Street Justice (19 page)

Briefly, both men stared at the gun. Then Russ acted. He swung his legs and body in a large arc and used the momentum to reach his other hand up to join the first. Then taking an instant to rest, held on to the boy’s wrist with one hand, used the other to strike out at the gun, then immediately re-grab the wrist. He repeated this action several times. The blow hurt, and slowed an already slow action even more but fear made him strong and he held on.

After several failed attempts and the gun continuing to move toward him, Russ knew he had only a second or two before the boy could get the gun lined up and pull the trigger. So Russ again used his legs and body to swing himself up. This time he stuck a foot out and caught the wall. Using that as leverage he quickly placed a second foot on the wall. This increased the pull he was able to exert on the boy but also made it increasing difficult to hold onto the sweaty wrist.

The boy felt the shift and watched the man holding on to him get one, then two feet onto the wall. The pressure now pulling his body felt as if his arm would dislocate and he would be ripped in half at the waist at the same time. His eyes bugged and he had trouble breathing. But the change in position had reduced the force on his wrist. He focused on calming himself and lining the gun up with Russ.

Russ saw the gun swing his way and realized it was now or never. He pulled, using his arms and back, while pushing with his legs. The muscles tightened and knotted but he knew he could not ease up. The nose of the barrel seemed to have a life of its own, like a snake, its head slowly creeping toward him. With one last effort, Russ willed himself straight. The shooter’s hips cleared the window and once the crease of his body was over the lip, the rest of him followed quickly.

Russ plummeted down onto the crushed plastic lid. His head smacked the edge of the dumpster with a glancing blow. The air escaped his body as he hit the nearly empty bottom of the container. Before he could regain his breath the shooter fell on top of him. Russ tried to inhale but could not draw a breath. His elevated heart rate burnt though his body’s oxygen and his brain screamed for air. He started seeing dark blobs float across his vision.

Mario hopped out of the truck and rushed over toward the dumpster crying out, “Russ, you okay? You okay? Talk to me.”

No response came as Russ could not breathe, let alone speak. Mario reached the dumpster, reached in and pulled the boy off of Russ with one giant arm. Like a living crane, he lifted the boy over the edge and dropped him on the floor of the alley. A large straight cut oozing blood could be seen on the shooter’s forehead where his head had creased the dumpster. Mario had to partially crawl in to the container to grab Russ. With Russ’ additional size and weight, getting him over the side was much less graceful but Mario managed.

Russ regained his breath and squeaked, “I’m fine.” He flopped his arms around waving Mario away and drudged himself to his feet. He dusted himself off and staggered toward the truck. Mario helped stuff him in the driver’s side as Jeff clamored into the passenger side. The three men squeezed into the truck and roared off just as the first wail of sirens could be heard.

“Well that was interesting,” Jeff offered. Russ bobbed his head still regaining his breath.

In a ragged voice he asked, “Now what?”

“What do you mean, now what?” Mario asked, “I drive us home and we rest. Get you a beer. That’s what.”

“No,” Russ said, regaining strength in his voice, “I mean for us.”

“Ahhh, I see,” said Jeff, “Well, I’m not really sure.” Mario had bolted out of the alley, cut across Occidental Square which was not open to traffic but then dropped off the curb onto Main Street. He was now obeying the speed limit and trying to blend into traffic. “I’m not really sure. I thought getting onto the corner was going to solve things. Now I think it may have made things worse.”

“Ya think,” Mario offered, “I mean we still have way more coke than we can sell, we have a ticking clock to unload it and now we have that guy and his boys after us.”

“Two-Time,” Russ offered.

“What? Two times what?” Mario scrunched his brow.

“No, that was the guy’s name, the guy you hit, his name is Two-Time,” Russ clarified with a smile.

“What are you smilin’ about?” Mario demanded, switching his eyes back and forth from the road to Russ.

