Wallace Stroby - Gone 'Til November

“DeWayne.”

“Who else?”

“No one.”

Morgan tightened his grip. “Tell him to come in.”

“I ain’t telling him shit.”

Morgan thumbed the hammer back for effect. “Tell him.”

“Man, you don’t want to do this.”

Morgan screwed the muzzle into his skin.

Dante looked toward the door. “Yo, DeWayne,” he called out. His voice was flat. “Come on in, it’s cool.”

The door cracked open. DeWayne looked around it into the room, left hand hidden behind his leg.

“Come in,” Morgan said. “Slow.”

The door opened wider.

“Let him go,” DeWayne said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Whatever you’ve got back there, put it on the bed. Do it quick.”

DeWayne’s lazy eye twitched. He waited a long five count, then came into the room, tossed a chromed automatic onto the bare mattress.

“Shut the door,” Morgan said.

He did, stood with his back to it.

Morgan loosened his grip on Dante’s neck and got to his feet, his knees aching. He took a step back as Dante got his feet under him, adjusted his jersey. Morgan reached under the back of it, took out the small automatic he’d felt. He dropped it on the bed.

“Man, why you going off like this?” Dante said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why you think?”

“I told him I didn’t need anybody.”

“I don’t know what you told him. But he told us to come down here, hook up with you. So that’s what we did.”

Morgan decocked the Beretta. “You drive down?” he said.

“Just got here.”

“We here to do work,” DeWayne said. “Just like you.”

He should shoot them both now, Morgan knew, leave them where they lay and head out. But then he would lose the motel as his base, bring in the police.

“Man wondering,” DeWayne said. “Where you at with it.”

“He should have called, saved you both a trip.”

“He said for us to see for ourselves.”

Morgan felt the adrenaline rush fading. He needed to sit down.

“Should have told me you were coming.”

DeWayne raised his shoulders, let them fall.

Morgan nodded at the desk chair, said to Dante, “Sit down.”

“You don’t look so good,” DeWayne said. “You all sweaty and shit.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Morgan said, the words sounding weak and false. He went into the bathroom, put the Beretta on the toilet tank, ran the faucet and drank cold water from a cupped hand, splashed some on his face. He looked into the mirror. His eyes were sunken, his cheekbones showing through. The skull beneath his skin.

“Hotter than a motherfucker down here,” Dante said. “I ain’t used to this shit.”

Morgan dried off with a towel, picked up the Beretta, went back into the room.

“Three’s too many,” he said. “No good. Especially down here. We stick out.”

“Big Man said there’s three or four of them you watching,” Dante said. “That’s why he sent us. Divide up the work, you know?”

“Don’t need it.”

“You want to call him, tell him different, go ahead. He tell us to go back, that’s what we’ll do. Until then…”

“So where you at with it?” DeWayne said.

Morgan looked at him. “If Mikey wants to know, I’ll call him.”

“Anything you wanna tell him, you can tell us.”

“He say that?”

DeWayne nodded.

And how much did he promise you? Morgan thought. A third? More? Or are you just planning to take it all?

“These people you watching,” Dante said. “They the ones got the money?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re not sure?”

“They the ones did Derek, though, right?” DeWayne said.

“Probably,” Morgan said. “Why?”

“I been knowing Derek’s people longtime. His father an OG. He watched out for me on the tier, you know what I’m saying?”

“That’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Derek was good people. They shouldn’t have done him like that. I’ll make sure that shit gets settled, you feel me?”

“You haven’t thought this through.”

“No thinking about it. Whoever did Derek gonna get got.”

“Money come first, though,” Dante said. “Big Man down to stems and seeds. He need that cash.”

“And then?”

Dante pulled at an earlobe. “Like the man said. Whoever did it got to go.”

“That’s what I mean, about not thinking this through. Think you can come down here, kill a cop, walk away?”

“A thieving-ass cop,” DeWayne said.

“You think that makes any difference?”

“It should.”

“We do it fast, then we git,” Dante said. “We be gone before they know it. With the money.”

Morgan felt fresh sweat on his forehead. The Beretta seemed heavier. He put it on the nightstand.

“You up to this?” DeWayne said. “You look like you about done.”

“Where you staying?” Morgan said.

“Holiday Inn,” Dante said. “Town or so over.”

Used your own name, too, Morgan guessed. And after things jump off and the police start checking motels, they’ll have that name, and an address, a description of the car, maybe a tag number. Stupid.

Morgan nodded at the guns.

“Pick them up,” he said. “Mikey give you my cell?”

“We got it,” Dante said.

“Go back to your room. Hit me on it later. I got a couple things to do first, get organized. Then we can talk about where it’s going, how to divide it up. Don’t do nothing until we talk.”

“All right,” Dante said. “Big Man calling the shots, though. You know that, right?”

“Up there, maybe.”

“Down here, too.”

Morgan said nothing. DeWayne opened the door.

“Later then,” Dante said.

They got into the Range Rover, Dante behind the wheel. As it pulled away, Morgan could hear hip-hop thumping inside. He watched them head back down the access road to the highway. Then he went back inside to wait for the dark.

They had an early dinner at the Dairy Queen, Danny picking at his hamburger, pushing fries around his plate. It was his favorite place to eat, and seeing him like this worried her. She reached across the table, put the back of her hand to his forehead. It was warm.

“You okay, little guy?”

He nodded, broke off a piece of hamburger, chewed it. The tyrannosaurus model was on his lap. He’d been carrying it all day.

She took another bite from her hamburger, realized she had no appetite. Her right hand was stiff, the knuckles still red.

She looked around the restaurant. Late Saturday afternoon and mainly teenagers in here, an elderly couple near the front window, the woman cutting up the man’s food for him. There were decorations on the windows. Cutout jack-o’-lanterns, witches.

“Maybe a pirate,” Danny said.

She looked at him. “I miss something?”

“For Halloween. I could be a pirate.”

“Danny…”

“I know.” He looked down at his food. “I was just thinking about it, that’s all.”

“You feel like you have a fever?”

He shook his head.

“Your hamburger okay?” she said.

He nodded.

“You have room for ice cream?”

He looked up. “Can I?”

“Try to eat a little more of that for me first, all right?”

He broke off another piece, chewed it. Her own hamburger was cold to the touch now.

When he’d eaten some more, she said, “That’s okay, you don’t have to finish it. Go on up, see what you want.”

When he went to the counter, she cleared the table, dumped the uneaten food in the trash bin, and stacked their trays on top. They ordered small chocolate sundaes, and took them outside to the plastic tables near the parking lot. The sky was blue and clear. She watched a plane pass by far overhead.