by Tayari Jones
Finney felt a wave of nausea, a chill on the back of his neck. He cracked the window for fresh air and closed his eyes and saw himself and Monica sitting in the pews of a bright sanctuary. He drew in a breath and let the image sit there and actually felt better for it.
Monica blew the horn at the driver in front of them. The drive-through at a fast food restaurant had spilled out into the traffic lane. The driver was the last person in line. Monica blew again, and the man seemed to reassess his lunch options and drove away.
“You ever think about moving?” he asked.
“Well, I’m not married to the house.” She glanced over at the side mirror, then whipped the Porsche into a gap in the middle lane. “I bought it out of foreclosure. I’m just looking to make a profit when the market turns.”
“Where would you go?”
“Somewhere around here, I guess. I mean, this is where I’m from.”
“Me too,” he said. “But I’m done with it.” He sipped his coffee. “Did we already talk about this?”
She smiled. “No.”
She might have come to realize he was damaged; a rescue dog with a nice coat but a head full of spikes. She must have at least regretted not ditching him at the coffee place, but she didn’t let on. She seemed to be amused instead.
Traffic moved slowly, and the numbers on the clock would not stop changing—from 1:15 to 1:20 at a single intersection. The only thing that comforted him was her presence. He enjoyed hearing her talk, enjoyed the slow scrape of her voice, like boots shuffling across an old sidewalk, enjoyed the slinky way that she steered with one hand, a soft grip on the wheel, while the other tapped a silent rhythm on her thigh. She was the music in that car.
“You see that office building over there?” she said. “They were filming a scene for a movie back in January. I guess the scene was set in the fall, so they had these guys on cherry pickers gluing orange leaves to the tree limbs.”
They were finally getting close to the mall. A traffic light turned red before Monica could shoot under it. She stopped the car, took off her sunglasses, and turned to Finney.
“Those leaves put me in a good mood. I like fall, and it was so damn easy to fool me. I drove by again later, but they had already taken them down.”
Finney told her how his grandmother would take him to the airport when he was little. They would spend the afternoon there. She’d buy him a comic book at the newsstand, let him play some pinball in the game room, and then they’d eat a sandwich near the departures-and-arrivals board while they watched people come and go.
“I think we were feeding off something those other people had,” he said. “They were going somewhere, and we weren’t. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt like we were right there in the mix, like something exciting was going to happen.”
Monica seemed to understand. “You’re right. It’s not always a bad thing to fool yourself.”
* * *
Like the suit, Finney’s black Suburban was a hand-me-down from Oscar, who randomly withheld money he owed Finney as a “car payment.” Finney had met Oscar when he was fourteen and fighting in Junior Golden Gloves. Oscar had donated money to the Boys and Girls Club for gym equipment and sometimes stopped by in his BMW to watch the kids train. He told Finney he fought like Marvin Hagler, power in both hands, and recruited him for a “pro fight.” He wanted Finney to beat the shit out of another fourteen-year-old who had found his old man’s .45 under the sofa and accidentally shot Oscar’s nephew in the leg with it. Oscar was going to take care of the father himself.
He paid Finney a hundred dollars up front and gave him two tickets to the Hawks-Celtics game at the Omni. Finney jumped the kid as he walked home from school; Oscar waited in his car across the street. Finney knocked the kid down, made him cry, but mostly pulled his punches. He went to the game alone, riding MARTA, selling the extra ticket and buying a Hawks sweatshirt and a bag of cotton candy. Dominique Wilkins scored fifty-four points and the older guy sitting beside Finney bought him a beer that he poured into a Coke cup under his seat. After that night, Finney was on board with anything Oscar asked him to do. It was all in motion.
Finney and Monica started at the front of the mall and cruised the rows of cars. It was a sea of red, black, and gray metal, the sun bouncing off the vehicles hotter than when it landed. Finney kept the window down and pressed the security button on his keychain, hoping to set off his car alarm. After they’d covered the Peachtree Road side, they hit the parking deck along Lenox Road. Thirty minutes in, Finney realized he was fucked. It was two o’clock. Finding the phone and making the three o’clock flight wasn’t going to happen. It was time to call Oscar and do some lying.
