Clockers, page 40
"Ahab's."
"Shit. I wouldn't misdoubt it. Goddamn, this city? You can't go like two blocks without scoring something if you got a mind to."
Mazilli smiled. "You should know, right?"
"Hey, Mazilli. Be nice now."
Mazilli bobbed lazily in his chair, then sighed and skimmed the photo back to Rocco. "So what's cooking out there, Rodney? What's shakin'?"
Rodney pouted, pulled on his crotch. "Yeah, I got to talk to you about something." He said this out the side of his mouth, implying it was for Mazilli's ears only.
Rocco got up to leave, reasonably certain that Rodney had never had any dealings with Victor Dunham, or at least nothing involving a conspiracy to commit murder.
"Maz, I'm going over to BCI on something. Where you gonna be?"
Mazilli swirled his finger in a little circle. "Around."
"I'm gonna want to go to that bar later, Rudy's. You up for that?"
"Beep me. I'll meet you there."
Taking one last look at Rodney strolling around the office like he owned the place, Rocco slipped the Polaroid of Victor Dunham into the pocket of his sport jacket and headed for the door.
Outside in the parking lot Rocco pulled up short, the night so cool and clean he lingered a moment before getting into his car. Above the coke-smelting plant and the arc of the skyway, stars hung crisp in a deep purple sky like a promise that all grief is temporary, and Rocco experienced a transcendent flush of well-being. Patty, Erin, Homicide — he had it all. It would be so easy to get that wheel of small gifts going, so easy to heal himself if he wanted to. The hell with Sean Touhey, the hell with any life that wasn't truly connected to his own.
Rocco continued across the lot, then saw a battered Cadillac with Garfields suckered to the windows parked next to his car. A thirtyish but matronly black woman was half dozing in the front passenger seat. Rocco assumed she was Rodney's wife.
He walked over to her side of the car. She rolled down her window, blinking and half smiling.
"How are you?" Rocco kicked at some loose gravel.
"With the Lord." She gave a firm bob. "And yourself?"
"Holding my own. How about Rodney? He with the Lord too?"
"I'm trying, you best believe that."
"Yeah?" Rocco grinned.
"I'm gonna get 'im, too," she said.
"Yeah? Me too." He rocked his head from shoulder to shoulder, then said, "Good night now," and strolled off, thinking, One way or another no one gets away with anything in this life.
ft
IT HAD been two hours since the Homicides had left the projects, and Strike was still hiding in the lobby of 6 Weehawken, still brooding over the image of the heavyset detective who passed Tyrone on his chain perch, saying something that had made the kid smile, had made him turn his head and laugh. Two hours now and Strike was still pacing, thinking, What the hell is going on here?
Earlier in the evening, coming downstairs from the stash apartment, the books from his shopping trip with Andre under his arm, Strike had spotted the two Homicides just as they walked up to the benches. He recognized them both: one was the ballbreaker from Shaft Deli-Liquors, the other the heavyset cop from the night of the Ahab's. Certain they had come to pick him up, Strike hunkered down by the mailboxes with the books at his feet and peeked out the door until he caught Tyrone's eye. He beckoned the kid to the lobby, and when the Homicides began walking into the interior of the projects, Strike held Tyrone by his unmuscled arm and hissed,
"See where they go" — the first words he had uttered to the boy since their return from New York on Saturday. Big-eyed with mission, the kid flew off after the cops, then jogged back to Strike ten minutes later and breathlessly whispered, "Forty-one Dumont, eleventh floor." Strike had sent Tyrone back to his chain, and just as the kid took his seat, the benches exploded again — the Fury rolling up and grabbing Futon, Thumper and Futon's aunt going in each other's face, the Homicides returning to the scene when it was cooling down.
Now, prowling the lobby like a tiger in a tight cage, Strike tried to think it through. The Homicides had gone to his mother's house, Victor's house, probably to ask his mother and ShaRon if they had any idea what happened at Ahab's. But maybe they were looking for him, asking where they could find him.
