But the call from Abe hadn’t come, and Frannie and Dismas had done the dishes and watched some television and Dismas had had a couple of beers before losing his patience altogether and beginning his vigil at the kitchen window.
Now she heard him moving out there, then a noise like the rustling of newspaper.
She turned onto her side of the bed.
Her husband Eddie had been dead for four months now. There was a hole there she would never fill, but she had been getting used to the idea of living alone, of having the baby alone, of making a new life somehow, alone.
Dismas was making her think again about Eddie. Or he reminded her of Eddie the way Eddie had reminded her of Dismas when she first met him. She told herself it was one of the hormone storms that had been so difficult in the first trimester, but she knew it wasn’t just that. Dismas had inserted himself into her life, and she had welcomed it. And now even little things like doing the dishes and pouring him coffee made her shudder to think that this, too, would end. And then she would be alone again.
No, it wasn’t just that. Since Eddie’s death she had become acutely aware of mortality. She was trying to get over it, this feeling that everything was on its way to dying right now. And with Dismas it wasn’t a theory-it was a good possibility. He believed that his life was in danger. He was no paranoid. She believed it too.
And if Dismas were gone, like Eddie already was, all the potentiality that might be over the rest of their lives would be gone too-
When the telephone rang, she rolled over again. Dismas picked it up on the first ring, and she heard him talking too low to make out the words. It must be Abe Glitsky, she thought. The call didn’t last long.
The receiver was slammed down loudly, followed by a little ring of protest. She looked at her bedside clock, glad she didn’t have to get up for work tomorrow. More rustling of newspaper.
Leaning up against the doorway to the kitchen, barefoot with her flannel robe around her, her heart went out to Dismas. He sat huddled over the table, the newspaper spread out under him, his head in his hands. She crossed the kitchen and put her hands on his shoulders, rubbing.
“It was Abe,” he said.
“I guessed that.”
“No. Not just on the phone. It was Abe at the Shamrock today. Not Baker. He said he guessed all us black folks look the same.”
“That’s not fair. He should have just told Moses who he was.”
“Why would he? He was looking for me. He knew I was supposed to be working there. It wasn’t official business. So he asks, Moses says I’m not there, doing me a favor, and Abe leaves. Natural as can be.” He breathed out heavily. “So now he really thinks I’m seeing Louis Baker in my dreams, which I am. He didn’t even want to hear about the damn gun.”
She pushed in at the muscles on both sides of his backbone. Dismas leaned back into the pressure. “What’s the paper for?” she asked.
“Tide tables.”
“You going fishing?”
“In a way.” Then, “That feels good.”
As he crossed his arms on the table and put his head down on them, she continued rubbing his back, kneading at his neck, knuckling the knots under his shoulder blades, the softer muscles lower down. His breathing slowed, became regular. She leaned over him and put her mouth by his ear. “Why don’t you get some sleep now.”
Slowly he straightened up in the chair, lifted the gun, checked the safety, stood. “Good idea,” he said, then turned toward her. “You think you could spare a hug?”
She put her arms up around him and they stood there, holding one another. “You be careful, Dismas,” she said into his chest. “I’m not about to lose two men I love in the same year.”
It had been a warm, moonlit night, all the students back in town long enough now to know where they could go get some rock and be ready to party. Money flowing like water, early in the year when all the moms and dads send ’em off to school with their lunches packed up-money for books, for movies, for food. Money.
Dido’s roll was thick in his pocket. His throat still hurt where Louis Baker had hit him. But he’d take care of that later. Now he was doing his business. He was mostly selling twenty bags-four rocks. He could do hundreds, but most of these kids tonight seemed to be into the quick-flash, one-time, try-it-out-and-party thing. Later in the year there might be fewer buyers, but those that bought would do more hundreds, so it worked out. Try the crack for a party, and pretty soon you couldn’t have a party without it.
Lace or Jumpup would be there when the cars stopped, asking if there was any stuff. They were both good at sniffing the heat, but even so, you didn’t let them hold any product. You never knew, some plainclothes might get clever and not drive a city-issued Pontiac.
No. How you keep control was, you held the product yourself, and the money, walking one end of the cut to the other. It wasn’t smart to let a line form. Dido smiled at the image, maybe he’d open a drive-away stand.
It was late now, the night pretty much over. He stood in the shadow by Louis Baker’s place and watched as the college-boy customer walked back and got into his car. He heard the girls giggling in the back seat. The car took off, spitting out tiny rocks and asphalt behind it. Lace came up beside him.
“Maybe we call it tonight,” Dido said, his voice still sounding odd, croaking. He looked at Baker’s wall, painted over white again. That man would have to be dealt with. It had been a good night, and would have been perfect but for the fight.
He took the roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off two for Lace, nodding in the direction of Baker’s wall. “Man thinks he beat me, but who’s working the cut?” he said.
Lace wasn’t saying anything.
“What?” Dido asked. “I don’t hear you.”
“What you want me to say?”
“I asked who’s working the cut.” He didn’t wait for Lace to respond. “You don’t think I got it, you let me know.”
“You got it,” Lace said.
“You think that homeboy got me worried?”
Dido picked up a stray length of two-by-four and walked over to Baker’s new side window, a black shining rectangle in the white wall. “Here’s how much he scares me.” He swung the board. The sound of breaking window echoed down the cut and before the echo had died down, Dido was walking back to the other end to meet Jumpup.
Lace walked alongside, looking back over his shoulder toward Louis Baker’s place. Waiting for the door to open and Louis Baker to come charging out.
A few cars passed on the street, but they didn’t look to be more customers. None had stopped by the time they got to Jumpup, who was sitting on the curb, waiting.
“Let’s take it in,” Dido said, and handed Jumpup his couple of bills. The three of them started walking back where they had been, making one more pass at the cut, seeing it was secure.
As they passed the first building someone called out Dido’s name. They all stopped, staring into the blackness. “You keep walking,” Dido said to the two boys. He took a step or two toward the shadows, figuring it might be someone from another cut seeing them going in, wanting to buy the last of his stash.
The first booming shot took Dido in the stomach and Lace saw him back up a step. He grunted and said, “Hey!” The second shot knocked him over onto his back on the ground. He didn’t say anything after that.
“Mama. Mama, get up.”
There was one light on in the front room, maybe sixty watts under a yellow shade on a pitted end table next to the couch. But with the blinds pulled it shouldn’t draw any attention outside. Mama was dressed but she wasn’t moving. A bottle of sherry lay on its side on the floor beside the couch.