The driver goes by P. Started off, he told Jones, as Peanut when he was a kid, but then he got big and now people just call him P, but he prefers his given name Akin. He spells it.
“My mother is into this African thing,” he tells Jones, “so she says it, Ah-keen.” Emphasizing the second syllable. “It means brave boy.” He laughs, says, “I ain’t all that brave or all that African. I just say Akin.” Stressing the long A.
Jones is impressed by the kid’s way of speaking. Doesn’t cut corners when he speaks. Jones calls him Akin, he way the kid says it.
Jones wonders why Akin isn’t in college?
The kid looks at Jones, asks, “Where’d you go to college?” Jones returns his look. Akin says, “That’s what I thought.”
Jones says, “I read a lot.”
“Me too. All the time.” And then he says, “My sister goes to college. Part-time at Buff State. Evenings, she’s a clerk in some big store.”
“What’s your sister’s name?”
“Abena.”
“Also African?”
“Yeah. You know what it means? It means born on Tuesday.” He chuckles. “She calls herself Abbie.”
Jones thinks for a second, then he remembers what he wanted to ask. “What do you read?”
“Lots of things,” Akin says. “You see, the way it works, I’d ask you what you read, then I’d check it out, see if I want to read that.”
Jones loves this kid.
But that’s the end of their conversation for now.
Because the music comes pounding around the corner. A stunning, rhythmic pulsation, turning into a continuous rolling throb. Jones feels it in his chest.
Akin is quiet until the car pulls to a stop in front of the house next to L’vonte’s, a little up and across the street from the BMW. Then, he leans toward Jones and says, “You talk to these dudes, you gotta shout, man, because, for sure, they’re deaf.”
Jones is dressed in black, shoes, pants, long-sleeved shirt. He puts on a black Kangol cap, straightens it, and touches the car door handle. Akin touches his car door handle.
“Where are you going?” Jones asks.
“With you,” Akin answers, and Jones shakes his head. “Mr. K told me stick with you the whole time.”
“No,” Jones says. “This could get rowdy.”
“Rowdy,” Akin repeats and laughs.
Reminding Jones of L’vonte, making him chuckle too. Then, making him think, what the hell am I doing, laughing? He says, “Wait here.”
“No can do,” Akin says. “I work for Mr. K.” Jones is staring at him, giving him a look, a look which convinces most people to acquiesce. Akin says, “Don’t worry, man, I’m ready for rowdiness.”
Meaning, of course, Jones recognizes, that he’s carrying a weapon, but he doesn’t demonstrate it, doesn’t pat himself, doesn’t lift up his shirt. He just returns Jones’s steady gaze. Jones can feel his own tiny Glock 26 in his jacket pocket.
“This job,” Jones says, sitting back, releasing the door handle, “is not really a job. I don’t really do jobs anymore.”
“I know about that,” Akin says. “You’re retired.”
Jones goes off on a short rant about the state of the world, particularly the ways people are selfish or thoughtless or inconsiderate. He winds up saying, “I deal with what might be called diminutive malevolence.” Looking at Akin to see his response, to see if he knows these words.
Akin gives him a side glance, then says, “Yeah, the dictionary’s one a the books I been reading. I got through D and M already.”
Jones smiles and repeats the phrase, “Diminutive malevolence. It’s kind of an oxymoron.”
Again, they exchange eye contact. Akin says, “This what you supposed to teach me? Vocabulary words?”
Jones laughs. “What I do now is help a few people with problems they can’t solve on their own.”
“You’re kind of like Batman, right?”
And for a long moment their eyes are locked, and then at exactly the same time they both laugh.
Akin pops his door open, says, “I grasp the mission,” and gets out of the car. When Jones comes around from the other side, Akin says, “I’ll follow your lead.”
Jones keeps an eye on him as they cross the street, likes it that he doesn’t have to explain anything, give a lot of direction. Such as move apart... slowly, ease up to car one at a time.
Jones moving straight ahead, letting the loud boys see him clearly. Akin angling toward the back, eyes scanning the area, checking both sides of the street, the houses, taking in everything, always returning to the car, centered on the car. Coming up from the back, stopping short of the door. Still showing nothing, no jitters, no eagerness, no agitation. Only focus.
The noise is excruciating this close. The car is vibrating, like a creature quivering expectantly.
Jones, wishing he’d thought to wear earplugs for this part, stops about three feet from the driver’s door.
Nothing happens.
Keeping one hand in his pocket, Jones rolls his other hand, signaling that he wants to talk.
Still, nothing.
So he starts talking, though he can’t even hear himself, moving his lips, no sound.
First, the driver’s window goes down, but the driver doesn’t move, doesn’t look around, sitting slumped, head resting against the car seat. Jones can see through the open window another guy in the front passenger seat.
Then, the rear door window opens. A face appears, the one with the do-rag, the one L’vonte said is the leader, and stares blankly at Jones, then leans to look back at Akin, returns to Jones. He turns his head away for a second, and the volume of the music decreases, but doesn’t go off.
Jones can hear himself, at least, and looking at the guy in the back, he speaks up, over the sound.
“You must be the chief pansy from Pansy Place.” Wondering if the guy will even know this usage of pansy. Peeking at Akin to see if he does. Saying to the guy, “I’m guessing because you’re wearing a girl’s scarf on your head.”
Do-rag fakes a scornful chuckle, looks away again, then back, this time with hard eyes, but still, Jones sees, it’s all posed or drug induced, nothing real. Do-rag says something inside the car.
The guy in the front passenger seat squirms, the door opens, the guy’s head appears over the roof of the car. Slowly, the guy moves around the front of the car. Jones assumes this is Karate-guy.
“Are you going to kick me in the knee, like you did my friend last night?”
Now they know why he’s here. Jones, with his hand in his pocket, flips the safety off on his Glock, just in case, though he’s still hoping no rough stuff.
Karate-guy says, “Gonna kick you in the face.” And he goes into a crouch, like a snake coiling, ready to strike.
Jones takes a step back, moves his hand. But before he can get the pistol out, everything changes, and Jones becomes a spectator.
First, there’s a loud pop, and Karate-guy, instead of unleashing a terrible kick, crumbles to the ground, grabbing his leg, screaming something unintelligible.
Then, Akin reaches his arm inside the Land Rover, in front of the driver. Two more reports — gunshots, Jones knows — and the music from the car goes dead.
Before the sound fades, Akin leans into the back window, puts his hand on Do-rag’s head, holding it still, and discharges another round next to the guy’s left ear.
“Get back in our car,” Akin says to Jones.
Jones — not because he takes orders from Akin, but because he knows the situation is no longer his, and because he knows that whatever is going to happen next, he and Akin won’t want to linger — turns to leave.
As he is sliding into the car, he sees Akin speaking earnestly to the driver.
Jones watches Akin turn around, check both ways before crossing the street, and then walk purposefully, but not hastily, to the BMW, climb in, start the car, and drive away.