Russ started laughing. A small chuckle at first, then it gained momentum. Mario looked at him then Jeff joined in. Stuffed between these two, driving down the highway, Russ composed himself enough to say, “Mario, remember how we came home to get away from getting shot at by guys with weird names?” With that he redoubled his laughter. Mario and Jeff understood. They drove home in silence.

Katie organized her desk, waiting for Devon to appear. He was already five minutes late. It was uncommon for him to be late and she was worried. With her job, when her kids were late for meetings, that usually meant they were not coming and that usually meant they were into some bad things. Katie fussed at her desk, rearranging the pencil holder, the photo frame, a few pieces of paper to one spot and back to their original place. She opened drawers, looked inside, knowing what was inside, then closed them. Anything to keep her mind from running off with day dreams, day nightmares, of where Devon was and what was happening to him.

Fifteen minutes after their scheduled time, Katie heard a small knock. “Come in,” she said.

Sheepishly Devon stuck his head in, “Hi Ms. Verd, sorry for being late.”

Katie’s face flush with relief that he was safe, none of the myriad of scenarios her mind had envisioned had come to pass. “Come in, come in,” she said. Devon slipped in, closed the door and wafted into a chair. Katie took a deep breath and as quickly as the relief had hit her, a new emotion displaced it. Anger warmed her cheeks. She wanted to scream and demand he explain his tardiness. She knew she could get all of her answers without yelling, the yelling was an emotional response and would push Devon away. But it would feel good. Still she took another deep breath, felt the heat leave her face and calmly asked, “So why were you late Devon?”

“My friend Dario,” was his simple response.

Katie knew the name. “Dario, he is one of your dealer friends, right?”

Devon looked left and right as if scanning a crowd even though they were tucked safely in Katie’s office, “Is this between me and you?”

“Everything you say is just between you and I,” she said. While that was not strictly true, she would have to tell someone if he crossed a certain line, but for the most part it was true. Even though they were supposed to note everything, she chose not to, telling herself she was following the idea of the law if not the letter.

Looking left and right again, then leaning forward in his chair, Devon continued, “Okay, yes, Dario deals.”

“And you were helping? Is that why you were late?”

Flopping back in either disgust or relief, Katie could not tell, he exhaled the words, “No, he got beat up. I simply went over to see him. Come on, Ms. Verd, I’m trying to be good, give me some credit.”

Katie sat upright and folded her hands on her desk, “You’re right, I’m sorry.” Devon gave her a small nod in acknowledgement. Katie continued, “Speaking of being good, Julie says you are doing a great job for her. I am very proud of you. How are you liking it?”

Devon leaned forward again, “Can I be honest?”

“Of course.”

“It is soooo boring,” Devon whined. As much as Devon tried to build a tough image, which he did well enough that Katie sometimes forgot how young he really was, the child came out in his voice. It was the whine of a child being made to do something he did not want to do. It wavered and climbed to drop in pitch and climb again. Katie smiled in spite of herself. “You think it is funny I’m bored?” Devon asked as he pinched his mouth together and scrunched his brow.

“Not at all, but I do appreciate you saying what is on your mind,” Katie placed her hands flat on the table, “and it does make me a little happy, but not because you are bored, but because you are bored and still showing up and still doing a good job. It shows you’re growing and maturing. Life is not always fun. But the key is to being grown up is not always having fun but toughing it out when it is not fun. Like it or not Devon, you are growing and maturing.”

Devon smiled knowing this was one of the biggest compliments Katie could give him. Trying to hide the smile he said in mock annoyance, “You take that back.”

“I cannot, I am sorry, it is a fact,” Katie said, leaning back in her throwing her hands up in surrender. “There is nothing I can do about it. You are.” Pausing for a moment she then asked, “How is you friend Dario?”

“He’ll be OK. They didn’t want to kill him, or hurt him too bad, just wanted to send him a message.”

“And what message was that?”

