Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“Fuck, he walking slow,” another said. “You think he hurt?”

“No, man. Remember what Buddha told us?”

“Behind me,” Preacher called out, as he joined the Kings and merged with the night.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:12

“He’s doing it,” Darryl said, quietly. “Boy got himself a ton of heart.”

“Ton of trust, too,” Rufus said. “And he brought it to the right people.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:14

The gangs closed the ground between them, moving in a silence so deep it vibrated, their wine-and-reefer courage already starting to fade.

“Rush!” shouted Hog, breaking into a run.

The Kings immediately fell back a few paces, creating an arrow formation, with Preacher at its apex. As the Hawks charged in, one of the Kings screamed “Ahhhhh!” and leaped ahead of Preacher, swinging a chain over his head like a mace.

In seconds, the vacant lot was a swirling vortex of violence, punctuated by the sounds of blunt objects against flesh, screams when knife blades found homes, the popping of zip guns.

Ace and Preacher stood apart, in the center of the chaos, seeing only each other.

Ace pulled his pistol.

Preacher walked directly toward him, hands in his pockets, moving stiffly.

“Die, nigger!” Ace screamed.

Preacher kept coming.

Ace leveled his pistol and fired.

Preacher dropped. His black-coated body disappeared into the deeper darkness of the ground.

Ace stood frozen, his hand locked to the salvation-promising pistol. His mouth opened like a hinge. A shock wave hit his stomach. He closed his eyes and fired again.

“They got cannons!” one of the Kings shouted.

Sirens ripped the night. Closing fast.

“Rollers!” someone screamed.

Like contestants hearing a referee’s whistle, both gangs immediately started back the way they had come, dragging off their wounded.

Ace was rooted in place. He tried to sight down the barrel of his pistol, but his hands were in spasm. Suddenly, Buddha loomed out of the blackness, arms spread wide as if embracing whatever was to come. He dived to the ground, flinging his body over Preacher. Startled, Ace turned and ran, firing randomly over his shoulder. I was the last to go! blazed through his mind. They all saw it.

From the far side of the lot, Rufus, Darryl, Kendall, and Garfield raced toward where they had seen Preacher go down.

Buddha saw them coming, struggled to his feet. “Come on, motherfuckers!” he shrieked his war cry, standing over the body of his fallen leader, twirling his chain in one hand. “I got something for all of you!”

“Back up, fool!” Rufus snarled at him as they closed in. “We look like white boys to you?”

Buddha staggered backward. He watched in stunned amazement as the four men skillfully turned Preacher over on his stomach. Garfield used an industrial shears to cut Preacher’s long black coat off, then quickly unbuckled a series of straps. The other men gripped together and pulled in unison, rolling Preacher out of his wrappings.

“You all right, son?” Rufus said, bending down.

“Got my… rib, I think,” the young man gasped. “Like I was hit with a sledgehammer.”

“Let me see,” Darryl said. He felt with his fingers. “There?”

“Yeah!” Preacher grunted in pain.

“Never got in,” Darryl said, triumphantly. “You got to walk a little now, brother. Going to hurt, but you can do it.” He draped Preacher’s arm over his neck, helped the young man to his feet.

“What about…?” Garfield said, gesturing in Buddha’s direction with the shears. The round-faced youth hadn’t moved.

“Got to take him with us now,” Rufus said. “We used our own sirens to get them all to run, but the real cops’ll be here any minute now. You!” he snapped at Buddha. “Come on!”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:18

“I think I see a way to do it,” Dett said. “If everything you’ve got here”-pointing to stacks of paper and the maps taped to the wall-“is accurate.”

“I’d bet my life on it,” Beaumont vowed.

“That’s up to you,” Dett said.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:41

“You see it?” Ace demanded, for the fifth time. “You see me drop that nigger like a sack of cement?”

“We got to get rid of that pistol,” Hog said, urgently.

“Fuck that! This baby is what’s going to make the Hawks-”

“Are you nuts? Once the cops dig that slug out of Preacher in the morgue, all they have to do is match it up with your gun, and you’ll end up getting the chair.”

“Why should they even-?”

“Oh, man,” Hog said, despairingly. “I know you’re all jazzed from what happened, okay? But you’re not thinking, Ace. You asking people if they saw it. Well, they did see it, man. Everybody out there saw it.”

“None of our guys would ever-”

“The niggers, man. You think they’re not going to squeal?”

“Never did before, when we-”

“We never killed one before. This time, the cops are really going to look, man. That pistol has to go. Tonight.”

“Damn, Hog.”

“Hey, man, when the Klan hears what you did tonight, they’ll give you another one. Maybe more than one…”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:43

“White boys got to burn for this,” a coal-colored youth with a red bandanna around his neck said. “Gunned down Preacher like he was a dog. He never had a chance.”

“Firesticks!” another youth said. “I got a cousin, works on a construction site all the way up in Gary. We get a couple of sticks of dynamite, go down to their clubhouse, blow those cocksucking Hawks all to hell. Bang!”

“Shut up, all of you,” a squat, coffee-colored young man said. He swayed on wide-planted feet, blood still running from a gash next to his right eye. “This ain’t what Preacher would want us to do. We got to be cold, not crazy. Cops gonna be all over this place. Everybody that needs patching up, get out. All the weapons got to go, too. Have the debs take them away. Now! When the rollers show up, we all want to be-”

“Dancer’s telling it like it should be told.” The voice penetrated the darkened room.

“Buddha!” A joyous yell. “Thought you got it, too.”

“White boys can’t kill no man like me,” Buddha said, grinning.

“Is Preacher gonna make it?” one of the youths called out.

“Make it? Shit, motherfuckers, he gonna do a whole lot better than that. Everybody split now, like Dancer say. We meet back here, tomorrow night.”

“You in charge now?” another youth asked, not a trace of challenge in his voice, only awestruck respect for the man who had stayed behind while all the others had run.

“Preacher in charge, fool!” Buddha said, laughing infectiously. “We all meet, tomorrow night, right here. And you gonna see for yourselves.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:50

“I have to look it over by myself,” Dett said. “How far a drive is it?”

“To the estate?” Beaumont asked. “Probably take you only about-”

“Not there. To the daughter’s house.”

“The daughter? Why her? I thought it would be his son. He’s the one named for him. Not Ernest Junior; Ernest the Fourth. Like he was a goddamned king. And I guess he will be, someday.”

“You said the daughter had a baby.”

“So? That kid’s not going to be named for Ernest Hoffman. What makes you think-?”

“Hoffman himself’s seventy-seven years old, right?” Dett said, pawing through some of the papers in front of him. “Had his own son, this Ernest the Fourth, when he was a young man, so that one’s in his middle fifties already. And he’s been married three times, no kids. What does that tell you?”

“He’s had some bad luck picking women,” Beaumont said, ticking off the possibilities on his fingers. “He can’t make babies himself. Or he’s a fag, and the women are just cover.”