The whole thing gave him the kind of pain that was a lot harder to deal with than a knee in the crotch or falling onto a cop’s billy ever could. His head hurt, throbbing at his temples, pushing on his eyes. His gut churned in a way that made the club-shaped bruise on his stomach seem like a nice bit of decoration by comparison.
Fucking George. Even under the circumstances they probably couldn’t have pulled him in over the taillight. Sooner or later they’d have to give him his call. Then what was he gonna do?
He could call his mom. His mom, his hardworking, dumped-by-his-pop, dragged-down-sad, miserable mom. She’d scrape up the bail somehow, he was her boy. And then there’d be some lazy-ass public defender who’d just be another piece of shit he was going to be flattened by. He’d be sent down, hard, maybe for years. And the Luccas could still get to him inside, still own him, or at least a big piece of him. If he was lucky and kept his trap shut tight, did his time and got out, maybe they’d leave him alone after that. Maybe not.
He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to will his ears closed; anything to not feel the wet, anxious stink of the caged men all around him. Anything to avoid having the walls press closer in on him, to keep the barred ceiling and harsh lights from crushing him.
“Lasker, you got your call.”
The guard cuffed his hands in front of him, led him stumbling down what felt like a very long, bright-lit linoleum-and-plaster hall to the pay phone. He had to borrow the nickel.
Haint in the Window
by Tananarive Due
Leimert Park Village
They walked in with a gale of authority, the bells on the door jangling with ferocity that made you jump and feel guilty even if you’d only spent the morning arranging to rent chairs for next week’s Terry McMillan book signing. Darryl noted their flanking formation — one on one side, one on the other — as they eased inside the bookstore, their hands never far from their waistbands. Fingers never far from their triggers. Maybe that was how they had moved when they served in Afghanistan, or wherever else they had moved on the lookout for targets.
Darryl had noticed the uniforms through the window long before the door opened, but he kept his eyes down on his seating chart just the same, as if they hadn’t shaken those bells loud enough to wake the dead. Fucking security guards. A salt-and-pepper team like Lethal Weapon. Or 48 Hrs. In his store with such an imperious air. (His store except on the deed, anyway.)
“Sir?”
When Darryl looked up, the Black security guard, who was closest, smiled an irritated smile, worse than a frown. The white one kept a distance as if he were waiting for Darryl to pull out a sawed-off from underneath his counter: his head tilted slightly down, eyes angled upward. Meant to look scary, maybe, but he was only five eight, so Darryl, who was six feet, wasn’t scared. They looked like they were serving a warrant. Darryl had to remind himself they weren’t really cops. And that he’d never been served a warrant in his life. He managed a damn bookstore.
“Yeah,” Darryl finally answered when he figured they had waited long enough.
“A couple was mugged down at the intersection today.”
Darryl waited for the part that had something to do with him.
The white security guard went on, trying to enlist Darryl’s indignation: “New residents at the Gardens?” The Gardens. Darryl almost laughed at the nickname for the former eyesore he’d walked past his whole life. Residents had been begging for a new paint job for twenty years, but new paint only came with the reopening. The evictions.
“We’re keeping an eye out for a Black male,” the white one said.
I’ll let you know if I see him. It took all of Darryl’s restraint not to say it aloud. He did say it with his eyes, though. The Black security guard glanced away, getting the joke.
The song “Fuck the Security Guards” from Rusty Cundieff’s Fear of a Black Hat was in Darryl’s Friday-night mix, which he played late when there were fewer children in the store. It would be so easy to punch on the sound system and let it blast. Security guards were cops without the training or even imaginary ideals, and a whole gang of them had been hired to patrol the shopping center where Sankofa was nestled since the renovated apartment building across the street began leasing at three times the price. Leimert Gardens, the landlord called the complex now, although it had no garden and the bougainvillea flowers wrapped around the fence had turned brown and died years ago. Darryl had seen these two rent-a-cops before through his picture window at the counter, their necks swiveling as they marched up and down the strip like the street was under occupation. Darryl hoped that the sun was burning them up in those black uniforms that made them look like SS.
“About your height and weight,” the white security guard said without irony. The brother still didn’t meet Darryl’s eyes. “If you see anyone...”
“If I see me?” Darryl said. “Sure. I’ll give you a call. You got a card?” He held out his hand. The white security guard was confused by his juxtaposition of sarcasm and willingness. He finally reached into his front pocket, behind his badge, and pulled out a business card: South LA Security — established 2016. But now his minor irritation had bloomed to anger that turned his earlobes red. When he leaned forward, he stared into Darryl’s eyes almost like a lover — and that was when Darryl knew.
Darryl’s grandmother had called it his Third Eye, claiming it was his birthright. Darryl knew things that were unspoken sometimes, whispers of premonitions. His stomach always knotted when he brushed against knowledge that was none of his business, but he’d learned to use the feeling to avoid problems when he interviewed job candidates or suffered through first dates that wouldn’t lead anywhere except where he’d already been. This time, the feeling was even stronger: the knotting, but also a burning.
This guy was bad news, a violent bully. Okay, maybe he didn’t need a premonition to guess that, but Darryl knew this particular man — RICK, his name tag said, no last name offered — was a security guard because he couldn’t qualify for LAPD, which was a true testament to his instability. And he deeply craved an excuse to hurt a smart-ass like Darryl Martin Jones. To kill someone, if he could get away with it — just to see what it might feel like. Even his smile looked like a trap ready to spring. Darryl pulled his hand back, hesitating to take the card. He wanted no ties to Rick.
“You’ve got a great view of the street here,” the Black one said. “Maybe you’ll see someone you don’t know? Someone who doesn’t belong?”
The door jangled again, and this time a white couple walked inside, maybe in their late twenties, both in hiking sandals and cargo shorts, their toes bare. On an adventure together. They hesitated at the sight of the security guards, but after a quick assessment they decided the space was safe. Darryl noticed how the woman drew her arms around her oversized purse.