“I’m watching it on TV,” said Peters. “The reporter said that LBJ’s gonna call in the army and the guard.”

“You’re gonna miss all the action.”

“Looks like I caught a lucky bullet.”

“I guess you did. You, who wanted to be on that welcome wagon come revolution time.”

“It shouldn’t have happened like this.”

“Wasn’t but one way for it to happen. Everybody saw the fuse burnin’, but they turned their heads away.”

“Listen…”

“Lotta people sorry now,” said Strange. “I gotta get to work.”

“Take care of yourself, Derek.”

“You, too.”

Strange built a sandwich, not knowing when he’d get his next meal, and washed it down with two glasses of water. He drank another cup of coffee while he got back into his uniform in his brother’s room. The uniform stank of last night’s dirt and sweat. He fastened his utility belt around his waist, patted his handcuffs at the small of his back, and felt for the backup ammo in his dump pouch. He pushed his nightstick down through its loop. He checked the load of his.38 and slipped it into his swivel holster. He looked at his brother’s unmade bed before walking back out to the living room and picking up the phone.

Strange called his father at the diner. He told him that he was going in and suggested that his father get back home.

“I’m leaving now,” said Darius. “Mike’s about to close.”

“What about Mama?”

“I called her at the Vaughns’. She says that Frank Vaughn’s heading into town. He’s gonna drive her in.”

“Vaughn’s okay,” said Strange. “He’ll make sure she gets in safe.”

“Right.”

“I might be out here for a while, Pop. I don’t want y’all to worry about me.”

“I’ll see you at supper on Sunday,” said Darius, trying to steady the catch in his voice.

“I’ll be there,” said Strange.

He left the apartment, went down Princeton, and turned left on Georgia Avenue. He walked south, hearing the sirens of police cars and fire trucks coming from all directions. A young man yelled something angrily at him from a passing car, and Strange did not react. He stopped for a moment at the crest of the long hill that descended along Howard University and looked down to the Florida Avenue intersection, where Georgia became 7th Street. People swarmed in the canyon there under a smoke-dark sky.

THIRTY-TWO

OUTSIDE THE THREE-STAR Diner, on Kennedy Street, young men stood on the sidewalk, occasionally looking through the plate-glass window, alternately laughing and hard-eyeing Mike Georgelakos and his son, Billy, both behind the counter. Mike knew all of them by sight and many by name; he knew their parents and had served a few of their grandparents as well.

Darius Strange had used a brick to clean the grill, left his toque lying on the sandwich board, and was in the process of putting on his jacket. Ella Lockheart had finished filling the ketchup bottles and the salt and pepper shakers, and now sat on one of the red stools, applying lipstick that she had taken from her purse. Halftime, the dishwasher and utility man, had phoned in sick.

“Mavri,” said Mike with disgust, looking at the kids.

“Dad,” said Billy.

“What the hell,” said Mike.

Darius had heard all the bad Greek words come from Mike’s mouth over the years. He knew that mavri, in all its variations, meant black people, and usually when Mike added something before or after, or did that curling thing with his lip, its meaning was negative and foul.

Darius’s and Ella’s eyes met for a moment. She dropped her lipstick into her purse.

“I’m gonna be gettin’ on,” said Ella.

“You need a ride?” said Darius.

“No, thank you,” said Ella. “I’ll walk.”

“I’m gonna call you both,” said Mike, “let you know about tomorrow. I’m hopin’ this here is gonna blow over and we’re gonna open up.”

Ella went out the door without a word. Darius watched her walk down the sidewalk through the group of kids, which parted to let her pass.

“You better get goin’,” said Mike.

“You, too,” said Darius.

“Ah,” said Mike with a wave of his hand. “I don’t worry ’bout nothin’.”

“Where’s Derek?” said Billy.

“Seventh Street, right about now,” said Darius, turning up the collar of his jacket. “Working.”

“God bless the MPD,” said Billy. “Tell him I was thinking about him, okay?”

“I will,” said Darius.

“Hey,” said Mike, his voice stopping Darius as he reached for the door. Mike’s forehead was streaked with sweat, and his barrel chest rose and fell with each labored breath. A cigarette burned between his fingers.

“What is it?”

“Thanks for comin’ in today, Darius,” said Mike.

Darius nodded, looking without emotion into Mike’s eyes. Neither could know that they would both be dead within the year.

Darius walked from the diner to his car on the street.

“Let’s go,” said Billy to his father. “Pa-meh.”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere, goddamnit,” said Mike. “Those boys gonna break my window, somethin’.”

“We can fix a window,” said Billy, putting his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “C’mon, Ba-ba. It’s time to go.”

Mike left the register’s cash drawer open, as he did every night at closing, so that anyone could see from the street that it was empty. He took the store keys from his pocket and locked the front door.

DESPITE THE WARNING from Derek Strange, Kenneth Willis had phoned Alvin Jones at Ronnie Moses’s apartment on Thursday afternoon and told him that Strange was looking to hunt him down. Strange had put a scare into Willis, and a hurting on him, too, but it didn’t stop Willis from making the call. He couldn’t do Alvin like that. Alvin was kin.

On the phone, Jones denied any knowledge of the murder of Dennis Strange. He had decided not to admit it, on account of Dennis was Kenneth’s boy from way back and he didn’t want Kenneth to get upset. Also, he didn’t care to give Kenneth anything the police could use against him if Kenneth got picked up on something later on. Kenneth was strong, but even a strong man could get flipped.

“All right, Ken,” said Jones. “Thanks for the tip.”

“What you gonna do?” said Willis.

“What you think?” said Jones, as if he were speaking to a child. “Keep my head low. Understand, I ain’t have shit to do with your boy’s demise, but I can’t be fuckin’ with no police nohow.”

“You got a plan?”

“Man like me always got a plan,” said Jones before hanging up the phone.

The riots of Thursday night had given him his plan. Jones had gone out, near midnight, and stepped onto an eastbound D.C. Transit bus on Rhode Island Avenue with a stocking over his face and his gun in his hand, robbing the driver of eighty dollars in cash. It was the easiest robbery he’d ever pulled. Seemed like all of the police were over in Shaw. He knew they weren’t gonna give a good fuck about some little old stickup job when 14th Street was going up in flames.

And here he was today, in Ronnie’s apartment near 7th Street. Standing in front of the mirror, admiring his new shit, which he and Ronnie had looted from the Cavalier Men’s Shop between L and K just a little while back. Looking at his new Zanzibar slacks, his Damon knit shirt, and his side-weave kicks. The shirt, especially, was right on, a real nice color gold. Picked up the gold band on his favorite black hat. He cocked the hat a little so it sat right on his head.

Ronnie had left the crib to get more vines. Said he was heading down to his place of employment, the big-men’s shop, to get what he could, ’cause those clothes there were the only ones in town that could fit a horse like him. Said he knew where his sizes were and exactly the items he wanted, ’cause he’d had his eye on them for some time. Jones telling him he wasn’t thinking straight, to be shittin’ in his own feeding trough like that, but Ronnie had waved him away.