The Jook Read online

  The sirens could barely be heard under our voices. We stared hard at each other. I started easing out of the broken window, but the truck was teetering and tottering so I stopped.

  Danny came hobbling up with Nap. The big man didn't look too good. His face was losing color. His side was red where he'd been shot and so were both of his hands. Danny had tied his sweat top around his brother's torso. But we all could tell it wasn't helping much.

  "Come down here and get this cash," I shouted at Danny.

  The young buck was looking back, then at Wilma, then at me. Panic was as plain as zits on the boy's face. "Come on, you and Wilma gotta do it." She looked at me as I pointed at her. "Yeah, miss thing, you gotta get dirty like the rest of us peasants."

  Wilma was gonna say something, but didn't. Danny let Nap down on the road.

  "Danny, you stay there," I said. "Wilma, take the lead to the truck here."

  "Where's the money hidden?" Wilma asked.

  "In the back, you gotta dive in."

  The disgust on her face was enough to make me laugh, but I held off. "Here," I said, holding up the headpiece with its built-in gas mask. I'd snatched it off the driver.

  "But"

  "Hurry up, Wilma," I ordered her.

  She scooted down to where I was. She put on the mask, giving me the evil eye with her beautiful browns. I pointed to the rear. "Get busy."

  The truck creaked, and I was sure I was a goner. If that wasn't enough, the sirens were getting closer. But the truck settled, and Wilma got to work.

  Calling up reserves from who knows where, I got myself loose and crawled over to the rear doors. The shift of weight made the goddamn thing move again. When it stopped I kept going to the back of the truck. Luck was with us and both of the doors had been thrown open in the crash.

  I had to hand it to Wilma, she was getting the job done. I guess greed is a great motivator. She hauled out the wire bundles, dollar bills peeking from the edges of the brown paper they were wrapped in. She handed them to me and I passed them up to Danny. We had an assembly line going on.

  "I think that's it," she said, taking off her mask. Garbage and stink came off her in waves. I sure hoped the cops didn't stop her. "Good thing there was a large bin along one wall underneath the garbage that the bundles were packed in."

  I wanted to smile but I was having back spasms. Together with the hip I could barely move. "Help me up to the road," I said to her, sinking to one knee. Whatever I'd been running on was spent. I put my head down.

  When I raised my eyes I saw Wilma standing over me. Despite the stains on her clothes and junk hanging off her she managed to look superior.

  "The great Zelmont Raines," she snarled, hands on her hips.

  She looked up at Danny, who was no doubt loading the bundles into the Mazda van she'd rented. I couldn't see her ride from where I was but knew it had to be up there on the road. The engine was purring like a cheetah, all ready to gobble up some pavement. If she was gonna double cross me, this would be the best time to do it.

  "Funny how things work out, ain't it?"

  "Isn't it, though?" Wilma stared down at me.

  Danny suddenly reappeared, his Glock in his hand.

  "Get Zelmont out of there." Nap had managed to half stand up, but he was damn near out on his feet too. "Do it." He spoke in the tone he had used so many times to get us fired up in the fourth quarter.

  "Sure, Nap, that's what I was going to do." Wilma grabbed the front of my overalls and got me to my feet. As she did, the truck crashed down onto the hill, kicking up all kinds of dust and rocks. Me and Wilma just looked at each other.

  "If we take Napoleon out of here we're bound to be spotted. The cops are probably going to be stopping all vehicles in this area, and four black people in one is going to attract attention."

  I didn't like where she was going, but it did make sense. "Then you better leave me and Nap since we're both busted up and that will make the pigs suspect."

  She shook her head up and down, excited-like.

  "And the money."

  The head shaking stopped awfully quick.

  "If you're stopped you're gonna be searched, Matlock. You might argue they ain't got the right, but that ain't gonna do you any good once they nab the cash."

  "Man, fuck all that," Danny screamed. "I oughta blow a hole in both of you for gettin' my brother in this situation." He was crying and waving the gun around. ''Me and Nap take all the loot 'cause you two always think you runnin' the show, and look what it's got him."

