Clockers (66 page)

Strike saw no way out. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Nothin’.” The Homicide shrugged as if he was killing time. “You know, just, well, remember when we were talking? You said that Darryl Adams, that kid, had like an attitude. You know, maybe he dissed your brother, maybe he was
nasty
to people, like the customers or the other workers. You remember that?”

Strike regarded the Homicide’s curious and expectant expression, the bastard coming on to him like some TV detective, being nice, setting him up. The glow in his belly got redder, but he also felt a new pain, a stabbing sensation, as if someone was in there with a knife.

“Yeah, well, I said like I didn’t know. I was just thinkin’ that, you know, like to be helpful.”

“Hey, any help I can get.” The Homicide held out his hands, palms up. “It’s just that I did some heavy checking on that, trying to back that up? See if there was anything to it? I must’ve asked twenty people about him, the vie, what’s he like. Everybody, I mean everybody, said, ‘No, man, Darryl was a great guy. Darryl’s the best. Darryl give you the shirt off his back.’” The cop gave the lines a mild street spin. “Right down the line, ‘Darryl was
solid,
Darryl was my man.’”

Strike thought the Homicide was lying. Darryl wasn’t one way or the other, just quiet.

“So, now.” The Homicide turned to the bench for a second, fingertips on his chest. “Now I’m really fucking confused because
you
said, in so many words, the guy was a fucking prick, but it turns out you’re the only one to have that opinion.”

“I said I didn’t know. I was juh-just imagining.” Strike puffed his cheeks, the knife in his guts jabbing harder. “It’s my brother, man. I was just trying to help my buh-brother.”

“But you had to know
something
to say it, right? I don’t understand. Are you sure you didn’t know him?”

“Well, I might have seen him in the street or in the Ahab’s, just like, you know, you
see
people.”

“But you called him a
prick.
”

“I-I didn’t say that,” Strike said, his stammer making the words float away from him. “Unh-uh.”

“OK, you said he had an attitude, same thing. How can you say that if you didn’t … Look, tell me the truth, just between me and you, no big deal. Did you ever have a confrontation with this guy?”

“Unh-uh.” Strike was grateful for a question he could answer straight.

“You never had any dealings with him?”

“Unh-uh.” Strike looked over at the bench, the crew sitting there without business, restless and frowning, Strike thinking, Who’s ready to spy on this to Rodney?

“You never had so much as a conversation with this guy?”

“I told you…” Strike watched the traffic, feeling too naked and off balance out here with all the eyes on him and this new stabbing pain, as distracting as loud music.

“You told me what?” The Homicide leaned forward as if he was hard of hearing.

“No.” Strike couldn’t remember the question.

“No.” The Homicide went upright again. “OK, so like in other words, there’s no reason that the victim would have attacked your brother walking across the lot because he thought it was
you,
that he was jumping on
you.
”

“What?” Strike wasn’t following, his concentration torn to pieces by the pain.

“There’s no way that guy would have seen your brother and think, There’s that motherfucker Strike and—”

“Huh-hell no,” Strike said.

“Because in the dark, you and your brother, you got the same build and all. You probably come off like two peas in a pod, you
know
that, right?”

Strike felt clammy now, trying to stay alert, keep Victor out of his mind.

“Are you guys close?”

“Not really.”

“Yeah, I forgot, you haven’t seen each other in a long time, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How long has it been?”

“A month.” Strike looked down at the cop’s pebble-grain cordovans: Ugly, ugly kicks.

“Jesus, I thought you said like
two
months last time we talked.”

“Yeah? I said that? If you
know
I suh-said that, then ha-how come you asked me like you didn’t know?” Strike spoke in small gulps, the anger finally breaking through, helping him to deal here.

The cop laughed. “You know what Alzheimer’s is?”

“Some kind of
beer?
“ Strike twisted his mouth in disdain but winced inside, cursing himself for mouthing off. You
never
dis a cop, any kind of cop—they were worse than street people about getting dissed.

The Homicide flashed teeth and got a little redder, but Strike couldn’t tell if it was anger or blush. “Yeah, well, some people into dope, some into booze. Pick your poison, you know?”

Strike nodded, tired of swapping lies. The knife in his stomach made him desperate to sit down.

