“He’s black.”
“No he ain’t,” East answered automatically, and then the operator was in his ear.
“Sir? Sir? There is no one answering.”
A dark buzz of alarm spread down East’s back. “Did you try everybody? The relay, like you said?”
“I relayed to three numbers. Each number rang and rang. I tried each twice,” the operator explained. “I’m sorry. It’s late here. It’s three in the morning. They’re supposed to pick up, sir, but I can try again.”
Her politeness infuriated East, moved him to fury. “Yes! Ring them again.” He faced Walter, and Walter clutched at him.
“Let me go get that dude. He could be number four!”
“Let me finish.”
“He’s gonna get away!”
“On a kid’s bike. On a highway,” East said dubiously.
Walter said, “I’ll circle back. Pick you up.”
Like a ram East lowered his brow. “Not leaving me in the cold, man. Not for ten seconds.”
The biker receded into the gloom.
The operator: “Sir. I rang them again. All three. No one is answering, sir…Sir?”
East thanked the operator and hung up the phone. “What do you think that means? Nobody answering the line?”
“No idea,” Walter said. “Let’s chase that damn bike while we can.”
“Okay,” said East. “We’ll chase your damn bike.”
—
The bicyclist was still weaving along the north-south road into town, advancing crazily. His knees chopped sideways like wings. Twice as large as his tiny bike. Walter backed into a driveway fifty yards ahead of the wobbling bike and rolled down his window.
“Hey, my man,” he called. “Hey.”
The black bicyclist stopped and stood astride his bike like a gray scarecrow. His gray hat was tied down over his cheeks with flaps. His coat was grime-streaked—this wasn’t the first ride he’d had on the highway. In Los Angeles, East thought, this was a crazy man. Here and now, he envied the man’s outerwear.
“Where you headed?” said Walter, friendly.
The man gave a minimal shrug, more a pinch, and pointed ahead. “Going down here, boy.”
“Listen, man, we need somebody,” said Walter. “We need somebody black. We got to pick something up, man, and we need another man for it.”
“Somebody black?” the man said. “What you picking up? Like a sofa? At five in the morning?”
“We can pay you for your time,” Walter said. He showed a split of twenties out the window.
The man’s eyes dropped to the money, then came back up. “Good luck.” Flat.
“It’s nothing heavy. Just fifteen minutes. Take a ride with us.”
“Oh, no,” said the man on the bike. “No, no.” He dropped his weight back onto the seat.
East leaned over and showed his face out Walter’s window. “Hey. Check us out. We ain’t bad boys. We’ll give you a lift where you going.”
“I’m just going down here, son,” the man said, and he put feet to the pedals. As he passed the van, he spat.
Ty laughed. “He’s sure he’s gonna die in this van.”
Walter fished out the crumpled paper with the address. Now it was all they had.
—
Plain little bungalow the color of butter. East wanted no part of it. A street they’d never seen, a town they knew nothing about, a deal they didn’t even know if they could make. But now this house seemed locked around their necks. They sidled the van down the street, squared around a few blocks, tried to feel things out. Regular. Chain-link sectioning off almost every yard. Small boats rusting on trailers, a few lawns with newspapers waiting in blue plastic bags. A few dogs out early, testing the air. Trees unlike the trees in LA: these rooted hard, grew up tall, muscular, their bare limbs grabbing all the air in the world.
Nothing moving. For East it was strange, this looking, this studying a neighborhood again. The way he had at the old house. The dogs, the doors, the windows. Scanning the surroundings for eyes.
Walter stopped down the block, and they watched the yellow house. The whitish farmhouse next door to it had security bars on every window.
They’ll sell to anyone.
Improvising now. What choice did they have?
He turned around. “Ty. You see what we’re doing?”
“Do I see?” Ty said. “Am I stupid?”
Ever did anything like this again, he was getting his brother a secretary.
“Seems pretty straight,” Ty said. Surprising East.
“Two go in, one stays out?”
“Right.”
“So you got one gun,” Walter said. “What do we need?”
“Walt. You know anything about guns?”
“A little.”
“A better gun, then,” said Ty. “I got this little popgun I can hide behind my dick. We get something real. Two guns. One of you can hold this. East can. Plus points.”
Walter asked, “How much is that gonna cost?”
“Depends what the man charge,” said Ty. “Begging your pardon, but we got a seller’s market out here. Take all the money you got, try to bring some back.”