“Another supplier showed up in town, and Dario was going to sell the new crew’s product on his corner. Dario’s main supplier, HIP--”

“Hip?” Katie cut him off.

“Yeah, the Harbor Island Posse. It’s a bit cheesy I know but I sure ain’t gonna tell ‘em.” Katie smiled and Devon continued, “So HIP beat up Dario to let him know not to try and work around them anymore but they didn’t want to beat him up too bad, as they need him to run that corner. Runners and look outs, thems out there everywhere. You gotta be smart to run a crew.”

Katie nodded, paused then asked, “So how does that make you feel?”

“Feel, about what?”

“How does it make you feel that your best friend got beat up, that these HIP guys did it, that you weren’t there?” Katie probed.

Devon thought about it for a long moment. Then with a calm on his face said, “Well, it sucks that he got beat up, but I’m happy he will be OK. I wish I could have done something, but even if I’d been there, I couldn’t have. HIP is strong, they got a lot of boys and probably rolled up on Dario deep because they knew Dario would have his boys with him. Those boys got beat too. They chose to run with thugs, think it’s good money for little work.” He broke into a smile and finished, “That’s why I work a boring job at Ivar’s.”

Katie smiled back at him.

“OK, so where are we really?” Russ asked.

“Well, right now we’re in trouble,” Jeff said, “We have far too much product.”

“What do you mean?” Mario asked, “I mean we got rid of the first stuff in two days. That should mean we can blitz through the rest of this stuff in six days.”

Jeff laughed, “If only it was that easy. See, when people learned how good our stuff was, they stocked up. That being said, some of those same people still don’t need refills and wont for a few more weekends. So I am guessing we could get through a key or a key and a half before the end of the month but that still leaves a lot of unsold product. Plus, we have to be more careful of who we sell to as we have Two-Time and his boys to avoid if they are not already out stealing my customers.”

“That’s not good. So what are our options,” Russ inquired.

“I’m not sure. Expanding is going to be hard. We really shouldn’t roll anywhere we’re not together. There is safety in numbers. But that limits mobility. I’ve never been a fan of having my customers come to me as then it means they know where I live and nothing sets off neighbor alarm bells more than random cars stopping by at any hour ,but we might need to think about it. Two-Time knows where I live so I’m not going back there any time soon. That means we’d need to work out of here.” Jeff paused and looked around the room at Russ and Mario. No one spoke and a gloom hung in the room. There was no sound from a TV, no radio was on, there was just an oppressing silence.

“I’m not sure what other play we have. There are only three of us and I’m sure Two-Time has a fairly large crew. We could still sell all of our stuff through a corner but I don’t know anyone else and never knew anyone not connected to Two-Time and his. Three guys can’t take and hold a corner.”

All three continued to sit in silence. Each one took turns looking at the other two. The silence became louder broken only by a very faint drip from the faucet in the kitchen every ten seconds or so. Drip, drip, drip, the minutes passed. No one moved save for their heads, swiveling back and forth on their rubber necks.

The silence was broken by Russ saying, “What if we had more men?”

“What?” Jeff asked.

“What if we had more men,” Russ repeated very calmly possibly even a little quieter than before as if Russ almost wanted to take the question back.

“What do you mean ‘what if we had more men’?” Jeff responded.

Russ sat up, this time adding some force to his statement but still maintaining an air of calm. “I mean, if we had more men, could we take and hold a corner?”

“Well sure,” Jeff said, “If we were looking to.”

“Hang on,” Mario chimed in, “Who said we were looking to take a corner?”

Everyone sat in silence. The weight of the room seemed to press in and the stale air felt as if it was smothering them. The seconds ticked into minutes. Each man looked at the floor, then at each of the other men then back at the floor in an odd repeating pattern. Russ again broke the silence, “I don’t think it is a matter of any of us wanting to take a corner but we need to unload this coke and our options are limited.” Russ stopped talking and let the silence drift back over them.