Clockers (73 page)

“There’s the fucking guy
I
want.” Big Chief pointed out Champ waddling around the breezeway, dressed all in white. “He’s got a pit bull named after me.”

“Me too.” Thumper turned to the back seat. “Arouff.”

Rocco threw a gum wrapper out the window. “I hate to bring this up, but did anybody call to see if this yomo’s even
home
now?”

Big Chief and Mazilli exchanged glances, gave a quick shake of their heads. Rocco rolled down his window and asked the cops in the other car, drawing only shrugs.

Rocco got the phone number from the warrant and wrote it down on the back of his hand. “Anybody got a quarter?’

Big Chief handed over five nickels. “I hope he paid his phone bill.”

“He paid it.” Mazilli lit a cigarette. “It’s in his grandmother’s name. The kid’s always coming into the store buying her groceries. Buddha Hat be good to his grandmother.”

Rocco retreated half a block to a pay phone and dialed while reading his knuckles.

The grandmother picked up on the third ring. “Who.”

“Nyeah…” Rocco put a yammery drawl on it. “Hat be dere?”

“Hat sleepin’. Who this?”

“This Tyrone.” Rocco threw a thumbs-up sign to the cars.

“He sleepin’.”

“I’ll call back when he awake.” He hung up the phone, feeling a little skippy in the gut, savoring the realness of what he was about to do, glad that everything else in his mind had been put on hold.

As the Fury junkers descended into the crescent, the line of customer cars peeled out, a few scraping bumpers, one of them almost tearing in half a server who was leaning into its open window. Most of the clockers flew into the heart of the projects. Getting out of the car, Big Chief and Thumper stood to their full heights, Big Chief carrying the Rabbit in a vinyl gym bag and pulling his jacket close to hide his vest. Champ bellowed at them good-naturedly through cupped hands: “Five-oh! Five-oh!”

Big Chief nodded to Champ as he walked swiftly to the breezeway. “How’s my
dog,
there, fat boy?”

“He’s shittin’ up my new wall-to-wall carpet.”

“That’s too bad, that’s too bad.” Big Chief and Thumper broke into a run pretending to chase the clockers. Rocco and Mazilli were right behind them.

“I’m gonna trade him in for a
pussycat;
“ Champ yelled after them as they hit the stairs. Looking back at Champ, Rocco saw a hesitant curl coming into his brow and sensed that the guy knew something was up other than the usual nickel-and-dime bullshit.

The climb to the third floor was clogged with little kids and teenagers. Rocco held his breath against the piss stink and saw the big eye come into the faces of the older kids coming down the stairs, who flattened against the bannister to make way for the Fury and the sport jackets. Rocco was a little worried that one of these kids would figure it out and somehow warn Buddha Hat, but they mostly looked relieved at being bypassed.

On the third floor, they had to wait for the elevator for five minutes, everybody nervous about being seen now, congregating here and losing time, the adrenaline having no outlet. Rocco suddenly had to pee so bad he was doing a jig. When the elevator finally opened, it was full of little kids and women. Big Chief took over, making everybody get out. The people crabbed and groaned, one woman saying, “How you like I come to
your
building tell
you
to get out of the elevator,” to which Thumper replied, “He lives in the basement, Mommy.”

The ride up was as slow as an old judge. Rocco, rolling his eyes, tasting his bladder, unsnapped his hip holster, the sharp sound getting everybody’s attention.

“Who’s the point man?” Big Chief asked.

One of the Jersey City cops, who was tall and muscular with a misaligned toupee, said, “I got it,” but Rocco surprised himself by saying, ”
I’m
point.” He looked at the Jersey City cop with an apologetic shrug: “It’s my town.” He didn’t believe what he’d just said—it sounded like a line from a Sinatra tune or a bad movie—but he wanted to ride this flashback for all it was worth, earn his hangover.

The elevator stopped on eight and a thin, pock-marked girl took a step in, looked up and voluntarily retreated to the stairs without anything coming into her face. But when it stopped on ten, the teenager waiting there backed away with a little too much light in his eyes, and Thumper reached out and pulled him in.

“Take a ride, Skeeter.”

The kid became wild-eyed. “Yo Thumper. I ain’t telling nobody nothing.”

“Nothing about what?” Thumper handcuffed him to the handrail.

