Okay, Royal thought, this cop was in the bar when I had that drink with Phoenix. Before the party. Talk about bad luck. And Royal remembered the days before he got busted. At the time, he was staying in a boarded up house down on Forty-second, just behind a piñata shop and a liquor store. It was this cop who got the word on Royal and waited for him outside. Royal remembered crawling out a window and heading through the back alley. That was when Slim Frank (not fat back then) tackled him and slapped the bracelets around his wrists. This was the cop who caught Royal. The same fucking cop. Man, he thought, shit keeps rolling downhill—not even time can outrun it. I sure as shit can’t. Royal cleared his throat and said, “Time has been kind to you, officer Slim Fat Frank.”

  “That’s Detective Slim Fat Frank, punk.”

  “If you say so.”

  “And so you look some shit up,” Frank said, “and you find out the motherfucker you put away for murder is out on the streets and living the high life—even got himself a car.”

  “And you think,” Royal said, “You might as well make friends with him.”

  “That’s right,” Skinny Slade said.

  “What do you say, Royal?” Frank scratched the back of his neck, nibbled on the tip of the cigar. “You want to be friends, or we going to stay enemies after all these kind and wondrous years?”

  “Do I got a choice?”

  Frank whistled at the statement. “Have you ever had a choice, Royal?”

  Chapter 30

  Stella took a cab after her gig, got dropped at the drug store about a block from her apartment. Inside, she bought a pack of pink razors, two bottles of white zinfandel, a tall bottle of sparkling water, and a pair of cute tumblers with elves dancing around the outside (an impulse buy). She was going to mix spritzers for her and Junior, try to get the man buzzed—along with herself—while they talked. As she walked along the boulevard, a small European-style car pulled alongside, stopped beside the curb a few feet ahead of her. The passenger side window rolled down and Stella started to hurry past—some weirdo stopping to harass her, she bet. But she recognized the voice when it floated from the car.

  “Hey there, lady.”

  Stella bent to the window, peered inside at Junior’s half-grin and large left hand atop the steering wheel. “Junior? What the heck is this, baby?”

  “My new whip. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s better than the city bus. Kind of feminine if you ask me.”

  “Shit, Stella. They told me this puppy is a classic. Like, in high demand with enthusiasts.” His grin widened. “You need a ride?”

  “Enthusiasts, huh? Sounds like you got swindled.”

  Royal laughed. He glanced at each mirror. Swung his eyes back to her.

  “You looking for somebody?” Stella saw his face flatten for an instant. It was fast, but it was a slight expression of fear or worry. It was the kind of look everybody knows. Not hard to read.

  “No, no. Just looking for you. Get in. Let’s get you home.”

  Okay, Stella thought. Now, you’re lying to me again.

  But she got in the car anyway.

  “Spritzers. Talk about a lady drink.”

  “You don’t want one?” From the kitchen, Stella glared at Junior sitting on the couch. She liked the way he let his long body droop over everything. He rested on things; at the bar, on the couch, in her bed. No, she told herself, our bed. Even if he is lying to me. She didn’t want to let that go. As she mixed the drinks in the elf glasses, Stella said, “I know you were looking for somebody back there. You can tell me, Junior.”

  He cleared his throat and sat up straight, pressed his firm back into the plush couch cushions.

  Stella came out of the kitchen. She set the drinks on the coffee table and sat beside him. She watched him lift the glass and drain it to below the halfway point. “You need to think about telling me.”

  He finished the drink. “It’s Phoenix and Markie. They’re just trouble, man. And now I got some cop—”

  “A cop?”

  “Detective.”

  “A detective?”

  “Some detective,” Junior said. “Two detectives, actually. They want me to hang around with those dudes, report back about whatever.”

  Stella shifted on the couch, scratched her chin. “You mean, hang around with the two of them and, like, commit crimes?” Her heart pounded and blood ran into her face. My God, she thought, it’s hot in here. She stood and opened a window, sank back into the couch while Junior shook his head.

  “I’m not supposed to do anything. I’m just supposed to keep my ear to the ground or whatever.”

  “Snitch then?”

  “Man, Stella. Please don’t say it like that.”

  “Let me ask you something, Junior.” Her mind was racing and, for some odd reason, Stella flashed on the first night she saw Junior, to the feeling of his hand resting on her neck, his leathery deep voice as he told Markie to leave her alone. “How the hell do you know those two?” She couldn’t believe it took her this long to ask—she should have asked the first night they met.

  “Like I said before, we live in the same place.”

  “What place?”

  “Some apartments.”

  Stella never saw where Junior lived. He never asked her to visit. “A complex?”

  Junior shook his head. “It’s like a room for rent situation.”

  “A room for rent?”

  “What’s this got to do with the cops, Stella?”

  “The detectives.” She straightened her lips after correcting him, moved away on the couch, as far as she could get. More lies. All of it—he was lying. Stella lifted her spritzer, drained the whole thing.

  “Stella, I’m wrapped up in this thing by accident.”

  Stella stood, took both their glasses to the kitchen. She mixed new drinks. She didn’t speak as she swirled the ice, wine and sparkling water. She sat back on the couch and handed Junior his new drink. They both sipped in silence.

