Clockers (80 page)

The words sounded tinny even to Rocco’s ear. She took a few seconds to respond, Rocco guessing that the hesitation meant she was trying to decide whether to ask him if he was bombed.

“That’s nice to know,” Patty said finally.

“Let me talk to Erin, let me talk to Erin.”

Erin came on the phone sounding distracted, as if in the middle of something complicated. “Daddy…”

“Hi honey,” he said. “What you doing?”

“The woof here. Hide Daddy.
Hide.
”

“The woof,” Rocco repeated, saying it himself to get a grip on the word. “The wolf?”

”
Hide!
”

The other line started to ring on his phone. “Hang on sweetie.” He punched in the call, praying it wasn’t a job. “Homicide.”

Rocco heard breathing, street traffic: someone on a pay phone. But the caller was silent.

“Homicide,” he said again, getting annoyed.

“Buh-buh-boo … Boo…”

A young black male doing baby talk.

“Buh-h…” There was a sigh of clammy exasperation, then a click. The caller had hung up.

Rocco frowned. Not baby talk: that was a stammer. Rising from his desk, forgetting his daughter on the other line, Rocco felt sure of it: A goddamn stammer.

PART V

Give It

33

THE LAST of the package was taking forever to unload. At the time of Strike’s butchered phone call on Sunday, there were only three ounces left, but now it was Monday afternoon and the three ounces remained. Strike had spent the past twenty-four hours sweating it out in Rodney’s store, reduced to selling candy bars and sodas, dying a little every time a late-model American sedan drove by, sure it was the Homicide coming to snatch him up. All Sunday night Rodney had blathered on, telling Strike war stories about the seventies, explaining again how he had found out that Darryl was cheating him at Ahab’s, even adding a new chapter about how he had taken care of Darryl’s secret supplier too. The way Rodney told it, a white guy from Bayonne was now blind in one eye after getting whacked upside the head one night by some crazy unknown nigger flying out of a beat-up Cadillac with a softball bat.

Just before five, Strike sold two of the remaining ounces to a local kid. He was way past the point of caring what was Champ’s territory and what was considered out of town—whatever moved the dope was fine by him.

One ounce to go. Strike stepped out of the store to ask the time from a passerby. Hearing that it was five o’clock, he signaled to Rodney that he had to leave.

Rodney strolled outside and leaned against the doorway. “Where you going?”

“You know.” Strike started to walk backwards. “My friend.”

Rodney nodded. “You come back right after.”

Strike paced in front of the candy store at the corner of Krumm and Loyola for twenty minutes before Jo-Jo rolled up in his Delta 88. Leaning into the front passenger window, Strike dropped his payment on the seat.

“How you been, Strike?” Jo-Jo said, peeking into the envelope.

“Awright.”

“You want to buy some tickets to the Rappers 4 Life concert in Passaic?”

“Naw.”

“House seats, man.”

“That’s OK.”

“How ‘bout I sell them to you, and you can sell ‘em for more on your own?”

Strike didn’t bother to answer.

“Awright. So I’ll see you next week, same time same station?”

Frowning, Strike abruptly pushed off from the side of the car.

“What’s the problem, Strike?”

“No, you know, you got nothin’ to tell me?”

“Nope.” Jo-Jo shrugged. “Nothin’ coming down.”

“Yeah, huh? Last time you said Monday night’s gonna be
knock
night.” Strike sucked his teeth, a small wave of anger rising up.

“Hey kid, you know who you remind me of? My mother.” Jo-Jo leaned across the shotgun seat to speak more intimately. “She’s seventy-nine years old, goes to the doctor like you go to the corner store, has every medical test known to science, then she feels cheated because there’s nothing wrong with her.” Jo-Jo came even closer. “I said there’s nothing coming down. What would you prefer, a brush with death?”

Buh-buh-boo.

The kid had sounded like Bing Crosby, but maybe Strike was trying to spit out somebody’s name, tell Rocco something anonymously. Or maybe he was calling to work out a deal for himself and then changed his mind. Rocco was still trying to figure it out a day later as he sat in the Homicide office overseeing the haircut of a quadruple murderer.

The guy was handcuffed to a chair by Mazilli’s desk, a Dominican who, along with another of his countrymen, had killed four Mafia-connected drug dealers over in Rydell. He had turned state’s against his confederate and was now being groomed for tomorrow’s trial by an effeminate Filipino barber. The murderer was six foot seven and thin, his shiny black hair hanging straight to his shoulder blades, his eyes baggy and deep from six months of looking over his shoulder in County.

