by Travis Ford
CHAPTER TEN
The apartment stood on a low land just back of Camden, getting in nice among the trees. There was a house with two windows and a door. And from the door of the house, a man could see a short distance off where folks usually posted up.
When me and Jaquan drove up, Cochecine Neiden was standing in the doorway, and he had him a pistol right there.
"You taking your time?" He asked irritably. Then he gave a look around and gathered up his keys. "I’m getting out of here," and stepped out heading toward the coupe.
"You ain’t going to drive that bucket of bolts?" I asked.
"Hell no! I want to get out of the city."
Now Cochecine was a long, lean of a man with a shrewd face on him. And he was stubborn as a rusty nut with no oil. But I had never known him to be so downright skittish before.
"You look like hell," I said. "What’s the trouble?"
"I’m leaving out of here. And if I was you, I would too. This is the least safest city I know of."
And he dusted out of there.
Jaquan, he took hold of some luggage. "You fixing to stay?" He asked.
"Hell. That’s what I came for. If you want to leave, I’ll not hold it against you."
So we unloaded the ride and moved in. But by the time I’d unpacked, I’d done some thinking. Cochecine Neiden was a good hand. And a nervy man. I’d known him too long to think he’d scare easy. And I thought that if he was so all fired to ride out of here, there was real trouble starting about, and not just talk.
This is New Jersey. And until just a few years ago, it had been the heart of the Puertoricans.
There was good coverage and there was plenty of clientele and most years it was as fine a place to grind as a man could want. If Johnny Santini could stick it out, he could be a rich man.
The apartment was all swept up and clean as a man could wish. There was an iron cooking range, a mess of pots, bunks for six, some benches, a couple of chairs, and a table. A few books and some old magazines were lying around and everything looked snug and ready for a hard winter.
There was even a stack of logs and a lot of cut firewood.
One thing I didn’t like the look of, somebody had worked loose an upright split log in the back of the lean-to so it was a place that could be used to go or come from the apartment.
On a sudden hunch, I went out the front door and turning around, studied the doorjamb and the heavy door itself.
Jaquan watched me for a moment and then he asked, "Something out of the ordinary, Pacino?"
I pulled out my belt knife and dug into the logs near the door. Took me a minute or two, but when I dug around enough, I extraverted a chunk of led.
Hefting it in my hand, I noticed four or five more holes in the walls and showed Jaquan the bullet in my hand.
Somebody had been shooting at that door with a mighty big gun. Jaquan went over the stove and lifted the lid. After a glance inside, he picked up a handful of wood chips and twigs from the wood box and started to kindle a fire.
"You want to look around? Hop to it. I’ll cook some grub."
There was some noise in the streets an I had taken my pistol and walked out there.
A couple of fiends.
Jaquan had come to the door.
He handed me the rifle an I went into the trees.
Instead of dropping down to the crossing to see who had been using it, and how many, I circled to the back of the apartment and went up the ridge undercover of the trees.
Most of the apartments and houses were run down and there was a good bit of loitering and along the bum streets within here and there. A patch of youngsters drifting down the the road, I cut back and forth for signs… lots of onlookers and several fleets of vehicles. I started down the street not seeming suspicious, blending in.
A time or two I came on a few onlookers. One set was two riders traveling together, cutting across city toward the west. A bit later, coming on a set of youngsters, they were posted up.
Streets were very quiet and poorly lit and that very fact bothered me. Somehow all my instinct told me the streets should be sharply lit. Turning aside, I trailed the streets for a couple of miles until the shadows were growing. At that moment, I were headed for the spot, so I swung off. I had learned a few things.
The rider of that vehicle had waited for some time in a small lot clearing at the head of a garage covering the scenery at the spot.
"See anybody?" Jaquan asked.
"Slums."
Jaquan fixed us a bait of grub that I never tasted the like of. That man could really cook. I had been throwing stuff together for so long, eating biscuits, beef, beans, and pork, that I didn’t know what real grub tasted like. When I pushed back from the table, I broke a piece of straw off the broom and used it for a toothpick.
I looked up at Jaquan. "You’re wasting your time," I said.
"Why cooking like that, you asked? At any restaurant in the city, you could order take out or dine in. If you want to keep good hands, the best way is with good cooking," Jaquan said.
I walked over toward the door, which was standing open, and looked out. I didn’t walk right up to that door, I stood in it and I looked out from well back in the room. But I could see the car and three riders were in it coming towards us.
It was after sundown and I couldn’t make them out of who they were, but I could see the water where it dripped around the doors as they splashed through a puddle.
"Company. You take the SK and stand back there besides the window. If it comes to shooting, you take whoever’s on the left."
I had taken a .30-06 and stepped out with it held firm in the hollow of my arm. With practicing by the hour getting the .30-06 into action every which way, I could throw one from the hollow of my arm into shooting position mighty fast, or the way I preferred it, the .30-06 hanging from a sling, the butt level with the top of my shoulder.
So I stepped out front and waited, watching them come up the slope to the apartment.
Right away I knew these were no average niggers riding.
Their clothes were better than any remuda would be likely to have, maybe one would have such a thread, but not three in a bunch. I said as much speaking over my shoulder to Jaquan. Three men suited like that… if they weren’t hit men, likely way out here, they were likely to be a posse hunting outlaws or the outlaws themselves.
