What It Was (25 page)

“I’m not goin in there with you.”

“I don’t expect you to. Watch the house is all I’m asking. Make sure I don’t get blindsided.”

Vaughn gave the Dodge gas. He drove across the numbered street, turned around at the top of a crest, and drove back down to the corner so that he could keep an eye on the front of the house. He curbed the Monaco and killed its engine. He slid a pack of L&Ms from his jacket, lit a cigarette, and snapped his Zippo shut.

As he exhaled smoke, a taxi pulled up in front of the house. They watched as an attractive young woman got out and was handed a couple of pieces of luggage, one medium-sized and one small, by the driver, who had retrieved them from the trunk.

“You know her?” said Strange.

“She’s in Coco’s stable. Goes by Shay. I busted her the other night.”

They saw her head for the house without paying the driver. The driver got back behind the wheel but did not leave.

“He’s waiting for her,” said Strange.

“She’s making some kind of a delivery.”

“Now’d be a good time to move in, if you’re gonna do it. While they’re off guard.”

“Let the young lady get out first. She hasn’t hurt anyone.”

“You’re gettin soft.”

“Soft.” Vaughn grinned. “That’s me.”

Shay was let into the house through a solid wood door by a woman they both recognized as Coco Watkins. A few minutes later, they saw Shay emerge from the house, get back into the cab, and ride away. From where they sat, neither Vaughn nor Strange could see the black Lincoln that was parked down the block.

COCO WATKINS
carried the suitcase and cosmetic case up the stairs to the bedroom where she and Jones had slept. Jefferson was in the other bedroom, packing a small bag, readying himself to leave.

Coco had dressed in what she had worn to the concert: tight-fit slacks, a silk blouse, and some costume jewelry. Jones, too, had put on what he had been wearing the night before: rust-colored bells, stacks, and the print rayon shirt opened to expose the top of his abdomen. They had both showered, but their clothes were ripe.

Cash was in stacks on top of the bed. So were Jones’s Colts. He had cleared the chambers of both .45s, reloaded their magazines, and pushed the mags back into the grips.

“We ready?” said Coco.

“Put the money in that suitcase and we’re gone.” Jones looked her over. His eyes went to her long-nailed hands. “Where’s that ring I got you? Don’t you like it?”

“I was wondering when you were gonna notice. The ring got stole, Red. Someone broke into my spot the night I got arrested.”

“Was it one of your girls?”

Coco shook her head. “My girls were with me. You’re not mad?”

“That ain’t on you. It was fake shit, anyway. We get out of here, I’m gonna buy you somethin real.”

“You been good to me.”

Jones looked at her fondly. “A man’s got a stallion like you, he got to take care of it.”

Coco chuckled. “A stallion’s a boy horse, Red.”

“
You
know what I mean.” He moved toward the door and brushed his hand across her hip. She felt a tingle up the back of her neck. “Let me talk to Fonzo before we leave out.”

Coco unzipped her suitcase and stashed Red’s money alongside the cash that Shay had delivered. She found her car keys on the dresser and slipped them into the pocket of her slacks.

VAUGHN SLID
his .38 Special out of its clip-on holster, released the cylinder, spun it, checked the load, and snapped the cylinder shut. He reaffixed the rig to the belt line of his trousers, then pulled his right trouser leg up and freed a .45 from the holster that was strapped to his ankle. It was a blue steel, short-barreled semiautomatic, a lightweight Colt Commander. He had found it under the cushion of a sofa in a Southeast apartment a year back, and he had made it his own. Vaughn racked the slide, put a round in the chamber, and slipped the .45 back into the holster on his ankle.

“I’m goin in through the back door,” said Vaughn. “When I come out with Red and the rest of them, radio in for a wagon and cars.”

“What if I hear shots?”

“I guess that means it went wrong.” Vaughn removed his hat and dropped it onto the backseat of the Dodge. “You’ll know what to do. You were a police officer. Remember?”

Strange’s thoughts went back to ’68, when he’d last worn the uniform. In the midst of the riots, he’d lured the man who cut his brother’s throat to a place where Vaughn could kill him. That made Strange a murderer, too.

Vaughn got out of the car. He put his right foot up on the rocker panel and adjusted the leg of his trouser so that it fell cleanly over the holster. He closed the driver’s-side door and stepped across the street, not looking either way in the intersection or at the house, keeping his eyes straight ahead to the alley’s mouth.

Strange looked at the two-way radio hung beneath the dash.

FANELLA IDLY
watched a big middle-aged white man in a gray suit cross the street at the end of the block. They had seen few people since they’d come here, as most of them were at work. The ones they
had
seen were black.

“Who’s the old man?” said Gregorio.

“I guess they got whites in this neighborhood, too. Some assholes can’t take a hint.”

“We ready?”

Fanella glanced at Gregorio. Gino was all right, but he lacked smarts and steel. Fanella didn’t want to be wondering where Gino was or what he was doing when the shooting started. Fanella knew
exactly
what to do: go in straight, finish them all quick. Get the money and get gone. Fanella needed no distractions.

“I’ll take care of this.”

“Just you?”

“I need your eyes out here. Bring the car and pick me up when you hear it start to go down.”

“Lou…”

“There’s a live thirty-eight under the seat.”

Fanella removed the keys from the Lincoln’s ignition,
opened his door, and went to the rear of the car. Looking around at the lifeless street, he unlocked the trunk and lifted its lid. He found his knee-length white raincoat and put it on. He lifted a Browning 9 mm from under a blanket, released its high-capacity magazine, examined it, palmed the magazine back into the grip, chambered a round, flicked off the safety, and fitted the gun in the waistband of his slacks. He then picked up one of two cut-down pump-action Ithaca 12-gauges that were lying side by side in the bed of the trunk. He broke open a nearby box of steel-shot loads. Working low, he thumbed shells through the ejection port of the shotgun, and when he felt the stop he released the slide and pushed it forward. There would be no time to draw the Ithaca, so he didn’t reach for his sling. He held the cut-down under his raincoat, closed the trunk, and walked to the driver’s side of the Lincoln. Gregorio had moved across the seat and was now under the wheel.

