Clockers (74 page)

Around one
A.M.
, with business nearly back to normal, Rodney dropped by. He sat for a few minutes in his car while three or four girls flocked around the windows like pigeons on bread. When he emerged he walked backwards toward Strike, still talking to one of the girls. “What apartment you in?”

“Twelve A,” she said, chewing on a comb and looking serious.

“I’m coming right up.”

“My mother up there.” The girl spun on one heel.

“I don’t care. She cute too?”

“She already
got
a boyfriend.”

“Hell, I’ll fuck him too.” Rodney started to shadowbox. “I’m a convict.”

That broke the girls up, Rodney laughing too, his tongue hanging out as he rubbed his belly. He turned to Strike. “So what you gonna
do
about this?”

“Nothin’,” Strike said, shrugging. “It ain’t about business.”

“Yeah, well, if it was my boy, that nigger’d be layin’ in a pool of blood right this minute.” Rodney looked away, furtively pulling up his shirt and showing Strike the fat wood-grain grip of a .38. “I just shot me a pit bull,” Rodney said, palming his mouth, the information coming out in a confidential mutter. “I’m standing on Krumm and JFK? That Cuban motherfucker who runs the video store? He come out the store with a damn pit bull, like to run everybody off from in front? Those Cuban motherfuckers think they superior to everybody, I
hate
them, especially that little motherfucker. He sells his share of shit too. So he come out, tell us to walk. I tell him, “You best get back in the store like now or I’m gonna shoot your
wife
down there, then I’m gonna shoot you.” And he’s looking at me like I’m made of shit, you know, so
Boom!
The dog’s like all over his shoes man But I got to hand it to him. The motherfucker didn’t blink. He was just standing there looking at me you know like trvine to decide if it was worth it me and him Rut then he hist walk back in leaves the dog right where it’s shot cold-blooded bastard leaving his dog right on the street like that I shoulda shot him too … So you takir? your medicine?”

“I’m all out.” Strike looked off, wanting Rodney to split.

“Yeah? You best re-up your prescription. You got your appointment at that clinic yet?”

“I’m gettin’ it.”

“Yeah, good. So look, I got me another package for tomorrow, so be by the store in the afternoon.”

“What you get?”

“Not much, but it might be a good connection. And it’s right on time too, because I got them three geechee boys from Delaware coming back. They beeped me, say they run out already. Must be some good business down there. So you come around about two, OK? I got a few more people comin’ by too, we make a little money.” Rodney honked his crotch. “Buy us some
real
estate.”

A Toyota Corolla pulled up behind Rodney’s Cadillac. Thumper emerged from the driver’s side, and the clockers faded fast.

“Now what
this
crazy motherfucker doing here?” Rodney said in a high mutter. “This the craziest motherfucker in town.” Then he gave it a cackly laugh and boomed out, “Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Five-oh! Five-oh!”

Thumper trudged to the benches as if he was walking uphill. Strike backed away a little. Thumper must be pure bughouse: he was taking his life in his hands by showing up at this hour, alone, off duty and drunk.

“Ho shit!” Thumper said in a wobbly squawk. “It Mister Big!” He fell on Rodney, starting to wrestle and box, Rodney playing with him but playing light.

“Reviewin’ the troops?” Thumper’s eyes were at half mast.

“Troops!” Rodney reared back. “This motherfucker thinks he’s in Vietnam.”

“Hey Rodney,” Thumper said, talking loud, “let me ask you something. Who makes more money off the drug war, me or you? I make forty-three six, plus court appearance overtime, comes to last year sixty-two three, and I don’t have to worry about gettin’ caught.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have to worry about no income tax.” They both laughed, Rodney dropping a hand on Thumper’s shoulder, Thumper swatting it away, both of them red-eyed and showing teeth. Strike started to walk off, thinking, Two angry motherfuckers, both with guns, what’s that spell?

“Hey you!” Thumper called out. “Don’t you go nowhere.”

Strike flapped his hands: Shit.

“Just sit down, sit down, I got to
talk
to you.”

“What you got to talk to him about?” Rodney said. “He ain’t got nothing on him.”

“Would you excuse us?” Thumper hunched over in a half-crouch and swung both arms in the direction of the Cadillac, signaling for Rodney to get lost.

Rodney glanced at Strike, Strike sensing that Rodney knew it was best to leave but that he hated being dissed and dismissed this way.

