by Mat Johnson
Snowden was going to pick very carefully indeed. Snowden was going to make it a very good one. A lot of thinking, a lot of thinking had gone into this, and he told himself he would think his way out this time, that it was possible he could actually save a life besides his own and get through this. The problem with his last effort was obvious: Don't think small, don't think weak and scared. Think confident. Think secure. Don't think nonthreatening, think non-threatenable, somebody capable of hearing out a warning and not acting like a cornered animal. Someone who felt in charge, assured that the world moved forward solely because he willed it.
"Him," Snowden said, putting down the file.
"Him?" Lester saw who it was. He picked up the picture, looked at it again anyway. "You're joking, right? I mean, I just put him out there for contrast, to let you know the other guys were nothing. To be honest, I was thinking more along the line of Horus on that one. It's not an apartment, it's a townhouse - don't have keys for his place, and believe me it's a fortress. The guy's got more thugs coming in and out of there than you can count. I'd do it but I've had run-ins with him in the past, so that gives me motive. To be honest, I figured it would even take Horus a couple months to work the nerve up."
"I'm not joking. Him. I can do it," Snowden told Lester, pumping his chest with simulated confidence. "I'm a cold-blooded killer, aren't I? I'm the bastard responsible for the death of three mothers' sons. I'm going to do him and that's it."
Parson Boone knew someone was trying to kill him, he just didn't know who, how many, or for what reasons. He was pretty sure whatever those reasons were they were valid ones, he just didn't know which of the shit he'd sown in the world was coming back to haunt him. Parson Boone was sure someone was trying to kill him, or had been in the past, or would be in the future. It was just the kind of life he lived, so he took actions in accordance.
Parson Boone rarely went outside his 137th Street brownstone and even inside it never below his top-floor apartment. Boone allowed the people with a propensity for violence in his employ to live on the floors below, so anyone who wanted to get to him would first have to go through them. The top-floor apartment was completely soundproof and fortified with security cameras covering nearly every room in the house below. There were more locks on the door to the fourth floor than there were on the front one. Good locks, a quality job. Lester knew this because he knew the contractor who did it.
The most obvious way to break into the brownstone of Parson Boone was to come in through the abandoned shell it was connected to. Even Parson Boone knew that, that's why he'd personally seen to the cinder-blocking of all its doors and windows. To Snowden it looked like a tomb. Here is a Bunch of Crackheads Who Smoked Their Very Souls, the hieroglyphic graffiti seemed to say, Only a Damned Fool Would Enter. At this point in his life, Snowden was pretty sure he was a damn fool, and he had the key to the overlooked back basement grate so that's exactly what he set about doing. Horus was sent to the block in a van on the night determined, armed not just with a gun but a cell phone and a pair of binoculars to aim at Boone's windows. On first sighting he called Lester and it was time for Snowden to go in.
Lester wasn't stupid. He was homicidal, delusional, addicted, but Snowden couldn't really call him stupid. As they made their way through the ravaged remains of the abandoned building, flashlights the only thing saving them from being swallowed by the profound darkness, Snowden listened to him explain all of his research into the blueprints to come up with his strategy and recognized for the first time that Lester was actually very clever. That that's what had kept the Chupacabra from being caught all this time.
The only thing easy about doing this job was that it didn't have to look like an accident; in the case of Parson Boone, no one would have believed that anyway. Lester's was a finesse plan. Snowden was not surprised to learn that Cyrus Marks, being the belligerent, homicidal hedgehog he knew him to be, had imagined a much more violent, blunt assault to get rid of Parson Boone: Shove a pound of C4 explosives against the adjoining living room wall, walk through the burning hole, and shoot everything living. Apparently, Marks had envisioned this job as the men of the Second Chance Program's graduating project.
