she could be kept alive and enjoyable. Then the slave would bury the new victim in the wooded hillside behind the house and go shopping for his ladies fair once again.
The whole thing broke up when the neighborhood dogs nosed up one of the shallower graves for a late-night snack. That brought some human bits and pieces to the back porches of a few of the neighbors. It also brought the slave forward to confess, something he’d wanted to do ever since he’d discovered the three of them had AIDS. “God’s punishment for their evil ways,” as he’d put it. The story then let the public know how many graves’d been uncovered so far, and what’d been found in them.
They had a string of other fun tidbits as well; the man who cut off three of his toes in the lawnmower, more on the ex-Miss America who’d been embezzling from her company, updates on the attack-dog situation, as well as the search for the hit-and-run driver who’d tagged out a cop and his baby daughter, the continuing crackdown on Black Dreamer, and the never-ending indicting of city officials.
True, there wasn’t much on the national or international front, but what the heck? It was just the kind of quality reporting one expected from the newspaper established by Alexander Hamilton in 1801.
Quality reporting or not, though, the paper hadn’t managed to capture my complete attention. I’d been keeping my eyes open, watching the door, who came through it, and when they left, as well as the front window, who went by it, and how often. Which is why I was ready when the friendly foursome came into the store.
They arrived quietly, without any rude fanfare, but everyone in the place knew what was coming down. The majority of Lo’s customers vanished in less than a minute. Some remained long enough to check out, hurrying away with their plastic-bagged purchases. Most of the others simply abandoned their baskets in the aisles and fled.
Two of the quartet were big, each bigger than the previous day’s tough guy. Then came a medium-sized one with a joke of a mustache and a look in his eye that dared me to find the punchline. The last one was a runt, but one with “shooter” written all over him. It was obvious that at least one of the others was armed as well. I sized up Mustache as their leader and moved on him; positioning myself between them and the back of the store, I kept two stacks of heavily crated canned fish nearby in case I needed the cover, then pulled my .38 and said:
“Far enough, boys. Give out with your message and slap pavement.”
“What’s the gun for? Need something to suck on, faggot?”
“History lesson, kids. Bernie Goetz only got six months for gunning down his punks with an unregistered weapon. My gun’s got a license. So do I. I’m on the job. I’m protecting my employer’s property and life. They’ll slap my wrist.
“You children are only someone else’s voice. So, just give me your message and get back to kindergarten.”
“You know, you talk real big for a dead man—but, you’ve got guts. Not much gray fuel in the upstairs—no; brains are your short suit all right—but guts…yeah, that you’ve got.”
“Thanks for the anatomy lesson. Get to the point.”
Mustache pulled a joint from his pocket and lit it. It burned slowly, leaving thick, purple-grey billows of smoke, indicating it was laced with coke, or crack, or hash, or Black Dreamer, or something else even newer than Dreamer that I’d never heard of. Stabbing it at me, he said:
“The point, Caucasian, is that the Time Lords have secured this territory. The war is over. The old man isn’t your concern anymore. His store is ours. You should be on the last train back to white pig happy land.”
“Do tell.” Mustache and one of the giants took a step forward. I warned them off. “Step it easy and backwards. If you’re in charge now, the word’ll be streeted soon enough. So, go back and tell the king of the Time Lords you did your duty and let’s all get out of this the easy way.”
The midget and Mustache looked at each other, judging the percentages open to them. For a moment I thought they were going to rush me, but then good sense broke them off in the direction of reason. Mustache pointed the others toward the door with his reeking baton, laughing as he told me:
“Okay, ghost; why not? We got nothing to prove here. Too cold to bother with you now, anyway. But tomorrow, collections go back to normal. We’ll be back—all of us. And you—we will not want to see. So, put away your little gun, Caucasian, and book passage back uptown to the mainland. You’ll be a lot happier that way.”
As the four left I slid my .38 back into my shoulder holster. The wind howled coldly as they passed through the door, its bark cut off sharply as wood and glass slid back into place. Lo looked at me with a question on his face. I tried to pull enough confidence into mine to answer him. Finally, he asked:
“You think it all over?”
“Don’t know—could be. It’d be nice to get out of this without getting my clothes dirty.”
Tossing me a crystal pear, the kind that are all water and sugar, but with no substance to them at all, he said, “I don’t think things so easy. Gang boys all too young to be so reasoning. Too easy you believe their words and forget their pride. They be back tomorrow, all right.
“Tomorrow be big trouble.”
I shrugged and kept on chewing, not really having an answer. Feeling a little up-against-it-all, I went to the back of the store to where Lo’s tiny office was to use the phone. I wanted to call my main information broker, Hubert, so I could get my mind onto something else. He answered in his usual manner.
“Hey, hey, Dick Tracy. W-where’d you park the squad car?”
“Can it, mutant.”
“Oh, in one of yer surly moods, eh? Oh well, what’s on yer mind?”
“I’m still stuck in that Chinatown gig and I’m getting a little bored. Thought I’d give you a ring and see what was doin’.”
“Not much. I have that videotape we need for T-Thursday. Outside of that, t-though, I was thinkin’ of skippin’ town ’til then. Why? What’s up?”
“Ahhh, nothin’. Not really.”
Hu went quiet for a second and then asked, “You okay, Jack? You need a little backup or somethin’?”
“Nah,” I told him. “I’m just bored. This job’s a piece of cake. If I can’t handle this one, I’d better get out of the business.”
“Well,” he answered, slowly, “Okay. Guess I’d better get movin’, then. Maurice should have the car downstairs waitin’ for me. I’ve got t-to hustle out to the airport. Little job to oversee down southwise. Yes, sir—it’s B-Bermuda fer me fer the next couple days.”
“Don’t get sunburned, ya little weasel.”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “I’ll try real hard not to. Don’t you freeze yer balls off up here in the Ice Age.”
We laughed at each other for another minute. Hu made sure to remind me not to take any wooden nickels, and then it was quiet again. I hung up the phone and went back to finishing my pear. For pieces of fruit with no weight to them whatsoever, those pears sure lay heavy in your stomach. At least that one did.
*