“Awright.” The Homicide shrugged, took a little spin on his heel. “So anyways, is there anything else you can think of to tell me? Any new thoughts?”

Strike envisioned Buddha Hat coming out of the jail again, heading for his Volvo.

“Not really.”

“You get to see him yet?”

“Not really.” Strike felt slightly spooked. It was as if the guy had just read his mind.

“Can I tell you something? Like unofficial?”

Strike waited.

“This lawyer he’s got? A real fucking bonehead. A real snowball in hell. They go to trial?” The Homicide looked off, shaking his head.

“You ever think may-maybe he didn’t do it?” The words came out of him in an unthinking rush, and Strike was instantly horrified.

“What do you mean?” The Homicide turned back toward him.

“May-maybe somebody
else
did it.”

“Like who?”

Like Buddha Hat. Say it. Say it. Strike dropped onto one knee on the sidewalk and bowed his head. “I’m just sayin’…buh-but I don’t know.”

“You OK?”

“Yeah, gimme like a second.” Strike made himself rise, hissing through clamped teeth.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, buh-but like I got to
go
now.”

The Homicide stared at him, and Strike could feel him thinking. What the hell was this guy thinking?

“OK, OK.” The cop reached into his pocket. “Here, take my card.”

“Yeah, I aw-already got
two.
”

“Two? Jesus, it’s that Alzheimer’s beer, I guess.”

“Naw, it’s from Jo-Jo.”

“Jo-Jo!” The Homicide looked surprised—sheepish but not unhappy.

“You know what it is? My friends, I run into them, everybody, you know, a homicide’s the heaviest crime, so it’s, ‘Hey Rocco what’s happening.’ I tell them, they get all excited, they want to help out, so they, you know…” He shrugged. “Anyways, well look, just take this one, you know, in case you lose the others and you need to give me a call or something, OK?”

Strike nodded, the new card in his hand now.

“OK, so, take care of yourself there, Ronnie. I’ll be seeing you around.”

Strike dropped back down on one knee like a batter in the on-deck circle. He looked away, watching the Homicide out of the corner of his eye as he drove off in an ugly tan county car, made a U-turn in front of the benches and waved to him as if he knew Strike was watching no matter where his head was turned.

The stabbing man inside hacked away even fiercer, the pain so bad that Strike felt a rush of fear. What the fuck was happening? He wanted to scream out how sick he was, tell the world to leave him alone.

Everybody on the bench stared at him, but no one stepped up to help, Strike hating all of them, hating this life. He forced himself to rise. The crew watched him stagger toward the bench, Tyrone on his chain the only one looking at him with concern. Strike knew the kid couldn’t come forward to give an arm, but he was sure Tyrone would help if he could. Tyrone was his only friend in the world now, everybody else out for themselves, Strike staring at them, thinking up horrible deaths for them. Hanging them up on a hook, peeling off their skin in long strips, rubbing pepper on the raw flesh: How’s
that
feel?

Strike burped up a little blood, then caught Peanut making a face. “The fuck
you
lookin’ at?” Strike wiped the red off his lips. “Get on out to the corners. What you suh-sittin’ for.”

Somebody screamed from inside the hallway of 6 Weehawken and Stitch came loping out onto the street. A big heavy girl was holding on to the back of his collar, bellowing, “Give me my money back! Give me my money!”

Bug-eyed, choked by his own shirt, the girl holding on, Stitch lurched forward, struggling to run away, going up and down like a boat bucking waves.

Everybody on the bench rose, but only Horace went forward.

Stitch finally swung around and punched the girl on her ear to break free, the girl losing her grip and falling on the sidewalk. Horace yelled something, hopped over the girl to get to Stitch, tripped and fell on top of her. Strike grabbed an empty soda bottle from a garbage can and stepped into Stitch’s path, Stitch running as if to leap past him, but Strike caught him flush in the face. The bottle didn’t break, but Stitch went down, hands over his eyes, moaning, “God, God.”