  Finally, Junior said, “It’s a halfway house.”

  “Like, transitional housing?” Stella finished her drink. She played the glass along the palm of one hand, moved it around in tiny circles. Here it is, she thought.

  “I got out of prison recently, Stella.”

  “Did you now?” She sighed and started to laugh. But her throat caught and she shifted her position on the couch, shoved one leg beneath the other. She squared off and faced Junior with her whole body. “What’d you do to go to prison, Junior? Kill somebody?”

  “You think I’d get out if I killed somebody?”

  Stella licked her upper lip. Slowly, she shook her head. “What then? Robbery? Grand theft auto? Let’s get it all out in the open.”

  Junior finished his drink in one gulp. “I need something stronger.”

  She got up and poured him some whiskey in a plastic cup—old stuff. She brought it back to him and, again, squared to face him on the couch. She watched as he took a long sip, hissed at the burn in his throat. “I need to know about all this if you’re going to stay here, Junior,” she said. “We need to get it out where we can see it. So we don’t run into it anymore. That’s what I want—no more sucker punches.”

  Junior sighed and said, “I was up there for armed robbery, okay? It was a liquor store I did down off Home Avenue.”

  “When was this?”

  “A long time ago. I got sent up, and had to stay because…” He trailed off and pointed at the scar that ran alongside his face. “I got in trouble on the inside, something I couldn’t avoid.”

  Stella said, “Tell me about the liquor store.”

  “I told you I was working for that florist? Well, I didn’t make much, okay? I was staying in a little walkup off University, right by where they sell those good papusas. Surviving on fucking papusas and tamales and Cobra beer. That’s what I was doing, and this goddamn city wouldn’t let me get ahead. I couldn’t make rent, find a second job—it was like a black cloud settling over me.”

  Stella watched him carefully as he spoke. My god, she thought, this good looking man here was in prison. And little did I know. Here he is, gets out and finds me. And the thing is, I like the man. Shit, she thought, I love the man. Not like Virgil—fine. But still. And what he was describing…Well, Stella knew a little bit about it. She understood the black cloud. Yes, she did.

  Junior drained the plastic glass of whiskey. “I needed about three hundred bucks, Stella. I had a gun, an old revolver. I mean, the shit barely worked. I hadn’t even shot the fucker. So, I find this place off Home—real crappy kind of place, but I knew they did good business. It’s a corner store really.”

  “Right.”

  “I go in there one night and I hit the clerk over the head. It was a tap,” Junior said. He lifted both hands as if to say, not me, I’d never really hurt anybody. “Guy falls down. His head’s bleeding, but he’s fine—I promise. He’s got a little bump on the head and it’s bleeding. Look, in the cash register I find two hundred, and I run to the back office to check the safe. Just because—it’s what I saw in movies. What do I know, right? It’s my first time—”

  “Your only time.”

  Junior hesitated for an instant, but said, “My only time. And I’m doing what I think is the right thing. I mean, it’s the wrong thing, but it’s right for that particular, you know, job or whatever. I get back there and…” He leaned back in the couch, drooped himself over the room.

  Stella breathed from deep in her belly and said, “Tell me.”

  “There was a lady back there. And, look, I got no excuse, Stella.”

  “So, what about her?”

  “I smacked the lady over the head. I had to—”

  “Jesus.”

  “I was scared, Stella. And, yeah, so were they—I know it. I was wrong. I did a bad thing.” He tried to look at her.

  Stella stared at the Christmas elves dancing around her glass and the melting ice inside it. “What happened after that?”

  “I couldn’t get the safe open—I tried as hard as hell—and then I left.”

  “Two hundred bucks.”

  “It was a bad thing I did.”

  “You never did it again.”

  “I got caught a couple weeks later. I couldn’t pay rent and I set up shop in this old house, abandoned place off Forty-second and Orange.”

  “They found you?”

  “Some cop ran into me in the alley. He got lucky.”

  “So,” Stella said, “these two cops you’re telling me about—”

  “The detectives.”

  “They’re just doing their job, checking in on you.”

  “Checking up on me.”

  “You get what you deserve.”

  He looked at her with those big brown, brooding eyes, his body drooped over the couch, the room, her heart. “And sometimes you get things you don’t deserve. That’s what I found out.”

  Stella’s heart was still running hard and hot. She knew it was true she should be repulsed by Junior, by his lies and past. But there was a part of Stella that was so romantic—all this prison time and tragedy made her feel like she was in a song, like she was a character living out her own story, and that she should do her best to live the song to its fullest potential—and the best songs, Stella knew, were love songs. “So, you need to give the detectives what they want. That’s exactly what you need to do.”

  Junior didn’t respond.

  “You’re not a snitch if, I mean, if nobody knows. You’re just, an informant.”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “And they’re right.” She reached out, placed a hand on his knee. Stella squeezed the fleshy muscle of Junior’s thigh. “Baby,” she said, “they’re right.”

  “It’s the same cop, Stella. The detective.”

  “What?”

  “The guy who caught me back then. Today, it was the same guy.”

  “And it’s not a coincidence?”