"You and Horus leading in the assault, Bobby burning the whole thing to the ground before the police get there. That's how our congressman thinks. Big," Lester said, only the slightest slur. Snowden could tell when the man was stoned now, his nods in the wake of the first hit, the dilatory calm after, the frantic energy when his system was running out again. If Lester hadn't expressed his reservation about dynamiting a load-bearing wall in a condemned building, Snowden knew Marks would have actually forced them to go through with that. Snowden wished Bobby knew that too. That he would stop whining about a little shit on his shoes when people like Snowden were swimming in it.
When they made it to the fourth floor of the ruin, a long process in which no step assured purchase, Snowden could actually hear the echoes of talking Boone on the other side. Lester pointed his flashlight to the adjoining wall, illuminating its torn wallpaper of pink and blue lilies. Seeing the pattern, the optimism and life of the colors depressed Snowden more than the walk through the entire rotting house did. It reminded him that somebody had actually lived here once. Lester's spotlight found the fake fireplace from his Polariotls. Its grate was of ornate iron, as Snowden walked closer to it he realized it was totally solid, it only looked like it had holes in it.
"There's the old oil heating unit," Lester said lightly. There was yelling coming from the other building. Even without being able to make out the words, Snowden could recognize the sound of a man defending himself.
"It was never meant for burning wood," Lester continued. "The mantel, the way the wall comes out, real popular around the turn of the century. The look of traditional elegance with the latest in modern convenience." A hand on each side, Lester bent and strained to lift the lid away. The mechanics of the oil heater were attached to the back of it, leaving a brown, shiny stain along the wall as Lester attempted to lean it. Behind it were just two thin tubes and a lot of empty space.
"Like I said, right? Perfect little tunnel, big enough for a 1920s heating specialist to squeeze his immigrant butt up the faux flume and across the crawl space between the ceiling and the roof to check for leaks. Just go up and over and you'll find yourself in the residence of a Mr. Parson Boone. That easy."
"Up and over. That easy," Snowden mumbled back. Even that seemed too loud in the empty room.
"Just up and over and down again, and you'll find yourself staring at the back end of an identical grate. Unscrew it with the pliers and you're in. Use the gun first thing," Lester instructed him again. "The silencer's attached. Don't let him talk, don't let him do anything, just use the gun then come back through here, and Horus will be waiting in the green van on Frederick Douglass end."
"Horus in the van, waiting for me," Snowden repeated a final time.
"Horus in the van. Worse comes to it, use the cell to call him and he'll come in blazing. I'm off to the lounge to meet the congressman for a drink and an alibi. One more thing, then." Lester held up one finger, made sure Snowden committed to the digit before going to his bag and opening it. From within it, flat from being pressed between folders, Lester pulled a package covered in silver wrapping paper, pulling at its matching bow to get it to fluff before handing it to him.
"In honor of this being your last mandatory job and everything. I was going to get you a card too but I couldn't find anything appropriate. I hope it fits," Lester said, and before Snowden could even get it out, followed with, "It's a ninja outfit."
Snowden held it up to himself. He didn't know what else to do with it.
"Put it on, it'll save your clothes from getting ruined. I'll look this way. I promise, no peeking," Lester said, turning to face the cinder-blocked windows. Arms wriggling for freedom in the top half of the costume, when Snowden finally got it on he could barely pull it down to cover his belly button. The outfit was so small, Snowden's
pants' waistline was only halfway up his calves when he felt the bottom of the pants revealing his ankles. "I had to fight myself to keep from getting you the white version. Of course it wasn't practical, but it just seemed to be more appropriate to me, us being the good guys and everything. Can I turn around yet?" Lester asked and started to. Snowden flew up the chimney just to get away from him.
