Key Witness (37 page)

“Two rights, two blocks to Dover Street.”

“Left on Dover, that’ll take you right smack into Lombard.”

Wyatt’s inner compass would have told him to take a right on Dover. No wonder he was lost.

They were leaning against his car, four of them. Boys. Black, of course. They were young—none of them looked older than fourteen. One was so small he probably wasn’t yet in his teens. They didn’t look like they wanted to be friends.

“Nice wheels.” One of them, the oldest, the putative leader, took a step toward him.

“Thank you.” Stay cool, man, they want to play head games with you, get Whitey all flustered and frightened.

He could handle this—be polite, get in the car, drive away. Right to Dover, left to Lombard.

“Never driven a Jaguar,” the boy stated. “They ride good?”

“Very nice.”

“I’d like to check it out. The handling.”

He smiled at the thought of this kid driving anything. “Let me see your driver’s license first,” he said, trying to keep it light. He wrapped his hand around the keys in his pocket, just to be safe.

“I can drive. I’ve driven cars before. Lots of them.”

That you’ve stolen?

Enough of this. “I’m running late.” He started to push his way past the boy.

“I can drive,” the kid said again. His voice was harsh.

They were surrounding him, a loose circle. Behind him, the lights went out inside the 7-Eleven.

The white man’s urban nightmare was right in his face. He knew these things happened—he saw the television shows: the drive-by shootings, the random murders over a handful of credit cards. Over nothing.

This is not real, he thought. These things don’t really happen.

He looked at the leader. These were young boys—but they were deadly serious.

“Fuck this shit.” One of them was pulling a gun out of his jacket pocket.

For a second he froze in disbelief. Then instinctively, without any premeditated thought, he rushed at the boy with the gun and knocked him off balance to the ground, running through the hole he had created in their ranks. He was off, running out of the parking lot.

“Hey!” He heard the yell behind him. Without consciously thinking about it he took a ninety-degree turn, like a tailback running for daylight, and the first bullet exploded behind him a fraction, missing him and ricocheting off a parked car across the street. A half second’s hesitation in that turn and the bullet would have caught him right between the shoulder blades. And then he was out into the street and there was another shot, which missed him, and he was heading for darkness, and they were running behind him, all four of them. Catching them by surprise had enabled him to pick up half a block’s head start, but they were coming fast, and they were young and motivated.

He came to the end of the block and rounded the corner at full speed. He could feel the drinks cutting into his wind. But if he could stay ahead of them for three or four blocks he might find refuge somewhere. Or they might run out of steam.

For a fleeting moment he thought about running up to one of the dark houses and pounding on the door, for shelter and safety. But who would take a strange white man in at two in the morning?

These fucking Top-Siders. Running in them was almost as bad as trying to run in bedroom slippers. He thought about shedding them, but the streets were dark and pot-holed, and if he stepped on a piece of glass and cut his foot he’d be finished.

Another corner loomed in front of him. Glancing behind him, he saw that he was maintaining his distance—not gaining ground, but not losing any either.

As he reached the corner he looked to his left. Up ahead in the distance, three or four long blocks away, he could see lights. Lombard Avenue, right where the clerk had said it would be.

He started running that way, feeling the bile rising in his throat. He wanted to throw up, he knew if he did he would feel better, but he couldn’t take the time to stop. Three blocks and he would be safe. Three long blocks.

Another fast glance back. There were only three chasing him now. One had dropped out.

His lungs were starting to burn. His training was for distance, not speed. He felt like he was running under water, in quicksand. But he was almost at the end of the first block, and they weren’t gaining. He was coming closer to safety.

Then the fourth boy, who he’d thought he’d dropped, came tearing down the cross street in front of him, a gun in his little hand. They knew the neighborhood and they had cut him off.

He was trapped.

He stopped and threw up his hands. His breath came out in painful gulps and he bent over double, trying to force air back into his lungs. Seeing that he was cornered, his pursuers slowed down. They were sucking wind, too.

“Whatever you want,” he gasped. He threw his car keys onto the ground. “It’s worth fifty thousand dollars,” he said. “Take it.”

The lead kid, who was also holding a gun, advanced on him, shaking his head. There was blood in his eye, in all their eyes. Wyatt stripped the watch from his wrist and held it out. “Here, take this, too. Take everything. Whatever you want.”

