“Don’t you go bringing Him into this. Hand it over now, before I get mad.”
Abel gave a long-suffering groan and opened his suitcase. The marijuana was “cleverly” hidden in a pair of socks—and if those socks were brand new, James was Nancy Sinatra. Abel handed the dime bag over with a show of reluctance, and James shook his head in disgust.
“Mmm-hmm. Now give me the other one.”
Feinman looked up into his eyes, startled. James gave his head a long, slow shake.
“Do. Not. Even. Try.” He made the “gimme” gesture again. “I am not playing with you.”
Abel hesitated, and James saw a flicker behind his eyes—try to bluff? But it was gone just as quickly, and without another word he reached into the Samsonite bag again and pulled out a Gideon Bible. Inside the book, a hole had been cut through a hundred pages of onionskin paper to make a nest for a meerschaum pipe and another bag of green herb.
“Yeah. Real smart.” James shook his head, turned on his heel, went to the credenza in the foyer, and unlocked the top drawer. He dropped Abel’s things into it, re-locked the drawer firmly, and then made a show of leaving the key on the moulding above the front door. “It’ll be right here for you when we get back. You can do without that stuff for a few days.”
Abel rolled his eyes. “Whatever, man.”
Tommy appeared at the doorway, his smile a little uncertain. Over his shoulder, James could see the brown Chevy Bel-Air double-parked in the street. “Y’all ready?”
“Ready as we’ll ever be.” As the two white boys clattered down his steps, James locked his front door behind him and spared a final glance at the man who sat at the bus stop, watching them over the top of his morning paper.
James raised a hand and waved.
The man did not wave back.
Tommy took the George Washington Bridge out of the city and followed the New Jersey Turnpike to connect to I-95. The freeway led them south through Pennsylvania, the motorway ablaze with autumn color in late October. It was a pleasant ride, and James kept the Negro Motorist Green Book in his lap, guiding them unerringly to safe gas stations and diners. At nearly every stop, Abel had to find a lavatory or a pay phone, but he was equally quick about calls of nature and calls to his mother.
That night they arrived in Richmond late and rented rooms at Slaughter’s Hotel. They ordered sandwiches and ginger ale from room service and ate in Tommy’s room, watching Bonanza on the black-and-white television.
Despite the pleasant weather and the ease of travel, there was an unspoken tension in the air, and Abel seemed to pick up on it with fine-tuned antennae. He kept silent for most of the trip, reading the books he’d brought in his suitcase, rolling and smoking tobacco cigarettes or folding his arms over his beard for a cat nap when he was bored. Tommy didn’t try to make conversation. Instead he spun the dial on the radio back and forth as he drove, occasionally picking up a snatch of Paul Harvey or hillbilly country songs, dialing it in more slowly when he found black music or a black DJ speaking. He’d looked over at James for a nod of approval when the signal finally came in clear, and sometimes, if Abel’s eyes were closed, James would answer by reaching out to lay a hand on his blue-jeaned thigh.
On the last night of the trip they listened to Chattie Hattie from WGIV, following a narrow strip of highway up into the Blue Ridge mountains. Solomon Burke sang about sweet lips coming closer to a phone, his mellow croon dissolving more and more frequently into bursts of static with every curve of the road.
Just as the last of the radio signal was lost, a siren whooped behind them, and the cherry lights of a police car started to flash in the rearview mirror.
Tommy stiffened and cringed, hands locked on the wheel. He looked down at the speedometer, guilty—no, he had not been speeding—and then gave James a pained look. The Adam’s apple jumped in his throat like a frog on a string as he hit the blinker and pulled over at the side of the road.
The silence when the engine cut out was deafening. James kept still, his shoulders hunched in the passenger seat, as the doors of the sedan behind them opened and slammed. The crunch of approaching boots was slow and ominous.
“Get out the car.”
The highway patrolman stood in the middle of the road, already in a firing position—his pistol drawn, both hands on the grip. James shivered at the sound of that voice, already shaking on the verge of panic.
White.
Southern.
Angry.
The man raised his voice. Louder now. “Get out the car, boy! Ain’t going to tell you again!”
Tommy Baird turned in slow motion toward the open window. The black unblinking eye of a .38 met his blue gaze.
“Whatever you say, Officer.” Tommy’s tone was mild as milk. “We don’t want any trouble.” His hands were parked on the steering wheel at ten and two; now they rose into the air like moths and fluttered gently to the handle of the door. He opened it with exaggerated care and stepped out into the night air. Those same long-fingered hands rose to chest height, offering open palms to the gun.
James glanced over his shoulder. The second cop was an armed silhouette in the headlights, also holding a pistol—the weapon was pointed down at his side, not at Tommy.
Abel Feinman slid lower in the back seat, eyes floating behind his thick lenses like pickled eggs. His acne-scarred cheeks were pale as the moon in the strobing blue light. “This is it,” he muttered. “This is it.”
“This is nothing,” James hissed back. “Hush up.”
“Turn around and bend over. Right now.”
“Yes sir.” Tommy was working with the script he’d been given—he and James had rehearsed it a hundred times. He turned slowly, hands in the air. “May I ask what this is about?” His intonation stayed calm and slow, but James could read the fear in his knotted jaw, the set of his shoulders, the way he breathed.
Fast movement in the dark. Tommy’s torso slammed into the hood, a reverberating boom of meat and bone on Detroit steel. Despite himself he cried out in surprise, and James felt the pain in his chest, as if that cry had pierced him through.
You can’t protect him. He can’t protect you either.
“Shut up.” The cop snapped Tommy’s wrists into handcuffs. “Y’all think you can just come down here and—”
“Careful, Andrew. You are not to damage him.” The second policeman spoke, cutting through his partner’s snarl like a scalpel. It was a very different voice—cool, aristocratic, commanding. A Southern gentleman. The ring of it sent the skin crawling over James in a wave.
Tommy reacted immediately as well, standing bolt upright, his hands pinioned behind his back.
“No.” His eyes were wide with horror as he turned toward the glare of the headlights behind them, the shape of the second policeman. “No!”
Officer Andrew turned his head and nodded. James saw the gun spin and swing back.
“Tommy—!” He started to cry a warning, but butt of the pistol struck Tommy’s head with a heavy thud. Tommy crumpled into the gravel.
The gun was pointed at him now.
“Your turn, nigger. Get out the car.”
James froze. He moved slowly, as Tommy had, eyes on the cop, hands inching toward the door handle.
At the last minute he tore his eyes away from the gun and turned to look out the window. It was after midnight. Tommy’s Bel Air was parked on the side of a lonely mountain road, somewhere in the thick woods between Tennessee and North Carolina. If they’d been coming the other way, back toward New York… the passenger side door would have opened onto the guard rail and the depths of a steep gorge.
Then he might have made a break for it.
He could see it in his mind. Throw himself out the door. Pray the cop would miss a clear shot at his back. Jump the rail. Throw himself into the abyss below.