Roughneck eyed him carefully as he let go of the wrist. Clarence brought his hand out empty. “Hang on one sec,” he said. “I’m a reach in here and get my blow, hit that, and then I’m a kick your ass.”

  Rough stepped back, crossed his arms, and watched what Clarence would do. He knew if there was a gun in the glove compartment and Clarence reached for it, he’d be able to start kicking the shit out of him before he could do anything.

  In the back seat, Ness looked out at Roughneck expressionless, like this was all going down on TV.

  Clarence opened the glove box and brought out a little black vial. He slipped off the top, tooted once into each nostril, then his eyes went wide and he shook his head once, quickly. “Yeah, blood!” he said. “You ever taste this shit?”

  He shook the vial at Rough. When Rough didn’t answer, he said, “Didn’t think so,” and got up out of the car. “I leave it in there, these monkeys get to it.” He waved back at the other two. “Nah. Got to keep my shit right here.” He patted his chest.

  “You breaking rule one,” Rough said.

  “Fuck is that?”

  Roughneck started to count off on his fingers, but Clarence came at him fast and kicked him in the shin.

  “The fuck?” He looked down at his lower leg, and that was when Clarence stepped in fast and with a hard right hook that caught him in the ear. Roughneck blinked and shuffled to his side. The punch sounded like Clarence blew up a bomb in his ear.

  Rough brought his hand up to his head, and that was when Clarence reached a left jab into his nose. Now Rough stumbled back, standing up straight. “The fuck?” He saw white in front of his face and tried to blink it away.

  “Fuck with me?” Clarence said.

  Rough tried one of the sweeping wrist blocks he learned at Fred Villari, but it didn’t connect.

  “Look at me,” he heard Clarence say.

  He blinked a few times and could see Clarence standing in front of him, lighting another one of his Kools. “You don’t fuck with a man’s car. You hear?” Clarence had his left foot forward, like he was in a boxing stance. He shook the left foot and Rough watched it, then Clarence stepped forward and shot out another jab to Rough’s nose. It staggered him, made things go white again.

  “My 98 Olds-mo-bile! So!”

  Rough heard Clarence’s feet shuffle and then felt his chin blow up on the left side of his face. Another right.

  “My 98 Olds-mo-bile is!”

  “Yo, yo, hold up!” It was Milk’s voice that Rough heard from just next to them. Rough blinked away the tingling in his nose and wiped his eyes. Clarence stood in front of him smoking, with Milk off to the side.

  “That’s all right,” Clarence said, taking a hard drag of his Kool. “I was done with him anyway.” He flicked the cigarette at Roughneck and it hit him square in the chest, then bounced off. Clarence turned and stepped back to his car, already shaking the black vial by his side.

  “The fuck?” Milk said, reaching around to the back of his pants where he kept his gun. “I should?”

  Rough felt like he was ready to pop, as if his skull might blow wide open with anger. He wanted to rip the car apart piece by piece, but he held it together. He put a hand on Milk’s shoulder. “Uh uh.”

  If there was one rule that Rock’s boys all knew, it was not to pull a gun on a soldier, not one of your own, no matter what. Keeping the cops away from the towers was one thing when you had to drop a body now and then, but if they actually started popping off at each other, they’d never get a free day. And since Clarence hadn’t broken that rule, neither could Milk.

  “Not today,” Rough said. “Today we just walk away.”

  Milk’s eyes widened like he couldn’t believe what Rough was saying, and Rough couldn’t believe it either. You didn’t take a beating and back down or walk away. His mind raged with the things he wanted to do. But he had control.

  Rough shook his head as he watched Clarence shut the door of his Olds, rev the engine, and peel out in reverse, leaving a trail of white smoke from its exhaust.

  “We chill right now.” Rough touched his ear where it still stung and brought his hand back to look at it: no blood.

  He blinked and stared at the Olds as it pulled away from the tower and screeched out of the parking lot toward Route 2.

  28

  Junius looked down at the thick tan carpet in the empty apartment. Marlene stood in front of him and Seven to his right. Elf was next to him; he could see his boy’s Adidas.

