“You got to admit, though,” said Clay, “whatever they do during the season, Coach Smith does get them through those first two rounds.”
“Ah,” said Karras, waving his hand at the set. “It’s the conference. The ACC just attracts the quality players, Marcus. Look how many go on to play in the NBA. Georgia Tech and Duke both advanced today. The Tar Heels are in, and NC State will crush Arkansas-Little Rock tomorrow. And you know Maryland’s gotta go into the Sweet Sixteen.”
“UNLV? We’ll see. The Terps are gonna need five men to show up, not just Bias.”
The phone rang, and Karras picked it up. He talked for a while, wrote something on a message pad, and replaced the receiver in its cradle. He rubbed his face.
“Who was that?”
“Donna. She’s worried about her boyfriend, Eddie.”
“She should be.”
“It’s more than that. He hasn’t shown up from work yet.”
“Maybe he’s out havin’ a few.”
“She doesn’t think so. They had definite plans. And she claims he’s the puppy-dog type when it comes to her.”
“What’s she want from you?”
“Guy’s a dishwasher installer. I’m gonna run over to where he switches his truck with his car, see if he’s knocked off for the night.”
“Then you’re gonna go see Donna.”
“It’s not like that, Marcus.”
“It’s always like that with you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“The shoe fits, man—”
“I know.”
“Mitri?”
“Now you’re gonna remind me not to get involved. Like you hung back today?”
“All right. But show some sense.”
Karras went back to his bedroom and slipped the snow-seal holding the rest of his half into his jean jacket. He left the Trauma Arms.
Short Man Monroe searched Eddie Golden’s apartment and found nothing. He phoned Tyrell. He opened the front door a crack, looked out into the stairwell, and left the place, locking the door behind him before jogging down to the lot. Monroe slid in beside Alan Rogers, who was sitting behind the wheel of the idling Z.
“Boy lied,” said Monroe, slipping his gloves off and tossing them on the dash.
“Damn. Tyrell and Ray gonna fuck him up.”
“He shouldn’t of lied.”
“What we gonna do now?”
“Get outta here quick, for one. Makes me nervous bein’ out here, all these Maryland farmers walkin’ around and shit. Go on down to U, do our job. Want to have me a look around anyway, see if Vietnam is still out.”
“Listen, Short... I got somethin’ I got to do.”
“I know what you gotta do.”
Rogers said, “You mind?”
“Nah. I better go down in the Supra with Chink and Jumbo, though. ’Cause you know Jumbo can’t fit in this here car.”
“All right, black. I’ll check in with you later, hear?”
“Right.”
Monroe reached under the seat, retrieved his other gun, put it up under his shirt before leaving the Z and running to the Supra. The Supra pulled out and headed south toward the District line. Rogers followed them all the way into D.C., turning off of 13th four blocks before the drop-off at Cardoza. He downshifted and slowed the car, pulling over to the curb and cutting the engine a few doors down from Denice’s house. He didn’t see the old man’s car out on the street.
Alan Rogers sat back in the bucket. He pictured Denice in that skirt of hers and, for a little while, anyway, pushed business to the back of his mind. Rogers tried not to think too much about that white boy. He knew what they’d do to him now.
Clarence and Denice Tate discussed the movie on the ride back across town. Denice had enjoyed the romance of it, but for the most part, Tate had been bored to tears. With a title like Out of Africa, you’d think they’d have put more into it, but as in most Hollywood pictures he’d seen on the subject, they’d gone and concentrated on how the continent and its people had affected the white folks who had come to live there. Faithful native servants, dewy eyed and head bowed to their Caucasian movie-star masters. All that. The Ward 3 audience had lapped it up. And Denice seemed like she’d had a good time, which was the purpose of the outing, after all. Tate had gotten through it on the music and scenery alone.
Walking up to their house, Tate heard the low rumble of an engine idling down the block. He turned his head, saw exhaust coming from the dual pipes of a black sports car parked along the curb a few houses away. Denice’s face brightened, but when Tate glanced over, she tried to bury the look. He hurried Denice up the steps.
With the door locked behind them, Denice said, “I’m gonna go up to bed now, okay? I’m kinda tired and all.”
“Okay, honeygirl. I’ll be up in a minute to say good night.”
“Thanks for the show, Daddy.”
“My pleasure.”
He watched her go up the stairs.
Tate went down to the basement, found a small key he kept on his ring, put it to the lock of a file cabinet pushed beneath the steps. He retrieved a hot .22 he had bought in the alley behind Real Right just a few months back, and a box of shells. He broke the cylinder open and took some rounds from the box. He clumsily thumbed shells into the chambers and snapped the cylinder shut.
Tate dropped the pistol into his jacket pocket and took the two flights of stairs up to Denice’s bedroom. He walked inside. Denice stood by the window in the dark, looking down to the street.
“Come away from the window, girl.”
Denice turned, startled. “Daddy.”
“Step on back.”
Tate moved to the window. The Rogers boy stood on the sidewalk out front of their house. As Tate’s figure filled the frame, the Rogers boy took a step back. He buried his hands in his pockets and began to swagger away.
“Daddy, where you goin’?”
Tate pointed at Denice on his way out of the room. “Stay away from that window.”
Tate took the stairs, opened the front door, and bolted down the walkway to the street. The Rogers boy was still swaggering, trying real hard not to run, but he had picked up his pace considerably and was closing in on his car.
Tate pulled the .22 from his jacket. He broke into a jog, the cold rain cutting at his face.
“You see this, boy?” he yelled, waving the pistol in the air. “You see this?!”
Rogers looked over his shoulder, ducked into the Z, cranked the engine. Tate heard a window on the second floor of his house open, heard his daughter shout “Daddy” in a pleading kind of way.
“Don’t come around here no more, you hear me, Rogers? I’m not playin’, you understand?”
Tate’s voice, strained and strange to his own ears, was muted by the cry of rubber on asphalt. The black Z shot off the curb and sped away.
Tate stood alone in the street. He looked down at his hand and abruptly dropped the pistol back in his jacket. He glanced around at the houses of his neighbors, turned, and walked back toward his house. He heard the second-story window shut, saw Denice back away and retreat into the shadows of her room.
In his whole life, Tate had never fired a gun in anger. When he was a young man coming up in the District, it was how you went with your hands that made or didn’t make your reputation. He knew the playing field was no longer level, which was why he’d bought the .22. But to pull a gun on a kid... damn, what was he thinking to go and do something like that?
You’d think it would make you feel powerful, in control, to hold a piece of death in your hands, but it only made Tate feel like some kind of coward. Funny how holding a gun could make you so ashamed.