Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Medellín send you?

— You know I can’t tell you that. But seriously, Josef. It really doesn’t matter. All of this. You telling me what you can do, you making bargains. You already know how this goes, brother. If they were still interested in making deals they would have sent some other guy. Not me.

— Of course.

— I don’t have conversations with them, they don’t have conversations with me. I don’t carry messages from them, I don’t take messages from you. That’s how it works. If Doctor Love is in your town, baby, it’s already too late.

— I should have chop off you hand.

— Maybe. But I’m still leaving your little dynasty alone, such as it is.

— How I know you not going kill my son anyway?

— You don’t. But whoever comes after him, and who’re we kidding, Josey, somebody eventually will, it won’t be me.

He stares at me for a long time. I’m assuming he’s thinking this through while he gives me his best poker face.

— Keep Eubie away from my boy.

— Don’t think the man gives a shit about your boy, but I’ll send a message. He’ll listen to me.

— Why?

— You know why.

— Hey.

— Whassup?

— You think Mr. CIA ever find out that I know Spanish?

— Christ, this is what you’re asking me? Nah. Plus they put him on indefinite leave when he beat the shit out of a local girl in Botswana. Louis Johnson was such a piece of shit that his own office let the local police hold on to him for four days before they demanded his release.

— Bombo r’asscloth.

— Fly on the wall, man. Would have given anything.

— I guessing that you didn’t bother carry a silencer.

— No guns.

— No?

— They want something far more dramatic than that for Josey Wales.

— Jesus Christ, Doctor Love, that would take down the whole prison.

— Concern. That’s sweet. But it’s not a bomb either. For one, setting that shit up would be a pain in the ass. And two, well, I don’t have a two, but it would still be a horrible idea.

— What is today’s date?

— Fuck if I… wait. March 22. Yeah March 22.

— Nineteen ninety-one.

— When’s your birthday, Josef?

— April 16.

— Aries. Fucking figures.

— You expecting some big statement so they will cry when they make the movie?

— Wouldn’t dream of it, old friend.

— So how?

— Don’t worry about it.

— How?

I walk over to the bars and hold my hand out.

— Take these.

— What the bombocloth is that?

— Just take them.

— No. Fuck off.

— Josef, pour yourself a cup of water and take the fucking pills.

— What kinda pussyhole way that?

— Mijo , listen. They made it quite clear you were to suffer. I’m not a man who usually disobeys orders and I’m disobeying this time.

— You can’t just make it quick?

— No.

— And what this pill do, some magic where I won’t suffer?

— No. Some magic where you won’t care.

— Jesus Christ, Luis. Jesus Christ. Jesus Chr—

— Nah, buddy, none of that sentimental bullshit between us, man. Not now.

He takes the pills and walks back into the dark. Water is gushing from the tap. I hear him fill the cup but I don’t hear him drink. He comes back to me, grabs the mattress and puts it back on the bed. He looks at me again, then climbs on the bed, lying on his back. I watch him and listen to him breathe in and out, in and out, staring at the ceiling. He’s lying there, his hands on his chest, and I want to say, mijo , you don’t have to act like you already in a fucking coffin. But I’ve been talking to this man since 1976 and I’ve finally run out of things to say.

— How long?

— Not too long. Keep talking.

— Luis.

— Yeah, mijo .

— I think about him sometimes.

— Who?

— The Singer. That song that come out after him dead, “Buffalo Soldier.” It make me think.

— I’m fifty-two years old, too damn old to think. You sorry you tried to kill him?

— What? No. Me sorry him suffer. A gunshot would have be easier. Sometimes I think the one thing people like me and him have in common, is maybe we must die. That whatever we start, can’t finish unless we get out of the way. Don’t forget that this ghetto man was an intelligent brother.

— Josef, I’m the one they’re gonna forget. Remember, I don’t even exist.

— Doctor Love. I wish this was 1976. No, 1978.

— What’s so great about 1978?

— Everything, brethren. Everything. You c—

Just one pill would have knocked him out, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I stand there for twenty minutes before I pull the key from my pocket and open the cell door. You know what they say about the wounded lions.

S o here me was, enjoying the nice little crackhead profile, I mean, somebody have to recognize even scum is people too, you know, them heartwarming sinting that turn them back into “people” so that white woman can talk ’bout how they were so touched and shit. But then you fuck it up because you take it ’pon yourself to play detective.

I don’t say anything. I don’t look at him or Ren-Dog, this floor and The New Yorker about to slip out of my hands.

— For a man who don’t know if he going make it through the next ten minutes you must be what white people call cocky.

— You seem interested in white people a whole lot.

— I interested in a lot of things a whole lot. As I was saying, where in this part is killing number four?

— You want me to answer?

— No, I want you to do the running man — what you think I want?

— Well, at some point you gotta expand on a story. You can’t just give it focus, you gotta give it scope. Shit doesn’t just happen in a void, there’re ripples and consequences and even with all that there’s still a whole fucking world going on, whether you’re doing something or not. Or else it’s just a report of some shit that happened somewhere and you can get that from nightly news. I mean, while Monifah was getting shot because of one crack hit, somebody just bought a crack vial from somebody, who got it from somebody, whose supply came from somebody.

It’s only him and Ren-Dog in the kitchen with me, the others have gotten bored probably. And even Ren-Dog is back in the fridge helping himself to the mango juice he said he left for me. I keep telling myself that this scene is no less dangerous than ten minutes ago, it only looks that way. Bunch of killers gone all domestic in my house and I start to think I’m in a rap video. Until I feel my soaked briefs. Or smile. Or swallow.

— First thing first. All this shit you write about the Storm Posse, most of this shit not even true. For one, Funnyboy is from the Eight Lanes and him still there so there’s no way he could be Storm Posse. And who tell you that them call we the Storm Posse because we, what you say? Cut our enemies and innocent bystanders down in a hailstorm of bullets. Anybody here look like the people who would use word like hailstorm? What the fuck wrong with you? And here me did think we pick Storm because hurricane was just too damn long.

— I have a source.

— Your source.

— He’s nobody.

— Look how you noble, trying to protect Tristan Phillips. You think he feel the same way ’bout you?

— He tipped you off?

— Not like the man was trying to keep no secret. And who you be that he should keep secret for you? Hell, when your part one come out, two of my men who used to roll with Ranking Dons remember Tristan talking ’bout you and he didn’t care who hear. Brethren, seriously you could look ’bout getting a new look. Them take one look at your picture and bam. Anyway, that’s how me find out ’bout you.