Jonathon King - A Visible Darkness

The Brown Man saw him coming, raised his head when Eddie was halfway across the street and started shaking it back and forth. Eddie came on.

The dealer hissed at him when Eddie stepped into his swale. His runners had not recognized the junk man at first without his cart, but when they did, they stayed away, having been told not to mess with him.

"Get the fuck outta here, man."

The Brown Man spit out the words and the runners turned their heads at the sound of both the agitation and the strange hint of fear in the dealer's voice.

"You nothin' but trouble, junk man. Take your raggedy ass someplace else to get your shit."

Eddie stopped, confused. He cut his eyes to either side, saw no one who looked like they might be the police and then stared back at the Brown Man. The dealer could not hold his eyes.

Eddie reached into his pocket and held out the hundred-dollar bill, but the action just seemed to agitate the Brown Man more.

"Goddammit, nigger. Put that shit away. I ain't need your money no more. Find some other chump to do your bidness with. I'm serious now," he said, and the runners watched as the dealer slid off his stool and stood up.

Eddie saw the man's hand go to his waistband and watched the gun come out. The Brown Man held it close to his stomach so only he could see it. Eddie had seen lots of guns and had never been scared of them. The hundred-dollar bill was still in his outstretched hand. He had come for what he needed. And Eddie always got what he needed.

"A bundle," he said, stepping forward and looking into the Brown Man's face.

"You fuckin' crazy?" the dealer yelled, this time the fear in his voice scaring his own runners. "You some kinda retard?"

The gun was pointed at Eddie this time, but then the big man's other hand snapped out and swallowed the weapon and pulled the dealer into his chest.

The two men were locked into a tight, hissing dance, and the runners started to jump to the aid of their boss but froze when they heard the gun's muffled explosion. When a second shot sounded, the dealer squealed and fell away, holding his curled hand to his hip.

Eddie looked down at him and then at the gun in his own hand and then turned and tossed the piece clattering across the concrete.

The runners did not move. Not a single light came on along the street. Eddie looked up into the faces of the Brown Man's boys until they backed down and then he turned and limped away, a bloodstain growing at his side.

The feel of her leg moving off mine started me awake. She sat up, and the shift of weight on the mattress was something I had not felt in years. When I opened my eyes I could see the outline of her hip and the curve of her shoulder in the light of a still-lit candle.

Then I caught the muffled electronic ring of a phone.

"It's not mine," she said, turning from the nightstand.

"Then let it go," I said, and reached out to touch her back with my fingertips. The ringing stopped.

"See?"

She was quiet, and raised a single finger.

The ringing began again.

"Shit," I said, getting up and walking naked through another man's house and finding my phone on the porch, wrapped in a bundle of my dirty clothes.

"What?" I snapped into the mouthpiece.

"Your motherfuckin' boy busted my damn hand," came the shouted answer.

"Who the hell is this?"

"I knew they was gonna be trouble. Soon as those dogs from the other side come askin' bout hundred-dollar bills I knew I shoulda kept my mouth shut."

"Is this Carlyle?" I asked, putting it together.

"Don't you call me that," he snapped. "Your got-damn junk man done come over here lookin' for trouble and I shot his ass up."

"He's there? You killed him?" I said, trying now to keep my voice controlled.

"I didn't kill the motherfucker. He come round tryin' to buy more shit and I tried to chase his ass off and the simple motherfucker done grabbed at my piece and it went off into his own damn belly."

"Is he still there?" I repeated.

"Hell no, he ain't here. He ran his ass down the road."

"You hurt?"

"Damn right. Dude's got hands like a damn vise, man. He crushed every fuckin' bone in my hand."

"Alright. Call nine-one-one. Call an ambulance and I'll be right there."

"I ain't callin' nobody. You get that fool's ass or I waste him my own self, know what I'm sayin'?"

"Right," I said and hung up. I was standing on Richards's back porch, naked in the moonlight with a cell phone and a shiver that had just started down my back.

Richards called in the shooting to dispatch while we both dressed.

"No report, not even an anonymous call on gunshots fired," she said, pulling a T-shirt over her head and then grabbing her radio and a holstered 9mm from the nightstand drawer. While she locked the house I went out, started my truck and then opened the passenger door when she came out through the gate.

When we got to the dope hole, two patrol cars were spinning their lights, a shift sergeant was on the scene, and the Brown Man was gone. The sergeant was pacing the sidewalk, and the Brown Man's stool was lying tipped over in the grass. I could see another uniformed cop standing on the porch of a nearby house, speaking through a barely cracked front door.

"Good morning, Detective," the sergeant said as Richards approached.

"Sergeant Carannante," she answered. "Anything?"

"Nothing but your call, Detective. Unusually quiet for a Saturday night, but the trade usually ends at midnight or so."

The sergeant was a thick, Italian-looking man with an insouciant demeanor that said he'd seen it all before. He took me in with his eyes and did not bring them back to Richards until he was introduced.

"Uh, Max Freeman," Richards said. "He's been working with us on a case."

Carannante shook my hand.

"OK. Nice to know who's on the field," he said and turned back to her.

"Street was empty when the first unit got here. We swept the area best we could and then came back to see if we could pick up something with the flashlights. No blood spots, no shell casings, nothing. I got unit nineteen doing a canvass of residents who of course haven't seen or heard anything. And I sent another car to our man Carlyle's to see what's what."

He was a veteran cop. Giving the facts, not passing judgment on the call or the possibility that violence had occurred. Richards was herself looking unsure.

A hiss came from Carannante's radio and he spoke back, then walked back toward the patrol car. I stepped over to the toppled stool, then took a few steps further and looked across the street. I was standing on the spot where Eddie Baines had stood the first time I had met his eyes.

"Walker!" the sergeant yelled past us, signaling the cop on the porch and then moving with a purpose toward his own car.

"Dispatch says twenty-seven Bravo has spotted a big guy pushing a cart over by the river where, what, this guy Baines left his mother for dead?" It was half report, half question and directed at Richards.

"Going home to lick his wounds?" she questioned right back.

"Let's roll over there. If it's him they're going to need help throwing a perimeter," Carannante said. The cop named Walker jumped into the other squad car. "The initial report was that he could be armed. Right?" said the sergeant, again asking Richards.

She nodded and watched both cars spin U-turns and head north, their blue and red lights still throwing color on the building fronts, their sirens silent.

"Let's go, Max," Richards said.

I was looking down the street, watching the corner of a fence that led to an alley about a block down. I raised my hand and heard her footsteps behind me.

"What is it?"

"Wait a second," I said, not turning.

The block stayed quiet. Windows stayed dark. I watched the alley entrance.