“Please?” Thumper added in a mocking tone.

Rodney started walking backwards to the car, eyeing Strike, eyeing Thumper, then getting in the last shot: “Yo Thumper. There ain’t no drug war save for who gets the best corners.
You
know that.”

“Yeah, good night, motherfucker.” Thumper hung his hands at his sides like a gunslinger, only a little play left in his voice now.

Rodney drove off, Thumper staring after him, moving his lips, then turning to Strike on the bench. “That fucking dogshit nigger. How the fuck can you stand being around him?”

Thumper flopped down next to Strike, head straight back to the stars, tapping his high-top Ponys on the bricks, giving off a mixed reek of scotch and lime cologne. “Oh Strike, Strike, Strike. I’m fucked. I’m fucked. I go home now, I’m on the couch. So fucked…”

He lunged forward, elbows on knees, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Grabbed this shooter tonight over in O’Brien? It went like fucking silk.” Thumper blinked his crushed eyes. “So how you been?”

“Yo Thumper, I ain’t got nothin’ aw-on me,” Strike said, feeling fluttery, as if all of Roosevelt was watching.

“Relax, relax, it’s Miller time.” Thumper yawned into his fist. “What a fuckin’ day. I heard one of your crew got binged here.”

“Hey, I don’t know nothin’, man.” Strike craved some Mylanta, thought maybe he should start taking the other stuff the doctor gave him too.

“Hey, I don’t give a fuck. You guys do each other in all you want. I’m just, you know … So how’s it been?”

“OK.” Strike looked around, imagined seeing people in windows. Then he actually saw a few.

Thumper draped his arms out along the top bench slat and crossed his ankles. Strike sat under the shadow of one arm like a nervous date in a movie theater.

“You know, when I first came out of the bag? Like, plainclothes? I had Roosevelt on the midnight tour, anticrime squad. We had this prick captain who made us go all the way to eight
A.M.
, no going home at six, six-thirty. You had to check in, punch out, the whole nine yards, so for like the last hour, hour and a half, we just used to sit in our car right over there, watch the sun come up over the buildings. You know, lay back, have a few beers.”

Thumper belched, then lightly punched himself in the chest. “You ever see the sun come up around here? It’s nice. It makes everything all peaceful, soft. You’d never
know,
you know? Man, you’d be surprised how many people get up early and go off to work in this project, getting up, getting out, women going to work, men going to work. There’s a lot of hard-working people in these houses. Me, being police, I don’t have dealings with them, so like I tend to forget about them. But I feel for them, what they have to put up with living here. I mean, who’s got the money to move? / don’t, but you know what the problem is with a lot of the others? The parasites? And I’m wasted now, so I’m saying the truth … You know what the problem is? They’re angry, and they feel sorry for themselves. It’s like, nothing is their fault, it’s society, it’s, you know, I’m not talking about some little kid—no father, the mother’s all fucked up, drunk, high, violent_I mean, that kid’s going down
inflames.

I mean, he don’t have a chance. That’s not his fault, but I mean … I mean
you…
Look at you. What the fuck you doin’out here selling drugs? I mean, what is your
problem?
”

“I ain’t got no problem,” Strike said, deciding to let Thumper say anything he wanted.

“I mean, your family’s not fucked up. Your mother works fuckin’ hard, I know that. And your brother, your brother did the right thing all his life. I don’t know what happened last week, but he was one hard-working cocksucker, right?”

Strike didn’t answer.

“Right?” Thumper backhanded his arm.

“I work hard too,” Strike said, speaking as softly as he could.

“Don’t give me that.” Thumper sprayed as he spoke. “Where the fuck do you get off comparing yourself to your mother and your brother. You’re fuckin’ out here pumping bottles, I mean, what’s your problem, you got a
speech
defect? That’s just an anger thing. Shit, my brother? He’s got scoliosis and a clubfoot but the guy’s an engineer, he pulls down seventy-five thousand a year, and that four-eyed fuck never cracked a schoolbook in his life. So what is it? You’re black? So fucking what. You think the Irish had it easy? We were hated.
Hated.
We were the
white
niggers.”

Strike stared at his sneakers, his guts grinding in rage now, Thumper’s rap so gallingly familiar.

