Clockers (45 page)

Victor took the tissues and tried to blot himself dry.

Rocco leaned against the desk, regarding his prisoner and feeling a vague ripple of curiosity. Facing a possible thirty in, the kid washes his hands after taking a leak.

“All set?” Rocco lurched upright off the desk and gently gripped the kid’s elbow. Washing his hands—like making his bed with the house on fire.

Part III

Make You Pay

17

Dempsy Man Held in Fast-Food Slaying

Yesterday’s newspaper had carried such startling news that on Monday morning Strike bought the paper again, and there it was on page three, right below the headline, in the second sentence: Victor Dunham. Strike stared at his brother’s name, twelve letters that held a face, a voice and a twenty-year patchwork of moments, the newspaper talking to him directly two days in a row now, sending him bloody valentines.

Victor. Strike’s stomach got humpy on him: No way. Strike saw his brother in that stupid brown and orange polyester uniform standing in the rain two days before, water dripping off the bill of his Hambone’s hat as if an open faucet hung out over the crown. No way Victor did this.

Helpless, afraid to turn and look behind him to Victor’s window, his mother’s window, Strike drifted off in his dismay and confusion, waded through his memory in search of images of his brother that would jibe with the newspaper’s story. But he couldn’t remember Victor ever throwing a punch or even raising his voice—he had always been the complete master of himself. Strike recalled the time that he and Victor were riding on a crowded path train to Jersey City maybe two years before. They were sitting across from a big, yellow-eyed drunk in construction boots and chinos, and the guy was singing “My girl, my girl, my girl, talkin’ ‘bout … my gir-r-rl,” sounding a little like their father making all the white people’laugh some of them even applauding and hooting sarcastically Victor’left his seat walked across the car and got down in front of that bigfoot motherfucker gripped the guy’s kneecap as if to keep his balance in the rocketing train, dug in his thumbnail to get some undivided attention then said, “Why don’t you shut yourself un You’re being a fool.” He spoke this so low and calm that most people probably thought Victor had been putting in a song request And later when they got off the train the drunk was still sitting there strained and quiet, and Victor patted his shoulder as if both to apologize and forgive.

His brother had always been that way: screwy and private, with a hard and hypnotic dignity, an ability to rope you in, speak to you down low with this look in his eyes that made you shut up because suddenly you felt it was important to hear what he was saying. But he was no killer—this didn’t make no sense at all.

Which left My Man, and Strike still felt sure that My Man was Buddha Hat. And then it came to him, making him feel better and worse at the same time: Of course Victor didn’t do it—he was taking the weight for Buddha Hat. Had to be. Except why would Victor cover for an ice-head psycho like the Hat?

Strike heard a honk and saw Rodney’s Cadillac roll up to the benches with a bunch of teenage boys in the back, everybody looking out the street-side windows at Strike. Rodney honked again, reached over and opened the front passenger door, waiting while the engine gargled.

Strike couldn’t read Rodney’s face, couldn’t tell if he’d heard the news about Victor. For a moment Strike entertained the idea of telling Rodney everything he knew, explaining that none of it was his fault, but then he looked at Rodney sitting there fanning his knees, staring at him expectantly, and he knew he’d never risk telling Rodney any of it. And as he walked to the car, stormed up with his own helplessness, it hit Strike why Victor had confessed, had taken the weight for the shooter: he was told to.

Rodney took Strike and the teenagers to the Red Rooster for lunch. On the way to the restaurant Strike checked out the guys in back, five young clockers wearing gold chains over college shirts and baseball jackets, a new crew of Rodney’s from somewhere in the Eisenhower projects. One kid was on his knees because there wasn’t enough room on the seat, and the other four were practically on top of each other.

Rodney could have put one of them up front, but Strike knew that Rodney wanted the clockers to think of Strike as minor royalty. That was the idea: several times over the past couple of months, Rodney had taken Strike with him to one of these lunches, and while Rodney lectured the kids about having the proper mentality on the street, about the importance of long-term goals, he would point to Strike as a man who was doing things right. At first Strike had enjoyed these sit-downs, but lately this street-corner-prince business had become a little old.

