Ninth and Nowhere

Jeffery Deaver Ninth and Nowhere

I Seven A.M

Two of them were outside the apartment because there were always two of them outside.

Jamal Davis couldn’t remember their names. One skinny, one less skinny, but both mean-eyed, like they’d practiced it. He’d heard the skinny one’s dad’d been a famous OG, who’d made it to all of thirty-seven before he didn’t make it anymore.

The block was brownstones, fronted by fire escapes, all rusting except for 414 West. Fresh paint on ironwork, fresh paint on the door, fresh paint on the window frames. Garbage and recycling clean and lined up perfect. The crew’s apartment on the second floor was rent free because Lester told the landlord they’d watch out and make sure nothing happened to the building. But the funny thing was that, because the building was the crib of the DS-12s, nobody moved in to the other units. Lester took the rest of them over.

Jamal spotted Skinny and Less Skinny eyeing him from a distance. Nothing about him could give them much to worry about: a bulky olive-drab combat jacket that kept out most of the March chill. Jeans with cuffs, orange Reeboks — nice ones, more than he could afford. But sometimes you just had to. His hair was short and his body was round. Which he didn’t like, the round part. But his grandmother had always given him food and he kept eating food. When he was in high school, sometimes somebody made a comment. Jamal was only five seven, a regret, but God gave him muscle and after he broke a jaw or tore an ear or sent somebody on their fours, puking, the comments stopped.

To the two wall-leaning outside 414, round and waddling Jamal was just any other nineteen-year-old in the ’hood. He kept his hands outside his pockets, of course.

He joined them. “Yo.”

“You Jamal?”

He nodded and when he wasn’t looking around he looked at the two. Less Skinny didn’t seem quite right, talking to himself and playing with his joint in a twitchy way. Jamal didn’t want him to go off. Skinny was just smoking a cigarette. Calm.

“Let’s see some ID. Gotcha passport, right?”

Jamal blinked. Less Skinny giggled.

Skinny: “Fucking with you. Do Jesus.”

Jamal extended his arms, crucifixion like, and got frisked.

“Go on up. Second.”

As he stepped through the door he was jerked to a stop. Less Skinny had gripped his collar. He whispered, pot breath, “Careful, son. Don’t fuck up.”

Son? He was Jamal’s age.

The door to 2A was open. Jamal supposed if you had the whole apartment building to yourself, why bother to close it, let alone lock it?

Still, he knocked.

“Yeah?” a voice called.

“Jamal.” He took a deep breath and stepped inside.

He’d been in crew cribs before and this was like any of them. Table for cards and business and meals. Some matching chairs, some that didn’t match. A couch and two armchairs that looked years old, weird plaid, gray and tan, not even his grandmother would’ve liked it. A big-ass TV, of course. CNN was on, crisp and bright and muttering, the volume low.

One bedroom door was closed. Another was ajar and through that one he could see a man sleeping on his back, snoring. He wore cargo pants but no shirt. A house-arrest monitor was attached to his ankle.

Jamal looked around and didn’t see Lester anywhere. Then he heard the sound of pissing and noticed an open bathroom door, the shadow of somebody inside.

Should he sit or stand?

He stood.

A flush. The sound of water from a faucet.

Lester appeared in the doorway, drying his hands on a paper towel. Sleeveless white tee, cargos, Reeboks of his own, silver.

Lester was as skinny as Skinny downstairs. But shorter. And he was muscled, rippling muscles. Jamal heard that at an initiation beatdown, Lester had cracked a kid’s skull with one punch, not the concrete he fell on. But the knuckles. Maybe it was the gold rings too. Lester wore four of them, two on each hand. They had to weigh a quarter pound total.

“Appreciate this, you know, you getting up early for this,” Jamal said.

“Shit, dog. You think I get up for you? Ain’t been to bed. We in an hour ago. My girl, she in that room there, the door closed, so keep your voice down.”

“Sure, man. Yeah.”

Lester’s hair was cropped close and razor-cut along his forehead, then ninety degrees straight down to his temples. Like the barber’d used a ruler. On his chin was a long, stringy goatee.

“But I ain’t got leisure time here, you know what I’m saying? So let’s do this or not do this. My boys downstairs, they check you out, but I’ma ask you to strip.”

Jamal didn’t move.

“You mean—”

“Fuck, dog, strip mean strip. So...” He lifted his palms impatiently.

Jamal took a deep breath. He glanced at the closed door. Lester laughed. “She out for the count. And even she wakes up, you got nothing she ain’t seen before. Do it.”

Jamal did. And though Lester didn’t ask, he turned around because that’s what he’d seen people do in the movies to prove they weren’t wearing a wire.

Lester looked over the round body, saying nothing, not joking about the belly and thighs and man tits.

“’Kay.”

Jamal got dressed quickly. He was in fact terrified that Lester’s girlfriend would walk out of the bedroom and laugh.

“I’ma ask you, dog. What you want it for?”

“I just need it.”

Lester’s eyes went dramatically wide. “Well now, that don’t answer my question, you think?” He walked to the fridge and pulled a beer out, drank half of it. Didn’t offer anything to Jamal.

“All about the green. It’s a shit time for us. My grandmother, she got laid off. Doing cleaning now. She’s a smart lady but she’s sweeping and dusting like some Lat bitch snuck up here from Honduras. Fuck that. And I send MT what I can.”

Lester sat down, stretched out his legs. “Why you never jump in with us?”

Jamal kept standing. “Dunno. Guess ’cause I couldn’t risk getting fucked up. MT’s away for five more, even they give him the benefit of everything. And he’s got himself into trouble inside already. Hit a screw tried to feel him up.”

Lester winced. “Aw, man, let ’em feel. Don’t hit. Thought your brother knew the rules. Bought him another year?”

“Six months, one sol.”

“Fuck solitary.” Lester’s face screwed up tight. “But here you come, dog, asking what you asking, which’ll put your ass right into the system, too, if you fuck up. Then what’ll Granny do?”

Jamal’s voice nearly broke as he said, “I didn’t want it to go like this. I don’t have any fucking choice.”

Lester finished the beer and pulled a toothpick from his pocket. Not a wooden one. Plastic, white. Or maybe ivory.

“How much you got?”

“Three.”

Lester was frowning. “Three won’t get you shit.”

“It’s all I got. Maybe three twenty.” He was going to add, “If I didn’t want to eat today,” but Lester might say not eating today’d be a smart move. The weight and all.

Lester glanced at the TV–CNN, always busy. Rumor was he had a glass eye, or fake eye. Jamal didn’t know if they were made out of glass or what. He watched a minute of breaking news. A little boy had gotten lost in a construction site, a huge mall somewhere. Had he been kidnapped, fallen into a foundation? His name was Robert but the newscasters called him Bobby.

Lester walked into the kitchen and crouched below the sink. He emerged with a brown paper bag. He collected a roll of paper towels and spray bottle of Windex. He walked to the card table and set everything down. He opened the bag and spilled out a pistol and a dozen bullets. The gun’s wooden handle was nicked and the blue metal parts were worn and uneven.