Brass pushed the match closer.
“I never do. He would have thought that was weird,” the bartender said.
“Fifteen. Don’t give us much time.” Nate leaned over, blew out the match, and looked up at the bartender as if he was flirting with him. “For this crap, he come in the front or the back?”
The bartender’s eyes were wide. He was watching Brass, not Nate. “Front, mostly.”
“Mostly,” Nate said. “Do that mean like half-and-half or eighty-twenty or what? How much does he come in the front?”
“Nine out of ten times,” the bartender said.
“Good.” Nate moved away from him. “Brass, I need three shooters, roof-top, triangled on the front door. Bop—” He was looking at the second bodyguard “—you get the alley door and the shotgun. Make sure you got the right target before you shoot, man.”
Bop looked at him as if the direction insulted him, then grabbed the shotgun from Brass. Brass went with him out the back door.
Nate reached around the bar and yanked the phone out of the wall. Then he said to the bartender as if nothing had happened, “I could use a brew myself.”
The bartender glanced at the front door, licked his lower lips, and didn’t move.
Nate slammed his hand on the bar, and the bartender jumped.
“Do I gotta do it?” Nate asked.
The bartender looked at me. His face was pinched, his cheek beginning to bruise. “I thought you were better than this.”
“Than what?” I asked, my hand tightening around my glass. I could, I supposed, reach for my gun, stop everything now, get the bartender out, get me out, and leave.
And then I’d lose protection for Jimmy, and Vitel would still be walking the street.
There would also be no guarantee that the bartender would survive another week.
“Why aren’t you doing anything?” the bartender asked me.
“I am doing something.” I raised the beer, and took one more sip.
Nate grinned at me. “I’m beginning to like you, Gramps.”
Then he pulled at the bartender’s sleeve. “But you, you get to work, or I swear I’m shoving you out to join your friend Jump.”
The bartender scurried behind the bar and poured another beer. He handed it to Nate, who carried it toward me. As Nate approached, he grabbed a chair and slid it next to mine.
He sat down, tilted the chair back, and sipped his beer. “Gotta tell ya,” he said after a minute, “didn’t expect you to kick back and enjoy the show, Gramps. Figured you for a runner right out.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t.
“But you got balls. Charles’s been saying that, I seen it in December, I see it now. You got balls.” He took another sip of his beer, some of the foam staying on his lower lip. He licked it away. “You ever seen anyone shot, Gramps?”
“A few times,” I said.
“No wonder you’re cool.” He set his glass down. “You go out that back door there, take the second door, not the one that goes to the alley, and you’ll find the car. You can go there, you can walk to yours, whatever you wanna do. You don’t gotta stay, Gramps. I was just testin you, you know?”
“I know,” I said.
“If Vitel don’t listen to our friend there, it could get ugly. You don’t wanna get caught in a shootout with us and the Red Squad.”
He was serious. He was going to let me leave.
But he had been right earlier. I had put all of this in motion. This was the only kind of justice Johnson would get. I had to see it to the end.
“I’ll risk it,” I said.
Brakes squealed outside, and a bumper appeared in view. Then a car door slammed.
“Heads up,” Charles whispered.
I saw black-booted feet appear around the bumper from the driver’s side. It took a moment for the entire person to come into view, but I didn’t have to see all of him to recognize him.
It was Jump Vitel.
And he was alone.
THIRTY-SIX
I COULD HAVE called out to Vitel. I could have run through the back door, getting out before the shooting started.
I could have gotten my gun in two moves, grabbed Nate, and pulled him into the street. Once Vitel saw Nate, this entire thing would have ended.
And the sharpshooters wouldn’t have had a chance. They wouldn’t dare shoot, not with Nate in the way.
I didn’t do any of those things.
Instead, I set my beer on the checked tablecloth, wiped my moist hands on my too-short pants, and let out a small breath.
Jump Vitel had his hands in his pockets as he walked toward the bar. He was whistling. With his toe, he brushed the stain on the middle of the sidewalk and then he grinned.
He took one more step, and the back of his head flew off. The crack of a rifle followed not a half-second later. He fell forward, slamming into the iron railing beside the steps, his body making a thudding sound as he hit.
Then there was something like silence. The crack of the rifle still echoed, but no one else had fired. Nate’s shooters had got Vitel on the first try.
Beside me, Nate let out a breath. I was still holding mine.
Jump Vitel’s hand hung over the stairway, his arm swinging back and forth.
Nate took one more sip of his beer, then set it down. He stood, threw a dollar on the table, and said, “C’mon, Gramps. We have to be going.”
But I wasn’t ready to leave. Instead, I walked forward. My bodyguard didn’t shoot me. Chico stood aside to let me pass. Charles joined me halfway there.
I stopped when I was close enough to see Vitel’s face—or what was left of it. Half of his skull was missing, his left eye was gone. Blood coated the remaining skin.
He didn’t look human any more.
Not that he had ever been human anyway.
“Gramps!” Nate called from the back of the bar. “Last chance.”
I turned. All of the Stones but Charles and Nate were gone. Charles was beside me, staring as well. He had gotten revenge, just like I had, revenge for his brother.
