Clockers (75 page)

30

ROCCO
, a little wobbly on his feet, wearing sunglasses despite the promise of rain on this overcast Saturday afternoon, popped two more Tylenols and headed toward Strike. A few yards from the benches he stopped short: a heavy, jet-black woman was approaching the same target from the breezeway of 6 Weehawken, chugging right at the kid, a red cigarette case in her hand. Strike looked at her with only mild interest, and Rocco saw that the kid was misreading her mood, saw him standing there off balance as the woman came right up in his face, swinging wild, her claws just missing his eyes, the cigarette case soaring into some bushes.

Stunned, Strike bounced on his toes, screaming, “What the fuck’s your problem, bitch!”

“You stay away from my son!” The woman swung again, another near miss, Strike having to dance backward to avoid getting hit, everybody around the benches watching the scene with frowny fascination.

“Don’t you
eh-ever
put your hands near my face!”

“I’ll put my goddamn hands anywhere I want. You stay away from him!”

Rocco leaned against a parked car, deciding to let this play out, watching the kid trying to think, to find a way of neutralizing all those staring eyes and open mouths.

“You just keep your hands from my damn /ace!” Strike waved his arms as if trying to fend off a swarm of bees.

“You just best stay away from Tyrone.” Her voice went deep. “Or my hand’s gonna wind up someplace worse than
that.
”

“I don’t even know who the fuh-fuck you are.”

“The
hell
you don’t.”

She took two steps forward and he wheeled away from her. “Get out muh-my fuckin’ face.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna get out. I’m gonna call the police, get you out, you stutter-mouthed piece of shit.”

“Call whoever the fuck you wuh-want, woman!”

“Yeah, OK, I’m gonna call me
Andre,
and Andre gonna stomp your fucking ass, you dope-dealing faggot.”

Strike’s head jerked back, his expression more confused than insulted. The crowd closed in tighter around the two of them.

“Well go on then, bitch. What you standing here for? Go get Andre then, go do it. Maybe I’ll go get the po-po-lice too, get you locked up for assault.”

As Rocco watched, he saw the boy from the chain perch come out of 6 Weehawken, take one look at Strike and the heavyset woman going at each other, and stop dead in his tracks. This woman was obviously his mother.

“Yeah, you call the police on me. You do that.” The woman laughed hard and mean, not seeing her son standing there.

“Hey, you do wuh-what
you
got to do, ‘cause I got to do what / got to do.”

The boy ran back into the building.

“Yeah, we’ll
see
on that.”

The woman turned and headed across the projects, toward Andre’s surveillance apartment, the circle of people breaking into a horseshoe to let her go.

Rocco hung back by the car for a few minutes, watching Strike pace, listening to him mumble curses to himself. Strike looked livid, but self-conscious too, as if hoping that when he finally looked up, everybody would be gone.

Rocco took off his sunglasses. He hoped the kid was still thinking about calling the police, because when Strike at last looked over to the sidewalk, Rocco glared at him, arms folded across his chest, trying hard to come off like a pissed-off and just-summoned genie.

Strike began walking in circles, clutching his gut and heading nowhere with a brisk limpy strut.

Rocco sauntered over to the benches. “Hey, Ronnie, have I been a hard-on to you out here?” he said quietly.

“What?” The kid looked stricken.

“Have I not treated you like a man out here? Talked to you with respect? With courtesy?”

Strike didn’t answer.

“So why are you trying to make a fucking boob out of me?”

“What are you taw-talking about?”

“What am I talking about? You told me you didn’t know Darryl Adams. I’m running around like a horse’s ass on that, and now I find out not only did you
know
the guy but you worked with him in Rodney Little’s store for like a year. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that?”

The kid’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah, no, see, I got confused. After you left last time? I realized I
did
know him buh-but only not by that name. I know him by Spook. I didn’t realize who you was talking about. You was talking about Suh-Spook.”

Rocco had trouble keeping a straight face. “Oh yeah?”

“Suh-Spook,” Strike declared, bobbing his head.

“Spook.” Rocco bobbed back.

“Yeah, he was so quiet he was like a go-ghost, so—”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah. I thought it was someone else.”

