The Cadillac came up on them and braked just a few feet from their grille. The headlights of the Caddy, on a higher platform than those of the BMW, nearly blinded Miller and Lee. But Miller did not reverse the car. It was a given that neither driver would back up or pull over to let the other pass.
DeEric Green, behind the wheel of the Escalade, landed on his horn. 'C'mon, motherfucker. Move it.'
'That's Deacon's people,' said Michael Butler, recognizing the man in the passenger seat of the BMW and the animal-looking boy under its wheel.
'I know that,' said Green. 'Don't mean they got the right to block the street.'
Green hit the horn again and kept his palm on it. A couple of lights went on in the nearby row house windows. The BMW did not move.
'Fuck this bullshit,' said Green, reaching under his seat and finding the checkered rubber grip of his automatic. It was a stainless steel eight-shot .45 Colt. Green had bought it, a Gold Cup Trophy model, because it was the most expensive one the dealer had.
Green kept the gun low. He checked the safety and racked its slide. He thrust his pelvis out and slipped the gun under the front of his jeans so that the grip leaned toward his right hand. He put the tails of his FUBU shirt out so that they covered the gun.
'Let's go, Michael,' said Green.
Butler hesitated. He was hoping for a quiet resolution to this. He had always managed to avoid violence.
'Let's go,' said Green.
Green left the motor running and the headlights on as he and Butler stepped onto the street. Miller and Lee did the same. Melvin Lee stepped forward; so did DeEric Green. Michael Butler stayed back behind Green and slightly to his left. Rico Miller hung by his car. He kept his eyes, heavy with contempt, on Butler.
"Sup?' said Green, looking Lee over, looking down on him because he had the height advantage and could.
Lee waited a moment before speaking. It was a moment too long. It told Green that he was hesitant and maybe afraid.
'Somethin' you want to say to me?' said Green.
Lee nodded.
'Then say it.'
'Heard you stepped to our boy Jujubee this morning,' said Lee, finding his tongue.
'That ain't news.'
'You told him to move on.'
'So?'
'Boy was on our real estate.'
Green took another step forward and got close to Lee's face. He spoke clearly and evenly. 'I made a mistake. I already discussed it with the man I needed to discuss it with, and he gonna work it out with your man his own way.'
'You—'
'What I don't need to do is discuss it with an itty-bitty motherfucker like you.'
Green brushed his hand over the front of his shirt. Lee saw the lump there, right above the waistline. Lee, confused, looked over his shoulder at Miller. 'You… you hear that, Rico?'
Miller did not answer. He kept his eyes on Michael Butler.
A Toyota drove up Otis and, blocked by the Cadillac, came to a stop. The driver gave a short, timid sound of his horn. He did not roll his window down or say anything to the men and young men standing in the street.
'You gonna be seein' me later on,' said Lee in an unconvincing way. He clumsily pointed a finger at Green's face.
'I'm seeing you now,' said Green. 'What, you gonna act like a man later on?'
Green laughed. He knew he was showing off. But Melvin Lee was just making it too easy. He didn't even feel the need to prove to Lee that he was strapped.
'You had your say,' said Green with a jerk of his head. 'Now take your boy and get.'
'Yeah,' said Lee, nodding his head rapidly. 'Yeah, okay.' He was trying to maintain, searching for the right clever parting words. But nothing would come.
The driver of the Toyota hit his horn again. Another light came on in a nearby house.
Green grinned. 'You ain't gone yet?'
Lee turned around. He saw Miller staring at Michael Butler, smiling at him in that way of his that was all about pain.
'Let's go, Rico,' said Lee, unable to look in the eyes of the young man who worshipped him. Miller nodded, his smile frozen in place, and the two of them went to their car.
Miller backed his BMW up Otis and turned south on 6th.
Lee rubbed at his face and turned to Miller. 'He was strapped, Rico. You saw it, right?'
Miller did not respond.
In the Escalade, Green and Butler settled in. Green put the transmission in drive, turned on the radio, and headed up the street.
'How you know to do that?' said Butler.
'Wasn't no thing,' said Green, getting low in the bucket, his wrist resting casually over the steering wheel, proud despite the nagging feeling that he'd pushed it and done wrong. 'Alls you had to do was look in his eyes. His heart was pumpin' Kool-Aid.'
'What you mean?'
'Melvin was scared. I could tell just by lookin' at him, 'cause I been knowin' him a long time. He used to run with my brother, James, back when.' Green blinked away the image of his brother, playing basketball down by the courts, imitating MJ with his tongue out the side of his mouth, laughing about it, having fun. 'Melvin don't belong out here no more.'
'You punked him,' said Butler with admiration.
'Wasn't me,' said Green, a touch of regret in his voice. 'Boy got his ass broke in the cut.'
As the Cadillac went up Otis, it passed the home of Edwina Rollins, Joe Carver's aunt. Joe sat on the dark porch and nursed a beer. He had watched the conflict involving the occupants of the Cadillac and the BMW, and had listened to the muffled threats with only mild interest. He had been involved in countless confrontations just like that one in his old life. They bored him now.
Joe would have gone inside and caught a little ESPN, but it was all baseball this time of year, a sport that he had played growing up but that did not interest him on television, and anyway, he was waiting on his friend. Lorenzo would be out walking his dog right about now. Joe would just sit out here and wait for Renzo. Wouldn't be too long before his boy would be stopping by.
Jasmine moved jauntily along, leading Lorenzo down Princeton Place. She had done her business in the ball field up by Park View Elementary and had the bounce of the unburdened in her step. Coming upon his grandmother's house, Lorenzo noticed candlelight on the concrete porch of the row house to the south and the outline of a female figure sitting on a glider there. As he went up the sidewalk to his grandmother's, he heard a little girl's voice call out and saw her braided head, in silhouette, come up over the rails of the neighboring porch.
'That Jazz Man?' said the voice.
'Depends on who's asking,' said Lorenzo, stopping, holding the leash and Jasmine fast. 'Is that Lakeisha?'
'How you know my name?'
'Santa Claus told me.'
'Santa?' said Lakeisha with delight.
'Yeah, he called me up,' said Lorenzo, walking across the grass toward the house so that he didn't have to shout. 'Told me about this pretty little girl named Lakeisha, lived in my neighborhood? He didn't have her phone number, so he asked me to find out what that little girl wanted for Christmas.'
'I want Cinderella Dream Trunk!'
'Settle down, girl,' said Rayne, Lakeisha's mother, getting up off the glider and coming to the edge of the covered porch. Lorenzo stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked up at her. Her face was barely lit by the votive candles she had placed about. There was music playing softly, probably from a portable stereo she had put somewhere up there. Lorenzo recognized the song.
'Evening,' said Lorenzo.
'Evening to you,' said Rayne.
'Can I pet Jazz Man, Mommy?' said Lakeisha.
'If Mr Lorenzo says it's all right.'
'She'd love you to pet her,' said Lorenzo.