  ''Be cool, Danny," I said. Nothing worse than a sad and mad gangbanger with a loaded piece. I'd never reach him before he'd bust loose in my dome, even if I wasn't wasted like I was.

  "He's gotta have a doctor," Danny said, tugging on his brother. The clown was probably doing Nap more bad than good. But I wasn't about to correct him.

  "What can we do?" Wilma said, a closed-in look twisting her face into different shapes. "We have to wait until things settle down."

  "Settle down like hell." Danny put his gun under Wilma's nose to make his point clear. "My brother goes to a doctor, understand, bitch?"

  "That's the second time you've called me that." Wilma pointed at him. "Don't make it a third."

  I was impressed. Wilma was one fly lady. "Hey you two, I got an idea. You want to listen or should we have a falling out now and fuck everything up?"

  I don't know how but they bought my plan. They left me and Nap with the ten neat, nice packages of money in the sewer pipe I'd been standing on earlier; Wilma said it was a storm drain. The lock on the grate was rusted, and a blast from the shotgun got the whole thing loose. Maybe the cops would find me and maybe they wouldn't. I was so beat up I didn't even care. Soon I heard cars screeching all over the place and people shouting. A helicopter was up there in the sky too. Nap had passed out, holding onto his side. I fell asleep from exhaustion.

  Chapter 14

  I woke up to somebody wailing. For a second or two, I was happy, like maybe I was with some fine mama and we were doin' the nasty. But that hope soon left me as it came back to me where I was: in a stank-smelling pipe with my best friend dying beside me.

  "You got to keep quiet, Nap." I tried to get my head off where it was resting against the cold concrete pipe, but there was no energy left for me to tap. It took all my juice just to get my eyes open. Nap was laying on his side, that much I could tell in the darkness.

  "Oh, man, ain't this… something… we… aw, God." He rolled onto his back, holding onto himself and moaning again.

  "Nap, you got to shut the fuck up." The fear that was bouncing around inside me gave my battery a charge. I crawled over to him and put my hand over his mouth. "We gonna make it, big man, we are. But you gotta be tippity-toe quiet for sure, baby." I couldn't hear much of what was happening outside up on the road except some cars moving around and that helicopter flying around. I guess that had covered up homeboy's yelling. At least I hoped so.

  Nap wasn't focusing on me. As I adjusted to the darkness, I could see his pupils were tight and the whites of his eyes red like he'd been smoking a pound of dank. I wish he had 'cause the boy was getting agitated and he needed to chill. "Yo, home, you got to come to yourself, man. You got to fight through the pain." That was easy for me to say. My vest had stopped the bullet with my name on it. If I'd been tagged like Nap was, I knew good and well I'd be doing the same as him all out of my head with my guts turning to mashed peas.

  Thing was, I did use the vest and it wasn't me who was torn up. You had to play the game the way the breaks went. That's what separated winners from also-rans.

  "Nap," I said, leaning over. "Do you know who I am?" His eyes looked all around, and I put my hand over his mouth again, this time with more weight. If he went off there was gonna be more trouble than I could handle. ''It's me, Nap, it's Zelmont. You know where you are, right?"

  He shook his head. I didn't know if it meant yes or no or it was just the shakes. But I took my hand away. He didn't yell out, he
didn't do anything except breathe deep and ragged like a old locomotive.

  "Zelmont, Zelmont, what have I done?"

  "Wilma and your brother went to get that old croaker Burroughs, okay? But they got to wait some hours until the cops clear out of here, man." I looked at the glowing numbers on my watch. We'd been in the pipe for about an hour. A couple of rats were squeaking in the other end.

  "Man," he said, worn out. Nap laid back down, barely breathing.

  I opened his overalls and ripped up his T-shirt underneath. All I could see was grime and slick liquid. What did I expect? I ripped off the wrapping of one of the bundles and put the wadded brown paper over the wound. Using his and my belt I tied the makeshift gauze in place. The wound didn't seem to be bleeding too much now so maybe that would help it.

