22

“I had enough of this urban blight,” said Derek, as he drove my car north, through the dark city streets. Antoine was sitting next to Derek in the front seat. I was alone with my anxiety in the back.

“I was thinking about moving out to the burbs,” said Derek, in a monologue without end. “I could kick up my heels, watch the big screen. Or maybe find some desperate housewife desperate for a bone. That’s what I hear about them burbs, full of women just looking for someone who knows how to treat them right while the husbands are toiling for the green.”

“And you’re just the one they’re looking for,” I said as I stared out the window, trying to figure where we were headed.

“Why not? Maybe a place in Jersey. That would cinch it, don’t you think? Jersey housewives, as ripe as them Jersey tomatoes. Just not as red. And without the stems.”

“Where are we going?”

“You be seeing soon enough,” said Antoine.

Derek turned left and then right again, past dark streets with collapsing houses and junked-up yards. And then we hit the railroad tracks, and I felt a sense of dread, which deepened when I smelled the smoke.

“One of them big houses,” said Derek. “You know them things they building on every last open lot, all turrets and windows and the fancy driveways. Like what T.O. was doing them sit-ups in front of. That was in New Jersey, wasn’t it?”

“I think so.”

“That’s what I want. What does that set you back, Victor?”

“About a million,” I said.

“Really, for that crap? Got to work on my balling, I suppose.”

The smell of smoke grew stronger. We followed the tracks down toward a passel of bright, blinking reds and blues and a ring of arc lights.

We drove slowly past the lights. Fire trucks and police cars, all in front of some abandoned lot, surrounded by a pile of abandoned cars, the arc lights illuminating a smoldering pile of cinder, covered by twisted bits of corrugated metal. The stench of burning turned my stomach.

A group of uniformed cops and firemen was surrounding a man, who peered past the crew of officials and right into the car as we passed.

Barnabas.

My stomach turned again until it twisted into a knot.

“They came tonight,” said Derek. “The police. A swarm of them, like bees, and burned it to the ground.”

“The police burned it down?”

“That’s the way it played.”

“Barnabas was running an illegal juke joint,” I said. “The police were trying to close it down. I’m sorry to see this – Barnabas’s goat is terrific – but what does that have to do with me?”

“It not about the club,” said Antoine. “They wasn’t there about the club.”

“Then what were they after?”

“Jamison,” said Antoine.

“They were asking everyone about him,” said Derek. “Who he was. Who he worked for. Where he could be found. They didn’t look so friendly, bo. They didn’t look like they was going to pin some medal on his chest.”

“Did they find him?” I said.

“Nah, mon,” said Antoine. “And when it come clear that they not, that no one be giving that bwoy up, they cleared the place, and that’s when the fire it started.”

“Is everyone okay?” I said.

“Everyone got out,” said Derek. “But Barnabas lost the club. And he couldn’t stop asking about the man in the suit who came in just one day before the police.”

“I get the idea,” I said, and I did. “It doesn’t make any sense. Where’s Jamison now?”

“Gone,” said Antoine. “And whatever it was he told you that night, that’s gone, too. You going to forget it happened.”

“Jamison is the alibi for a woman who is facing life in prison,” I said.

“He not catching on so quick,” said Antoine to Derek. “Didn’t you tell me he was clever, bwoy?”

“I must have been overestimating him,” said Derek.

“That don’t seem so hard,” said Antoine.

Antoine turned around in the front seat and stared right at me with those dark glasses of his. “Now, here’s the story as it concerns you, Mr. Victor Carl. The folks that Jamison was selling for, they are not happy that Jamison is on the run. He was a good bwoy for them. And they are not happy that Barnabas’s place it burned down, because they liked his curry. And they are not happy that them police are storming their corners and asking questions. And for this they blame me, and they blame Derek, and most of all they blame you.”

“It’s the second part of that what’s really troubling, if you ask me,” said Derek.

“So this is not just suggestion that you leave this alone,” said Antoine.

“It’s a threat,” I said.

He leaned toward me, slapped a big mitt on my ear, grabbed my face, and pulled it close to his. “There you go, mon,” he said. “There you go.”

I grabbed onto his wrist, like grabbing onto a metal fence post. “I get it,” I said. “I get it, I get it.”

He gave me another quick slap and then turned around to face front again. “So now you know. You want us take you to them who are not happy? You need them to deliver the request in face-a-face?”

“No,” I said.

“That was the first smart thing came out from your lips all night,” said Derek.

“And you also should be knowing, Victor Carl,” said Antoine, “that the bwoy assigned to enforce all this is me. So I want to be able a report back that the message it was sent and that Jamison is no longer mess up in that thing.”

“Okay,” I said meekly.

“You leave this alone, Mr. Victor Carl, or someone going a get a licking, that’s for sure.”

“Just so long as it ain’t me,” said Derek, “then you can do what you want.”

“Understood?”

“Understood,” I squeaked.

“Good,” said Antoine. “Now we all be buddies again. Pull over there, D.”

“Here?”

“Fine. I be back in a minute. No slip-ups, right?”

“No, sir,” I said.

Antoine nodded as he opened the door, left the car, headed into an alley, and disappeared.

“You’re one dumb son of a bitch,” said Derek. “You just lucky I was here to save your ass.”

“Funny, I don’t feel lucky.”

“This isn’t the way they wanted to handle it, but I convinced them you were some big-shot lawyer with City Hall connections and that killing you would bring down serious heat.”

“You lied for me, Derek? That’s almost sweet.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Especially since you still haven’t paid me for the other night.”

“Show up tomorrow and I’ll write you a check.”

“No check, bo. Cash.”

“Fine. Is Jamison going to be okay?”

“Thanks to you, he’s on the run. But he has family in the South, and he’s on his way to visit as we speak. He’ll be gone a long while.”

“I suppose that’s good,” I said. “For Jamison.”

“And for you, too.”

“But not for my old girlfriend.”

“See, that’s the beauty of old girlfriends,” said Derek. “No matter how much they mean to you, everyone else just don’t give a damn.”

“The cops who stormed the club,” I said. “Do you have any idea who they were? Were they narcotics agents, L &I people?”

“Was a mess of cops swarming the place,” said Derek. “But the leader and the one asking the questions was a little guy in a flash suit.”

“I get the idea,” I said.

“He was handing out his card like he was looking for a date. Asking anyone who found Jamison to give him a call. He was real determined like.”

“I bet he was,” I said.

It didn’t make any sense, I couldn’t yet see the reasoning behind it, but what had happened was pretty clear. Sims hadn’t just come for Jamison, he had come for me, too, throwing me headfirst into deep, shark-infested waters. I couldn’t tell if I was more angry or more scared, but I was sure more something.

“You know, Derek,” I said, “I should be happier than I am right now, seeing as how I’ve just been totally screwed.”