  “I’m a make sure this shit didn’t happen to Temple for nothing.” He thought of his mother, her wish that he get out of the city, flee the scene for New York, and the way he’d have to walk with one eye on his back forever if he did, no matter where he ran. He shook his head. She couldn’t lose another son to New York or a bullet. Now that he was here in the Towers and had come so far, his mind was made up: he would stay.

  Marlene walked toward the door and Seven jumped to open it, then held it for her as she walked out. When she had gone, he let it shut. He turned back to them.

  “This what you wanted, huh? This where you want to be?”

  Seven had three lines cut into his eyebrow, to show how many people he had killed. Some crews cut it into their eyebrows, some gave each other tattoos. Big Willie’s boys didn’t do shit. They didn’t want to wear any proof of what they’d done. But Junius believed. Looking at Seven, he knew the man had killed three, probably fools from Rock’s crew.

  “You got a snake biting your ass too?” Junius asked.

  Seven laughed. He moved his chin like he was chewing. Maybe he meant it to be a nod.

  “We all got snakes around here.” Seven winked and then tilted his head toward the kitchen. He stepped around the divider onto the linoleum. When he clapped his hands onto the counter, Junius and Elf jumped. They walked to where most of the towers’ residents would probably put a small table for eating and stood at the divide.

  On the other side, Seven Heaven opened the freezer. Junius could see the refrigerator wasn’t plugged in.

  Instead the ice in the freezer was all black steel. Seven took out two guns—ones with long, extended clips in front of their handles. They looked like something Junius had seen in toy stores—like the water pistols he played with just last summer, running around up in Somerville trying to get ladies’ shirts wet with fake pump-action Uzis—only these were more real. The barrels were short, but Seven screwed a black extension onto the end of each—silencers. He took the clips out, cleared the chambers, and held the guns up in front of his chest to show they weren’t loaded, and then he slid them onto the counter with the handles facing Junius and Elf.

  Elf pulled his hands off the counter like he’d just touched a hot skillet.

  Seven Heaven laughed. “Don’t be shy, yo. You want to run in this world, you gonna have to touch some steel.”

  Elf turned to Junius, bit his lip. “Yesterday we had a gat. Look where that got us.”

  “Got us alive today,” Junius said, reaching for the gun closest to him. “We come fresh without and Lamar shoot us both.”

  “You right about that. Shit.” Seven reached behind him and slid open a drawer next to the stove. Inside was nothing but long black magazines. He laid three out in front of Junius. “These the loaded,” he said. “Thirty-two in each, and you don’t have to think about putting one in the chamber.”

  He picked up the gun in front of Elf. “Watch.” With his right hand holding the gun, his finger off the trigger, Seven pulled back the bolt and jammed a clip into the bottom of the stock. The damn thing looked like it wanted you to hold it with two hands and fire from the waist.

  When Seven had pushed the clip all the way up, he pulled the bolt out and it snapped forward.

  “Round chambered now, son.” He held up the gun and pointed it at the wall. “Bang.”

  Elf stepped back. He laughed.

  “You keep grinning like a motherfucker, I’m a shoot you my damn self,” Seven said.

  Then Seven showed them the clip release near the trigger guard and pulled the clip out again. He slid the bolt back, releasing the bullet from the chamber, and laid the gun down on the counter unloaded.

  Junius picked up the weapon closest to him. He took the clip and hefted its weight, trying to get the feel in his hands. The gun was already heavier than the nine Willie gave him—the piece he felt made him a man, took Lamar out, and started all this mess.

  He pushed the clip into the well and let the bolt pop forward, testing the new weight. With the gun loaded, it felt more stable, balanced. He felt the urge to hold the magazine with his left hand. In two hands, the gun felt right, and like he expected someone would use it in a movie—shooting from the waist, mowing people down.

  “Shit,” he said. It couldn’t be that easy.

  Seven smiled. “This the Tec-9, motherfucker. Silencer equipped. You don’t fuck with these. No one see you, hear you, know you around. You hop in and hop out like a cat.” He shook his head. “Semi-auto, son. That means you just pull that trigger and pop off long as you need.” He leveled a cold stare on the two of them, his hand still on the second gun. “Understand?”

