George Pelecanos - Soul Circus

“I wanted to talk to you, is all,” said Horace McKinley. “Didn’t think it would work too good, us shoutin’ at each other across the alley.”

“Ain’t nobody here but me and Zulu.”

“My troops are all out workin’, too. What with all this talk I hear about us goin’ to war, thought it’d be a good time to sort some shit out.”

“What about you?” said Durham, looking at Foreman. “You always talkin’ about stayin’ neutral. Why you out here, Ulysses? Why you standin’ next to him ?”

“Horace called me,” said Foreman. “Asked me if I’d mediate this discussion. Said y’all would need someone in the middle, someone who wasn’t gonna take no sides. It’s in my interest that the two of you work this out. So here I am.”

Durham and Walker stood on the back steps of the house on Atlantic, looking down at McKinley and Foreman, who stood in the weedy patch of yard. On McKinley’s ribbed wife-beater, high on his cowlike chest, was a wet purple stain. The butt of his gun rose from the waistband of his warm-up suit. He wasn’t trying to hide that he was strapped, and neither were Durham or Walker. Durham guessed that Foreman was wearing his iron, too. They all knew. But to mention it would be akin to admitting fear. And this was something none of them would ever do.

“We gonna stand out here all night?” said Foreman.

“C’mon in,” said Durham.

Durham and Walker gave them their backs and walked through the door, electing to lead rather than step aside to let the others pass. They were followed by McKinley and Foreman into a dark kitchen lit by a single votive candle and then a hall, where they found their way by touch against the plaster walls. Then they were all in a living room furnished with a card table and a couple of folding chairs. Candles had been set and lit on the floor, on the card table, and on the stairway. Drums and bass played softly from a beat box on the floor.

Durham and Walker stopped walking and turned. McKinley and Foreman also stopped and faced them, the card table between them. They stood with their legs spread and their feet planted. The big men filled the room. Candlelight danced in their faces and the flames from the candles threw huge shadows up on the walls.

“Go ahead and talk,” said Durham.

McKinley spread his hands, keeping them in the area of his gun. “We just need to slow down some, think before we let our pride go and start some kind of drama we can’t take back.”

“Keep talking.”

“Want you to know, straight away, that I didn’t tell the Coates cousins to fire down on your boys at the school that night.”

“They did it anyway.”

“Those ’Bamas was just wild like that,” said McKinley, searching out the corner of his eye for movement from Foreman. But Foreman was just standing with his shoulders squared, looking straight ahead.

“New gun?” said Durham, nodding at the grip of the automatic, tight against the folds of McKinley’s belly.

“Sig forty-five,” said McKinley.

Durham felt heat come to his face. “My brother, Mario, was shot dead tonight.”

McKinley nodded solemnly, thinking that it had happened about thirty years too late. Someone should have shot the motherfucker when he’d popped out his mama’s pussy, much good as he’d been to anybody his whole sorry-ass life.

“Too bad he died,” said McKinley.

“You wouldn’t know nothin’ about it, then.”

“I guess the police caught up with him. Heard he had some trouble with a girl.”

“Nah,” said Durham, his lip trembling. “Wasn’t the police.”

“Who it was, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Prob’ly just some fat motherfucker with a forty-five.”

The four of them stood there, staring at one another, saying nothing, watching the light shift in the room.

“Well, Zulu,” said Durham, “I guess we done talked too much.”

Foreman reached and cross-drew his guns just as Durham and Walker went for theirs. They never touched their guns. They dropped their hands to their sides, knowing they had been bested, looking at their own deaths down the barrels of the.357 and the.9. McKinley pulled his Sig and held it on the men.

“You did talk too much,” said Foreman, snicking back the hammer of the revolver, disgust on his face. “ Too got-damn much. For a minute there I thought you were gonna try and talk us to death. You had the draw on us, too. Motherfuckin’ kids out here playin’ gangster. Shit.”

McKinley laughed shortly. “Do it, big man.”

“Yeah,” said Foreman. “Okay.”

Foreman turned the LadySmith on McKinley and squeezed off two quick rounds. McKinley’s blood blew back at him and Foreman kept firing, moving the gun from McKinley’s belly to his chest, plaster exploding off the wall as the bullets exited his back. McKinley grunted, reached out for something, and lost his feet. As he fell, Foreman shot him in the groin and chest. Then the hammer fell on an empty chamber with an audible click.

Foreman still had the Colt trained on Durham and Walker. He holstered the revolver expertly, without looking for the leather, and faced them. Smoke was heavy in the candlelight. Foreman’s ears rung from the boom of the Magnum. He did not squint, looking at them, and he kept his voice even and direct.

“Hope you learned a lesson here tonight,” said Foreman. “I was a cop. Still am in my mind. You punk-ass motherfuckers out here, think you can threaten a police officer. You are wrong. Tellin’ me what’s good for my business. I don’t give a good fuck about him, or you, ’cause there’s always gonna be someone to come along and take y’all’s place. You who think you’re so special. Y’all ain’t shit. Think about that the next time you get the idea you’re gonna rise up.”

Durham said nothing. He had raised his hands in defense and they were shaking. He wanted to lower them, but he couldn’t move them in any direction at all.

“I hear sirens,” said Walker.

“Police gonna have to respond to this one,” said Foreman. “That gun does make some noise. Anyway, it’s your problem, not mine. I know you won’t mention I was here.”

“We’ll take care of it,” said Walker.

Foreman stood over McKinley and fired two shots from the Colt into his corpse. The force of the rounds lifted him up from the hardwood floor. Then the body settled in the mix of plaster and blood.

“That’s for talkin’ shit about my woman,” said Foreman, holstering the Colt.

He walked off, disappearing into the darkness of the hall. Durham lowered his hands, hearing the back door open and shut.

“D,” said Walker, “I’m gonna need some help to drag Hoss out there to the alley.”

But Durham did not answer. He was staring at his shaking hands.

STRANGE parked the Caprice on Quintana, killed the engine, and looked at the house he shared with his wife and stepson. Janine and Lionel were standing on the front lawn with Devra Stokes, in the light of a spot lamp Strange had hung above the door himself. Strange smiled, seeing the puff Lionel put in his chest as he talked to the girl. Juwan was playing with Greco, throwing him that red spiked rubber ball the tan boxer loved, then chasing him around the yard. Greco allowed the boy to catch up, letting him put his hand in his mouth, trying but failing to get the ball free.

Strange got out of the car. Greco’s nub of a tail twitched furiously as he heard the familiar slam of the Caprice’s door, but he stayed with the boy. Strange crossed the sidewalk and met the group in the light of the yard.

“What’s goin’ on, family?” said Strange. He hugged Lionel, then Janine. He kissed her and kept his arm around her shoulder after breaking their embrace.