“You lost that chance,” the boy said. “Back there.” He spoke with the cold authority of a man. He came closer to Wyatt, his gun held at waist level.

“Don’t shoot me! For God’s sake, you don’t have to do that!”

The boy raised his pistol, the business end pointing at Wyatt’s gut.

“No. God’s sake, no!” Wyatt reflexively fell to his knees in supplication. If he had to beg for his life, he would do it. Whatever they wanted.

“Get up, sucker. I ain’t gonna shoot you while you’re down.”

“No.” The word came out choked.

“Get up, you fucking pussy! Don’t make me shoot you while you’re on your knees.”

A sudden flash of light shone up the night. A car turned the corner down the block and headed for them. The driver blinked his bright lights.

“Fuck!” The boy reached down and grabbed Wyatt by the collar, jerking him to his feet. “Get the fuck up, you punk!” He started to pull Wyatt out of the way.

The car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, came to a stop in the middle of the street, its bright lights still shining, illuminating them like a searchlight. Wyatt saw Dexter get out. Two other men got out with him. Big, solid men. Both held guns in their hands, bigger guns than the one the man holding Wyatt had. He had seen these two before, in the courtroom and Sullivan Houses. One was the fellow who had warned him about using the alarm on his car.

Dexter walked over. Coolly, like nothing out of the ordinary was going on, he looked at Wyatt, nodding in recognition. “What’s happening, little bloods?” he asked.

“He knocked Ricky over,” the leader said. “Bruised him all to shit.”

“Yeah? What was Ricky doing in front of him?” He glanced at Ricky, who didn’t seem to be the worse for wear.

“Trying to get him not to go nowhere.” The boy smirked for the benefit of his friends.

Dexter pondered this. “If Ricky tried to make me not go nowhere, Thomas, I likely would do the same thing. Especially if I disagreed with Ricky’s intention.”

The smirk turned ugly. “Ricky’s intention ain’t none of your business, Dexter. This is 44th Street territory. This punk is ours. You’re encroaching on our turf. So chill.”

Dexter looked at the boy named Thomas. Then he walked over and slapped the boy as hard as he could across the face. The boy screamed and Dexter grabbed him by the neck. “You know who you’re fucking with here, fool?” he said, pointing to Wyatt.

“Fuck no. And I don’t give one shit, neither,” Thomas said defiantly.

“Well, you ought to, you ignorant little shit. ’Cause if you waste this dude you’re going to go down as the dickhead who shot Marvin White’s lawyer.”

The boy gaped; then he took a step back. The others with him gawked at Wyatt. “No,” he said. “You’re trying to run a number on me.”

“No, I ain’t. This is the only man standing between Marvin and the hangman.”

“Well, shit.” The boy turned to Wyatt accusingly. “Why didn’t you say so, man?”

Wyatt would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so perilous and ludicrous simultaneously. “I don’t recall the opportunity arising,” he managed to say.

“Go home, Thomas, you dumb little bastard punk,” Dexter told the kid harshly. “And take these pieces of street shit with you,” he added, indicating the other three.

“Hey, man, it was a mistake.” Thomas was saving face as fast as he could. “People make mistakes.”

“See to it you don’t make this mistake again,” Dexter told him sternly.

“Don’t worry ’bout that.” Thomas turned to Wyatt. “Sorry, man. How were we to know?” He stuck his gun in his belt. They started to leave.

Dexter stopped them. “Give,” he ordered.

Thomas stopped. Then he reached into his pocket and handed Wyatt his watch and car keys, which he had picked up earlier.

“Anything else?” Dexter asked.

Wyatt shook his head. “This is everything.”

Dexter made a dismissive sweeping motion with his hand: “Get the fuck out of here.”

Thomas didn’t need to be told twice. He and the others in his set vanished into the night.

The street had become preternaturally still, as if all the air had been sucked out of the area for blocks around.

“Your car back at the 7-Eleven?” Dexter asked. Wyatt nodded. “Hop in,” Dexter said. “We’ll take you back.”

They climbed into the Jeep. Wyatt sat next to Dexter. The other two climbed into the back. “This here’s Mr. Matthews,” Dexter told his friends. To Wyatt: “This is Louis and Richard. Friends of mine, and Marvin’s.”

“Glad to meet you.” Very glad.

They drove down the street. “You get lost?” Dexter asked.

“Yes.”

“It’s easy to do around here, if you don’t know where you’re at.”

“I know that now.”

