Freaky Deaky

"Listen, I told the person I do more. They say no, don't put him away, put him in the hospital a while. That be fine, that do it."

"What person you talking about?"

"Can't tell you that, man. Same as like a lawyer won't tell you shit how he knows something. Check it out, it's the same thing what I'm saying."

"Was it Donnell Lewis?"

"Man, I just told you what I ain't gonna tell you."

Chris saw Juicy look up and move slowly toward the back of the old building. Chris stepped to the parking lot side and a car crept past them, going up the alley. Juicy came away from the building watching Chris, about twenty feet between them, but said to the young guys, "You get it open?"

One of them said, "I need a tire iron. Something to pop it."

Chris said, "You think I'm going in there with you?"

He unbuttoned his coat, his hand brushing the big grip of the automatic stuck in his waist, and held the coat open for Juicy.

"You see it?" He half turned to the three guys by the door, still holding open the coat.

"You see it?" Then said to Juicy again, "Was it Donnell?"

Juicy said, "You not suppose to have that, man. What is that, some kind of gun?"

Chris pulled the Clock from his waist and looked at the three well-built young guys as he palmed the slide, racked it and the gun was ready to fire. He said to them, "What you do now, you run, fast as you can. I don't want to ever see you again."

Juicy, taking his time, was coming toward him now, saying, "Man, is that thing real? That's a strange-looking piece, man. It shoot bullets or what?"

Chris said to the three young guys, "I'm gonna count to two."

The three guys stood posed at rest, dull-eyed, slack, hips cocked at studied angles.

Chris said, "One," raised the Clock and fired at the metal door behind them, past the nearest guy's head, and they were running as that hard sound filled the alley and Chris said, "Two."

He saw Juicy duck into the parking lot and went after him down a line of cars," catching glimpses of a moving figure, silky green, came to the exit drive, on the street, and there was no sign of him. An older black guy, the parking attendant, stood in the door of the shack, his office. He kept staring at the gun in Chris's hand till finally he pointed a direction and stepped back inside. Chris moved along the front of the cars facing the street, past the grill of a Rolls, another car, heard door locks snap closed and saw Juicy behind the wheel of a white Cadillac sedan, Juicy staring straight ahead. Chris approached on the passenger side and tapped the barrel of the Clock against the window.

"Hey, Juice? Who is it wants my leg busted?"

The guy refused to speak or turn his head, hands locked on the steering wheel.

"You can tell me, it's okay. Just don't stick out your tongue. Man, that thing is scary, like it's something alive, you know what I mean?

Living in your mouth… Who was it, Donnell?"

Juicy didn't answer or move or twitch or anything.

Chris said, "You think I don't see you? Okay, that's how you want it."

Chris put the muzzle of the gun flat against the glass and said,

"Juice? Look."

But the guy still wouldn't move.

Chris said, "You know what Mel Gibson would do?" and was anxious to show him as he thought of Mel blazing away with his Beretta. Shit, the Clock held more rounds.

First, though, Juicy had to be looking at him. And second, he had to be careful, not shoot through the car and hit something else, or somebody on the street a block away.

So Chris walked around to the front of the Cadillac. He raised the Clock in one hand and stood sideways-not the way Mel Gibson did it, two-handed-Juicy looking right at him now, aimed at the fat top part of the seat next to the guy and began squeezing off shots-loud, Jesus, they'd hear it at 1300-counting "four" as the shatterproof windshield came apart, counted from five through ten and stopped. Where was Juicy? There, his head showing as he came up, very cautious, behind the steering wheel. Chris fired five more quick rounds into the car before Juicy could move, continued to hold the gun aimed in the silence and said, "Was it Donnell?"

Juicy nodded, up and down.

"Say it."

"It was him."

"You feel better now?"

"I don't owe him nothing. He busted off my tooth one time, was in a Men's."

"You could've told me it was Donnell before and saved your car getting wrecked."

Juicy said, "What, this? This ain't my car."

Robing used to roll joints Skip said were the next thing to being factory made. She had rolled him one hard and tight he was smoking now, sitting low in her fake-leather chair. Robin had a hip on the edge of her desk, red sunburst still on the wall behind her, watching him as she fooled with her braid.

"Are you afraid of him?"

"All I'm trying to tell you," Skip said, "I think he's the kind of fella we could've cut a deal with. Stays out of our way long as we don't make a lot of noise." Skip drew on the cigarette and his voice changed, tightened.

"I didn'teven want to do it to him, send him over there to be crippled."