Rodney pulled up to the restaurant, and a minute later the seven of them stood huddled together near the bar, waiting for the maitre d’ next to a wall covered with blowups of Dempsy in its all-white, World War II glory days. Hanging tight, unsmiling, the clockers whispered as if this was a museum or a private home. Even Strike was tensed up, not just because they looked like a pack of dope dealers but also because the clientele in the place were all old people, in their forties and fifties, the crowd looking like a convention of goddamn speech therapists and parole officers.

Rodney ushered the boys into the dining room, and the maitre d’ seated them at a large round table, its starched blood-red cloth anchored by silver platters. A smiling waitress came by, wearing a straw boater and a red-and-white-striped shirt with arm garters.

“Would you fellas like something to drink?”

A kid named Charles looked to Rodney, who gave him a raised eyebrow to go ahead, then said solemnly, “I’ll have a magerita.” The waitress wrote this down as a kid named Roy coughed into his fist and said, “I’ll have a
cone
yak,” which caused Charles to clear his throat and say, “Yo wait up, make mine a
cone
yak too.”

Strike looked at Rodney, surprised he wasn’t saying anything, not even shaking his head.

All the other kids ordered cognacs. Rodney got a Coke, Strike water. For a moment, watching the waitress write up the order, Strike was embarrassed, but then he thought, They’re kids, they’ll learn. Or they won’t—whichever.

Rodney made a toast when the drinks came, a toast to family, to helping each other. He played it deadpan, watching them try not to make faces when they tasted the cognacs. Then everybody ordered food, and as they waited for it to come Strike noticed that the Eisenhower boys were tense and silent. They were trying so hard to
be
there, to make a stand, frowning with self-consciousness, touching their clothes, furtively eyeing the other tables.

When the food came—ribs for Rodney, hamburgers for everybody else—the boys hunched over their plates, eating hard but still glancing around the room.

Rodney finally started in. “Look at you motherfuckers,” he murmured to the tablecloth as he chewed on a rib. “Look at you motherfuckers looking at them look at you, unh-unh-unh.” Rodney licked his fingers, shaking his head.

“There’s more motherfuckin’ money made at this goddamn table than in the whole goddamn restaurant. They ain’t a nigger sittin’ here ain’t makin’ five hundred a week.”

But that’s
this
week, Strike thought. No saying who’d be sitting here
next
week, turnover being high with greed, jail, stupidity, falling off into product and simple bad luck.

“Rich, street-smart young men. But look at you all sittin’ scrunchy in the chair.” Rodney made a clucking noise, then threw Strike a quick wink.

“Well, damn, Rodney,” the kid named Roy hissed, his eyes big and burning. “What you got to do to get over with these people?”

Rodney sighed deeply and put down his rib as if he was too sad to eat, his hands dropping to his lap in despair, Strike thinking, Here it comes.

“Yo Roy, that the wrong question. The question is, what you got to do to get over with ‘your
self.
It ain’t them. It’s
you.
You got to say, Hey”—he counted off on his fingers—“I’m a businessman, I make sales, I handle product, I deal in inventory, I take risks, I work long hours, I deal with the public and I do it all
well.
That’s why I’m holding such a big roll, that’s why I’m eating in this nice restaurant, because I earned it. I deserve to be here. And if those motherfuckers out there at those tables don’t know it, fuck them, man,
I
know it.”

“Yeah, but none of those motherfuckers get arrested for what they do,” Charles said.

“Don’t you believe
that
shit. This whole country run by criminals—Wall Street, the govament, the po-lice. How you think the dope gets in town to begin with? Don’t you get me started.”

No chance of that, Strike thought. He saw that the kids weren’t really following Rodney’s words, but their faces were softening with pleasure, Strike thinking, They love him just for talking to them.

“Besides, ain’t no criminals here.” Rodney’s voice went high and singsong. “Shit, you all ain’t even
done
nothin’. No stickup mens, no muggers, killers. I don’t truck with that. I don’t take on nobody with violence on they jacket. You motherfuckers are making it the only way they let poor niggers make it. On the street. Hustlin’. It ain’t even criminal, man, it just sur
vival
. But you clean, strong young men, and if you play your cards right, someday you be working on the
in
side, you be sittin’ at them other tables. Shit, you might even own this damn restaurant.” Rodney shrugged, working on a rib, as if the picture he was starting to paint for them was no big deal.

