Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Five minutes late.

Seven minutes.

Ten minutes late.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

Tony Pavarotti. I pick up the phone and hear tone, but I put it down and it rings.

— Tony?

— No, is me, Weeper.

— What you want, Weeper?

— Yow is which ants in your panty tonight?

— How you know I would be awake?

— Everybody know that you don’t sleep. You at the level now.

— What? You know what, it’s too late to ask what that mean. Anyway, come off the line, I expecting a call.

— From who?

— Pavarotti.

— When him supposed to call?

— Eleven o’clock.

— Him nah call you, star. If it was eleven the bredda woulda call you at eleven. You know how him stay.

— I was thinking the same thing.

— Why you have him calling you so late?

— Sent him to clean up some business at the Four Seasons.

— Minor matter like that and him don’t call you back yet? Me surprised you don’t send two man to check him—

— Don’t tell me what to do, Weeper.

— Man, you really itching in your panty.

— I don’t like when the one dependable man in Copenhagen City, I can’t depend on.

— Ouch.

— Ouch? You pick up that from your new American friends?

— Maybe. Look. Maybe something happen and he have to lay low. You know him, he not going call you until the job done good. Not before.

— I don’t know.

— I do. Anyway, how come everybody seem to know plans was changing but me? Me almost look like an idiot in front of that Colombian bitch.

— Brethren, how much me must tell you don’t discuss them things over me phone?

— Cho r’asscloth man, Josey. We deal with the bush. You tell me when you send me here that we must deal with the bush, you never tell me nothing ’bout the white wife.

— Brethren, I tell you this four time already. Bush is too much trouble and take up too much damn space. Besides, Yankee growing their own bush now and don’t needs ours. The white wife take up less space and make seven times more money.

— Me no know, man. Me just don’t like them Cubans, man. The communists was bad enough, but them in American worse to r’ass. And none of them can drive.

— Cubans or Colombians? Weeper, me really can’t deal with you and them right now.

— Especially that woman, you know she mad, right? She who running the whole thing. She mad no r’ass. Brethren, she lick pussy all night then kill the girl the next day.

— Who tell you that?

— Me know that.

— Weeper, I’ll call you tomorrow from Jamintel. Night like this, one phone can have two ears. In the meantime go somewhere and enjoy yourself. Plenty enjoyment for men like you.

— Oy, what that mean?

— It mean what me bombocloth say it mean. And nothing like that shit you do in Miramar last week.

— Yow what you expect me fi do? The man grab me—

— What you think I should do about Pavarotti?

— Give him till morning. If you don’t hear from him, you’ll hear about him soon enough.

— Good night, Weeper. And don’t trust that Colombian bitch. Only last week I realise that she’s only a pit stop to where we really going.

— Ah. So where that is, my youth?

— New York.

N ow something new is blowing through the air, an ill wind. A malaria. Still more will have to suffer, and many more will have to die, two, three, a hundred, eight hundred and eighty-nine. Meanwhile I see you whirling like a dervish, under the rhythm and above it, jumping up and down the stage, always landing on your Brutus toe. Years before on the football field, a player wearing running spikes — who plays football in running spikes? — stomped on your cleats and slashed the toe. When you were still a boy you nearly sliced it in two with a hoe. A cancer is a rebellion, a cell gone rogue against the body with turncoats turning the other way and seducing parts of you to do the same. I will divide your parts and conquer. I will shut down your limbs one by one, and spill poison in your bones because look, there is nothing in me but blackness. No matter how many times your mother wrapped it in gauze and sprinkled it with Gold Bond medicated powder, your toe was never going to heal.

And now something new is blowing. Three white men have knocked on your door. Five years before the first warned you not to leave. Deep into 1978, the third — they always knew where to find you — warned you not to come back. The second came bearing gifts. You can’t even remember him now, but he came like one of the three Wise Men, with a box wrapped like Christmas. You opened it and jumped — somebody knew that every man in the ghetto wished he was The Man That Shot Liberty Valance. Brown boots, snakeskin, flirting with red; somebody knew you loved boots almost as much as you loved brown leather pants. You pulled on the right boot and screamed like that boy who chopped his foot trying to split a coconut. You pulled off the boot, flung it aside and watched your big toe spurt blood with every pump of your pulse. Gilly and Georgie, they had knives handy. An incision in the stitch, flaying the skin of the boot, and there it was, a thin pointed copper wire, a straight and perfect needle that made you think of Sleeping Beauty.

Something new is blowing. At the foot of Wareika Hills, the man called Copper leaves the house and closes the gate. Navy blue night is running and passing, passing and running. He makes two steps and doesn’t make a third. The man called Copper drops and spits the little blood that doesn’t rush out of his chest and belly. The gunman drops the M1, changes his mind, picks it up, then runs to the car already on the move.

You are in the studio with the band making a new tune. Clocks tick by in Jamaica time. Watchers take two hits of the collieweed and pass on the left. Two guitar leads wrap around each other coiling tight like a snake fight. The new guitarist with shorter dreads, the rocker who loves Hendrix plugs out. You shoot him a quick look with eyes wide open.

— Don’ leave! Me don’t have much time.

Something new is blowing. The don called Papa-Lo rides home from the races in a taxi cruising down the causeway with the windows rolled down. Somebody makes a joke and the sea salt wind snatches his wide laugh. The road does not bend, just curves into a bridge rising up then leading down into three police cars blocking the road. He knows they know who he is even before his driver stops. They know he knows they know, even before they shout ROUTINE SPOT CHECK. He knows before they arrive, that there will be more cars creeping up behind him. Police number one says remove from the vicinity of the cyar so that we can search the cyar. Move h’over to the left and keep walking till you is in front of the wild bush by the side of the road. Police number two finds his.38. Police number 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 fire. Some will say forty-four, some will say fifty-six bullets, the exact number of shells found at 56 Hope Road that week in December 1976.

You’re playing football in Paris, in the green field below the Eiffel Tower. You play with anyone up for a game. Starstruck white boys and that man from the French national team. Your crew, even after years of touring, never get used to it, cities that never sleep. They are sluggish, even though it’s afternoon. The French do not play like the British. None of this single player peacock business. These boys move like a unit even though most have not even met before. One of them makes a bad play, steps hard on your right toe and tears the nail off.

Something new is blowing. The man who had me killed pays the Wang Gang sixty dollars a day to shoot up on two of the Eight Lanes. The two lanes nearest the sea. Lanes run wild with rusting zinc fences and corrosive shit water. The gang drives up at random lulls in the day, opening fire with all guns in a total sweep. A torrent of bullets. A shower.