Clockers (61 page)

The walls of the waiting room were hung with black-and-white cautionary posters, encircling Strike with admonitions, the subjects ranging from AIDS to pregnancy to crack to alcohol, each one a little masterpiece of dread. Strike hated posters. If you were poor, posters followed you everywhere—health clinics, probation offices, housing offices, day care centers, welfare offices—and they were always blasting away at you with warnings to do this, don’t do that, be like this, don’t be like that, smarten up, control this, stop that.

Strike wondered if the door to this room was locked. He thought about being here at the same time as his mother, and he panicked a little. Would they bump into each other by the doorway? What would they say to each other? Did she know what had happened, how he was behind all this misery? Strike was afraid that if she fixed him with those eyes of hers, he might just spin out completely, blurt a spontaneous confession, bring down the whole house of cards, everybody, all the players, coming after him in this jail where anything could happen.

Pacing, trying not to look at any of the posters, feeling as if he might throw up from the heavy pall of cigarette smoke, Strike suddenly had to get out of this room right away. But he didn’t trust himself to go to a CO and ask to leave, explain why he had to, because he was afraid that the words would shatter in his mouth, that his guilt was so transparent that he’d never make it to the elevator, never see daylight again.

The door opened and the woman with the yowling baby entered. Then the CO leaned in. “We told him you’re out here. It shouldn’t be long.” He gave Strike a long look. “You OK?”

“Yeah, uh-huh,” Strike said, turning away so his face couldn’t be read.

The baby was quiet now, lying belly up in its mother’s lap. The woman was Latino, her head shaved close along the temples in a military cut but sprouting a spiky hennaed crop up top and a thin long tail of hair from the otherwise bare nape of her neck.

Sitting in one of the orange chairs, the woman opened the baby’s diaper, slipped it out from under the baby and curled it into a ball. She dropped it on top of the cigarette butts in the urn. Its adhesive tabs covered with sand, the diaper began to open up, and Strike was riveted by the sight of it, slowly unfurling like a dead man’s fist. But it wasn’t the brush strokes of shit that revolted him—it was the plastic, the gleaming white plastic squirming on sand.

Strike moved for the door, which wasn’t locked after all. He tiptoed back out into the vestibule and tried to get the guard’s attention without causing alarm.

“Yo, excuse me. I ga-got to go.”

“Go where?”

“Out. I can’t visit right now,” he whispered, and furtively glanced at the back of his mother’s head. Victor’s loopy eyes danced over the pegboard, and Strike experienced a sudden and sensuous fantasy of both Victor and his mother locked in here until they died.

“He’ll be free in two minutes.”

“I’m
sick.
“ Strike gripped his stomach, a hot swirl of filthy sand whipped up in there.

The elevator opened to disgorge another group of women.

The CO reared back and gave him the up-and-down. “You came all the way up here, now you don’t want to visit the guy?”

Strike eyed the empty elevator, turned back to the CO and pleaded silently.

The CO grabbed the elbow of the first woman on line, then shot Strike a disgruntled look. “What are you sick with, a guilty conscience?”

As Strike drove through the Holland Tunnel, heading for the Bronx, for Crystal, his mind was at a boil, jumping from acting out what he would have said to Victor if he had stayed, to replaying everything he had said to the Homicide this afternoon; from marveling over what a beautiful name Crystal was, to thinking about getting his GED, maybe moving to the Bronx; from worrying about whether the Homicide would check out everything he had said today, to deciding that he was too sick to be in the game anymore. Maybe he should just stop; maybe he should let Crystal just take care of him for a while, help him start over in his new life.

The minute he left the Accord in the garage two blocks from Crystal’s house, Strike sensed that something was not right. Walking down the street, he felt off balance, out of touch with his surroundings. It wasn’t until he passed a handful of police entering a seemingly abandoned building that he realized what was wrong: he had left his .25 in the car. In Dempsy it wouldn’t matter, but he never walked these streets without the gun.

As he entered the exterior courtyard of Crystal’s building, he remembered what had happened during his last visit here almost a week ago—the run-in with that cop Maine, his fear that Malfie would see his piece. Well, this time he had nothing to hide. This time he wouldn’t have to stare at the motherfucker’s shoes or be a prisoner to his bullshit for even one damn second. When Strike entered the lobby he was primed, almost wishing that Malfie would be there hanging out in front of the elevator again, ready to block his path. But the cop was nowhere to be seen.

