“From a lot of different places,” Preacher said, evasively. “Word’s out, all over.”
“What happens when the fight is finished?” Moses said.
“When it’s finished?” Preacher asked, puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“What changes?” Moses said. “What will be different?”
“Oh, I see what you saying. What’ll be different is that those white boys will know the South Side Kings don’t play.”
“And now they think you do?”
“Hey, man, no! Everybody knows our club is-”
“So what would be different?” Moses said, implacably.
“I guess… I guess it depends on how the bop comes out.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Moses said. “Before you go out tomorrow night, you going to pour an ‘X’ out of wine on the sidewalk, right?”
“Sure. You got to-”
“What? Show respect for the dead? That’s what they get, for dying? The people who ain’t dead, they get together and say, ‘Oh, that boy, he had a lot of heart’?”
“What else could they get?” Preacher said, as surly as a corrected child. “Tombstone wouldn’t make no difference.”
“You don’t mind dying, do you, son?” the old man said.
“No, I don’t. I can’t. The only way a man can-”
“Courage is a good thing,” Moses said. “You can’t be a man without it. But getting killed don’t make you brave. And dying over a piece of ground that’ll never be yours-”
“It will be ours,” Preacher said. “After tomorrow night, that’ll be Kings turf.”
“Yours?” Rufus said, caustically. “Does that mean you going to build houses on it? Open a gas station, maybe? Could you sell it, get money for it?”
“That’s not what I’m-”
“Fighting for land, that’s what this country’s all about,” Rufus said. “White men killed a whole bunch of Indians, for openers. When they got done with the Indians, they started on each other. And they still doing it. But that’s land that’s got a deed to it, see?”
“You’re saying it ain’t worth it, over a little piece of vacant lot?” Preacher said. “But that’s not what this is about. If we let the Hawks take that lot, it’s like they took a piece of us.”
“Rep,” Rufus said.
“Rep,” Preacher agreed. “When I was in New York…” He paused, but if he was waiting for some indication that he had impressed the seated men, he was disappointed. “When I was just thirteen, I stayed with my uncle for the summer. He lives in Harlem. They got gangs there the size of armies. They run the city. When people see them coming, they get out the way.”
“That’s where you took your name?” Rufus said.
“Huh?”
“The biggest gangs in New York, the Chaplains and the Bishops, right? So… ‘Preacher,’ that would be like… representing what they are.”
“You know a lot,” Preacher said, not disputing Rufus’s intuitive guess.
“You know what? Those big gangs, those armies, they don’t own nothing,” Rufus said. “They got no real power. Only reason the Man hasn’t stepped on them is, right now, they making things easy for Whitey. Got half the folks in the big cities scared out of their minds, so the politicians, nobody cares what crooks they are, long as they protect them from the crazed hordes of niggers. It’s all a shuck, son.”
“How do you know so much?” Preacher said. Not disputing, wondering. Whatever these men were, they were a lot more than gun dealers.
“We’re going to tell you,” Rufus said. “And I hope you listen.”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 22:39
“Walker?”
“Huh?” Dett said, opening his eyes.
“You were asleep!”
“Me?” he said, noticing, for the first time, that his right arm was wrapped around Tussy.
“Yes, you!” she said. “I’ve heard of boys who take girls to drive-ins for all kinds of reasons, but I never heard of one who fell asleep on the job.”
“I didn’t… realize. It was just so…”
“What?” Tussy demanded.
“It was so peaceful,” Dett said, quietly. “Like when you come back in off the line-”
“You mean, in the war?”
“Yeah,” he said, quickly. “For days before, you can’t sleep. Not really sleep, I mean. You’re… tensed up, like there’s little jolts running through you. Guys talk, at night. Some do it just to pass the time, but mostly so you don’t think about what’s out there, waiting for you. They say, ‘Soon as I get back, I’m going to… get drunk, or get a woman, or…’ You know what I mean. But what happens is, when you finally do get back, it’s like someone slipped you a Mickey Finn. You go out like a light. Sleep for days, sometimes.”
“Like someone turned off your electricity?”
“Just like that,” Dett said. “And, here with you, it was like I… I don’t know what it was, Tussy.”
“Well, I’m not mad now,” she said, making a face. “But I know what would make me feel even better.”
“What? Just tell me and I’ll-”
“Talk, talk, talk,” Tussy murmured, her lips against his ear.
1959 October 06 Tuesday 22:47
Sherman entered Ruth as gently as a man defusing a bomb. She opened delicately, a dewy blossom, offering the secret purity she had defended against the rapists of her childhood.
Like a key in a lock, radiated through Sherman’s mind. Only it’s me who’s opening.
Ruth whispered words no customer could ever have paid her to say. Then shuddered to an orgasm she didn’t believe could exist.
Sherman followed right after her, as they mated for life.
1959 October 06 Tuesday 23:12
“You think this’ll do the trick, Gar?” Rufus said to a bespectacled man standing at a workbench.
“It should,” the man said, cautiously. “It’s just physics. What we’re after is dissipation of force. We can’t build a thick enough wall, so we get the same effect with layers. Each one absorbs some of the energy, so, by the time you get to the last one, it holds.”
“How much is that thing going to weigh, brother?” Kendall asked, skeptically. “Remember, the boy got to walk in it.”
“He’s a strong young man,” Moses said. “And he won’t have to walk far.”
“Far enough,” Rufus said. “The Kings’ clubhouse is way over on-”
“We can drive him over,” Moses said. “Drop him off at the side.”
“That’s not the way it works,” Kendall said. “I was a gang fighter, in Detroit. Years ago, before I got… conscious. The leader has to lead. He’s got to walk at the head, all the way down to wherever the meet is.”
“If that boy’s got a strong enough rep-and my guess is that he does-he tells his men this is strategy, him coming in at the last minute-and they’ll buy it,” Rufus said.
“Long as he first across,” Kendall cautioned.
“I think it’s ready,” Garfield said, pointing to what looked like a thick blanket attached to heavy canvas straps.
“Let’s find out,” Darryl said, pulling a pistol from his coat.
1959 October 06 Tuesday 23:49
“Can you… can you do that thing you did before?” Tussy asked, as they approached her house.
“What thing?”
“You know. Go away and come back.”
“Yes.”
“Walker, I swear, how clear a picture do I have to paint for you?”
1959 October 06 Tuesday 23:57
“Is this how you imagined it?” Ruth asked. She was lying in Sherman’s arms, nude, the black lace teddy she had brought with her still in the trunk of her car-in a makeup case that also contained a pair of handcuffs and a black blindfold.
“I didn’t imagine it, I dreamed it.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I… never thought it could really happen.”
“I never thought a lot of things could happen. Good things, I mean. Bad things, those you can count on.”