George Pelecanos (5 page)

It
was definitely not supposed to turn out like this. You would have rather spent
the last three hours in Catalina's basement, bumping and grinding in nothing
but a latex shield. You should be squeezing her nipples with your fingers, and
putting a thumb on that pearl down below.

You
were supposed to be five grand richer by dawn. But that hammer hit the base of
the shell and next thing you knew, Fat Rodney's skull was missing a chunk the
size of your fist, his blood sprayed across your cheek as you took cover to the
left of that door frame. It was your first time out and somebody had the fix
in. Go fuckin' figure.

"So
y'all ready?" Dante asks again. Burns Street is nothing but quiet, a block the
cops hardly every patrol. Nothing over there but grandmas and kids and the P.G.
line just a few up the hill.
All of this for Boyz II Men at
the Cap Centre.
All of this because once again you
didn't know when to pull out.

1.

You
got up that morning Ferris Bueller style. Peered through the shades and there
wasn't a cloud in the sky. Your new girl was still on your fingers, the smell
of Claiborne all over everything else. You remembered the way her tongue felt
against your chest and the way she said good night before she went out through
the basement, knowing your moms always slept like a corpse.

You
woke up with all of that on your mind and two dollars in your pocket. The
weekend was on the way and Boyz II Men was coming to the Cap Centre with a
bunch of other acts. Catalina loved those gump-ass niggas, and thus expected
you to foot the bill for two tickets, preceded by dinner and hopefully followed
by you getting some long-awaited ass. You'd been chipping away at that pussy
for weeks, first base all the way to the edge of third. Now home was definitely
in sight.

Things
would've been simple if that coming Friday was a payday. But it wasn't. Add in
the fact that you already owed Dante twenty dollars from the last time you took
Catalina out and thirty to Sean for those tapes you were supposed to go in half
on, then taxes, your pager bill, and cake for gas, and that forthcoming check
was already spent. You needed some more dough and you needed it yesterday.

So
you tried to come up with a plan in the shower, 'cuz that's where you do your
best thinking. Under water your thoughts flow evenly. In the stream you cut
through all the bullshit. So it was there, under the "massage" setting
spray, that
you thought about running game at the rec.

It
was a Tuesday after all. Who the hell went to school on Tuesday, especially
when you could buy off the rec manager with an apple stick and two packs of Now
and Laters? What a pathetic price for a nigga as old as your father, whoever he
is.

"You
tryin' to play for time?" you asked your first mark, some light-skinned dude
with a low-taper his barber shoulda got stabbed for.

You
knew the kid had cake. He had that look in his eye, plus a Guess watch, the new
Jordans, and a sweet pair of Girbauds cuffed at the ankle. You'd seen him
around before, so you knew he wasn't some out-of-bounds hustler trying to move
in on your racket. Yeah, that's
right,
it was already
yours, even before the first shot.

"I'm
tryin' to play for money," he said boldly, tapping a nervous finger against his
thigh, the biggest tell in the world that he didn't have what it took. You had
him on the rack six times in under an hour. The idea crossed your mind of
majoring in pool when you got to college.

"My
game's off today," he confessed earnestly after handing you three twenties
without a flinch. "I guess my loss is your gain."

There
was something about that phrase that didn't sit well with you. It wasn't the
kinda shit niggas say on Ridge Road. Or if it was, you'd never heard it before.
And that made you curious.
You and your damn curiosity.

"And
a nice little gain it is," you replied gloating, thinking of the words as a
perfect move to finish him off.

"It
ain't shit to me," he replied. "But I can see you need the money."

You
told him he needed to watch himself, that he didn't know you like that. You
turned open palms into fists, preparing yourself for battle. Yet all he did was
grin. And that little grin made you think he might have heat, which meant you
might be dead in the next few seconds. There you went again, acting before you
could think on it.

He
told you to chill. He didn't mean any disrespect. He just thought that maybe
the two of you could help each other out. After all, he'd seen you around the
way and knew you were no joke. Truth be told, he even made it so he lost the
first game or two of the previous series just to make you feel comfortable,
just so you could feel like he was an easy mark. You took in all the words, but
you didn't really understand them, except for when he said that he had a
problem he wanted you to help him with.

"What
you mean you want me to help you? I don't know you, nigga," was your response.

"It's
ten G's in it for you," he replied. "Ten G's for some shit that won't even take
ten minutes."

This
was when you should have turned away. You weren't a fuckin' criminal. Sure
you'd sold a few rocks back when everybody was doin' it, and sure you and Sean
had run some chains off people outside of the go-go. But anything worth ten G's
was way too hot for you to touch. Yet even though you were thinking these
things, your mouth said: "Ten G's!? Shit, what the fuck I gotta do?"

Now
according to the story, this dude who soon after introduced himself as
"Butchie" had a little crack thing going down on Texas Avenue with a partner of
his. The two of them had either bought (or run) some old lady out of her crib
and were dealing there, but strictly to respectable clients (i.e., people who
had all their teeth and wouldn't draw suspicion from the cop details). And it
had actually worked out. They'd cleared just over 100 grand in six months.