Monica parked in front of Neiman Marcus. “I’d take you to the airport,” she said, “but I have to show a house at four. I need to get home and change.”
“You tried. I appreciate it.”
She grabbed her phone off the middle console. “What’s your number?”
He gave it to her, and she punched it in and called his phone. He felt the vibration in his chest pocket, and then she ended the call.
“Call me when you get back,” she said.
He stood on the sidewalk outside the department store as she drove away, finally blending into the sea of cars. It felt like the slow fade of a song that he knew he’d never hear again.
The sun was high, the air sticky, but Finney couldn’t shed the suit jacket. It felt like a shield he needed at the moment. He called Oscar and told him the burner phone was broken.
“Shit. Where are you?”
“Airport parking lot. I wanted to check it out before I went inside. It’s dead.”
“You’re having a bad day with phones.”
“I think the machines are out to get us.”
There was a long pause. Finney paced the sidewalk in front of the doors. A pretty woman in a strapless black dress walked up, and he held the door for her and she smiled.
“All bullshit aside,” Oscar said, “are you really at the fucking airport?”
“I’m here. South Economy Lot.”
Oscar sighed into the phone. “I’m having a hard time believing you right now.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I think my record speaks for itself.”
“Your record has been shit lately. And now you’re talking about going out on your own. Do you think you’re gonna compete with me?”
Apparently, Oscar did give a shit. “I didn’t say I was going out on my own. I just think it’s time to go somewhere different.”
“Where the hell are you gonna go?”
“I don’t know.”
Finney sat on a bench by the mall’s doors. He could hear muffled voices through the phone, Oscar and someone else. Oscar was probably sitting on the side of a lounge chair, squeezed into a tight T-shirt, squinting through his aviators with his little mound of dyed hair tucked under a green Masters hat.
It was possible he was already sending someone else to New York. He had plenty of people willing to do this shit. Finney wasn’t the first or last to get free tickets and cash. The problem was that, after so many years, Finney had no résumé and no money in the bank to show for anything he’d done. He needed Oscar’s ten grand just so he could get the hell away from it all.
Finally, Oscar came back on the line. “I’ll get you another phone and change the flight. There’s no way in hell you’ll make the three o’clock. I’ve gotta call New York and get in touch with my guy at the airport. Just sit there and wait for me to call you back. I’ll tell you where to pick up the phone.”
Finney told him okay, but he felt no sense of relief. He held the breath he’d just taken and tensed his muscles as if he was bracing for something to fall on him. He expected Oscar to end the call, but he didn’t.
“What the hell has happened to you?” Oscar said. “You could always take a punch. I mean, your whole fucking family died from one thing or another, and you kept going. And now, just all of a sudden . . .” His voice t
railed off, and before Finney could think of anything to say, Oscar was gone.
* * *
Finney didn’t have friends as much as acquaintances from the things he liked to do—namely drinking, playing basketball, and listening to music. Corey was the one person he knew who he could call and trust. He was his only business connection outside of Oscar’s circle. In fact, Corey had only met Oscar once and thought he was “the uncoolest motherfucker on the planet.” Finney told Corey he needed a pint of Woodford, a nine millimeter, and a ride to the airport, one stop along the way. He promised him a thousand dollars, and then he went inside the mall and bought a new wheeled duffel.
Corey pulled up in front of Neiman’s, the top off his Jeep Wrangler, his short dreads falling out from under his Hawks cap. Finney tossed the duffel into the backseat and climbed in beside Corey, who immediately handed him the paper sack with the Woodford.
“Nice suit,” Corey said. “Gucci?”
“Tom Ford.”
Corey nodded in approval. “Look at you.” He headed for the exit and traffic.