Glancing at Rocco, the barber held out a fistful of greasy locks. “I should shampoo this.”

Rocco didn’t answer. He looked right through the barber, the murderer, his mind still playing with Strike’s strangled phone call. The kid obviously had something more he wanted to say. Was there any point in going out to the benches again?

Mazilli walked into the office with a cup of coffee, and the murderer rattled his cuffs at him. “Yo, can he shampoo me?”

“No. And don’t get his fucking hair all over my desk.” Mazilli glanced at Rocco, then stopped and took a longer look. “You OK?”

“What?”

“You have a fight with your wife?”

“Me? Not yet.”

Rocco turned on the five o’clock news, realizing that it had been days since he’d told Mazilli about his Strike and Victor action. Rocco imagined laying it all out for his partner, trying to justify his actions step by step, getting long looks and heavy silences in return. He blinked hard, trying to come back to the moment.

“Maz, when this guy’s done, you want to get something to eat?”

Mazilli sipped his coffee. “Nah, I got to go do something.”

“What?”

“I got to go arrest our friend.”

“Which friend is this?”

“I be arrestin’ Rodney Little.”

“For what?”

Mazilli made a face. “Jo-Jo Kronic called me. Couple of days ago they grabbed a car full of kids up from Delaware, they just bought two ounces off Rodney. These idiots had to stop and get some Hambone’s before they went home, so they pull into the lot with Delaware plates and a car phone, right? Like a fucking neon sign. Anyways, the kids gave up Rodney, and Jo-Jo had them go back to the candy store with an undercover, make another buy, and now he wants me to pick the guy up. Figures with me, Rodney’ll come in easy ‘cause we’re such good buddies.”

“Yo, could you turn that to channel seven?” the murderer asked, throwing Rocco a small polite smile.

“Let him make his own fucking arrests,” Rocco said, switching channels.

“You know what I think it is? Jo-Jo just don’t want Rodney to know who’s behind this. Rodney’s probably got some dirt on him and he doesn’t want to take a chance on the guy shooting off his mouth.”

Rocco swallowed a yawn. “So why bust him at all?”

“Maybe Rodney dissed him, you know, cut off his extortion payments or something. So now he’s getting back at him with a harassment bust, like a fuck-you bust. It’s OK. I don’t mind having a favor on that pink-eyed bastard.” Mazilli put down his coffee. “You want to come?”

At six o’clock Monday evening, only minutes after Strike had returned from paying off Jo-Jo, a huge white guy in a guayabera shirt waddled into Rodney’s store. He was a bartender from Greenwich Village, but to Strike he was the last ounce, the end of the stash.

Strike walked out of the store like a rubber man, heading for Herman’s to retrieve the dope, tasting his freedom in the evening air. But after he went a half-dozen steps, Rodney called out his name. When Strike turned, Rodney flashed him two fingers—their signal for cutting an ounce halfway to pure laxative—and Strike almost dropped to his knees in despair. If he did it Rodney’s way, they’d still have another half ounce to unload.

In his room at Herman’s, Strike sat staring at the uncut ounce, at the brown bottle, at the triple-beam scale, weighed his shot nerves against the clock and thought, Fuck it. Putting the scale and the laxative back in the dresser, he left the room with the uncut ounce.

Twenty minutes later, Strike and Rodney stood side by side behind the candy counter, watching silently as the bartender, his right leg sticking straight out behind him for balance, leaned over a garbage can directly across the street from the store and fished out the package Strike had dropped inside on his way back from Herman’s.

As the bartender walked off for his car, Strike could feel his heart beating in his face.

“Yeah, so, that’s it,” he said.

Rodney scowled at his young son, who was toddling around the deserted store licking one of the balls from the pool table.

Strike wasn’t sure whether Rodney had heard him. He moved out from behind the counter. “That’s it, OK?”

“What do you mean that’s it,” Rodney said.

“We all
out.
No more left.” Strike fought to control his breathing.

“Yeah?” Rodney said. “We don’t got like a half ounce left?”

“Shit, inventory ain’t your strong suit, you know?” The grin he was trying to suppress spread from ear to ear.