  The gun Junius held was all black, not cold and not warm, hard in his hands. Along the silencer, holes had been punched in the metal. Junius imagined shooting. “Fuck, yes,” he said.

  Seven spoke again, this time louder. “You understand?”

  Junius looked all along the length of the gun, saw its brand name stenciled into its side. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

  “Good. Because I won’t.”

  But when Junius looked up at Seven, he was staring at Elf.

  Elf reached for the gun like it was some kind of drug that could get him addicted and spit him out somewhere in an empty sewer. He touched the handle with the tips of his fingers, brushing against the texture of the grip.

  “Give me that!” Seven picked up the Tec by the barrel and grabbed Elf’s wrist. He forced the gun into his palm and then curled Elf’s finger around the trigger.

  “You feel this?” he asked, shaking Elf’s arm. “You hold this gat and feel it now, because this piece save your fucking life.” He pointed the gun at his own chest, Elf still holding it. “Feel that?” He pushed Elf’s finger back on the trigger, and the hammer clicked on nothing.

  “That’s how it feel to pull a trigger on a man. Now you ever have to do it for real, you best not hesitate. You do?” Seven looked at the two of them. “One or both of you be dead.”

  Junius tried sliding the Tec down the back of his pants, but it felt big there, too heavy.

  “Nah,” Seven said. He grabbed the front of Junius’s pants and pulled him closer to the counter, then reached behind him and took the gun. “This ain’t no movie.” He pushed the gun down the front of Junius’s jeans, the grip sticking up above his waistline. “You have this right here, no fucking way you forget it.”

  Seven pushed Junius away. “That your power, son. You big now.”

  Junius nodded. He felt the gun press against his stomach, pulled out his shirt and covered it. “Yeah,” he said. “I be set.”

  “Good. Now you best not point that shit anywhere near me.”

  Elf held the other Tec-9 in his hand, still staring at it.

  “Elf,” Junius said. “What up, niggah?”

  Elf nodded. Seven held out a clip, and Elf loaded it into the gun as Junius had, as Seven had shown them. “Ok,” he said.

  Elf held the gun at his shoulder height toward the weed room and aimed at the wall. “Ok,” he said. “Ok.”

  Seven took Elf’s hand and pulled the gun toward him. He pushed in the bolt and it clicked. “Safety,” he said. “So you be safe.” Then he pushed the weapon down the front of Elf’s jeans.

  Elf nodded, the silly grin finally off his face.

  On the counter lay four more clips. Seven pushed them across to Junius and Elf, and they each took two and slipped them into their pockets. The clips were long and stuck out, but with their shirts untucked, they were hard to see.

  Seven nodded. “You ready to do work?”

  Elf looked at Junius, and Junius nodded. “Just tell us where we start.”

  Seven smiled. He said two words: “Black Jesus.”

  29

  In the stairway of 411, Elf sat down on the landing between the eighth and ninth floors. “Hold up,” he said, breathing hard. They’d only come down from sixteen, but Elf looked winded; he dropped his head between his knees. The Tec-9 stuck out in his shirt, and Junius could see its barrel poking through his jeans.

  Seven had taken the elevator up after he left them. Instead of waiting for it, they took the stairs. According to Seven, there were windows in the stairways below the sixth floor that they could watch 412 from, to see when Black Jesus made a move. That was Seven Heaven’s big suggestion: sit in the stairs and watch 412 for Rock and Black Jesus.

  Elf covered his eyes with one hand, then leaned back and pulled the Tec out of his pants. “See the size of this thing?” he asked, holding it in front of him, the barrel pointed at the ceiling.

  Junius snorted. It was funny the way Elf held the gun, the look of surprise on his face.

  “You don’t want it?”

  “Yo, fuck, man. You hear me?” Elf shook the gun. “They gave us machine guns! Look at this fucking thing.”

  “Shit. We start thinking, we go crazy. Can’t think now. Just do.”

  Elf shook his head. “Shit. Then I gots to get blunted.”

  Junius spit against the wall. “Downstairs,” he said. “You can puff while we wait.”