“You drive all the way down here from where you live?”

“No. I’m staying at the Four Seasons. My family’s out of town.” He didn’t need to tell Dexter where he was staying, or why, but he wanted to—he wanted to fill the void, and he felt that the connection they had established justified it. He turned to Dexter. “How in the world did you happen to be around here? Not that I’m complaining, but it sure was a lucky coincidence for me.”

“Nuh-uh. Luck had nothing to do with it,” Dexter answered emphatically. “We been keeping tabs on you, man.”

“What?” He was floored. “You’re
spying
on me?”

“Not spying, nothing like that,” Dexter corrected Wyatt. “Not around your work or home or nothing. But like, when you’re down in our ’hood, we like to know that. Your life is your own, man, but this part of the city? Shit happens, you know?”

Of course he knew—a ton of it had just fallen on him.

“Here’s the thing, man,” Dexter went on. “Something happens to you, you can’t stay on the case working for Marvin, he’s gonna be screwed, you know? ’Cause these other suckers, them lawyers with the Public Defenders, they’re burned out. See, brothers go down all the time for shit, and they get these Public Defender lawyers, or else the court assigns some lawyer to them, which is usually worse, ’cause to them it’s a lost cause and they can’t make any money and so it’s like another nigger gets thrown on the scrap pile, no big thing. But you, you give a damn, and you’re good, too. So the thing is, we need you, man. Not just Marvin—everybody that knows Marvin. His family, us, whoever. ’Cause that blood is gonna get railroaded right into death row, somebody don’t get in the way of it. And you are that somebody, Mr. Matthews. So it’s up to people like me to make sure you stay healthy.”

This was blowing his mind. Dexter and his friends might be young in years, but in handling their lives they were veterans. “So how did you ‘keep tabs on me,’ as you put it, tonight?”

“A friend of mine—the cover-charge girl at the Jazz Table? She made you. And she knew you and me were working together, I mean that I’m trying to help you out. She called me up and told me you were hanging there, so I thought I’d cruise by and check it out, but I got tied up on business.” He looked behind him in the rearview mirror at his friends, who giggled. “By the time I got that piece of nonsense straightened out and swung by the club, you’d left, so I started driving around, me and these guys. Then we heard the police call come over the scanner—the brother back at the 7-Eleven called it in.” He pointed to the police radio under his dash. “I figured maybe we should check that out, just in case.”

“It was awfully lucky for me that you did.”

“For you—and Marvin.”

They pulled up in front of the convenience store. Wyatt got out. Dexter looked over his shoulder. “I’ll ride back with him to his hotel. You follow us.”

The cross streets whipped by, a blur of lights. There was no activity on the pavements, almost no traffic. The Jeep tailed close behind, its lights a beacon in his rearview mirror.

He pulled up in front of the hotel. A valet came out and handed him his claim check. He and Dexter got out. The Jeep was parked at the curb, waiting.

“Again, thanks for everything,” Wyatt said.

Dexter looked at him. “Do you know why I’m doing all this shit for Marvin?”

“You’re his friend.”

“It goes deeper than that.” He took out a pack of cigarettes and a Dunhill lighter, fired up without offering one to Wyatt. “Here’s the good things about Marvin,” he said. “He’s big, strong, handsome, great with the ladies. Now here’s the bad things about Marvin: he’s big, strong, handsome, great with the ladies, and dumb. He’s so dumb he thinks all you need to succeed is the desire. He don’t know from the work, and even if he did, he couldn’t do it. Not at the level he wants to—like me.”

Wyatt nodded. He knew that. Standing outside his hotel with the young drug dealer who had saved his life, he felt a swirl of conflict going on inside of him. Despite his revulsion for Dexter’s illegal business, his admiration for the young dealer was growing. With the right guidance and some gentle nudging, Dexter could be a positive force instead of a negative one.

“I’ve got to protect Marvin,” Dexter said.

“I understand. You’re his friend, and he needs someone like you.”

Dexter shook his head. “That’s petty shit. There’s a deeper reason.” He took a deep drag from his Camel 100. “I’m a couple weeks older than Marvin, but he was always the one protected me, when we were little. Let’s face it, I ain’t no Hercules. And when you’re growing up where we did, little guys get their ass kicked, regular. But I never did—because Marvin never let it happen. Now the shoe’s on the other foot, like they say. So it’s my turn to do the protecting, whatever I can.”