“Yeah,” the other man drawled, “that might be a big if, soul brother.”
“You ain’t never lied.” Watson nodded curtly and left. He ascended the concrete steps to the kitchen in the rear of Francine’s Southern Cantonese Style Café. There was one person already there, a cook who was busy chopping onions, celery, and peppers and sautéing the vegetables in a wok as big around as a radar dish. As the savory aroma from the mix filled Watson’s nose, he exited by a side door onto a narrow passageway that was surprisingly trash free. At the open end of this he checked the quiet street and then walked briskly along Amsterdam Avenue away from the crime scene.
A bleary-eyed afro-Latina no more than twenty-three, dressed in a waist jacket with a dirty fake fur collar, jean shorts, torn fishnet stockings, and scuffed Chuck Taylor All-Stars, weaved on the sidewalk. A half-smoked Kool cigarette dangled from a corner of her slack mouth, miraculously not dropping to the pavement. She was heading in the opposite direction and veered into Watson’s path as he strode past. They bumped shoulders and she rocked back on her heels, giving him a crooked grin.
“Hey, Stagolee, what’s your hurry, baby? Shit,” she said, wiping her nose with the side of her hand. She looked him up and down. “Huh, for a quick twenty I’ll polish your knob till steam blows out of those big ears of yours.” She giggled, barely able to keep herself upright.
He frowned pityingly at the junkie, briefly considering giving her money but knowing she would only use it getting her next fix. He moved on. She watched him go, a bemused set to her now closed mouth. The thin cigarette smoke trailed upward past her face and unkempt hair.
By one o’clock that same day, there were more than three thousand people gathered before the Gothic and Tudor Revival designed Abyssinian Baptist Church on 138th Street. A small stage with a podium had been placed on the sidewalk, and though a rally permit hadn’t been secured, given such short notice, the police had been advised by the mayor’s office not to interfere but to be on alert. The compact man now on the stage leafed through his notes, then contemplatively removed his fedora and placed it on the podium.
The blackout last year, happening at the same time the city’s economy went into the toilet, then the ongoing hunt for the Son of Sam, and the resulting looting, firebombings, and rioting, had pushed the city to its limits. Now more than twelve months on, with no relief in the temperature during the sweltering summer, Martin Collins, former pimp and drug dealer Newark Red, now known as Martin X, stood between order and chaos—depending on what he said today. No one had a clue what that would be from this civil rights leader, this firebrand who’d been the target of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s considerable dirty tricks counter-intelligence efforts.
Martin X paused, gazing at his audience. He again looked out on the throng of expectant faces, mostly black, some whites not including the police, and a smattering of Puerto Ricans and Chinese Americans he was pleased to see.
“Brothers and sisters, friends and allies,” he began, several microphones taped in place before him. Various television news crews were covering the presentation, more than one news van close to the stage. Several cameramen were stationed about with their bulky video cameras harnessed to their bodies and porta-packs like an astronaut’s oxygen tank strapped to their backs. There were also several others still using 16mm film cameras and didn’t have to be tethered to control panels. Cables of various gauges were strewn everywhere, leading back to news vans double-and triple-parked up and down the packed street. Agile radio reporters, mobile with their light-weight microphones plugged into cassette decks, easily eddied through the crowd as well.
“This is a troubling day for us, for the movement.” A palpable wave surged through the crowd. “Our beloved Doctor Professor Lincoln Mills Barrow has been cut down savagely, cowardly.” As one of the uniformed police who stood about tensed at these words, Martin X paused and gazed at his audience.