urinal mutter, “What the . . . ? Oh Jesus.”
Teach could see now that the black man was no man. He was tall and filled out—Teach made him at least 220 and all of it muscle—but he couldn’t have been more than eighteen. That Teach had taken him for a grown man said something for the confident way the boy moved. Teach remembered giving the boy a friendly nod on his way to the men’s room. And hadn’t the boy nodded back?
The boy took another step into the room. There was no mistaking the threat of his stance, legs wide, arms ready at his sides.
The boy wore black jeans and a white silk shirt. He pointed at them with his left hand. “Give it up, bitches.” The white shirt opened at his waist, and Teach saw it in the waistband of the black jeans—the shiny black handle of a straight razor. McLuster started to pant, and Teach thought, Heart attack, then McLuster moaned, “Oh no,” and Teach saw the dark stain spreading around the man’s clutching fingers.
The boy laughed quietly. “You bitches better give it up. I ain’t gone say it again.”
Teach held his eyes on the boy’s face and made himself smile. His salesman’s smile. The smile that ate shit if shit got the purchase order signed. He willed the boy to look at him, apply those cold, coffee-bean eyes to his. When the boy did it, Teach let his smile flow into his eyes, ten years of schmoozing receptionists, accommodating assholes in white lab coats, and closing, closing. He had to close the distance here. He reached out a careful hand and eased McLuster to his right. Teach had to talk but didn’t know what to say. There was a razor in the boy’s waistband.
He saw the headlines: Local Businessman Slashed in Bar. Motive: Robbery. But headlines were ink and there was going to be blood here. Teach imagined the boy grasping the black handle of the razor and flipping out the gleaming blade. The smallest touch of such an instrument, Teach knew, could bring forth the red gush that ended life in seconds. And for what? Some cracked-out kid wanted money.
Teach said, “What do you want? Our wallets? Is that it?”
The boy looked at him, his head tilted sideways. He held up his left fist and loosened three fingers. “That’s three, bitch. I said I wasn’t gone ask you again.”
Teach glanced at McLuster and shrugged. “He wants us to give it up. You got any idea what he’s talking about?”
When the boy looked at McLuster, Teach did it: leapt across the space between them and delivered a sweeping right forearm to the side of the boy’s head. Even as Teach knew the sweet smack of contact, felt the boy’s body go limp against his, heard the whack and skitter of the razor hitting the tile floor, he thought it had been too easy. Somehow too easy, too lucky. The boy’s head hit the doorframe, and he slid unconscious to the floor, blood pouring from his split cheek.
Teach looked at what he had done. What he’d had to do. The thing, apparently, he was still ready to do after all these years. His right elbow ached where the shock of the blow vibrated. He turned to his companion. McLuster with his back against the wall, both hands clutching the urine stain that spread down his trouser legs. “My God,” he said, “look at this. I don’t fucking believe this.”
Then the boy on the floor groaned and Teach knew this wasn’t over.
He grabbed the boy’s collar and dragged him facedown through the men’s room door and into the middle of the bar. There he knelt beside the boy, pinning his right arm between his shoulder blades.
The bartender, a stocky bald man whose name tag said Benny, a man Teach had only vaguely noticed before, a man with the bartender’s gift for appearing with the needed thing and then returning to the status of furniture, looked across the bar at Teach and the boy who was bleeding onto the carpet. The bartender’s face said everything about the things we least expect.
Teach said, “Call the cops. This kid tried to rob us in the men’s room.” Then, to the man’s expression of disbelief, Teach said, “He had a knife. He was going to rob us. Kill us. I don’t know. Call 911.”
The bartender turned for the phone, and the boy groaned again. His eyes were foggy but clearing. Teach shoved his arm up to let him know his situation.
The bartender put down the phone and came over. “They’re coming.” He looked at the boy’s face on the carpet. “Jesus,” he said, “look at the mess you’re making. I gotta get Malone in here.”
Malone? Malone? Teach thought. Ah yes, this is Malone’s Bar. He looked around now, out of the bright tunnel of violent energy that, for a few moments, had included only him and the boy and what had to be done. The bartender was on the phone talking to Malone. McLuster sat at a table against the wall, a wad of paper towels pressed to his crotch. The tunnel widened even more, and Teach heard him whisper, “Christ, I don’t believe this.”
Teach tried to think of a comforting word for the man. It seemed right even though he had, by his lights anyway, already saved him from a cut throat. The black boy gave a long, low moan. Teach tightened his grip and glanced up at McLuster. It occurred to him that he needed the man. McLuster was his witness.
A customer came in, an old guy in white Keds, khaki Bermuda shorts, and a Tampa Bay Bucs T-shirt. Bald head, hairless limbs, and tortoiseshell sunglasses with a white plastic nose cap. He took two steps into the bar, saw Teach and the black boy on the floor, pushed his sunglasses to his face, and tiptoed out.
Teach watched the door, hoping that McLuster would not leave. And what would you do? Would you wait around like he is doing? Be a stand-up guy for the man on the floor with the bad kid, the guy who saved your ass? Or would you haul ass out of here, write this off as absurdity and rotten luck? Let the guy on the floor deal with the cops. Hell, it was an easy enough story to tell. A straightforward tale of armed robbery thwarted by the decisive action of a man who knew what to do and had the wherewithal to do it.
The door opened again and two men in sport coats and ties came in. The first was black, about six feet tall, stocky, maybe in his early forties, carrying some ribs and corn bread around his middle but carrying them well. The man behind him was white, short, and rail-thin. They stood taking in the situation. Teach on the floor holding the boy, McLuster pressing the ball of towels to his crotch, the bartender on the phone giving Malone a play-by-play.
The black cop walked over and put his hand on Teach’s shoulder. There was a world of authority in the hard way the man touched him. Teach remembered this touch. He got up, stepped back, and took a deep breath because it was all over now but the talking. He took another breath and felt in his gut the dizzy ebbing of the tide of adrenaline that had started when the boy had stepped through the men’s room door and said . . . What was it? Teach couldn’t remember now.
The black cop knelt and slid the boy’s hand down to his belt and cuffed it, and Teach remembered that rasping sound. Then the cop said in a deep, resonant baritone, “Sir, would you step back, please.”
The thin white cop in JCPenney slacks and scuffed black oxfords watched with cool interest. The smell of garlic and onions came from his clothes. He smiled, nodded as a man did when he was thinking, We’ve seen this a thousand times.
The black cop turned the boy over and pulled him to a sitting position, neither roughly nor gently but with a surprising ease.
The boy looked at the cop and his eyes rocked in their sockets. The cop said, “Hello, Tyrone.”
And Teach thought, Good. They know this kid. He has a sheet. A punk they’ve snagged before.
But
