Manny owed Cookie $600 for the dope Cookie’d fronted him. But Manny didn’t have any $600 and he wasn’t going to have it. What Manny usually did in these situations was get the dope boy fucked off. But he waited too long.
Sunday morning I got a call from Manny. He said he had to talk to me about something important and he said we needed to talk in person. He didn’t sound right. I was thinking maybe he was setting me up to get me fucked off, but I needed to buy some heroin and Manny had said it was real important. So I said okay. After all I liked Manny. Manny was a human being. He was a fuck but he was a human being.
I said to Emily, “You’d better stay here. I might go to jail.”
She said, “What’s going on?”
I said I didn’t know, probably nothing.
When I got to Richmond Mall I called Manny. He said to stay where I was parked. He came around in a blue Ford Explorer I hadn’t seen him in before. There was another guy driving. Manny was in the passenger seat.
They parked in the spot next to me and I got in with them. Manny was wearing a Yankees cap pulled down real low, but I could see his face was lumped up pretty well and that was too bad for Manny because the driver looked like Muhammad Ali circa the Cassius Clay era. Manny said, “This is Cookie.”
Cookie said I could buy dope from him now.
I said okay.
I had enough for a gram—$120—so I bought one gram and took it home and shot it with Emily. It was decent, not great.
My phone rang. It was Cookie.
He said, “How was it?”
I said it was decent.
* * *
—
MANNY GOT Cookie fucked off two weeks later. Cookie tried to get away and he took the police on a chase. It wouldn’t have been a big deal except that Cookie still had Manny in the car with him. That made it kidnapping.
I got a call from Cookie’s brother Pistol. He said he would sell me heroin. So I was alright. Then Pistol got himself fucked off shooting at Manny and I got a call from Black. Then Pistol was out on house arrest and I was supposed to go through him again. All this didn’t take two months to happen.
* * *
—
THE HOUSE was in the suburbs, on a street not far from mine. It was a nice street, plenty of big trees—oaks, I think. And Pistol would have cars full of dope fiends waiting out there, cars full of dope fiends like Emily and me. Often he would take hours before he was ready to serve us some dope; and we’d say, “This guy’s such a fucking asshole it’s amazing.”
And we’d all be sick and making sad faces until he called us one by one and had us pull up into the driveway. He’d serve us from the side door of the house so as to not set his ankle bracelet off.
I didn’t like going over there, especially after the surveillance truck appeared. It was parked a few driveways up from Pistol’s. You might even see the police in it, see them getting in and out or see them doing whatever. They definitely didn’t give a fuck if you saw them. And they saw me. They saw my plates. All of that. But it couldn’t be helped. I had to go where the heroin was.
One morning the police raided the house and took Pistol back to jail. The whole family—the mom, the little kids, everyone who wasn’t in jail—had been there when it happened. They were upset. I didn’t know what all had happened when I got a call from Black that afternoon. He said for me to meet him over on Belmar. He was standing out there on the sidewalk, waiting with his other brother Raul. I recognized Raul because I’d seen him before and he was a big smiling type of motherfucker and he had a big shiny watch so he was easy to recognize. Raul looked five years older than he was; he was only 23. Anyway. I thought I was just driving out there to buy some heroin and I didn’t know why they were standing out there waiting; usually when we met up that way we did transactions car to car, and they weren’t ever on time.
I parked at the curb and got out and walked over to where they were. I asked Black how he was doing and Black told me what had happened that morning.
I said, “Shit. That’s too bad. Your brother’s a good dude. I hope he’s alright.”
Black looked at Raul. Black was making sad faces, being all dramatic about things. He was just a kid. I think he was 20. He said, “What I want to know is why they were saying your name.”
Raul was standing behind me.
I said to Black, “What are you talking about?”
“They said a white boy who drives a black Ford.”
“Dude, what’s that mean? Of course they’re gonna know that shit. There’s been a surveillance truck parked outside your house for the last two weeks. I told you that. Probably everybody else did too. So you’ve got a surveillance truck parked outside your house and you’re running it like a trap house in the middle of the fucking suburbs and when the police kick your door in you want to say it’s my fault? What are you, nuts?”
“They said your name.”
“They could get that off the plates.”
“They didn’t say your government name.”
Then it occurred to me.
“Oh,” I said.
“Oh what?”
“You know the Dale-Junior-looking motherfucker? Short? Red hair? Freckles? Calls himself K-Mart. Buys dope off you? He came up to my car and talked to me the other day when I was out on your street, waiting on your brother. He knocked on my window and started talking to me about dope and everything else and how he’d been a mule running dope out of New York and some bullshit. He wouldn’t shut the fuck up. He tried to get my phone number and I told him I didn’t have a phone. I got a bad feeling from the guy. He was real fucking nosy, you know? And I didn’t really say shit to him but he did get my name. I imagine he’s the one who told it to the police. Apart from that I don’t know shit about what happened this morning.”
Black looked at Raul.
Raul said, “I believe him.”
Black said, “You don’t know how much sense you just made.”
“I need some heroin.”
“I have to get it out of the car.”
“I’ve got enough for two.”
“I’ll put you together.”
I drove home. It wasn’t quite three in the afternoon. Emily was watching Springer. We split the heroin up and I told her what all had happened.
The heroin was okay. The two grams were light.
Emily said, “Why would the police do that to you? You could have been hurt.”
I said, “This may come as a surprise to you, but the police think we deserve to die.”
I called Black.
I said, “This was light.”
He said, “Really?”
“Yeah, by four.”
He said, “I got you later.”
* * *
—
I WENT back out to meet up with Black and I was waiting in the car again, outside his house. I was glad the surveillance truck was gone. Raul came out and he walked up to the car and I rolled the window down. I thought he was going to drop the heroin off. But he didn’t. He said no, Black would bring it out in a second.
I said alright.
He said, “Hey, you know somebody I can get an ounce of coke from?”
I said I might know somebody but I had to call and check.
“Yeah, do that,” he said.
I got on the phone and called Mike, a.k.a. Pills And Coke. I told him what was up.
Mike said, “Who is this guy?”
I said it was a guy who sells heroin.
“Is he black?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit. I don’t know.”
“Well, he’s right here. What do you want me to tell him.”
“Is he alright?”
“Has been so far, yeah.”
“He said a zone?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“I can give you his number.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll text it to you.”
I got off the phone and said to Raul, “He’s gonna call you. Let me get your number. I’m gonna text it to him.”
He said alright.
Black came out to the car. He gave Raul a look like, What are you doing?
Raul smiled and said, “What?”