In the days before, thinking of this night, it was the small space that most frightened Snowden, not just the cramped situation but the actual fear of it itself, that halfway through, trapped, he would succumb to it. Yet inside, crawling along the lines of oil, water, and waste tubing, ceiling so close the exposed plaster scraped along the top of his head, Snowden found that claustrophobia in no way threatened to consume him. There were too many other fears vying for dominance. Leading the pack was the one that the small flashlight in his mouth would go out and leave him stuck in the eternal darkness unable to find his way back again, but not far behind that fear was the one that the pipes he gripped so fiercely would break, sending him flying through the ceiling, as well as the one that the people he could hear so clearly below could hear him. The last bit was actually the least rational, as the men below were screaming so loudly he could barely hear himself. Somebody had done something wrong, was found somewhere he didn't belong. Somebody had been caught. Somebody refused to explain himself. There was more than one person yelling at him, aggressively listing the man in question's personal deficiencies. Things were pounded and slammed to punctuate declarations and Snowden kept thinking, And that's how he treats his own people, touching the gun strapped under his arm for reassurance.
The hole seemed narrower on the other end, seemed steeper, too, as Snowden inched his way down headfirst, using the fact that he could barely fit through the space to his advantage. Hands gripped to the metal poles, body wedged in the space directly above, Snowden timed his movement to coincide with the yelling in the next room, fighting the urge to cough as the dust fell directly into his nose.
The back end of the grille was identical to its counterpart, no holes to see through but thin lines of light from where it just barely failed to meet the wall. Staring through, Snowden saw a bedroom just like he was supposed to and got hopeful, laying its image onto what he remembered of Lester's blueprint's grid. That was the hall right there, the kitchen and exit door would be on the left, the living room was where the voices were coming from, on the right. The same yelling he so appreciated as he sneaked above it became an immediate annoyance as Snowden waited upside down below, body weight resting on his skull and arms and shoulders, all of which were numb by the time he heard the men who populated the next room evacuating it.
From his vantage, light aligned along his iris, Snowden could only see as far as their knees as they passed by the doorway, but it was enough to understand the earlier commotion. Somebody had shown up for work stone drunk, it was obvious, as two sets of sneakers walked stiff and steady and a third set dragged limp between them, toes pointed straight to the ground they scraped across. "Wake up, nigger. I ain't trying to carry you neither," one said. If there was a response, it was nothing more than a facial gesture. Snowden could hear the others making their way down the stairs when a pair of plaid slippers drifted casually into his line of vision, closed the entrance door softly on the way to the kitchen. Parson Boone had ashy ankles. Snowden got out his pliers and started unscrewing the bolts from the inside, tried to ignore his full bladder and keep the metal handle from slipping out his sweating hands.
Even if you didn't want to kill a drug lord, even if you didn't really want to break into his home at all, you had to admit there was a rush to standing in his bedroom with a gun in your hand. Knowing that if you wanted to do it, you could, ending his reign was at your personal discretion. That as powerful as he was, his life was still in your loaded hands. You needed to recognize that as a normal reaction and not confuse it with something more, Snowden told himself, or you just might pull the trigger when you had the chance.
Snowden caught a look at himself in the hall mirror as he walked lightly past. The sleek ninja of his mind was replaced with the image of an asbestos-covered freak in black, wrists and belly exposed in a top so tight his arms looked locked into position. Reaching into his pocket, Snowden pulled out the mask, reminded to hide his face by his own embarrassment.
Following his gun down the hall, Snowden inched closer to the kitchen. He saw Parson Boone's back. It was definitely the man from the mug shot, yet he was an altogether different person from the one Snowden imagined. Maybe it was the locks that hung in the space between his shoulder blades — Snowden gave the hairstyle a connotation of spirituality, so the fact that Boone's hair was gray just reinforced that prejudice. It could have been just that the man was there doing his own dishes, an act Snowden assumed Boone, from Lester's description, would consider beneath him. Parson Boone was simply a man in his home, serene in his mundanity. Snowden kept the gun pointed directly at his head, anyway, politely clearing his own throat.
Parson Boone wiped off the dish in his hand, placed it on the shelf, and closed the cabinet door before turning around. The expression of surprise or primal fear that Snowden expected to see flood the man's face when he got a good look at his guest never came, only a tired acceptance. Only a sigh, like dying was just another task he had to do at the end of a long day.
"Who sent you?" Parson Boone asked him, leaning back against his sink as if to brace himself for the name.