Fanella dropped the keys into his lap. “This won’t take long. Stay awake for once.”

“You don’t think I can handle this?”

“You don’t think?” said Fanella in a high-pitched voice. His bushy eyebrows came together comically as he smiled. “Quit actin like a fuckin girl, Gino. I’ll see you in a few.”

Gregorio’s face reddened as he watched Fanella walk toward the house.

JEFFERSON’S BEDROOM
was located in the front of the house. Jones and Coco had taken one of the two bedrooms in the rear. A landing separated the rooms, with a banister running
across it that broke open at the top of the stairs. Jones walked down the landing and into Jefferson’s room.

Alfonzo Jefferson stood by the bed in his wide-striped bells, synthetic shirt, and two-tone stacks. His woven hat was cocked just so on his small head, and his .38 Special was in his hand. He was winding rubber bands around its grip, held fast with black electrical tape.

Jones looked Jefferson over: dark, slight, and fierce. They’d had a good run.

“You ready?” said Jones.

“Soon as Nique come back with our cigarettes.”

“We ain’t gonna wait. Me and Coco are about to jet.”

“Aw’right, then. I’ll see you when I do.”

Jones stepped forward. “What it was, motherfucker.”

“What it was.”

They gave each other skin. And then, from the first floor, they heard someone knocking on the front door.

Jefferson went to the bedroom window and looked down at the yard. His vision was limited. He had no sight line to the stoop.

“Is it your woman?” said Jones.

“Can’t be. She got a key.”

“Then who the fuck is it?”

“I’ll find out.”

Jefferson, gun in hand, left the room. As he walked down the stairs, Jones went directly to the other bedroom and found Coco.

“What is it?” she said, reading his face.

Jones looked past her shoulder, through the window to
the backyard. She turned her head to follow his gaze and saw what he saw: a white man in a suit, walking toward the back door of the house, his hand on a piece that was holstered on his side.

“Vaughn,” said Coco.

Jones lifted his Colts off the bed.

VAUGHN CAUTIOUSLY
took the three iron steps up to the paneled-glass door at the rear of the house. Looking through the kitchen to the living room, he saw a small spidery black man in a hat, walking toward the solid wood front door, carrying a gun. He fit the description of Alfonzo Jefferson. Vaughn pulled his .38 from its holster and moved it close to one of four glass panes on the kitchen door.

IN THE
Monaco, Strange watched a burly white man in a white raincoat take the walkway up to the asbestos-sided house. Strange had not gotten a good look at the men who had ransacked Coco Watkins’s place, but he recognized that coat. As the man got up on the stoop, Strange saw him knock on the door and knock again. He saw him pull a pump-action shotgun from underneath the coat, take a step back, and aim it at the center of the door.

Strange reached for the radio, lifted the mic from its cradle, and keyed it. He called in a Ten Twenty-Four and, without deliberation, opened his door and stepped out of the car.

ALFONZO JEFFERSON
heard Red shout, “Hey, Fonzo,” but he was already at the front door.

“In a minute,” said Jefferson, over his shoulder. He turned
his attention back to the door, put his face close to it, and said, “Say what you want.” As the last word left his mouth, a great hole blew through the wood. Steel shot peppered Jefferson’s neck and lifted his scalp. He tumbled back over the sofa as if thrown by a sudden gust of wind and landed atop the cable spool table.

Fanella kicked the door just below its jamb. It swung free and he stepped into the house.

Fanella saw a figure move back in the kitchen and vanish behind a corner. He went to the little man lying ruined on the table and he pointed the shotgun down at his chest. Fanella kept his finger depressed on the Ithaca’s trigger and with his other hand he racked the pump, and as the round cycled into the chamber the cut-down discharged. The body heaved up and blood freckled Fanella’s face.

He headed toward the kitchen. Approaching the staircase, he heard movement, and he pointed the shotgun up the stairs and fired, blowing the banister to sticks and splinters, and walked on. He saw the refrigerator door swing open in the kitchen and a man appear over the top of it, and he saw a flash and felt fire. Fanella screamed and pumped the Ithaca, his finger fast on the trigger, and the shotgun roared in his hands.

A BLACK
Continental pulled up in front of the house and a lean blond man got out of the driver’s side as Strange began to cross the street. The blond man walked toward the house, gun in his hand, and Strange broke into a run. He came in at an angle, and as the man turned at the sound of approaching footsteps, Strange hit him low, putting everything he
had into it, wrapping the man with his arms as he had been told to do by every coach he’d ever had, on every football field, and he felt air go out of the blond man and in his side vision he saw the pistol fly from his hand as both of them went to the ground, the man still in his grip. Strange heard a shotgun blast and pops from a handgun as the blond man struggled beneath him, his face both reddening and white with scars. The man was strong, and Strange rolled onto his back. He brought the man on top of him and scissored his legs around his middle and got his right arm locked around the man’s neck.

“Stop it!” said Strange desperately.
“Stop.”

But the man would not stop struggling, and Strange knew he could not hold him much longer. He squeezed his arm tightly around the man’s neck.

VAUGHN HAD
broken the glass of the back door, put his hand through the space, and let himself into the kitchen as soon as he heard the first shotgun blast. He went directly to the refrigerator, set beside the doorway to the living room, and crouched against it. The old Frigidaire was a left-hinge model, and Vaughn took note of that as he snicked back the hammer of his .38.