Gone ’Til November (11 page)

The Indian woman behind the counter didn’t greet him, watched him as he made his way down the aisles. Basic foods, brands he’d never heard of, cans with faded labels. Stretches of dusty shelf with no product at all. Morgan remembered the A&P on West Market Street when he was a boy. A city block long, it had seemed. Endless rows of fluorescent lights, everything clean and bright. A store a boy could get lost in.

He picked up two overpriced quarts of motor oil, a handful of chocolate bars. There were no baskets, so he carried it all in the crook of his arm.

On a shelf near the counter, he saw a turn-rack of cassettes with sun-faded labels. A handwritten sign read 3
FOR
$5.

Stock left from the previous owners, he guessed. Nobody bought them anymore.

He scanned the titles, remembering what he’d left behind
at the hotel. He chose a Sam Cooke collection, O. V. Wright, the Impressions’ greatest hits. The tape cases were covered with a thin film of dust. He found six he wanted, brought them to the counter.

The prepaid cells were on the wall behind the register, between hanging sheets of scratch-off lottery cards.

He pointed. “Two of those.”

She scanned the items without a word. He pulled a roll of bills from the pocket of his leather, handed over three fifties. She frowned, unfolded them on the counter one by one, and passed a counterfeit detection pen over each. Then she opened the register, gave him his change, put everything in a single thin plastic bag.

He went out into the fading daylight, started across Elizabeth Avenue to where the Monte Carlo was parked. He’d taken the chance on driving. With the stops he had to make, a cab would be too much trouble. The bag dangled from his left hand, his right hand free. His coat was open, the Beretta in back. He put the bag in the trunk, got behind the wheel.

His next stop was three blocks away, a hardware store tucked between a fast-food chicken place and a shuttered shoe repair shop. He went up a flight of narrow stairs, through a glass door with an old-fashioned
OPEN
sign.

Otis was behind the counter, grinding a key. His hair had gone solid gray in the months since Morgan had last seen him. Reading glasses hung from a cord around his neck.

He saw Morgan, stopped what he was doing, the key machine winding down.

“My man,” he said. “Long time.”

“How you doing, Otis?”

“Day by day. Like everybody else.”

Morgan took his outstretched hand in a soul shake.

“Took me a while, after you called,” Otis said, “but I think I got everything you want.”

“Solid.”

Otis came from behind the counter, went to the door and worked the two dead bolts, flipped the sign to
CLOSED
. “Come on back,” he said.

Morgan followed him behind the counter and into the rear of the store. Otis limped, a souvenir from an Aryan Brother who had stabbed him a half-dozen times with a bedspring shank. Two days later, Morgan had caught the Brother alone in a hallway off Five Wing and taken out both his eyes with a sharpened spoon.

It was overhot back here, smelled of metal, oil, and dust. A radiator clanked. Morgan saw the double-barrel sawed-off that hung on pegs just above the inside of the door, within easy reach. Knew it was loaded.

Otis stopped at a tall shelf of plumbing supplies, put his glasses on, peered up at the boxes there. He took one down marked
SHUT-OFF VALVES
, set it on a worktable.

“There you go,” he said.

Morgan opened it. Inside were five gray boxes of Winchester Super-X 9 mm shells, fifty rounds in each. Morgan thumbed one open, checked them.

“Early Christmas shopping?” Otis said.

“Something like that.”

“You wanted to see something small, too, in a hand carry?
I just got a couple new pieces in. Russian, but they’re in good shape. I’d let them go cheap.”

“Junk.”

“Maybe, but they’ll go quick. Corner boys love that shit. None of them can shoot worth a damn anyway.”

“What else you have?”

Otis took a second box down, handed it over. Inside was a small black automatic wrapped in oilcloth.

“Walther PP,” Otis said. “German police gun. Nine millimeter, like your Beretta.”

Morgan took the gun out, ejected the empty clip. The slide action was smooth, the gun recently oiled. No traces of rust. He pushed the clip back in.

“Light,” he said.

“Get the job done.”

“It’s good.”

“Got something else you might want to look at. Had it for a while, made me think of you.”

