Manhattan Noir - Lawrence Block [71]
Shit if he don’t feel something hard and cold.
He wrapped two fingers around it and pulled it out.
Both cops jumped back, so funny, like Chico. “What the fuck!” one of them yelled, he didn’t see which. Then they both had guns pointing at him, standing legs spread, two hands like in the movies.
“Hey!” Rex told them, his heart thumping his chest like it want to get out and run away. “Chill! Y’all don’t want to get your hands dirty, I’m just taking it out for you.” He held up his hands, the .45 dangling.
Something Else took out a handkerchief, took the .45 with it, while Something kept his gun pointed at Rex. Whole thing over, they looked at it and looked at him. Finally they both smiled, all them teeth gleaming in the dark. “Thanks, Rex,” they told him.
Cops so grateful, they gave Rex a ride to work, so he ain’t late. He tell them drop him a block away, don’t want his boss seeing them.
“You think you’re a pretty smart son of a bitch, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.” And he did, finding them a fucking gun in a place he didn’t even know no gun was. And he did all day, till he come home just in time to see them two motherfuck-ers hauling the Landry boy out in handcuffs. The boy’s eyes looked right into Rex’s again, like before, and this time they looked even more scared.
More like Chico’s.
“What the fuck? What up with this?”
The white cop shrugged. “His gun, Rex.”
“It ain’t mine!” the boy shouted.
“Street says it’s your brother’s. Same thing.”
“How’s it the same thing?” Rex stood in their way.
“His brother’s in North Carolina, has been for a month. So it wasn’t him used it on the old lady.”
“Wasn’t me neither!”
“He just a kid,” Rex said.
“Old enough to be tried as an adult if the charge is serious. We’re talking about murder here, Rex. Hey, by the way, thanks.” The cop smiled his teeth at Rex. “We appreciate that you gave up the gun. I’d suggest you get out of the way now, though. Unless you want to come with us?”
The kid’s eyes widened when the cop said the part about the gun. He looked like Rex just took away all his candy, and he looked young enough to care.
That night Rex couldn’t sleep for dreaming.
He dreamed the Landry boy’s mama ask him to give the boy a Hershey’s bar but he can’t find him. He started to eat the chocolate himself but when he looked at it, it wasn’t no candy, it was old smelly garbage.
He dreamed Chico was walking down the street and he wouldn’t turn around when Rex called his name.
He dreamed he was standing in the middle of his apartment, pressure building inside him. The door and windows had bars on them, and he was stuck in there with the roaches.
At work his boss asked him, “How long did you work for my cousin, Rex?”
“Three years,” Rex said. “On and off.”
Rex could see him doing the math, see him thinking, How much do I owe this guy? Rex figured one more visit from them two detectives, he have his answer. Then where was Rex gonna get rent money from, even for that dump? And how was he gonna explain to his parole officer how come he can’t keep a job shoveling shit?
That night, same as the one before. This time when he woke up, Rex couldn’t remember what he dreamed, except all three of his mama’s men pointing and laughing at him, him being so little and them real big. Make him so mad, make all that pressure begin building, but nothing he can do.
Next day on the way to work he saw the Landry boy’s mama dressed in her church hat, getting on the subway. From the look in her eyes you might’ve thought someone punched her in the stomach. Long ride down to Rikers, Rex thought.
And more dreams the next night. This time he woke up at 4, sat staring out the window until the sky got gray.
When morning finally came, he called in sick. He spent the rest of the day getting let