Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

"Ryan Waters? OK. All right. I mean, I guess he's a good starter project, it being your first time going solo. He's not really much for sport, though, is he? The man can't weigh more than a buck twenty-five Thanksgiving night. He is a real lowlife, if that's what you're going by. Ryan Waters, then. Well, there's going to be a bunch of old ladies who're going to have to find a new way to get their groceries home from the Pathmark." That was because Ryan Waters would no longer be waiting for them in his car, volunteering to carry their bags up to their apartments and taking anything he could shove in his coat on his way out again. The less alert ones would no longer have him to thank for his repeated visits. The more alert ones, the ones who went to the police only to recant their accusations later, would no longer have to worry that Ryan Waters knew where they lived.

Outside, more banging, more uncharacteristic childish yelps. That was the first time it struck Snowden: For a building filled with children, he almost never heard them. It was like a school perpetually in class.

"So you saw her already, didn't you?" Lester asked the question like his teeth couldn't hold his tongue back anymore. "You saw her on the way in."

"Who?"

"Oh come now, no secrets here. You must have at least heard her thumping around out there. Let's call her." Lester picked up his phone, hit the line for Nina, and asked her to send in "Horizon's newest employee." There was a pause, orchestrated by Lester sitting there, smiling, hands entwined over the top of his folded legs. "To be honest, we took her primarily to keep a closer eye — she seems to make a habit of staring too long at things best ignored — but she's already proven herself to be a hard worker. You have good taste in women, Snowden. I can admit that."

When he heard the knock on the door, Lester rose to let her in, made introductions with the aside that they were not needed, then left the two of them. Snowden was the one who jumped up and shut the door, quietly locking it. Piper Goines. She seemed to Snowden so out of place standing there, an image clipped from one reality by dull scissors and pasted into another with too much glue. An image anxiety attacks were made of, specifically the one Snowden was having at the sight of her. Snowden didn't know the specifics of how she'd arrived at Horizon, but he was pretty confident he could guess the general reason. Piper had poked her nose into this world so deep that now she was in it, and that type of behavior is exactly why Snowden knew she shouldn't be there. So don't be. Don't be happy either. Don't offer answers to questions I specifically didn't ask.

"We're going to have our first issue up by next week, can you believe that? I'm teaching all the kids how to write articles, they're coming up with the story ideas, it'll be great. I'm talking a three-thousand-copy print run, that goon Horus is putting thirty-five-cent news boxes all over Harlem as we speak!"

"Piper, you shouldn't be here," Snowden begged.

"Are you kidding? This company's amazing! It's going to be called Harlem Outcry, you like that? It was my idea. This is nothing, this is just a favor I'm doing in exchange for things to come. You wouldn't believe the offer they made me." Piper winked at him like maybe he did know.

"This is going to end badly," Snowden thought aloud.

"No, don't be pessimistic. In a couple of weeks I'll have these little runts writing great."

Lester refused to talk to Snowden about Piper. They passed the Channel 9 News crew on 116th doing an editorial on the police shooting of Trevor Barber, but aside from shutting up until out of earshot, Lester was undistracted. Snowden was saying things, disparaging things, about Piper Goines, the obvious hazards of her inquisitive nature, her lack of moral character, her unsuitability to be left alone with children, slandering her as viciously as he dared without making her a potential hunting accident. Most of it was lies and Lester didn't pretend to take them as anything but, yet Snowden kept talking till they were almost at the building and it was time to kill someone.

Wrapped in trash bags and duct tape, Snowden had brought something big to hit Ryan Waters in the head with. It was heavy too, after a couple of blocks walking, Snowden was getting tired in both arms. The weapon of the evening was that lid that sits on the back of the toilet. The constructors of the building they were about to go up in had used the same manufacturer for the sink basins, toilets, and bathtubs. All three were made from the exact same East Rutherford, New Jersey, porcelain, so that even the closest forensic study could confuse a blow to the head from this toilet lid with a simple slip in the shower.

Lester was unimpressed.

"The blood splatter marks would be different," Snowden confessed. "But I thought I'd just leave the shower on to get rid of them."

"No, bad idea. It's not that it's not a good plan. It's just. . he's a puny thing, isn't he? Do you really think he deserves the A material? It's freezing, and it rained till two last night. That fire escape up there is going to be covered in ice; that's all the alibi you need. Just go up and throw his little ass out the window and then we'll go get lunch."

Snowden was not impressed, either, pulling his potty lid close to him like Lester might try to take it away.

At Waters's door the lock stubbornly resisted several turns before finally admitting that Snowden's key was the right one, and even still it barely opened for him. It was getting easier. It was getting mundane, Snowden heard the faint music inside and didn't once worry that Waters would hear the door opening. If black people just lowered their radios they really would be a lot safer. Lester motioned to his eyes to emphasize that he would use them, then went over to where Wendell was balled near the stairs, his cell phone out and dialing before Snowden could even close the door quietly behind him.

The apartment was hot, damp, smelled like sweaty socks were preheating in the oven. The place was obviously a hermit's, just like all the other hermitages Snowden had bagged up in the months before. The way people lived, the way people really lived when they were alone, when they didn't think anyone would ever be coming by and shame had no hold on them, was like this. The smell, the curtains pulled to hide from satellites and God, the dishes kept in a dirty sink jam and cleaned one at a time as need arose, the total absence of a bare surface of any kind. We resent rats for their similarities to humans, not their differences.

The clothes lining the narrow hallway made it easier for Snowden to walk down it without being heard, but not much. The toilet top wanted badly to swing out and bang into the wall, and Snowden's left hand threatened to drop the thing altogether if it didn't start cooperating. Snowden's right hand held the gun and it was pretty comfortable with that. A string of slow steps to avoid creaking on the hardwood floors. Snowden was doing well until about eight feet in when his foot went down and made a sound like a giant eating wooden cereal without milk, echoing down the hall to the room of the man he was supposed to be surprising. The only thing Snowden could think was, Oh poop.

It couldn't have been as loud as he'd heard it, that was silly, no mere footstep could thunder like that. I'm not Paul Bunyan, I'm Cedric Snowden, the second (the first one didn't turn out quite right). Snowden calmed himself and he felt, in a way not familiar with rational thought, that if he could focus hard enough he could calm his entire surroundings as well. As he concentrated, it seemed to be working. No shadows started moving toward him, no new sounds, creaks responded, just that sound of the radio and the constant call of sirens outside. I have nothing to fear, Snowden reminded himself. Then, without warning, the music stopped and a man Snowden immediately recognized as Ryan Waters (smaller in person) came screaming down the hall, an ax held above him.