Pete Hamill - Brooklyn Noir

The metal gate was still down when we got there, but Cornelius was inside sweeping up. He raised it just enough to let Laz limbo underneath. I watched them exchange a few words: watched the face of the barrel-chested, teak-skinned man in the white chef’s apron darken as the pale, lanky dread bent to whisper in his ear. Then Cornelius laid his broom against a chair and beckoned Laz into the back room.

It wasn’t even a minute later when Laz ducked back outside and jumped into the ride. He didn’t say anything, just fisted the wheel and swung the car around. His face was blank, like an actor getting into character inside his head. I’d always thought his eyes were blue, but now they looked gray, the color of sidewalk cement.

“So what he say?” I figured he’d probably ignore the question, but I had to ask.

“He said, ‘Abraham, there are those that hang and those who do the cutting.’ And he gave me what I asked for.” Laz opened the left side of his jacket and I saw the handle of a pistol. Looked like a .38. Used to have one of those myself.

“I was hoping Cornelius would tell you he’d take care of it,” I said.

Laz shook his head about a millimeter. “Not how it works, T.” He made a right onto Jumpshot’s block, found a space, and backed in — cut the wheel too early and fucked it up and had to start over. “Bumbaclot,” he mumbled. There was another car-length of space behind him, but Laz missed on the second try, too. I guess his mind was elsewhere. He nailed it on the third, flicked the key, and turned to me. Surprising how still it suddenly felt in there, with the engine off. How close.

“It’s cool if you want to wait in the car, T.” Laz said it staring straight ahead.

I ground my teeth together, felt my jaw flare. Mostly just so Laz would feel the weight of the favor. “I’m good.”

“You good?”

“I’m good.”

“Let’s do this.”

It was a pretty street. Row houses on either side, and an elementary school with a playground in the middle of the block. I used to live on a school block back Uptown. It’d be crazy loud every day from about noon to 3 — different classes going to recess, fifty or sixty juiced-up kids zooming all over the place. Basketball, tag, double-dutch. Couldn’t be too mad at it, though. It was nice noise.

A thought occurred to me and I turned to Laz, who was trudging along with his hands pocketed and his head buried in his shoulders like a bloodshot, dreadlocked James Dean. “It’s too early for a tournament, right?”

That was Jumpshot’s other hustle. Dude had eight or ten TVs set up in his two-room basement crib, each one equipped with a PlayStation. For five or ten bills, shorties from the neighborhood could sign up and play NBALive or Madden Football or whatever, winner take all. Even the older kids, the young thug set, would be up in Jump’s crib, balling and smoking and betting. Jumpshot handled all the bookie action, in addition to selling the players beer and weed — at a mark-up, no less, like the place was a bar or some shit. It was kind of brilliant, really.

“Way too early,” said Laz.

We stopped in front of Jumpshot’s door. “Play it cool,” I reminded him.

“We’ll see,” said Laz, and a little bit of that Brooklyn-Jew accent, that soft, self-assured intonation, surfaced for a second. It occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this. Maybe he didn’t own a gun because he didn’t trust himself with one. I don’t know if the thought made me feel better or worse.

“He’s got a loose ceiling tile in the bathroom,” said Laz. “Right above the toilet.” And he pressed the buzzer, hard, for about three seconds.

Static crackled from the intercom and then a grainy voice demanded, Who dat? A bad connection to ten feet away.

Laz bent to the speaker, hands on his knees, and over-pronounced his words: “Jumpshot, it’s Abraham. I’ve got to talk to you. It’s very important.”

A pause, two heatbeats long, and then, “A’ight, man, hold on.”

I tried to catch Laz’s eye, wanting to read his thoughts from his face. But his stare was frozen on the door. This much I was sure of: The longer Jumpshot took to open up, the worse for him.

But Jump’s face appeared in the crack between door and jamb a second later, bisected by the chain-lock. He flicked his eyes at both of us, then closed the door, slid off the chain, and opened up. He was rocking black basketball shorts, a white wife-beater, and some dirty-ass sweatsocks. If he hadn’t been asleep, he sure looked it.

“Fuck time is it?” He rubbed a palm up and down the right side of his face as he followed us inside.

“Early.” Next to Jumpshot, Laz looked like a gaunt, ancient giant. “But I been up for hours.”

“Yeah?” Jump said, sitting heavily on his unmade bed and bending to pull a pair of sneakers from underneath the frame. “Why’s that?”

Lazarus reached into his jacket and pulled out the .38, held it at waist height so that the barrel was pointing right at Jumpshot’s grill. “I think you know the answer to that,” he said calmly.

Jump looked up and froze. Just froze. Didn’t move, didn’t say shit. I gathered he’d never stared into that little black hole before.

Lazarus smiled. “Where’s my shit, Jumpshot?” he asked conversationally. I gulped it back fast, but for a sec I thought I might puke. It wasn’t the piece, or the fact that Jump suddenly looked like the seventeen-year-old kid he was. It wasn’t even the weird fucking sensation of another dude’s life passing before my eyes the way Jump’s did just then. What turned my stomach was that Lazarus looked more content than I had ever seen him. Like he would do this shit every day if he could.

Jump opened his mouth, made a noise like nhh , and shook his head. I was beginning to feel sorry for him. I’d expected more of the dude. Some stupid Tony Montana bravado, at least: Fuck you, Lazarus. You gonna hafta kill me, nigga.

“T.”

“Yeah, man.”

“Go take a look around, huh? I’ma have a little chat with my man here.”

“Sure.” I headed for the bathroom.

“What are you looking at him for?” I heard behind me. That rabbi voice again. “Look at me. That’s better. Now listen carefully, Jumpshot. You listening? Okay. Here’s the deal. You give me everything back, right now, no bullshit, and you get a pass. You get to pack your shit up and roll out of Dodge.” There was a pause, and I could almost see Laz shrugging. “Who knows, maybe a broken leg for good measure. To remind you that stealing is wrong.”

Finally, Jumpshot found his voice. It was raspy, clogged, but it cut through the stale air like a dart. “I didn’t steal nothing.” Like if he spoke deliberately enough there was no way Lazarus could not believe him. “I… have… no… idea… what you’re talking about.”

I walked back into the room right on cue, and threw two bricks onto the bed. Jump started like I’d tossed a snake at him. “That was all I could find,” I said. Jumpshot’s face was a death mask now, so twisted that any lingering trace of sympathy I might have had for him straight vanished.

“Oh, and this.” I handed Laz the gun. Jump raised up so fast I thought he might salute.

“I never seen that shit before in my life!” The veins in his neck strained; I could see the blood pumping.

“What, that?” Lazarus pointed at the bricks and raised his eyebrows. “That’s weed, Jumpshot. Collie. Ishen. Ganja. Sensi. Goat shit. People smoke it. Gets them high. Or did you mean this?” Lazarus held up the Glock, and as soon as Jumpshot looked at it, bam: Lazarus swung the gun at him and hit Jump square in the face, the orbit of the eye. Knocked him back onto the bed, bloody. Jump let out a clipped yelp and grabbed his face, and Lazarus leaned over him, gun in the air, ready to pistol-whip the kid again.