Clockers (78 page)

Strike and Rodney watched as Tyrone tried to squeeze away. Erroll didn’t move, just squinted down at the kid with those miserable slits. Tyrone did a sideways shuffle until he was free of the car, then casually jogged away up the street as if too embarrassed by his own smelly fear to race off. As Strike watched him go, he noticed that Tyrone was still holding a hand over his gut even as he ran.

Rodney turned into the old lady’s driveway. Strike got out and sat behind the wheel of his own car, unrolling the passenger window and waiting for somebody to drop in the package. He looked in the rearview mirror: Rodney and Erroll stood with their backs to him, leaning against the rear end of the Accord, preventing him from leaving.

After a few minutes, Rodney came around the driver’s side and hunched over the window.

“Yeah, so you OK?” he said lightly as if nothing had happened.

“I’m good.” Strike looked straight ahead. His nose was still tender from Rodney’s gun.

Rodney flopped the dope on the seat. “So you got a quarter there.”

Strike nodded slightly.

“Just whack it, put aside like two ounces with a half-ounce cut like before. And listen.” Rodney waited for Strike’s eyes. “You best lose that little boy Tyrone.”

“I don’t even talk to him no more.”

“Yeah.” Rodney poked Strike’s nose, his fingers miming a gun, his mood playful. “Yeah, you best lose him before his Momma tear you a new asshole.”

Strike nodded, thinking, Unload this last quarter ki and then fly.

Three hours later, Strike sat behind the candy counter looking out at the sun, which began to dip behind a row of abandoned walk-ups. Rodney had been in a good mood all afternoon, almost affectionate, and it made Strike paranoid, made him think Rodney could read his mind and was trying to seduce him into staying on until the bitter end. But at least business was brisk. Rodney made some calls to tell a few of his local customers that he’d gotten a package and now there were only a few ounces left to unload.

Rodney stood over his eighteen-month-old son and plucked at his nappy hair. “I’m gonna give him a haircut. His damn mother don’t do shit.” He looked over at Strike. “Yeah, I didn’t tell you—you hear what happened in the Papi thing?”

“What…”

“They arrested Buddha Hat. How you like that?”

”
Who
did?”

“Jersey City detectives. They got them a witness. One of Papi’s boys who was in the car that night? This boy got all shot up in the back, he must’ve run off before you got there. They got him in a Bronx hospital. The police told him if he ID’d the shooter they’d drop a homicide charge they had on him. So he went and put the hat on Buddha Hat.”

“How you know all this?” Strike was spellbound, everything rushing up into his head—the night in New York, the bullshit roust by the Port Authority cops, and “then Victor, what this could mean for Victor.

“Yeah, I got somebody in the prosecutor’s office out in Hudson County. You know, a friend.”

“So-so Champ—”

“Nah, it ain’t Champ. It’s Buddha Hat. Papi was selling kis to like me and three other people in town. Buddha Hat knew about it and he had Papi payin’ him—for protection or, you know, permission to sell it like from behind Champ’s back, you know, pay up or I’ll get Champ to get me to kill you—and like I guess Papi didn’t want to pay no more and it went down like that. But yeah, Buddha Hat was acting on his own.”

“Ha-how you know all this?”

“My Hudson County friend says it’s all in the deposition. Pisses me off too, ‘cause Papi never told me about no other business he had in town. I guess he must’ve not trusted me.” Rodney lifted his son by the armpits and dropped him on a stool. “It’s a damn sneaky business, ain’t it?”

“So Boo-Buddha Hat
knows
about us?” Strike found himself grinning, though he had no idea why. There was nothing funny about this at all.

“Yeah, but I ain’t worried about it,” Rodney said, opening the cash register and taking out a pair of barber scissors from under the change tray. “They got him on a homicide in Hudson County. They ain’t gonna trade that off for drug information in Dempsy. Maybe they trade it, but only to get somebody like Champ—you know, maybe like for some kingpin bring-down. But shit, that’s good for us too.”

With Buddha Hat locked up, Strike wondered whether it was safe to tell Rodney that Buddha Hat killed Darryl Adams too. But he wasn’t sure what would be gained by that. It wasn’t like Rodney would go running to the cops with it, help him out with Victor. And he still might be enraged at the idea that Champ’s hit man got involved in his secret business.

