The other thing was, he didn't want to mess up his ride now that he had it the way he wanted, customized and personalized. He had paid this woman good money to embroider his name on every headrest in the truck. She had done it in cursive and used gold thread. Against the black leather, the gold looked real nice.
Maybe he could skip the dash thing and do something else. He'd seen this video, had to be Ludacris, where Luda or whoever it was had installed a DVD screen right smack in the middle of the steering wheel. That was cool too. Only, if you turned the wheel while you was driving, and you had to turn it to drive the car, how the fuck could you see what was going on?
Green pushed his fingers under his Raiders cap and scratched at his head. He did this unconsciously when his thoughts went deep.
'Pull over, D,' said Michael Butler, sitting in the leather bucket beside him, pointing to a Giant supermarket on Georgia Avenue. 'I wanna get Nigel's moms some ice cream.'
'Nigel told you she ain't need nothin'.'
'She love that mint-chocolate Breyers, though.'
'I know it,' said Green, thinking, She love it like a dog loves a steak bone. Why she fatter than a motherfucker too.
'We got to go by there anyway, drop off the count. Thought we'd bring her a surprise.'
DeEric Green turned the Escalade into the lot of the Giant without further comment. He parked in a handicapped space and watched Michael Butler walk into the store. Boy wanted to bring Nigel's mother a surprise, he wasn't gonna fight it.
A 4D cruiser came into the lot and drove through it slowly. Green reached down and pushed the butt of his chrome full under the seat.
So now Butler was gonna get another gold star for being thoughtful to Nigel's mother. Green guessed that Butler felt the need to kiss on Nigel's ass, make a place for himself as some kind of house cat, 'cause he sure wasn't gonna shine out on the street.
Green wondered why Butler wanted to be in the life at all. He didn't buy expensive things with the money he made. He took no pleasure in being hard. He didn't talk about football, fucking dudes up, killing bitches in the bed, or none of that. Instead, Butler could point out foreign countries, like Canada, on a map. He could tell you about star constellations and stuff like that. He read books, newspapers, and magazines. Butler was different.
Still, odd and soft as Butler was, Nigel was moving the kid up little by little. Green couldn't deny that it bothered him some. You could even say it hurt him, 'cause he had been loyal to Nigel for a couple of years now. He had even put some work in for Nigel, back when he first came on.
And what, exactly, had Michael Butler done to get his self on that fast track? He'd never smoked anyone. He'd never, far as Green knew, handled a gun. Nigel had taken a liking to Butler, was all, and now he was getting ready to promote him. All right, so the kid was smart, maybe even smarter than DeEric, if you measured it by books and shit like that. But didn't being fearless out here count for nothing no more?
Truth was, and hard as it was for Green to admit it, he could see why Nigel liked Butler. Butler had an easy manner about him. He was gentle, steady, and quiet. Even when he was drinking alcohol and smoking weed, his personality stayed the same. Green didn't feel like Butler was suited for the game, but what else was a young man in his situation going to do? Butler didn't have no man at home to guide him right, and even if he did, coming from the house where he came from, living with a no-ass straight-up fiend of a mother, Butler wouldn't know how to act in the square world. Wasn't like he was gonna go to Howard or Maryland U and blend in with them fraternity boys. College wasn't in the boy's future, anyway. He'd already dropped out of high school.
So Butler had made his choices. Same way Green had made his, early on.
Green had followed the path of his older brother, James, a midlevel dealer in Columbia Heights. James had done all right for a while, but he had died from a bullet to the back of his head five years back. James sold drugs, but he wasn't about beefing with no one. It had happened over some girl.
James was just crazy behind that ass. He saw it, he liked it, he had to go and hit it. Didn't matter if some other motherfucker held the deed on the bitch's pussy. DeEric had told James that this hunger was gonna kill him someday, and it did. Their mother, she had cried like a madwoman at the graveside. DeEric had kept his face set tight at the funeral, 'cause you had to in front of your boys. But when he got to their house on Lamont Street, up in his room? He'd cried his eyes out too. He still missed James fierce. Worst thing was, he couldn't avenge him. By the time DeEric found out who'd done the thing, the killer was dead his own self by another man's hand.
The new Bone Crusher came on the radio. Green turned it up.
It settled on Green that Butler was taking the elevator to the top floors no matter what, and he, DeEric, was gonna be staying down in the lobby. He wasn't going to complain about it or anything else to Nigel. Nigel was why he was driving this Escalade right here. Nigel was why he was wearing these platinum chains. The preacher at his mother's church called them slave chains, but that Bama was driving a Ford Taurus with duct tape on the bumper, so what could he know? Green liked what this life gave him. He wasn't ashamed of one thing.
Anyway, Green was a soldier, not an officer. He knew this. Maybe he'd be taking orders from Butler someday too. That would be fine, long as he kept getting paid.
He sensed that Nigel didn't want no bad to come to the kid. Green would make certain that none did.
Green looked in the rearview and side-views. The police was gone. He didn't notice the silver BMW that had followed them into the lot. Green took a half-smoked joint out of the ashtray and struck a match.
As Green was hitting the weed, Michael Butler came out of the supermarket and got back in the Caddy. He reached into the bag where the ice cream was and pulled out a roll of Sweet Tarts.
'This you, D,' said Butler, handing Green the roll. Sweet Tarts were DeEric's favorite candy, especially when he was high.
'Thank you, cuz,' said Green, passing the joint over to Butler, who took it and drew on it hard.
Green thinking, Ain't nothin' wrong with this kid, when you get down to it. The boy's just nice.
Rico Miller was under the wheel of his 330i, sitting low, as Melvin Lee, in the passenger bucket, scanned the radio for a song he liked. Miller had let Lee drive the car for most of the day, but now it was time for Miller to take back what was his.
Lee had this hoop, an old Camry, the kind of car a white man in the suburbs bought when he thought he'd made it. It was the car to go with the relaxed jeans and the goatee and the wife with the long T-shirts trying to cover her fat ass. Funny to see Melvin driving a car like that, much as he loved nice things, but that was part of his strategy for layin' low and staying free. Show no flash, hold a job up at the car wash, watch the weed intake, report steady to the correctional officer, pee in the cup when they asked you to, all that. Melvin carried no gun, either, 'cause a felon like him, he got caught with one, that was a mandatory ten-to-fifteen right there. What they called the Reno law. Melvin did not want to go back to prison.
So Rico Miller let him drive his whip. Not all the time, but some. Even let Melvin pretend it was his, like when he was talking mad shit to that dog man back at Dupont, saying, 'You leanin' against my car.' Dog man playin' Melvin off, not using his words but his eyes to let Melvin know that he didn't give a good fuck about Melvin or what he had to say. Anyway, if it made Melvin feel better about his circumstances to call the car his own, Miller had no problem with it. Melvin knew whose car it was.
Rico Miller hit the hydro he was smoking and smiled about nothing. The weed was starting to blow kisses to his head.
'I like this right here,' said Melvin Lee, his NY baseball cap sitting loose on his tiny head, taking his hand off the radio's scan.