Cat & Mouse

I opened the car door and got out. The heat rushed at me and I felt as if I were stepping into a blast oven. Still, it was good to be out of the car, the cramped quarters.

“What are you doing?” Groza asked. He seemed prepared to sit in the car all day, playing everything by the book, waiting for Soneji to show.

“Trust me,” I said.

Chapter 47

I TOOK OFF my white shirt and tied it loosely around my waist. I narrowed my eyes, let them go in and out of focus.

Groza called out: “Alex.” I ignored him and I began to shuffle toward the dilapidated crackhouse. I figured I looked the street-junkie part okay. It wasn’t too hard. God knows I’d seen it played enough times in my own neighborhood. My older brother was a junkie before he died.

The crackhouse was being operated out of an abandoned building on a dead-end corner. It was pretty much standard operating procedure in all big cities I have visited: D.C., Baltimore, Philly, Miami, New York. Makes you wonder.

As I opened the graffiti-painted front door, I saw that the place was definitely bottom of the barrel, even for crackhouses. This was end-of-the-line time. Shareef Thomas had the Virus, too.

Debris was scattered everywhere across the grimy, stained floor. Empty soda cans and beer bottles. Fast-food wrappers from Wendy’s and Roy’s and Kentucky Fried. Crack vials. Hanger wires used to clean out crack pipes. Hot time, summer in the city.

I figured that a down-and-out dump like this would be run by a single “clerk.” You pay the guy two or three dollars for a space on the floor. You can also buy syringes, pipes, papers, butane lighters, and maybe even a soda pop or cerveza.

“Fuck it” and “AIDS” and “Junkies of the World” were scrawled across the walls. There was also a thick, smoky fog that seemed allergic to the sunlight. The stink was fetid, worse than walking around in a city dump.

It was incredibly quiet, strangely serene, though. I noticed everything at a glance, but no Shareef Thomas. No Gary Soneji either. At least I did’t see him yet.

A Latino-looking man with a shoulder holster over a soiled Bacardi T-shirt was in charge of the early-morning shift. He was barely awake, but still managed to look in control of the place. He had an ageless face and a thick mustache.

It looked as if Shareef Thomas had definitely fallen down a few notches. If he was here, he was hanging with the low end of the low. Was Shareef dying? Or just hiding? Did he know Soneji might be looking for him?

“What do you want, chief?” the Latino man asked in a low grumble. His eyes were thin slits.

“Little peace and quiet,” I said. I kept it respectful. As if this were church, which it was for some people.

I handed him two crumpled bills and he turned away with the money. “In there,” he said.

I looked past him into the main room, and I felt as if a hand were clutching my heart and squeezing it tight.

About ten or twelve men and a couple of women were sitting or sprawled on the floor and on a few soiled, incredibly thin mattresses. The pipeheads were mostly staring into space, doing nothing, and doing it well. It was as if they were slowly fading or evaporating into the smoke and dust.

No one noticed me, which was okay, which was good. Nobody much cared who came or left this hell-hole. I still hadn’t spotted Shareef. Or Soneji.

It was as dark as a moonless night in the main room of the crackhouse. No lights except for an occasional match being struck. The sound of the match-head strike, then a long, extended hiss.

I was looking for Thomas, but I was also carefully playing my part. Just another strung-out junkie pipehead. Looking for a spot to smoke, to nod out in peace, not here to bother anyone.

I spotted Shareef Thomas on one of the mattresses, near the rear of the dark, dingy room. I recognized him from pictures I’d studied at Lorton. I forced my eyes away from him.

My heart started to pump like crazy. Could Soneji be here, too? Sometimes he seemed like a phantom or ghost to me. I wondered if there was a door back out. I had to find a place to sit down before Thomas became suspicious.

I made it to a wall and started to slide down to the floor. I watched Shareef Thomas out of the corner of my eye. Then all kinds of unexpected madness and chaos broke out inside the crackhouse.

The front door was thrown open and Groza and two uniforms burst in. So much for trust. “Muhfucker,” a man near me woke up and in the smoky shadows.

“Police! Don’t move!” Carmine Groza yelled. “Nobody move. Everybody stay cool!” He sounded like a street cop anyway.

My eyes stayed glued to Shareef Thomas. He was already getting up off the mattress, where he’d been content as a cat just a few seconds ago. Maybe he wasn’t stoned at all. Maybe he was hiding.

I grabbed for the Glock under my rolled-up shirt, tucked at the small of my back. I brought it around in front of me. I hoped against hope I wouldn’t have to use it in these close quarters.