He made the trip alone, believing that he would find Zeller at the house on Seymour Street, that the man had chosen the perfect safe house-no one from outside, not even a cop, would enter the heart of Park Street at this time of night without good reason and plenty of backup. Maybe Zeller had cut himself a protection deal with one of the gangs-establishing himself on an inner-city warning system consisting of cellular phones and CB radios. The cops always arrived five minutes too late.
As he drove past the courthouse and a string of gentrified houses used as law offices, he was struck by the irony of their closeness to Park Street only a few short blocks to the south. Law and lawlessness, coexisting side by side. Two blocks from these law offices fourteen-year-old girls hustled themselves on street corners and crack dealers sold their goods from the sidewalk. Dart drove with his sweatshirt’s hood pulled up, and he drove fast, running stop signs and disobeying traffic lights.
On the seat beside him lay a loaded shotgun. Under the sweatshirt, he wore a flak jacket, in the pocket a speed key. His sidearm had a round loaded into the chamber. In his left pocket he carried two ammunition magazines taped together into a “speed clip.” The car doors were locked. The closer he drew to Park Street, the slower the traffic and the busier the activities. This was the south end’s Sin Street-the night was alive with possibility.
Despite the November cold, the dark street corners were crowded with Puerto Ricans and a sprinkling of Spanish, Italians, and Portuguese, all under twenty-five. Le Soledos and the Latin Kings ruled this turf. The wrong color socks could cost a kid his life. To show a weapon was to start a fight. They had teethed on Stallone and Lee and Schwarzenegger and Snipes and considered themselves equal to the task. It felt to Dart as if anyone older than thirty had been exiled. The place was ruled by restless youth.
Forty-thousand-dollar BMWs and Mercedes Benzes cruised Park Street at ten miles an hour, driven by teenage kids doing business over cellular phones-and proud of it. To honk at a car for driving too slowly was to invite a stream of bullets.
If it could be snorted, mainlined, or smoked, it was available. If it could be fucked, it was pimped. If it had been stolen, it was for sale. If it was living, it could be made dead.
He felt the glare of suspicious eyes but did not exchange glances. In a moving car a white person would briefly be tolerated-business was business, and a good deal of Park Street’s business came in from the white enclaves to the west.
But for a white person to make more than two passes down this street would quickly spread the word. He knew that he was being watched, monitored. And if Zeller had bought protection, then to leave the car was to face an army of hungry street rats looking to make trouble.
He parked the Taurus on Walcott, three short blocks from Seymour. He grabbed the shotgun and hurried from the car, carrying the weapon in plain view, moving at a slow jog, moving deeper and deeper into darkness and hoping to reach Funk Street without incident.
Streetlights around here were knocked out as quickly as they were replaced. To view this area from overhead in a passing plane, it would appear as a square black box, lit only by the brilliance of Park Street, a block to the north.
Dart cut left, crossed the street, and jogged down Funk toward Seymour, his heart somewhere up around his ears, his body feeling as if he had stepped inside an oven.
Then, across the street, appeared a group of youths like a pack of hungry dogs. Where they had come from, he did not know. But there they were.
He had spent much of the last four years interrogating cold-blooded killers no older than these kids-killers who showed absolutely no remorse, proud to kill for a pair of basketball shoes or a leather jacket or the imagined love of a sweetheart. Blank eyes. Dialogue borrowed from movies. Human shells, void of love, filled with unspeakable hate.
They spotted him and they catcalled. They liked the shotgun, they yelled and taunted. Dart cut across the street at a run, not looking back. Appear in control, the frightened voice inside of him encouraged. When he heard their footsteps at a run, he knew that he had problems. He turned up the steam, broke into an all-out sprint. A cop running from a bunch of punks. … He couldn’t let go of this thought, and yet he couldn’t run fast enough.
Halfway down Funk, he violated his own rule and glanced over his shoulder. They were coming for him. They too were running.
He felt the desperate fear of the hunted. Never mind that he was armed equally, he was outnumbered. He faced armed children who would kill out of boredom, who would kill because of the color of a man’s skin. He faced the very real possibility of firing his weapon at a minor. Could he bring himself to do such a thing? He had no idea if and when self-defense could or would overcome reason.
They were fast runners. They were gaining on him.
He often had dreams in which his legs grew impossibly heavy. He would run as hard as he could and yet be caught in a slow-motion crawl. And now the bad dreams came face-to-face with reality as he felt a huge weight bear down on him, drain him, drive him into the pavement as if his limbs were suddenly cement and the pavement beneath his feet a thick gripping mud.
“Yo, dude!” a high, winded voice called out from behind.
Dart reached Seymour and cut right, running smack into a group of four Hispanics in their twenties. Dart fell to the sidewalk and quickly scrambled to his knees. One of the kids drew a weapon and aimed it at Dart.
“Police!” Dart announced, more from instinct than consideration. He tugged back the shotgun’s recoil and engaged a shell.
“Bullshit,” the kid with the weapon said. “Gimme your gun.”
Dart, winded and out of breath, heard the fast slap of shoes as the other gang quickly approached. The Hispanic holding the gun had only a fraction of a second to make his decision. He seemed to take in Dart’s shotgun. Perhaps he recognized it as a police issue. He looked to his friends, shrugged, and gently returned his weapon to inside his jacket. He nodded. “Be cool, man.” Perhaps he had simply thought Dart out of his mind.
Dart ran on, his muscles aching as he tensed, expecting he might be shot in the back.
But instead he heard angry shouts from behind him as the kids from Funk Street collided with the Hispanics on Seymour. He heard the words, “He’s heat, man! He’s heat.”
Dart slowed to a fast walk, barely able to catch his breath. Up ahead, the facades on the buildings looked vaguely familiar, and he thought he remembered the look from the old photos on Zeller’s hallway wall. Seymour Street. For just that second he lost his focus, neglected to take in his surroundings. He leapt up into the air as a pair of alley dogs barked from only inches away, and he landed poorly, twisting his right ankle. He went down hard, dropping the weapon, and rose painfully to his knees. The dogs bellowed, edging toward him, heads down, teeth glaring. He picked up the fallen shotgun. One of the dogs lunged at him. Dart jumped back and fell onto the ankle and went down for a second time.
He growled back ferociously. The dogs whined and took off.
Regaining his feet, he glanced across the street and this time recognized the building without question. A faded photograph: Zeller with his aging parents, all grouped on the steps that served as a porch. The photo was daytime.
Now it was night.
The building’s upper-story windows were lit.
The back door was locked. Dart tried it a second time, gently twisting the knob, leaning his weight against the frame, but it wouldn’t budge. The only accessible window was locked and seemed to be nailed shut from the inside. Dart leaned his shotgun against the wall and slipped out the speed key. He shoved it into the upper lock, squeezed its trigger, and twisted, hearing a slight click. With the dead bolt free, Dart turned the doorknob and pushed, and the door came open, scraping against the sill. He took hold of the shotgun and stepped inside. He grabbed the doorknob, lifted the door on its hinges, and shut it silently.