“So what is it—you got no father? He’s dead? Fuck it, you’re probably better off. The guy was probably a prick. I used to
wish
my father was dead. That bastard used to gargle down a fifth of scotch a night. Beat the fuckin’ piss out of me every night for sixteen years. Are you kidding me? There wasn’t a day gone by I didn’t wish the cocksucker dead. So I don’t want to
hear
about your problems, OK?”

“I dint say nothin’.”

“I mean, you’re sitting here, I’m sitting here, you might even be smarter than me. You probably are, but you feel
sorry
for yourself and you’re angry, that’s what this is all about.”

A little crowd was shaping up at a safe distance. Thumper stood, his legs shaky, then began pacing with his Glock and his long black leather-covered sap, rumbling like a caged bear. Strike watched the crowd out of the corner of his eye, hoping someone would call a cop.

“Hey, and I know angry.” Thumper poked Strike in the arm. “Do you know I had extreme unction said over me three separate times before I was twenty-five?”

Strike didn’t know what that meant, but he raised an eyebrow as if impressed.

“Do you know why? Because I always thought I was
right.
Do you follow what I’m saying? I
know
angry.” He began pacing again, then hunched down close to Strike’s face, his breath strong enough to make Strike feel hung over. “And I’ll tell you something else. I used to sell dope, you know, in high school. I cleaned up on it too, so I know what
that
feels like.”

He collapsed back on the bench, his voice in Strike’s ear now. “But what I’m saying is, look at me now. I’m a cop. Next month I’m taking the sergeant’s test. Angry, bad fucking childhood, whatever — I
made
something out of myself. I’m thirty-three, and I’m proud of who I am. Where the fuck are you gonna be at thirty-three?”

“Not here.” Strike murmured.

“You’ll be dead.” Thumper stared at him from two inches away. ”
Dead.
”

Strike said nothing.

Thumper’s voice dropped to a hiss, his lips brushing Strike’s ear. “New York? Newark? Jersey City? They scrape you off the sidewalk every fucking day and night of the week.” Thumper leaned back, then came in close again. “Dead.”

“Yeah, I got to go home now,” Strike said, staring straight ahead, afraid to get up and get tackled.

“Wait a minute. You want to go home? OK, I want to ask you something. OK? I got a proposition for you. I’m gonna save your life, OK?”

Strike nodded.

“My uncle, he’s a dock foreman at UPS in Secaucus. I’ll get him to put you on the line. I think you start at like eight an hour, but then it goes up after a year or two? You start making some good money. Good pension, good medical. You tell me yes, I’ll go call him at his house right now, get you set up in a New York minute.”

“Yeah, lul-let me think about that.” Strike tried to sound sincere.

“Yeah, lul-let me think about that,” Thumper mocked him in a disgusted nasal drawl. “Nah, you’d rather be out here fucking the world because the world fucked you. You’d rather sell dope than take home a paycheck like a real human being, like your brother or some other poor fuck.”

“Oh yeah?” Strike said, his voice rising. “Last time
you
saw my brother you beat him up, so I don’t know what you tuh-talking about.”

Braced for some kind of payback, Strike was surprised when Thumper rose slowly from the bench and then replied in a mild tone. “Yeah, I know, I know, I fucked up. You’re right, you’re right.”

Thumper walked in a lazy circle, then went for his wallet, Strike seeing a glint of credit card in there, making himself focus on that, wondering what that would be like, having a credit card, drifting off a little, then hearing Thumper say “Ah” and watching him pluck out a business card. “Here you go. This is for you.” Thumper yawned, going up on tiptoe, arms high.

Strike glanced down. Another goddamn card from that goddamn Homicide.

“Anyways, it’s always nice to chill out, have a talk now and then, right? But I better go home, face the music.” Thumper rubbed his temples, began walking toward his car. He turned back to Strike.

“Yo Strike, you best
talk
to that cocksucker. Tell him what he wants to know, ‘cause between me and you, he wants us to start coming down on you like the
rent,
OK?” Thumper crouched as if waiting for a pitch, pretended to take little warm-up swings with a bat.

Strike stared down at his sneakers, shook his head in sorrow. “I don’t
know
nothing, so what he want from me?”

“Yeah, well, anyways, tonight?” Thumper took a few short swings, then swung as if belting one out of the park. “This was halftime, motherfucker. Third quarter starts tomorrow.”