Strike rode the elevator to Crystal’s floor, the car smelling like laundry soap, Strike watching the falling moons of glass, thinking about Crystal, surprised to feel a sexual thickness come on him, a backup of spunk. He hoped Jose would be away somewhere.

He took out his key but decided to ring the bell like a gentleman, remembering how Crystal had gotten spooked last week when he walked in with no warning. The bell had no body to it, just a tinny
ching
sound. He didn’t know if anyone could hear it inside, so he hit the bell again, then rapped his knuckles on the metal door.

He stood in the hallway trying out smiles, wanting desperately for her to be bowled over by his charm and offer him a home away from home, an option for a new life. He knocked again and then heard a rustling of fabric, a soft and quick step, the turning lock. The door opened a crack, revealing a two-inch slice of Crystal’s face and a startled eye.

“Oh,” she said in a small voice, then added, almost as an afterthought, “You got to call.” She sounded the way she always did when displeased with him: like an adult gently correcting a small child.

“Well, that’s why I rang the bell.” He cocked his head, trying to come on playful and charming. He saw that she was wearing her quilted pink bathrobe. “You not glad to see me?”

“I’m cleaning the house.” The door stayed where it was.

“Oh yeah? It’s a-about time.” He meant it as a joke, but her face went instantly dark.

”
What?
“ She glared at him with that one burning eye.

“I’m goofin’, you know me.” Strike’s words sounded false even to his own ears. He exhaled long and slow, telling himself he was trying too hard.

Unappeased, she clutched the collar of her robe and stared at him. After hesitating a second, he reached through the open slit of the door to slide his hand inside the folds of her robe. But she wasn’t having any of it. She backed away, inadvertently opening the door wider.

Strike stepped inside. There was no sign of Jose. “You can’t stay here now.” Her voice lightened with a touch of anxiety.

But Strike was already in the kitchen, crouched before the open refrigerator, looking for Yoo-Hoos.

He didn’t see any, which gave him a bad feeling. Until now, she’d always had at least one stashed in the back for him.

When Strike straightened up and turned around he saw Malfie standing behind Crystal in the kitchen doorway. He was smiling as if his teeth hurt, staring at Strike with those flashlight eyes of his.

“How are you?” the cop said.

“He’s fixing the bathroom,” Crystal said. Hugging herself, chin tucked into her chest, she looked up at Strike with a mixture of reproach and apology.

Malfie was dressed and wore a service revolver on his hip, but his feet were bare. His eyes followed Strike’s down to his rippling toes.

“So how are you?” he said again. He moved a step into the kitchen, dropped one hand to a nearby cutting board.

Strike turned to Crystal. “Woo-where’s your son?”

“He’s at his grandma’s house.” Her voice was tight, a little hoarse.

“His grandma’s house.” He repeated her words meaninglessly, talking from inside a dream, trapped in this cramped room in a crossfire of eyes. More than anything else he felt embarrassed by the attention, but when he stole a glance at the cop, he saw right through the guy’s slick bully-boy routine—the wolfish grin on his face had a frozen quality to it, and the defiantly casual slouch against the kitchen counter masked a tense rigidity. Strike studied his own hands, thinking, This cool-hand moonlighting motherfucker is scared, scared and armed, a bad combination.

“His grandma’s house,” Strike said again, not knowing where to rest his eyes, remembering Crystal smelling like lamb chops the last time he was here, how he didn’t like that smell, didn’t really like
her
anymore.

They stared at him, waiting, and Strike settled on making a disgusted hissing sound, wearily shaking his head, acting as if he was punishing them by giving them his back. Slowly, proudly, he limped his way to the front door.

Standing in the hallway waiting for the elevator, not trusting his legs to make it down six flights of stairs, Strike muttered, “You best watch you don’t cut up your
feet
like that.”

Crystal’s worried voice drifted through the apartment door: “He’s got his own key.” A moment later, Malfie opened the door and faced Strike with an empty holster and one hand out of sight behind his leg. Before the cop could open his mouth, Crystal’s key bounced off his chest. Malfie regarded the piece of dull brass lying between his feet and gave Strike a whole new look.