  We waited. Some time passed and I considered poking out of the hole to see if the cops were still scrambling around. I worked around in my mind who could have tipped off Stadanko. It must have been Ysanya. I guess Nap's long dong wasn't enough to make her forget who really was the mack daddy in this situation.

  "She didn't, you know."

  He was so quiet, at first I wondered if I was losing it and hearing voices in my cabeza. "What you say, man?"

  "I know you must be sure Ysanya snitched, but I don't see it that way." He seemed to be coming out of that fog he had been in before.

  "Course you'd say that," I said. "She's your stuff."

  "It ain't that, Zelmont." He grabbed his side and I was just about to leap on him when he waved me off. "Even if Ysanya wanted to tell him about our plan she knows she'd be dead if she did. How else could she explain what we were up to unless she copped to me and her gettin' it on?"

  "Then who?" I wanted to know. Talking about it made me feel like I might walk out of this storm drain and get my shit together. Talking about it kept me from imagining that Wilma had got the best of Danny and was gonna sneak back here in the middle of the night with me and Nap conked out. Then she could pop the both of us and be off livin' large in Switzerland or some place like that. Me and Nap cold as motherfuckahs in the ground.

  "Could it have been Weems?" I moved to sit against the side of the pipe again so I could stretch my legs out and they wouldn't cramp so bad.

  "How would he know anything?" Nap asked.

  I guess Wilma hadn't told him everything. That was good. "Forget it."

  "I think it was just Stadanko being careful." Now Nap's voice sounded far away. "Remember, this run was going to have to last him, so he had to be thinking how vulnerable he was. All that money moving over all those miles…" He stopped, getting his strength. ''… from the various stops the truck had to make to collect the dough." Nap quit talking like he was used up.

  "We'll find out." I listened for anything. The rats were moving around and there was water dripping back there in the deeper darkness too. It was getting cold. How long did we have to wait?

  "I'm going to use some of my money to start a scholarship."

  I laughed. "Now I know you must going crazy, Negro."

  He moved his head from side to side. "No, man, if I get out of this I know I have to atone."

  "You been watching Reverend Fred Price again, huh?"

  "I'm serious as cancer, Zee. I have to make up for what I've done. That's why God let me be shot up, so I could realize what I had to do." He stopped for so long I thought he'd passed out again. But then he went on.

  "Don't you remember when you were young and it was so exciting to play? How it felt to be standing in line and be picked for dodge ball or baseball? How the other kids knew from seeing us before that we had something, that extra spark, the promise of talent that made them say to themselves, 'Yeah, I have to make sure that guy is on my team'?"

  "And getting to be a star in high school," I said. I didn't want to think back but couldn't help it.

  "The world was ours for the asking," Nap said. "But we still played because we dug it, man, because the game was something that set us apart from the crowd. We felt good going down the field with the other guys 'cause we knew we were part of a team, part of something special."

  "Yeah, you're right, Nap."

  "God wants me to do better, Zee. He wants me to help make the same thing possible for some poor kids. I have no choice."

  Talk of being all holy always got under my skin. And it was worse with us sitting in the dark, shivering and hungry and wounded. That's how them Christians wanted you to be, all wracked up, shit looking lost. So naturally you had to call on De Lawd to save your pathetic ass 'cause who else would come and wipe your nose in the middle of the night?

  "Man, Burroughs gonna dig the slugs out of you, then shoot you up with some of his homemade happy formula. After that, you'll be thinkin' about all the pussyoh, I'm sorry, in your case,

  Nap, all the poon tang and hairy bootyyou'll be gettin' with your new money."

  Nap kinda coughed, trying to laugh. Then there was a pause. I did it, Zee, I killed Davida."

  "You trippin'."

  "She knew about me and Ysanya."

  "How?" I flashed on that tape I'd seen of Davida back at Stadanko's cabin and figured he might be telling me straight.

  "Pablo, of all people. He didn't mean it, of course."

  "Oh, Pablo was knockin' boots with her too, Nap? I thought he only liked to be poled."

  Nap coughed and laughed that time. "He does. But they were drinking together at the club one night. You know, chicks like talking to queens as if they have some special insight into the female condition. Anyway, the lad really can't hold his liquor, and he blurted out about me and Ysanya."

