop, I just got paid. You have dinner yet?’” Rodney looked as if he was going to cry with pride. “Goddamn, that old boy, he can take a computer apart and put it back together in the
dark.
He working over at First Federal paying his own damn tuition. Did I have dinner yet … goddamn.”

“Not bad,” Strike said distantly, wondering why, despite everything, he felt jealous.

“You know he had a chance to go to Nevada to college? Yeah, they wanted him to play basketball out there but he got hung up on that ugly thing he was with? You see her?” Rodney shivered. “So now he’s stuck in town going to school like ten blocks from where he grew up ‘cause she don’t wanna go out west. Goddamn, between him and my father? I swear, pussy make you stupid.”

“I hear that,” Strike said, starting to calm down.

“So,” Rodney said. He looked in the rearview, made a face and pulled over, allowing the car that was right behind him for the last five minutes, taking all his turns, to pass and vanish. “You got any other comments for me to hear?”

Rodney reared back like a cobra, tight-lipped, big-eyed, waiting …

Strike shrugged, his head almost bowed. “You tell me what I need to know, I luh-leave it at that.” The night had finally broken his back, the murder a dull fact now, all of it dull but overwhelming.

”
Now
you acting like you got the knowledge,” Rodney said approvingly. ’
Now
you … Aw, shit.” He groaned and Strike became alert again. “Look at this motherfucker here.” Rodney raised a limp hand to indicate a tall overweight kid trudging across the street from in front of a boarded-up Dairy Queen. The kid lurched up to the car and leaned heavily on Rodney’s window, looking like a woeful basset hound wearing glasses, nodding to Strike, saying “Wha’s up” and looking at Rodney over the tops of his glasses, doing Old Man River before he even opened his mouth. Strike vaguely remembered him as one of his brother’s friends from back in junior high school.

“Wha’s up, Bernard?” Rodney put a smirk in his voice, but Strike saw him fight down a smile as Bernard slid his hot-dog-size fingers under his glasses to rub the fatigue out of his face.

“Yo Rodney, man, you hear about Darryl?” He shook his head, his lips hanging loose.

Strike reeled with adrenaline, flashing on Darryl’s sister screaming out Darryl’s name. Bernard’s knowing tone made it seem to Strike like the connections were so obvious that nobody on the street needed to think about who did it, or at least who was probably involved, and suddenly the entire city felt cramped and airless, like a gigantic fist from where there was no escape.

Rodney shrugged, made a sad sound. “Yeah, I hear it was like a stickup.”

Bernard exhaled into the car. “That’s cold, man.”

“I hear that.”

“I
liked
Darryl, man,” Bernard said. “He was a funny guy. He always had jokes on him.”

Jokes. Strike didn’t want to hear about any humanness. But then he thought, What jokes? Darryl never told no jokes.

“Yeah, well, life goes on.” Rodney looked straight out the window.

“Yeah?” Bernard cocked his head, as if Rodney’s words had another meaning. “Well, where at?”

Rodney looked off.

“‘Cause I need to talk to you about something.”

“Like what?”

Bernard hesitated, ducking down to eye Strike. Rodney nodded, letting Bernard know that Strike had security clearance. “Oh Rodney, man, I’m fucked up, man.”

Strike seemed to remember Bernard lugging around a French horn case in his schooldays. He was bright, but fucked up then too.