– Yeah, yeah. Wait your turn.
Digga gets in the Hummer and sits there with the door open.
– Someone special musta give you that jacket.
I put it on, take my Zippo from the pocket and use it to light one of Percy’s Pall Malls.
– Yeah, pretty special.
The asphalt path climbs through pools of lamp light. Down here, just off the street, they’re cast by ugly gray industrial lamps. Up higher, around the wall, they have the same ornamental lamps you’d find in Central Park.
The sky is low and sickly. I walk beneath it, the wall looming closer. Plastic bags are snagged in the bare branches of the trees. They look like scraps of dead skin. The park lights go out, letting me know daylight is on the way. The hovering storm clouds will give me a little time, blocking out the worst of the sun. But I need shelter, I need it fast. I look down at the street. Digga’s Hummer cruises slowly, keeping pace with me, making sure I don’t make a break. Making sure I don’t run for God knows what.
Figure Digga’s right about the border patrol up there. Probably spotters in that big dorm. Get someone installed up there near the top floors and they can spot for miles. And I will be in their face-book. If they’re up there, and figure they must be, they have my face. Digga’s probably right about what that means, too. Means they’ll try to snag me off the street and bring me in. Only question left for me is how to play it at the top. The paths bends again, cuts, and I’m looking up the southern staircase. Wide, the wall on one side, a view of the Hood on the other, a gate at the top.
I climb.
Figure I let myself get hauled in, at least I don’t have to worry about the sun. For the moment. Soon after that, I’ll probably be hearing from Predo. That’s what Digga doesn’t really know about; that damn hard-on Predo has for me. Figure that’s gonna make it pretty difficult for me to fish for any information on the shit. Difficult as in impossible. I make a break for it, I might make it to that 1 stop. And if I make it to the train, get my ass back downtown in one piece? Figure Digga’s right on that count, too: gonna be hell to pay. A Rogue at odds with both the Coalition and the Hood? Count my remaining days on one hand and you’ll have some fingers left over when you’re done. I come to a landing halfway up the staircase. I stop and look at the view. I light up.
Yeah, this one’s a bitch alright.
I turn around and look at the wall. It’s right in my face now. I have to crane my neck to look up to the top. Big stones with deep cracks at the joints. Yeah, I would have held on to this turf, too. If hell ever does break out between the Coalition and the Hood, this will be the turf to have. I smell something on the wind. I look up at the gate at the top of the stairs. They’re up there, two of them, waiting.
I look back down through the park. The Hummer is still down there. I think again about the enforcer: a skin full of that shit and being eaten by frenzied dogs. I touch my left shoulder where a dog once bit me. I didn’t like it. I look back up at the guys above: silhouettes against the blank sky. I drop my smoke, grind it out under my boot, and climb.
They’re young as hell and armed to the teeth. The ones at the top of the stairs flash me the tiny black machine pistols that dangle from their shoulders. One of them latches onto my arm and jams his weapon into my back. If he pulls the trigger the bullets will spew out and slice me in half. He pushes me away from the wall as the other one stays at the top of the steps making sure no Hoodies are following me. Once he’s sure his rear is safe, he follows us to the curb and raises his fist in the air. A black SUV pulls out from between two parked cars, zips up and stops on a dime. The back door opens and another young guy with a machine pistol grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me inside. The door slams, a bag is dropped over my head, my hands are yanked behind my back and bound with wire, and I’m finally given a proper pat-down that finds both my revolver and my switchblade. The only real pisser is that they take my smokes and my Zippo as well.
They don’t talk. The SUV jerks around a corner, taking a left. Another quick left, and another. And one more for good measure. Then some more of the same. Jesus, they got most of the snatch right, but this is just embarrassing.
– I can tell you’re driving in circles.
Another left.
– I mean, if you’re trying to disorient me, you might want to throw in a right turn every now and then.
Another left.
– See, like right now, we’re on the south side of that same block you grabbed me off of.
Another left.
– East side.
Another left.
– If you don’t want to change it up, you can also try giving a guy a whack over the head or something so it’s harder for him to know his left from his right.
WHACK!
I shut up and let them do it their way.
The boys are young. The woman is old.
– What did he have?
One of the black leather jacketed muscle boys hands her a Ziploc bag full of my stuff. She unzips it. She opens the cylinder on the revolver, ejects the shells, sees the one spent round and sniffs the barrel. She empties the smokes into a bowl and hands it to one of the boys, who grinds them up and sifts the tobacco and paper through his fingers. She pulls the inner workings of the Zippo out of the scratched chrome sleeve. She undoes the little screw at the bottom and shakes the lighter ’til the flint drops out. She uses her fingernails to pinch out the piece of cotton at the bottom and unravels the long, Ronsonol-soaked wick inside. She places the gutted lighter beside the gun. She gives my keys and the change that was in my pocket a quick glance. She pops the switchblade open and squints into the slot the blade folds into. She taps the handle against the table and hears that it’s hollow. She hands it to the boy who ruined all my smokes. He sets it on the floor and stomps on it and the plastic grips shatter. She bends and looks through the pieces. She looks at me.
– His clothes?
One of the boys who grabbed me shakes his head.
She frowns.
– Do it now.
One of them pulls wire-cutters from his pocket and snips my hands free and they strip me to my skivvies. They run their fingers over seams and inside pockets. They tap the heels of my boots. She passes my jacket through her hands, finding flakes of tobacco in the pockets along with a couple movie ticket stubs and a poker chip I got at a bar as the marker for my second drink during a two-for-one happy hour. She flexes the chip between her thumbs and forefingers, it snaps in half.
I scratch my balls.
– That was good for a drink at HiFi.
She doesn’t look up, her fingers probing at an irregularity in the collar of my jacket. She picks up the switchblade with the broken handle.
– There’s nothing in the jacket.
She presses the tip of the blade against the collar.
– Ma’am, I’d really prefer if you didn’t do anything to that jacket.
She shoves the point through the leather and jerks it to the side, tearing a small hole in the collar. She puts the knife down, works her fingers into the hole, gets a grip, and rips the collar wide open. She looks at the filleted leather. She throws the jacket on top of the rest of my clothes.
– He can dress.
I dress. I look at the ruined collar. I remember the day Evie gave me the jacket. It was my birthday. The day she thinks is my birthday, anyway. I look at the old lady and put the jacket back on.
– Can I have my poker chip back? They might still accept it.
She picks up the two halves of the poker chip and hands them to one of the boys.
– Make him eat it.
They don’t really make me eat it. What they do is, they get me on my knees and stick the barrel of one of those guns in my neck and I open my mouth and they shove the jagged edged pieces of plastic inside and force it closed and punch my face a few times and the broken chip cuts up my tongue and gums and the soft insides of my cheeks. But, no, I don’t actually eat the chip. When they’re done I look at the old woman, still seated on her couch, wearing that very practical sweater and slacks combo and equally practical walking shoes, gray hair back in a bun, reading glasses dangling from a neck strap, machine pistol-armed boys arrayed around her. I open my mouth and the broken chip and some bits of skin and a large quantity of blood falls onto the parquet floor.