He stooped to retrieve the key, then slipped his piece back in his holster. “They get like that, you know? Don’t worry, it happens to
me
plenty.”

Driving through the Bronx on his way back to Dempsy, Strike finally got angry at Crystal, at how she disrespected him, made him a fool in front of that white cop. His beeper went off—Rodney—and he pulled up hard next to a pay phone on a barren street. He put his gun into his waistband, more or less for protection but feeling as if he just might shoot Rodney through the mouthpiece with it too. Somehow everything, even this falling out with Crystal, seemed to be Rodney’s fault, although he couldn’t explain why.

Rodney scared him, though. He told Strike he was about to send Erroll out to find him, thinking maybe Strike had skipped with the dope, saying, “You best get your ass back and bag those mother-fucking ounces
now.
”

There was nothing left for Strike in the Bronx, or anywhere else on the New York side of the tunnel, but the drive back into New Jersey hurt even more. He had no desire to go back up to his cutting room again, get all buggy with his thoughts. At a red light two blocks from the benches he saw Tyrone walking with his mother. They were holding hands, but when Tyrone saw the Accord he quickly disengaged himself from Iris’s grip. He was too embarrassed to meet Strike’s eyes, so he studied the sidewalk as if tracking game.

Strike found himself grinning, something he never did, and he drove at a crawl behind mother and son. Iris seemed unaware of his presence. He followed them to the benches and watched Tyrone take his perch on the chain. The boy’s mother disappeared into their building. Strike waited another minute or two, then got out of his car, yawning and stretching. He caught Tyrone’s eye and gave him a furtive, beckoning wave: Get himself some company.

“What’s wrong with your hand?” Strike frowned down at the Velcro-backed blue and orange glove on Tyrone’s left hand. He was driving lazily toward Herman’s apartment, not really wanting to go there at all, even with company.

“Nothin’,” Tyrone said, looking scared but pumped. He had gotten in the car without a word, his usual breathless and deadpan style, as if he had been waiting for this pickup for days.

“Well, what you got that
glove
on it for?”

“It’s a batting glove.”

“Batting glove. You mean like a baseball glove? That’s some skinny-looking baseball glove.” Strike never liked baseball, wasn’t even exactly sure what all the rules were.

Tyrone turned away, his eyes flat with swallowed laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s a
baaing
glove.” Tyrone mimed choking up on a bat.

“Oh yeah? You like baseball?”

Tyrone nodded mutely.

“You got quick wrists? ‘Cause if you don’t got quick wrists, you might as well forget about it.”

The kid blinked uncomprehendingly.

“Let me see how quick you got your wrists. Put you to the
test.
”

Thinking, Fuck the package, Fuck Rodney too, Strike drove to the batting cages across the road from the Furniture Shack. He and Tyrone wandered past the miniature golf and the driving range, then waited for the batting cage attendant, who was harvesting rubber baseballs from the littered field beyond the cages.

As the attendant wandered back in from the field, a full basket in each hand, he stared at Strike for a long moment. It made Strike nervous, but then he put it together: the guy was a customer from the benches.

“How you doin’, fellas?” the attendant said, talking slow, his eyes filled with that familiar foxy yearning.

Strike pretended he didn’t recognize him. “How do we do this?”

“It’s sixteen pitches for a token. Token’s a buck.”

Strike looked to Tyrone. “How many you want?”

The kid shrugged, looking away.

“Yeah, give us six.”

The attendant’s eyes never left Strike’s face as he blindly felt around in a coin apron and passed over ten tokens.

“Is that your little brother?” The question was insincere, fawning, but the words made Strike feel strange.

“Yeah,” he said, then looked down in his hand. “I just want but six.”

“That’s OK, it’s on me,” the attendant said. “You don’t know me?” His voice was dreamy, creepy, and Strike didn’t answer, even to say thanks.

The cages ranged from slow-lob softball to Gooden Fast. Tyrone chose El Sid Medium, and Strike watched from a bench as the kid coiled over the plate, the balls coming in with a buzzing sound, Tyrone smacking each one squarely with a smooth swing. Strike was awed to stillness by the secret grace in him, the balance and the power, knowing in his heart right then that he should leave this kid alone, let him have his life, because he could be anything he wanted to be if Strike and everybody else just backed off and gave him some room.