Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— What the fuck, Josey?

— Don’t fucking Josey me, pussyhole. If I don’t fucking business ’bout shooting some pregnant bitch what you think I would do to you?

He yanks me hard and my temple and right brow slam into the iron.

— Everybody seem to think they can fuck with me all of a sudden.

— Josey.

He yanks me again, pulling my whole shoulder in. The bars crush my chest — he’s pulling me through it.

— Josey.

A flash of light and I think it’s because I’m blinking.

— Josey, let go. Please.

The flash is a machete, shiny like it’s new.

— Want to know what happen to the fourth policeman who come in here trying to kill me?

— Oh my God, Josey.

— But since me and you bonafied I giving you choice. Above the elbow or below? Choose good, because I hear false arm not cheap.

— Oh my God.

— Uh-huh. Look at Doctor Love, think because he can blow up plane and kill old people who want to die anyway, that he bad. Come strolling in here like me on me knees waiting for whichever bone you want to fucking give me. Huh? You no tired of underestimating me, pussyhole? You no tired of me showing you say me have handle and you have blade? Now, pussyhole, me say to choose.

He swipes the machete above my elbow, cuts through the skin and draws blood.

— Above the elbow…

He swipes the machete below my elbow this time deeper and draws blood again.

— Or below? Decide in five seconds or I going choose and I might take the whole shoulder.

— Josey, no.

— Five, four—

— Oh my God.

— Three, two.

— You have another one, Josey.

— Another one what? Another second? Is you who don’t.

— You have another son, Josey.

The shiny blade swings up and disappears in the dark.

— You have another son.

The machete reappears right at my throat. He’s still pulling my hand through the bars.

— Jesus Christ, Josey.

— What you just say?

— You fucking heard what I just said! You have another son. You think we don’t know? Your firstborn dead, your girl dead, you only got one left, Josey, and if you don’t think we won’t come for him I swear to God I’ll take this other hand and gut him like a fucking fish.

— Uh-huh? How you going do that when you bleed to death before you even get to the door?

— Because you’re right, Josey. It’s not just me. What the fuck d’you think, hombre ? That I would just waltz in here like a fucking idiot? Like I don’t know you? You think Daddy’s little thugs can protect him from me? I’m Doctor Love, motherfucker. You seem to forget my motherfucking skill set. So you fucking let me go.

— Me must look like a r’asscloth idiot. Let you go so you can press two wire and blow up me fucking house?

— No, mijo , so that I can pull the two wires apart and stop it.

He drops the machete before he lets go. I grab my arm but there’s nothing to do but wait until it stops bleeding.

— I don’t suppose they gave you a roll of toilet paper in there? I guess no.

— I should have killed you.

— And so what if you kill me, Josef? They’ll just send another one. They’ll just send another one.

He steps away from me and pulls the bed frame enough for it to fall and shake the whole room. The mattress slides to the ground. He sits on the bedspring but doesn’t look at me.

— What Eubie want with my son?

— He doesn’t want anything with your damn son. He doesn’t even want anything from you. Only that you stay the fuck out of New York, I’m guessing.

— What the CIA want?

— Rasta don’t work for the CIA. Sorry, bad joke. I’m not here to tell you who sent me, Josey. Relax, nobody wants your son. He could become another you for all we care, at least that’s the status quo, which believe or not, everybody was quite fine with until you fucked it up. You didn’t even have the smarts to get caught when your own government was in power.

— I don’t want nobody touch my son, Luis.

— I said I’m not after your son, Josey.

— But you wire my house for real?

— Of course I wired your fucking house. You and I both know you can smell a bluff.

He laughs and I laugh too. Wish there was somewhere to sit. He’s still laughing when I stoop down to the floor and lean back against the wall facing him.

— All this and you still won’t tell me who send you.

— Oh, I figured you’d have guessed by now. I only answer to two or three people.

— You answer to whoever paying the biggest cheque.

— Not so. I have been known to do one or two things pro bono.

— I don’t even know what that mean.

— Don’t worry about it.

— It funny how nobody come in to check out what going on, specially with all the bangarang going on in here.

— Nobody is coming back tonight, hombre .

— Should have guessed that one from the second you walk in. You not going tell me who, don’t it?

— Might as well tell you who killed Kennedy. Damn, my jokes are going nowhere today.

— Yeah, your jokes is not what making me laugh today, Doctor Love.

I shrug. He gets up and walks over to the bars right in front of me.

— What if I just don’t sing about the important business?

— You mean all the stuff that you’ve been threatening to sing about?

— Yeah.

— Do you know what’s important anymore?

— You really think one little man can bring down anybody?

— Fucking Christ, you Jamaicans love to answer a question with a question. But I dunno, Josey, you were the one who raised the possibility.

— Tell your people we can work something out. Them play their cards right, I can all of sudden forget everything before 1981. I can tell them all roads lead to me. Nineteen seventy-six is not them business, nor is 1979. I mean, is the DEA, they just want a drugs conviction.

— So that TV comedies can stop making very special episodes with Nancy Reagan.

— What?

— Another bombed joke.

— Tell your people that me can sell them a case of amnesia and not even for big money.

— Don’t do this, Josey.

— Don’t do what?

— Don’t beg.

— Bad man don’t bombocloth beg.

— Then whatever it is you’re doing, don’t do it.

— I just making sense, Luis. When you ever know me to not make a sense? You think them DEA people have any witness? My lawyer say the most me get is seven years if that much and only for drugs and racketeering. Them can’t make nothing else stick.

— You’re conveniently forgetting a whole lot.

— Like what?

— That’s not what you said before. You said if they ever made the Yankees catch you, you’d bring down everybody with you. Not exactly those words, but in your own colourful way. Well, muchacho , by the looks of things…

— And look around you. Babylon fall down yet? What you think all this is, Luis? You really think they have any r’asscloth hold ’pon me? So after they make big show for big newspaper and have them big press conference that them win war ’pon drugs, watch how quick they stop giving a shit when they realise they can’t hold me. All this shit is to make Ronald Reagan George Bush look like they saving precious white gal from turning crack whore. You watch how as soon as I done with this Yankee fuckery I going straight back to Copenhagen City, like nothing happen. And I going remember my friends, Luis. And who leave me here to fucking rot, when them wasn’t trying to kill me. I going remember, Luis. Medellín going remember too.

— You so sure Medellín didn’t send me, Josef?

As usual you learn nothing if you watch Josey’s face. You have to look if he’s squeezing his knuckles like he just did, hunching his shoulders a little like he just did, swallowing air and puffing it back out like he just did and standing up straight with his back arched super stiff. Yeah, that one struck him hard. Then he says it so soft I almost asked him to repeat,