  "Why'd you tell him for anyway?"

  "Another bad move in hindsight, but pillow talk has done many a man in, I suppose. So he blabs this to Davida, and you know that girl, no matter how tipsy she was, if it was an angle she could use to advance her career she'd hold onto that information."

  "You got that right, home." We didn't say anything for a minute, the only sound coming from the rats and the water. I looked to the left and could see one of the little vultures climbing on a stack of money Guard rat.

  "Davida sweated you for cash after that, didn't she?"

  Nap tried to sit up but couldn't. "I offered to make her a partner, but she said it would take too long to get her dough. She knew this producer was playing her, Zee. All she wanted was enough scratch to finance her album. She didn't really want much. And she was never nasty about it, you know how she was."

  "Yes I do."

  "She'd call up asking me for a little more or maybe to make a phone call for her."

  I wasn't sure, but I thought I heard a car driving around. It had been five hours since we'd holed up in here. Could there still be cops outside, going over the ground again and again? What if they brought back dogs?

  "So how come you offed her, Nap?" I suppose I should have been upset but I wasn't. I was pissed that Fahrar, that motherfuckah, had been on me, but I didn't expect Nap to call him up and confess.

  "She wasn't getting where she wanted to go." Nap's breathing didn't sound too good. "She called me all wired that Tuesday. I could tell she'd been doing some lines."

  That was the day we'd had our fight, but I didn't say anything.

  "She was threatening to tell Stadanko if I didn't come up with some real money."

  A car door slammed and I could hear footsteps. "Hush up, Nap."

  "I decided I'd meet her way out so no one would see us." Nap kept talking, his voice very soft. I listened for anything.

  "I don't really know what happened, Zee. She wouldn't believe how deep I was into Stadanko and Chekka. She was too wound up, she'd been doing more coke. Then she offered me sex right there, in the parking structure right behind the building we were at. This was during working hours, man." He coughed some more. I heard another car stop and I got scared. "Of course I was game, the riskier the better, right?"

  "Right." It had to be cops.

  "We were going at it on the hood of her car. You know how
she liked it, rough and rougher."

  "So it was an accident." I moved closer to where Nap was laying.

  "It would be good if I could think so." Nap starting crying. "But as we were doing it, as I had her panties around her throat, getting her off, she laughed, saying she was going to fuck me all kinds of ways." He hacked up who knows what from his lungs. "I just wanted to be done with her. Even then I was thinking about busting some kind of move against Chekka and Stadanko to get out from under. Her harassing me could go on way too long."

  I heard voices up top. I got close to Nap. "I understand, man. She got on my last nerve too. But right now you gotta be quiet until I make sure who's up there."

  If he heard me it didn't make any difference. He let his side go, grabbed his head, and started wailing again. "Aw, man, God wants me to do better, Zee. He's taken me to the brink to teach me right from wrong." From somewhere strength came into him and he grabbed me, holding me close to his chest. "We've got to repent, Zee. We've got to use the money for more than just us."

  He was hollering so loud I didn't know what to do. I heard the footsteps again, and it sounded like someone was coming down the hill. "Shut up, Nap, you've got to shut up," I whispered in his face, scared like I didn't know what.

  Nap got me in a bear hug, his big arms suddenly filled with an energy I was shocked to see he still had. The pain in my back almost made me pass out as Nap crushed me. "Nap, Nap, come to yourself, man."

  "Jesus is calling on us, Zee. He knows what we've done."

  "Nap," I cried out despite the footsteps. My hands went to his throat in the dark, his sweat and blood all over me. His breath was rotten and he had me very tight in his grip. I let go of his throat, trying to pry myself loose. Our bodies shifted and I got leverage over him.

  "Nap," I said, gritting my teeth.

  "Zelmont," his voice boomed in the pipe. The rats got excited and started scooting all over the place.

  His arms were like steel around me and I had to get my hands under his jaw and push him away. His body shook and he let out air like a bad tire. Then his grip went limp and I rolled clear.