When they saw the .30-06, they pulled up some fifty feet off, an I asked, "You guys hunting somebody?"
"You alone?" One of them asked.
"No, I ain’t alone. I got me a .30-06."
"What’s the matter, you expecting trouble?"
"I was born to trouble. Never did know anything else, so I’m spooky. Why I’m so spooky, that if anybody was to come prowling around, I’d be apt to start shooting without asking questions."
"Were hunting."
When a man has been toting pistols and shooting goons since he was knee high, he doesn’t have to draw pictures.
"Ain’t seen nobody meddling. If I do, I’ll shoot and ask questions later."
One was sitting in the passenger seat and the other were sitting in the back and I wished I could see his face better. Nobody seemed to be paying much mind to the apartment so it was likely that they believed I was alone. If they had been tipped off by somebody in town, that might seem possible, with clients and wandering mouths.
"That kind of talk won’t get you anywhere." The speaker was a tall niggga with broad shoulders, and he carried his gun in his hand like some of the hoodlums were starting to do. "You got a long winter ahead of you, friend. I’d figure on lasting until spring if I were you."
"You know," I said confidentially, "that’s a good thought. That’s a thought that should be in all our minds. Why when I came into town and found they lynched Henson and run Roundtree out of town, I decided folks around New Jersey were changing."
Right then I lied right threw my teeth, but I had a hunch that I wasn’t far off the track. "Especially after I heard Grandville McNamar
a talking to Nuru.
Now, McNamara being one of the wealthiest weed supplier in the state, and Nuru being a lawman who had been one of the vigilantes who cleaned up New Jersey, I figured those names would carry weight and they did.
"What did you hear?"
"Well nothing. When it comes to that, only they were talking mighty confidential and McNarmara wanted to hire Vein Strychnine for some kind of a job. And after what had happened in New Jersey, I just had an idea they were setting up a new spot or a new connection."
I knew no such thing.
"I think he’s lying Cermain." The man who spoke was a stocky, barrel chest man. "This here’s Barns Mussolini, and he thinks he knows it all."
"Lay off, Blaricum," Cermain said. I could see him gather his gun with a tighter grip. He looked over at me. "Mussolini, you stay close to that apartment this fall and winter, and you might find yourself a nice road stake come spring."
They turned their vehicle and drove away only as they went off, Blaricum in his seat said, "One of these days."
And I asked, "You want to go to war?"
Backing into the house, I closed the door. "Stay away from the windows," I said to Jaquan. "They might come back."
I was thinking about those three men.
Cermain Oaks was a Vice Cript from down in the Nation. The last I heard of him, he’d killed a police officer in Atlantic City and was supposed to have caught out for Colorado. He was said to be a pro with a .45.
Blaricum Rourke was a tough expendable who had a reputation as a shit starter. He was said to be vicious with his hands. He sure seemed to be sparking for trouble now.
The third man hadn’t said a word, but I noticed that he was a big man, mighty big.
"What did you mean about those pounds?" Jaquan asked.
Mr. Johnny Santini said earlier somebody’s been shorting him on the hundreds of pounds of weed and he needed a few eyes and ears and to handle them. And at the same time, I and Jaquan were getting work from him. Mr. Santini’s words were, ‘I never had no shortage on the green or no one’s noses in it.’
An in the course of the drop-off, a lot of weed were missing. 79 pounds were missing, Mr. Santini had said.
I stood by the stove, whipping a batch and studied about the situation. The more I studied, the less I liked it. Aside from the police, I’ve done few shooting at people, and really didn’t care if they died.
This here was different. It looked like I’d sure enough bought myself a ticket into a shooting war. And worst of all, I’d brought Jaquan Vessey along with me.
I kept thinking back to Cap Hobes.
Was he mixed up in this?
I didn’t want him to be…
He’d been my friend, and was still my friend so far as that went.
Those bullet holes in the door meant somebody had been trying to run Cochecine Neiden out of here. Would they try that on me? That was a question I needn’t ask. If they would try it on Cochecine Neiden, who was a good hand, they would try in on me. And I was too damned stubborn to run.
Something told me I should pick up and light out, and get out of whatever I was in, but something else went against it. I’d never learned to run from a damn thing. I just bowed my back and went in swinging with both hands.
Well, there was work to do if I were going to stay. And I knew I was. If we didn’t want to be riding all over the state we best get prepared. There was plenty of weed to sell unless the FEDS rolled us.
Those missing pounds-- I wanted the rest of them and whoever responsible D.O.A.
The chances were, it were someone with their noses dirty, or someone who wanted their pockets fatter. And who’ll jeopardize the organization and somebody who couldn’t be trusted, or working with the police, or are the police themselves.
A man that picked his crew could takeover the league quite a ways easily without any hassle. There were places he had to be careful, of course, and he would need some good hands and some good organization. If he shipped east he wouldn’t dare hold much long near the railroad. He’d have to drive them in, load up, and ship out.
Of course a man could operate at Deadwood and in the camps around, but that was a small operation handled by pushers close to the Black Hills, or in them. All in all, I had a far idea that the missing hundreds of pounds of weed were being driven to the railroad.
When I finally dropped off to sleep that night, I was thinking of what Jaquan had said. That Johnny Santini never had short on the marijuana shipments.
