by Nora Roberts
“You’re thinking you can make yours, too. After I’m in the ground. You’re thinking that won’t be long. You’re right about the second part. I haven’t got long.”
“I’m sorry.” Whatever their differences, Phoebe felt a pang. “I know you have pain. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Still have that soft spot yet. Give it time and it’ll harden up. The house comes to you. Don’t think you can give it to your mother or your brother. I’ve fixed it so you can’t. I’ve got the money put away for maintaining it. You’ll get that from the lawyers. Held in trust, so don’t think you can just be grabbing it with both hands. It’s only for the house. That’s made clear.”
“I don’t want your money either.”
“Lucky for you then, because you won’t get a dime. None of you. The house gets it all. On your death, it passes to your issue. If, only if, you abide by the terms. You’ll live here now, miss, if you want your mother under this roof. You’ll be in residence. There’s no turning it into one of those bed-and-breakfasts or retail spaces or museums. It’s a house, and it’s where you’ll live from here out.”
Not a gun to her head, Phoebe thought, not a knife to her throat. No, no, Cousin Bess was too wily for those obvious weapons. Instead, she held those whom Phoebe loved over her heart.
“I don’t need your house, your money or your approval. Understand me. I can and will support and house my child as I see fit. Not as you decree it.”
“You will, or your mother goes today. Out of this house. Out of the house she hasn’t been able to get the guts up to leave in years now. You think I don’tknow ? I’ll have her out within the hour, kicking, screaming. Imagine she’ll need a padded room for a while, don’t you?”
“Why would you do this to her? She’s done nothing but tend to you. She’s washed and bathed and emptied your slop for months now. Never once, in all of her life, has she caused you or anyone any harm.”
“Might have been more respected if she had. I wouldn’t be doing it. You would. The only way she stays in this house is if you do. You walk out of it, she’s carried out of it. I took her in, took all of you in. I can put you out.”
“So you always said.”
“This time,” Cousin Bess said with a thin smile, “it’s permanent.”
Phoebe woke with a quick jolt. Had she heard whistling? Had she heard it or imagined it?
She trained the field glasses on the street, toward the park, and saw nothing.
She rubbed her eyes, rubbed her neck.
Cousin Bess. How long had she lasted after that deathbed visit? Weeks more. Hard, miserable weeks, most of which she’d been delusional or drugged into sleep.
But long enough for Phoebe to learn—from the lawyers, from the trusts and wills and documents—that some things aren’t negotiable.
She hadn’t been able to have another lucid conversation with the old woman.
And here she was, years later, sitting in the house, looking out.
As it appeared she always would be.
17
Razz Johnson had something to prove. And he was gonna prove it today. The Lords figured they could come on his turf? Screw with his boys? They figured their way into the ground. They gonna come over to the west side, paint their shit right on hisdoorstep ?
Uh-uh. They were gonna learn some respect.
Right now his brother was in the hospital, and maybe he’d die. They got the bullets out of his guts those motherfuckers put in him when his man led the force to Lords’ turf for some goddamn retribution.
But T-Bone had ordered Razz to stay back, ’cause he hadn’t reached the high level for warfare. Maybe, maybe if he’d been there, his brother wouldn’t be lying in that hospital, maybe dying.
Razz knew what he had to do. Eye for an eye.
He drove along Hitch Street, enemy territory. He’d stolen the car, and he had his blue ball cap, part of his gang uniform, on the seat. If any of the Lords were hanging on the street, he didn’t want them making him as Posse. Not yet. Not until he was ready.
He was fucking going covert.
He’d beaten his way into the gang. Even though his brother was high-ranking, he’d had to prove himself. He was a demon in a fight, fists and feet. He just didn’t give up.
He had a talent for boosting cars, could be trusted on drug deals as he didn’t care to use the shit. But so far he’d gotten shaky at the idea of guns and knives.
T-Bone said he couldn’t shoot worth dick, and that was another why on leaving him back last night.