“Ha-how many bodies you think Buddha Hat got on him?”

“Not as much as people think.” Rodney gave his son’s head a one-eyed squint, planning his angle of attack.

“I heard
lots.
Shit, I woo-wouldn’t be surprised…” Strike didn’t know where to take it.

“Surprised at what?” Rodney raised the scissors over his son’s head, snipping air.

Strike shrugged.

“Surprised at what?” Rodney repeated, but before Strike could figure out how to slide away from the subject, Rodney put down the scissors. Following Rodney’s eyes, Strike saw the Toyota from Delaware pulling up in front.

Rodney laughed and bellowed out, “Gangster time, gangster time,” making both Strike and his son jerk backward.

The Delaware boys ambled into the store wearing their gold, but Strike noticed that this time they weren’t acting goofy and grinning—not even smiling, in fact. And one of the guys was new; he was a little older and wore less gold.

“Who’s this?” Rodney tilted his chin to the new guy, finally commencing to cut his son’s hair.

“This my cousin,” one of the kids said. “Sneezy couldn’t come, his father’s in the hospital, so like this Carlton. He’s my cousin.”

Carlton put his hand out to Rodney, who let it hang in the air for a few seconds as he worked on his son’s head, finally shaking it after he’d gotten across who was on top.

Strike saw Carlton stiffen over Rodney’s little power play but then quickly recover, shrugging it off and digging into his pocket to produce eighteen hundred dollars. And as he walked off toward Herman’s, Strike thought about how swiftly this new guy had put Rodney’s disrespect behind him. He tried to decide: should he feel impressed or worried?

Alone in his dope room, spooning the cut into the Delaware ounces, Strike thought about Buddha Hat in jail, remembered again that night in New York. He still couldn’t figure out what the Hat had wanted from him. Some kind of friendship? Maybe, but neither of them had followed it up. Besides, as always, it was better to have enemies—at least with enemies, you knew what they were.

As Strike got ready to lock up, he realized that something else was bothering him. He stood in the doorway of the room running down an inventory of obsessions: Victor, Buddha Hat, Tyrone. Stomach medicine, Iris, Andre. Rodney sticking that .38 in his face. The Homicide and his accusations. His mother, his gun. His gun. It was supposed to be in the drawer with the dope, but it wasn’t there.

Strike tried to think back to where he had seen it last. In the drawer? In the car? Or did he take it away from here and somehow lose it? Not that the gun couldn’t be replaced, or even that he would want to replace it. It was just … What the fuck happened to it? Three hundred ninety-five dollars, too. Well, he’d have to figure out where he could have left it.

On his way back with the ounces, Strike realized how close he’d come to telling Rodney something he shouldn’t have. But shit, he thought, the guy is locked up—somebody should tell somebody about Darryl Adams, do something on that for Victor’s sake. But here it was again, the old problem—how could he drop a dime on the Hat without getting himself in hot water?

And then it came to him, just like that: Do it anonymous. Just dial 911 like a citizen.

But maybe it would be best to call Homicide direct, 911 would probably fuck it up. Looking up and down the crowded Saturday night boulevard, Strike dug into his pocket for change, his temples pulsing. Just call Homicide direct, tell the secretary…

But what if one of the Homicides themselves answered the phone, especially that fat one who had been giving him such a hard time lately?

It would be better to call it in tomorrow, Sunday, when things were quieter. He couldn’t imagine that Homicide working on a nice Sunday afternoon if the guy had any pull at all.

Standing by the phone, Strike did a little practice run, his words directed to his shoes in a self-conscious whisper. It would just take a couple of quick sentences, a few fast words, then hang up. Simple. Tomorrow.

32

ON SUNDAY
morning, Rocco surrendered his gun at the security gate and signed the visitors’ log book. He’d brought cigarettes and a stack of magazines for Victor. A correction officer flipped through the magazines and dumped out the carton of Newports, looking for dope, weapons or whatever else Rocco might be trying to smuggle inside. Then the CO phoned Jimmy Newton in the conference room.

“He’s here. You still want to see him?”