He stared out at the benches. They were empty now, the crew temporarily scattered, Tyrone upstairs for the dinner hour. For a few minutes longer Strike watched the cars go by, hesitant, looking for dockers, the drivers put out, strung out, reluctantly moving off. When Tyrone finally came out of the building and resumed his position on the chain, Strike left his hideout and walked slowly toward him. They exchanged glances, then Strike turned and headed back to the lobby of 6 Weehawken.
After a minute or two Tyrone appeared in the doorway.
"What that cop say to you before?" Strike asked.
"Nothin'," Tyrone said hoarsely.
Strike studied his profile, trying to decipher the tension he saw there. "Hey, don't disrespect me by lyin to me. I saw him sayin' somethin' to you and I saw you laughin'."
Speechless, Tyrone gave a little shrug.
Strike sensed the kid's fear and remembered Andre, his warning about dealing with Tyrone, Strike thinking, But I'm not asking the kid to do anything.
"C'mon, man." Strike spoke more softly now, as if Andre was eavesdropping. "After all we done together? What's up with you?"
Tyrone fought down a smile on the word "we," and Strike knew he had him.
"He ast me, 'Who's Mister Big.' "
"He dint ask about me?"
"Unh-uh."
"How about Ronald Dunham. Did he say, "Where's Ronald Dunham?' "
"He just say, 'Who's Mister Big.' "
Mister Big? What the hell did that mean? "How come you ain't wearing those sneakers?"
Tyrone shrugged, looking ashamed.
Strike read the story in the shrug and let it slide, remembering that the kid's mother was supposed to be a third-degree artist.
"C'mere," he said. Seeing Tyrone hesitate, he impatiently gestured for the kid to come close. "I ain't gonna bite you. C'mere."
Strike picked up the stack of books from under the mailboxes and pressed them to Tyrone's midsection, moving the kid's arms for him so that he had a firm two-handed grip on all eleven volumes.
"Here," Strike said, trying to come off positive and strong. "You should learn about yourself, where you're coming from."
Tyrone stared at him, mute and solemn.
Strike stared back, then turned his head away in exasperation. "Goddamn. Don't you ever say thank you?"
About a half hour later, soon after Strike got up the nerve to resettle on the benches, Rodney drove by and honked his horn. He had his wife with him, dozing in the front passenger seat, her temple pressed flat against the window. She awoke with a start when Strike slid in the back, slamming the door after him. For the duration of the ride from the benches to Rodney's house, she hummed a gospel tune in a faint, high-pitched trill.
Rodney parked across the street from his house and watched in silence as Clover got out and then fumbled with her keys at the front door. When she disappeared inside, he turned to face Strike, who was still sitting in the back seat. "How come you didn't tell me it was your brother did it?"
Strike stopped himself. He'd been about to say that Victor didn't do it, But then Rodney would say, "Well, who did?" and the thought of telling Rodney about Buddha Hat filled Strike with terror.
Strike tried to keep his voice even. "You said you dint want to know nothin'."
"Your brother best not say nothin'."
"He-he don't know nothin'."
"Then what he do it for?"
Not knowing how to answer, Strike kept his mouth shut.
"You pay him?"
"Unh-unh."
"What do you mean, he don't know nothin'?"
"I told him some story."
Rodney gave him a steady look, then turned around and drove off. After a few minutes of silence, he caught Strike's eye in the rearview mirror. "How come he gave hisself up? He religious?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, he go to-to church sometime, but he don't talk about Je-Jesus or nothin'."
Rodney chewed on that, then said, "I thought you told someone in a bar who was supposed to reach out, get somebody else."
"I did. I told him. I don't know what happened." Strike leaned forward, feeling awkward riding alone in the back seat. "The Ha-Homicides come by to see my mother."
"They just doing a follow-up. That's their job."
Strike was surprised that Rodney didn't seem especially worried about any of this news; it was as if the murder was old business, not his concern. "You-you think they'll come and talk to me?"