“OK.” Rocco shrugged as if it didn’t mean anything either way. “OK, but explain something else to me. You said you didn’t see your brother for two months now, right?”

The kid went still.

“But I was just in this bar, Rudy’s? Where your brother was drinking before the shooting? Guess what. The bartender ID’d
you
in there that night.”

“He said
what?
”

“No, he didn’t say ’
what.
‘ He said ‘that guy,’ looking at
your
mug shot, he said, ‘That guy was in my bar that night.’ He even described the drink he made for you. Coco Lopez, straight out of the can. Does this all ring a bell?”

Strike seemed about ready to bolt, twisting his head right and left, Rocco trying to keep this going without having it explode. “Why did you lie to me, Ronnie?”

“It’s my buh-brother.”

“What’s your brother? Your brother made you lie?”

“No, I’m just, you know, I’m trying to help him … you know.”

“I don’t get it. Explain to me how lying to me helps him. I mean, he’s locked up, so who are you helping? I don’t get it.”

Strike turned to the benches. Three or four of his buddies stood watching the show. He waved them away, but no one moved.

“Talk to me, Ronnie.”

“Woo-what are you saying, / did it?”

“I didn’t say that.
You
said that. I just asked why you were throwing me a line of shit.” Rocco felt his temples pulsing. “Why did you just say that?”

“I dint say that. I just suh-said…” Strike was breathing out of his mouth, almost panting. “You got me saying shit in a
knot,
man. You twisting me up.”

“Me?” Rocco hunched forward, laughing. “Who’s twisting who here, Ronnie? Alls I’m asking is why did you play me like such a jerk on this. What’s in it for you?”

Strike looked at the ground sadly, as if to suggest that he couldn’t possibly explain.

“I mean, what gives here?”

Strike shook his head.

“And another thing. You tell me you’re working in that grocery, so I go off there asking about it, people start laughing at me like I’m fucking Elmer Fudd and you’re the Tricky Rabbit. They start telling me, ‘Hey asshole, you’re out there talking to this kid all polite, man to man, meanwhile, he’s selling shit right in your face, behind your back, in between your legs.’”

”
Hey.
“ Strike leaned back, his hand out, his cheeks puffed. “Look, why don’t you just stop playing with me, OK? Don’t buh-be running this Columbo game on me no more, OK? I know you know what I’m doing here, OK? ‘Cause you got all kind a dogs barking up my tree here day and night, nuh-night and day, so…” Strike moved his face close to Rocco’s, going up on his toes to be eye to eye. “You know, I know, everybody in
town
knows what’s goin’ on here. So like i-if you want to arrest me for
that
“—he held his wrists out to Rocco—“just go ahead, ‘cause I ain’t gonna stand out here no more with you like this.”

“Ronnie, listen to me…”

Strike waved him quiet. “If you don’t want to arrest me, then get out muh-my face so I can
work.
“ His eyelids fluttered with the effort of his words, his tongue making strange clicks and squeaks. “You want to give me another
cue-card
before you go, so I can have a whole set? Fine. I got like one pocket left that got no card yet. Just do what you guh-got to do and let me deal with the reality from there. So am I under arrest or what?”

“Hey Ronnie, can you at least understand why I’m upset?”

“Ah-am I under arrest or
what!
”

Rocco flinched. The crowd was growing, the street no place to talk, no place to go toe-to-toe. He had to get this kid over to his office, but it had to be voluntary—arrest meant jail, which meant no access to the prisoner. Besides, arrest for what?

“Ronnie, ease up, ease up. Alls I’m saying here is I need your help, that’s all. Look, let’s me and you take a ride, talk calm about this.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Fuck no, just come back with me. I’ll get you a sandwich, we’ll put our heads down on this—”

“Then I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you.”

“Fine.” Rocco shrugged. “You don’t have to do shit. But if you want to continue business out here without Jo-Jo, without Thumper, without anybody else I can think of climbing up your ass and throwing you in County every two minutes, I would really think about taking a ride right fucking
now.
”

Strike gave Rocco a breathy ”
Huh,
“ then shook his head. Everybody that had been sitting on the bench was standing up and milling around silently.

Rocco felt the growing heat and decided that with or without Strike he had to leave.

“You coming or what?”