He went to a shelf on the other side of the room, came back with a long, unmarked box, set it on the table. When he took the lid off, Morgan saw the short-barreled black-and-chrome Remington 12-gauge pump inside, resting on a bed of rags.

“Model 870,” Otis said. “You used to keep one of them back when you worked for Poot O’Neal, didn’t you? Around the time he got to warring with the Johnson brothers.”

“Sometimes.”

Morgan couldn’t resist. He took the shotgun out, looked it over, feeling its familiar weight. He worked the pump, checked that the breach was empty, saw where the serial number had
been filed off. After a moment, he shook his head, used a rag to wipe down where he’d touched it, put it back in the box.

“Not this time,” he said. “I’m good.”

He took the money roll out, peeled off four hundreds.

“Too much,” Otis said.

“It was a rush job.”

“Twist my arm.” He took the bills. “Let me give you something to put those in.”

He went out front, came back with a cheap canvas gym bag, set it on the table.

“Been hearing some things about you,” he said.

“Like what?”

“That you been going up against those boys from around the way. Took down a couple of their people.”

“What else you hear?”

“That they looking for you. I see you in here buying all this, makes me wonder what you got in mind. There’s a lot more of them than there are of you.”

“My warring days are over.”

“Don’t look like that to me.”

Morgan put the wrapped Walther and the ammunition boxes in the bag, zipped it shut.

“Let me ask you something,” he said.

“What?”

“You ever sell to those Three Paw boys?”

“Sometimes. Why?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Morgan hefted the bag, put out his hand. Otis took it. They clinched, released.

“We go back a long way,” Otis said. “Thirty years at least.”

“ ’Bout that.”

“And you always one of my best customers. So don’t take no chances you don’t need to.”

“I never do,” Morgan said.

He put the gym bag in the trunk, headed back to the motel. On the way, he broke the seal on the Sam Cooke tape, pushed it into the player. “A Change Is Gonna Come” filled the car. It sounded like church. Like heaven. Like death.

“You all set?” Mikey asked.

“Good enough,” Morgan said. They were in a parking garage downtown, Morgan leaning against the hood of the Monte Carlo, Mikey in the front passenger seat of the Suburban, the door open. Dante was at the wheel. C-Love stood a few feet away, smoking a cigarette, looking around.

“When you leaving?” Mikey asked.

“Tomorrow. Take me two, maybe three days to get down there.”

“You could drive straight through, be there before you know it. I can get you some blow for the ride, keep you kicking.”

Morgan shook his head. “I want my head clear when I get there. Couple things I need to know, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Willis’s woman know what he was doing down there?”

“Maybe. Some of it, I’d think. Don’t know how much he told her.”

“She know how much money he was carrying?”

“Shit,” Mikey said. “Even Derek didn’t know that. No need. Package was in the car before he even picked it up. He was told to deliver the car, leave it. He didn’t need to know shit else. Unless the boy was a total fool, he knew he had some cash in there, but not how much. He knew I wasn’t paying him no four grand up front just to drop a car off.”

“Four grand? That it?”

“For driving a car to Florida, leaving it somewhere? Yeah, four grand is fucking generous, yo. Plus he pull that off, come back and he’d have more work waiting for him. He knew all that. Knew the risk, too.”

“His woman down there, asking questions, poking around. She finds out how much was in that car, don’t you think she’ll want a piece of it?”

“How she gonna find out? Who gonna tell her?”

“Don’t know. With a little one and all, she finds out, she might think she’s entitled.”

“Fuck that. She don’t know, and no one’s gonna tell her. You’re gonna hook up with her down there, and she’s gonna tell you everything she knows. I’ll take care of her when she get back. I’ll pay for the funeral, the flight and all that shit, too. She should be happy I’m doing that. Nigga got himself smoked, lost my money. She’s lucky I’m not trying to take it out of her ass.”

Morgan looked away. C-Love finished his cigarette, dropped it, twisted it out with his foot.

“I’ll call you when I get down there,” Morgan said. “Let you know what’s going on, what the deal is.”

“I’ll send the twins down, you think you need them.”

Morgan shook his head.