“Aw man, now Hat gonna think I’m
in
on this.” The kid looked as if he was going to cry.

“Relax. I’ll cut you loose before we take him out.”

“Aw man.”

“Ssh.” Thumper held a finger to his lips.

When the elevator opened on twelve, Big Chief led the way down the hall, and everybody took out his gun. Rocco was amazed that he was holding it in his hand for anything but a cleaning, then began feeling nostalgic for the arrest of Buddha Hat even before it had gone down.

Big Chief dropped into a squat in front of 12H and unzipped the gym bag. Rocco stood behind Big Chief, the other cops forming a sloppy V in back of him. Rocco stared at the door, feeling the high whine of his nerves, worried most of all about getting shot from behind during the chaos of the rush inside. None of the cops here were very experienced in what they were about to do, but no one had even considered bringing along a SWAT or Emergency Services crew.

Big Chief got a grip on the Rabbit and started feeling the seams of the door, looking for the best point of insertion. Rocco whispered, “Try turning the fucking doorknob,” and just then the door opened inward as if on its own. His back to the cops, Buddha Hat stepped across the threshold and put a foot right in the empty gym bag. He was talking to someone inside, unaware of what he just walked into.

The kid turned and Rocco flew right at him, accidentally kicking Big Chief in the head, belly-flopping on Buddha Hat, slamming his back to the floor, lying on top of him in the doorway, breathing out loud, each exhalation like a word, his gun pressed into the kid’s right eye. All the other cops clambered over them, racing to secure the apartment, someone stepping on the back of Rocco’s inner thigh and breaking skin.

Rocco heard the grandmother’s croaky and cracked bellow. “Hat don’t
do
drugs! Hat don’t
do
drugs!” At the sound of her voice the kid wriggled a little. Rocco felt the bony, crablike scuttle of Buddha Hat’s frail body, then gasped, “Say ‘Dempsy burnin’.’” The kid didn’t say it, but he settled down and stared up at him steadily with his one uncovered eye.

Rocco got up on his haunches, the grandmother still bellowing, “Hat don’t
do
drugs!” He put his free hand on Buddha Hat’s chest for leverage, then realized he could feel the kid’s heart beating under his palm, feel it beating slow as a dirge, the kid staring at Rocco with his unobscured eye, breathing evenly through his nostrils, Rocco thinking, This is one cold-blooded little fuck. Buddha Hat’s one-eyed gaze promised him something in the future, but Rocco was too high right now to give a rat’s ass. He flipped the kid over on his stomach, straddled his hips and snapped on handcuffs.

“Hat don’t
do
drugs!” Rocco looked up to see the grandmother, her eyes bewildered behind her thick glasses, her slippers scuffling across the linoleum, Thumper yelling at her, “Who’s here! Who’s here!” Vaguely aware of the slamming doors, the shouted coordinations, Rocco patted down his prisoner and took a few deep breaths to begin slowing down his own heart, years of lethargy exorcized for at least a moment, the surging of his blood like music, Rocco crooning to himself, “The best, the best. This is the best.”

Erin staggered briskly through the toys on the living room floor, the child half crazy with the hour. It was two o’clock in the morning. When Rocco had come in walleyed with vodka, she had awakened in her crib, but instead of easing her back to sleep, Rocco lifted her out, dropped her on the rug and scattered a bunch of toys around her like rose petals. Still high from the night, he just wanted to
be
with her, but as he lay on the rug studying her, being with her, absorbing the solemn jerkiness of her movements, he was swept by a wave of anxiety at the wrongness of what he had just done, the havoc he was playing with her metabolism. And gradually his anxiety retreated into an absolute conviction that whatever was taking daily precedence over being with his daughter_work alcohol preoccupation with future plans - would in five years become a painful memory of pathetically blown priorities. ’

Rocco congratulated himself for having such a profound thought by getting up and taking a Breyer’s Pledge, licking his lips and coming back to the rug. His elation at the arrest and the camaraderie of the Pavonia Tavern had completely evaporated now, the only artifacts of tonight’s escape into the past being the faded phone number on the back of his hand and the purple, blood-rimmed half-moon on the back of his left thigh.