  And so a half hour later, they were sitting on the landing between two and three, watching 412 out the window for Black Jesus as Elf leaned back and tamped out his blunt against the railing. The stairwell had the weed funk now, and that helped fend off the smell of piss that had gotten worse the lower down they came. Junius hadn’t hit the blunt, but just from the contact in the stairway, he felt a little eased out.

  Since they started watching, a few people had gone in and out of 412, but not anyone worth recognizing—just a few folks Junius knew from around and people going off to work. Roughneck’s boys were holding down the lobby, selling product. Milk did the work while Rough watched over.

  Junius hadn’t seen any sign of Rock or Black Jesus since they took off in the white Lincoln. They were still out somewhere, doing whatever Rock liked to do with his days.

  Then Elf started to laugh. It wasn’t his usual laugh or one that came from his chest, more like a giggle, like the nervous part of him that grinned at Seven and the guns.

  When Junius looked, the stupid grin was back on Elf’s face. He was caressing the handle of his Tec-9. He removed the clip and looked at the bullets. Then he unscrewed and rescrewed the silencer, then took it off and put it into his pants.

  “Yo, tell me you ain’t losing your shit.”

  “Nah.” Elf shook his head. “Fact is, I’m starting to feel good about this. What we do? Shoot Jesus? Drop Rock? Put a few caps in his ass? Ain’t nothing but a crazy day in the towers.”

  Elf bobbed his head a little, trying to come up with words to match an imaginary beat. “Crazy-ass day, niggah. Running games, holding Tec-9 in its holster. Body count. Shit popping up like a toaster.” He smiled at himself, nodding.

  Junius looked away. “You starting to worry me,” he said. “Maybe we get you a different gun. Something smaller.”

  “Nah.” Elf held the Tec in front of his chest with both hands. “Look at me, man. Look at this gat I be holding! Shit gonna pop off! Loud. Fuck that silencer.”

  Below them the door off the lobby banged open and kids’ voices echoed up the stairwell.

  Junius pushed the gun down between Elf’s legs. “Just be cool,” he said. “Hide that shit.”

  Two boys started running up the stairs toward them, and Junius fell back against the wall, clearing a path between himself and Elf. Elf slid the Tec under his thigh, a move that wouldn’t really hide it. There was nothing Junius could do.

  “Yo, I heard Rock cap that niggah,” one of them was saying. They ran up the stairs and then froze when they turned the corner and saw Junius with Elf. They couldn’t have been older than eleven. Junius had seen them before, but didn’t know their names. The one who’d been talking still had his mouth open; his words hung in the air. Then his face changed. He looked like he was seeing a ghost.

  “Yo,” Elf said. “What up?”

  “Ahhh—” the boys just stared at them. “We just chilling. You know?”

  “I’m right here,” Junius said. “You see me?” Junius held his hands out by his sides, his palms open. “You want to tell Rock to come get me? Here I am. Go ahead.”

  The boys’ eyes widened. “Rock? I—” The taller one shook his head. “I didn’t mean nothing about Rock and you, Junius. I mean, you my boy, right?” The boy started up toward him, his hand extended for a pound.

  Junius gave it up, but then the kid tried to come in for a hug, and Junius held him off.

  “That’s cool.” Junius didn’t want to get too close, definitely didn’t want anyone feeling the Tec in his pants. The boy would be upstairs making a phone call in a hurry, letting someone who knew someone know Junius was waiting in the stairwell, watching 412.

  “You know me?”

  The tall one tilted his head toward a shoulder, then nodded agreeably. “I know you from the diamond, seen you hit cleanup last summer for the Cubs. Games right across the way, you know? I watch them to see who hitting.” He pointed behind him in the direction of the park. “You was.”

  Junius nodded. “Now you do shit for Rock? Living in Marlene’s—”

  “Nah, nah.” The kid shook his head emphatically, his friend doing the same.

  “It’s not like that, yo.”

  “Nothing for Rock up in here,” the other said. “We keeping shit tight for Marlene and Malik? No shit for Rock up in 411. We know that.”

  Junius looked at them hard and cold. “I be here now,” he said. “But no one can know.”

  “No,” the closer one said. “You my man. No one hear it from us.”

 

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