Rodney shrugged. "They might. I was them? /would. But Mazilli? The guy with the store? Once they got somebody, he don't care too much on postarrest follow-ups. He likes to move on, so I wouldn't worry about it. By the time they get around to you? Shit, there's gonna be another murder anyhow."
"Who?"
"I don't know who. I'm just sayin', it's over with, they got their arrest, that's all I'm sayin'."
Rodney waved a hand as if to declare the subject dead, and Strike felt overwhelmed with the urge to confess, the impulse stronger than any fear of what Rodney might do. This time he didn't hold back: "I don't think he did it, my brother."
"What's that?" Rodney glanced into the rearview again and the car slowed.
"I think my brother's taking the weight for-for someone." Strike floated off somewhere, watching himself speak as if in a trance. He distantly wondered if he could take it all the way and utter Buddha Hat's name.
"Who's he takin' the weight for?" Rodney asked, that dangerous mildness creeping into his tone.
Strike hesitated, daring himself to give it up, but then said only, "I don't know."
"You sure?"
Strike said nothing.
"Well shit, you don't know? Then that's good, that's good. Like
I always say, what you don't know don't hurt you. Don't I always say that?" Rodney studied Strike in the mirror, then eased to a dead stop in the middle of the street. "What you sittin' back there for? I ain't no fuckin' chauffeur."
Rodney patted Clover's seat, and as Strike got out of the car, he was swamped by the return of that sweaty assessment of himself he had experienced skulking around Ahab's — no plan, no heart. And then it occurred to him that Buddha Hat was getting away with a triple murder here: Papi, Darryl and his brother.
With Strike next to him, Rodney turned onto the boulevard and started waving at people again, all the dockers out in force now. Three blocks farther on, Rodney pulled up alongside an older, crook-backed pipehead, jerking the Caddy toward the sidewalk as if about to mow the guy down, making him scuttle for safety. Strike recognized Popeye from the benches.
Popeye shuffled up to Strike's open window. Rodney laughed "What the fuck you jumpin' for?"
"Rodney," Popeye mumbled, scouring the car interior with hungry eyes. "Rodney the man. Strike the man too."
"Where you gonna be later?" Rodney reached over and tapped Popeye's hand, which rested on the edge of the window. "Look at him," Rodney said to Strike, "he's tryin' to sniff out the dope." Then, to Popeye: "Where you gonna be, man? I need a taster."
"I be wherever you want me to be," Popeye said, giving them a tiny smile, a paydirt smile.
"Come to the store about twelve."
"Yeap, yeap." Popeye straightened up. "You got anything for me you want sampled now?"
Rodney smirked and rolled off.
"What you need a tay-taster for?" Strike asked.
Rodney reached under his seat and pulled up a Ziploc bag of blond-tinted coke. "This from some Colombians in Jersey City. They wanted to give it to me free, you know, like a free sample? But I said, 'Fuck that, you take my goddamn money, motherfuckers, 'cause gifts have a habit of coming back on you.' You know what I mean?"
Rodney tossed the bag into Strike's lap. It was about a quarter ounce, the trial-size offering of a kilo supplier to a prospective customer. Strike let it lie there, his anxiety over Buddha Hat, over Victor, replaced now with an exhausted resignation.
"Yeah, some people you never take gifts from. You always keep
it on a strict business level. I mean, other guys, like the guy that owns the building for my store? He's Egyptian or Israeli or some damn thing, yesterday he says to me, 'You ain't foolin' me, I know what you up to,' and I'm thinkin', 'Damn, he's gonna kick me out I just moved in, or he's goin' to the cops.' But he says, 'You ought to try my shit sometime, I'll give you a good price.' So, him . . ." Rodney reached over and pointed to another Ziploc bag from his glove compartment. "Him I'll take a free sample off. He's OK, but the other guys? Business is business."
Strike tried to tune out the fact that they were driving around with felony-weight cocaine.
"Israeli," Strike said, just to say something.