Finney broke the seal on the bourbon and pulled out the stopper. The smell was sweet, like caramel and tobacco. He forced himself to sip, not gulp like a drunk, but he was all too aware that there was no truth to the ceremony.
“All right,” Corey said, “where are we stopping?”
Finney pulled out his phone and made sure the ringer was on. “Just head to the airport. I’m waiting to hear back from Oscar.”
Corey stopped at a traffic light and glanced over. “You okay?”
Finney took another sip and let it lie on his tongue for an extra beat. “Last job for Oscar today. I’m moving.”
Corey appeared skeptical, but let it drop. “I got what you asked for under the seat.”
Finney pulled out the Glock and held it in his hand, getting a feel for the balance as if it was a baseball bat, then tucked it away.
“So, what’s gonna happen when we stop?”
“Hopefully, I’m just picking up a phone.”
“And if you don’t?”
“The day might actually get worse.”
Finney was glad when Corey turned on the radio. Most of their conversations had been about music anyway. They met when Corey walked into Oscar’s recording studio and asked about working there. Oscar wouldn’t okay it, so Finney paid Corey out of his own pocket and some skim from the revenue. Corey knew more about the equipment than Finney and helped book people he knew for studio time. Corey also deejayed and rapped, and Finney had helped him record his first mixtape, which had over sixty thousand downloads on DatPiff.
Finney asked Corey when he was planning to record his follow-up.
“I’m already working on it,” Corey said. “Hell, I met Jeezy at Lenox last month. He was doing his clothing line release. He knew that song we recorded, the one with the big bounce and the wah-wah.”
Finney couldn’t even be mad at Oscar for the lost opportunity with the studio. He should have moved on then, when he had a little money in his pocket. That’s what Corey had done—moved on, moved forward. A lot of people did that. They got on planes and didn’t come back. Finney could have done it too. They had always been right there above his head, reminding him of this.
“I’m going to the studio tomorrow night,” Corey said. “You back then?”
Finney had no answer. Oscar’s word meant nothing. Now that he thought Finney might be planning to compete against him, there was a chance that he had plans for Finney along the same lines as the tailor.
The interstate was moving well, and Corey punched the gas in the left-hand lane. Oscar finally called. Finney ducked low to buffer the wind noise.
“Where the hell are you? Sounds like an airplane engine.”
“I’m just driving around. I’ve got the window down.”
Oscar gave him the details for picking up the new phone. There was an access road off Camp Creek Parkway, near the airport. The road sat between two satellite parking lots. It led to a shut-down construction site. Oscar said the owner had liens up to his ass. Oscar wanted to buy the land and put a hotel on it. Finney was supposed to drive to the site. Oscar was sending someone to meet him with a new phone.
“Who is it?”
“He works for me. Don’t worry about it.”
“Why the construction site?”
“Every public area has cameras now. This place doesn’t have cameras. These are things I have to think about.”
Oscar said he’d rebooked him on the 5:45 flight to LaGuardia. There would be no trouble making that one. In fact, traffic was moving so well it made Finney uneasy, as if he was rushing toward some sort of impact. After the phone call, he made himself stop up the bottle of bourbon. He needed to maintain some balance between steady nerves and clear thinking. He tried to focus on the music, the beat coming out of the car speakers, the lyrics winding their way into and around the rhythm.
In order to get to Camp Creek Parkway from I-85, you had to take the airport exit. Camp Creek was the last offshoot before the parking lots, car rental center, and terminal. One minute you were headed toward the terminal, and the next you weren’t. The road was lined with satellite airport lots, industrial buildings, and budget hotels. With the top down, Finney could see and feel the planes flying overhead—just like old times.
Corey’s GPS found the access road, and he made the turn in between the two satellite lots. Beyond the parking lots was a cluster of pine trees and then the construction site, a big scar of red dirt, partially excavated, with a chain-link fence around it. A white Land Rover was parked at the fence’s main gate. Corey slowed the Jeep as they approached it.
