Bolden shoved his hands in his pockets. They walked for another twenty minutes. Only when they neared the spot did he slow down and lay out his plan.
“The guy gets to the house every day at eleven,” he said, “and he leaves at eleven-oh-five. Just enough time to run inside, pick up the cash, and run out again.”
“He’s alone?”
“Always alone.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know. Do you think I just sit around wasting my time all day?”
“And the guy has money?”
“That’s what he’s doing there. Collecting from the dopeheads who’ve been there all night long.”
The man Bolden intended to rob was a drug dealer, and the place he ran in and out of was a crack house that was the subject of a bunch of frightening stories at school. Some said it was a flophouse for Mob hit men, others that an exorcism had taken place there. Bolden had cased the house for a week, and come to a less threatening conclusion. Between thirty and fifty people visited the place each night. Some bought at the door. Others disappeared inside to get high. Hits of crack cost ten bucks a pop. He guessed that each customer bought between ten and twenty hits. Any way you looked at it, there had to be upwards of three thousand bucks inside that house.
“What do we use?” Phil asked.
“Fighting sticks,” said Bolden.
“Sticks? What, are you kidding? All drug dealers carry guns. Everyone knows that.”
“They’re fighting sticks,” he said. “They’re all you need if you know how to use them.”
Lately, Bolden’s identity had become a source of increasing concern. This stemmed in part from his inability to fit in with any one group at school, and in part from his confusion about his heritage. He wasn’t black, Latino, Chinese, Jewish, or Polish. If anything, Bolden was an English name. In Chicago, where everyone was from somewhere, that left Irish as the closest viable ethnic group to which he might reasonably attach himself.
Perusing the stacks of the nearest public library, he had come across a book about Irish Stick Fighting. The book had convinced him that when properly used, fighting sticks could be every bit as lethal as a gun. He knew he had to take into account the fact that the book had been written a hundred years ago, but he believed surprise would give him the advantage he needed.
Reaching behind his back, he pulled a pair of ten-inch batons from his waistband. The sticks were cut from oak, as hard and as heavy as pig iron. “Hit him on the neck or on the kidneys. He’ll go down like a rock.”
“With this thing?” asked Philly.
“Just watch me and do what I do.”
The house was easy to spot. Even among a neighborhood of eyesores, it stood out: a one-story shake with wrecked gray siding, and its every window boarded up. A spindly hedge ran around the house and a fractured walkway led up to it.
Bolden directed Philly to a spot on the curb a few houses down. “Red BMW,” he said, sitting down, his head turned up the street. “Keep a sharp eye.”
“But he’ll see us,” Philly protested.
“So? We don’t exactly look like Mr. T and Hulk Hogan.”
“What if he’s got a gun?”
Bolden didn’t bother answering.
Precisely at eleven, the red BMW rolled into view. The car parked in front of the crack house. A man dressed in jeans and a hip-length leather jacket got out. He was thirty with shaggy brown hair, and he walked bent forward, as if he were fighting a strong wind. Bolden and Philly waited until he was inside, then dashed across the street. Thursday was trash day and the two squatted behind a six-pack of battered garbage cans.
The drug dealer emerged a few minutes later. Bolden let him get close to the car, then jumped from his hiding spot and ran at him. The man barely had time to notice him-this tall, lanky kid charging at him like a crazed Mohican-before Bolden brought the baton down on his neck and shoulders. With every blow, Bolden promised himself that it was the only way that he would ever be free.
The man crumpled to the sidewalk with hardly a whisper.
“Philly, get over here!”
Phil Grabowski remained glued to the spot. “I c-c-c-can’t.”
Bolden struck the dealer in the kidneys, then kicked him in the stomach. Falling to a knee, he searched the man’s pockets. “Bingo!” he said, coming up with a wad of grimy bills. He tried the other side and found a hash pipe, car keys, and the pistol Philly had sworn every self-respecting drug dealer carried. It was a small-caliber automatic, hardly bigger than the palm of his hand. He put it in his pocket.
“Come on,” he shouted, standing and waving Philly over. “Let’s jam!” He ran around the car and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Wait,” cried Philly. “Here I come.”
The limp form of the drug dealer lay between him and the car. As Philly jumped over him, a hand rose up and grabbed his leg. “Where you goin’?”
“Tommy!”
Bolden looked out the window. The dealer was trying to stand, using Philly as a crutch.
Bolden lowered the window. “Hit him! Hit him harder!”
Philly thrashed wildly with the baton. “He won’t let go. Tommy!”
At that instant, the front door of the house flew open. Drawn by the shouts, three men bounded down the stairs. Bolden took in the situation. He had the money. He had the car. He had the gun. He could be down the street in a minute and out of the city ten minutes after that.
“Harder!” Bolden yelled. “On the head!” Philly had gotten himself into the jam. If he’d come when Bolden asked, none of this would be happening.
“Tommy!”
Bolden was out of the car a half second later. He did a Starsky and Hutch, sliding over the hood and landing with both feet on the sidewalk, the compact silver pistol extended in his right hand. “Stop!” he shouted. “Hold it.”
The three men froze in their tracks. Two of them raised their hands.
“Get in the car, Philly.”
“He won’t let go.”
“Let go!” shouted Bolden.
The dealer had his hands locked around Philly’s ankles. “A lighter,” he said, squinting at Bolden. “The gun. It’s a friggin’ lighter. You two punks are fucked.”
Bolden stepped toward the dealer. He’d never handled a gun before. He studied the pearl handle, the finely tooled slide. It felt like a real gun. It had a weight to it. A heft that he liked. This thing was a lighter? A toy? Suddenly, he felt cheated. Pointing the gun at the dealer, he pulled the trigger. The gun bucked, the shot cracking like a bullwhip.
“I’m shot! I’m shot! Oh, Christ! I’m shot!”
A plume of smoke rose from a tear in the leather jacket near his shoulder.
Philly screamed. The three men took off in different directions.
“Go,” said Bolden calmly. “Get out of here.”
Philly remained rooted to the spot. “What about you?”
Bolden gazed at the wounded man. A trickle of blood emerged from his back and snaked down the sidewalk. The trickle grew wider, then wider still. “I’m staying.”
“But…” Philly’s eyes blinked madly, and he began to cry. “But…”
“Just go. I won’t tell your mom. Go now.” Then he jumped at him and shouted, “Get out of here!”
Philly turned and ran.
Bolden knelt by the drug dealer. He stuck the bills back in the pocket of his leather jacket. It was cold. His fingers were numb. He opened the man’s jacket, then removed his Stones T-shirt, crumpled it into a ball, and pressed it very hard against the wound.
“That was stupid to say it was a lighter.”
“You’re crazy, kid.”
In a minute, he heard the first siren. A second joined in, and then another. Soon, the entire world was crying out for Tommy Bolden’s arrest. He began shivering. He’d realized that he’d exchanged one jail for another, and the new one was going to be a lot worse. The Dungeon, they called it. The Illinois State Home for Boys.