George Pelecanos - Hard Revolution

“Let’s get outta here, Derek,” said Billy.

“Yeah, you pussies take off,” said Dominic.

“Who you callin’ pussy?” said Derek, regretting his words as they left his tongue.

“ Do somethin’, then,” said Dominic. “Prove you got some balls on you, Derek. ”

“I will,” said Derek Strange.

Dominic smiled. “See you out on the street.”

Derek went farther into the store and cut down another aisle as the Martini brothers vanished. Billy stayed with Derek. Derek came upon the tool and hardware section, saw a padlock, thought his father could use it for something. He must have stood there for a full minute, staring at the lock. He looked around, saw no one in the aisle, and slipped the padlock into the right front pocket of his blue jeans. He started walking for the front of the store, Billy at his heels.

As they reached the entrance doors, he felt a hand grip one of his biceps. He tried to shake it off and run, but the person who held him held fast.

“Hold on there,” said a man’s voice. “You’re not going anywhere, son.”

Derek gave up his struggle. He was nailed, and down somewhere deep he knew that he deserved it. He cursed himself silently and then cursed himself out loud.

“Stupid,” said Derek.

“That’s right,” said the man. He was a stocky white man with broad shoulders. He wore a cardigan vest, an open-necked shirt, and had a pair of eyeglasses perched atop his head of black hair. Strange read the name tag on his chest: “Harold Fein.”

“You have anything in your pockets, son?” said Fein, turning to Billy.

“No,” said Billy.

“Then get out of here, now. ”

“Can’t I wait for my friend?”

Derek felt some affection for Billy then, the way he’d called him “friend.” Until now, Billy was just a kid he’d been put together with, almost by accident.

“If you’re gonna wait,” said Fein, still holding Derek’s arm, “you’re gonna wait outside. Now, I know you, and your mother, too. Don’t ever let me see you involved in anything like this again.”

Billy said, “You won’t,” but it was to their backs, as Fein was already leading Derek to the back of the store. They went through a narrow opening into a low-ceilinged stockroom.

Fein instructed Derek to take a seat. There was a padded chair behind a desk cluttered with paperwork and a hard chair beside the desk. Derek figured the padded chair was Mr. Fein’s. He sat in the hard one. On the desk was a triangular block of wood with a brass plate. It read “Receiving Manager.” Also on the desk were framed photographs of a little girl and what looked to be a two-year-old boy.

“What’s your name?” said Fein, still standing.

“Derek Strange.”

“Where do you live?”

Derek told him he lived down on Princeton Place, in Park View.

“I’ve got to go check the manifest on a truck,” said Fein. “You just sit right there. Put the padlock on the desk before I forget about it. And don’t think about runnin’ out, ’cause I know where to find you, hear?”

“Yessir.”

It took a while for Fein to come back. Maybe thirty minutes or so, but it seemed like hours to Derek. He was miserable, thinking on what his mother and father would say when they got the phone call. Angry, too, for allowing himself to get baited by Dominic Martini, a boy he didn’t even respect. Why he felt he had to prove himself to Martini, he couldn’t say. Derek had done some bad things, and he’d do more bad things in the future, he knew, but he vowed that he would never do a stupid bad thing for no reason again. He hadn’t been raised that way.

Fein returned and took his seat. He shuffled the papers on his desk and put them in some kind of order. Then he folded his hands, rested them in his lap, and turned his attention to Derek.

“You did wrong today,” said Fein.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Fein exhaled slowly. “I saw those other boys steal those combs. There’s no trick to it; we have mirrors up in the corners of the store. Do you know why I didn’t grab them first?”

“No, sir.”

“Because it wouldn’t have done them any good. I’ve seen them around. The older one, especially, is already… Well, he’s on a path. I’m not going to speed things up for him, if you know what I mean.”

Derek didn’t, exactly. Later he would think on this day and understand.

“So now you’re wondering, why me?” said Fein. “It’s because you’re not like that other boy. I watched you and your friend in that aisle. You hesitated, because you know the difference between right and wrong. Then you made the wrong decision. But listen, it’s not the end of the world, if you know you made the wrong decision.”

Derek nodded, looking into the man’s eyes. They had softened somewhat since their first encounter.

“Derek, right?”

“Yes.”

“You know what you wanna be when you grow up?”

“A police,” said Derek, without even turning it over in his mind.

“Well, there you go. You need to start thinking on how you’re going to live your life, even now. Everything you do as a young man can affect what you become or don’t become later on.”

Derek nodded. It was unclear to him where the man was going with this. But it sounded like good sense.

“You can go,” said Fein.

“What?”

“Go home. I’m not going to call your parents or the police. Think about what I’ve told you today.” Fein tapped his temple with a thick finger. “Think.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Derek, rising up out of his chair as if shocked.

Harold Fein moved his eyeglasses down from the top his head and fitted them on the bridge of his nose. He returned his attention to the work waiting on his desk.

Billy was sitting on the curb outside the store. He stood as Derek came to meet him.

“You in trouble?” said Billy.

“Nah,” said Derek, “I’m all right. Where the Martini boys at?”

“They left.”

“Figured they would.”

“We better be gettin’ back to the diner, Derek, it’s late.”

Derek put a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

“For what?”

“For waitin’ on me,” said Derek. Billy ducked his head and grinned.

They walked southeast on Missouri Avenue, toward Kennedy Street. The shadows of late afternoon had begun to lengthen, and they quickened their steps. Down in Manor Park a car went by, its radio playing “You’re So Fine” by that group the Falcons, had that singer Derek’s father liked. The sound of it, and the sight of the colored men in the car, made Derek smile. He felt clean, like he’d just walked out of church. The way you do when you confess.

BY MOST FOLKS’ estimation, Frank Vaughn had it pretty good. He had survived a tour of Okinawa, married a girl with a nice set of legs, fathered a son, bought a house in a white neighborhood, and was making a fair living with a pension waiting for him down the road. Men gave him wide berth, and women still looked him over when he walked down the street. Coming up on forty, he was where most men claimed they wanted to be.

Vaughn had a sip of coffee, dragged on his cigarette, and fitted it in a crenellated plastic ashtray his son, Ricky, had bought for him at Kresge’s for Father’s Day. Imagine a kid buying his old man an ashtray. Might as well have given him a card to go with it, said, “Here you go, Dad, hope you croak.” But the kid wasn’t clever enough for that. The ashtray must have been Olga’s idea, her idea of a joke. Like she’d last a week if he wasn’t around. What would she do for a living? No one pays you to shop, watch television, or talk on the phone with your girlfriends. Least not that he was aware.