Looking past Rocco’s shoulder, Strike suddenly gave out a little squawk of alarm, then said clear and fast, “Yeah, OK, let’s go-“

Rocco turned toward what had spooked the kid and saw Andre striding to the benches. Rocco headed across the street to his car, satisfied to see that Strike was already there, waiting for him to unlock the door.

***

“Can I stop by my house, get something?” Strike twisted and twitched in the shotgun seat, looking out the rear window to check on what was happening by the benches.

“What you need?” As Rocco pulled out into traffic, he saw Andre in the rearview mirror, the big cop standing with hands on his hips, staring after the car.

“My stomach medicine.”

“What you got, an ulcer?”

“An ulcer, yeah.”

“We got stuff in the office.”

“But this is like from the ha-hospital.”

“What’s it, Mylanta? Maalox?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re covered.”

A few minutes later, Rocco stopped alongside a dumpster and threw the car into park. “Hey Ronnie, do me a favor, before we get down there, I don’t want to walk into the office, all of a sudden find out you got a ton of dope on you or a gun or something, OK? I don’t want to search you, pat you down, nothing like that. But if you got anything on you it would be best for me not to find…” Rocco nodded to the dumpster. He knew the kid was clean, but he wanted to get back in his good graces. “Now’s the time, OK? I can’t be any more decent with you than that.”

“I’m cool.”

“You sure? Because I don’t know if you were ever down by my office, but we’re right across the hall from county Narcotics and sometimes they get these man-eating dope dogs padding around and I don’t want to wind up pulling some humongous rottweiler off your dick, next thing I got to explain to everybody how I let you walk in the building holding like that. I mean, this here is between me and you.”

“I’m good, I’m good.” Strike waved the subject dead.

“Good.” Rocco pulled out into traffic again. “Can I ask you something? Unofficial? How long do you stand out there by the benches every day?”

Strike shrugged. “Law-long as it takes.”

They drove in silence the rest of the way. When they got to the office, Rocco dug out some Mylanta and a plastic soup spoon and then stood in the doorway of the coffee machine nook, watching Strike shake up the bottle. But instead of pouring himself a tablespoon or two, the kid chugged it straight down, Rocco watching his Adam’s apple contract once, twice, three times before he replaced the cap.

“That’s gonna give you shits there, Ronnie.”

“Nan, it’s good.” Strike wiped his lips, then surprised Rocco by taking a paper napkin and wiping away a trickle of chalky liquid that was creeping down the side of the label. Rocco flashed on Victor: like Victor washing his hands after taking a leak.

Rocco led Strike into the interrogation room and sat him down at the table. “OK, let’s start from the beginning. I don’t want any lies, because whatever you been saying to me I’ve been taking in good faith up to now. And all I got for my good faith so far is a lot of bullshit, a lot of running around knocking myself out and feeling like a total moke, OK? So I don’t want to hear any more ‘Oh
that
Darryl Adams’ or ‘Oh
that
bar’ or ‘Oh
that
brother’—you understand?”

Strike nodded.

“Now, let me tell you something else. I don’t give a fuck about drugs. You can stand out there by those benches, sell bottles till your dick falls off and you’d never have any problems with me. The thing with Thumper and Jo-Jo? That’s just me asking you for help. Help me and those guys vanish, OK? Alls I care about is dead people. The living, that’s somebody else’s problem. So if I’m asking you questions and you’re afraid to tell me the truth because you’re afraid it’s going to affect
your
drug operation or
Rodney’s
drug operation or
Champ’s
drug operation, don’t worry about it. I never share anything with Narcotics, because if I did nobody’d ever talk to me. Do we understand each other?”

Rocco gave the kid a long, steady look. Strike seemed impassive but not shut down.

“Because now I’m gonna ask you some sixty-four-thousand-dollar questions and I want the truth, because if I go running around out there and wind up looking stupid again, you’re gonna have to find a new city to work out of, and wherever you go, I
know
you’re gonna sell drugs, because there’s too much money to be made for you not to. And that means that eventually, wherever you are, you’re gonna get popped, and if there’s a little mark on your statewide file that says ‘cocksucker,’ no DA is ever gonna cut you a deal. But if there’s a mark that says ‘call Rocco Klein’? It’s like a credit card, OK? Do we understand each other?”