Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“We’re not in this for the image,” said a bespectacled young man in a putty-colored corduroy sport coat.

“Not our images, Brother Garfield,” Rufus said, skillfully transforming dissent into ammunition, “images for our children. Who are their heroes now? Some baseball player? Or a singer, maybe? People like that, you can dream about them, but you never get to see them up close. They’re not real. But the pimp, the numbers man, the hustler-they’re right out there, every day.

“Our children need another path,” Rufus said. That’s what we’re in this for, brothers. That’s why the New Black Men came to be.”

“And it’s not just the children,” the cadaverous man echoed. “Plenty of our people haven’t come to consciousness yet. Maybe a pimp can’t be one of us, but there’s no law says a pimp must stay a pimp.”

“That’s the truth, Brother Darryl!” Rufus said, deftly accepting the passed baton. “We know two things: One, this ‘Silk,’ he came to us. Two, him being a pimp, that means he got eyes and ears out there, hearing things we never would. A pimp, he gets to see the truth. A trick does things with a whore he’d never do with his wife… and he also tells a whore things he’d never tell his wife.

“That’s how we made our connection for the guns, remember? One of Silk’s women has this regular customer who’s in the business. He told her, she told him, he told us… and it all came together sweet. They may hate us, brothers, but no white man ever minded making money off us. Mister Green always going to be the boss.”

“Maybe there’s something in it for Silk,” Garfield said. “We’re paying a lot of money for every shipment. Maybe he’s getting a little commission for himself.”

“If he is, that’s a betrayal,” Rufus agreed. “Because Silk says he’s one of us. Wants to be one of us, anyway.”

“Every man here has been tested,” Darryl said, his voice barely audible. “His turn will come.”

Rufus held up a lecturer’s forefinger. “Like I said before, brothers: he’s a pimp. Nobody’s ever going to suspect a man like that could be with us. So, if he’s down for real, he could be worth a lot to our cause. And if it turns out he’s not, nobody’s going to miss him when he’s gone.”

1959 October 03 Saturday 01:01

Tussy clothespinned her just-washed stockings to a cord strung from the shower-curtain rod, then padded into the living room in her bare feet. She was wearing a man’s red flannel pajama top as a nightshirt; it came down almost to her knees.

The furniture was all pre-war, except for the radio and a console TV. Substantial woodwork, heavy fabrics. A working-class living room, it had been designed to be used only for “best,” with normal social activities relegated to the kitchen.

On the mantelpiece was a stiffly posed photograph of a young couple. A short, powerfully built man in his early thirties, with a face already going fleshy, dressed in a dark, awkward-fitting suit, stared straight ahead. The woman next to him came only to his shoulder, even in high heels. She was smiling shyly-for her husband, not for the camera.

Tussy turned on the radio. The sad-but-not-surrendering voice of Patsy Cline followed her as she went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee.

1959 October 03 Saturday 01:20

“This job I’m on, you ever do business with that guy before?” Dett spoke into a pay phone.

“I’m just a messenger,” Whisper said, in the broken-larynx voice that gave him his name. “I don’t read the messages; I just deliver them.”

“I wasn’t trying to insult you.”

“I know,” the softly harsh voice said. “Just remember our deal: keep it clean, keep it green. Right?”

“Right,” Dett answered.

1959 October 03 Saturday 01:51

The maroon-lacquered Eldorado Brougham glided away from the curb, its stainless-steel roof reflecting the cold-fire wash of neon from the darkened windows of a backstreet bar. The man behind the wheel was dressed in a powder-blue suit, custom-tailored to his slender, athletic frame. Diamonds glittered on both hands and circled the face of his wristwatch. He checked his image in the rearview mirror, patting his stiff, processed hairdo back into perfection: he smiled at the reflection of his exquisitely featured face, perfect white teeth gleaming against his dark-parchment skin.

The pimp drove slowly past a street corner and came to a stop. A skinny girl in a short, tight red dress and matching high heels trotted toward the Eldorado as its window slid down. She leaned into the car for a minute. Dett could see her head nod vigorously under a luxuriant auburn wig. Then she ran around behind the car and got into the passenger seat. In less than five minutes, she got out, and the Eldorado pulled away.

Checking his traps, Dett said to himself. Just where the old man said he’d be.

Dett shadowed the Eldorado as it meandered. Mostly, the driver contented himself with just cruising by certain corners. Occasionally, he would pull over and pose, deliberately putting his status on display. Twice, hookers came to the car and got in, but neither stayed for longer than it would take to transfer recently earned cash.

“Silk don’t go out in daylight,” Moses had told Dett. “Like one of those vampires you see in the movies. Behind what he do, that make sense to me. Darktown, it’s not like around here, suh. Man wants to get a haircut, get his car fixed, stuff like that, he can get it done even when the sun’s way down.”

“So he pretty much stays in…?”

“Can’t stay over in Darktown all the time, suh. A pimp, he’s got to hawkeye his women while they working the street. And, you want to make money, you got to put your merchandise out where white men don’t be afraid to come. Got plenty of men around here like a taste of what Silk sells, but…”

“He doesn’t run any white women?”

“I think that’s all he runs, suh. Word is, he’s even got girls in some of the high-class houses. ’Course, you listen to any pimp, he’ll tell you he got nothing but racehorses in his stable.”

“So maybe the ‘word’ is just him, bragging.”

“You mean, to build himself up? That wouldn’t be Silk’s way, suh. A man in his job, he’s got to show a lot of flash, sure. That’s how he pulls girls. But the last thing he want to do is attract attention from the wrong boys.”

“The cops?”

“The Klan.”

“This seems pretty far north for the Klan, Moses.”

“That’s ’cause you ain’t colored, suh.”

I have to take him while he’s still on this side of the border, Dett said to himself, watching as the Eldorado positioned itself near a corner, just past the dull spray of an anemic streetlight. Halfway down the block, a sign hung suspended from a building front, the words STAR HOTEL barely illuminated by a surrounding rectangle of pale blue bulbs.

The Brougham was a pillarless four-door hardtop, the rear doors set “suicide” fashion, so that they opened out from the center. The pimp had all the windows lowered, creating a vista of white-leather-covered luxury for all who passed. He was leaning back, left hand on the mink-wrapped steering wheel, his right idly caressing a custom-made white Stetson.

“I want a girl.”

The pimp twitched his shoulders, startled. Despite his pose, he had been on full alert, consulting his side mirrors constantly, his eyes never at rest. Where had this white man come from?

“I don’t know nothing about no girls, man. Why don’t you-?”

Suddenly, the white man was in the front seat next to him, a.45 in his lap, aimed waist-high.

“Drive,” Dett said.

“Look, man, you don’t got to-”

Dett gestured with the.45. Moving with deliberate slowness, the pimp turned the ignition key. His left hand never left the wheel.