This
partner, introduced only as "D", handled muscle and management.
Butchie dealt with the supplier and scouting out clientele.
The only problem came in when D got hit with a rape charge on the other side of
town. Not only was it a parole violation but the dude's second felony. Needless
to say, D wouldn't be seeing daylight anytime soon. But there was money and
some product still at his crib on Adrian Street, right over the hill from the
rec where you met Butchie.

At
this point, all the young man in front of you wanted to do was cash out,
because there were no guarantees that D wouldn't give him up. However, he still
wanted what was his, half the thirty-five grand in D's crib and whatever
product was left over, so he could sell it wholesale and dump the money into a
McDonald's he wanted to reopen out on Bladensburg Road. It was a plan you could
respect. Shit, if you'd had the cake you would've done the same thing yourself.

Butchie
went on to inform you that D lived alone and had even given him a key to the
house. But he didn't want to pick up the loot himself just in case the cops
were there waiting for him. Plus, he wasn't the kind of "go-hard nigga" that
you were. As a matter of fact, he'd brought D into the equation because he
wasn't from the street, because he needed somebody to have his back in an
always competitive and treacherous marketplace. Thus, he was willing to give
you almost a third of the cash sum if you'd just go in and get it for him.

Once
again you were listening less to the plan and more to your own imagination.
What would ten G's feel like in your hand? What couldn't you buy with that kind
of dough? The possibilities were endless, and you, even with sixty-two bucks
in-pocket, enough for the tickets and a little dinner, were now game on
snatching this new ball of wax. Citing a prior commitment, he gave you his
pager number before he headed toward the '93 Pathfinder on the asphalt. The
deal would expire at the end of the day.

2.

"I
don't know about this shit," Sean had grumbled as he passed you the remains of
the blunt. Babatunde and Dante were on the other couch and Fat Rodney was
upstairs cooking Steak-ums in the kitchen. If you were going to do this, you
weren't doing it alone. So you got the crew together and sat them down in your
mother's basement. These were the only dudes you trusted in the whole world.

"Me
neither," Dante added. "This shit sounds way too easy for what he's payin' us."

"But
then again, this nigga sounds weak," Baba fired back. "You know, like the kinda
dude
ain't never
thrown a punch in his life. If the
money's in there, we'd have it before him. Shit, if we wanted we could take it
all and say 'fuck him.'"

"That's
what I was thinkin'," Fat Rodney said with half a sandwich in his mouth. He was
that kind of fat where his whole torso bounced with every other step.
Five-foot-nine and 300 pounds at sixteen.
Somebody needed to
put his ass on a treadmill.

"We
got five niggas," Rodney continued. "We go in there, get the
money,
and we're out. If he
come
around askin' questions, we
let that nigga know who he's dealin' with."

Sean
argued back that it was easier said than done, that as far as you all knew the
house might not even belong to the alleged "D". Butchie coulda been a snitch
for the cops or somebody's cousin you jumped a few weeks back at some party you
can't even remember.

You
rebutted that the cops didn't have a reason to be after y'all. Shit, you'd
never been caught, never even been arrested, never even had to talk to a cop
outside of the Officer Friendlys that blew through your elementary schools all
those years ago. You'd dealt with a whole lot worse for a whole lot less. So
why not give it a shot?

Dante
looked nervous. Baba looked like he was already through D's door. Sean looked
like you were all about to make the biggest mistake of your young lives. And
Rodney, having finished his sandwich, actually looked full. Nobody wanted to
put an answer on the table. So you did it for them. You were gonna tell Butchie
that you were in, but stake the place out for a few hours before you made a
move.

You
paged Butchie that afternoon and he gave you a green light. It was around 3:00 when
you the made the call so you all decided to waiting until after 10:00 when the
block would be night and settled in. While you were waiting, Sean took the
wheel of your Accord hatchback and headed over to the local arsenal, where he
happened to have a running tab. He came out five minutes after he went in with
a Glock 9, two snub .38s, and a .380, enough for all of you except Rodney, who
"didn't do heat."

As
it turned out, D's crib was the last house on the right at the bottom of
Adrian, a little bungalow with a front and back yard. No basement and no alarm
system, which appeared to mean that
there
were no
problems. Texas Avenue was at the corner and Dupont Park was a block east.

Still,
you decided to go with caution. Everybody took turns for three hours. The
neighbors filed in car by car. By midnight all the lights in their cribs had
gone dark.

Nobody
went in or out of D's place either. It seemed deserted, just like Butchie said
it'd be. All you had to do was
go
in and get rich.

Dante
decided to stay in the car. Sean told him to honk the horn twice if somebody
was comin'. Baba went around the back to make sure nobody was gonna sneak in
from the rear. Sean was gonna stay at the front gate. You and Rodney were gonna
go up the steps, turn the key, and stuff the Jansport you used for your books
with more cash than you'd held in your seventeen years on the planet.