“I almost got
killed
tonight,” he said out loud to Erin, hearing the hollowness in it. His child was pop-eyed with exhaustion. Ignoring him, she was playing with two plastic shoehorns, slowly rolling them up the side of a chair leg and making a high, soft noise. Rocco shook his head, watching her, feeling desperate and lost, and then Victor Dunham came back on him like a sharp pain, like an almost forgotten prayer.

29

AFTER
the shooting at the benches, Strike walked back to his car, pulled out of the driveway and headed for the New Jersey Turnpike. He didn’t have a destination; it was more that he wanted to be able to drive fast without negotiation, as if unmitigated speed would clear his head and steady his hand.

He wasn’t too worried about Horace. It looked like just a meat shot—it wasn’t as if he was dead or anything. In fact, it was all for the good in a way, since Strike had been trying to figure out how to lose him for days. Horace should have listened to Andre; he’d be safe in a nice cozy Youth House bunk right now.

Somewhere north of Newark, Strike found himself reexperiencing the shooting so vividly that he flinched at the sharp crack of the recalled gunshot. He flipped up the step well for his 25 the memory making him want to check, and when his hand came out empty he began fishtailing across three lanes of highway. His mind jammed with paranoid scenarios, Strike pulled into a service area parking lot and chugged his Mylanta. It took a good half hour of sitting there before he remembered that he had taken the gun with him to his room at Herman’s two days earlier with Tyrone, and that he had left it in the drawer with the ounces.

Heading back to town now, Strike wondered where to go. There was no real need to get the gun, and it would probably be a good idea to stay away from the benches. There wouldn’t be any business tonight until later, what with all the detectives canvassing the crowd, and Strike didn’t want to be around to give out any information.

Coming off the turnpike and driving over to JFK, Strike headed for Rodney’s store, reflex making the choice for him. But after turning onto Jackson Street, he barely slowed down—when he thought about it, the idea of seeing Rodney had less and less appeal these days. Feeling rudderless, Strike cruised the streets of Dempsy trying to think of where he could go. He wandered the city for the better part of an hour before announcing to himself both the obvious and the unthinkable answer: Home.

Hours later, Strike lay in his underwear in the moonlit stillness. Two of the whores who worked his corner chattered a line of coke-fueled blather under his window, the sound of their high heels on the pavement like the tired clomping of an old horse. The air of his bedroom was tinged with silver, and Strike knew that if he lifted his head he could see the three calling cards from the Homicide lying in a row on his dresser top.

Despite the two noisy whores, the apartment seemed quiet. Strike stared at the splintered posts at the foot of the bed and thought of the red Doberman he’d bought six months ago to guard this place. He had never bothered to train it and the thing had chewed the shit out of his bedroom ensemble, reducing all the bamboo posts and sidings to giant shredded teething sticks. The dog, like most things, sounded better than it was, and he’d gotten rid of it after only a few weeks.

Sitting up in bed, Strike was overwhelmed by the thought of how it always turned out that any hustler’s ultimate and true victim was himself. He recalled telling both Andre and Jo-Jo earlier in the day that he was away from the benches for good, but now, only eight hours later, here he was, ready to return as if he was nothing but mouth all along. Looking across the room to the three Homicide cards, thinking about how stinky and small his world was, Strike sighed through his teeth: Rodney had best get himself a reliable supplier quick. Ounces, bottles, benches, hole-in-the-wall candy stores, greasy lies, greedy people, everybody fucking everybody—he was sick to death of it. Then he remembered Tyrone at the end of the day, sitting in the car, holding his stomach, tense, dying to bolt. And no wonder. Strike had pushed him into this game—as if ruining Victor’s life for no good reason wasn’t enough.

It was close to midnight, and Strike envisioned the last squad car, the last tan Plymouth, just now rolling away from the benches. He slid his legs over the side of the bed and began to pull on his clothes, his movements slow, his head thick. And as he reached for his mound of keys on the night table, he swore to himself that he’d never talk to Tyrone again.

Back at the benches, Strike’s customers had just started coming by for bottles again, some making small talk about the shooting but most just copping and splitting as usual. Futon told Strike that right after the cops left, Horace’s mother’s boyfriend had come by, a big, heavy-chested man in a bus driver’s jacket. He’d been asking about the shooting, trying to get a name, but everybody shrugged and mumbled as if the guy was a cop. Nobody wanted it to get back to the shooter who it was that had set this big-foot motherfucker on his tail. It just wasn’t worth it.