Джордж Пелеканос: The Sweet Forever

“Be right back,” said Karras.

Donna said, “I’ll be here.” She reached into her jean jacket and pulled out a cigarette. She lit it, pulled hard on it, kept the smoke deep in her lungs; nothing better than nicotine over cocaine.

Karras met Clay, who was stepping back away from the car, in the street.

“Marcus.”

“Hey, man. Where you been?”

“In the back with my friend.”

“In the back, huh?”

“We heard the noise and came out. What happened?”

“Damn if I know.”

Karras stepped toward the car. Clay grabbed ahold of his arm, held him back. Karras saw something in Marcus’s eyes, stopped walking.

“What is it?”

“You don’t want to see that, Dimitri. Been a long time since I seen that kind of shit my own self. Saw it plenty in the war, but... shit.”

“What?”

“Boy got his head tore off, man. One of those I beams went through the windshield of that Buick, ripped that mothafucker right off his shoulders.”

“All right,” said Karras. “I’m not going near it. I’ll stay right here.”

They watched the rescue squad clue the fire department in. They watched the fire department extinguish what was left of the flames.

Clarence Tate noticed that the driver of the black Z had come back and parked the car on the south corner of 11th. He watched the driver — tall and slim, not a bad-looking kid — get out of the car. The door on the passenger side opened. A shorter, more muscular kid stepped out, down-stepped around the car to where the taller kid leaned. Despite the cold, the short kid went without a jacket. He wore a white T-shirt clinging to a cut chest and oversized biceps. He wore two gold chains out over the shirt. He wore the Scowl that young boys felt they had to wear these days. Tate thinking, These two here are definitely in the life.

“Daddy?”

“What, Neecie?”

“The person in the car is dead, right?”

The rescue squad people had looked in the Buick. Now they were just standing around. Their squad leader had said something to one of his men over by the fire truck as it had arrived, and now the firemen were putting out the blaze. The smoke was thick and black, and it was rising off the street.

“That’s right, honeygirl,” said Tate.

Tate could see the shorter kid talking with his hands, trying to make a point to the taller kid. The taller kid kept looking toward the window of the store. He was looking for Denice.

“You know that boy?” said Tate.

Tate didn’t have to say which boy. Out the corner of his eye he had seen Denice glancing that way.

“I seen him around.”

“You don’t need to be talkin’ to him. He’s too old to be talkin’ to you, hear?”

“Daddy, I don’t even know his name.”

She did know his name. It was Alan Rogers. He was tall and he was cute. It was good to know a boy like that. She was scared on these streets now, with all the rough boys talking trash to her as she walked back and forth from school, pushing themselves against her in the stairwell in school. Hard-looking boys; she heard tell some of them had guns. It was good to know a cute boy like Alan, who was hard, too, but in a different way, who drove a nice car, who had respect, who could protect her from those other boys.

“You hear me, girl? I don’t want you talkin’ to his kind.”

“Oh, Daddy—”

“Daddy nothin’. You mind me now, hear?”

Tate’s voice was harsh. But he hoped she understood that he loved her, just loved her so much. He scolded Denice to make his point known. As he scolded her, he stroked her hair.

Officer Kevin Murphy told the usual Medger’s winos to get back up on the sidewalk. A couple of elderly men from the residential side of 11th had come over, too, and Murphy ordered them back, too, gently and with more respect. He watched Tutt get close to the burning Buick, and then he watched Tutt make his way toward the Z, where two of Tyrell’s boys, Alan Rogers and Sean “Short Man” Monroe, stood against the car. He could see Tutt shake his head subtly to Rogers, as subtly as a clumsy guy like Tutt could manage. Then Tutt started back, stopped to talk to a couple of other uniformed cops, two young white guys named Platt and Thompson, who had just come upon the scene. Platt was all right, hardworking and by all accounts committed; Thompson was mean and stupid, red to the core, just like Tutt.

Tutt looked over at the Buick, said something to Thompson, and Thompson laughed. The kid in the Raiders jacket, the one who always stood in front of the liquor store, walked by them. He stepped out into the street, his hands in his pockets. He walked toward Murphy.

“All right, young man,” said Murphy. “Get back over there with the others.”

“Sure thing, officer,” said the kid, but he didn’t move.

“You heard me, why you’re not walkin’? Move along.”

“I saw what happened,” said the kid.

“The accident?”

“After, too.”

“Lotta people saw it. You don’t worry yourself over this now, hear? Get back up on that sidewalk.”

“Whatever you say.”

The kid smiled a little, walking away.

Murphy checked the cockiness in the kid’s step, pictured himself at the kid’s age, on these same streets, twenty years ago. Tried to picture this new world through the kid’s eyes.

Murphy called out, “Say, young brother. What’s your name?”

“Anthony Taylor,” said the kid, still walking, not turning. “Up around my way they call me T.”

“You live around here?”

“My corner,” said Anthony. “Right over here.”

Murphy watched him go there and take his place.

“Dag, boy,” said Sean “Short Man” Monroe. “How’d you like to go out like Junie went today?”

“I don’t want to go out no way,” said Alan Rogers. “I want to live.”

“I ain’t goin’ out like that. Gonna take some with me when I go.”

“No doubt you will.”

Monroe licked his lips. “You know, Tyrell told Junie not to buy that car. Knew it was too much for him. Knew Junie’d fuck his own self up behind the wheel. Don’t you know, little nigga like Junie couldn’t even reach the pedals and shit.”

“Junie did like to drive fast.”

“Tyrell told him not to be drivin’ so fast when he had ’caine or money in the car. Man had twenty-five grand in a pillowcase, goin’ to make a buy, doin’ seventy down U.”

“Didn’t listen.”

“Never did have no control. Grand National and shit. Way he drived, man shoulda been drivin’ a Dodge Omni, some shit like that.”

The white cop, Tutt, came close by, shook his head slightly in Rogers’s direction. Then he walked away.

“Redneck mothafucker,” said Monroe.

“ Talk about it.”

“What, he claimin’ the money ain’t in the car?”

“That’s what he’s sayin’, yeah.”

“Tyrell ain’t gonna be happy, man.”

“Could be in the trunk, you never know. Coulda burned up, too. Tutt’ll find out when the smoke clears. We’ll talk to Tutt later.”

“ You talk to him. I say fuck that mothafucker, boy.”

“Yeah, I know. Come on.”

They got into the Z. Monroe saw Rogers take a last look over at the record store before he gunned it down 11th.

“Look at you,” said Monroe, laughing. “You still goin’ at that young stuff.”

“She look good, man.”

Monroe pursed his lips. “Clean, too. After you hit that shit, I’ll be right behind you.”

“She’s nice,” said Alan Rogers softly.

Monroe said, “Got a good ass to fuck, too.”

Marcus Clay stood watching the street scene unfold. He saw the familiar, aging residents who came from their two-story 11th Street row houses to see the action. He saw the beat cops who worked his district, one of whom he recognized as a brother who had come out of Cardoza a few years after him. He saw the kid who always stood on the corner at the liquor store, the winos out front. He saw the drug boys leaning against their pretty sports car, just two of the many who were driving middle-class residents out of the city, keeping them away from U, keeping them and their children from patronizing his shop. Maybe Elaine had been right: He must have been off to think that a new record store could go down here in Shaw.