George Pelecanos - Right as Rain

Ray watched Angelo, staring down at the floor, his mouth open as he thought up names, a frown on his blubbery face. Angelo looked up, nodding his head, proud of what he'd come up with.

'Kill and Kill Again,' said Angelo with a wide grin.

'I don't like that. Sounds like one of those Chuck Norris movies, Angie, and you know what I think of him.'

'Death Wish Too?' said Angelo.

'Naw, black, we used that before.'

'How about Scalphunter, then?' Angelo knew that his boss liked those kinds of names. Coleman thought himself kin to the Indian nation.

Coleman pursed his lips. 'Scalphunter sound good.'

Earl shifted in his chair. The room was warm and smelled of oils or perfume, some shit like that. Colored guys with their paper evergreen trees hanging from the rearview mirrors and their scented crowns and their fancy fucking smells.

'About the Rodriguez brothers,' said Ray.

'Nestor,' said Coleman, 'now he's gone and added cocaine to that sales bag of his. Had to explain to him, I'm getting out of that business. Blow fiends and pipeheads, their money's green, too, don't get me wrong. But all the cash is in brown powder right now, and that's where I see the money of the future, too. And the cocaine I do buy, I buy from the Crips out of L.A. Thing I'm tryin' to say is, I don't want to be beholdin' to just one supplier. Gives 'em too much power with regards to the price structure and negotiations side of things, you know what I'm sayin'?'

Beholdin' to, with regards to, price structure and negotiations side of things… Christ, thought Earl, who the fuck does this nigger think he is?

'What'd Nestor say to that?' said Ray.

'He implied that it might imperil our business relationship, I don't buy all my inventory from him. And I don't like those kinds of words. Almost sounds like a threat, you understand what I'm talkin' about?'

'I'm hip,' said Ray. 'I'm with you.'

Oh, you hipper than a motherfucker, thought Coleman. And of course you're with me. Where the fuck else would you be, it wasn't for me? Out in the fields somewhere with a yoke around your neck, a piece of straw hangin' out your mouth, you Mr Green Jeans-lookin' motherfucker…

'We done?' said Earl.

'You in a hurry?' said Coleman with a smile. 'Got a lady waitin'?'

'What if I do?' said Earl.

Coleman's smile turned down. His voice was soft, almost tender.

'Now, you gonna flex on me, old man? That's what you fixin' to do?'

'C'mon, Cherokee,' said Ray. 'My daddy was only kiddin' around.'

Coleman didn't look at Ray. He kept his eyes on Earl. And then he smiled and clapped his hands together. 'Aw, shit, Earl, that little redbone don't mean nothin' to me anymore. I done had that pussy when it was fresh. You go on and sweet-talk your little junkie all you want, hear?'

'I guess that'll do 'er,' said Ray. He stood and looked at his father, who was still seated in the chair, one eyebrow cocked, his gaze on Coleman.

'Go ahead, Earl,' said Coleman. 'She's waitin' on you, man. Got that stall of hers all reserved. Guess she heard you was comin' into the big city today.'

Earl stood.

'Now, Ray,' said Coleman. 'Think about what I said about that Rodriguez thing. No disrespect to my brown brothers, but maybe you ought to talk to them next time they drop off the goods, tell them straight up the way I feel.'

'I hear you,' said Ray.

'Good. Your money will be waiting for you back in the garage. You can pick up your guns on the way out.'

'See you next time,' said Ray, and he turned for the door.

'Hey, Ray,' said Coleman, and when Ray looked back Coleman was standing, looking over the desk at Ray's feet. 'Lizardo Rodriguez, he asked me to check and see if you was wearing those fly boots of yours today.'

'Oh, yeah?'

'I see you are.'

Ray's expression was confusion. He said, 'Later,' and he and his father walked out of the room, closing the door behind them.

Coleman and Big-Ass Angelo laughed. They laughed so hard that Coleman had to brace himself atop the desk. He had tears in his eyes and he and Angelo gave each other skin.

'Oh, shit,' said Coleman. 'Ray Boone, walkin' tall. Just like Buford T. Pusser, man.'

'I am hip,' said Angelo, and Coleman doubled over, stomping his foot on the floor.

A little later, Coleman said, 'I got him to thinkin', though, anyway, about the Rodriguez boys, I mean.'

'We lose the Rodriguez boys-'

'We'll find someone else to buy it from, black. Got a price and purity war goin' on in the business right now. It's one of those buyer's markets you hear about.'

'That means we wouldn't be seein' Ray and Earl no more. Shame to lose all that entertainment. I mean, who we gonna laugh at then?'

'We'll find someone else for that, too.' Coleman looked up at his lieutenant. 'Angie?'

'What?'

'Crack that window, man. Smells like nicotine, beer, and 'Lectric Shave in this motherfucker.'

'I heard that.'

'Every time the Boones come in here, it reminds me: I just can't stand the way white boys smell.'

Ray and Earl picked up their guns in the outer office, lit smokes outside of Coleman's building, and walked across the street. They went through a rip in the chain-link fence that surrounded the old warehouse. Yellow police tape was threaded through the links, and a piece of it blew like a kite tail in the wind.

They stepped carefully through debris, mindful of needles, and over a pile of bricks that had been the foundation of a wall but was now an opening, and then they were on the main floor of the warehouse, puddled with water leaked from pipes and rainwater, fresh from a recent storm, which came freely through the walls. There were holes in all four walls, some the product of decay, others sledge-hammered out for easy access and escape. Pigeons flew through the space, and the cement floor was littered with their droppings.

A rat scurried into a dim side room, and Ray saw a withered black face recede into the darkness. The face belonged to a junkie named Tonio Morris. He was one of the many bottom-of-the-food-chain junkies, near death and too weak to cut out a space of their own on the second floor; later, when the packets were delivered to those with cash, they'd trade anything they had, anything they'd stolen that day, or any orifice in their bodies for some rock or powder.

Ray and Earl walked past a man, one of Coleman's, who held a pistol at his side, a beeper and cell attached to his waist. The man did not look at them, and they did not acknowledge him in any way. They went up an exposed set of stairs.

At the top of the stairs they walked onto the landing of the second floor, where another armed man, as unemotional as the first, stood. Arched windows, all broken out, ran along the walls of this floor. They went through a hall, passing candlelit rooms housing vague human shapes sprawled atop mattresses. Then they were in a kind of bathroom without walls that Ray guessed had once been men's and women's rest rooms but was now one large room of shit-stained urinals and stalls. Ray and Earl breathed through their mouths to avoid the stench of the excrement and vomit that overflowed the backed-up toilets and lay pooled on the floor.

In the doorless stalls were people smelling of perspiration and urine and wearing filthy, ill-fitting clothes. These people smiled at the Boones and greeted them, some caustically, some sarcastically, and some with genuine fondness and relief. Ray and Earl passed stalls where magazine photos of Jesus, Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, and Globe concert posters were taped up and smudged with blood and waste. They kept walking and at the last stall they stopped.

'Gimme some privacy, Critter,' said Earl. 'I'll meet you back at the stairs.'

Ray nodded and watched his father enter the stall. Ray turned and walked back the way he'd come.