Strike silently mouthed, But what do I mean by ‘playin’ your cards right’?

Rodney said, “But what do I mean by playin’ your cards right? How you gonna buy this restaurant if every time you make ten dollar you go out and buy a ten-dollar ring. Every time you make a hundred dollar, you buy a hundred-dollar chain. A nigger does that, always broke. Gets busted, ain’t got the money to make bail. Buy a new car, ain’t got the money for gas. Charles, how many sneakers you got?”

Charles looked off, lips moving, frowning, then announcing, “Twelve.”

Rodney sat up straight, taken aback. “You got twelve pair?”

”
Six
pair, twelve sneakers.”

Everybody but Strike laughed.

“Yeah, OK, you got six pair. How many
feet
you got? See what I’m sayin’? You all just throwin’ it away.” Rodney reached over and grabbed the chains on Charles’s chest. “Look at this.”

“Hey, don’t yank it, man!” Charles flashed up, grabbing Rodney’s wrist for a second before remembering who it was.

Rodney let it slide. “You look like motherfuckin’ Mr. T.”

Everybody laughed again, high and jerky. “Charles, check this out, man.” Rodney paused so the kid could get ready. “How motherfuckin’ invisible do you think you are, that you got to have
all
this goddamn gold hangin’ around your neck just so you could feel like you’re bein’
seen,
man.”

Charles blinked at him, and Strike knew that the kid was totally missing it. If Rodney repeated himself five or six times, Charles might get it, but that instant of anger—grabbing Rodney’s hand like that—behind it was a whole lifetime of impulses that ran too deep for words and cocktails. Strike knew it; Rodney knew it too, but he was still trying to get through, still holding that fistful of chains, waiting for comprehension. Rodney tried it again. “I take these motherfucking chains away, are you less of a man?”

“Yeah, well, he a
punk
then,“said a kid named Down.

“Why?” Rodney scowled.

“He let you take them away from him.” Down sounded scared, as if he had just been called on in a hated classroom.

“My God,” Rodney said in disbelief, letting go of Charles’s chains.

Strike guessed that he was probably the only kid who had ever received Rodney’s restaurant lecture and understood right away what he was saying. During that first lunch, a year ago, Rodney’s eyes had lit up with gratitude and pride when he saw Strike stay right with him—finally he’d saved one. Rodney’s other clockers always went down: they were too poor, too immature, a lifetime of One Way going up against two months of Other Way. Other Way didn’t stand a chance.

“You got to start respecting yourself.” Rodney was still hammering away, not ready to give up. “The nigger that spend it fast as he make it don’t believe it’s real. Don’t believe in his
self.
He’s thinking with like a two-minute clock, thinking like a poor man, like his life is like day-to-day, minute-to-minute. He
got
no future ‘cause he don’t
think
of no future.”

Strike watched them tune out, dipping fries in ketchup, one by one turning to wave down the waitress and order orange sodas or Cokes, the cognacs left unfinished.

“You got to
believe
in yourself, you got to start thinking about your future, and that means you got to start saving your damn money. Shit,
they
do.” Rodney pointed out to the room. “There ain’t a motherfucker in this restaurant right now can’t go home and show me a
bank
book, and you niggers making more day by day, week by week, than them all. But I’ll bet, come the end of the month, they got more’n you do.” Rodney whirled his hands around each other, cocking his head. “D’y’all get what I’m sayin’?”

“I hear that,” Charles said automatically.

Rodney sagged with frustration, looking like the old man of thirty-seven he was, then said, “Well, fuck it, I tried,” and got back to his ribs.

Strike was relieved that the lecture seemed to be over, glad that Rodney didn’t do his self-image exercise, making everybody come up with a positive word that started with the same letter as their first name, going around the table, people saying shit like Terrific Tyrone, Sexy Strike, Rockin’ Rodney. Six months ago one kid had called himself Brightful Booker and then almost put his fork in someone’s chest when everybody laughed.