“Okay then,” Mikey said. He put a hand out. Morgan touched knuckles with him. Dante started the engine as Mikey pulled the door shut.

C-Love got in the rear, closed the door. As the Suburban backed out of the spot, Mikey nodded at him through the tinted window. Morgan watched them drive away.

Cassandra moved naked across the room, lit the short, thick candles on the bureau top. Morgan watched her. He lay with a pillow behind his head, the sheet thrown aside. His skin felt warm, almost feverish.

When the four candles were burning, their incense filling the small room, she set the plastic lighter beside them. Soft light flickered on the wall, glinted off framed photos on the bureau.

“That okay, baby?” she said.

He nodded, and she slipped back into bed, curled against him, one hand on his chest, the wiry gray hairs there.

“I can feel your heart,” she said.

He looked past her, through the open door into the other bedroom, could see the crib there, the night-light over it.

She traced his scars with her fingertips, lingered over the fresh one from his appendectomy.

“When are you coming back?” she said.

“Soon. I just have to take care of some things.”

“You’ve been spoiling me. Sending me that money, and Aaron love those toys. But it feels like you haven’t been by in a long time.”

“Been busy.”

He hadn’t told her about being sick, wouldn’t. He’d known her for three years now. She’d been nineteen when they met. Her boyfriend worked for Mikey, had been killed in a police chase after making a delivery. The first time Morgan met her, he was bringing money from Mikey—five hundred dollars. It was all he would give her.

Morgan had added five hundred of his own, then come by to see her a week later with two hundred more, and then again the week after. That night she’d let him stay, and when he’d woken in the middle of the night, she was crying softly beside him. He hadn’t known what to do, so he’d done nothing. After a while the tremors stopped and she slipped back into sleep. He’d come by once or twice a month ever since. Mikey didn’t know about it. No one did.

He watched shadows play on the ceiling, then closed his eyes, felt her warmth against him, her softness. Wind rattled the room’s single window.

He felt safe here, the only place now. Her breathing was slow and deep, and he found himself falling into rhythm with it, drifting into warm darkness.

He woke all at once, his eyes snapping open, muscles rigid. A draft from somewhere made the candles flutter. She murmured something against him but didn’t wake. After a while,
he disentangled from her, went to the window. He looked down on the empty street. A plastic bag scudded into the light from a streetlamp, then blew higher and out of sight.

He dressed without waking her. When he was done, he took two thousand dollars from his jacket, folded the bills, and slipped them under the jewelry box on the bureau. Then he leaned over and softly blew the candles out one by one.

He let himself out of the apartment, used his key to lock the door behind him.

He was on the road by noon. He took Route 78 to the Turnpike, headed south. He’d bought a map at a gas station, knew it was a straight run to Florida. I-95 all the way to Jacksonville, then west on 301.

He’d disassembled the Beretta and Walther, wrapped them in oiled rags, and stored them in the spaces below the rocker panels, along with the boxes of shells, the bag of marijuana, and the pills. He couldn’t take a chance having them in the car if he were stopped.

The Monte Carlo’s tank was full, the fluids topped off, and it was running smooth and strong, the heater on low, the Impressions coming through the speakers, “People Get Ready.” It calmed him as he drove.

It was ten thirty when she heard the knock at the door. She was stretched out on the couch in sweats and sneakers, reading a Jude Deveraux paperback, her hair tied up. The knock came again, soft.

She put down the book, went to the front window, and inched the blinds aside. Billy was on the steps, holding a pizza box in one hand, a plastic bag in the other.

She undid the chain and dead bolt, opened the door, looked at him through the screen.

“Hi,” he said. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

She brushed a loose strand of hair from her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

He raised the box. “Thought you might be hungry.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Not at all. Just wanted to come by, see you. That’s all. Figured I’d bring a peace offering.”

“I never eat this late. You know that.”

“Then do you mind if I have a slice? I haven’t had dinner yet.”

She unlocked the screen door, pushed it open.

“Thanks,” he said. She held the door for him as he came in.

“Danny’s sleeping,” she said.

“I’ll be quiet. I tried not to knock too loud, but I was worried you wouldn’t hear.”