Strike dropped to his knees on Stitch’s chest and pounded away, screaming, ‘Leave me alone!’ as if it was Stitch who was doing the beating. As Horace clambered all over the big girl, trying to regain his footing and get to Stitch, Strike punched down at the fingers masking Stitch’s face, all his hate and panic going into it. He saw Andre come on the run but far away still, and then Stitch stabbed him in the stomach,
must
have stabbed him in the stomach because Strike was lying there curled on his side like a shrimp, clutching his guts, walleyed with agony, thinking, Stitch even left the knife in, tasting the blood on his tongue, all alone, whispering his hurt, seeing sneakers, shifting sneakers, hearing someone say, “Leave me alone, please, please,” but in a vicious, mocking tone, then hearing himself say the very same words, realizing that they were mimicking
him.
Then someone yelled into his ear, “What’s a matter with you? What’s a matter with you?” sounding pissed off, like Strike was some kind of fuck-up. “What’s a matter with you?” but he couldn’t talk could barely comprehend the voice shouting “Why You holding your stomach? Why you holding your stomach?” too shut up in a shell with his pain to answer. “You crack up today? Huh? You crack up today?” Strike heard some kid yell for his friend, somebody else laughing, then again, “You crack up today? You hit the peace pipe?”

Strike felt himself being lifted. He screamed, then heard his scream imitated beyond his eyelids, over and over, then the outside voices shut out save for one: “What’s your date of birth, huh?” He felt himself being set down somewhere indoors, mouthed “Leave me alone,” mouthed “Please.” “Where do you live,” the hacking in his gut steady like rain. “Where do you live,” feeling something being wrapped around his arm, something pinching like a too-tight cuff. “Why you holding your stomach, huh? Momma
told
you not to do those drugs, right?
Now
look where you at. Where do you live?” Then Strike heard Andre’s voice down by his feet: “I’ll give you all that.” Strike wanted Andre to arrest everybody. He whispered, “Andre,” but the name was drowned out by the pain.

“This ever happen to you before? Huh? This ever happen to you before?” His interrogator was coming back at him despite Andre, talking in a flat blare as if Strike was ninety years old. Strike just wanted to be left lying here, curled tight, his mind picturing a sea-shell, a snail, an electric spiral. “You cough up anything? Answer me, Home. You cough up anything?”

And as if it was easier to illustrate than describe, Strike hawked up something almost solid through his teeth. The voice winced in disgust: “Coffee grounds.”

He felt the cuff ripped from his arm.

“Eighty palp.”

Strike finally opened his eyes and saw a tall, red-haired man in a yellow jacket flap out a pair of rubber pants fringed with tubes. “C’mon Yo, straighten out for a sec.” Gloved hands pulled on Strike’s kneecaps, prying them from under his chin, Strike seeing the electric spiral in his head go from pink to neon green to pale blue, all on a field of black.

“Let me see my face.”

“What’s your name?”

“I ain’t
got
no name. I was
hatched,
man.”

Strike woke up to this exchange, finding himself in a hallway lit the color of heavy urine. He was flat on his back. Ten feet away, three cops were arguing with a five-foot-tall Latino whose face was a mask of blood.

“You want to see your face? Tell us your name.”

“Angel.”

“Angel what?”

“Let me see my face an’ I tell you my name.”

Too exhausted to move, Strike watched as a cop held up a small mirror. Liking what he saw, the little guy smirked through all that blood.

“Rodriguez. Who hit me? Who’s the faggot who hit me?”

“You hit yourself.”

Strike looked at his arm and saw a tube going into a drip bag. He didn’t feel the knife in his gut anymore: Good, that’s good.

“What am I supposed to do? It’s my
kids,
man. You saying the niggers are better than my kids? I defend my family and the faggot bust my head. I ain’t even seen it coming. Like
a faggot
man, not like a man.”

Strike’s throat hurt and there was something in his nose. He put his hand to his nostrils and touched rubber tubing.

“I fuck faggots in the ass. Where’s the faggot who hit me? This fucking city, man. We got a faggot mayor and faggot cops who hit you in the fucking head and hide.” The Latino was enjoying himself, pacing in a tight trench, dwarfed by the cops. “I’m a
man,
motherfuckers. I’m a
man.
So what you gonna do now, slit my throat? Finish me off?”

Strike closed his eyes and imagined Victor saying that. He was too sick to help his brother, but then behind his shut eyes he received a vision of Victor, motionless and blank-faced, like a paper doll, hovering in front of a solid background, hanging in an objectless vacuum. But
he
was alone too—alone in this hospital, with not even his mother knowing, maybe not even caring.