Rodney gazed at him thoughtfully. “We out, huh?”

“Yeah, so I’m gonna go now.” Strike rocked from foot to foot. “Awright?”

Taking a Hershey bar from under the glass, Rodney eased himself out from behind the counter and walked slowly toward Strike, the candy bar between his teeth.

Strike shut his eyes and reflexively covered his stomach, but Rodney moved right past him, picked up his son by the armpits and carried him back to the stool. Strike exhaled heavily, feeling a dampness across his middle as Rodney retrieved the scissors from the cash register and prepared for another go-around on his son’s head.

Strike glided backward toward the door. “Yeah, so I’ll see you later.”

“Go by the benches,” Rodney said, talking through the chocolate.

“Nah, I got to stay clear of Andre, man.”

”
Hey, fuck
Andre. Don’t be scared a no Andre.” Rodney clacked the scissors. “When we was in high school together? We was both on the wrestling team? We had us a fight, and let me tell you, man…”

Rodney let it hang, and Strike waited.

“Yeah, well, he kicked my ass, but I got
his
ass suspended off the team. So fuck him. He just a fat-assed bully boy. Don’t you be afraid a no Andre.”

“Yeah, uh-huh, awright. So, I see you later.”

Strike walked out the door and pulled up short. The heavyset Homicide and the one from Shaft Deli were just getting out of a tan Plymouth.

“Hey-y … look who’s here.” The heavyset cop mimed holding a phone to his face and flashed teeth. “Buh-buh-boo. Right?”

Milking the drawstrings of his sweatshirt hood, his face disappearing down to his nose, Strike took off up the street.

Rocco held Mazilli’s arm for a moment, watching Strike scamper up toward JFK, Rocco thinking, On rat’s feet. At the corner, Strike took a quick look backwards and Rocco threw him a wave.

Shrugging off an inquiring glance from Mazilli, Rocco followed him inside the store.

Rodney stood behind the counter, half a candy bar sticking out of his mouth like a stiff brown tongue, a pair of scissors poised over the head of a toddler. Trying to keep his balance on a vinyl bar stool, the boy looked miserable.

Hunching down, Mazilli looked the boy in the eye and made little twiddly finger waves. “Love child, runnin’ wild…”

“What’s up, Mazilli? What you need?” Rodney gave Rocco a cool up-and-down look, then brushed a light layer of hair off the candy counter.

“I needs
you,
brother.”

“Yeah? What for?”

“I got me a warrant on you.”

“Say what? A search warrant?”

“Arrest.”

“What for?” Rodney said, sounding only mildly irritated. Mazilli helped himself to a bag of chips. “Draft dodging, what the hell you think?”

“Arrest for
what,
Mazilli?”

“You must’ve sold to an undercover, you dumb prick. What’re you, so hungry you’re selling shit yourself?”

Rodney’s face went dark and dangerous. “Who set me up?”

“Hey, what do I know? I’m Homicide.”

“What’s that mean?”

“That means somebody says to me, Rodney’s your buddy. He’s not gonna break balls if you go in, so…”

“Gah-damn.” Rodney threw down the scissors in disgust. “And you ain’t gonna tell me shit about this, right?”

“You want to give somebody a call to come watch the store? Or you want to just lock up?”

“Yeah, an’ what about my
son
here. What do I do with him, man?”

Mazilli nodded to the phone. “Call his mother.”

Enjoying himself, Rocco watched Rodney dial, then listened as Rodney started to talk, hot and low, speaking to whatever woman answered the phone as if this whole thing was her fault.

“I said come on down and get him … Naw, not in no hour. I got to go in on something, I’m arrested … Yeah arrested … Never you mind on what. Get your ass down here
now,
just—” Rodney pressed the phone to his gut and looked up at Mazilli. “Jesus Lord Christ Almighty, this woman…”

Mazilli took the phone. “Who’s this, Deirdre?”

Rodney flinched at the name.

“Sorry, Carol? Carol, this is Mazilli. Listen, I got to take Rodney in, so either you come down here, get the kid in like ten minutes, or you come get him tomorrow morning from Youth and Family Services.” He winked at Rodney as the mother talked in his ear. “We’re going to the Western Precinct … OK, but you best get there before I finish the report or he’s going into the shelter, OK? Yeah, bye.” Mazilli hung up. “She says for you to take him with you. She’ll pick him up at the station.”