– What he say?

The guy talks quietly into the phone, nods a couple times and then flips it closed.

Digga snaps his fingers.

– Well, niggah?

– Chubby say he cool.

– He vouch?

– Chubby Freeze say he vouch for the man. Say the man righteous to a fault. Say they do bizniz and it always come out right.

– Hunh. Well. Well, well.

He looks me over.

– A vouch from Chubby Freeze. Ah’ite, that somethin’. So, Mr. Pitt, what you doin’ up here all by yo’self? What’s this bizniz?

– No big deal.

– Uh-huh?

– Just looking for the son of a bitch who’s sending bags of Vyrus downtown for the new fish to shoot.

– Huh. No shit.

He holds out his hand and one of the rhinos passes him his Armani jacket. He pulls it on and does the buttons.

– Lookin’ for the son of a bitch.

He picks up the razor.

– That is some in-ter-es-tin’ shit.

He hands the razor to the barber.

– Finish the man up.

He starts for the door, talking to Timberlands as he goes.

– When he done with his shave, toss him in the Hummer and haul his ass up to the Jack. We gonna show muthafucka some shit.

He walks out the door with the two rhinos on his heels. The barber looks at my throat.

– Look there, that all closed up already. Nothin’ no how but a scratch that.

He freshens the lather on my face and gives me a shave.

The Jackie Robinson Recreation Center looks like a Civil War fortress: red brick with round turrets at the corners and huge steel doors. The Jack.

Timberlands parks the Hummer on an empty basketball court just inside a chain-link gate. Behind the Jack, a cliff of whatever rock Manhattan is made out of rises several stories above us, Edgecomb Avenue running along its top. It’s cold outside the Hummer.

I look at Timberlands.

– How ’bout you give me my jacket back.

He runs his hand down the sleeve, feeling the leather.

– This jacket?

– Uh-huh.

– This my jacket. Why’m I gonna give you my jacket?

– Brotherly love?

He gives me a good push, letting my face open the door for us. He tilts his head at the guy sitting at the check-in desk and muscles me down a corridor of white-painted cinderblock.

At the end of the hall a guy in a cheap black suit and wraparound black shades leans against a door. We stop in front of him. He keeps staring at whatever he’s staring at, not bothering to turn his head in our direction.

Timberlands snaps his fingers.

– Open up.

Slowly, Shades rotates his face to us.

– Private party.

– We on the guest list.

Shades unbends a finger and points it at me.

– He ain’t.

– He with Digga.

Shades leans his head back, relaxing a little more.

– Already got a main attraction. Don’t need an opening act.

Timberlands steps up.

– Say he from Digga.

Shades unrelaxes.

– Digga don’t have no free white boy passes.

– This the Hood. This Digga’s turf.

– So they say.

The scent is up on them, rank Vyrus pheromones spraying the air. Blood will be spilled. I start looking for a window I can dive through.

– What all this?

Digga and his rhinos come up the hall behind us.

– What all this hostility I see? Where the love?

He stops, looks at the standoff in front of the door, a big smile across his face.

– What the problem, we ain’t got the juice to get beyond this velvet rope? Doorman don’t like our kicks? We ain’t up to the clientele inside?

Shades points at me again.

– He’s white.

Digga looks at me.

– Damn! How’d I miss that? Well, shit, you right ’bout that. Still doan see the problem.

– He’s white.

– Uh-huh. Well, as to that, know what Luther X used to say? He say, We all the same color inside. By that, he mean we all red. Now, I can prove it on you.

He loses the smile.

– Or you can open the damn door.

– Papa won’t like it.

– Somebody elect Papa president of the Hood? Somebody give him my job, forgot to tell me ’bout it? Open up.

Shades takes a step to the side.

– I di’nt say move, muthafucka, I said, open up.

Shades opens the door.

Digga sweeps his arm in front of me.

– After you.

I walk through followed by Digga, Timberlands, and the rhinos. The door swings shut behind us and we start down a stairwell.

Digga talks to the rhinos.

– You know that fool?

– Uh-huh.

– Get his name on a list.

– Uh-huh.

Below us comes a rumble of many voices and the howl of crazed dogs. The air smells like sweat, chlorine, blood, and the Vyrus.

There are a lot of them. I’ve never seen so many in one place. There are at least two hundred packed into the old basement baths. Two hundred of them. Two hundred of us. When I lead the way out of the stairwell every face turns toward me. The room goes silent except for the barking of the dogs that echoes off the tiled walls and ceiling. I have an instant vision of what it will be like to be torn literally to ribbons. Then Digga steps up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder.

– Hey, all. He with me.

He keeps his hand on my shoulder, leading me through the crowd, closer to whatever is at its center. Way is made for him. With his free hand he bumps fists and exchanges backslaps, passing a word with the men and women of the crowd. They are mostly young, mostly hip-hop, all wear the Ecko rhino somewhere on their person, and none are white.

He puts his mouth next to my ear as we press through them.

– Shit, muthafucka, I knew I coulda made a entrance like this, I woulda got me a white boy sooner.

We’re approaching the pool. It’s drained of water. An eight-foot-high chain-link fence has been strung around it. The barking comes from inside. He brings me right up to the fence. The cement walls of the pool are stained dark maroon with dry blood; a thin sheet of the freshly spilled variety coats the bottom. A man is dragging a dog’s carcass to the shallow end and passing it up to waiting hands. Three others have cornered a foaming-mad pit bull in the deep end. It darts at them and they dodge out of the way.

Digga shakes his head.

– Shit.

He calls to the men.

– Put a fuckin’ cap in that beast.

One of them waves, pulls a Glock from his baggy pants, and puts a cap in the beast. The bullet slams it into the wall of the pool. Then it gets up and starts barking again.

Digga looks at the ceiling.

– Jezus H. In the head, muthafucka! In the fuckin head!

The guy puts one in the dog’s head. It stays down this time.

The crowd is shifting around us, piling up close, hooking their fingers in the fence.

On one side of the pool a man sits up on the old lifeguard tower. He wears a black suit, wraparound shades, a red fez, and puffs on a cigarette in a long ivory holder. A group of men dressed like the guy from the door stand around the base of the chair. Digga waves to him.

– Papa! What up?

Papa gestures with his holder.

Digga holds his arm up and points at the top of my head.

– You all see my white boy?

Papa ignores him.

– He sweet, right? You want one?

They ignore him.

– No? Well, shit then, let’s get to the main e-vent.

The crowd around us rumbles.

Digga whispers in my ear again.

– Tension thick in here, huh, Pitt? Feel that hostility? An’ we all black folk. ’Magine what it like when we got the Washington Heights and Spanish Harlem crowds in here. Put the spics in here with the niggahs and it almost always be endin’ in bloodshed. An’ we all on the same side. Me, I sure as shit glad I ain’t white up in this. Can you ’magine what they do to you, you not with me? Oh shit, we ’bout to find out. Look.

He points to the far end of the pool where two more dogs are ready to be brought in. A man is pushed from the steps. His feet slide from beneath him on the blood-slick surface. A couple rhinos jump down after him, get him by the arms and pull him up. The enforcer from the train.