TerrAnce pushed open the ripped screen door with his shoulder and, holding the gun carefully in both hands, took the steps, one at a time. He walked around the side of the house and approached Dantreya, both hands grasping the trigger and pointing the gun at him. Dantreya stepped aside as gracefully as any matador and took the gun out of his friend’s hands.
“Thanks man,” he said, as he spun the chambers of the revolver. The bullets looked like the right size. Now, all he had to do was find Lufer Timmons. His older friends could help with that.
TerrAnce looked at him expectantly. Dantreya slipped the gun into his jacket and shrugged, “Hey man, I gotta go. I’ll get your stuff and bring it right back.”
That said, he took off across the street and ran up the alley away from his friend TerrAnce, now crying with all the disappointment an eight-year-old has.
Bitterman pulled up to the corner of 6th and O. He got out and put the cherry on the roof to simplify things for the locals. Up here, a white man with an attitude had to be crazy or a cop. Bitterman wanted to make sure they made the right choices.
Fats Taylor was poured over a folding chair.
“The fuck you doin’ up here, Bitterman?” Fats asked, his chest heaving with the effort of speech.
“Just came up to hear myself talk, Fats. You bein’ such a good listener and all.”
“I hear everything, sees everything, and knows everything.” Fats chuckled and smiled.
And eats everything, Bitterman thought.
“I’m looking for a faggoty little nigger, name of Lufer Timmons, you know him?”
Fats’s face sealed over, as smooth and black as asphalt in August.
“Well, you listen, Fats, and I’ll talk myself. This little queer thinks he’s a real pistolero, a gunslinger. Well, I think he’s a coward. I know who he’s shot, where, when, and why. Pretty tough with kids, and cripples, spaced-out druggies, welshing gamblers that don’t carry. You tell him I’m looking for him, Fats. And you know who I’ve put in the ground.”
Bitterman closed his show, went back to his car and drove away. Fats could be counted on to spread the word, emphasizing every insult. A punk like Timmons, to whom respect was fear and fear was all, wouldn’t let this pass. Bitterman was already wearing armor and would until Lufer was taken in. Although facing a.44 Magnum he might just as well be wearing sun block.
Bitterman repeated his performance in Nairobi Jones and the Southeaster.
For fun, in Nairobi Jones, he told them he was Charlie Siringo, the Pinkerton who single-handedly tracked the Wild Bunch until they fled to South America. In the Southeaster he was Heck Thomas, one of the legendary “Oklahoma Guardsmen.”
Bitterman wanted Lufer to stay put, and challenging him would do that. He wanted him angry and impulsive, so he insulted him. He wanted him confused, so he multiplied his pursuers.
Bitterman drove over to Langtry’s via all the “cupcake corners” in the first district. His latest ex-partner had suggested that the politically correct term for these young ladies was “vertically challenged,” and they should be so described in all police reports. Bitterman got himself a new partner. He’d seen only a few working girls out on the sidewalks. Cold weather and the new law that allowed the city to confiscate the cars of the johns caught soliciting had forced one more evolution in the pursuit of reckless abandon. Now the girls drove endlessly around the block until they pulled up alongside a likely customer. The negotiations had more feeling than the foreplay to follow. Then a quick sprint to lose a police pursuit and the happy couple was free to lay down together, take aim and miss each other at point-blank range.
Sunshine’s Mercedes was off line. Bitterman figured she was probably curled up with some rich young defense attorney in one of the city’s better hotels. Next to a Sugar Daddy John, a Galahad Defense Attorney was a girl’s best chance to get off the streets and get some instant respectability. Just another reason to hate those scumbags. Bitterman gave up after talking to Betty Boop. She’d shown up around the same time as Sunshine, and Bitterman had fancied her, too. Now her looks had gone like last week’s snow.
Bitterman pulled up across the street from Langtry’s and started over when he saw Sunshine’s Mercedes. He turned back and got into his car to consider his options. If she was in Langtry’s alone, he’d pick her up and put her somewhere until he was done looking for Lufer and then celebrate Christmas Eve with her. If she was somewhere else nearby and he went in looking for Lufer, he’d miss her when she came out. He didn’t like that plan much. Of course, she could be with someone else already. As long as it wasn’t some fuckin’ defense attorney he’d flash some badge, heft a little gun, and requisition her on police business. Bitterman decided that this year the city could wait to get his gift.
He hadn’t been this excited since he was four years old and came down in the middle of the night to see if Santa had brought the baseball glove that would make him Willie Mays. Just give me this one thing, Lord, just because it’s something I can ask for. Everything else I lack is so huge, so vague, so damned close that I don’t even know what I’m looking for.
Dantreya Watkins hurried halfway down the alley, then slowed and moved cautiously along the wall to the intersection with the street. He was trying to think of what his heroes would do. Batman would swoop from the dark and knock Lufer down, then disarm him, tie him up, and leave him for the police. The Punisher would kick down a door and come in guns blazing. Dantreya tried to conjure courage but all he got was a tremor in his legs and a wave of nausea. He turned back to the alley and threw up all over his shoes. Courage had not delivered him to this place. He had nowhere near enough money to pay for Lufer’s death, and he could not imagine running away to live elsewhere. He could leave his world as a superhero, but not as himself. Like his mother, he had an allergy to the police and would not take a step toward one. He knew Lufer was a guarantee of death, only the date on the death certificate was missing. His fears and beliefs, what was impossible and what was certain, had brought him to this alley. His mind had painted him into a corner and it didn’t bother with a small brush.
The tremor in his legs increased and Dantreya gripped the pistol in his pocket even tighter, hoping that would slow down the shaking that surged through him. He thanked God for the gun. Without it he knew he was a dead man looking to lie down.
Forty minutes later Lufer Timmons in his long red duster pushed open the door to Langtry’s and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Avery Bitterman sat up, cursing his luck that Timmons would be the one to show first. Timmons held the door and his companion stepped out into the night. She really was lovely, a thick mane of brick-red hair, pale skin and deep dimples when she smiled. Sunshine, in her knee-high boots, towered over Lufer, who traveled up her length slowly, appreciating every inch of her. He was gonna love climbing up this one. Lufer wasn’t particularly fond of white meat, but that crazy honky who’d been jivin’ with him put him in the mood to fuck this bitch cross-eyed, then maybe mess her up some. Called him a faggot, a punk. He’d show him who the real man was. First he’d teach this white bitch about black lovin’. That’d ruin her for white dick. Then he’d go find that motherfucka, kneecap him, make him beg for the bullet, then shove his gun all the way up his ass before he did him. Lufer smiled, goddamn that felt good. Life was good to Lufer, offering him so many avenues to pleasure.