"We expended the capital," Barenga tried to explain. "Man, a good hit costs money."
"You drank it up at the HiLo," said Sweet Harold.
"We had a taste at the HiLo," said Barenga.'
"You were buying everyone at the HiLo and then you blew the rest on two foxes, Tyrone. You shouldn't have done that, Tyrone. That is a very nice way to get killed, do you hear me, Nigger Tyrone?"
"We can't get to New York without bread, man. Even if you gonna waste us."
"You have damaged my reputation, Tyrone. I told the man you were good and you go drinking up your carfare like some field nigger, Tyrone. That is not nice, is it, Tyrone?"
"No. Ain't nice."
"Is it, Philander?"
"No. Ain't nice."
"Is it, Piggy?"
"No. Ain't nice."
"Now it just so happens that the bread you spent was on my foxes and it just so happens that I am going to lend you some money and three tickets to New York City. Now I have been informed that your hit was seen in the Waldorf Astoria so you will check in there. If you are not checked in there before dinner today, I will hunt your ass good. Do you understand, Tyrone?"
"Digit, man."
"All right, Barenga. Unleash your Black Army of Liberation."
"That fox is already dead meat, brother," said Barenga. "You gonna take us to the airport?"
"If I see you touch one of my beautiful leather seats with your scruffy ass, nigger, I will peel the skin from your head."
It was decided as Barenga went to his sister's home to change into some good threads for New York that after the revolution they would not even try to make Sweet Harold into a new man. He would be wasted along with the honkeys.
Barenga's sister eyed him suspiciously. "I been hearing some weird things about you three. You picking up a contract nobody else gonna touch."
Barenga told his sister that the Black Army of Liberation of Free Africa did not divulge strategy.
"Ain't nobody touching that contract," yelled his sister. "You think if it was any good Sweet Harold wouldn't do it hisself? Do you think the guineas would give it to Sweet Harold if they thought they could deliver themselves? Do you know you getting nothing and Sweet Harold and the guineas are getting the bread? Everybody know that but you, Tyrone. Sweet Harold get five thousand dollars just for delivering your ass to the man. He gonna get a quarter of a million dollars if you make the hit, and what're you gonna get? Everyone laughing at you three."
Abdul Hareem Barenga smacked his sister into the door. On the plane he explained to Philander and Piggy that nothing his sister said was true. It was just the black woman's fear of the black man assuming his role as king that had gotten to her. He had hit her to teach her her place.
"That's right. She gettin' uppity," said Piggy. And Philander agreed because Barenga sure did a putdown on that guinea honkey at the truck terminal. They all laughed at that and decided that after the revolution they might let some honkeys live, like the stewardess with the nice ass.
When they got to the Waldorf and that foreign guy with the real white-yellow hair had tried to get in front of them, didn't even know how to make a line, why Barenga had put this whole jive hotel in its place. And it had worked. He got served first, while that foreign honkey just stepped back and took it, smiling.
"This the new field headquarters of the Black Army of Liberation," announced Barenga. "We gonna plan our strategy and tactics."
"As field marshal," said Philander, "I suggest we provision the troops."
"As Major general, I agree," said Piggy.
"As your supreme commander in chief, I will follow the will of my army," said Abdul Hareem Barenga and he phoned room service and ordered three of them big steaks and three bottles of Chivas Regal, and what did the Waldorf mean it didn't have any Snow White soda pop? Well, how about Kool-Aid? Okay, any fruit drink? Did he want filet mignon? No, he did not. He wanted steaks. Big ones. And it better be choice meat. He didn't want to feed his army gristle.
Shortly after he ordered, a knock sounded at the door.
"When the man see the Black Army, he move," said Philander.
Barenga chuckled as Piggy opened the door. The foreign honkey with the white-yellow hair stood in the door, smiling. He wore a purple lounging jacket, soft gray slacks, and slippers.
"I hope I'm not intruding," he said in that funny voice.
"I don't give a shit what you hope. Don't bother with us," said Barenga.
"I couldn't help overhearing you talk to the clerk," he said.
"Well, then, you just stop up your ears iffen you can't help none," said Barenga; Piggy and Philander laughed.
"When you asked which room Vickie Stoner was in, I thought that was rather gross. As a matter of fact, I found it incredible that anyone would be stupid enough to publicly ask where to reach his victim. Incredibly stupid."
"You want to get your ass busted, honkey?" said Barenga.
"I don't know if your little monkey brain can absorb this, but when you publicly announce you are on a hunt, then you become the hunted."
"What you jivin', man? Get outta here."
Lhasa Nilsson sighed. He looked down the hallway right, he looked down the hallway left, and having made sure no one could see him, took a little automatic pistol from the pocket of his lounging jacket and put a copper-tipped .25 caliber bullet between the left and right eyes of a black man whose nickname he never bothered to find out was Piggy. The shot made a soft, hardly noticeable crack, like a dish breaking over a sofa. Piggy's head jerked slightly and he collapsed right where he had been standing.
Nilsson stepped into the room and kicked the door closed.
"Get him under the bed," ordered Nilsson.
Philander and Barenga couldn't grasp what had happened. They stared dumbly at Piggy, who looked as if he were sleeping on the floor except for a little fountain of blood bubbling from the bridge of his nose.
"Move him under the bed," said Nilsson again, and Barenga and Philander suddenly understood what had happened. They stuffed Piggy under the bed, avoiding each other's eyes.
"There's a bloodstain there," said Nilsson, nodding toward the spot where Piggy had fallen. "Clean it up."
Philander rose to get a cloth, but Nilsson nodded to the supreme commander of the Black Liberation Army of Free Africa. "No. You. What's your name?"
"Abdul Kareem Barenga."
"What kind of name is that?"
"Afro-Arab," Barenga said.
"It is neither African nor Arab. Put some water on the cloth. Now this is what you're going to do. While I was waiting in the hall I heard you order food. You are going to tip the waiter very well. You are going to tip him ten dollars and then you will hold another hundred in your hand while you say you are looking for a white girl whom you will describe. You will not say Vickie Stoner, but you will describe the red hair and the freckles, and will say that she is someone you fancy and came to New York to find. You will not let the waiter in the room, but you ... what's your name?"
"Philander."
"You, Philander, will take the tray and hold the door. Take the tray with your left hand and hold the door open with your right. You will allow the waiter to partially enter, but not beyond the open door. I will stand behind it with this little weapon here, which is more than suficient for both of you and the waiter should that be necessary. Do you understand?"
"What if the waiter don't know where she is?"
"Waiters, cooks, liverymen, butlers, gardeners, keepers of the chamber, keepers of the gate, know these things. They are traditionally the breach in the walls of every castle. It is an old family saying of ours ... breach in the wall of a castle? I see you don't know what that is. Well, a long time ago people defended themselves by living in stone houses that were actually forts. A fort is a place designed to be safe from attack, hard to get into."