“We help you?” said the black man from behind the counter. “Gettin’ about ready to close up.”

“Just checking out these books,” said Dennis, moving away from the rack and walking toward the register, where the white man sat. He saw the black man casually slip his hand beneath the counter. “I will take a pack of menthols, though.”

“What flavor?” said the white man, getting up off his stool and putting his hand up to a slotted display over the register that held the cigarettes.

“Kools,” said Dennis.

He noticed that the white man had them in his hand before the brand name had even come out of Dennis’s mouth. Course this man would know what brand to pull. Every menthol-smoking brother walking in here was either going for Kool, Newport, or Salem. But if you had to bet on it, Kool was the cigarette of choice, especially for a young cat like him.

“You must have, what do you call that, intuition,” said Dennis.

“You hear that, John?” said the white man to the black man, and the black man’s eyes smiled. “I’m the Uri Geller of the grocery world.”

“You in the wrong business, Mr. Ludvig.”

“Here you go,” said Dennis, pushing a one-dollar bill across the counter.

This Mr. Ludvig reminded Dennis of old man Meyer, from the corner DGS market where he lived. Same easy manner, same sense of humor, always making fun at his own expense. Prob’ly knew every kid’s name who came into his shop. Prob’ly spotted them for penny candy, too, the way Mr. Meyer had spotted him for fireballs, Bazookas, and such when he was a kid.

And the black man, John, wearing a button-down sweater even though it wasn’t all that cold, could’ve been Dennis’s father. Same age, about, same kind of physical strength, same kind of resignation in his face as to what he was. A straight man, in a way, to his boss. The way Darius was to Mike Georgelakos, the Greek over on Kennedy. Chuckling at jokes that weren’t all that funny, nodding at the same old cornball sayings he heard coming from the man’s mouth ten times a day. Doing it because he was of that time. A time that was bound to pass, but still. What choice had they had, really, in the face of feeding their families? Take care of your people, hope that they made a better life for themselves and their own kids when the time came. Or be some shifty, low-ass bum, a nothing that no one, not even heirs, would remember. This man John and Dennis’s father, Darius, they had chosen right. Two men who had chosen to be men, and in the process had given up some of their pride long ago. Because that is what they had to work with in their time.

“You okay?” said Mr. Ludvig.

“Fine,” said Dennis, who had been staring off to the side.

“Here you go, friend,” said Ludvig, handing him his change.

“All right, then,” said Dennis, looking from one man to the other. “Ya’ll have a good evening, hear?”

“You do the same, young man,” said John.

Dennis walked out the door. The black man, whose full name was John Thomas, came around the counter and went to the plate-glass window that fronted the market. He watched Dennis cross the street.

Dennis went to the Monterey and dropped into the backseat. He handed the Kools over the seat to Jones, who packed them against the back of his hand, removed all the cellophane, and tore a hole in the bottom of the pack. He shook one out, tobacco end first, turned it, and slipped it into his mouth.

“Well?” said Jones.

“You gonna have some problems,” said Dennis.

“How so?”

“Place is mined, for one. They got snipers up in the trees, too.”

Jones put fire to his cigarette. He blew the match out on the exhale and turned his head to look at Dennis. “You finished?”

“No, there’s more. Let me lay it out for you, like you asked me to, so you know.”

Jones’s eyes were flat. “Go ahead.”

“You know where the register always at in these places? It’s in the same place here. Except they done went and dug a moat around it. Dropped some cobra snakes in the moat and put a few crocodiles in there to keep ’em company.”

“That a fact.”

“Uh-huh. And you were right on about the money. There’s tons of it, man. Matter of fact, they got a big old safe in that market, exactly like the one they got down in Fort Knox, just so they can hold it all. Odd Job be guardin’ it, too.”

“Smart nigger,” said Jones.

“I think of any details I forgot,” said Dennis, “I’ll let you know.”

Jones’s lip twitched. “This a game to you?”

“Told you from the start I wasn’t gonna do it.”

“You need to understand somethin’, then. I hear you been talkin’ about this to anybody, especially that po-lice brother of yours, I’m gonna be lookin’ for you. And another thing: If I go down for this, for any reason, your name’s gonna be the first one I mention. ’Cause you was in there, boy; can’t nobody dispute that. And whoever you spoke to, they gonna remember your face.”

“You scarin’ me, brother,” said Dennis. “I mean, I am tremblin’.”

“You think I’m playin’,” said Jones, “you try me out.”

“We done?”

Jones breathed out slowly. “Drop this motherfucker off somewhere, Kenneth, before I lose my composure.”

“You need to go by your woman’s before you drop me anywhere,” said Dennis.

“Say what?” said Jones.

“You still owe me thirty. For the gage.”

Willis ignitioned the Mercury and pulled it off the curb. Full night had come to the streets.

THIRTEEN

YOU OKAY, LOVER?” “I’m fine,” said Frank Vaughn.

“Your eyes look kinda funny.”

“Yours did, too. A minute ago, it looked like they were gonna pop right out your head.”

“Stop it.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m just a little dizzy. But it’s a good dizzy, babe.”

Frank Vaughn pulled out of the woman who was underneath him in her bed. Her name was Linda Allen. She caught her breath as he left her and rolled onto his back. He rested a beefy hand between the pillow and his head. The smell of Linda’s sex, the smell of their perspiration, and the smell of the liquor they had drunk and the cigarettes they’d smoked were strong in the room.

“I’m gonna go wash up,” said Linda. “You want something?”

Vaughn checked his Hamilton wristwatch. Gray and brown hairs sprouted through the links of the stainless band. “I got time for a short one, I guess.”

Linda Allen got off the bed naked and proud, her posture straight. She shook her long hair off her shoulders as she moved. That was for him. Vaughn watched her with admiration. She was a tall, leggy brunette, now in her forties, a divorcée who had never had children and so had kept her shape. Her breasts were pink tipped, heavy, and stood up nice. Vaughn took in the cut of her muscular thighs, her ample round ass, and that warm box that always held him tight. God, this was a woman right here. Reminded him of Julie London in her prime. He had been with Linda for almost ten years.

He thought of this apartment, a one-bedroom in the Woodner, down by the lion bridge on 16th, as his oasis. He visited Linda on his night shifts, one or two times a week. Sometimes he came for what he’d come for tonight. Sometimes he came to rest.

He heard the toilet flush in the bathroom and then the sound of water flowing from the faucet. He reached over to the nightstand, shook an L amp;M from the deck, and lit it with his Zippo, which was customized with a hand-painted map of Okinawa. He took a deep drag, coughed a little, and lay his head back on the pillow.

His wife, Olga, was the same age as Linda, but the similarities ended there. Olga no longer had any shape to speak of. Her ass had flattened out, as had her breasts. Linda talked very little; Olga talked all the time. Vaughn’s ejaculations with Olga were typically no more sensational than urination. With Linda, he came like a stallion. The funny thing was, though, when Vaughn made love to his wife, he experienced emotions he never felt while he was fucking Linda. And he knew the difference was just that simple: One was love and one was just a fuck. A lucky man could get both from his wife, but Vaughn hadn’t had that kind of luck. It wasn’t anything to cry over. This arrangement worked just fine.