But there was a .45 semiautomatic, with the first round already racked, under the cap on the seat. And Razz wasn’t shaking now.
He was going to put that round right between the eyes of the one who shot his brother. Anybody got in his way, well, he’d put a bullet in them, too. What they called collateral damage.
He was going in, in the daylight, and he was going in wearing his colors. And if he didn’t come back out again, well, that’s the way it was.
He was sixteen.
He pulled up across from the liquor store. He knew Clip used its back room for his “office.” He hung out there, did some deals, talked his trash, got bj’s from bitches trying to get raped into the gang.
He’d go ’round the back, that’s what he’d do. Take out any guards if there were guards to take. Then through the door. Bullet between the bastard’s eyeballs.
T-Bone was going to be proud. T-Bone was going to have the will to live when he heard he’d been avenged.
He put on his cap, proudly tipping it to the right. Under the long tail of his blue jersey he hitched the .45 in the waistband of his pants. It weighed like a cannon as he climbed out of the stolen car.
His high-tops were blue with yellow stripes. The bandanna hanging out of his back pocket was bright, bold yellow. The colors announced him as west side, as Posse, and such was his rage, his grief, hisrighteousness, he strutted in them across Hitch.
He was ready. He was so goddamn ready to do some damage. To do some death.
Maybe it showed on his face. He tried to make it show. His lips peeled back in a snarling grin, a surge of power, as he saw a group of women on a stoop glance his way, then rush inside.
Yeah, bitches. Better run. Better hide.
As he swaggered down the short alleyway around the liquor store, he drew the gun from his waistband. And he told himself the tremor in his hand was thrill, not fear. He put T-Bone’s face, the way it had looked in the hospital, in his mind.
Already dead even if the machine was breathing for him. And their mama, sitting by the bed, holding her Bible and crying. Not saying nothing, not moving, just sitting with tears running down.
Those images pushed him around the corner, ripped a cry out of his throat as his finger quivered on the trigger.
But the back door was unguarded.
His heart thumped in his ears. It was all he could hear as he crossed the heat-softened tar and scrabbling weeds. He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth where sweat had beaded. For T-Bone, he thought, then kicked viciously at the door until it fell open.
The gun went off like a live thing jumping in his hand. He didn’t feel his finger make the pull. It just seemed to explode on its own, blasting a hole in the wall a foot above the dented metal desk. There was no one behind it, no one to take that bullet between the eyes.
His arm shook as he lowered the gun, as he stared at the empty space, the empty room. They’d call him a fool now, and laugh. That would make T-Bone a fool, and that couldn’t be.
He had to do something. Something big.
When the inner door opened and the man stepped up, he knew what it was he had to do.
“HT’s name is Charles Johnson, street name Razz.” Detective Ricks from the Gang Unit filled Phoebe in. “Shots were fired, no reported injuries. He’s got four people in there.”
“What does he want?”
“Blood. There was a gun battle last night—west side Posse—the HT’s gang, and east
side Lords. HT’s older brother took three bullets. He’s critical. This Razz wants us to find the guy he claims did it. One Jerome Clip Sagget. We send Sagget in, he’ll send the hostages out.”
“How old is he?”
“Sixteen. No violent knocks on his record. Petty shit up till now. Older brother’s a different matter. Serious badass.”
“Okay.” Phoebe studied the board, the log. At the table of the diner set up for communications, she opened her kit. “He’s been talking to you?”
“Playing the same tune, but yeah. He’s in the first stage. Give me what I want or there’ll be hell to pay. He set a deadline, it’s coming up in twenty.”
“All right.” She picked up the phone. He answered on the first ring.
“You got that motherfucker?”
“Razz, this is Phoebe Mac Namara. I’m a negotiator with the police.”
“Fuck you, bitch.”
There was fury in the voice, but there was fear under it. “You sound angry. I understand that. I have a brother, too.”
