Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

"That's not important. I'm not here to harm you, I'm here to warn you. Someone is trying to kill you. These people, they got me over a barrel so here I am, but this is as far as I go in this thing. Don't think they won't just send someone else, because that's exactly the way these people operate. You don't get out of Harlem tonight, your life will be over. That's the message." Snowden reviewed his own words, the voice that delivered them: perfect.

"You sneak in my home. You hold a gun on me, you can at least tell me who sent you. I don't have the energy to go running anywhere, so if you want to help, just tell me what direction to look in." It was a reasonable request. Even in this state, so nervous he was forced to hold the gun with two hands to keep it from shaking, Snowden could see that. It just wasn't a reasonable situation. I need a bigger gun, Snowden thought. That's why nobody ever listens to me.

Parson Boone crossed his arms and kept staring, and Snowden was about to rephrase his earlier statement when the other man said, "It's Cyrus Marks, isn't it?"

Snowden had attempted to play poker once, failed miserably. It was his eyes, he realized, because that's the only thing Parson Boone could see clearly and already it was like he knew everything. "No, no, you're wrong," Snowden started to protest, but the older man just ignored him, continued as if the fact had been admitted.

"The 'over a barrel' thing, I know that cat well so that's a bit of a giveaway, but don't worry, I would have said his name first anyway. Why do you think I'm hiding from life, trapped on this floor like this?" Leaning forward, Parson Boone pulled out a seat from the kitchen table in front of him, sat down, and pointed like he expected Snowden to join him.

"Don't move again, stay there," Snowden told him, poking each word forward with the silencer's muzzle to get the point across to him. "Look man, I don't give a damn why you live like this. You don't like it, that's even more reason to skip town. Move to the islands or some shit."

"Marks's got you in a tight situation? I can get you out again. Sit down. Let's talk about this. I know how the dude works, I know exactly what you're going through on this. Exactly." Snowden turned to the sound of someone coughing behind him, but it died and he realized it was on the floor below them. Turning quickly back, Snowden half expected to see Parson Boone lunging at him, but the man was seated in the exact same position, hand still to his chin earnestly. He's not afraid, Snowden realized. A masked man stands before him with a loaded gun pointing at his head and he's not even slightly nervous. Kill him. There was part of Snowden that was saying this and he didn't expect it, but it was there and it said, Kill him, he's not going anywhere, he's going to fight this, he's going to end up getting you killed still won't save himself in the end. Kill him, save your ass, get it over with.

"Don't be fooled by his self-righteousness, son. All his race talk don't mean nothing. Hey, I'm not saying he don't believe in it now, but the man ain't half as clean as he'd like to pretend. Let me ask you something: How do you think a so-called civil servant got enough money to buy up half the prime real estate in Harlem? Better yet, how you think a two-bit parole officer gets enough money to run for Congress in the first place?"

"How?" Snowden wanted to know. Snowden wanted him to shut up, too, but wanted to know what he knew before this.

"It's a rhetorical question." Boone frowned, removed a cigarette from the breast pocket of his T-shirt, reached across the table for a pair of matches to light it. "Drugs, obviously. By forcing a hump like me to go out there and risk my neck for years. I look like the big bad drug dealer he probably represented me as? I was a pawn, his pawn. Now I'm retired, so I'm no longer that. Now I'm his loose end. Why do you think he sent you to kill me?" If what Boone kept saying was as interesting, Snowden would take a seat. He would take a cigarette, too, to help him think. He wouldn't take off his mask, but he would lift it up just far enough to stick it in.

"You think that's so far-fetched, look at yourself. Who's pulling your strings? I heard he had some young bucks under his wing. I know exactly who you are, kid. You know who I am? I'm your way out," Parson Boone said standing up again, coming towards Snowden with only a nod to caution.

"Sit down," Snowden ordered, but it came out with only slightly more force than a question. The gun was up, but it felt like a starter pistol in his hand. The only reason Parson Boone stopped coming closer was that it would have forced him to push it out the way and that would have been rude.

"I'm not some violent beast, you can see that. I'm not the criminal type in the slightest. There was nothing I did I wasn't forced to. I'm just another victim, like you. Put my trust in him, look where it got me. You really want your freedom? I do too. I need a man on the inside of his operation, you need a man on the outside who can make things happen. Put that gun down and let's talk. Together, we're going to make this happen. You and me, we're the same man."

Snowden was about to say yes yes yes when the door in the hall opened behind him and in came, connected by their shoulders, the three other men. Snowden didn't know he had stopped pointing the gun till the disturbance shot it back up again. His fear convinced him he would see guns pointed directly back at his own, but not even their eyes were on him. The two men on the sides were too busy trying to carry the unconscious one in between them. The man's head hung limply on his own shoulder. There was blood splattered across all three of them, but the most was on the one in the middle, increasing in density the higher Snowden looked on him. The bloody man's face looked like someone had tried, rather successfully, to open it with a rusty can opener. An animal, was all Snowden could think. The only thing that could mutilate a man's face like that was an animal. Even if it was Homo sapiens it was nothing more than an animal. What was not ripped was so swollen that it took Snowden a moment to recognize that it was Horus he was looking at.

"OK boss, you win. This nigger ain't saying shit so we'll kill him," the beast to the left of Horus said.

When Snowden looked back to the kitchen, Parson Boone had scurried across to the far counter, gotten his paws on a gun from the cudery drawer, and was about to turn around with it. Snowden caught him first in his shoulder and then directly in the middle of his throat when the force of the first shot snapped him back again. Spinning around, Snowden saw that Boone's brutes had finally deemed to notice him. Horus flopped hard to the floor. Hostages, you canjust tie and leave them here, Snowden's mind was already bargaining, but both reached behind their backs for their weapons simultaneously and Snowden was back to shooting, his will to live directing him. Aiming the thing as it bounced in his hand turned out to be harder than he'd imagined, but Snowden kept pulling the trigger, anyway. That Horus was already on the ground was the only thing that saved him from the fate of his captors.

Horus was so damn heavy that Snowden kept checking his pulse, half hoping the he was dead so he could drop him. If there was anybody downstairs when the shooting started, they were gone now, but Snowden didn't put the gun down until they were at the front door and, despite Snowden's screaming, Horus refused to wake up and open it. The green van was down the block just like Lester said it would be, but the tires were slashed and the back window was broken. His spine feeling like it could snap like a pencil, Snowden ran with the weight of Horus folded over him, dropping him against a bodega grate before running out onto the street and praying for headlights. A hack, a hack, my kingdom for a hack, yet when one finally appeared it only slowed down long enough to see Horus's blood and Snowden's hooded face before peeling off again. From the sidewalk came moans from the fallen brute, so Snowden yelled, "Shut the hell up, you're not helping."