"Well, I just got to wait till Popeye comes by the store, see who wins the taste test."
"So you going back into weight, huh?" Strike said it more as a sorrowful announcement than a question.
"Yeah, well, I figure they got their lockup on the Ahab's, and I'm just about coming to the end of my grief period over Papi, you know? So, yeah, the good news is we're going into business in a few days. Just like we planned."
We: Shit.
"So ha-how's it going with Champ?" Strike tried to sound casual. "The knocko make his buys yet?"
"Hell yeah, he's in like Flynn. Champ's goin' down, goin' down, goin' . . . mother/wc^er!"
Rodney floored the Caddy, banked the steering wheel hard to the left, spun in a shrieking about-face and took off.
"You got anything?" Rodney said angrily, taking the dope from Strike's lap and tossing it under his seat.
"Anything?"
"Anything to go to jail with."
Rodney didn't wait for an answer. He roared up behind a bright red van, honked as if to pass, then pulled abreast and shook a fist at the driver. Strike looked up: it was that white-bearded knocko named Jo-Jo. Sitting above them, his elbow cocked high, Jo-Jo had a hand deep in his shirt as if ready to draw a gun on whoever had been chasing him.
He broke into a big cheery grin and waved when he saw Rodney. But Rodney was having none of it. He leaned across Strike's lap in order to look up into Jo-Jo's face and waved for him to pull off the
road, acting as if he was the highway patrol and Jo-Jo was some speeder.
Jo-Jo laughed down at them and gunned the engine in little spurts. "Rodney, you wanna drag?"
"Pull the fuck over!" His face livid, Rodney waved wildly for the van to stop.
"What's up, Rodney?"
"Just pull the fuck over!" Rodney shouted again, misting Strike with spittle.
With an amused, mock-fearful look on his face, Jo-Jo did as he was told, gliding into the parking lane and stopping under the flashing orange chase lights that framed the storefront of an all-night video and smoke shop.
Rodney jerked to a rocking halt parallel to the van, blocking traffic, both cars winking metallically in the lurid gleam.
"What's up, chief?" Jo-Jo looked down from his roost into Strike's window.
Rodney, stretched out across the length of the front seat, planted his elbow on Strike's thigh and bellowed up at the cop. "We finished, motherfucker. Me and you. We through.'"
"What's the problem?" Jo-Jo said mildly.
"You know what the problem is." Rodney dug deeper into Strike's thigh.
"Hey Rodney, I'm not a fucking mind reader."
"You hung my motherfuckin' phone."
"Me?" Jo-Jo pressed his fingers to his chest, smiled through his beard.
"Yeah, you."
Jo-Jo retreated from his window, apparently in conference with whoever else was in the van, then popped his head out again.
"Who told you this, Rodney?"
Rodney glared at him.
"Hey, you might have a tapped phone or not, but we didn't hang it."
"I ain't payin' you one red dime no more!"
Not following any of this, worried about the sample under the driver's seat and the other quarter ounce in the glove compartment, Strike casually turned his head into Rodney's ribs, which were almost crushing his nose. There was something so physically overpowering about the way Rodney was ignoring him now, something
so willful and unstoppable in the way he had reduced Strike to the status of furniture, that Strike experienced a moment of pure clarity: he would never make it out of here, would never rise above his current position as Rodney's lieutenant, because all the intelligence and prudence and vision came to nothing if it wasn't tempered and supported by a certain blindness, an oblivious animal will that Rodney had, that Champ probably had and that he, Strike did not have. Rodney would survive all this — Champ, Buddha Hat, Darryl Adams, Jo-Jo, the Homicides, the Latinos, the Mafia, the Virus, maybe even old age — not because of his guts or his brains, but because he understood that there was no real life out here on the street, no real lives other than his own, and that what really mattered was coming first in all things, in all ways and at all costs.
Jo-Jo's face had lost a little of its humor. "Hey Rodney, you're paranoid enough to be a cop."