“You think I give rat shit about your brother? You best be bringing in the motherfucker shot him, or I’m doing one of these assholes in here.”
“We’re trying to work on that, Razz. For right now, can you tell me, is everyone all right in there? Does anyone need medical attention?”
“Gonna need it. Gonna need a goddamn body bag, is what.” His voice pitched up and down with terror and rage.
“You haven’t hurt anyone yet, Razz, is that right? So far we’re trying to find a way to make this right for everyone.”
“Not gonna be right until I put a bullet in that Clip’s brain. When that’s done, it’s all done.”
“I hear that you want to punish the person you believe hurt your brother.”
“I know what he did. My family told me. You think my family’s liars?”
“Are you saying your family saw what happened to T-Bone?”
“Fucking right. Two more of ’em shot up, but T-Bone, he’s next to dead. And the fucker did it to him’s gonna face me. You bring him here, you hear what I’m saying? You bring him here or somebody dies.”
Family=Gang, she wrote on her pad.Pride & revenge. “You want us to find this man and bring him to you, so you can punish him yourself.”
“How many times I got to say it?”
“I don’t want to misunderstand you, Razz. I’m trying to understand what those people in there have to do with your brother being hurt. Do you think they were involved?”
“Don’t mean a thing.”
“They don’t mean anything?”
“Collateral damage. I’ll put a bullet in one right now, you don’t think I mean what I say.”
“I know you mean what you say, Razz. I need you to understand, Razz, that if you hurt anyone in there, we’re not going to be able to work this out, not going to be able to try to get you what you want. I’m trying to contact the hospital, too. To contact the doctors who’re taking care of your brother. I thought you might want to know how he’s doing. Have you seen him today?”
She guided him into talking about his brother, through the first deadline.Hero worship. Absolute loyalty. When he spoke of his mother crying by his brother’s bed, she nudged more out of him.No other sibs, no father in the picture.
Find the mother now!she scribbled on a piece of paper, and pushed it into Ricks’s hand.
“Y’all getting hungry in there, Razz? I can send in some sandwiches.”
“I got plenty of beer and chips. You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t watch TV? Nobody comes in here, nobody but Clip.”
“No one’s coming in unless you okay it.”
“Maybe I won’t kill these assholes. Maybe I will. But they gonna be lying facedown in their own piss before long. I’m tired of talking to you. You got something else to say, you call back and tell me you’ve got that motherfucker.”
When he broke the connection, Phoebe eased back. “Any progress locating this Clip?”
“He’s gone under. We’ve got people on it.”
“If we can tell the HT that Sagget’s in custody, that he’s being held, that may open a door. I want to know the minute he’s found.”
She glanced at the white-faced clock on the wall. Four forty-five.
Odds were she was going to be late for dinner.
Duncan was pretty pleased with himself when he rang the bell on Jones Street. He was even more pleased when Essie answered it and the big smile broke across her face.
“Oh my goodness! Who’s back there?”
He spoke from behind an enormous basket of red poppies. “Three guesses. Any place special you want these?”
“Just set them down right here until we figure that out. Aren’t theybeautiful! Come right into the parlor. You’re right on time. Wine, too?”
“I don’t often get invited to have dinner with four beautiful women. It’s an occasion for me.”
“For us, too.” She took the wine, gestured. “You haven’t met my daughter-in-law, have you? Josie, this is Duncan Swift.”
“Make that five beautiful women. Nice to meet you.”
“Fifth one’s spoken for,” Carter said as he carried in a tray of canapés. Carly was right behind him with a second, smaller tray. “How’s it going, Duncan?”
“Going good. Hey, Carly.”
“Mama’s going to be late. She’s working.”
“I guess that happens. Looks like enough food in here to hold me awhile. Oh, I got you something.”
Her gaze arrowed straight to the little pink gift bag he held. “A present?”
“A token for one of my hostesses.”
