Bruce DeSilva - Cliff Walk

“What are we waiting for?” Mason said.

“That,” I said, pointing to a skinny black girl in a gold lamé miniskirt who was climbing out of a red Toyota pickup. “The guy we’re after sets up every night at a different abandoned house. Best way to find him is to follow one of his girls when she comes back from a job with cash in her bra.”

“I don’t think she’s wearing one,” Mason said.

I reached across him, popped the glove compartment, took out the Colt, and stuck it into the hand pouch on the front of my New England Patriots sweatshirt. I expected Mason to ask why, but he didn’t. Probably figured the neighborhood was answer enough. We got out of the car, crossed Broad Street, and followed the miniskirt east on Potters Avenue. She loped down the sidewalk, her high heels clacking on the cracked concrete. She passed several two-story houses with peeling paint and drooping shutters, turned left up a short macadam walk, and tromped up the splintered porch stairs of a fire-scarred house with plywood across the windows. We followed her up.

She heard us coming, spun, and whipped a straight razor out of her halter top. Mason let out a little shriek and backpedaled down the steps.

The porch was furnished with a single yellow-and-white lounge chair made of aluminum tubes and plastic webbing. Beside it was an open Igloo cooler containing a revolver and a dozen longnecks. In this weather, there was no need for ice. Next to the cooler stood a huge bottle of Vicodin that must have been stolen from a pharmacy. No doctor would prescribe that much. A tall black man was stretched out on the lounge. He was dressed in red Converse low-tops, a matching red fedora with a black feather in the band, and a full-length mink coat. He was smoking the biggest joint north of Jamaica.

“Why you trippin’, bitch?” he said. “Be easy. Mulligan my man. We been down since we wuz shorties.”

The hooker shrugged, flipped the razor shut, stuffed it back in her top, and came back out with a small roll of bills. King Felix smiled benignly and took it from her. He counted it out with his long slim fingers, peeled off two twenties, and handed them back to her. Then he slid his hand inside the mink, pulled out a small aluminum foil packet, and dropped it in her hand.

She turned to me then, placed her palm on my zipper, and said, “Jonesing fo’ some dark meat tonight, white boy?”

“Mulligan don’t want none a yo’ crusty ass,” Felix said. “Get yo’ butt back out on the fuckin’ street and bring back some mo’ cheddar.”

He watched her clomp down the stairs. Then he turned to me and said, “So how you been?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“Can’t complain.”

“No? Then why the Vicodin?”

“Ran into a little trouble a while back, and my ribs are still sore.”

“A little trouble named Joseph DeLucca?”

“Who’s he?”

“The bouncer you tangled with at the Tongue and Groove.”

“Oh. You heard about that, huh?”

“I did.”

“I wasn’t looking for any trouble. Just wanted to talk to a couple of girls that used to work for me, see if I could talk them into coming back. The asshole blindsided me.”

“I see.”

“Don’t tell anybody, okay? It’ll damage my street cred.”

“No worries.”

Felix handed me the joint. I took a hit and then offered it to Mason, who was cautiously coming back up the stairs. He shook his head.

“When in Rome,” I said, and offered it to him again. Again he shook his head, so I passed it back to Felix.

“Who’s the newbie?” he said, and tipped his head toward Mason.

“Pay him no mind,” I said. “I’m just showing him the ropes.”

Felix pulled two longnecks from the cooler, popped the tops with a church key, and handed one to me and one to Mason. Then he opened one for himself and took a swallow.

“Careful,” I said. “Vicodin, marijuana, and alcohol don’t mix.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said. “But the combination works real good, and it hasn’t killed me yet.”

He passed the joint. I took another drag and handed it back to him.

“Still playing ball?” he asked.

“Not since you schooled me in that pickup game last September.”

“Yeah. My wind isn’t what it used to be, but I still got my jump shot.”

Felix and I had been teammates at Hope High School back in the day. He was better than me, but he tanked his SATs; so I moved on to play at Providence College, and he moved on to this.

“That a gun in your sweatshirt?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Not planning to shoot me, are you?”

Two skinny black teenagers unfolded themselves from a dark corner of the porch and jerked little silver revolvers from their pants pockets. Until they moved, I hadn’t noticed they were there. They looked to be about fifteen years old. The one on the left was nervous, his left eye twitching. The one on the right was as cool as a Texas executioner. He took a step and looked through me with flat, dead eyes.

“Chill,” Felix said. They put their guns away, glided back to their dark corner, and flopped back down on the porch floor.

Beside me, Mason had been holding his breath. He blew it out now and took a step back, signaling he thought it was a good time to go.

“Sorry about that,” Felix said. “Marcus and Jamal can be a tad overprotective.”

“Hope you’re not planning on sending them after DeLucca.”

“Not unless word about the beating gets around,” Felix said. “If it does, I might have to do something to restore my reputation.”

“What about the family that owns the club?”

“What about them?”

“Not gunning for them, are you?”

“No way.”

“Your baby hit squad been down to Newport lately?”

“You’d have to ask them.”

“Should I?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

I was about to ask another question, but a long-legged white hooker with a gash over her left eye and a red skirt that barely covered her privates was coming up the stairs now. My old teammate Felix evaporated and King Felix returned.

“Dog,” he said. “I ain’t seen you in a minute. Where the fuck you been at?”

“Makin’ scrappy for my man,” she said, and handed him some bills.

He counted them slowly. “Two fuckin’ hours an’ dat’s all you brung me?”

She looked at her feet and didn’t say anything. He handed her the joint. She plucked it from his fingers, took a hit, and held it. Then she blew it out through her nose and took another.

“Don’t bogart dat shit, Sheila,” he said. He grabbed it back, peeled off two twenties, tucked them into the valley between her breasts, and gave her a hard look. “Get yo’ pale ass back out on the fuckin’ street and bring back some serious green.”

The Capital Grille is located in Providence’s old Union Station, a lovingly restored, yellow-brick structure erected by the New Haven Railroad in 1898. It’s a fashionable luncheon spot, but one that lacks my favorite diner’s affordable prices and greasy charms.

In honor of the occasion, I’d shed my usual sweatshirt, jeans, and Reeboks in favor of Dockers, a white dress shirt, a Jerry Garcia tie, and buffed brogans. I’d topped off the ensemble with a double-breasted navy blue Sears blazer that went out of style when Roebuck was still around. It was the only suit jacket I owned since I left my new one behind on an Amtrak train last year. I hadn’t worn the blazer in a long time, but it still fit, more or less. It wasn’t loose enough to conceal a large handgun, however, so I’d reluctantly left the Colt locked in my file drawer.

Yolanda Mosley-Jones had declined to see me in her office, explaining that nosy reporters were banned from the firm’s inner sanctum. After some whining on my part, she’d agreed to meet for lunch. When I slipped into the place, she was already there, sitting at the bar sipping a pale yellow something from a martini glass and fiddling with her BlackBerry. She didn’t see me come in, so I stood there and watched her for a moment, admiring the legs she came in on.