Ray drove slowly down the block. Coleman's army – steerers, pitchers, money handlers, lookouts, and managers – was spread out on the sidewalk and on several corners of the street. An M3 BMW, an Acura Legend, a spoilered Lexus, and a two-seater Mercedes with chromed-out wheel wells, along with several SUVs, were curbed along the block.
A cop car approached from the other direction. Ray did not look at its uniformed driver but rather at the large numbers printed on the side of the cruiser, a Crown Vic, as it passed.
'Ray,' said Earl.
'It's all right,' said Ray, matching the numbers on the car to the numbers he had memorized.
In the rearview, Ray saw the MPD cruiser make a right at the next corner, circling the block. Ray punched the gas and made it quickly to a bay door at a garage on the end of the block. He honked his horn, two shorts and a long. The bay door rose and Ray drove through, into a garage where several young men and a couple of very young men waited.
The door closed behind them. Ray got his gun out of the glove box trap and pushed his hips forward so that he could holster the nine beneath the waistband of his jeans. He knew his father had slipped his.38 into his jacket pocket back in the barn. He didn't care if the young men in the garage saw the guns. He wanted them to see. Ray and Earl got out of the car.
There was no greeting from Coleman's men, no nod of recognition. Ray knew from his prison days not to smile, or show any other gesture of humanity, because it would be seen as a weakness, an opening, a place to stick the knife. As for Earl, he saw hard black faces, one no different from the other. That was all he needed to know.
'Money, clothes, cars,' rapped a dead, even voice from a small stereo set up on a shelf. 'Clockin' Gs, gettin' skeezed…'
'It's behind the bumper,' said Ray to the oldest of the bunch, whom he'd seen on the last run.
'Then get it, chief,' said the young man, the manager, with a slow tilt of his head.
'You get it,' said Ray.
Now you're gonna look at each other for a while, thought Earl, like you can't decide whether to mix it up or fall in love.
That's what they did. Ray stared them down and they stared him down, and a couple of the older ones laughed, and Ray laughed some, and then there were more hard stares.
And then the manager said, 'Get it,' to one of the younger ones, who nodded to the guy next to him. Those two dismantled the bumper and got the heroin packs out of the space.
Coleman's employees scaled the heroin out quickly on an electronic unit that sat on a bench along a wall while Ray and Earl smoked cigarettes. They did not taste it or test it, not because they trusted these two but because Coleman had instructed them to leave it alone. Coleman knew that Ray and Earl would never try and take him off. What they had with him, it was just too tight.
'The weight's good,' said the manager.
'I know it's good. Call Cherokee and tell him I'm coming in. We'll be back for our car.'
The group began chuckling as the Boones walked from the garage, after one young man started singing banjo notes. Ray didn't care, all of them would be croaked or in the joint soon anyway. It felt good walking out of there, not even looking over his shoulder, like he didn't give a good fuck if they laughed themselves silly or took another breath. He felt strong and he felt tall. He was glad he'd worn his boots.
Ray and Earl stepped quickly down the block. The cold wind blew newspaper pages across the street. Ray met eyes with a young man talking on a cell, knowing that the young man was speaking to one of Cherokee Coleman's lieutenants. They kept walking toward Coleman's place, and when they neared it a door opened and they stepped inside.
They were in an outer office then, and four young men were waiting for them there. One of them frisked Ray and Earl and took the guns that he found. Ray allowed it because there was no danger here; if something was to have gone down it would have gone down back in the garage. Coleman didn't keep drugs, handle large amounts of money, or have people killed anywhere near his office. He had come up like everyone else, but he was smart and he was past that now.
The one who had frisked them nodded, and they went into Coleman's office.
Cherokee Coleman was seated in a leather recliner behind a desk. The desk held a blotter, a gold pen-and-pencil set, and one of those lamps with a green shade, the kind they used to have in banks. A cell phone lay neatly next to the lamp. Ray figured this kind of setup made Coleman feel smart, like a grown-up businessman, like he worked in a bank or something, too. Ray and his father often joked that the pen-and-pencil set had never been used.
Coleman wore a three-button black suit with a charcoal turtleneck beneath the jacket. His skin was smooth and reddish brown against the black of the suit, and his features were small and angular. He wasn't a big man, but the backs of his thick-wristed hands were heavily veined, indicating to Earl that Coleman had strength.
Behind Coleman, leaning against the frame of a small barred window, was a tall, fat, bald man wearing shades with gold stems. He was Coleman's top lieutenant, Angelo Lincoln, a man everyone down here called Big-Ass Angelo.
'Fellas,' said Coleman, lazily moving one of his manicured hands to indicate they take a seat before his desk.
Ray and Earl sat in chairs set lower than Coleman's.
'How's it goin', Ray? Earl?'
'How do,' said Earl.
'How do what?'
Angelo's shoulders jiggled, and a sh-sh-sh sound came from his mouth.
'Looks like everything checked out all right,' said Coleman.
'No doubt,' said Ray. 'The weight's there, and this load is honest-to-God high-test. Eight-five per.'
'I heard.'
Coleman didn't feel the need to tell Ray this purity-percentage stuff was straight-up bullshit. If the shit was eighty-five, ninety percent pure for real, you'd have junkies fallin' out dead all over the city, 'cause shit that pure was do-it-on-the-head-of-a-matchstick stuff only. Got so even the dealers were startin' to believe the press releases comin' out of the DEA.
'You hear it from the Rodriguez brothers?'
'Yeah. They called me to discuss some other business.'
'This business involve my father and me?'
'It could.' Coleman turned to his lieutenant. 'Looks like we got a killer batch on our hands, Angelo. What we gonna call it?'
Coleman liked to label the little wax packets of heroin he sold with brand names. Said it was free advertising, letting his 'clients' know that they were getting Cherokee's best, that there was something new and potent out on the street. He liked to think of the brand names as his signature, like the special dishes cooks came up with in those fancy restaurants.
Ray watched Angelo, staring down at the floor, his mouth open as he thought up names, a frown on his blubbery face. Angelo looked up, nodding his head, proud of what he'd come up with.
'Kill and Kill Again,' said Angelo with a wide grin.
'I don't like that. Sounds like one of those Chuck Norris movies, Angie, and you know what I think of him.'
'Death Wish Too?' said Angelo.
'Naw, black, we used that before.'
'How about Scalphunter, then?' Angelo knew that his boss liked those kinds of names. Coleman thought himself kin to the Indian nation.
Coleman pursed his lips. 'Scalphunter sound good.'
Earl shifted in his chair. The room was warm and smelled of oils or perfume, some shit like that. Colored guys with their paper evergreen trees hanging from the rearview mirrors and their scented crowns and their fancy fucking smells.
'About the Rodriguez brothers,' said Ray.
'Nestor,' said Coleman, 'now he's gone and added cocaine to that sales bag of his. Had to explain to him, I'm getting out of that business. Blow fiends and pipeheads, their money's green, too, don't get me wrong. But all the cash is in brown powder right now, and that's where I see the money of the future, too. And the cocaine I do buy, I buy from the Crips out of L.A. Thing I'm tryin' to say is, I don't want to be beholdin' to just one supplier. Gives 'em too much power with regards to the price structure and negotiations side of things, you know what I'm sayin'?'