Rocco was escorted up to the third floor and down to the end of a narrow hallway decorated with prisoner art. The conference room was skinny and airless, with garish silvery wallpaper and no window save for the one set into the door. Jimmy and Victor sat at an old wooden library table. Victor was dressed in a T-shirt, sweatpants and rubber flip-flops. Rocco slid around to shake hands with both of them, Jimmy looking tense and Victor, his eyes smudged with exhaustion, looking as if he had just fallen off the earth. Victor’s handshake was feathery and tremulous: Beautiful, thought Rocco, just perfect. On the table was Jimmy’s tape recorder, a transcript of the confession and the arrest report. Dropping the magazines and cigarettes in front of Victor, Rocco took a chair.

“How you doing there, Victor, remember me?”

Victor nodded, his eyes focused on the table.

“I thought you could use something to read. I heard it gets pretty boring in here.”

Victor lifted a corner of his mouth but said nothing.

“Awright,” Jimmy said, and turned on the recorder. “Victor? Investigator Klein is here to talk to you now, and ah, as I’ve said to you before, I strongly advise that you decline to talk to him at this point in time. As I previously warned you, if you say anything during this interview that deals directly with the circumstances surrounding the death of Darryl Adams, it can be used against you. So, once again, my advice is that you do
not
go through with this. But if you want to waive your rights, you can speak to this man now.”

Rocco maintained a sober expression during Jimmy’s disclaimer speech. He knew Jimmy was just covering his ass on tape as a hedge against any eventual charges of representational incompetence, but he also knew that Jimmy was intrigued by what might come out of this. Any mention of Strike, his drug dealing or his whereabouts on the night of the murder would open up an ocean of red herrings if the case went to trial. In fact, if Rocco even implied his doubts about Victor’s guilt, Jimmy could lay down a serious charge of post-arrest negligence, since his client’s lockup was based on a confession with no witnesses and no corroboration. So either way, mentioning either brother, Rocco could be hanging himself on tape for all the world to hear.

“Do you want to waive your rights and speak to this man?”

Victor nodded his head and pulled the red tab on the cellophane covering a pack of cigarettes. Jimmy had told Rocco on the phone that the kid had at first balked at the interview, then changed his mind even while insisting he didn’t have anything to say that he hadn’t said before. Which only confirmed Rocco’s hunch: Why would Victor agree to the sit-down unless there was something he wanted to get off his chest?

“Investigator Klein, I’d like to establish some ground rules here. I’m not allowing any questions addressed to my client pertaining to the Darryl Adams homicide. Anything he may have said to you prior to this meeting in regards to that subject is off limits. Any references made by anyone else to his participation are also off limits. In other words, I want this to be a purely passive, nonincrim-inatory interview. If I feel you’re asking him incriminating questions, or if I feel that you are trying to trick him or manipulate him in any way, shape or form, this interview is over.”

Rocco nodded, but he wasn’t the least bit worried. He was smarter than Jimmy Newton. He would do Jimmy’s job for him and peel this kid right down to his shorts.

“Fair enough, counselor.” Rocco hunched forward, elbows on the table. “OK, Victor, before I get started, is there anything you want me to explain?”

Victor had stripped the last of the ten cigarette packs of its cellophane.

“Victor?”

“No. I told you what I told you.” Victor shrugged at the denuded packs, looking sulky and shut down. But there was a pulse in the corner of one eye, rapid as a heartbeat, and Rocco thought it could be more than just shot nerves.

“OK now, I tell you what I want you to do, just to keep this on the up-and-up? I ask you a question? I want you to count to five before you answer. This gives Mr. Newton time to decide if it’s inappropriate, and it gives you time to decide if you really want to answer for your own self. OK? Even if it’s a simple yes or no response, count to five. Is that all right with you, counselor?”

Jimmy nodded in agreement.

“OK, good. Now, I want to tell you right up front. I am ninety-nine point nine percent sure you did
not
kill Darryl Adams.”

Rocco let that lie there, savoring the surprised look on Jimmy’s face. First bang out of the box and he’d given Jimmy what he wanted for the cross-examination. It was his way of saying to Jimmy, It’s my ass too, hoping Jimmy would now let him go over the edge a little with the questions to come.

Victor was shaking his head, smiling grimly, his eyes down.

“Do you want to know
why
I think you didn’t do it?”

Victor palmed the side of his face as if bored.