I took his arm and pulled him with me. The bartender was watching.
“You mention me,” I said to him as I walked by, “and I’ll tell Chaz Yancy who made that phone call.”
“C’mon,” Nate said again. He held the door open, and we hurried through it.
There weren’t any sirens yet. The neighborhood was deadly quiet. I wondered how long Jump Vitel would lay there before anyone noticed he was dead.
I didn’t care. I followed Nate and Charles out the second door, into a series of burned-out hallways that led to the street behind the tavern.
The car was waiting, just like Nate said it would be. We climbed in, getting into the same positions we had been in when we arrived. Only now there wasn’t a gun in my ribs, and Brass wasn’t with us.
The car pulled out slowly, as if nothing had happened. Nate turned around, said to me, “Where’re we taking you, Gramps?”
“My car’s at your place.” My voice sounded normal, but my breath smelled like beer. It made me feel like someone else.
“Okay, man. Whatever you want.” He held out a hand. “You’re a Stone now, bro, and we protect yours like they’re our own.”
I clasped his hand, like I was supposed to, but I felt no victory. Only exhaustion, and a feeling that, in some ways, I had just made things worse.
THIRTY-SEVEN
FIRST, I went to the hospital.
Valentina’s room hadn’t changed since the morning. The curtains were still drawn, and it still felt like night. The air smelled of sickness and greasy chicken soup, the remains of which sat on a tray on the nightstand.
Marvella had a light on over her chair. She had been reading The Confessions of Nat Turner, apparently aloud. When I came in, she had set the book, face-open, on the floor.
I stayed by the door. I didn’t want to be here long. I was tired and numb, and I wanted nothing more than to go home.
But Marvella and Valentina had to hear the news, and they had to hear it from me.
Valentina watched me from the bed, her tiny features blank as I told her that Armand Vitel was dead.
Marvella leaned forward, her long body nearly touching mine.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“It’s on the radio,” I lied, knowing that the news would pick the story up eventually. GANG SHOOTS COP: SECOND DAY IN A ROW. SECOND COP DEAD IN GANGLAND WAR. What the city would see as an escalation, I saw as justice, and Valentina saw only as relief.
When I gave her the news, she turned her head away from me, but not before I saw tears in her eyes.
She never said a word. Marvella went to her side, taking her hand.
“What happened?” Marvella asked me.
I shrugged. “There weren’t a lot of details.”
Her lovely eyes narrowed. “Sometimes you’re just like him, you know.”
“Who?” I asked, thinking of Vitel.
“Truman,” she said. “Not sharing information, protecting the women.”
I almost denied it—it seemed like such a ridiculous charge. But I had protected Valentina. I made sure that Vitel would never attack her again. And I saw no reason that anyone who hadn’t been present at Greenwood’s should know what really happened.
“I’m sure there’ll be a write-up in the papers tomorrow,” I said. “They’ll have everything.”
Marvella shook her head, a thin smile on her lips. As I headed out the door, Valentina turned toward me.
“Smokey,” she said, and it sounded odd, hearing my real name come from her lips.
I stopped, still holding the doorknob.
Valentina’s gaze met mine, and I was struck again by the intelligence in her eyes—intelligence, and knowledge. I hadn’t fooled her any more than I had fooled Marvella.
They both knew I had something to do with Vitel’s death, and they both knew I wouldn’t tell them what it was.
“Thank you,” Valentina said.
I nodded. “I only wish I could have done more.”
More. Sooner. Before we lost Johnson. Before all of this had spiraled into something ugly, and inevitable.
There wasn’t anything else to say. I left them, drove home. It felt like I hadn’t been to the apartment in days, even though it had only been hours.
As I unlocked the deadbolts and let myself inside, I heard the phone ringing. I closed the door and hurried across the room, banging my leg against a kitchen chair, nearly tumbling over the edge of the couch as I reached for the phone.
“What?” I said. I didn’t feel like having a real conversation.
“Mr. Grimshaw?” The woman on the other end of the line sounded hesitant, as if my rude greeting had convinced her she had the wrong person.
“Yes.” I tried to soften my tone.
“It’s Anna Shay at Helping Hands. You told one of our volunteers you had some questions for Helen Bell.”
Helen Bell. I didn’t know any Helen Bell. And then I remembered. The starving woman with the two children. Helen and Carrie and Doug. I had wanted to ask Helen about the baby we had found outside the building.
The corpse that I would take custody of in a few weeks.
“Yes,” I said.
“She’s willing to talk to you, if you want to come down here.”
I had planned to ask Helen what she knew about that child. I had planned to be discrete, in case the baby had been hers. But I had seen a lot in the last twenty-four hours, and I wasn’t sure discretion was possible any more.
“How is she?” I sat on the arm of the couch. My legs ached. I was even more tired than I had realized.
“What do you mean?” Anna Shay said.
“Is she doing all right?”
“She’s really bright, sir. She’s one of the most gifted seamstresses I’ve seen. She learned it from her mother, who apparently disowned her when the first baby—oh, you can guess the story.”
I could. “How are the children?”
“Douglas doesn’t care for school, but he’s joined Grace Kirkland’s group and he likes her. Carrie needs some special help. She’s been underfed her entire life.”
