Grom lowered the window four inches and called out, "Hello, you there. I have free samples."
The eye slits became as round as quarters and the heap of trash staggered to its feet. At the same time a head emerged from the half-open front door and shouted, "D'you say free samples?"
"Free samples," Grom said.
The human trash pile reached out one shaking hand, and Grom fed a small package through the window opening. The hand snatched at it, and Grom withdrew his hand in panic. The human trash pile missed the little package and fell to the ground, scrambling for it.
The woman from the building was eyeing him suspiciously and approaching Grom's car with her arms crossed resolutely. She was black, twenty-something, and her limp clothing and sallow skin showed the effects of dramatic weight loss.
"Why you giving free samples?"
"It's a method of damaging the local narcotics traffickers' hold on market share."
"You doin' what now?"
Grom winced. "I want a piece of the action," he said, the words sounding stilted.
She sniffed disdainfully. "You think Fumar is gone like you taking some of his what-choo-call 'market'?"
"That's between me and Fumar."
"Maybe I get Fumar right now and see what he says about that."
Other faces now peered from the dingy darkness of the half-opened door and the shattered windows. They all had the starving look of addicts, ruled by a nasty craving that they would do anything to satiate.
Grom saw the same need in the black woman's eyes. Her bluster couldn't mask it. He was already on firm ground.
"Look," he said reasonably, "you don't have to take any if you don't want any."
The woman scowled at the human trash pile as he or she crept into the nearest smelly alley with Grom's little plastic bag.
"I guess Fumar ain't goin' be after us 'cause we took some freebies. But he sure goin' be after you, white bread."
"You let me worry about Fumar." He forced a reassuring grimace and thrust a plastic sample bag through the window.
She took it and hurried into the condemned building. That had to have been the signal the others were waiting for, because the crack house residents came pouring out. Suddenly it was Halloween, and Grom couldn't hand out his treats fast enough to satisfy the eager queue of red-eyed ghouls outside his car window.
When the last of them had scurried back inside, Grom still had three samples in his grocery sack. The black woman reappeared, chin bobbing to unheard music. The free sample had improved her mood.
"I was wondering if you had more samples, white bread," asked the emaciated woman, who inserted her face in the window opening.
"Here you go," Grom said pleasantly; passing them to her.
"You okay, white bread."
"I'm more than okay," Grom said. "I'm a great guy."
She nodded slowly, then vigorously. "You sure are the greatest."
"I'm the nicest guy you ever met. That guy Fumar? He's an asshole. He's always ripping you off."
"Yeah. Yeah! Fucker!"
Grom spoke carefully now. "You are going to tell everybody what a bad person Fumar is."
"Tell 'em?" she cried. "I can do more'n that!"
The crack heads jittered out of the condemned building, agitated and looking for focus. Grom spoke loudly and hurriedly. "Fumar is a very bad man. He is always ripping you off. You want to tell him how mad you are." The crack heads showed rapt attention now.
"All of you, you hate Fumar and you want to spread the word," Grom exhorted. "Tell everyone what a bad man Fumar is."
"I wanna cut him, don't I?" demanded a buzz-cut Anglo man with a steel stud in each nostril.
"You do not want to cut him-none of you wants to hurt Fumar. All you want to do is spread the word."
"Spread the word." The black woman nodded, her eyes now bright with fervor.
"Spread the word. Spread the word about Fumar," the crowd agreed.
"You right," the black woman cried suddenly, "You right about Fumar, and you right about you! You the greatest!"
She came at him, and Grom groped for the window switch but was too slow.
"I love you to pieces, white bread!" Her upper body wriggled into Greg Grom's car, forcing the window down, and she wrapped her bony arms around his neck, mashing her mouth against his. Her breath was putrid. Grom struggled, but his paramour was powered by passion. When she opened her mouth and probed his clamped lips with her tongue he felt the bile rising.
He was saved by a shout from the crack-house crowd. "It's Fumar! He's coming!"
Grom's admirer joined the mob. Every one of them faced the same way, watching Fumar come. And they chanted.
"Spread the word."
"No violence," Grom announced loudly, then added, "Unless he starts it."
"We hate Fumar," the crowd growled. "Spread the word."
"Spread the word."
"Spread the word."
The chant quickly became a battle cry as a tight knot of toughs rounded the corner. Grom pulled the rental car into Reverse.
"You! Yeah, you! Where you think you're goin'!" The towering Latino stalking down the middle of the street had to be the man himself. Fumar was outfitted in embroidered jeans tight enough to profile his manhood and a green polyester sports jacket loose enough to hide his piece. A small army of powerful-looking bodyguards was at his heels, and every last one of them carried a persuader-a crowbar or a section of steel pipe.
Grom knew they had guns, too. The question was if they could get them out and get a bullet into him before he got the hell away. He stomped on the gas, gripping the wheel as the rental screeched backward down the decrepit street.
Fumar grabbed inside his coat just as Grom oversteered and sent the back end of the Buick into a brick building facade. A giant crunch came from the rear end and left Grom momentarily dazed.
He rubbed his temple and blinked to clear his blurry vision, and by then he found the whole scene changed. Fumar and his boys had forgotten about Grom. They were too busy with the chanting crack house crowd.
"Spread the word. Spread the word. We hate Fumar!" The neighborhood drug dealer wasn't used to this lack of appreciation from his loyal customers. They moved in on him, a congregation united by a common hatred.
Grom was so enthralled he forgot his predicament. Had he done it? Was it working? He could see the intensity in their clenched faces, but the crack heads didn't lash out.
There was no violence. At first.
All it took was a shove. Fumar pushed one of the crack addicts out of his way. She was a skin-and-bones teenager who didn't look as if she had enough muscle mass to lift a cigarette, but she struck back at the drug dealer in a blinding fury. Her jagged fingernails sank into the flesh under his eyes and dragged down, tearing skin off his cheeks.
Fumar staggered away, mouth dangling open, but the girl wasn't done. Flinging away the scraps of human tissue, she leaped at him again, clamping her scrawny arms around his rib cage and sinking her teeth into the open wound on his cheek.
Fumar's boys moved in to help, grabbing the girl by her amazingly quick stick arms. The other crack heads crowded around, shouting belligerently, but they didn't touch Fumar's boys.
Now Greg Grom understood. His suggestion had been that they should not resort to violence unless the other guys started it. The suggestion was holding, but the impulse to violence was too strong. They were exploiting the loophole he had provided them.
The inevitable happened. The enforcers began thrusting the addicts out of the way, which was good enough to qualify as "starting it." The crack heads turned on Fumar's boys with sudden savagery.
The crack heads grabbed and bit and slashed with their fingernails. Fumar's boys gave up on their big sticks in a hurry, and there was a flurry of gunshots. Bodies started falling, but the addicts got their hands on a few metal clubs and started cracking skulls. Their obsession gave them a huge battlefield advantage-a disregard for their own safety.