“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” Jayzee said. “If somethin’ was wrong?”
Scottie nodded. “Y-yeah. Sure.”
Jayzee let go of Scottie and took a step back.
“Good. Cuz I need you again.”
“N-need... me?”
“That’s right, C. You know Antoine Miller, right?”
Everyone knew Antoine Miller — knew to stay away, unless they were in the market for something he could provide. He had a corner of his own, guys of his own, just like Jayzee.
Just like Michael Graham.
“Sure,” Scottie said.
“Go do your James Bond thing on him. See what he’s doin’ and how he does it.” Jayzee slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled something out. “Then use this.”
Scottie looked down.
The cell phone.
Scottie didn’t take it.
“I... I...”
“You what?” Jayzee said. He was still holding his hand out to Scottie. The phone hung between them like a bridge.
“I... I wanna know. Wh... what’s gonna happen?”
Freak and the rest of Jayzee’s guys had been snorting, snickering, whispering. But suddenly they were totally silent. Totally still.
Scottie wasn’t sure what he expected Jayzee to say until Jayzee didn’t say it. Scottie expected a laugh, he realized. He expected “Whatta you mean, C? Nothin’s gonna happen.”
But what Jayzee said was, “Why you wanna know that?”
The way he said it, it didn’t sound mean or angry. It didn’t even sound like a question. It sounded like advice.
“Well, what... what if—?”
Jayzee cut Scottie off with a sigh. “What am I askin’ you to do, C? Look a little. Talk a little. Well, lookin’ and talkin’ don’t hurt nobody, right? Whatever else happens—” Jayzee shrugged. “That ain’t you.”
Scottie hesitated, thinking it over.
“B-but what if—”
“You afraid somebody might get hurt?” Jayzee snapped. He did sound angry now. He was losing his patience.
Still, Scottie nodded.
“Well, stop worryin’ about people you don’t even know. You oughta be worried about Keesha.” Jayzee’s gaze flicked over to Freak for a split second. Freak’s eyes brightened. “You oughta be worried about your aunt. They could get hurt. You hear what I’m sayin’, retard?” He pushed the phone into Scottie’s belly like a knife. “I ain’t gonna explain anymore. You gonna do this thing.”
Scottie took the phone.
Jayzee put another grin on his face, and Scottie saw for the first time how stiff and unnatural Jayzee’s smile really was, like a plastic mask strapped to his face with a rubber band.
“That’s my man,” Jayzee said. “Don’t worry, C. This is the last time I’ll ask you to help me.” His eyes connected with Freak’s again, flashing some silent message. “The last time. I promise. Now go.”
He sent Scottie on his way with a pat on the back. Jayzee’s guys joined in as Scottie shuffled away, each of them slapping him between the shoulder blades as they giggled at some private joke.
“Thanks, Crackhead.”
“You can do it, Crackhead.”
“Yeah, go get ’em, Crackhead.”
And the last words, from Freak.
“See ya’ later, Crackhead.”
It took Scottie ten minutes to walk to Antoine Miller’s corner. Houses and apartment buildings and cars and people slid past unseen as he shambled along. He was thinking about what was going to happen to Antoine — and anyone standing nearby when it happened. He thought about how he’d never meant to hurt anybody, and how that didn’t matter. You could hurt someone by doing practically nothing at all. He thought about the people he would hurt if he did nothing now — Keesha and Aunt Nichelle, maybe even himself. And when he saw Antoine Miller, he knew what he had to do.
“He’s on the west side of Eb-Eb... Eberhart Avenue,” Scottie told Jayzee over the phone. “There’s another guy wi-with him who goes up to the cars and talks to the dr-dr... drivers. Then he calls Antoine over and Antoine g-g-gives him something in a bag.”
“Antoine comes to the car with the stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s just him and one other guy there now?”
“Yeah.”
A muffled rumble came over the line, the sound of Jayzee putting his hand over the phone and saying something to his guys. Then the rumbling stopped, and Jayzee was back, his voice clear and bright.
“Go home. Right now. Stay there.”
“Okay.”
“We shouldn’t be seen talkin’ to each other today. Freak’ll give you your money tonight. Meet him in the alley behind your building at midnight.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t tell anybody you’re goin’ to see him. It’s a secret, right? Just between us.”
“Okay.”
There was a long pause, and just as Scottie began to think Jayzee was gone, Jayzee spoke again.
“Good-bye, C,” he said.
“Bye, Jayzee.”
Jayzee hung up then, so Scottie turned the phone off and put it back in his pocket.
“S-see?” he said to the burly man who’d been leaning in close, his ear just inches from the phone while Scottie and Jayzee spoke.
“How do I know that was really Jayzee Clements?” Antoine Miller asked. He was glaring at Scottie skeptically, like someone might look at a unicorn or an angel — something too good to be true. It was the same expression he’d been wearing ever since Scottie crossed the street and walked up to him and his guys and said, “I g-got to tell you s-somethin’.”
“I d-don’t know. It just... is,” Scottie said with a shrug. “He’ll send Tommy and... B-Boost. They’re probably on their way now. Jayzee’ll stay on his corner a-a... alone with Freak.”
“If this is some kinda trick, retard, I swear I’ll hunt you down and mess you up,” Antoine growled.
“I ain’t l-lyin’.”
Antoine went on staring at Scottie for a long time, his guys gathered silently around him, waiting for his signal, ready to sneer, laugh, kill.
“Naw,” Antoine finally said, “you’re too dumb to lie this good, ain’t you?”
Then he turned away and started barking out orders.
“T.T., Ray — go get Tonio and have him drive you down to Jayzee’s corner. You know what to do — just like we done with Jon-Jon and McNeil. Monk and me’ll take care of things here. Monk, when that car pulls up, you go around behind it and...”
They were ignoring Scottie, too absorbed in their war plans to waste any more time on the “retard.” So he left.
Scottie took his time walking home. He was hoping he’d miss it all — return to find a quiet street, a deserted corner. Whatever he’d brought into his neighborhood, he didn’t want to see it.
Not that he should feel guilty. None of it would be his fault. Jayzee said it himself: Lookin’ don’t hurt nobody. Talkin’ don’t hurt nobody. Whatever else happens, that ain’t you, right? Right?
When Scottie got back to his block, he saw the flashing lights of police cars and ambulances. A woman — someone’s mom or aunt or sister — was out by Jayzee’s corner, screaming. A crowd was gathered around, people pulled from in front of their televisions by the drama outside their doors. Some were trying to comfort the hysterical woman. Most simply stood nearby, watching.
Scottie didn’t join them. Instead he went upstairs and switched on the TV and the Nintendo.
He turned the volume up loud.
The Maxnome Riddle[1]
by Earle N. Lord
1
Originally published in AHMM, May 1971. Copiright © by H.S.D. Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author.