Finney motioned for Corey to stop about twenty yards short of the other vehicle. He’d already tucked the nine into the back of his suit pants. “If anything happens, just get the fuck out of here.”
Corey set his jaw. “No. I got you, partner.”
“I appreciate it. But if this goes bad, it’s on me.”
Corey’s determination seemed to wane. “All right.”
Finney got out and walked toward the Land Rover. Dust circled the cuffs of his pants, and sweat ran down his back and puddled around the Glock tucked into his waist. The Land Rover’s driver’s-side door opened slowly, and Finney stopped. A younger man stepped out, wearing a red snapback with an odd but familiar W on the front. At first, Finney thought it was a Walgreens hat. Then he realized it was the Washington Nationals. They stood staring at each other.
“I got your phone,” the guy said.
Another plane flew over, nose tilted upward, engines screaming. They both considered the burly chunk of metal until the noise died down.
“You gonna come get it?”
Finney stood still. “Why don’t you just toss it here.”
The younger man smiled. “I don’t think you trust me.”
“Just being careful.”
“We’re on the same team, though.”
Finney pointed to the hat. “I’m a Braves fan.”
Even with the hat fixed low on the man’s forehead, Finney could read his face. Two-thirds motivation and one-third fear. It was a dangerous mix when Oscar was stirring the drink.
The door to the Land Rover was still open, and the courier reached inside. Finney was startled, realizing the ten or so yards between them didn’t mean shit if he came out shooting. He was ready to reach back for the nine, but the guy came out holding a phone in his hand. “Got the contact number programmed in. I guess you know what to do.”
Finney slowly let go of his breath. “Yeah, I know what to do.”
But the younger man still wasn’t ready to give up the phone. “So you’re the man that makes the trips, huh? The bag man wearing the sharp suit.”
Finney confirmed that he was the one making the deliveries.
“Oscar’s got me doing the same route. On the damn bus.”
“Well, today’s my last flight. Maybe you can pick up the frequent flier miles.”
The guy
smirked. “So that’s it, huh? You’re gonna make me throw it to you?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna make you throw it to me.”
The other man stalled for a moment, looked down and shook his head, then pitched the phone underhanded with a high arc. At first, Finney thought he’d done it just to be an asshole. But as he was tracking the phone through the air, he realized the guy was reaching into the car again. Instead of catching the phone, Finney pulled out the Glock.
He got off two shots before the guy started squeezing rounds from a MAC-10, the thrum of the automatic weapon drowning out any lingering airplane noise. Finney hit the Land Rover with his first shot and caught the shooter in the thigh with the second. After that, a spray from the MAC-10 danced across his midsection. There was no pain, yet Finney couldn’t control his arm. He tried to raise the Glock to fire again, but he could barely feel his hand. Meanwhile, the MAC had gone silent. Oscar’s guy was lying on his side, holding his leg. His jeans were already dark with blood.
Finney felt nothing but immediate exhaustion. His legs turned to liquid. He sat down on the hard ground and moved the Glock to his left hand. Oscar’s guy pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaned back against the front tire, and started spraying ammo again. Finney raised the Glock with his less-dominant hand. His first shot was high, the second in the dirt. He finally took his time and zeroed in on the hat. Another burst of fire caught Finney in the collar bone and neck before he could squeeze the trigger, but he kept his focus. He didn’t feel anything. He fired the Glock and hit the guy just below his eye. His head bounced back like he’d taken a left hook, then he dropped the MAC and fell forward, the red hat tumbling to the ground.
Finney’s shirt was soaked. At first he thought it was sweat. Then he saw the blood. He lay back on the hard dirt. It was warm and smelled like chalk. The sky above him was pale and dirty. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Corey. “What do you want me to do?”
Finney couldn’t speak. He managed to pull his phone out of the jacket pocket and handed it to Corey. Corey held the phone and took a long look at the blood on Finney’s shirt and jacket. “Okay,” he said. “You’re gonna be all right.”