  “He saw me in a bar with Phoenix. Guy who calls himself Slim Fat Frank.”

  Stella gave a sharp intake of breath—now her heart was really pumping. “I know Frank,” she said. “Shit, I know him by sight. Fat guy in an overcoat, flashes his badge wherever he goes. That’s what everybody calls him—Slim Fat Frank. He drinks over at Lance’s, down by the park.” And the memory from the night of the party came back to Stella. The hulking man leaning on the dark sedan outside her apartment—that was Slim Fat Frank following Junior.

  Junior nodded to her.

  Stella said, “And he’s got a partner named—”

  “Skinny Slade.”

  They sat staring at each other for a long moment. Stella tossed her head from one shoulder to the next. She said, “You’re going to tell them whatever they want to hear, Junior. And maybe, if we get lucky, they’ll put Phoenix where he belongs. This is good, Junior—you got lucky with this.”

  Junior didn’t respond. Instead, his face made that flattened expression, the one that Stella knew meant worry. Cold, hard worry. She kept thinking how handsome he looked, even with that scar down one side of his face. Stella stared at him while he worried, and—she was ashamed to admit later—she didn’t give a second thought to the liquor store clerk and the woman in the office. She didn’t even ask Junior if they ended up okay.

  Chapter 31

  Stella came out of a deep sleep with the phone ringing. She saw the darkness still seeping in behind the bedroom blinds, but reached out anyway to tip the phone to her ear. “Who is this?”

  “Put Royal on.”

  “Who?” Stella tried to pull herself from dreams—she knew she was on the phone and there was a voice, but she was still confused.

  “Junior. You know who I mean. Put Junior on.”

  “He’s asleep.”

  “Woman, I don’t give two shits he’s asleep. I don’t give a fuck if he’s shaving with a hypodermic needle. You better put his ass on the phone.”

  Stella knew the voice—Phoenix. She nudged the man beside her. “Get up, you got a phone call.”

  “He waking up?” Phoenix again, insistent.

  “Hold on.” Stella elbowed Royal, did it again until he moaned.

  “What now?” He opened one eye, peered at Stella.

  “You got a phone call.”

  That brought him out of it and he sat up against the headboard, took the phone from Stella, pressed it to his ear with the cord running across the two of them in bed. “It’s me.”

  Stella tried to hear what the other voice said, but it was all muffled. She caught Junior’s side of the conversation fine.

  After a moment, he said: “Man, what the fuck time is it? I’m sleeping here, Phoenix. Man, this shit has gotten too crazy. I never said that, and I never played it like that. Always this shit about the money. Always this mention of the money. You think I can’t get it elsewhere? No—that’s not what I’m saying. You know that’s not what I’m saying.”

  Stella waited as the conversation switched to the other man. Muffled shouts came through the receiver—Phoenix sounded pissed off. No other way to describe it, Stella thought. The man’s a monster. Maybe he’s a minor monster, but he’s a damn monster.

  Junior said, “Fuck, man. What time? Right now? Where you want me to pick you up? Fine, fine. Yeah, I know that area. I’ll get over there right now, man. But I got to get dressed for this, okay? I know. I hear you—I’m on the way.”

  He handed Stella the phone and she hung it up, raised her eyebrows at him. The room was dark and quiet.

  Stella said, “You going to run an errand?”

  “I’m going to do some chores with Phoenix.”

  “Chores?”

  “Yeah—you get paid for chores, you know? Errands, you pay everybody else.”

  “It’s what? Four o’clock in the morning?”

  “Chores don’t wait, Stella. Not these kind.”

  “Is this how it’s going to be, us living together?”

  He shook his head. “I promise, it won’t.”

  “How are you going to get out of it? Get us out of it?”

  Darkness. Silence. Uncertainty.

  Stella said the thought before she knew she thought it: “We’re going to have to get rid of that ugly motherfucker.” She heard him inhale sharply, start to breathe heavy beneath the blankets. “Nothing else you can do.”

  “Nothing else we can do.”

  “We can do,” Stella repeated. She made a sound in her throat and said, “We have to do it so it’s not messy. So nobody knows about it, or so nobody finds him. Because I don’t know if I can—”

  “Lie to the cops.”

  “Once,” she said. “Once I can do. But more than that, I can’t be sure.”

  “You won’t have to, Stella. You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Not if I have anything to do with it.”

  But I already am, Stella thought. I’m already—in my head and heart—doing things I don’t want to do. Or thinking of doing them. Why? Because I’m in love. Love is doing shit you don’t want to do, especially when you don’t want to do it. Yes, Stella—that’s what love is. It’s going against your own wishes. It’s hurting your own interests, giving them up, forgetting about yourself to get wrapped and ingested into somebody else. Love means being chewed up. Love means you get digested, churned, ground into paste. She snaked her hand across the bed, found Royal’s firm belly. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Junior. I don’t want you to get hurt,” she said.

  “I won’t. I promise you that. He’s the one—”

  “Who needs the hurting.”

  “Right. Stella, I—”

  “Want something you can’t say.”

  “I can say it.”

  “Go ahead then.”

  “You,” Royal said. “I want you.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19