I thought not of the little girl clinging to her too-thin mother, but of the child sitting on the steps at the Robert Taylor Homes, her eyes staring at nothing, too tired, too sick, too defeated already to play with the ruined doll in her arms.
“What’s their prognosis?” I asked.
“Prognosis?” Anna Shay asked, clearly not understanding me.
“Do you think they’re going to make it through the program? Be able to take care of themselves, have a real future.”
“Oh, yes, sir. They’re determined to make it. They don’t want to go back.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “They’re going to do just fine.”
I clung to the phone. More street justice. If I ignored the baby, Helen Bell and her children would have a chance at a good life.
Who was it that said to me that you took care of the living? I couldn’t remember any more.
“Sir? Did you want to come down here and meet with her? I was supposed to ask when you want the appointment.” Anna Shay sounded a little breathless.
I sighed. Sometimes partial victories were all that we would get. And some questions would go forever unanswered—forever unasked.
“I don’t need an appointment right now, Mrs. Shay,” I said. “You’ve answered my questions. Give Helen my best, will you?”
“Yes, sir,” Anna Shay said.
“And thanks for calling.” I hung up, then stood beside the phone for a long time.
What had Helen Bell thought? Had she known I was going to ask about the baby? Did she even know about the baby? Or did she have no suspicions at all? I didn’t know. I would never know if she was going to face my questions with courage or just with simple curiosity at someone else’s interest.
I would have to call Laura and tell her about all of this—or at least about some of it. But that could wait.
Before I talked to anyone else, I had to see Jimmy.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I COULD HAVE picked Jimmy up at the church where Grace Kirkland taught. Then I would have been able to see Doug Bell for myself, talked to Grace, found out how things were going there.
But I didn’t want to. I was tired of getting involved in other people’s lives, other people’s problems.
Instead, I drove to the Grimshaws’ house at five-thirty. The “Happy Easter” sign was still in the window, looking festive and welcoming.
I sat in the car for a long moment, feeling like I didn’t belong—as if I were a patch of darkness on the Grimshaws’ bright day.
But I had to get Jimmy. It was time to bring him home, and hold him close, time to apologize for leaving him with friends yet again.
As I got out of the car, I ran my hands over my sleeves. I had showered and changed, but I still felt as if I had Vitel’s blood spattered across my front, even though I hadn’t been close enough to get touched by any spray.
I made myself walk up the sidewalk. The air smelled of rain, but the clouds weren’t heavy like they had been for the past two days. The sky was simply gray. The rain would be a mild cleansing instead of a violent fury.
Someone had cleaned the green Easter grass off the porch, but the shoes were still there—or maybe these were new pairs, left outside so that no mud would get tracked across Althea’s floors.
As I knocked on the door, I heard laughter inside. The delicious scent of split-pea soup filtered out the doorway, and my stomach growled. I had forgotten to eat once again.
Through the door, I heard someone yell, “I’ll get it,” followed by another voice, apparently arguing. Then footsteps slapped toward me, and the front door banged open.
Norene faced me. Her braids were coming loose, and she had a milk mustache over her tiny mouth. She was wearing some kind of brown uniform, and she looked very serious.
“Uncle Bill!” she cried
and pulled back the screen door. Then she wrapped herself around my legs—her favorite greeting.
I put my hand on her braids and let her hug my knees. The faint odor of chocolate reached me, and it seemed to come from her.
She held on tightly, and I was beginning to realize there was more to this hug than a greeting. But I couldn’t move, not with her iron grip on my legs.
“Can I come in, hon?” I asked.
“Only if you buy some cookies,” she said.
I wasn’t sure I had heard her correctly. “Cookies?”
Mikie had come down the hall, a crumpled paper in her hands. She was wearing a brown uniform, too, only hers was neater. It had badges on a scarf, and she wore knee socks that were falling down.
“Girl Scout Cookies, Uncle Bill,” Mikie said.
Lacey sauntered into the room. She wore the green uniform I associated with the Girl Scouts.
I had never seen the girls in uniform before, although Althea told me they were all proud members of the Scouts. When I lived with the family last summer, no one dressed up like this. Maybe it was only a school thing.
Lacey held a piece of paper in her hands. She looked younger than usual, probably because she wasn’t wearing makeup or clothing that I didn’t approve of.
“We’re all selling the cookies,” Lacey said. “But Mom says it’s not fair for all of us to expect you to buy some.”
Girl Scout cookies. Little girls learning—what? How to survive in the woods? I had no idea what Girl Scouts did, although somehow, I found the entire concept refreshingly innocent.
“You’ll get mine, right, Uncle Bill?” Norene let go of my knees. I wondered if I would get the circulation back any time soon. “I gots the best.”
“I have the best,” I said, correcting her as I stepped all the way into the dining room. The Easter Baskets were gone, but the tablecloth bore some candy stains that hadn’t been there before.
The pea soup smell was stronger in here. My stomach rumbled again. All this talk of cookies and the smell of soup warmed me.
“And,” I added, looking at all three of them, “I think I’ll eat enough Thin Mints to justify more than one order.”
Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 36