"That's not important. I'm not here to harm you, I'm here to warn you. Someone is trying to kill you. These people, they got me over a barrel so here I am, but this is as far as I go in this thing. Don't think they won't just send someone else, because that's exactly the way these people operate. You don't get out of Harlem tonight, your life will be over. That's the message." Snowden reviewed his own words, the voice that delivered them: perfect.
"You sneak in my home. You hold a gun on me, you can at least tell me who sent you. I don't have the energy to go running anywhere, so if you want to help, just tell me what direction to look in." It was a reasonable request. Even in this state, so nervous he was forced to hold the gun with two hands to keep it from shaking, Snowden could see that. It just wasn't a reasonable situation. I need a bigger gun, Snowden thought. That's why nobody ever listens to me.
Parson Boone crossed his arms and kept staring, and Snowden was about to rephrase his earlier statement when the other man said, "It's Cyrus Marks, isn't it?"
Snowden had attempted to play poker once, failed miserably. It was his eyes, he realized, because that's the only thing Parson Boone could see clearly and already it was like he knew everything. "No, no, you're wrong," Snowden started to protest, but the older man just ignored him, continued as if the fact had been admitted.
"The 'over a barrel' thing, I know that cat well so that's a bit of a giveaway, but don't worry, I would have said his name first anyway. Why do you think I'm hiding from life, trapped on this floor like this?" Leaning forward, Parson Boone pulled out a seat from the kitchen table in front of him, sat down, and pointed like he expected Snowden to join him.
"Don't move again, stay there," Snowden told him, poking each word forward with the silencer's muzzle to get the point across to him. "Look man, I don't give a damn why you live like this. You don't like it, that's even more reason to skip town. Move to the islands or some shit."
"Marks's got you in a tight situation? I can get you out again. Sit down. Let's talk about this. I know how the dude works, I know exactly what you're going through on this. Exactly." Snowden turned to the sound of someone coughing behind him, but it died and he realized it was on the floor below them. Turning quickly back, Snowden half expected to see Parson Boone lunging at him, but the man was seated in the exact same position, hand still to his chin earnestly. He's not afraid, Snowden realized. A masked man stands before him with a loaded gun pointing at his head and he's not even slightly nervous. Kill him. There was part of Snowden that was saying this and he
didn't expect it, but it was there and it said, Kill him, he's not going anywhere, he's going to fight this, he's going to end up getting you killed still won't save himself in the end. Kill him, save your ass, get it over with.
"Don't be fooled by his self-righteousness, son. All his race talk don't mean nothing. Hey, I'm not saying he don't believe in it now, but the man ain't half as clean as he'd like to pretend. Let me ask you something: How do you think a so-called civil servant got enough money to buy up half the prime real estate in Harlem? Better yet, how you think a two-bit parole officer gets enough money to run for Congress in the first place?"
"How?" Snowden wanted to know. Snowden wanted him to shut up, too, but wanted to know what he knew before this.
"It's a rhetorical question." Boone frowned, removed a cigarette from the breast pocket of his T-shirt, reached across the table for a pair of matches to light it. "Drugs, obviously. By forcing a hump like me to go out there and risk my neck for years. I look like the big bad drug dealer he probably represented me as? I was a pawn, his pawn. Now I'm retired, so I'm no longer that. Now I'm his loose end. Why do you think he sent you to kill me?" If what Boone kept saying was as interesting, Snowden would take a seat. He would take a cigarette, too, to help him think. He wouldn't take off his mask, but he would lift it up just far enough to stick it in.
"You think that's so far-fetched, look at yourself. Who's pulling your strings? I heard he had some young bucks under his wing. I know exactly who you are, kid. You know who I am? I'm your way out," Parson Boone said standing up again, coming towards Snowden with only a nod to caution.
"Sit down," Snowden ordered, but it came out with only slightly more force than a question. The gun was up, but it felt like a starter pistol in his hand. The only reason Parson Boone stopped coming closer was that it would have forced him to push it out the way and that would have been rude.