“Thank you very much,” she said with formal politeness under her grandmother’s eagle eye. Then squealed with delight when she pulled out the hair tie. It looked like a bouquet—purple and white violets with a filmy trail of white ribbons.
“It’s beautiful! I love it. Thank you!” Formality forgotten, Carly threw her arms around Duncan’s waist, then danced back. “Can I go put it on? Gran,please, can I go put it on right now?”
“Run on then.”
Carly made the dash, stopping once to toss Duncan a big smile over her shoulder.
“Aren’t you the clever one?” Essie commented.
“So they say.”
By six-fifteen, Phoebe called home again and told Ava not to hold dinner on her account. Even if things resolved in the best possible way, there was no point in holding everyone else up while she dealt with the paperwork and debriefings.
She downed iced coffee, grateful someone had the foresight to make use of the diner’s kitchen. Across from her sat Opal Johnson, Razz’s mother. It had taken some time to track her down as she’d left her older son’s bedside to sit on a bench outside the hospital and pray for his life.
Now she was here, in a diner filled with cops, struggling for her other child.
Progress had been made. Though he still refused to come out or release any hostages, Phoebe heard the changes in his voice, in his words. His resolve was weakening.
“He’s going to jail, isn’t he?”
“He’ll be alive,” Phoebe said. “He hasn’t hurt anyone yet.”
Opal stared blindly out the diner’s window. She was stick thin, her dark face splotched from hours of weeping, her eyes exhausted from worry. “I did my best. I did all I knew. Work two jobs, made those boys go to school, to church. But my Franklin, he just goes his own way. And he took Charlie right along with him. Posse.” She spat the word out. “I couldn’t hold off against that.”
“Mrs. Johnson, we’re going to do everything we can to get your son out safe. To get everyone out safe, so he has another chance.”
“They think it makes them men.” Her hopeless eyes met Phoebe’s. “The gangs, the drugs, the killing. They think it makes them men.”
“I’m going to talk to him again now.” Phoebe reached across the four-top, laid a hand briefly on Opal’s. “All right?”
“You got any kids, miss?�
��
“Phoebe, and yes. I have a daughter. She’s seven.”
“Children rip the heart right out of you. And it lies there all bruised and battered, still beating for them. No matter what.”
“Let’s get him out safe.” Phoebe started to make contact again, paused when Ricks rushed in.
“We’ve got Sagget in custody. Charges of possession—drugs and firearms. Took a gun from the apartment where he was hiding, matches the caliber of the weapon that shot Franklin Johnson. We’ll run ballistics.”
“Okay. This is good.” Phoebe looked back into Opal’s eyes. “This is very good. I’ll need you to help me with this, Mrs. Johnson. The person who shot your son, who shot Charlie’s brother, is under arrest. He’s going to be punished. We need to convince Charlie that it’s enough, for now it’s enough, and he should come out. All right, now.”
She called the liquor store. There was more fatigue than defiance in his voice now. Another good sign. “Razz, I have some good news.”
“My brother wake up?”
“Your bother’s condition hasn’t changed and that means he hasn’t gotten worse. He’s strong, isn’t he?”
“Nobody stronger.”
“So that’s good. I want to tell you that Clip’s been taken into custody.”
“You got that rat bastard motherfucker?”
“Don’t you use that language to this lady!” Opal snapped the words. “Don’t you speak that filth, you hear me.”
“He put bullets in T-Bone. I’ll call him what he is, to anybody.”
Phoebe held up a hand, easing it downward before Opal could speak again. “Your mother’s very upset, Razz. She’s worried about youand T-Bone now. But I think we have a way to make this all right, for everyone. The police have charged Clip, and he’s in jail right now. He—”
“You bring that sumbitch tome! ”
“I know you want to see him. I can arrange that. If you put the gun down and come out, I’m going to arrange to have you taken to where he’s being held. So you can see him behind bars.”
“I want to see him in the ground. Gonna put him there.”
